[shortonoil]

deMolay said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ig Gubmint and Freedom can never co-exist.

[odegaard]

$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.

[Aaron]

The old mechanisms of social Darwinism and free market competition are breaking down as they become less useful due to the changing landscape of human society.

Basically we have become so skilled at gaming the system that so called "trickle-down" economics no longer functions as it did in times past. Couple this with a declining moral sense of obligation to your fellow man, and you get the greatest stratification of wealth in human history.

Greed is no longer considered the vice it once was... it's a staple of the modern business community.

Without the restraints of these moral restrictions to behavior, and coupled with unprecedented sophistication in fleecing the sheeple, we get the greatest poor/wealthy gap ever known.

From outright wage slavery (read China), to so called "Prosperity Gospel" Christian theology, to economic bubble exploitation of markets, the gloves have come off and the world finds itself in an economic steel-cage death match... no restraints... no rules... just combat. The problem is akin to matching a feather-weight against a heavy-weight... with a very predictable outcome. Until the feather-weight fighters have been pushed too far that is, and we find this button-down, Oxford-cloth psycho might just snap, and then stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers. This might be someone you've known for years. Someone very, very close to you.

It's a cycle... rinse & repeat

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Dylan

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

[vision-master]

[MarkJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;Retraining for what?" At the beginning of the decade, computer skills were all the rage; then the low-level computer work vanished to India. Air-conditioner repairing is popular right now, and big-rig truck driving is a perennial favorite.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MarkJ', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;Retraining for what?" At the beginning of the decade, computer skills were all the rage; then the low-level computer work vanished to India. Air-conditioner repairing is popular right now, and big-rig truck driving is a perennial favorite.

[MarkJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MarkJ', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;Retraining for what?" At the beginning of the decade, computer skills were all the rage; then the low-level computer work vanished to India. Air-conditioner repairing is popular right now, and big-rig truck driving is a perennial favorite.

[RedStateGreen]

Sharon Astyk has a nice response to that article. She talks about bartering, the informal economy, and getting as far out of the money economy as possible.

[threadbear]

Red State, Fantastic article. Thanks

[nobodypanic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', ' ')
Considering that the top wealthiest 1% of the world's population consume more than the bottom 90%(which still includes half the world's middle class), there is more than enough to go around for everyone...

[The_Toecutter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', ' ')
Considering that the top wealthiest 1% of the world's population consume more than the bottom 90%(which still includes half the world's middle class), there is more than enough to go around for everyone...