The Death of Consumerism

Reich begins to paint the new picture of our economy with a clarity that's been lacking as of late while addressing the underlying assumption of the new found love of Keynes:

The first assumption is that American consumers will eventually regain the purchasing power needed to keep the economy going full tilt. That seems doubtful. Median incomes dropped during the last recovery, adjusted for inflation, and even at the start weren’t much higher than they were in the 1970s. Middle-class families continued to spend at a healthy clip over the last thirty years despite this because women went into paid work, everyone started working longer hours, and then, when these tactics gave out, went deeper and deeper into debt. This indebtedness, in turn, depended on rising home values, which generated hundreds of billions of dollars in home equity loans and refinanced mortgages. But now that the housing bubble has burst, the spending has ended. Families cannot work more hours than they did before, and won’t be able to borrow as much, either.

It's what's been missing from all these haphazard calculations in talking about the recovery packages that Congress and the Treasury have been passing and it's a big part of the reason that everything remains frozen: people have changed. Americans have wizened far quicker than anyone thought to the new era of what Thomas Friedman calls the Climate-Energy-Era, the death of consumerism and the new birth of frugal living and conscientious buying. We're certainly not completely there yet and educational outreach will be needed to fully prep the public for the coming shake-up of a system built on living beyond one's means, but it's a good sign.

What's not so good is that all of the assumptions about what will get this economy moving again have to be rethought; freeing up credit won't matter if people are cautious about using it (as they should be).

People have gotten smarter. Now the economy needs to catch up.

For more, visit Rants, Raves and Rethoughts

Head

What's that on the moon?

Has it ever occurred to you.....that you might have been lied to?

Unidentified Lunar Objects have been found in NASA photographs of the moon.

Visit Lunomaly Research Group and see more photographic evidence of unusual structures found on the moon.

Noonan's Reinforcements

She gets it, my core argument for the relocation of the theatre and our greatest source of untapped potential in these dismal days:

And people want to belong to something. If you’re a vibrant member of a church in America, or a casual member of a vibrant church, you’re part of something. If you’re a member of a family that’s together, you are part of something. A lot of Americans do not have these two things.

But she also seems to exhibit a typical conservative, irrational revision of history:

There’s something else going on, a new or renewed sense of national shame. Or communal responsibility. Or a sense of reckoning. Whatever it is it’s a reaction to the excesses of the O’s, a reaction against the ways of those who caused the mess on Wall Street and Main Street. It is a reassertion that there actually are rules, and that it is embarrassing to break them in a way so colorfully damaging and destructive to everyone else.

Ahem.

Pardon me, Ms. Noonan, but were you not part of the Reagan Administration that brought us this mess through the castration of effective government as a market motivator and regulator? The "rules" she cites are the very same "rules" that the Reaganites worked to remove or neuter.

The task at hand now is to revive government as an effective tool in motivating people to make the changes in their lifestyle necessary to ensure our survival; that means a smarter, larger and more demonstrably results-driven Washington.

For more, visit Rants, Raves & Rethoughts

I like the truth

because it's much

more disturbing than lies.

Boy Soldiers

In over twenty countries around the world, children are direct participants in war. Denied a childhood and often subjected to horrific violence, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children are serving as soldiers for both rebel groups and government forces in current armed conflicts.

Don't Do It

What is the amount

of money in "Gift Cards"

that went unredeemed last year?

$Eight Billion (8,000,000,000) Dollars!

Okay, so that's FREE money for corporations?

I think I'll give CASH.

fuel for thought?

The most logical support for the US auto industry is from
the oil companies and their record profits.
Have you heard anyone imply this connection?

I'm listening...

I can hear you crying...



And I'm sending love...♥

Paradoxymorons

The asset holes dumped on their food.
So . . to start a new garden, of budding credit,
plow all debt under, as educational statistics,
and encourage tending the weeds as mulch.

"I like to watch" ~ Chauncey Gardener~Being There

You eat poison

Your world is poison.......

Greeting from Tough Times

...

I don't know about you Bernie,
but I'm not giving
a Bone to Betsy
this holidays.

Mix Media by C.L.DeMedeiros

A Citizen

A "Citizen"

has the courage

to make the safety of the human race

their personal responsibility.

Starship Troopers.

Desired things........

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let not this blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

--- Max Ehrmann, 1927

The Corporate Myth

They don't pay any taxes........they pass the taxes on to you.

It started with price fixing........then it evolved into supply manipulation.

And then they get tax breaks........for paying no taxes.

Call your doctor

Call your doctor if

you experience an erection

lasting longer than four hours.

POW!

Prisoner of War.




You're next.

Lovers seeking for their other half

Us

All we need to do is think outside of the box.

To be above conventional thought is to win.

A universal Revolution of The Mind.

To win, against evil, for ourselves, for the world,

For The Sake Of Humanity

There is no enemy

Is this the enemy?



Remember...............

You don't hate....people

You hate what they........do.

The Anti-Gay GOP

Andrew Sullivan sees why they might think it's the way of the future:

"New polling on Prop 8 reveals the kind of political coalition that focusing on same-sex marriage has created for the GOP:

• Evangelical or born-again Christians (85%) were far more likely than others (42%) to vote yes.
• Three in four Republicans (77%) voted yes, two in three Democrats (65%) voted no, and independents were more closely divided (52% yes, 48% no).
• Supporters of Republican presidential candidate John McCain were far more likely than those who backed President-elect Barack Obama to vote yes (85% vs. 30%).
• Latinos (61%) were more likely than whites (50%) to vote yes; and 57 percent of Latinos, Asians, and blacks combined voted yes. (Samples sizes for Asians and blacks are too small to report separately.)
• Voters without a college degree (62%) were far more likely than college graduates (43%) to vote yes.

The trouble for the GOP is that this is one of very few issues on which Asians, Latinos and blacks vote for them. But it reinforces the identity of the party as primarily that of white, less educated fundamentalist voters. I've no doubt there's a place for such a party in American politics. I also have little doubt it will never be a majority."

There is no way the GOP survives as a national party if it goes down this road. Too much of history is against it. And while the Latinos might seem to be a part of this coalition, they run for the hills once the rest of the coalition has a say on immigration.

However it's the easiest route, and it's the route that's cost them this year.

The real touchstone will be the 2010 nominees.

For more, visit Rants, Raves and Rethoughts

UnEdit Life

Watching MTV's latest documentary on Britney Spears, I started thinking about the latest trend in reality TV and the vicious editing that accompanies it.

What would real life be like without the cautious and dramatic editing of people trying to get a point across? What if we really could see a person unfiltered? I'm forced to wonder who in our celebrity culture would survive such a treatment.

For more, visit Rants, Raves and Rethoughts

That warm feeling

Give......and get that warm feeling.

I thought of something that might be a good idea.

I was thinking about giving......chickens......don't laugh.

You can mail day old baby chicks to anywhere in the world.

Imagine a box of 100 baby chicks arriving at a poor village somewhere.

Chickens are a sustainable source of eggs and meat and need little to thrive and grow.

Maybe we can link the "Mystery Game" idea to being able to send chickens to the less fortunate.

Everybody should have a few chickens.......they're a great source of eggs, meat, natural fertilizer and insect control, and a unique pet for hours of family fun.

f u cn raed tihs

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh?

yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Of Hope

'ho.ho.ho.pe"

I have hope that we finally can rise out of the Cold War and out of the quick Buick buck mentality and begin to find that it is one earth and that we all have one future.

We shall see, but I think despite the economy we have our heads out of the sand and can find something less material and more liberating and collaborative.

I had a bad cough all of November, got it the night Obama was elected. It was an O'Henry moment for O'Moi at the moment America shifted.

In all the despair I do see hope. I so want to see a change for the better. I cannot wait for January 20th and then for all of spring's flowers.

Echoes

Open your eyes

Don't
drink
the
Kool-Aid.

Sideshow Bob

You can't handle the truth!

No truth handler are you!

I deride your truth handling abilities!

A good day

Today is a good day to die.....Klingon proverb.





worf by darrel bevan

First of all I'd like to say I'm honored to be an author of the GlobaLove Think Tank.

Not many can say that, hahaha...

Secondly, the title, I guess is a link to my blog 'For The Sake of Humanity' and you should read it.

Global love is what we should all be advocating...Humanity will destroy itself at war, at conflict.

Humanity has to stop fighting against itself and this will only be brought together by all of us, since we all collectively are humanity.

Why don't we do these things...

For The Sake of Humanity