"Freebies" destroy America... [Archive] - The Project Avalon Community Forum

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Denise/Dizi

15th July 2024, 20:32

I just wanted to reserve a place here on the forum, where people can share their thought processes without judgements, for open conversation and communications. It is especially for those who do not see eye to eye on any given issue. And a place where hopefully the younger generations can learn something from those who have seen the system we have in place now, failing us...

Having said that, I feel the topic that is most important is the giving of "Freebies" to anyone who believes they are either eligible for such things, or those who feel they are due such things... Right now, those in the left, tend to think Republican voters are merely gun toting fanatics, and they only care about themselves and their own wealth... Not true.

There are many voting Republicans (Or even Democrats who vote Republican) who just want to save this country... They just see where things are heading, and they see the potential for a major takedown or collapse of the America most believe they live in... and they're preparing for such an outcome as time progresses...

It will be those individuals who make the most effort to SAVE AMERICA should we reach that tipping point, and I think we are almost, if not already there... And here is why... Just based upon 2 issues...

Social benefits and ILLEGAL immigration...

It's my belief that in order for a society to function in a free way, all must participate at the same level... or at their level of ability. It is a must for everyone in said society to pull their own weight... Everyone in a free country must work together to remain FREE... It isn't a given, it is a necessity.

I once voted Democratic. I had the idea that they had their finger on the pulse of a young member of society, and knew that in some instances, they needed some allowances to help them get established. I never BENEFITED from such allowances as a young adult, as I always worked hard and fell just above any "Help" line, when it came to receiving any social benefits to help me get a foothold in life. I had to scrape and scratch my way to where I am today, along with my family. And I am very proud of that accomplishment.

But had I not been able to live right above that line, I would have needed some help along the way. So I voted for such things at the time... Fully realizing that I would now be expected to have to pay for others to receive the help I could not qualify for. I realized there were still some worse off than myself, and believed in such things...

But then time passed... Reality set in, as did the constant voting of more "Freebies" to be handed out to the masses, some who needed them, some that took advantage of such things. And I began to recognize that the more these things were promoted, the more people stopped trying, and begun to rely on such realities as their "normal", rather than trying to use said things to "lift themselves up to a new normal", one in which they could say, "the system helped me when I needed it BUT, it didn't become my lifestyle...."

Right now, someone can turn 18 in America, or become an unwed mother and immediately apply for, and receive everything needed to set up a household at the expense of their neighbors... They would receive, upon approval, free housing (Section 8), free or reduced utilities, a free phone and services, free food vouchers, free childcare, free education, AND reimbursement for their study material at the end of the program, free medical care, free vision, and dental care, along with free prescriptions, and under some conditions, an additional small monthly income for some to supplement what they are not making for "Full Time Employment" ... All at the expense of their neighbors.

One might have to work a slight part time job to gain all of this, but to me, this is like winning the lottery for those who really do not want to be accountable to anything in life. The fact that everything is covered and they get most of their days "Off" to me is pretty appealing, if you are one of those that are alright with living that way. Many refuse to marry as it will affect those benefits in a negative way, yet they live with the father of their children, and claim they are the sole parent in the household, and they're not living in the poverty they are claiming they are. As everything is paid for and the fathers income then becomes disposable, and so long as he claims any real property as his own? They're actually doing better than those paying into the system.

I call them "Luxuries" as most do NOT have the "Luxury" to sit in a coffee house all day visiting with their friends, or take their kids to a park everyday, while their obligations to having a roof over their head, or food on their table is being handled by their neighbors. It may not be a lavish way to live, but to some it is much better than having to work for a living...

In fact. this system is designed to KEEP people on said assistance programs, because the "Freebies" are so great, that the weighing of options becomes clear... If one merely added a few more hours to make them a "Full Time Employee" (which would disqualify them from free assistance), that potential gain in income, would never be enough to get them to the point where they would even be able to gain half of those luxuries, much less build upon it. Rent, food and fuel alone these days is enough to wipe out most budgets. And most employers are now limiting the amount of hours people are allowed to work, to reduce the medical benefits they would have to pay if such individuals were to work 40 hours in a week... It is a downward spiral...

So of course, those that are living in said situations, (and there are more and more daily needing such help), would of course want to vote "yes" for such things, and even ask and demand MORE... and a government wanting more control over the actions of the citizens recognise their power over such people, once they become dependant on them for sustenance. People need to understand this, and really work as hard as they can to dismantle the degree by which they have given their power over to the government, and quickly!

In doing so, they are now dragging the "Barely making it" people to a level in which THEY can no longer afford to support such things, and when you have a population that is all drawing from the same system, eventually it dries up and collapses. Taxes go up, expenses go up, fuel goes up, loan rates go up, unemployment goes up, needs go up. Now we have business that are expected to allow the community to rob them without consequence... As a result do you think MORE businesses will open up in those communities? Absolutely not.

As the population of Democrats grow older they sometimes tend to turn over and become Republicans, when they see the effects of said choices they had made in the past... And when those that realize this, vote against such things. For good reason... They are able to see the potential outcome over time of said choices.

When we are faced with political debates, what do the politicians focus on? Minority groups. Those that are receiving benefits... WE MUST PROTECT THESE PROGRAMS, those that they believe they can convince that they feel marginalized... "The Black Communities are hit the hardest" is what they will say though, because it points to an ugly truth about America's past. And they of course, blame the Republicans who can and do see what they're trying to do...

There is so much more I want to say, but I will leave this here...

I am an American. I live in California, where Newsom is destroying our state... Where we have a border crisis issue, and the local government is giving away everything, and people are fleeing just to survive financially.. Where the police are receiving free expensive vehicles as "gifts" because the government has so much cash from stealing taxes from their citizens, they don't know what to spend it on. We pay for the fuel for their after hours usage for said free gifts... And I am tired of it.. And if you think it can't happen to your state? Look up how much of the gross national profit from California compares to your state, and realize that if we go down, you wouldn't stand a chance under the same circumstances...... Look up videos of what San Francisco really looks like today, not just on those designer reality shows made to make it look like it is all wealth and happiness here... It's far from it, and that isn't reality for anyone except the ultra rich and reality tv stars. And those in positions of authority in the government...

I have a gun, and I know how to use it... And would, if it came time to take this country back from the scumbags stealing it.. Most would convince you we own guns because were reckless, or want to harm others...

I have it so when **** hits the fan, and some little glassy eyed punks arrive at my door, thinking they can take food from my refrigerator, they learn the hard way that this isn't a TV show... It's not a game.... And there isn't a "cash prize" at the end... it's life or death.

And at that point, there won't be a system to take from, it will be neighbor against neighbor, and I am sorry, if you were too busy believing everything is a reality show and things are fine? You were foolish... America is free because people fought for it, it is those that became complacent that forgot that. And if we don't begin to support the structures under which America was built, it will collapse...

Whew. I have been wanting to say this for quite some time, while reading and watching videos of the left and the right fight about "Issues"... We need to stop arguing and face reality and actually ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING... Not just pushing the burden of responsibility back and forth for 4 years at a time, and rehashing that we accomplished nothing but the degeneration of this country.

If it takes Trump to get that in motion I will support that. If the Democrats can push forward someone who isn't bought and sold, who truly cares about rebuilding everything that has been destroyed I may consider supporting them. BUT I won't support the country being destroyed from within. I HOPE that many others feel the same way..

And for those who legally are here, and those who are citizens and truly need help, this post is not designed to point a finger your way whatsoever.. Times are hard. It is those that abuse the systems we have, that this is directed towards.

"Build Back Better " is just the Democrats realizing the public sees that they have destroyed things, and they are trying to portray the feeling they're "wanting to fix it", but they won't, they are just using it as a slogan because Trumps really got to the heart of most Americans who are disgusted with an out of control government, and in their minds giving away the farm is making things "Better" so long as it gets them votes.

If anyone wants to add another topic of interest that also is destroying the once very active, and self sustaining country we all know and love, please feel free to do so... I would hope this thread stays nice and calm, and we can discuss such things versus get upset and start bickering...

It is my hope if we try we can actually have calm conversations about how things can change if we all had a change of mindset... Because things are getting worse day by day... And I don't have all the answers... Freebies was just the start of the conversation... There are so many more topics I would like to branch this into.

wondering

15th July 2024, 20:46

Denise/Dizi 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 Well said indeed

shaberon

16th July 2024, 05:01

Well, I can easily respond to the majority of what you said. I am pretty close to your same generation, and, the majority of my friends were "not from around here", so, I had an inkling of California (Los Angeles) vibe from an early age. Although I have never been close to the place. I am not sure why we would be under the same government.

Now, what you are saying about "freebies" is exactly like Trump's camp--at least to the extent of him barely paying any taxes, they take him as a genius of how to run businesses and "beat the system" because it was all legal.

But, yes, when you throw in the stratagem that an unmarried father actually lives with the family, then, you have a periscope into the same kind of "study and practice" as done by...well it is the same here on the east coast. Florida to Boston I'm sure of that.

This has been going on since before we were born.

To a typical working class person, it is a bit oppressive.

I totally don't "qualify" for most forms of humane treatment.

My cases have always lost whenever before a State judge.

When I received a burglary, the Sheriff told me there was literally nothing they could do about it.

Usually, "entitlement" is traced to 1933. So I would say the root issues are what was discussed then, and, it isn't pretty. On one hand you have the Roaring 20s, and then you have the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.

With respect to the latter, it turns out that Arlo Guthrie is more or less the progenitor of "folk music", as in penning your own tunes, rather than a repertoire of standards. He talks about Dust Bowl emigrants from Oklahoma who were routinely turned away by police at the California border.

In fact, one of the few positive responses was the other direction in Kansas City, I think, private charity was established by the then-new girls' Masonic league, the one named after a Rainbow.

Otherwise, private people and governments were not particularly sympathetic about "disaster relief".

Here's what we found a few years ago. We had a basement flooded by a hurricane. We called FEMA and they decided to pay for the repairs, even though we lived outside of the covered area. The next year, they called us back, and said need anything else?

We got a tin roof.

Of course, you can run businesses and make a living if you know how to chase these grants. It requires work, but you can do it. And yes if the Fed throws $5 million into a budget, and it is about to expire with a $1 million still sitting there, it is someone's job to try to dump the cash.

The issue I see is we don't have a very well-functioning safety net. Everything, particularly hospitals, is geared to confiscate property. So, if you think you own a house, there is a good chance you are far less secure than the Section Eight person.

It should be virtually impossible to un-house a working person from their primary residence. Even if that becomes past tense, i. e., unemployment.

Then, I think, rather than "programs", we just ought to make available something thought of as temporary, like halfway houses, that anyone may enter into. That will help you work your way out.

Our unemployment agency does virtually nothing. If your trouble is something like, let's say, you have a HVAC license that expired in 1956, they will help you get a new one. If I haven't got any licenses, then they don't really do anything.

I also believe in Corvee Labor and the payment of tax by various forms, such as hemp or silk.

What I have experienced, is, yes, the downward spiral. Because I realized how...predominant a very "part time" job at a very "minimal" rate of pay was the going thing, I reduced my status to that level. I have managed to do better than the absolute bottom of the barrel, that's about it.

That, of course, is another trend--there barely used to be such a thing as "part time employment". My grandfather worked six days a week and had Mexican live-in servants.

I've watched this whole thing slide. When I was young, "minimum wage" meant you could actually make a living off of it, probably nothing fancy, cheap apartment or trailer park, but you could do it. The "freebies" existed, but were somewhat less visible, like an underclass. The whole dynamic changed with outsourcing and political correctness. Where I come from, mills and warehouses were converted into condos and stores. Viz., cotton is why we have Guatemalans.

Out here, we have a former piece of General Motors that makes heavy stuff like axles and transmission cases. It's not in Detroit. That may be the case study on *all* of this. For example, they bought most trolleys and local trains such as the ones in California in the 1930s, and let them go to rust. Suddenly you needed a car.

My suggestion would be this. Not to automatically judge everyone who is on assistance. Some of them are scum, and some are still decent human beings. *They* didn't write the laws or set up the situation.

Reacting against them is perhaps a ploy by the privileged financial class. It is far more dangerous for any clique to get behind the government and have laws enacted in its favor. Therefor it is the businesses that require far higher scrutiny than "the masses".

Of course, it would be a false presumption about me having any sympathies for "the country", because it is none other than the Constitution that is the source of my dispute. I can't say there is anything I have ever particularly liked about "this place", either. I would say the time frame of "original prosperity" had its funeral at Lincoln's Empire.

Despite me not liking it, that is my problem, I still support anyone's same rights and justice even if I don't like you. If I have a reason to condemn what you say or do, that is different, I will stop it. Basically, as long as you are not hurting anything, then as far as I am concerned, you are free to do whatever you want.

This country does not really know how to subsidize social welfare, as, at least some places do, even if at times they are unable to. I think we have no experience in making something that is actually good. It looks good, in certain neighborhoods, and that's about it.

grapevine

16th July 2024, 09:07

Everything in the OP could apply to the UK and probably most western countries, although personal viewpoints will vary depending on where we stand socially. Wherever we are within that framework, we’re all stuck there, and but for chance, accident, enormous struggle or luck, there we stay.

As someone who’s (fortunately) somewhere in the middle, I feel we tend not to see the have nots as equals because of their social status. I seriously doubt whether anybody on hand-outs is very happy about it because, however much it is, it’s just not enough for a decent standard of living; even poverty is graded. Removing those benefits, such as they are, won’t help the situation and would in all likelihood help the affected people onto the streets even quicker.

It’s understandable that people who have jobs feel aggrieved at having to support others they see as able-bodied, that they feel their lives would be so much better off with lower taxes, but that probably wouldn’t be the case as the government would take it just the same (they always need more bombs apparently).

The groups facing the worst hardship are those who have to take 2-3 jobs just to cover living expenses and have no time to spend with their families, then of course the children in those families are programmed exactly the same, to work for peanuts while the immigrants pouring in to the country are prepared to undercut them.

It’s a terrible situation for some. Those who opt out altogether are living on the streets and there more tents going up in London streets daily. If the true situation was reported in the news, we would be rocked.

What’s to be done? Revolution is the only way now. When will that be? There’ll be a tipping point eventually, or a catalyst, better known as the stf. I hope it’s soon although it’ll be a bloody nightmare for all of us.

Great thread Denise :thumbsup:

shaberon

18th July 2024, 21:43

Everything in the OP could apply to the UK and probably most western countries, although personal viewpoints will vary depending on where we stand socially.

This is true to the extent I am not sure we are speaking the same language.

We share some words.

For example I was told that in the UK, "security guard" is an undesirable job due to the perception of real risk.

Here, it is highly coveted, by a certain class that is understood as:

not good enough to make it on a police squad.

Moreover, it is really the working person's equivalent of what we might call "moochers" in terms of "freebies".

Meaning, almost literally:

the goal of working is to do as little as possible.

As I have mentioned, this was told me by one of my current co-workers, which was after me perceiving it, and lifted the need to say anything. It was openly confessed without any leading. Like announcing a political party.

This person is only there twice a week, because he is a security guard.

This is at a hospital. You are little other than a traffic director.

Well, with few exceptions, almost everything I have ever done is in the conveyance of actual goods. That stuff which is known as "stuff". I've done a few different kinds of "stuff", and this environment has no use for those who can't work well.

It cannot be imagined how many non-productive positions are "required" in order for me to operate. In some cases, a job itself is unnecessary bloat. And then when it comes to operations, around here, at least, there are specialists in milking time clocks.

This makes it highly unclear what of value are workers being paid for.

If I go out in rural English counties, I doubt this is the story I will get.

Here, I would say it is a drastic swing I have witnessed from one way to the other. When I was young, you could drop out of school at 16, since you could actually start making a living, and 14 if you were on a farm. If you were happy to stick to agriculture, the system and government would basically stop bothering you.

Now, you probably haven't completed your vaccination schedule by that point.

As one more step, if there is a thing such as "moochers" off of "freebies", and, there is a similar strategy in the "workforce", what do you get when this translates into the realm of the uber wealthy?

Should this type of person be more "off the hook" from working than the unemployed?

In the early part of America, "public service" was a burden. It meant you were dragged away from your family, farm, or business, and so you were offered a compensation. There was nothing lucrative about simply being a Senator. It was a bit more like a "sacrifice".

And so I think we have a lot of people, coming up with all kinds of ways to get money without tangible work, which I am sure exists as a form of "Americanism".

I, personally, am convinced that "stuff" is more important, which is closer to the tenets of Agricultural Economy.

Delight

19th July 2024, 00:11

I have been thinking about the OP.

There is a difference between "free" and "reciprocol obligation". My Dad was in Korea and then used a GI bill education benefit to receive his masters degree. We lived for a time in housing from some agency?

I was paid for my nursing education through the state of Georgia. It was amazing. For several years I worked after graduation in Georgia and each year a part of the tuition was paid.

If something is free, maybe it is repaid tangentially by allowing the receiver to care for family or other private reciprocity?

The main issue for me is that I am imagining the world in which I cchoose to live. In my POV, people just do not understand HOW energy flow. A "freebie" has an energy and it ACTUALLY may have the energy of a kind of indebted victim. IF someone is on "welfare" or charity etc., one is OFTEN indebted MORE than if one had not taken the "gift". For instance welfare under the state of subversion restricts people from free choices. You can't do this and you can't do that and etc.

I am so interested in our discovery, unlocking HOW our energy being operates. How is what we participate in entangling us through ignorance.

I know that there is a force using every aspect of human life to thwart us. Scarcity is a made up concept that has definitions and they are all made up JUST to lock us in to a mental prison of SCARCITY itself.

The vets now are not being supported. A person in my community met a vet in severe need and gathered a group of people to do many things that seriously saved his life. In the social collective we need to give back IMO for what people contributed and care for those who have needs. MORE than that, we have to establish the truth about CURRENCY (our energy in form) CIRCULATES. We who understand something of the Divine order and use principles are freed! For instance, I will NEVER steal. I will not NEED handouts. I have enough of every thing needed. I WILL be paying energy forward. The more we GIVE, the more we RECEIVE.

shaberon

20th July 2024, 06:04

I know that there is a force using every aspect of human life to thwart us. Scarcity is a made up concept that has definitions and they are all made up JUST to lock us in to a mental prison of SCARCITY itself.

For those who may not be aware, Wade Frazier's main point is this.

I would not agree there is no such thing as "natural scarcity".

"Money", for example, is "made up". "Stuff" is not.

And so yes, the social engineering aspect of this is thoroughly dreadful.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Fabian_Society_coat_of_arms.svg/270px-Fabian_Society_coat_of_arms.svg.png

Bertrand Russell briefly became a member, but resigned after he expressed his belief that the Society's principle of entente (in this case, between countries allying themselves against Germany) could lead to war.

This is our first principle:

The more we GIVE, the more we RECEIVE.

I would suggest the ancient temple system has an ideal way of working. People voluntarily donate to the temple; so does the king. The job of the temple-priests is to prioritize the re-distribution. It's "socialism", except we are talking about freely offered wealth. "Work" usually meant one of your main forms of pay was food.

If everyone tries their best to be fair, then it works, and provides. As soon as this slips into the wrong hands, you have a problem. Good and evil are more or less defined here.

There is a sharp difference. In an assembly of like-minded individuals, it is easy to uphold the principle. Yet I go around in a secularized environment where I am pretty sure the majority are in various phases of concealment about being the manipulator or the manipulated.

The typical mind is full of lies and confusion based from it.

The wise priest has to be able to rebuke the one of evil intent, and help restore the deserving.

How do we fully eliminate poverty?

It reminds me of a conversation that sparked the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin was in England and King George asked him how the colonies handled their poor houses.

Franklin said they hadn't got any because unemployment was almost non-existent. When asked about this, he said the reason was because the colonies didn't rely on British Pounds, they issued their own local scrips.

Well, that type of currency is a bit like voluntary private donations, and of course the British government could not stand it.

All the updates since then are shackles to it.

grapevine

20th July 2024, 13:56

shaberon

21st July 2024, 05:35

How do we fully eliminate poverty?

Is it even possible? I think the answer is definitely yes, if everyone was willing to support the idea, but that human nature would make it very difficult and complicated.

Would you believe me if I told you this is the original conversation?

That it is the reason we have words?

Such a conversation is "urbanizing" or "civilizing" in the sense that it has to be an entirely different message from someone like a Tengri shaman. To this day they maintain the belief that "mankind is not ready for civilization". Now, if someone wants to *choose* to live in the woods and collect all your needs by hand, much respect. Likewise, we are making a *choice* to share the benefits of collective labor, in exchange for which we must lose some of the apparent "freedom" that the Tengri may have.

In terms of current productivity, yes, of course, there are even a few individuals who are wealthy enough to lift cities if not countries out of poverty, but this is not what they do.

All I can really be sure of, is, on a strictly *personal* level, I can agree that Generosity or Giving is the first principle, and then I can very easily walk around and if I decide you're not participating, I break your arm and throw you in the garbage.

That's not our social order or contract, so I can't.

But if that was what all speech was originally about, it must have been.

We have people that emit basically only false words, because they lack this positive impulse. It's an effect like a monkey learning to talk. Without the right motivation, it is not possible to say anything that is true. You only imitate it.

So for example if I support Corvee' Labor, that means I just volunteered myself. I've never asked anyone to do anything I hadn't already done, very many times. Instead, I haven't asked asked anyone to do any high degree of things as I know them.

On the forum, so much energy is spent on corruption and failure, that I have tried to ask about any known examples of peace and prosperity. I haven't gotten a useful answer but I will make a few suggestions of things that there are fairly full stories about. In Europe:

Peace of Westphalia

Emperor Franz Josef

Then I think you could add early America, in an aggregate, transitional way, from the colonial era, the Constitution being questionable, and finally President Jackson at the tail end of it. The primary political ideals were drawn from the Iroquois Confederation which *does* represent an established peace after centuries of fighting, and Montesqieu, from whom "separation of powers" is found. His ideas were even absorbed by the Russian Tsars--definitely amounts to a "discussion" of the age.

Anything else I could come up with would be far more historical or Asian.

On the other hand, treaties designed by the Entente are crafted to fail. They bear their own demise.

Those things I mentioned are more like an "era", than a "program". For example in the 1930s we had a big government work force started. That is how the Blue Ridge Parkway was built. These days it is a liability; it has to be maintained, and doesn't really generate revenue. But because a war got thrown in the middle of our work program, we don't really have an ongoing experience about how maybe that helps us.

I would like to say that yes, the "problem" has been solved at times in places. It is well worth looking into what that might be.

Mari

21st July 2024, 10:05

Delight

21st July 2024, 16:36

snipped

How do we fully eliminate poverty?

This question often comes up in my house and sometimes with friends. Is it even possible? I think the answer is definitely yes, if everyone was willing to support the idea, but that human nature would make it very difficult and complicated.

But maybe an interim measure would be to raise the bar of what is considered to be an adequate standard of living. Regardless of means, if everyone could have:

an equipped home including wifi, tv and it
good nourishing food
transport
money for leisure activities and hobbies
a good education and ongoing life training

This list is not exclusive.

What would happen? Does world economy really depend on part of the population starving? Does the above really seem too much and if so why?

I may be mistaken but I think that when one has experienced the stuff that LOTS of people in the US have had and experience enough, the interest is lost. I would like to experience what the post above suggested... provide the opportunity to experience plenty. We have NEVER seen this and I think we know why. It is a punishment upon human beings. It is because some FORCE wants misery, suffering and pain and to SPREAD it as far as possible.

What people believe is that economics as we know it challenges people to strive. I see what "welfare" does but this is also in the context of how the rules about freebies specify that FOR EXAMPLE Disabled people cannot work and may have only the pittence. Families are broken up to get "the check". People must pay back loans at high interest. It thwarts people every moment. SOME do thrive but one wonders how many "evils" are agreed to on the way?

Providing funds for LIFE with the opportunities to develop skills and also NOT feel pressured to "get ahead" would change the way we see our environment. I imagine a world where we are not DRIVEN by the corpse-er-ations which are DEAD entities fronting evil agendas.

OVER and OVER we have spent quadrillions on war. The scarcity fear drives people to "go along" with the evils. People are so INSECURE because we see others being left out of the basic necessities and luxuries. WAR is what I want to destroy. It is our nemesis, destroying infrastucture and civilized life for billions. I see the US corpse-er-ation as the worst example of devolving because of the war machine.

I imagine a world where form birth, people are deeply involved with nature, learning, languages and developing skills for mind, body and spirit. I love this imagination so much is because it is how we COULD experience earth. It would still involve fallible humans but WAR is what allows inversion of basic humane principles. On another note, abused people DO often abuse and pass the cycle along and there are many abusers. I am not sure what we do to heal? We have so much we must address and we need as many people with heart and mind as possible. I may be mistaken but I do experience Divine being present and I count on help. This subject is very difficult given all our programming .

shaberon

22nd July 2024, 04:39

What people believe is that economics as we know it challenges people to strive.

I'm trying to assist with targeting. I rarely post graphics randomly:

The Fabian Society founded the London School of Economics in 1895.

What was the associated strategy?

Entente.

In part, this means the end of Monarchy.

Also, it means Capitalism, under the Bank of International Settlements.

This "system" has never been experienced where it does not exist.

It is completely new, modern, and artificial. Scriptures tell us there were individuals soaked in this pure greed mindset, and they are about rebuking it. That is what the Book of Leviticus is about. I can find the same thing in the Indian Rig Veda and in Islam. Therefor, this was sort of a normal, daily practice for anybody; no paradigm shift in consciousness is necessary.

If a person was seriously interested in any of those creeds, you can show them that is what it is actually about.

Sure, the human mind these days under the lead blanket of Capitalism is in absentia, but, this whole affair is relatively small and containable. The delirium is easily removed.

Economics is the school of Genocide.

This is the "Price stability" in the current Constitution of Germany.

There is nothing in America or Europe we can use as a good example unless we go back to the 1800s. Finding easy ways to show that "this system" is unnecessary and backwards is useful.

We are not far from an "identity crisis", since, as you see, 85% of the non-Capitalist world already speaks of the west in the past tense and isolated. The time of diminishing returns approaches, as this paradox of requiring infinite growth over finite resources loses its value. The Petrodollar is finished, past tense. Those shifts have already happened. The more the down cycle starts to drag under, perhaps the more questions will be asked.

It's a really difficult discussion. I *don't* recommend provoking anyone with heavy statements, but the occasional "hmmm..." moment may help. For example one lady said to me:

"I think we need a strong military".

I said "You don't think that Cold War mentality is obsolete?"

It just stopped. She didn't get mad. You could tell she was actually processing that maybe she was behind the times or missed something. If I had said anything resembling what I have to say about it, it would have been terrible.

Delight

23rd July 2024, 05:39

Money. The love of money is an evil because it is NOT the money that is alive but how it flows from one to another creating commerce. Inelia Benz described money as energy and currency as the flow of this energy. Therefore, money is flow and it where the flow is directed that is the issue.

Human trafficking is an abomination but it is really related to how humans view our place. Satanists sacrifice humans to a "god" to GET something. In a way that is absurd because IMO we do not need to appease a God OR any outside agancy. We need to access OUR source of currency and FEEL ourselves FREE, ABUNDANT and FULL of life force. You will have heard that is impossible and simplistic.

We are as human beings meant to receive and give the lifeforce of which we are and in whom we are being. If you don't let this energy be flowed, YOU will be at a loss and hungry. You cannot "store" this energy.

Energy needs to flow. HOLDING on to "money" stagnates the flow. TAKING money (as a "Freebie") is debt energetically. EXCHANGING MONEY for goods and services flows the money around and is not debt. RECEIVING the energy of life is our birth right and we are traumatically injured to block the life force. The blocks are energetic SCARRING that is to be forgiven.

You can see the effect of being in communion with life force in those who have it.

I am a product of 1955 in middle class America white collar upbringing. Like many, we went from well off to poor depending on my Dad's job (sales) as Mom was at home. Having the lights turned off I am sure is something many have experienced. It creates a scarcity sense. I relate this "loss of electricity" to loss of currency and no money. Though never really questioned what the system presented, I knew this is just TERRIBLE. I was traumatized deeply.

I can't say whether my Dad WANTED to create insecurity. however, my parents relationship was angry and he drank. He may have sabotaged his positions in the war with my Mom.

I accepted without a "good job" and money, one would always be vulnerable to having poverty. It also was the impetus to choose a career, to cooperate with the system. In personal relationships, I wanted to feel independent and be in charge of my money and work.

What my experience also did was make me more risk adverse. I felt safer working for someone. I was an RN. I can fully understand how the scarcity/poverty issue can prevent a person from pushing back in any meaningful way against the system. One is at risk to lose one's job and all the cascade of the lack of currency.

In a society of systems where people engage in employment, you are a slave. You don't OWN any part of the system and "right to work" actually means "right to be fired".

Entrepreneurs CREATE something although they may be creating for a system and are obligated to the system. This just seems the only way we could be even in my own mind looking at the "modern" world.

It all starts with an idea. This world is mental.

As humans, some have NO NEED of eating, can heat their environment with their own energy, can "fast walk" across mountains at lightning speed. If I had these abilities, I would laugh at the demands to go against self (human interest), deprive oneself of creative expression, take pitiful handouts and obligations of debt that is the Economics of genocide.

I would like to see debt eliminated and a new system used by human beings who have been redeemed by a HOLY WHOLEY knowing of SELF in a Kingdom of God. This God is expressed in inner energy and knowing.

People are cut off from the essential energy because God is disconnected in their energetic system. They take energy from outside. THERE is NOT enough energy to go around and so we steal it. I say that because I feel we have missed the mark completely. Money is energy because we INVEST OUR energy in it. What if we understood how this symbolic coin COULD hold the energy of the UNIVERSE if we knew how to invest there?

I accept that scarcity traumatically imprinted in childhood can make for a more sociopathic mindset. Dog eat dog is believed to be true. We see more and more clearly that criminals are thriving in the system we have now.

I see this as our sin. We have allowed this condition because we act like serfs. We agree to have no access because we are too poor.

It IS about access IMO. Access to shelter, to nourishment, to enrichment of libraries and LEARNING music, languages, how to use one's mind for our good. One way we are prevented from using our mind is that we have been programmed to be unable to look deeply into what is in our face. In order to avoid the poverty one fears, one selects busy paths which will IF SUCCESSFUL lead us farther and farther INTO the SYSTEM.

I wrote this at the beginning of 2012.

People are stymied by debt slavery. They are crushed by personal upside down debt (one that cannot be repaid in the given circumstance: as a student loan, a mortgage, credit extended in a boom time now bust). Ordinary debt hampers movement. Belief in debt's benefit belies its reality.

New commerce and business is stymied by the lack of resources but debt does not answer the problem. The system is fractured and small business is unable to even accrue debt. Yet businesses that might soon prosper fail again when debt cannot be repaid "in a timely manner". Decisions based on debt breed desperation, corners cut and short range vision.

The matter of debt is also philosophical and personal. How do we forgive ourselves and one another and create a forgiveness based society? Do we deeply believe debt must always be repaid in full?

There has been past “forgiveness’ of debt already employed politically with various repercussions where some have enjoyed the benefits and not all. We can look to the mid to late 20th century at episodes where whole country’s debt was forgiven.

Then there are current “bail outs which was just shuffling of debt from one segment of society to another (banks to taxpayers). This does not even begin to touch the current information available about the system itself of money being “just debt”. Debt is obviously not a “given” but an agreement. Agreements can be changed.

Forgiveness is also about release of past wrongs, hatreds and is healing of old wounds held deep in the social and personal fabric of our collective and personal bodies. The knowing that energy wasted in servicing debt is blocking the life force is brimming up from the hearts of those who choose to see a new earth.

We may feel afraid as we wonder what can be done ? Though we long to replace a mentality of superiority (I am owed) and suspicion (They owe me) with one of reconciliation (clearing the ledgers to zero), the burden seems huge and intractable. In the mean time, personal lives are suffering and our world seems shattered by intractable war (on all levels). The system has broken down and the walls are closing in around us.

What should we forgive? The first response to this question is, quite simply, "everything we can." That answer is a sobering reminder that in extreme cases, we may feel that the debt is impossible to forgive. We might think a debt owed is “too important” and we feel unable to forgive, or conversely that we cannot ask for forgiveness,

Religious instruction may ask us initially to leave forgiveness to God or, perhaps better, hand forgiveness over to God to hold for us until we are ready and able to forgive. In some instances, forgiveness may take a long time because the harm done is so great that simply staying alive and sane takes precedence. In other instances, we may be able to grant forgiveness immediately? Forgiveness is never easy. Each day it must be embraced, perhaps struggled for, and accepted.

But we have seen the way the legacy of debt has enslaved us all. No generation, no family, no nation should be condemned to perpetual debt from one era to the next. Fifty years is long enough. That is the underpinning of the ancient practice of the Jubilee

"Forgive what?" receives priority: A Jubilee calls for forgiveness and, more accurately, release and cancellation of debt. A one time and whole sale forgiveness seems a monumental though amazingly hopeful place to start. Even so, once does not seem enough. The bigger question is how to create a social order that balances the needs and the desires of all to thrive and does not accumulate further debt on all levels?

Whom should we forgive (and from whom should we ask forgiveness)? The answer includes our families, those with a family-like or intimate connection to us; the people our people have harmed and, on occasion, ourselves. Who is not our family?

How shall we forgive? Some answers from religious instruction are: when it is time, by pilgrimage and by ritual. These are the moments, places and means of renewal.

Debt Slavery is a state of being tied down to the service of a debt. It could be personal when we cannot release a grievance. Perhaps we cannot move forward due to our own inner inability to forgive? It can be social with ties to old ways of being. It can be commercial with debts we once agreed to carry and can no longer pay in the old way.

Slavery to our indebtedness reverberates and is always past energetic accumulation holding us down. The issue is much larger and more intangible than one can even begin to describe in a few sentences. However, debt on all levels is a very important logjam to redress.

Underneath debt slavery is the wheel that spins. Apparently we have been on the wheel forever. It is my idea that we each have to step off the wheel ourselves. New Thought is all about how to manifest in this realm. The primary take away is that it is OUR MINDS which are responsible. We must forgive ourselves for participating in the Economics of Genocide. There is so much ENERGY we can bring out into the world from our particular gifts. I am not sure we will all see a destroyed America.

shaberon

24th July 2024, 04:08

In a society of systems where people engage in employment, you are a slave. You don't OWN any part of the system and "right to work" actually means "right to be fired".

Not quite.

A "right to work" state means that membership in a union cannot be required or forbidden.

What you are talking about is "at-will employment"--means you don't have a contract.

If you do not have a contract, you may be fired at any time, no reason need be given. I can tell you every day for three years that "you're doing great" and next morning "we don't need you anymore". That's perfectly legal.

It's good that you mentioned Jubilee since that is a paradigm in all of this, although since it specifically means Ram's Horn, let's just say it represents a general principle of expungement and relief.

It clearly has an adversary, which, is not just one specific thing, but, rather, the opposite principle of bending law to the favor of a predatorial class.

There are all kinds of synonyms and historical examples that could be applied, but what is important might be the fact of there being such a drastic difference. Mentally, something must be very different for the people who are motivated one way or another.

There are various ways to sense a predator in action.

Here's a worse example I just picked up a few minutes ago.

I am about a year into an "at-will employment". Shortly after I started, I found myself cast down into an unrealistically small number of hours. I complained, couldn't get any communication from the chowder heads, and almost turned around and looked for another job. But then the hours came back.

Well, turns out I was in a special "training pool" and my hours got cut when I "joined the force".

This year, I see that the company is so foolish with its funds that it actually cuts hours *now*.

That means until next fiscal year some time in October.

This means I will soon begin working for two months to make less than I have gotten from unemployment.

The drop is so deep, I may even be able to file for unemployment.

The company is within its rights to do this. So, that means you are standing in a room full of managers who all know perfectly well that they give out a yearly "walk all over you" to everyone else in the room.

Smile.

And, yep, that's the same response I got this time--I saw the schedule and went ballistic and was told "they do this to everybody", as if that is somehow a sign of sympathy, or helps me in any way.

I reduce my living situations to the sub-standard level that "the usual" will actually provide, and, now, I find "the unusual" who just can't afford you over the summer.

It's bad enough, but, the spineless lack of communication is like a cold lick on the face from Satan himself. If it was me, I could easily find some way to say "look, we just have less hours in the summer, so be prepared for that". Businesses fluctuate, that's why I don't work in a nursery. The psychological repercussions through my person are far, far worse when something slimy or unreliable slinks away from you.

If there is a problem, an issue, whatever, you have to own up to it and do a little negotiating. If you can present a reasonable case, we might be able to deal with you.

However, this one must be chalked up to Stupid Corporate Management, which is the same thing I would credit with both my major periods of unemployment.

That's exactly what it comes to--despite everything I have done, all my misfortunes stream directly from a few policies or decisions of Corporatocracy, even though in all cases it was not the operation itself was struggling. I am talking about businesses that were already self-sufficient and actually worked better with "small" management, until, I guess, the "growth" advertised by the corporates became more appealing. Then they changed.

I have always tried to go to smaller, independent operations, but of course one knows the strategy of running them out of town. For example, Covid was a perfect opportunity to crush some small businesses and gobble assets.

So, think about this for a moment. I am on a vast amount of undeveloped land, which could easily raise enough stuff for "us", and, I expect, produce abundance.

As a comparison, let's say I continue working at the reduced level--that more or less would pay the property tax here. I have to work to not get evicted, rather than pay any attention to the land potential. Can't do any of that without "money". Property tax is among the most regressive burdens ever to roll out of the mind of man, and, it is just an imaginary, made-up law, so, it can be rolled back.

No one just "has" money, and no one just "gives" it to you. So, its use ought to be relegated to non-essentials. Such as the person who has six luxury resort villas, I could conceive of taxing that property. But our Revolution was fought so that taxes and mortgage would not threaten you.

The ancient world used beads of gold and other metals at standardized weights as money. But this was mostly for wholesale transactions. The typical worker lived mostly on credit and was paid and settled his debts once or twice a year. If something goes wrong, the priority is to *help* the person, rather than make them hungry, homeless, and mean.

Around 600 B. C. E. was the invention of "coins", i. e. a metal stamped with arbitrary value, and from there a system of "regular pay" begins. This seems to have become much more vulnerable to the predatorial class.

So if I am in store 157 out of 200+, it is not hard to imagine around ten people per store in my similar shoes = about 2,000 people who will just wake up and discover the joy of inadequacy. No, we don't have many choices or opportunities. It has been suggested to me to apply for Disability. That would, of course, be a straight shot at "freebies", since nothing is wrong with me. But some people think I don't hear too good and might qualify. It's not true. So I can't really bring myself to do it.

If I can find something else to do in about two weeks, the drop won't hit so hard; otherwise, that's basically a whole year of me working in aspiration to get out of this hell hole that is just going to go "poof" because of this legal way to pay you far less.

Bill Ryan

24th July 2024, 12:07

Right on cue for this thread, Zero Hedge posted this article yesterday:

https://zerohedge.com/personal-finance/shocker-study-reveals-giving-americans-1000-month-has-negative-consequences

Shocker! Study Reveals That Giving Americans $1,000 Per Month Has Negative Consequences

A new study (https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w32719/w32719.pdf) reveals what common sense could have predicted - giving Americans $1,000 per month disincentivizes them from working, causing them to work less - and earn less, over time.

According to the 3,000-participant, three-year study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, giving people $1,000 per month increased leisure time, as recipients spent less time on sleeping, child care, community engagement, caring for others, and self-improvement.

The study also found that recipients' income, not including the free money, reduced their incomes significantly, as "for every one dollar received, total household income excluding the transfers fell by at least 21 cents, and total individual income fell by at least 12 cents."

"The takeaway from the best study done so far about UBI in the United States is that handing out money isn't the solution to all our problems," Daniel Di Martino, a economics researcher and graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told The Center Square (https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_f8b0401c-485c-11ef-b461-07b78b1e61ef.html). "In fact, sometimes it makes things worse."
The study’s authors noted mean-tested welfare encourages recipients to cut hours “to preserve benefits,” leading to advocacy for “unconditional cash transfer programs” without these distortions that would also allow individuals either to look for and secure higher-quality work or spend extra time on “productive non-work activities.”

Participants’ individual incomes declined $1,500 per year relative to the control group, excluding transfers, participants’ labor force participation was two percentage points lower, participants and their partners worked approximately 1.4 hours less per week. Participants spent their extra time on leisure, did not improve their quality of employment, and did not improve human capital investments such as training.
The study notes how during the 2020 Democratic primaries, candidate Andrew Yang proposed a $1,000 per month "Freedom Dividend," which he claimed "encourages people to find work" and "increases entrepreneurship."

The study found that while "participants exhibited more entrepreneurial orientation and intentions," that "this did not translate into significantly more entrepreneurial activity," as "very few people have the inclination to become entrepreneurs in general."

According to Di Martino, the study did not address inflation concerns, and remained open to unconditional cash payments in lieu of certain welfare programs.

"It's important to remark that this study doesn't look at the macroeconomic impact of UBI which would raise inflation and affect interest rates if implemented nationwide," he said. "Now the question that's more interesting is if the almost null effects of UBI are better (or less bad) than those of our existing welfare programs and whether it might be a good idea to replace them."

HopSan

24th July 2024, 16:44

Mike

24th July 2024, 17:53

The most miserable, bitter, and resentful people I've ever met in my life are the ones that are on some form of state support. And here I'm not speaking of the elderly, retirees, the handicapped, or the infirm. I mean people who are capable of work but have weasel'd out of it thru some mechanism or other. Basically the entire continent of Europe:)

I had to meet something like 10 Brits before I met one with an actual job. And if you think that's ridicule, think again. It's more like envy. It wasn't long before I began wondering, can I move to England and get paid to sit around all day too?

They all spoke in hushed tones about a mysterious "council", one which acted both as provider and fickle dictator it seemed. They were always complaining about this mysterious council, but it was somehow psychically understood that it would be inappropriate for me to ask too many questions about it, so I bit my tongue. But it didn't stop me from fantasizing about moving to England and meeting with this enigmatic council one day, where I'd charm them into offering me a humble monthly stipend and an exotic place to live ..like an old medieval castle maybe. Here's the keys, Yank. Fountain Abbey is a charming old place .. we trust you'll love it!

This was all like 15-20 years ago or so, and I vividly recall telling my buddy Jay that we needed to move to England because no one has to work there. And he said, "You don't have to work here either you f#cking idiot. It's called welfare." And that was my a-ha moment.

Over the years the reality of it all dawned on me. It wasn't a very glamorous way to live. And it rotted the soul. Sure, you can make the same statement about work of any kind, but work also sustains you in ways that aren't immediately obvious because you just take them for granted.

For instance, you're forced to make yourself presentable ..therefore you'll shave, comb hair, shower, wear clean clothes, apply makeup, pluck nose hair, so forth. You'll monitor your appearance and keep it at a baseline level. You'll also be forced to maintain a schedule. It keeps you disciplined. And it also makes you social, to some degree anyway, forcing interactions you'd otherwise avoid. Basically it makes you participate in the human family. And it offers a certain pride - the good kind - that comes from sustaining yourself. And you're up, and moving around, the blood is circulating, and the body/mind is presented with all sorts of situations it must grapple with. It's an evolution you can't get while you're sitting around at home.

You cannot maintain your dignity and self-respect if someone/something else is providing for you. It slowly rots the brain and the soul. The people I've met that live off these state funds do nothing but complain. And even though the entire world is collaborating to provide for their lazy asses, they're among the most anti-human, nihilistic people you'll ever meet. They weren't born that way necessarily; you can't help but become that type of person over time when you abandon personal responsibility and force the world to provide for you.

HopSan

24th July 2024, 18:06

You cannot maintain your dignity and self-respect if someone/something else is providing for you. It slowly rots the brain and the soul. The people I've met that live off these state funds do nothing but complain. And even though the entire world is collaborating to provide for their lazy asses, they're among the most anti-human, nihilistic people you'll ever meet. They weren't born that way necessarily; you can't help but become that type of person over time when you abandon personal responsibility and force the world to provide for you.

Thanks Mike, for provoking me!
As a European, I'd like to help:

The lazy, this-and-that is not the problem.
Problem is: Everything is denied, taxed, limited, punished, controlled etc.

I am living in an old (energy-wasting) wooden house. EU is trying (at this very moment) to make it illegal.
New legal house shall cost around half a million Euros -- with no benefit to me.

What would you do in my place?

[Edit: I shall survive, here, somehow, but 99 of 100 shall not. ]

Mike

24th July 2024, 18:23

You cannot maintain your dignity and self-respect if someone/something else is providing for you. It slowly rots the brain and the soul. The people I've met that live off these state funds do nothing but complain. And even though the entire world is collaborating to provide for their lazy asses, they're among the most anti-human, nihilistic people you'll ever meet. They weren't born that way necessarily; you can't help but become that type of person over time when you abandon personal responsibility and force the world to provide for you.

Thanks Mike, for provoking me!
As a European, I'd like to help:

The lazy, this-and-that is not the problem.
Problem is: Everything is denied, taxed, limited, punished, controlled etc.

I am living in an old (energy-wasting) wooden house. EU is trying (at this very moment) to make it illegal.
New legal house shall cost around half a million Euros -- with no benefit to me.

What would you do in my place?

Sorry about the situation, HopSan. I hope you can keep your home!:heart2:

If the EU is trying to make a certain kind of home illegal, they should be providing a pathway to newer homes for people who can't afford them. That's a form of state support I can easily get behind.

My post was aimed more at people who are capable of work but find a way to live off state funds anyway.

HopSan

24th July 2024, 18:37

If the EU is trying to make a certain kind of home illegal, they should be providing a pathway to newer homes for people who can't afford them. That's a form of state support I can easily get behind.

My post was aimed more at people who are capable of work but find a way to live off state funds anyway.

Thanks Mike, I mentioned this only as an example.
Everything else is similarly made almost impossible.

If I create a new company, from shoe strings, it WILL BE taxed from the day one, AS IF it were a successful company, with established customers etc.
I must pay heavy taxes for imaginary income, even if it was zero. ZERO!

By definition, yes, TODAY, here, every company is successful, with median income, orders etc.

Hmm... I might NOT establish my company here, now...

[Edit: Sorry if I sound irritated -- I am. I have for some years intended to start a software company. But in this environment, without ultra-rich people who love my face and suit... ]

[Edit2: At this moment, believe or not, the country with most sane new business conditions may well be.. Russia. I know half the language, perhaps time to study more... ]

[Edit3: The most famous guy who was kicked out of Finland is: Linus Torvalds.]

Bo Atkinson

25th July 2024, 00:55

Pretty much a failure at teen school, (1960s), was partly the (fortunate) need of eye-glasses not discovered until near graduation and by then the ideal looked much more like a low income, independent, rural lifestyle, just close enough to commute affordably, to multi-skilled trade jobs, and that meant self employment, for five decades. In the USA the contractor model can deduct tools and materials of the self-employed businesses, so this became the easier work model and peace-meal homesteading was compatible.

This also necessitated a bit of the stoic attitude, of kinds of invulnerability to all sorts of troubles, and the main reward was freedom to study less popular and less known subjects vital to life, to gradually deepen interests, and to test out building ideas on small scales, for building inspirations. It also got around barriers of licenses to work at certain trades, if the ropes were handled right to stay legal. Pride in status was less and less interesting.

Admittedly this work-style is dependent on market niches and looking ahead of the curb for changing opportunities. The covid shut down of small business ended the best job-niches here, and now in our seventies we got on minimum social security, but only the homesteading makes that sufficient, as it has helped many rural people who avoided the worst illusions of corporate livelihoods. (And possibly for most humans worldwide, in the fact that humans do stay alive in corporate-free zones).

How even to own a vehicle in the west looks evermore impossible at the low end, and even a phone looks less and less vital. In the old days we could re-use cheap, run down vehicles, but no longer. The internet could compensate if connection is maintained, with a renewed strategy of library visits.

Ideality was always fascinating to study and to hack, or to experiment in structural work. Ideas of fixing the world from the bottom-up looks possible esoterically, in a totally made over recognition of life, now that an esoteric mental system can be focused.

In simpler words this does comply with Delight's description of money as energy. Technology was useful here in reading literature through mp3 conversion of text downloads, to study esoterics while at physical trades and really-endless homestead chores.

shaberon

25th July 2024, 03:01

The lazy, this-and-that is not the problem.
Problem is: Everything is denied, taxed, limited, punished, controlled etc.

I tend to think this is true. The argument about "de-incentivizing work" is more or less a ploy from the Bank to reduce social well-being and increase its own status. You might call it the Lazy Threat.

Well, it turns out there *are* a number of these individuals, and, it tends to lead to nihilistic embitterment. You can see that something mentally might be going wrong, to which, the person is doing worse to themselves that the simple fact of a little "providence" being handed over.

Numerically, yes, there are a greater amount adapted to the "normalization" of working. As discussed is even the way I would consider myself to be "normal", with the routines and activities and so forth, even if I am far from "ordinary".

Because I have done this in a way that I control other human beings, I have a definite meaning in mind when I say it is not that hard to motivate most reasonably intelligent and polite people to work properly, harmoniously, etc., there really is such a thing as positivity and it can be done.

At the same time, it is fragile, it works the way it works, and not the way you project any ideas into it.

All I keep finding are "limitations", that is, the employer's diminution of my time that it rents. The last place was an exception because that was for personal safety reasons. Right now I seem to have run into an annual "trim the fat" which is unspoken and therefor spooky. In actuality, it probably qualifies me (anyone) for food stamps, and me (those who had worked at a higher level) for unemployment.

Again, if it was me, I could have a bonfire party about this, but it's not, as I suppose anyone is thought of as expendable.

I have this strange fantasy about wanting something to be my fault so I can be blamed for it. That doesn't seem to happen. I get mowed by the same kind of blanket treatment as many others.

The ability and even desire to work is not, in our system, always accepted, so that is not really the answer to issues of laziness. The Bank has managed to use that false threat to promote a system that by no means has the well-being of a workers' society as its real intent--it employs an advertising branch to make it appear so.

Blastolabs

25th July 2024, 04:28

Denise I go back and forth about my thoughts on "freebies" but this analogy might explain how I see these issues.

If we compare global society to a car:
The car doesn't have a flat tire
The car doesn't need gas.
The car is completely totaled

The freebies are like putting gas into a car with no engine. It isn't going to really do much long term, and it won't manifest a new car which is what we really need.

Denise you say that "freebies" are paid for by fellow humans, but in reality the Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air, its not our tax dollars paying for much of anything besides interest on "debt"

The earth isn't overpopulated we just have an incredibly inefficient system in place.
Scarcity is a myth, over unity energy generation (free energy) is a reality, we can mine asteroids we can likely eventual synthesize any element from pure energy.

This requires progress and hard work from everyone on earth, but it won't come from bribing people with money it will come from a functioning society that gets along and works together.

I really do not see a way to get there from here without starting over from scratch.
I just hope whatever cataclysm clears the slate clears it completely as we don't need a few CIA rats living their fantasy of picking up the pieces and retaining control.
It won't take long to get back to where we are now, the past 100 years of science have been wasted on hero worship and we mostly just benefit from non human tech.

For now I simply try to enjoy this amazing experience and maybe help a few others do the same.

shaberon

26th July 2024, 03:15

the Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air, its not our tax dollars paying for much of anything besides interest on "debt"

Not exactly. The FRN's (private property) are in exchange for Bonds (an interest-bearing obligation of the tax payers).

That is the clue to the whole thing--again, only *local* governments are corporations, and these do not use your "tax dollars" to pay for the services like police, firemen, etc., it uses your cash to qualify for Bonds, which cover the departmental budgets.

But then, yes, "Debt Service" is by far the biggest single-line item of federal expenditures. "Defense" is bigger, but, that is a category of multiple kinds of expenses. Our "Debt Service" is always a minimum interest payment, nothing goes to the principal.

The earth isn't overpopulated we just have an incredibly inefficient system in place.
Scarcity is a myth...

We can say we hit a "population boom" due to cheap energy (oil). I exist because of cheap energy. From that point, "inefficiency" is supreme, it pretty much is just greed that ruins the chances of lifting all from hunger and poverty.

I really do not see a way to get there from here without starting over from scratch.

Or close. I think the future may be closer to horses than to robots and batteries.

I would tend to agree numerous laws need to be "rolled back" to a certain baseline, and, the process of "industrialization" re-launched without being in the hands of Fascists. A "cataclysm" is not necessary, although something could easily happen before anyone gets a grip on these rogue governments.

shaberon

26th July 2024, 15:04

Ernie Nemeth

26th July 2024, 16:09

Try getting laid off five times in three years at the beginning of your career, and see how you feel about 'freebies'. Then go through a five year period of double digit inflation, where you can't pay your mortage and lose your house, then tell me about 'freebies'.

Then to just pile insult on top of misery have your business stolen from you by back door deals, where you find your license no longer allows for entering business without more school and more money, then tell me about the freebies because...I'm in!

Since then my one ambition in life is to drain the government of every dollar they willingly give me. And I hope they go broke because I already have.
thanks

HopSan

26th July 2024, 18:24

Thanks all, this is interesting, even if not a happy theme.

Ernie: "Try getting laid off five times in three years at the beginning of your career".

In my first real (IT) job, in early 90's, after 'try-time' (6 months), I was told: "We are really happy of your performance. Please, please stay! Everyone else, until this day, after try-time, was given a considerable increase of income. But, because economy is tight, you, as a first employee in this company, ever, shall receive... None."

[Edit: After that day, I, thankful, worked like an animal, for the the bonuses of others. ]

This was repeated in some form in every (IT) company since.

shaberon

27th July 2024, 08:40

Try getting laid off five times in three years at the beginning of your career, and see how you feel about 'freebies'.

That only happened to me one time, but, it was the "best exit" I ever had. That is because, at least in the U. S., it is automatically covered by unemployment. This is a type of insurance fund that employers pay into, rather than welfare paid out of the general tax fund.

I'm guessing we are less critical about "free stuff" or certain benefits, for those who make an effort, and are bristling against "something for nothing".

I, of course, simply extended that notion *into* the work force, and/or "ownership", as in why should you "do nothing" just because you have a job or own an investment?

I also oppose Mortgage on a lethal basis, and, in my case, the layoff was from the last situation that may have saved mine.

Numerically, I had paid back pretty much the entire price. Under Sharia law, I would have owned the house. But because it was mortgaged, I only had about a 20% equity after twelve years or so.

Networking was the first thing that terrified me. If you remember old switchboxes and stuff that were made by, I think it was called, Northern Telcom. I was about five years old and I heard in the news that the local office had just laid off 500 people. I was told about automatic unemployment, but, that didn't sound good enough, and a few questions later, I was at the barebones truth. Many of those people might fall on hard times, and lose their house, and things like this. That made a terribly discouraging impression.

But then what really bugs me is that my teachers always told me "you'll do fine", that a golden future was the guaranteed result of doing well in school, kind of pie-in-the-sky. Nobody ever taught me about how *hard* things can be. So I didn't pursue a trade certificate or anything actually useful. I'm very educated. Part of that tells me there is no such thing as "it has to be this way".

No it doesn't.

I was told by a Greek that "This country does not know how to take care of people". That's still basically true. Our programs are not very constructive. My understanding is that some places will give you unemployment, and if you don't find anything, they simply find something for you to do.

shaberon

28th July 2024, 03:48

I was just reminded of something that is particularly free here.

That would be a free ticket from Mexico.

*I* can't go to some other country and work beyond the limit of my visa. You're simply not allowed. Except, apparently, here.

Now of course that is only one type of possibility out of everything that happens.

Today, I go around as usual, being the only live-action foodservice store because all the others closed, except it is my last day before I, personally, am almost "closed". So I griped to my co-worker about it. She's Mexican and just out of high school.

She told me she got an additional job.

For two seconds, my mind popped open, ready to begin "the dig", which immediately stopped, because the position turned out to be:

Interpreter for Workman's Comp

What that tells us is that there are huge numbers of Mexicans that speak no English. At my last job there were two sisters--real young like twenty--like this.

So we use tax money to hire someone to communicate with people like that.

Of course, that opportunity is not available to me.

Not that there is a lack of opportunity for English lessons. I guess they don't want them. After all, they have a community, I don't.

There are things I probably could have done, but the place was taken by immigrants, but, wherever I am, I have to take them in. I spent years literally running reverse racism. We would be told that a job was to be given to a black or Mexican person, depending on what token was perceived as the need at the time. I have never gotten any opportunities from them. I have only excluded "people like me" from consideration. These days, it often seems like I am on the receiving end of that.

The immigration wave helps me never.

This is so different than the world I was born in, I have really just watched this country go backwards in every aspect.

Mike

6th August 2024, 16:09

The most miserable, bitter, and resentful people I've ever met in my life are the ones that are on some form of state support.

Something else erupted from the back of my mind about this.

I don't think it's been mentioned.

The military.

Well that sounds like someone who "works", but, I am referring to a special under-class, those who serve eight years. If you do that, you can leave, and get a check for life. I'm not sure how big, but, it's not trivial. You basically walk out as something like a twenty-eight year old pensioner.

It is one of these that has forced me into this terrible compromise.

I moved to this area for one sole reason: we had bought the last cheap house in the world. It's paid for. I wound up living there by myself for about six months on a cheap part-time job. That's the last time I was halfway alright.

I got ousted by the guy with the pension. He doesn't have to work. The check is enough for the utilities and then to pay $$ to the owner as rent. So it must be more than from a typical job.

He eventually started working, but the point is this money. It wasn't privately earned by doing anything productive. It's actually a "plan" that a lot of poor people use. As far as I know, not much "military" is behind it; the guy took their training and then worked as a supply clerk. He didn't come out with more "skills" than me to go into any specific employment. And so you get this military attitude blended in to someone who is already ultra-violent. We can't exactly have a conversation. One of the least-inflammatory remarks I was given:

"What's the State Department?"

So I mean that's fairly ignorant of something that is...hugely influential to the military...

Do other countries do this? I think it is outrageously excessive. It's for life! I am sure it is better than what I will get from at-will employment when, against my will, my hours are cut to about half the poverty level.

The idea of a military as a "paying career" is insane, and since at least the 1980s, it has been realized that without this huge ball of wax, the American economy would be shattered. I doubt such generous programs existed before World War II. Therefor from around 1950-1980, "normality" was torpedoed and replaced by all this dependency. These people seem undesirable and unfit for civilian employment, at least from my example, one of the things I know that happened at work was borderline arrestable.

I'm simultaneously paying for it and eating the repercussions.

I disrespect it very strongly.

I can understand compensation for career service, or combat injuries, but not to sit around on bases with no function.

Income Tax is grounds enough for a revolution, and almost half of it goes to defense. When you add debt service, we're at at least 70% of the expenditures, into pure waste, as far as I can tell.

I would say this military thing is a pretty strong rival of straight welfare for "nothing". It makes lower-quality people from what I have seen. Recruitment is slipping, as it has been seen how undesirable it really is, but in America I am sure we have millions sitting around taking a check for prior deeds that, to me, are of no value.

That's very interesting about the military. I had no idea. The earliest retiree I'd ever known was my uncle, who retired from firefighting in his mid 40's. I didn't know firefighters could retire so early either. This would have been useful information when I was a younger guy maybe.

I feel exactly as you do about this brand of military compensation. That's nuts! On the flip side, I've always felt that veterans who see combat action should more or less live for free for the rest of their lives. That sounds extreme to most people, but I stand by it.

I'm being nosy here, but I'm always more interested in human stories than concepts so I must ask: What the heck happened? How did the military guy oust you from the house you helped pay for? You knew him ahead of time I'm sure? Sorry you had to deal with all that! I hope you've found a suitable situation at least since all this happened.

Welfare generally makes for lower quality people; I agree and can sort of speak from experience. I've never been on welfare but I did receive a large sum of $ from a wealthy great aunt when I was entering college, and it was something akin to welfare in the sense that I didn't work for several years and I quickly became the type of lower quality person we're talking about here. This was back in 1995, and the amount was something like $70,000. But to me it might as well have been $70 million. It was just a preposterous amount of money for a young guy. And honestly, aside from a car I purchased, I have absolutely nothing to show for it. I expected it to last forever and was actually surprised when it ran out.

Anyway, what happened to me - and what I see happening to these welfare recipients I've known - is a rotten sense of entitlement. Some of these people were pressured into returning to work, and they were downright indignant. The attitude was: You expect me to do what??? Work 40 hours a week?? Which is exactly how I felt btw.

Handouts just melt that circuit in the brain that connects one to reality. It turns one into a toddler essentially. You become so accustomed to doing what you want whenever you want that you quite literally have something resembling a temper tantrum when forced to take any kind of personal responsibility.

The correct attitude should have been: well, it's been a good run, I haven't had to do sh!t for 5 years, but now it's time to grow up. The sane mind would express some sort of gratitude, but it's actually the exact opposite. The handouts make one profoundly unreasonable. The people I've known on welfare have never expressed an ounce of gratitude; the only thing I've ever heard them do is complain. As far as I'm concerned, once you accept this kind of handout you forfeit your God given right to bitch and moan about stuff. But these folks are utterly shameless.

HopSan

7th August 2024, 17:51

shaberon

7th August 2024, 23:19

I'm being nosy here, but I'm always more interested in human stories than concepts so I must ask: What the heck happened? How did the military guy oust you from the house you helped pay for? You knew him ahead of time I'm sure? Sorry you had to deal with all that! I hope you've found a suitable situation at least since all this happened.

Well, it's almost indescribable. Actually, that sums up almost all of my life experiences--which is why I wish I could say I was guilty of something bad that deserved consequences. At least that way, I could explain it to myself.

Most of it consists of the other party not living up to their end of the bargain, that is, not doing what they said, which I had agreed to.

This started around Round Two of my demise, which is approximately when I found this website, which is why I found it. I didn't use to spend that much time with the internet, until it became one of the few things that poor people have.

So that guy was living in a particularly squalid place. I bailed out of mine, and offered it for a cheap rent but with a limited time frame, about six months. To a normal person, working against a deadline, you react.

During this time I "selected" a 1938 farm house, I didn't personally buy it, but was trying to make this move with someone selecting a "cheap property" in the middle of nowhere. This had dragged on for about six months, so, I found this listing, told them to gouge it, and we got a house for barely half of the listing price.

Only about a month after these moves were made, I thought my revenue was in peril because the guy "was moving out".

But that didn't happen.

So the six months rode out, I flipped my old house onto the market, and the guy freaked, went into work and made probably one of the most violent-sounding outbursts the place had ever seen, and of course was not welcome back.

The net result was that he jumped in to our tiny little 1938 house.

Well, the reason for this farm house was due to it being relatively near this big house built by the parents of the friend I am living with. They passed away. Everyone else moved in, and so I had the farm house to myself for about six months. I had found a crunky little job that was enough to cover the utilities. Aside from heat, you can easily maintain the basic expenses that were less than $300 a month. That was the whole point. Live cheaply and start saving up for somewhere better to go.

Suddenly I'm told the guy "can't live" in the big house due to his own attitude. I don't quite believe that. It was because of the stipend, he could live in the small house and turn around and pay rent to the owner. So I was told to leave.

Well, I, of course, had terrible concerns about coming here, so I made another backup plan. I had somewhere else to go, because I thought this would suck horribly, which it does, because it is big, in the sense of one big cabin. So I go through another discussion to assure me that five or six very basic things would not bother me. So I came here.

Two or three months into it, I realized that nothing was true about the talk, that it was going to suck constantly and horribly anyway. I was about to re-consider my backup plan, and then we got the Covid lockdown.

I went to the same infernal prison as everyone else in the world.

Not to appearances' sake, because the adjustments or reactions I have had to it are practically zero. Maybe three or four times, I used a face covering for a number of minutes to pass through some public area. That's literally about it between me and world plague.

Instead, I simply became confined in a major domestic disagreement.

All I can do is re-launch the same strategy. I try to start saving up again, and now, I find this kind of unspoken policy that the place I work for, saves itself at the two months ending the fiscal year by drastically reducing the workers' hours.

That means I can only re-launch the same strategy again.

I put a year in this saving something, which was great, and now I am going to spend it back.

As for the fact of the stipend, I might be impressed if it was used for something to grow, to do something for yourself, much like I would do without a stipend if I wasn't economically stifled. But as you can see for a large number of years, it has been used to do nothing but impose.

Of course, the main reason I have known any military people is because they were in temporarily, not career, and this type of behavior does not represent them all.

It *does* represent some, and, it looks to me like the same stripe as people on "any kind of state support" who come across as embittered by the nursing.

That is why I like this thread, because it is very nuanced and detailed. At least I look at it as criticizing certain aspects of human behavior, rather than the simple fact that some kind of support is available by governmental means.

And, oh, this is now after at least six definite plans of moving out of here. The whole point of the big house was to get out of it.

Corresponding to my time on Avalon is a mixture of spoken agreements that never happen, mixed with unbidden corporate policies to pay everyone less.

My ideas of trust or that there is anything particularly reliable out there in the world are worn thin.

Meanwhile, my neighbor *is* the military. They do helicopter drops for SALT training. Also a firing range. This is from a civilian house with no "DoD" signs or any type of marking. Ironically we've had Al Qaeda come down the driveway.

That is because there are miles of land trust out here. Have to commute to do anything.

I can try to shift the view, and say, this military stipend, we are essentially vampirizing to stay here, to turn around and cover the property tax. Without that, a judge would evict us. That, however, does not make the circumstances any more favorable. This is not a place I would normally set foot in.

Mike

8th August 2024, 06:54

hey Shaberon, I chuckled wearily after I read your first paragraph, because it could so easily describe my life as well.

That whole bloody situation sounds downright surreal. Which is often the space I find myself in. Your post read like a passage from one of my favorite books, "Journey to the End of the Night", which is sort of a surreal, black-humor'ish novel by this French writer Celine. It's essentially plotless. If there is a plot it's the utter absurdity of life.

I'm in a pretty bizarre living situation myself, with seemingly no way out.. at least not for the next 6 months or so anyway. Meanwhile I try to save some dough, which has gotten a little easier now since I've started my new job. Call center gig ..far more stressful than my last job, but gives me some financial flexibility. Whether the stress is worth the xtra dough has yet to be seen. Not a big enough sample size yet:)

Mike

8th August 2024, 07:12

Anyway, what happened to me - and what I see happening to these welfare recipients I've known - is a rotten sense of entitlement.

The correct attitude should have been: well, it's been a good run, I haven't had to do sh!t for 5 years, but now it's time to grow up. The sane mind would express some sort of gratitude, but it's actually the exact opposite. The handouts make one profoundly unreasonable. The people I've known on welfare have never expressed an ounce of gratitude; the only thing I've ever heard them do is complain. As far as I'm concerned, once you accept this kind of handout you forfeit your God given right to bitch and moan about stuff. But these folks are utterly shameless.

Background to my answer:

I'm not from US, and we are still 90% Finnish/white, only 5+ million, very often distant relatives. We may be like US was still in 50's. But the rot is also here, in every largish town/city. Immigrants have come in a few years in masses, and do they demand! Finland had no world currency to give us free living for 50 years, so most normal people are not wealthy, and feel very humble.

And answer:

When society worked as a safety net it did not hurt us. But when a large amount of population came, were instantly entitled, when others had to fight... The moral compass got destroyed, in only 20 years.

Yeah, the demanding nature of the immigrants is the part that really stood out in your post. It seems to be the same situation everywhere - little to no assimilation, a disdain for the local culture, and an obnoxious sense of entitlement. Oh, and pouring thru far too fast and overwhelming the economy and ability of government to reasonably accommodate.

I really admire the Fins, but it seems they're falling prey to this same affliction. To criticize or merely offer an observation is to risk being called racist, bigot, xenophobe, or worse. Telling the truth has become a social crime, and is quickly becoming a crime proper.