actually I heard its 125,000 that need to be created just to keep up with population growth...
"What's the answer then? Are we screwed?"
Only if you want to be. Don't look to Fleming for answers. He's bright, but he's not offering solutions that I can see, and I don't think that he ever meant to.
Just carry on. "Rest and be kind." I think Jack Kerouac said that, or quoted it anyway.
Don
The only solutions I have are my own (and I stole them from Edward Abbey and Wendell Berry)
"How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill
your own beef; build your own cabin and pi$$ off the front porch whenever you
bloody well feel like it."
--Edward Abbey
Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
The Aldous Huxley quote seems incongruous, after reading Wendell Berry.
Gordon
> The Aldous Huxley quote seems incongruous, after reading Wendell Berry.
What can I say, I'm a work in progress 😉
"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes"
Walt Whitman
Gordon
"What can I say, I'm a work in progress "
Me too! And you...and you...and you, ah hell, that's who we all are, all going in the same good direction.
Don
Gordon
except some are republicans and some are democrats......... well I guess we are all going in the same direction after all.
Gordon
>... well I guess we are all going in the same direction after all.
We are, Gordon, and we'll all get there, too!
Don
James
James,
You just continue posting the truth and i'll think the world of you. I can get all the tangential issues and BS I can stomach from the usual outlets and it only takes a phrase or two to know when it's going into the weeds.
I damned sure don't tune in to P&R for a Garrison Keiler look alike contest.
James
Three factors that would greatly improve the employment situation...and I will catch flack for this...
1. There are a lot of women that should not be working. There are many mothers that desire to stay home with their children right down to their newborns. A combination of factors has led to them working. If these stayed home and did the valuable working of raising their own children, the employment situation would be greatly improved.
2. Again, on the opposite spectrum, their are many old people, for many reasons, who are working that should probably partially or fully retire. Was it Kucinage who wanted to drop the retirement age?
3. Another factor is the govt just makes it to hard to employ people. How many of us would pick up temp labor if we could simply grap a guy, work him, pay him in cash and say adios? (many do, but many do not).
One last thing, the media actually says there is a shortage of labor around here for contstruction and farm harvesting and other labor jobs. That is not true. There is just a limit of how many people will work for minimum wage or less. In some areas wages need to go up, in others down.
Sam
> Three factors that would greatly improve the employment situation...and I will catch flack for this...
Actually, the percentage of eligible people participating in the workforce (Labor Force Participation Rate) and the ration of the employed to the overall population have been steadily dropping for the last ten years and are both back to the levels of the early 80's
James
>
>
> 1. There are a lot of women that should not be working. There are many mothers that desire to stay home with their children right down to their newborns. A combination of factors has led to them working. If these stayed home and did the valuable working of raising their own children, the employment situation would be greatly improved.
There are few families in my area where a sole breadwinner can make enough money to support the entire family. Unless you have a teaching job or a white collar job at one of the few factories left, fifteen bucks an hour is about the top of the pay scale.
James
I would agree to some extent. Housing is overpriced in all parts of the country. Many need to scale back thier idea of what the American lifestyle is. Not a popular opinion either, but the American dream of a half million dollar house and several new cars, four wheelers, boats, and on and on....is probably over for many people. It is an interesting read to compare the average size home over the past years, what percentage of income is spent on housing, comparison of family income to cost of housing etc.
It is clearly a problem, when in like the county I live in, if you look at the average family income, and you look at the average home price, it is readily apparent the average family can come no where near affording the average home. Something has to give.
Sam
I would imagine that the workforce rates are declining because the baby boomers are reaching the retirement age or are going into early retirement because of the job situation. Retirement assets have been greatly reduced in value due to the bubble, and so we often have personal debt, and in addition are burdened with federal debt and obligations of approx. 670.000 per family.