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Is the middle class of America turning into a giant class of .. bitterness?
I've been talking to a few people, and, they've all seem to just.. bite my head off.
"Gas prices is RISING. It's RIDICULOUS. It's going to be $5 in no time!"
Me: "Well, with a falling dollar - the prices are just going to keep rising. And, shut up. It was suppose to go to $4 last summer, it never did. Stop listening to the media and pseudo-economists."
And, of course. I get slammed with "You know nothing", or that the "news is always right". etcetc.
And, when I was at lunch with a friend the other day, she starts complaining on how her dad might lose his job to a "towel-head".
I told her that's the way of the world, and if he still wants to be on top - He's going to need to work harder.
and, of course. that sent her for a loop.
But, It's just so.. pathetic. How bitter some people can be. Just, get over it and try your hardest. Ranting and complaining is not going to get you anywhere. And, thank god my parents don't complain, and are able to fill up the suburban without losing an arm. But, listening to some people - Eeek. It's annoying.
The economic world order has changed. Until people can accept that and adapt to new realities, there will be plenty of bitterness that the US can no longer call the shots as easily as we did a generation ago.
Location: Sitting on a bar stool. Guinness in hand.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by metropolistraffic
Is the middle class of America turning into a giant class of .. bitterness?
I've been talking to a few people, and, they've all seem to just.. bite my head off.
"Gas prices is RISING. It's RIDICULOUS. It's going to be $5 in no time!"
Me: "Well, with a falling dollar - the prices are just going to keep rising. And, shut up. It was suppose to go to $4 last summer, it never did. Stop listening to the media and pseudo-economists."
And, of course. I get slammed with "You know nothing", or that the "news is always right". etcetc.
And, when I was at lunch with a friend the other day, she starts complaining on how her dad might lose his job to a "towel-head".
I told her that's the way of the world, and if he still wants to be on top - He's going to need to work harder.
and, of course. that sent her for a loop.
But, It's just so.. pathetic. How bitter some people can be. Just, get over it and try your hardest. Ranting and complaining is not going to get you anywhere. And, thank god my parents don't complain, and are able to fill up the suburban without losing an arm. But, listening to some people - Eeek. It's annoying.
Look the sheople are emotional, shortsighted folk that don't realize that we are in the midst of a major change. Just stay YOUR course and plan for YOUR rise in America.
Ya know. My father told me 15 years ago that it really wasn't worth the young folks to work because he thought the boomers were going to leave us a mess to clean that would break us both financially and socially. And while I understand his point of view. I know that I can't honestly take that advice. In fact I have to do the exact opposite. I know it's going to be harder to make a living in my lifetime as opposed to years past. But I will roll up my sleeves and work and try to make risky but calculated investments. Hopefully with this simple strategy I can maybe get a little ahead of the game.
So WTF I going to give it my best shot and if it doesn't work. At least I tried.
To all the sheople out there that got to b!!ch but do nothing about. Either get busy living or get busy dying.
we had it good for a long time. good times are now drying up. good times were earned with labor movements and nothing else. when we got rich we got rid of them.
many 70's, "new americans dreams" turned out to be false prophets riding on the back of good times. but the most significant product of the good life, kidults and permaparents.
we could not bear to deny them the things that we never had, of course that is what made us strong. see those hard working mexican people in the fields picking lettuce thats guna be us in 15 years. tell your kidults not to bother to bring his skateboard when he reports for work in the field, he won't need it.
I'm just looking forward to the upcoming cheap services like therapeutic massages, restaurants, car maintenance, etc. They used to silently call us "ugly Americans" when we traveled to Eastern Europe and ate like kings for pennies on the dollar. Hypothetical question, what will members of the underpaid service sector call those who patronize them if they're both Americans?
Is the middle class of America turning into a giant class of .. bitterness?
I've been talking to a few people, and, they've all seem to just.. bite my head off.
"Gas prices is RISING. It's RIDICULOUS. It's going to be $5 in no time!"
Me: "Well, with a falling dollar - the prices are just going to keep rising. And, shut up. It was suppose to go to $4 last summer, it never did. Stop listening to the media and pseudo-economists."
And, of course. I get slammed with "You know nothing", or that the "news is always right". etcetc.
And, when I was at lunch with a friend the other day, she starts complaining on how her dad might lose his job to a "towel-head".
I told her that's the way of the world, and if he still wants to be on top - He's going to need to work harder.
and, of course. that sent her for a loop.
But, It's just so.. pathetic. How bitter some people can be. Just, get over it and try your hardest. Ranting and complaining is not going to get you anywhere. And, thank god my parents don't complain, and are able to fill up the suburban without losing an arm. But, listening to some people - Eeek. It's annoying.
Well your advice was extremely impractical, thats why they bit your head off.
Working harder has nothing to do with anything. If a company is doing bad because of a recession then they might get laid off, no amount of working hard is going to change that. Supposedly companies are bringing in H1B workers because they work for less than American's do. So, again nothing to do with working hard.
Scare in rising gas prices will have something to do with speculators. But it has far more to do with diminishing supply. With diminishing supply comes more work to extract the resources, with more work comes more expense. That expense is then passed on to the consumer.
I think more research on your part would better equip you to have more robust discussions with your friends.
Americans are bitter because we have been spoiled, run up huge personal and national debt, and now the bills are coming due. Those of us who are Boomers are crying because we thought the world owed us a cushy 30 year-long retirement where we could sit on our ***es in our McMansions and do whatever we wanted. Now that we see that is probably not the way it will be at all, we're all ticked off about it. The Gen-X'ers, Millenials, etc. are all twisted off because they can see that they can't and won't have it as good as their indulgent parents--and they will blame them for ****ing away the country's resources and wealth. Of course, all of those generations haven't changed their wasteful ways one iota, either. They want it all, too.
It is a bitter pill to swallow, knowing that you may in the first generation in close to 3/4's of a century to have it considerably worse economically than did your predecessors, but that is exactly the bed we have made for ourselves--recklessly wasting and squandering our natural and financial resources on wanton consumption has made it so. I have quoted these passages from President Theodore Roosevelt several times before on City-data, but it bears repeating. The guy saw quite clearly what was happening to the US over a century ago:
Quote:
"We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted...So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life."
"Arbor Day - A Message to the School-Children of the United States" April 15, 1907
and:
Quote:
"The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others."
Address to the Deep Waterway Convention, Memphis, TN, October 4, 1907
It is worse now than it was a decade ago this is a fact. We did this to ourselves, that is a fact. But what in your mind should be done besides lessening our consumeristic ways and fixing the current situation?
Why do you think GW and the Washington DC crowd are giving away helicopter money. They are just hoping they can keep a lid on this mess until they can get out. I bet they have nightmares about hoards marching on DC with ropes and pichforks.
Wild..those of us that see it are in a minority. The majority blames the Corporations and want the government to "fix it". Not many Americans want to cut back voluntarily and live a more conservative lifestyle.
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