[deMolay]

13M unemployed workers in America. Made to feel that they must retrain, that they have a full time job looking for work. I don't know if this article is funny or not, but what a comment on who we have become. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ehrenreich3-2009may03,0,4064609.story?ref=patrick.net

[3aidlillahi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') don't know if this article is funny or not, but what a comment on who we have become.

[Caffeine]

There are 6.7 billion or so humans on the planet. Given the current state of automation, are there really 6.7 billion (minus however many are too young or too old to work) jobs available on the planet in the first place? How many of those jobs provide adequate food, water, sewer, shelter?

[jdmartin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Caffeine', 'T')here are 6.7 billion or so humans on the planet. Given the current state of automation, are there really 6.7 billion (minus however many are too young or too old to work) jobs available on the planet in the first place? How many of those jobs provide adequate food, water, sewer, shelter?

[TWilliam]

She makes a good point about keeping people so damned busy that they have neither time nor energy to devote to activities that could possibly lead to any form of societal change (something we desperately need). Socrates said something similar about 'laborers' in general: "Their work keeps them too busy to be good companions or good citizens, so that men engaged in [labor] must ever appear to be bad friends and poor defenders of their country."

[Ayoob]

Everyone deserves food, health care, free education through the post-grad level, fast response law enforcement, shelter, clothing, and a guaranteed retirement at 60. There is no question about it!

It should all be provided by the government, even if that means taxing the greedy down to sackcloth and ashes.

Anyone so selfish that they provide for THEMSELVES (and who don't give everything they have to others) is just GREEDY and should have everything taken away.

That's the only fair thing.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'E')veryone deserves food, health care, free education through the post-grad level, fast response law enforcement, shelter, clothing, and a guaranteed retirement at 60. There is no question about it!

It should all be provided by the government, even if that means taxing the greedy down to sackcloth and ashes.

Anyone so selfish that they provide for THEMSELVES (and who don't give everything they have to others) is just GREEDY and should have everything taken away.

That's the only fair thing.

[JoeW]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'E')veryone deserves food, health care, free education through the post-grad level, fast response law enforcement, shelter, clothing, and a guaranteed retirement at 60. There is no question about it!

That's the only fair thing.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Caffeine', 'T')here are 6.7 billion or so humans on the planet. Given the current state of automation, are there really 6.7 billion (minus however many are too young or too old to work) jobs available on the planet in the first place? How many of those jobs provide adequate food, water, sewer, shelter?

[Stonemason]

Technological unemployment highlights the fact that the monetary system isn't relevant to how we conduct our affairs on the planet. We are heading towards a future where human labour is not needed for material necessities and we need to get these people into making an abundant world through scientific and technological training rather than making war and scarcity. Time for a Resource Based Economy or something else.

[Sixstrings]

This is a serious issue, and I too found the article's tone a bit flippant:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')icture it: People across America rising at the usual time, suiting up in full corporate regalia and setting themselves down at their laptops to fiddle with resumes, peruse Monster.com and pester everyone on their address lists for leads.

Some people have no doubt found jobs in this manner, but there have been no scientific comparisons of the technique with, say, printing a resume on a sandwich board and parading around Times Square.

[nobodypanic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'E')veryone deserves food, health care, free education through the post-grad level, fast response law enforcement, shelter, clothing, and a guaranteed retirement at 60. There is no question about it!

It should all be provided by the government, even if that means taxing the greedy down to sackcloth and ashes.

Anyone so selfish that they provide for THEMSELVES (and who don't give everything they have to others) is just GREEDY and should have everything taken away.

That's the only fair thing.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'E')veryone deserves food, health care, free education through the post-grad level, fast response law enforcement, shelter, clothing, and a guaranteed retirement at 60. There is no question about it!

It should all be provided by the government, even if that means taxing the greedy down to sackcloth and ashes.

Anyone so selfish that they provide for THEMSELVES (and who don't give everything they have to others) is just GREEDY and should have everything taken away.

That's the only fair thing.

[Serial_Worrier]

We're not in Kansas anymore.

[sameu]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JoeW', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'E')veryone deserves food, health care, free education through the post-grad level, fast response law enforcement, shelter, clothing, and a guaranteed retirement at 60. There is no question about it!

That's the only fair thing.

[The_Toecutter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'i') don't think you get it: there isn't enough to go around, so when you provide a bigger slice of the pie for yourself, you're necessarily going to be depriving someone else. now if you think i am going to lie down and die just so you can get yourself another plasma tv, well.... so we can either come to some equitable arrangement, or you can wake up in the middle of the night to the sounds of my AK47. your choice.

[shortonoil]

The top 1/10 of 1% of the population have incomes equal to the bottom 50%.

375 families, about 10,000 people, control 93% of the world’s wealth.

You figure it out!

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', 'K')ill the consumption of the super rich, and there may be room for not just a sizable middle class along with all those less well off without exceeding the Earth's carrying capacity...

[deMolay]

I see this article challenged many of you like it did myself. So what is the real answer here? Do like Timothy Leary said, Tune in Drop Out, less the drugs of course. Bin there got the Tee Shirt. How can anyone with children and grandchildren bail from the system? If you have young children and you choose the Gypsy Road. The Gubmint will take your kids. The state owns your life and even your children. If you own land and decide to build a house that you can afford. The state will shut you down. Even tho no one can remember or find an instance of anyone stupid enough to build a home that fell down and killed them. You must comply and submit. If you don't pay your taxes on your own property. Which really means you are stupid enough to rent your own property back from the state to ensure employment for state employees, they will throw you out on the street. Big Gubmint and Freedom can never co-exist. A very incitefull article.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('deMolay', ' ')How can anyone with children and grandchildren bail from the system?