Maybe a Recession Will Benifit The Economic Structure

[Jens]

I may end up offending those among you with degrees in this rant, so just be warned.

I am so sick and tired of hearing about all the poor high school graduates that aren't going to be able to go to college because of the recession.  Oh, poor you.  Even without a recession, I and many of my friends growing up wouldn't have had the chance, ad I know that we are not exactly the minority. 

To be fair, it is quite possible, with the different scholarships, student loans, and working multiple jobs, to put yourself through college, these are not the people I am speaking about, as I think they exemplify the American spirit of bettering yourself. 

I hear so much crying and complaining on the radio, that these high schoolers are having severe anxiety over the fact that they won't be able to go to the school of their choice.  At least you get a choice!!! 

Maybe this is just the kind of thing that our people need.  To not have higher education handed to them.  There will still be a great deal of rich people, whose kids get to go to college anyway, but they can end up having the higher positions regardless, because of connections.  That is what this society is all about anyway, connections, and kickbacks.  Who do you know, and who can you bribe.  Maybe more people need to be in a workforce position, and leave the professional positions to those who truly desire it.  Those who desire it enough to work their butts off to get it, and the rich (which is the way it has always been anyway).

And I am not sure I correctly understand the complaints, or the situations, I am just sick and tired of hearing people whine about it.  If you don't like your situation, do something about it.  That is something I have had to work through before it reached critical mass, with the thought of country vs. city. 

And what is so bad about being a carpenter, plumber, mason, baker, cook, electrician, mailman, farmer, truck driver, etc; instead of a doctor, lawyer, psychoanalyst, psychotherapist, psychiatrist, or any of the other psych's, etc.  If I meet one more idiot telling me that they are majoring in sociology, philosophy, or theater, I just might scream!  Thats it, use all that money, and all that oportunity as heating fuel.  Just burn it, go ahead, those of us without your opportunity won't care.  We won't worry about the family down the street that we could house and feed with your $20k a year for school that you are pissing away, so that you can spend the first ten years of your life after college as a waiter, bike messenger, or bartender while you "figure out who you are"!  You are supposed to do that in the years you spent in college!

I know what is so bad with learning how to cook, clean, built, etc, instead of analyze, document, diagnose...There isn't as much money in it!  Thats right, it all boils down to money.  How much can you make, so that you can keep spending, spending, spending!  That's what our world has come to, God has been replaced by $$$$$$$$$$!!!  Maybe it was always this way, but for some reason I seem to think that there was a time when money wasn't everything.  I like to think that there was a time, when spending time with your family, hard work, conserving resources, feeling good about yourself because you did a good job, honoring God with everything you do; having ethics, having morals, and doing things that directly reflect them, keeping your word; that those things meant something.  Integrity.  I like to think that there was a time when it was ok not to make the same amount of money, or have all the same things as the person next door.  Like I said, maybe things have never been this way.  Maybe I am a Utopian dreamer.  Maybe I long for something that just can't be. 

The funniest part about it, is that it doesn't even effect me.  We have worked our way beyond these things.  Oh sure, we still want things, but we don't base what we want on what others have, anymore.  There was a time when we did, but it is oh so much more pure now.  There is a way it effects me though.  I want others to wake up!  There is no reason for schools to basically tell kids that if they don't go to college they can't succeed in life.  There is no alternative to higher education if you want to be a healthy person, society would have us think.

We have a banner in our house, that hangs on the wall.  It has a picture of Buddha on it, and says, "happiness depends not upon who you are, or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think"  Unfortunately, people think they have to have stuff to be happy, because that is what they were raised to believe. 

The Kingdom of God is not just coming, the Kingdom of God is here.  It has been here all along.  That was the good news that Jesus was bringing.  Those are the words he spoke.  There is a Utopia.  It is not only possible, it is available!  It is not a locked door, to which nobody has the key.  The key is within us all. 

So here is my good news (too bad I am preaching to the choir!), are you ready?  You can be a success!  Your life can be a success, regardless of who you are, where you come from, what status you hold in society.  You are free!  You are free to be happy, successful, loving!  Nobody can take that away from you!  But you can hide it from yourself with lies.  If you unlock the can't in your life, you can open up the door on a whole new world of knowledge, feeling, success.  Can't is the most abhorrent word in the English language.  Once you have said you can't do something, you close the door to success.  Nothing is impossible.  You may have to change things within you to make them a possibility, but you can always change the way you feel and think, you can seldom change the way the world is.

That's all I'm gonna write for now.  Thanks to anyone who felt like reading this drivel

[Sonoran]

Jens, I like what you have to say.  I have been thinking about what you have said, off and on, for a couple of years now.

I read a book in school last semester called, "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley.  It reminds me a lot of these sentiments.  And it has helped me understand why things may be the way they are.

The way our society exists today can only be maintained through constant growth of industry. Also, in economics I learned how a economy can be divided into three categories.  Agriculture, services, and manufacturing.  The thing that has catapulted the U.S. economy has been a dramatic shift from ag and manufacturing to services.  Ag and manufacturing don't bring in the bank, I guess you can say. And you are right, it's all about the piggy.

It seems to me that if economists have realized this, services are the best way to maintain a strong economy, that there would be encouragment from people in power to constantly shift more and more of the workforce to services: "doctor, lawyer, psychoanalyst, psychotherapist, psychiatrist" It was the only reason that the U.S. pulled away from the rest of world, given that and the fact that the U.S. needs constant growth to survive, there is an inherent shift towards services.

What is the cause?  I don't know, I think propaganda has been a cause.  I constantly feel encouraged to get an education so I can live a happy life. But that drives me crazy because when they say "happy" it is only their definition of happy.  I have my own, you have your own, an Innuit has his own, and an Ethiopian will have his own.  So we are being encouraged to go to school to be happy...we take it to heart.
The government was created to protect the people. (take it easy on this one Glenn ; ) )  Given the dramatic population growth caused be the industrial revolution, and the requirement of supporting the people, I feel like the government has a huge say in how the people think and what they learn at school.  If they are trying to protect us, ensuring that the economy is strong is important, and this is may be how they are doing it. By causing a shift in the mindset of the population, the idea that money is important, in order to encourage them to go to school and partake of these jobs.

In the end, I am happy because regardless of what is happening in the world.  I have my free agency to choose what I want, and live the way I want to. I do my best to be aware and I live with faith that I may be happy...and hopefully, someday, understand what that means. 

Maybe the best way to do that is to live in the world, instead of letting the world live in me.

[Jens]

I haven't ever read "A Brave New World", but should.  I would also like to read "Atlas Shrugged".  I like what you had to say about propaganda, and the government thinking that they are protecting us.  I am a bit crazy too, in that I think they try to "protect" us too much, and in-so-doing harbor our spirit, technology too. 

There are some curious things with our society that I think about a lot.

We start a lot of fires, that wouldn't be started otherwise, I think Smokey the Bear said 90% of wildfires the other day.  But then we put out the fires that should burn to cleanse areas, because they threaten houses and such.  Sometimes they don't threaten us at all!  But those natural fires, need to happen, where they are happening.  It isn't natures fault that we build in fire prone places.  But we make up for it, albeit in the wrong areas, by starting fires ourselves. 

We have come to be too many in this world.  Technology, and industry have gone too far I sometimes think.  We keep people alive when it is their time to die, too often.  Death sucks, but it is no less a part of life than birth.  And we end more lives before they have a chance, than we should (not that I think we should at all).  Mothers used to die in childbirth quite often, as would babies.  Sure, we can boast about all of our modern medicine, and the fact that we can give people pacemakers, and transplants, and bypass surgeries, but what we are really doing as a race, is playing God.  We are trying to decide when the right time to go is.  I don't think that is right.
     And this hits really close to home too, because if not for modern medicine, my mother may not be alive.  She hemorrhaged when I was born, flat lined, and through transfusions and such was brought back to life.  Then, when I was 3, she broke her c-3 in a rollover (in Groveland, CA BTW).  She may not have survived without care.  Then again, she may have survived both of those things.  My wife's grandmother has a defibrillating pacemaker.  She would be dead a few times now if not for that.  She is pretty young too, early 70's.  But her daughter, and granddaughter (DW) agree with me still.

Like I said, I may be borderline insane, anti-establishment, separatist, whatever, just a few things I think about sometimes.

Liked your comment about "the piggy" too.  Reminds me of the commercials for feedthepig.org, have you seen them?  talk about creepy!

[southernsis]

I like what you have to say. I am tired of the poor me attitude. I scrimped and saved and slaved to get through college. No hand outs then or now. The things I have, I worked my tail off to get. I am not going to get started or it might turn into a 12 page essay.

[peternap]

I'm not sure why you think you would offend anyone Jens. Actually, your right!

I have a degree but worked to pay for it. My parents did make up the difference so I had no loans. I'm certainly not ashamed of that.
I labored for brick layers, carpenters, electricians, blew holes in rock for a crew laying sewer pipe in the mountains and later became a carpenter.

My son also has a degree but worked the same as I did.

I've said here and everywhere else that the single biggest problem with the workforce in this country, is we have nothing but managers. Labor, is a dieing art.

To be honest, my education didn't really start until after college and continues to this day.