HappySqurriel said:
I do have some sympathy for these individuals, and I can empathize with the position they have been put in; after all, they’re coming face to face with the reality that they have been lied to throughout their entire life and this has been primarily been done by the individuals they looked up to. Unfortunately, since understanding this would require significant changes to their entire value and belief system, these individuals are now looking for a villain who has stolen their fairy tale ending. The real problem these individuals are facing is what I would call the parasite killing the host ... Effectively, there is a portion of the economy that is driven by individuals making choices to buy goods and or services because they want them; not because they’re forced to have them or they’re afraid of the consequences of not having these goods and/or services. This is the portion of the economy I would call the host because it is the real living portion of the economy. On top of that there is a portion of the economy that provides goods and/or services which (in the long run) either improve the productivity of the host economy or minimize the damage of real world risks to individuals. Examples of this are companies like insurance companies, health-care, education, police/fire departments and so on. This is the portion of the economy I would call the symbiote because, while it lives off of the host economy, it provides value that is equal to or greater than its cost to the economy. Many of these individuals who can't find jobs are in parasitic fields, and there are no jobs because there are no more spots available to suck the life-blood of the economy from. |
I chopped a few paragraphs out to save space and focus on the parasite problem. I had read this yesterday, and was going to do a snap reply regarding, "What about people going into retirement?" and that issues faced. But, then I have realized there is a BIG parasite problem. A consumer dirven economy, with a focus on driving people to buy, buy, buy stuff, in order to keep the engines of commerce going, combined with making it said to be purely competitive, where I get mine, and forget everyone else, is producing parasite mentality of consumption, and lack of serving and solving real problems, for a number of reasons.
I had thought last night, about the whole "Zombie apocalypse" thing going about today, and the Romero model for the zombie and I am think that is symbolic of what is going on now. American culture is full of people who expect to get rich, "live the good life" and so on, just because. It is a virus mentality of a consumer, driven by get, get, get, where people are pampered from a young age and told they are "special". Basic laws of economy are, if you want to have more, you bring more to the market. You serve and you solve. You bring goods and services. But, do we have that today? Nope. The idea is to "stimulate" and somehow the Keynesian sugar rush will make everything wonderful. Well, it isn't. Instead, we produce more and more zombies, in the form of individuals and organizations who are out for their own, and getting more. And there is the debt bomb also. And factor in everyone for themselves, and you have zombies.
Society would be a lot better if people learned how to properly serve and see problems, and work to solve them, rather than ending up needy beggers.
