Our Quality of Life is Declining

[Recidiva]

Riiiiiiiight. That makes perfect sense. They advertise for lifeguards and don't get enough respondents even though you hear the pols and the media wailing and moaning about there not being enough jobs for U.S. adolescents.


So the lifeguard company has to go all the way to the Ukraine to find kids willing to do the job? And you know what? They aren't gonna go home. The one I talked to yesterday is going to try to get a student visa so he can study computer networking. He's never going to go home. He's polite; he's responsible; he's ambitious.


I don't want to hear this crap about the lack of summer jobs for U.S. teenagers.

There are plenty of logical fallacies in there. You can't extrapolate your pool into the entire economy. You can't behave as if lifeguard is a prestigious job and kids today are just too lazy. It's a crappy, exposed, boring, high responsibility and low pay job.

So maybe you should realize that it's better here for a Ukranian being a lifeguard than being in the Ukraine, and that overall is a good thing for the American economy.

Pass some decent immigration reform and the Ukranian can be legally recognized and get his degree and a decent job. Go him.

People that aren't getting summer jobs aren't failing to do so because the jobs aren't there. They have choices and some choose to sit on the couch and not do much more while on mom and dad's dime. That's okay too. The fact that they can do that is also a good thing.

Nobody's starving in this scenario. Just bitching.

 

[trysail]

There are plenty of logical fallacies in there. You can't extrapolate your pool into the entire economy. You can't behave as if lifeguard is a prestigious job and kids today are just too lazy. It's a crappy, exposed, boring, high responsibility and low pay job.

So maybe you should realize that it's better here for a Ukranian being a lifeguard than being in the Ukraine, and that overall is a good thing for the American economy.

Pass some decent immigration reform and the Ukranian can be legally recognized and get his degree and a decent job. Go him.

People that aren't getting summer jobs aren't failing to do so because the jobs aren't there. They have choices and some choose to sit on the couch and not do much more while on mom and dad's dime. That's okay too. The fact that they can do that is also a good thing.

Nobody's starving in this scenario. Just bitching.

Oh, jeeeeeezzzzzuzzzzzzzz.

There are FAR too many people here already.


There are FAR too many spoiled people here already.


I'll take this kid from the Ukraine in a straight up trade for any one of the pants-down-to-their-ass-crack variety.

 

[Cade Is Here]

https://sphotos-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/q71/1157545_10153081560365551_217772786_n.jpg

Obama is killing us.

 

[Cade Is Here]

Oh yeah! Just for sean!!!

https://sphotos-a-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/12960_432409233542527_1278836653_n.png

 

[richard_daily]

Oh, jeeeeeezzzzzuzzzzzzzz.

There are FAR too many people here already.


There are FAR too many spoiled people here already.


I'll take this kid from the Ukraine in a straight up trade for any one of the pants-down-to-their-ass-crack variety.

Well, here's the rub: you aren't and never will be in a position of power.

 

[Kiss_me_gently]

I have no idea about quality of things thirty years ago but I think covered wagon transportation must have sucked for you old fucks.

 

[jeninflorida]

well, first we need to look at the obama and his welfare entitlement

 

[Kiss_me_gently]

well, first we need to look at the obama and his welfare entitlement

Those entitlements have been in place for a very long time under both Rep & Dem. Obama did not invent them.

 

[jeninflorida]

Those entitlements have been in place for a very long time under both Rep & Dem. Obama did not invent them.

but the obama is dishing them out like seanh on crack

 

[Sean Renaud]

but the obama is dishing them out like seanh on crack

If he was we'd be better off. But he's not.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I don't think that the development of medical advances, immunization, antibiotics, refrigeration, social advances and being able to grow a damned tooth from urine cells is outweighed by the fact that some people buy cheap shit.

And yet so often, we find such hatred of the Capitalism which produced this condition.


It is popular today to blame capitalism for everything that displeases. Indeed, who is still aware of what he would have to forego if there were no "capitalism?" When great dreams do not come true, capitalism is charged immediately. This may be a proper procedure for party politics, but in Scientific discussion, it should be avoided.
Ludwig von Mises
A Critique of Interventionalism (1929)

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

In general, the quality of products and services have eroded over the years, while prices continue to rise. There was a time when products will built to last and the customer I was always right.. Now they are built to break when the warranty runs out. If you call for customer service you will talk to a phone tree. If you are lucky enough to get a live person, you will speak to a front line person who's specific job is to insulate the decision makers in the company from the consumer. They will usually be pleasant and will give you and answer but it will be “no”.

The market rules.

The average consumer has proven that they do not want to accept the cost of forever in exchange for the ability to change trends cheaply. This is one of the problems that phased out the VW Beetle. Here you seem to be bemoaning actual Capital creation; you might as well throw wooden shoes at the spinning mills...

 

[Sean Renaud]

And yet so often, we find such hatred of the Capitalism which produced this condition.


It is popular today to blame capitalism for everything that displeases. Indeed, who is still aware of what he would have to forego if there were no "capitalism?" When great dreams do not come true, capitalism is charged immediately. This may be a proper procedure for party politics, but in Scientific discussion, it should be avoided.
Ludwig von Mises
A Critique of Interventionalism (1929)

With fairly good reason.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

For me it is a buyers market.

I can choose to buy cheap products and get exactly what I pay for - cheap shit.

Or I can be selective and buy local quality products.

I agree things are more expensive than they were 10 years ago and 10 years from now people will be saying exactly the same thing.

If you don't like cheap crap then don't buy it.

If not for the developed nations choosing fiat currencies as their way out of proliferate social spending, prices would remain the same.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Sorry, but the fact of the matter is that the 1960 Ford Falcon was a piece of shit by comparison to a 1960 Mercedes 190— and you and I both know which one lasted longer.


The 1968 Pontiac Tempest was a piece of crap.
The 1972 Chevrolet Vega was garbage.
The Chevrolet Nova was a pile of junk.
The 1974 Volkswagen Beetle damn near lasted forever and it was less expensive!


Anybody who was watching knew perfectly well that Detroit was producing shit and was losing an entire generation (and every one to come). They were never going to get those customers back.


It was like watching a slow motion train wreck.

True that...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Our quality of life is declining because we're well on the way to becoming an overpopulated third world country full of entitled malingerers and economic illiterates.

How much do you owe?
http://www.USDebtClock.org​

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Things are different today from 50-60 years ago. I see the differences everywhere.

In the 1960s kids babysat, mowed grass, bagged groceries, delivered papers, pumped gas, cashiered, cooked, etc., to make money. I cant name one kid with a real job today.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I have no idea about quality of things thirty years ago but I think covered wagon transportation must have sucked for you old fucks.

Yeah, but you could get out, walk along side, enjoy nature, the view, the sights the sound of something natural and unlike Justin Beiber screaming through your ear buds...


... those were the days.

Stephen Stinkin' Foster V. Frederick Fucking Chopin

 

[Recidiva]

And yet so often, we find such hatred of the Capitalism which produced this condition.


It is popular today to blame capitalism for everything that displeases. Indeed, who is still aware of what he would have to forego if there were no "capitalism?" When great dreams do not come true, capitalism is charged immediately. This may be a proper procedure for party politics, but in Scientific discussion, it should be avoided.
Ludwig von Mises
A Critique of Interventionalism (1929)

What I most often see is a one-sided depiction of what are essentially options. I'm irritated by movies like "Supersize Me" that make it seem that people have no choices. Even if you eat at McDonalds you could get a damned salad.

I may not agree with the choices that everyone makes, but I am incredibly grateful that the range of choices is available, so people can hand-craft their own handbasket to hell if they wish and they can also carve out a little niche of comfort, or they can just bitch about everyone else's choices.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

With fairly good reason.

We have example plenty of what happens to Democracies, Socialisms and Communisms, from the Greeks to Federalist to even more modern attempts like France, the USSR, the DDR, North Korea, China, Cuba, a large part of the rest of the world, but it was only one nation that tried the most pure forms of Capitalism, Liberty and Self-Determination following the thinking of the great social and economic liberal (classic Liberal) thinkers that came from Martin Luther on that became paragon in less than a century and remained paragon for another century before voting itself, Democratically, into that which had always failed before and each succeeding generation with the smug self assurance that because their standard of living, quality of life as measured by communications, travel and other gadgets, that they had evolved, that their societies had evolved and because they had, this time, you betcha! they were going to finally do it right, the only obvious and easily discernible fallacy in that school of thought being that man had not evolved significantly and human nature had not been abrogated.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

What I most often see is a one-sided depiction of what are essentially options. I'm irritated by movies like "Supersize Me" that make it seem that people have no choices. Even if you eat at McDonalds you could get a damned salad.

I may not agree with the choices that everyone makes, but I am incredibly grateful that the range of choices is available, so people can hand-craft their own handbasket to hell if they wish and they can also carve out a little niche of comfort, or they can just bitch about everyone else's choices.

With that, I might add, that if we do not also employ a little tough love, a little, "You made your bed now lie in it," that we embark upon an experiment in national suicide for government cannot exist in order to correct an individual's or group's bad decisions.


"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
CS Lewis

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Every democracy votes its producers into slavery, and then fails.

 

[Recidiva]

With that, I might add, that if we do not also employ a little tough love, a little, "You made your bed now lie in it," that we embark upon an experiment in national suicide for government cannot exist in order to correct an individual's or group's bad decisions.


"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
CS Lewis

As long as that tough love doesn't involve "You're poor now stay that way, you're sick, now stay that way, you weren't born here, therefore we don't need to treat you like you're a human being."

 

[girlsmiley]

Everything is cheap. I went past a strip mall where the original stores were all replaced by Dollar General, Aldi, Save-A-Lot, etc. People only care about how much something costs; the quality of the item is not a consideration. Kohl's Stein Mart, Wal-Mart. All cheap crap. It is undeniable and it has been going on for 30 yrs. The disparity between haves and have-nots has to be corrected. We were lower middle class and we could afford to shop at nice department stores.

According to who?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

As long as that tough love doesn't involve "You're poor now stay that way, you're sick, now stay that way, you weren't born here, therefore we don't need to treat you like you're a human being."

That would be what we are becoming.

There is a right to association, a right to charity, the humanity to forgive and forget; it is only when you try to impose all of this by force of government that you lock entire groups into niches denied of upward mobility and the ability to choose to improve their condition for government begins destroying Capital and precluding choices. And the worse the outcome becomes and the stronger the calls for more government intervention, the tighter the death spiral grows.