[Homestead] American manufacturing

Gene GeRue genegerue at ruralize.com
Mon Apr 21 14:52:46 EDT 2008


On Apr 21, 2008, at 12:02 PM, Clansgian at wmconnect.com wrote:

>
>
>> We know what most humans want and what most Americans want. Want
>> deprived becomes pain. Pain demands political help. Politicians want
>> votes so they acquiesce as much as they can. So how to change human
>> nature? Inevitability. Until a problem is hitting us over the head we
>> Americans will not make meaningful changes. We will, as a society,
>> strive for what we perceive is the best life for us and our children.
>> For the majority, that means a paycheck. A paycheck means a job. I do
>> not see a viable alternative.
>>
>
> This is all true.

Well, that's why I said perhaps we might best just focus on jobs and  
income, however it comes. It may be intellectual idiocy but what else  
works? If the masses feel enough pain, whoo hoo, stand back.
>
> But recall the primary message of the Buddha.  Human suffering does  
> not arise
> because we don't have things, but rather because we want them.

I think of it as:
SUCCESS is getting what you want.
HAPPINESS is wanting what you get.

>  To wit:  to
> my querries to my parents and grandparents as to why the Great  
> Depression was
> so bad, they answered, "Becuse no one had any money."  But when I  
> asked my
> great-grandmother, she said "Lord, child, no body in these hollers  
> ever had any
> money!"  Her view was that the depression caused problems for her  
> folk not
> because it kept them from having money, but rather it convinced them  
> that they
> OUGHT to have money.

Ignorance is bliss? The scenario occurs when the kids go see the  
bright lights. How many come back happy to live a homestead life? And  
even to do as you have done requires a certain amount of money for  
land, vehicle, tools, well, septic, electric, building materials,  
taxes. I presume you earned wages to get those dollars.
>
> Like that you had the Enron employee/investors wringing their hands  
> that they
> had lost half a million dollars when the company collapsed.  Turns  
> out they
> had only invested $5000, the rest was fake inflation of the value of  
> that
> investment.  Their unhappiness wasn't because they had actually lost  
> half a million
> dollars, it was because the BELIEVED that they had money which  
> didn't exist
> in the first place.

The people who turned their stock into big cash before the company  
collapsed might take issue with that perspective. Call it wisdom or  
chance or fate or luck, ugh, but some few have huge bank accounts and  
others are still working past their retirement dates.
>
> And like that the people who told us we who did not have a mortgage  
> on our
> property were jealous because the home-debtor was making money hand  
> over fist
> from their appreciating houses are not now unhappy because their  
> houses have
> lost value, but rather because they imagined they were wealthy with  
> dollar bills
> oozing out of the light sockets and spigots because their house was  
> increasing
> in value.

James, those who bought high are hurting. Those of us who bought  
earlier still have nice equities in spite of the, what, 12 percent?  
average decline in prices across the country.
>
> We imagine that it is our God given right to leap into the saddle  
> and go
> wherever we will and that should only cost us 5% or so of our  
> income, and we can
> all take few community college courses and all become Supervisors of
> Muckification and Coordinators of Drivel and make the big bucks.  We  
> will not suffer
> because we don't have those things, but rather because we desire them.

Okay, getting down to the nitty gritty here, shall we not blame the  
parents? Ourselves? It's fun to rant at the idiocy of politicians but  
we all make our own decisions from the time we leave our parents'  
houses.



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