And that makes me the bad guy?
The first time an American called me a libtard, I was devastated. I had no idea what he was talking about because I was unfamiliar with the term, but the tone of his words was aggressive and insulting. I gathered, though, that he thought I was a liberal. Coming from Europe, at that point, I was flabbergasted. Up until that time, I thought I was a conservative.
It took me many years to finally understand that, in America, what we think of as conservative is somewhat slightly left of center in America. We obviously don’t live on the same planet.
Winners vs Humanity.
…
Government has become the tool of party ideologies. It seems to have forgotten the realities of basic administration.
Yes. Yes. And yes. Government does have a moral obligation to its citizens. Even more importantly, government in a republic is supposed to be a purely administrative function. It was never intended to be ideological.
A competent government would ensure that buildings are safe, that there is sufficient potable water for everybody, that the rivers are clean, that bridges are built to withstand its environment, that there is provision for natural disasters, and that the justice and policing systems ensure fairness for…
Did you know that 92% of student debt was owned by the federal government?
About 42 million people in America have student debt — myself included. As there are some 330 million people in America, that means nearly 13% of students are indebted to the federal government which owns virtually all the debt. To add insult to injury, the federal government profits by this in several respects.
- Interest rates are between 2.75% and 5.3%.
- Student debt can never be written off.
- If you die, then your children are obliged to pay your student debt.
- The federal government has made a profit of $135 trillion out of student debt during the last ten years. …
It’s pointless trying to fix oneself if there is no overall understanding of what matters.
The world is so flush with self-help books and articles — all of them focused on helping people live successful (whatever that is) lives. Yet, most of us define success in terms of financial worth. Less is written on living a meaningful life, and when it is, it is normally wrapped in religious poppycock.
It is impossible to live a meaningful life without understanding what is meaningful in the broader spectrum of our planet, earth, all the life on it, and time. To sum up, meaning must be assessed in terms of time, place, and life.
The Greatest Good.
The greatest good for…
The elimination of profit would change our world for the better. Very little else needed.
Survival is a Greater Incentive than Profit
Profit is not the incentive that makes people work. Survival is. The only reason people work for money (which is not the same thing as profit) is because it is the only means of survival they know. If money wasn’t the currency of survival, then they wouldn’t work for money.
Ninety five percent of the world’s population go to jobs which pay a wage or a salary, and salaries and wages are not the same thing as a profit. …
It means that people without money can never progress and the rich get richer!
There is so much I could have done with my life if I had had the money to pay for courses, but I never had that sort of money and I still don’t. An income of a few hundred dollars per month means that every last penny is spent on rent and food. There are many people in the same boat. There simply is no discretionary income, and there is no way out because one needs skills to be able to earn income.
Student Debt
Right now, there are millions of Americans who have their lives permanently hampered by massive student debt…
Do we rely on God? Or can we humans use human techologies and sciences to fix our issues?
Pandemics, Climate Change, and the Doomsday Clock on a Minute to Midnight
There are problems in this world. There have always been problems in this world. It’s the source of the problems that need looking at, though.
In our antiquity, those problems encompassed being chewed to death by animals larger than us, being smitten by viruses and bacteria smaller than us that either crippled us (polio) or killed us (anthrax), or we got raped and slaughtered by invading armies. Life was much tougher in years gone by.
Then we humans got smart. Actually we have been getting smarter for a very long time. For instance, we started writing about 5,500 years ago…
How we can transform our world in nine short years!
There’s an amazing amount that we humans can do if only we set our minds to it. Perhaps we’re too focused on our own interests, but working together, we can transform our world into paradise and stop climate change in its tracks. Yes, we can.
The mere fact that when the pandemic hit, government shut down non-essential business and told us to stay home indicates that our economic and political systems can be adjusted when the reason is great enough. So if we were really serious about changing our world to become more sustainable, eradicating poverty, and stopping climate change…
The root of all wealth is productivity, and the root of all inquality is profit.
The year was 1984. Yuppiedom was a thing. There was this joke going around about a young urban professional driving his Porshe in New York — his arm dangling out the window. A large truck drove by — too fast and too close — and took off the arm of that successful profiteer. “My Rolex! My Rolex is gone,” he yelled.
It was a mindset of money before anything else. Suddenly, the mixed economy I was accustomed to was denigrated by the media, and business became the holy grail of the late 20th century. I spoke to my late father…
If I have to hear one more comment blaming the ANC for South Africa’s woes, I am going to be ill.
Conversation is a strange thing. There are some topics that one shouldn’t talk about ever, and then there are those topics that seem to create immediate bonds — even with complete strangers.
When I came back to South Africa nearly six years ago, I wasn’t sure what I would find. I was delighted that the country now had a middle class black population, and I thought the country had vastly improved since the time I had left twenty years earlier.
Of course, I left for a combination of reasons — I couldn’t find work, I wasn’t happy, and I was…
World Issues — Politics, Economics, and More
We have to find a way to save the bloody day. Power and money — Abused aren’t funny.
