Our Corporate Masters decreed some time ago that the only thing that's important to them is how much profit was made in the most recent fiscal quarter.

Everything else, including long-term investment in infrastructure, staff training, etc. fell by the wayside.

because they barely make enough to make ends meet.

and with the rotten bastard came the idea that greed not only was good but was what to live for.
Starve someone else as long as I get mine became the mentality and playing on that has been the repukes single message since.

Everyone knew they were employed for life even if they had many jobs over the years. Finding work was easy. Everyone also counted on getting regular raises. Everyone had a saving account because things weren't that expensive.

Then mortgage companies and banks realized that when families started having two wage earners because women could now compete for the good jobs and for careers suddenly the cost of housing started going way up. Then came the credit cards with the promise of getting what you want now and paying later.

Then wages stagnated and people could no longer save so they started using their equity and the credit cards to pay for more and more of their debts. Then their jobs started to dry up and be sent to other countries. Suddenly they realized that all they believed about always having a job simply wasn't true anymore.

That's the simplified version but basically that's what happened. Long term thinking and planning went the way of the other dinosaurs.

Now people are forced to think in the short term, like will they have a job next month, or can they stretch their stagnant wages just a little bit further this month because even though they make the same amount as they did years ago everything else is going up.

Perhaps most of us are learning that poverty is like that. You can pull yourself up by your bootstraps all you want and never make a dent into a better life when you're poor. It turns into a vicious cycle. There is no long term to think about when you're struggling now just to make ends meet.

that life should be the same way. Faster, cheaper and available when I want it. Don't care where it came from as long as my immediate needs/desires are gratified.

I agree. Long term thinking has become so old world. Can we trace that back to the "deficits don't matter" and "trickle down" mentalities?

I think that the well off are smart enough to know they need to plan. Hence they are hoarding cash and grabbing as much as possible through tax cuts, off shoring, benefits reduction, eliminating collective bargaining and re-directing any and all social spending to the "job creators".

On the other hand, the poor, unemployed, working poor, temp workers, underemployed are just desperate enough to not have time to worry or care about tomorrow.

Maybe we can blame it on the change in technology...where our world is a lot smaller and faster these days. We live in a society where instant gratification is a virtue...from winning the lottery to making a big killing in the market (many will say its the same thing). In the corporate arena it's the balance sheets that make the measure of the company and the people who run and profit from them. Long term only exists in spurts of short term explosions...it's making as much as you can while you can. In most cases companies have short life spans...either until they go bust or are bought out by someone else, so the short term game is the only game.

Cheers...

Me me me! I want it now! I want "now" now! I want it so immediate, I'm pissed I don't have it already. Why didn't I get this yesterday??!! How come he has it and I don't??? I don't even know what he has!!!

I blame Bob Seager!

It isn't just that they are greedy. It's that they are both greedy and stupid. Those useless "eaters" that the 1% would let starve - they are their customers. The midde class jobs that they ship overseas? That decimates what had traditionally been the best market for their products and services.

The austerity measures the 1% is pushing for right now will, if implemented, diminish their long-term wealth if not quickly reversed. Unless they are to die before 2030, the environmental changes they are causing will also cost them dearly.

Greed, by itself, is not the problem. It is greed, coupled with stupidity and short-term thinking that creates the problems we are facing today.

Does anyone really think Warren Buffett isn't a little bit greedy? Of course he is. He's a great capitalist. But he amassed his fortune because he was able to think long-term. No wonder he isn't a right-winger. He's smart enough to realize that it isn't in the long-term interest of people like him to support those policies.

I'm thinking we only get out of this through an evolutionary change. Otherwise, we are doomed to endless cycles of boom and bust from here on out, with very little progress made.

Cause, it's the one I keep asking that has not any ONE answer. Okay, here comes my stream of consciousness...


I have witnessed across or so 30 years in three different states the "dumbing down" the classes. This results in control over the "low information voter". Now, that strategy seems to have moved into high gear... After "Electing" right wing extremist Republican Governors, unions bust, voters are being purged. Of course those more liberal and down trodden are discouraged FROM voting, or come up with lame ass excuses that the union household didn't like the "recall system" (I've never understood that line of crap)... Look what you get when the proletariat revolts to ever having elected the governor they got in Wisconsin.

Fascism is the total control from the corporate end over "we the people". I'd say Citizen's United, after Bush -v- Gore paved the way for this V-E-R-Y nicely, wouldn't you?

So, now, several subsets of United States citizens are polarized, the "low information" subset seems to move towards the end of the magnet where fascism thrives.

Don, I thought I was going to be a retiree some day, too. My sister has managed to become that. Neither of us wasted our family's budget money, the only difference was that she married someone vested in a retirement plan, and SHE was vested as a teacher.

I did not have that option, though I built my resume to serve the public in career and community. I am trying, trying, trying to figure it out, while restraining myself from becoming part of that polarization.

You see, I have no answer... I'm the choir to whom you preach.