Picture yourself in the 1980s. I'm basically thinking pre-digital times. So hard for many of us to do, of course, even those of us who lived it. We are propelled into the future and focus our thoughts there.
"Well of course," you might say, as if to suggest we needn't think so much about the past.
If we had no inclination to think about the past, we wouldn't have high school reunions. My 50th is coming up in September, yes a fall reunion. Fall reunions are probably more common with the older alums, wouldn't you say? Our thoughts will dive back to 1973. America had spent years being lulled into a sort of complacency - we had allowed the war in Vietnam to rage on. Stats every night on the news about the war dead, us vs. them.
The people had the power all along to do something about it. We were inhibited. The people who fancied themselves "conservative" were attracted to jingoism. Strange. Seems to be the opposite today.
But I began this post thinking of the 1980s. My first full decade of adulthood. Specifically I am thinking of how we viewed "work" then. You might wonder: How many ways are there to understand "work?"
My old friend Tony O'Keefe RIP told me "you only have a job if you have to." Raw wisdom coming from someone who really understood human nature - he was a car salesman.
Tony figured that I stuck to my full-time job mainly so I could present the proper image. Working full-time gave you a stamp of legitimacy amongst the public. On Christmas Eve at about 4 p.m. I'd retreat to the Met Lounge for my complementary Tom and Jerry cocktail and rub shoulders with all the other "working people." I would have shied away, were I not known to be a working person.
Up through the '80s - the last fully pre-digital decade - you'd be marginalized if you were an able-bodied middle age person who didn't have a job that was pretty close to full-time. A term that might get thrown around was "slacker."
So you're asking yourself "well, how would you support yourself?" Well look around today. The attitude today is so non-judgmental. We can see someone at the diner at 2 or 3 p.m. and not ask "why aren't you working?"
A trait of today is that people have no inhibitions about telling others that they are not working. The estimable Mike Rowe sees the idle trend among men in particular. Even Mike seems to grope trying to explain how all these men are really supporting themselves. Living with girlfriends? He tossed that one out.
I suppose people can apply for all sorts of benefits. Easy thing to complain about unless you're suddenly in a position where you need it. Oh, and "need" is a fungible term, right?
We talk up "conservative" political candidates who might assail the "slackers." But many of us butt up against life's daunting realities. It is not so easy to "pay your own way" as you might think. The prospect of doing that in earlier times was easier because of substantially lower prices for everything. Is it baked into stone that prices accelerate higher?
I feel that if the U.S. as we've known it literally collapses - a greater likelihood than most of us think - the blame won't fall with either of those likely suspects: the two political parties. The parties will pull their hair out blaming each other. The cause would actually be the Federal Reserve and its Central Bank partners around the globe. It will be our debt-based economic system.
The "Fed" seems to stay in the background, only, of our public debate. Stop and think: the Fed has the power to print money. To create money. Is there a bigger, more awesome power? Do we really want to go on the attack with rhetoric against an entity that can create money? We seem reluctant. So we stick to the system of the two main political parties hurling invective at each other.
Which solves what? Inflation is going on as we speak. Economics is a science. A solution is available for inflation, readily, if the powers-that-be wanted to pull the right levers. So what's wrong? Maybe it's that the public really doesn't mind the government goodies and the free money. But nothing is free. It's just an illusion. The more government bloat that comes about, the more inflation is likely.
Inflation killed the Roman empire. We have the same human impulses, the propensity for ignorance, as the old Romans had. Subconsciously we may know all this. We're just desperate to see our needs met in the present.
Why do so many young adults stay home with parents? There is nothing inherently wrong with this. I mean it's family bonding. God bless. The economy is a major cause. The trend is no longer a novelty. It's not news, i.e. it's not "man bites dog." Go to the local furniture store, browse around and look at the prices. Who says prices everywhere have to keep rising? It is not an act of God.
Our central bank knows the realities of what is going on. But they know the realities of the political world too, hoo boy. They know America could never "cut it" if it tried to live by the blueprint of William F. Buckley. We talk a good game, that is all.
The Trump crowd fancies itself "conservative." Silly rabbit, this crowd is merely a "tribe." Its appeal is on a very base level. It defies logic on many fronts, just like the escalation of the Vietnam war in the '60s so obviously defied logic. But those on the Nixon side of things, or more accurately the John Wayne side of things, planted their allegiance on the side of jingoism. To the point where you'd be intimidated seriously if you countered them.
But today the crazy man named Trump has decided that foreign military intervention is bad. "Conservatives" have changed their spots? Away from "Operation Iraqi Freedom?" Well of course they have, and as they say, a broken clock is right twice a day. So the crowd affirming "conservatism" is now correct. These people are not hopelessly stupid, just seems that way so often.
I am 68 years old, so do not need to worry about any public perception that I am "not working." All along I would have liked to keep working. You can assume that. But "stuff happens." I don't think the expression "stuff happens" existed in the 1980s. Ah, the last pre-digital decade. What a throwback to think about. Did you know that "One Night in Bangkok" was really an ABBA song?
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| Peter Schiff |
We hear now that the whole cherished category of "store clerks" might be endangered. Tech plunges forward. Oh my, "AI."
Do we need to preserve jobs just for the sake of preserving them? Economic thinker Peter Schiff would say "no." He talked about a government make-work program where the people were using shovels. So he postulated: If you wanted to help more people, why not have them use spoons instead of shovels? Absurd naturally but we might get the point. Government can be a safety net to a point. There is no truly free lunch. And are guys really getting by "living with their girlfriends?" Is that just a myth, Mr. Rowe?
-Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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