[Polemic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')RE YOU OUT OF WORK, underemployed, or earning a wage that barely meets ever-rising expenses? If so, you are not alone. If not, you are part of an ever-dwindling minority. Between offshore outsourcing, relocation of facilities to foreign countries, and H-1B visas, the knowledge workers that were supposed to form the core of America's "new economy" are getting squeezed from the top. Meanwhile, illegal aliens, Affirmative Action and the skyrocketing costs of education are squeezing from the bottom. With a staggering national debt from foreign wars and social services and soaring costs for housing and energy, productive Americans are being squeezed like never before. It doesn't matter if a Democrat or a Republican gets elected, or which party controls the houses of Congress and the Presidency, the economic squeeze is relentless.

Inflation numbers don't tell the whole story, but a quick comparison should make the situation easy to understand. Back in 1964, the average home had only one wage earner and that earner took home $97.41 a week before taxes (1). Back in 1964, the average single family home in the U.S. cost $15,200, and the monthly mortgage payment on a 15-year mortgage was $136. The wage earner paid $1,890 in total taxes (2), meaning that the cost of a home required roughly 50% of the after-tax income of one wage earner.

But what about today? The average worker earns $543.65 a week before taxes (1), and pays $12,613 in taxes yearly (2), leaving him or her with $1,303/month from which to pay bills. The average home price in the United States is $264, 540 (3). The monthly mortgage payment is $1,634 per month - which exceeds the after-tax income of the average wage earner by 25%.

[kam30en]

House prices are over-inflated. When peak hits suburban houses will literally be worth the price of wood.

[foodnotlawns]

I actually know the author of that piece. He says that the price of houses will only go down as low as the mortgages on them. I'm hoping to buy up land for pennies on the dollar, but he says it's not going to happen.

You know what really gets me? I want nothing more in life than to be a hand tool farmer. If I was a full time farmer using only hand tools and about 10 acres, I could produce enough food for about 20 people, with almost zero fossil fuels. The fossil fuels I would use would be a truck, and the fossil fuels that went into making my hand tools.

This would be a social "good." A million hand tool farmers would certainly soften the crash. But the masters of the economy don't care to soften the crash. Seat belts off, wander around the aisles, have a drink, and enjoy the death spiral.

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('foodnotlawns', 'Y')ou know what really gets me? I want nothing more in life than to be a hand tool farmer. If I was a full time farmer using only hand tools and about 10 acres, I could produce enough food for about 20 people, with almost zero fossil fuels. The fossil fuels I would use would be a truck, and the fossil fuels that went into making my hand tools.

[gego]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('foodnotlawns', '
')You know what really gets me? I want nothing more in life than to be a hand tool farmer. If I was a full time farmer using only hand tools and about 10 acres, I could produce enough food for about 20 people, with almost zero fossil fuels. The fossil fuels I would use would be a truck, and the fossil fuels that went into making my hand tools.

This would be a social "good." A million hand tool farmers would certainly soften the crash. But the masters of the economy don't care to soften the crash. Seat belts off, wander around the aisles, have a drink, and enjoy the death spiral.

[gego]

Do you remember George Wallace who ran as a third party presidential candidate, but was then shot?

The voting block to whom he appealed was the lower middle class that felt left behind. Since that time the economy has grown, but with a disproportionate share of the growth going to those in power, so I can see where this message can find an audience. Unfortunately, there is little chance of the Democratic/Republican power structure letting this happen, and with the overwhelming majority of the voting public being dupes, the present system will continue right up to the point where the economy is is total collapse and the population is dropping dead in droves. Most of the voters have as part of their identity their party affiliation; I am a Democrat, I am a Republican, or I am an Independent. This tribal mentatility precludes anything but swings between these two branches of the ruling class.


When in human history has the master class volintarily freed their slaves?

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'B')ack in the 1870's-1890's some people tried the back to the land deal. Those who tried to live off the land on small parcels, without outside income, lived lives of poverty, and soon quit to get paying jobs.

[Jack]

I expect times to get hard about 2008 or so - after that, the candidate that offers a strong nationalistic message with populist elements will win in a landslide.

That's not a bad thing.

[NEOPO]

How can you folks get beyond DIEBOLD - ESS?

There is no further need to appeal to or appease any one group.

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', 'H')ow can you folks get beyond DIEBOLD - ESS?
There is no further need to appeal to or appease any one group.

[foodnotlawns]

To a large degree, we are all complicit in bad government.

At the risk of repeating what everyone here says already, we support the System by buying it's junk.

In a theoretical world, if super-human saints stopped going to Wal-Mart and started carpooling and saving every extra cent and hoarding it into gold and buying up farmland to "cut out the middleman and the tax-man" then we could collapse the System from within.

But being as we are fallible humans, we probably won't do this.

I actually held this anti-consumerist ideal for a while, and it benefitted me. I streamlined my life in many ways. I produce my own food, and I found a few other ways to gird my family against the coming hardships.

However, we have one major weakness -- we spend LOTS of money for our daughter's education and physical activities -- gymnastics, dancing (jazz, ballet and even belly dancing), piano lessons and soccer. She is a stellar student at her public school, so we are going to pretty much spend all our disposable income to send her to a nearby swanky private school. If she was not a good student, I would say, "Let her grow up to be a good Hausfrau." But because she really shows academic promise, we can not in good conscience deprive her of the best possible education. One thing -- we won't go into debt for it. If we can't pay as we go, we won't do it.

And so my idealistic ambition to be anti-consumerist failed spectacularly.

And everyone else has a totally justifiable reason that they cannot be anti-consumerist saints.

You know what, though? It's in the attempt to become an anti-consumerist saint, that you really find what matters. It's worth a try.

There is a common idea that the "hippie movement" was a failure. The hippies put away their love beads, gave up their organic farms, and tried to forget about that embarassing phase of their life.

But when I was in college and in the army, I met the children of hippies. They told me about their upbringing. They seemed emotionally well adjusted, and they knew a lot of good stuff that I didn't know. The female children of hippies were a lot less likely to go whoring around. The college and army girls that went really wild were the ones who had the strict religious upbringing.

I think the go-go times of the 80's disillusioned the hippies, and made them feel like they were "behind the times," when all the cool people were saying "greed is good."

But maybe they were right about a lot of things after all. The problem was, many of the hippies didn't understand the deeper reasons for being anti-consumerist crunchy granolas, and so they were easily led away from this superior lifestyle by the fashions of the times.

Someone made a point above that you need to make "off the farm income." That's true, unless the greater society decides that it's worth it to subsidize hand tool farmers. I saw a form of this in the post-Soviet Union era, in Russia in 1995. Old folks had their dacha in the countryside for free, and they had cheap rail transport from their gov't subsidized apartment in Moscow to their free dacha in the countryside. At the time, they were getting almost no pension, the equivalent of 10 dollars a month. So they would grow vegetables at their dacha, ride the railroad back to Moscow, and sell cucumbers and tomatoes at the side of the road. They even sold pickled foods, chickens, whatever. There was no USDA coming after them. They didn't have rototillers or tractors, they were hand tool farmers.

But since society isn't going to subsidize hand tool farmers, you have to make off-farm income your priority. This is kind of a shame, but it's the way it is. This is the US in 2006.

We know one thing, that America goes in boom and bust. What's the next boom? Anyone care to venture a guess? I have an answer, and I am going into the field. It's a field that makes perfect sense for doomers. Anybody want to take a guess what field I'm going into for my "off the farm" income?

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('foodnotlawns', '
')
We know one thing, that America goes in boom and bust. What's the next boom? Anyone care to venture a guess? I have an answer, and I am going into the field. It's a field that makes perfect sense for doomers. Anybody want to take a guess what field I'm going into for my "off the farm" income?

[Polemic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('foodnotlawns', '
')We know one thing, that America goes in boom and bust. What's the next boom? Anyone care to venture a guess? I have an answer, and I am going into the field. It's a field that makes perfect sense for doomers. Anybody want to take a guess what field I'm going into for my "off the farm" income?

[eastbay]

My next door neighbor is a mortician and now and then tries to talk me into learning the business. I'm a little quaesy about it, but he says that's how most start out and that queasiness fades in time.

He claims it's a business that will be in increasing demand as time goes on meaning more pay for those who are good at it. I do believe he's right too.

He seems to be doing just fine.

[TommyJefferson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('foodnotlawns', 'T')he female children of hippies were a lot less likely to go whoring around. The college and army girls that went really wild were the ones who had the strict religious upbringing.

[Dreamtwister]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('foodnotlawns', '[')b]We know one thing, that America goes in boom and bust. What's the next boom? Anyone care to venture a guess? I have an answer, and I am going into the field. It's a field that makes perfect sense for doomers. Anybody want to take a guess what field I'm going into for my "off the farm" income?