I just hope I live in a tiny cabin in the middle of nowhere by then.

gearsmoke:

It drives me nutty how so many people think that poverty in North America is due to laziness and that -anyone- can make a good living if they just ‘work hard’ and ‘get a job’.  And that the harder you have to work to make ends meet, the more morally good you are???  Wah?

I guess it’s got a sort of simplistic childlike logic to it – if not putting any effort into taking care of yourself is bad, then putting the MOST effort is good!  But this kind of thinking is what’s leading to people in the lower and middle class being worked -literally to death- and thinking they’re noble for allowing it.

I read a report done by some people who know more about this sort of thing than I do, people with letters after their names, who, I admit, I do not know for a -fact- are correct, but they made a fairly convincing case for the idea that the workforce in our society is being made to produce 3-4 times as much of -everything- as we require -and wasting a good amount of it, too – solely to feed corporate greed.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:  The stock market is the ruination of our civilization.  From the outside it seems like an alright idea, especially in the cases of startup investments – but once a company is established, it’s not enough merely to turn a profit – they have to grow, and keep growing, and fulfill promises on projected growth.  ‘Growth’ in this case meaning a larger profit margin each year.  And after the natural growth of the business levels off, the only way to keep growing is via exploitation.
Overworking their employees, cutbacks, cutting down the quality and/or quantity of the product or service, manipulation tactics, dishonesty toward the customers… so you just accept the inflated prices, the shoddier work, the lackluster customer service, it’s just how things are.  And moreover, there’s no better alternative.

But this system cannot persist.  Eventually it’ll reach a critical point, and the failure will be massive.  I hope I survive it.

@wikdsushi