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Termyn8or -> RE: How Are You Coping with the Recession? (6/20/2008 9:14:33 PM)
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Evil, I had a Laredo a long time ago, but then my time was worth more than money so I gave up on it.
DA, we are in a recession, if you discount the false flag of the portion of the GDP that is inflated through government contracts. You and I might not be affected so badly, because we have skills and good jobs. But think of the people making ten or twelve bucks an hour. They are very aware of the circumstances. You seem to only see the world through your own lens, which is fine most of the time, but you fail to realize how many people who were just barely making it when things weren't so bad. I didn't stop buying store boughten cigs because of money, except in that I refuse to pay top dollar for something other than what I want.
Perhaps you have never been poor DA, and maybe that is the problem with you comprehending the plight of the lower middle and upper lower class. I can understand this, and even for me it is easy to forget. But those days were real. Now those not-so-good times befall another generation, and when you talk that there is no excuse and shit like that you piss people off.
But people did not always have the right background. It is not always their fault. It is their Parents' fault, but then does that befall their Grandparents ? Their Greatgrandparents ?
The cycle of poverty in this country is vicious, it is very hard to pull yourself up by the bootstraps so to speak. It used to be easier. The fact that it is hard does not bother me, the reason does though. It is people who make money for nothing. That doesn't necessarily mean investors with venture capital, that they actually risk.
If you became more cognizant of the situations other people are in, you would be much more well recieved. I know alot of people at the bottom of the barrell, the end of their rope. One is even stealing utilities. I do not help for the same reasons you would give, they put themselves there. I have helped people in the past and found that it is hopeless. It is for them to experience the consequences of their folly, not me. I got my job and I got my money. I worked for that and I'll be damned if I'll give it away to someone who pisses it away.
You ever loan someone like a hundred bucks and then find that they are looking for weed ? I have. Talk about cut off. Right now I am owed about three grand in personal loans and you know what ? due to the recession it ain't getting any higher. I no longer loan money out to almost anyone. Even the one person I would loan money to owes about $200 from bailing him out of jail. No way. He did pay a good part of it off in dribs and drabs, it was $500, but it has been months. Enough months for him to buy his olady a birthday gift. See what I mean ?
People engineer their own success or demise, that is a fact. Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. At least it used to.
Take a guy who had a job that got outsourced to a foreign land, he thought he was secure in his job but he was wrong. This is happening all over the place, and there isn't a thing that can be done about it. Brainwashed Americans think they are irreplaceable and nobody is irreplaceable. They think "Oh they'll be back once they find out those gooks can't do it", but they continuously underestimate foreigners. We are bombarded with the lie that we are number one yea yea yea, and they fall for it.
They may be ready for skimming off the gene pool, but it is not always their fault. But that's the breaks. I agree on that. I spent alot of time learning to get where I am today, and I owe that to noone. When others start thinking that way, things will change. Let the babies be born in this un-recession, let them from the first day of life realize that it is a struggle. Impel them to learn and to work smart. Working hard does not pay off, working smart does.
In this country we (they that is) must learn to work smart, we can't compete with the wages in other countries so we only have one thing with which to fight, intellect and reasoning. These things are stifled in most large businesses, and that is a shame. Some of these executives must share the blame.
There is always going to be a contingent of the population who cannot grasp technical issues, who will never underastand an electronic or hydraulic circuit. Some will not be able to even be carpenters, can't grasp fractions. Normally in a society there are menial jobs for these people and they can earn a living. If it is running a punch press or grinding flash off of castings. Things like that. But we have all that done offshore now. It has affected many people.
There are many people without many skills, but they are willing to work and have a good work ethic, and over the years they had jobs that didn't pay too bad, and that kept them from bettering themselves. They thought they were doing fine. They were wrong.
If you were to give advice, what would it be ? Go backin time to when you were a teenager and join the USAF ? Impossible, but not a bad idea. Everyone in my family who served did it in the USAF and they are they most technically oriented branch of the service, followed closely by the Navy. But you can't go back in time. So what do they do now ?
In the few manufacturing jobs left here at this point, you can run a CNC machine and be lucky to make over ten bucks an hour. But if you program the CNC machine you make twice that or better. But you are working ten hours a day and have four kids, where is the time for school ? And it is too late anyway.
I am lucky, I could go to school. I can make a decent living on thirty, or even less, hours a week. But this is because of my background and upbringing. When I was seven years old I was the biggest pest, they got me a YPSE, which is one of the best books ever written. It stands for Young People's Science Encyclopedia. I would run into the living room and jump on one of mt parent's lap and say "Look at this !". Whatever TV show they might have been watching was relegated to the back burner immediately, I was more important.
See, so many people did not have that. While I do have some misconceptions about things, at least I have a conception. I do not memorize. While I do have some misconceptions, I have a broader view of the sciences than most. Even scientists. Robert Heinlin said that specialization is for insects. I am not an insect.
I enjoy knowing how to build a fusion cannon, not that I ever will, but I know how. It wouldn't do any good. That is what hurts, what is hard to deal with. People with money tend to isolate themselves from the masses, I have chosen not to do that. I see it every day and I try to help if at all possible, but I have realized that monetary help is useless, it is like giving a Man a fish.
All people out there making seven or eight bucks an hour, realize that good jobs no longer land in your lap. You need knowledge and/or training to get the better jobs. And those are the jobs there will be. They ship most of the metal to China and they ship us back plastic. They can get people so cheap we never can compete with simple hard work. Get that through your head. Skills are what made this country really tick in the past and skills are what can do it now. Manual labor, hell, let the Mexicans in, who cares.
If it is your career goal to pick cotton, I don't know what to tell you. These low paying jobs in this country are supposed to be for kids who want to work and help the family by at least buying their own stuff, clothes and such. I did. When I was a teenager I got a job, later the boss found out I was working illegally because I had no work permit. But I bribed my Mom with ½ my take home pay, which was usually as much as her's. I helped the family and I lived the life. I always had money for............anything. She supported us on $75 a week for a time, but the thing is, I would show her my pay stub and remit half. Then I had to give my (sinister) sister a twenty to shut her up.
But I always had money. I almost never had less than a hundred bucks in my pocket. But I earned it. And I didn't earn it by working harder, I earned it by working smarter.
It was not expressed that way at the time, it was just how it was, years later someone said to me "Don't work hard, work smart". It clicked. I agreed completely of course.
Now we got DA over here who seems to have gotten his money to work for him. That is all fine and good even though I believe that futures markets a speculation should be against the law. His properties are making money or he would get rid of them. If he has his fingers in the futures market, well the big boys do, why shouldn't he get a slice of the pie ?
These are facts of life and life is unfair. Of that there is no doubt, but at this time I would like to encourage people to see other points of view. I can do this, but I will have to explain.
Some here are highly possesive of skills, and thus earning power. I am. I can do many things, and I learn faster than the Cray. I have seen life from both sides, and therefore I deem myself qualified to speak to this subject.
Some who posses these marketable skills have never been poor. You have to understand that there are some things that they do not understand. The haves always been a have, but not a have not. But you can't fault them for this. It was not their choice to whom to be born. They may have been provided for very amply and may even be spoiled. But that, if you think about it , is also not their fault. It is very hard for them to change and see life from a different perspective.
And then there are the people who have shit jobs making shit money who can't make ends meet. Is that their fault ? It could be but I am more likely to lay it on the Parents. Set the kids in front of the TV and forget about it. Yeah right. Then the only words they need to know are "Do you want fries with that ?".
There was a movie called Stand And Deliver. In the inner city there was an AP calc class, and this teacher said "algebra is for people who take your order" or something like that. Somehow he insipwed the class and most of his students, from the ghetto, got scholarships and went on to college.
Those students of his had an edge. And I don't know about DA, but I don't gamble without knowing where the edge is. I would prefer to have the edge but that is not always possible.
But from 'the great unwashed' came scientists or engineers, or something, from the ultimate slag of the ghetto. A very encouraging flick actually, I liked it. And from what I heard at the time, it was based on a true story. Edward James Olmos played the teacher IIRC, one of the few actors I remember, because of my percieved importance of theis movie. It shows it, you can come out of the ghetto if you got the balls to do it.
You know, I just thought of something. Most of the most intelligent people I know, and those with the most earning power dropped out of school. Bob Carver dropped out and was CEO of Phase Linear, if anyone remembers they used to buld extremely high quality audio equipment. Later he had a falling out with them as he wantwed to introduce some new technology, and later founded Carver.
His ideas for regulation for a power amp were radical, and none of the staff wanted anything to do with it, they wanted to stick with tried and true designs. Carver flourished for a number of years until imports started killing them. Eventually they had their product made overseas. That was the end of it, just like any American company. Another giant in the industry was Soundcraftsman, which would not capitulate, and died a slow death.
So who was the smarter ?
Having money does not mean you are smart, in fact it could mean quite the opposite.;
So if we can all understand one another a bit better, that would go a long way. This bickering and snickering, baiting and waiting, it all has to go. This is supposed to be a forum where you can show your intelligence, not your stupidity. And we all have both.
Those of you who have never been well to do, well off or even comfortable cannot imagine how life is for the others.
Those of you who have never been poor or in really bad distress cannot imagine how it was for someone who has.
In other words if you ain't lived it you don't know it.
I posted this NOW because I want this rich vs poor shit to stop. And that is what it is. We are getting nowhere with these inside arguments, and that is why I refuse to participate, well usually. Whichever side of the fence you're on, at least undedrstand the enemy. But understand who is the enemy.
If you work at a fast food joint and I make four times what you make, am I your enemy because of that ? I don't think I should be. If that is all you can do AND YOU ASK ME I will tell you to get some skills. The sooner the better. If you do not ask me I will say nothing.
We need to understand each other a bit better, otherwise we are in a hopeless abyss with no chance of ever getting out.
Think about it.
T
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