I had a sociology teacher in 12th grade who claimed that automation decreased the number of real jobs -- but stated that for the sake of social stability society, as automation increased, would create unneeded jobs -- fake jobs so to speak -- to give people the illusion of working. And with the constant expansion of the Federal Government I was somewhat shocked to see over the years that what this teacher said was true. Now liberals want to take away the illusion of working and just give people a check. How do you suppose people will get self esteem from openly doing nothing? Ever read "The Machine Stops?"
It is shocking to me the number of Americans that want to leave their children and grandchildren holding the bag so to speak with Trillions and Trillions of debt that can never be paid.
Biden is not even in charge yet and already blaming Trump. Hardly surprising. It will be amusing to see the Progressive wing of the Dems turn on the Crony Capitalism wing of the Dems.
No, I'll look it up. I do remember reading something similar called "A Very Private Life" by Michael Frayn. It seemed somewhat less dystopian than what you describe and was very unusual stylistically, which I think overshadowed its social commentary Why do you think people's self-esteem is inextricably tied to whatever drudgery they are forced to do to survive? “We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.” R. Buckminster Fuller
We need govenrmental austerity not the private sector austerity caused by the governors and mayors. Yes, it is the fault of the voters. They get the results of how they vote.
What fake jobs are out there now? As a business owner that works with other business owners I assure you that we're not looking to hand out fake jobs, not one bit.
As a business owner you need to make a profit so you can't have fake jobs. On the other hand many of the Federal jobs in Washington DC are fake. The Federal Government, unlike you, does not have to make a profit as the budget of every agency increases for the most part every year. For example, and as an example only, a number of fake government jobs might involve creating and maintaining a web site that no one visits and populating it with fake reports (fake statistics, etc.) that no one looks at.
Why? Just based on my personal observation. Not that I am a sociologist or social scientist. Of course my work experience is in Washington DC. There was some drudgery in the commute to be sure, but I never observed any drudgery in the work place. The fake fancy titles people have in DC jobs I believe alone create a certain self esteem. For example, there are "engineers" in the Federal Government who do not have an engineering degree and do not engineer anything.
I agree, "sanitation engineers" pick up my garbage and they also take courses in college on that very subject. Most people realize the truth of the old adage that if you love what you do you will never "work" a day in your life and they try to find some aspect of whatever it is they do that truly engages them. The thing is that this is not an easy thing and most people are only partly successful at it, if at all when it should be the main aspect of all our careers We are approaching a society of plenty and we seem to be working against it. I don't think that makes sense.
That is the main teaching of conservative mythology and it is very debatable if not completely false. Most every government in the world is practicing some form of Keynesianism nowadays and while they certainly aren't without problems they don't seem to be in the throes of a major and ongoing economic depression like in the 1930s either
If you think the election was a mess with fraud, well, it has nothing on the food banks. The media could run a 13 week series on the fraud, stealing, abuse, cronyism, skimming and cheating of the whole food stamp, food bank, and scamming of the welfare system. You can bring it up to the higher ups and the majority of the time you will get a answer like "It's the children we cant let suffer". It is just not poor Americans who receive help but it is undercut by well off working people, illegals, and even coyote's of the food chain.
I have been loading up on gold and silver and would like to get into bit coin. The problem I have there, even though I believe it will be a major currency in the future, no one seems to be able to tell me exactly what is backing it up. I can understand I get a digital wallet and a digital key to my wallet , use paper currency that I doubt has much assets to back it up to buy Bit Coin , I put the Bit Coin in my Wallet and they tell me it's secure through a series of blockchain codes, then I can buy and sell with those who will except it. (Pay Pal just recently). Yet I can't figure out what assets were able to make Bitcoin go from $9000 to over $18000 in 8 months. At least with my gold and silver I can see it and hold it.
Back in 2015 the IMF issued a warning statement that US public finances and debt were on an unsustainable path. https://www.pgpf.org/blog/imf-warns-of-rising-us-debt Our CBO has said the same thing. https://www.pgpf.org/analysis/2019/06/cbo-warns-historic-debt-levels-pose-substantial-risks
Their answer would go something like this. 1. Build more abortion clinics so there would be less children' 2. Mandate, like in China, one child per family. Oh wait! that gives us less people to support Social Security. 3. Bring in more illegals and let them do the work.
You make an interesting point. Maybe people don't worry about passing their debt on to the next generation because they have no decedents to get stuck with the debt. Rather they import Mexicans and Central Americans to get stuck with the debt.
They'll just withhold medical treatment for people over 75. The party which kills "inconvenient" babies will soon be okay with letting "inconvenient" seniors die after their productive years. Joe Biden’s chief adviser on medical issues and member of the candidate’s Public Health Advisory Committee has been called Dr. Death due to his belief that old people are just unnecessary resource suckers, and that health care should primarily be reserved for younger working people who are still contributing to the economy. https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/joe-bidens-dr-death/ https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-coronavirus-adviser-zeke-emanuel-age-75-the-atlantic-essay
This isnt the fault of capitalism. Bread lines are caused by to much government intervention because the government tells the people who can and cant make money and bail people out left and right.
Another poster on a different tread was asking me for this information and I couldn't find it. Thanks for the post. Should I cancel all my health insurance now and order burial insurance? According to him I'm long overdue. Sorry kiddies, I'm just a selfish old man.
That first Biden quote was RIGHT ON. That was a message that should resonate with conservatives EVERYWHERE. He's telling younger individuals to stop whining and start DOING. Is THAT a message you see as offnsive? Please tell me. I want to know.
This isn't an excuse for failing to help those in serious trouble today due to our TOTALLY FAILED approach to the COVID19 assault on our economy. Driving people to the street, allowing them to starve - these are NOT acts that can be justified by concern that we will have smaller budgets in the future.
Wall street knows they get bail outs so they dont care they live like fat cats in times of growth and in times of retraction. No matter what they get paid.
The shutting down is because of COVID. When people simply refuse to do follow medical advice as simple as washing hands, wearing masks and not congregating, THIS is what happens. It's what was projected to happen. It's what was communicated would happen. The current situation is EXACTLY what was known. NOBODY can claim otherwise. And, increasing the number of people infected isn't going to change that.
I agree with this one. When I hear how our economy is actually doing rather well (based on stock market numbers) I really want to puke. Ask people who used to work at Tyson when Tyson KNEW they were infecting multi-city population centers and then shut down. There are lawsuits pointing out that management level employees were taking part in a pool, betting on how many workers would be infected by their practices as they used their legal and economic force to require people to come to work - like killing their healthcare, etc.
So, people won't do the BASIC stuff to slow transmission. And, then healthcare workers are supposed to risk their lives to SAVE these ASS HATS!!