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Jarek Steliga

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You cannot eat money, or make clothes, or build a house out of it.

In this day and age when it is politically correct to be out of work and complain on being hard up I propose to reflect whether this widely proclaimed poverty is real or faked. If it is MONEY that you are after, then I have no remedy. You will be poor (in the sense that you have not enough) forever. If however you are able bodied and need food, shelter and security for yourself and your loved ones, and live in a town or a city and no-one wants to employ you and pay you for your work enough to cover your basic needs, then move to the country, grab the fork and shovel and produce your own kitchen veggies, keep a pork or two and some chickens. Chances are someone will help you build a decent house in exchange for the food which you have in excess. I agree individual small scale farming and husbandry is not efficient, but who wants the efficient when clearly efficiency does not prevent hunger and what is more is directly the cause of so much unemployment. Believe me, you will be happy as a lark provided it is not money that is your object in life!

Topics: Unemployment economy financial crisis poverty
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    Robert Winner 50+

    • +2
    Jan 21 2013: Jarek, We have three gardens, some animals, a bycicle that converts wheat to flower when pedaled, a electric wind generator, a well, etc ... I am retired three times and have sufficient funds. We help provide the local orphanage with meat, eggs, veggies, etc ... We give to the windowed ... cut firewood ... and do quilting.

    Life has been very good to us and we give back. All of these efforts are very time consuming and darn hard work. The point is that some can sit and bitch when given lemons and some open a limonade stand. I am sick of the war against the 1% by Obama when he has a aunt and uncle on welfare and is a multimillionare. Talk is cheap. There is plenty of work but the entitlement programs have made it unreasonable to get a job when being unemployed is much more lucerative. Give hand up and stop the hand outs.

    But as Random Chance stated below ... this is just the rant of the brainshed on ted. I really felt pretty good until I found out how brainwashed and stupid I was. Guess I should thank him for straightening me out.

    I, as you, do these things because they please me and I feel makes a difference to those less fortunate.

    Bob.

    • Brock Hardwood

      • +1
      Jan 22 2013: In case you have been living in a cave for the last 6 years....The economy DID crash. The millions unemployed right now were perfectly fine with being employed prior to that crash. It isn't a question of laziness, it is the reality that there aren't very many jobs being offered relative to the number of bona fide job seekers out there.

      This isn't about hating the 1%, it is about caring about the struggles of the 99%. When did you wake up and decide you hated most Americans? Most are hard workers. They deserve decent pay, access to healthcare, a reasonable opportunity at home ownership, and occasional leisure time and happiness. They don't deserve working conditions like the Chinese currently face - 12 to 16 hour days with nothing to show for it.

      It is time to face facts. Trust fund billionaires aren't helping our economy. They are living off the wealth earned by the true innovators and job creators of many generations ago, and are doing little more in life than that. They are nothing more than an undeserving pseudo royalty whose only interest is protecting that unearned wealth. Send that money back to the bottom in the form of jobs with a meaningful estate/trust fund tax and meaningful progressive tax structure, and let that money rise back up to the top and into the hands of our modern day innovators and job creators.

      • Ben Jarvis 50+

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        Jan 22 2013: true. the rich don't create jobs, customers do. henry ford wouldn't have employed anyone if nobody could afford to buy a car.

      • Jarek Steliga

        • 0
        Jan 22 2013: Brock, are you sure that trust fund billionaires could (if they wanted to) send their money back to the bottom in the form of jobs? I doubt it. We should not blame the billionaires for the rampant unemployment across the US and Europe. IMO the main reason for this is the absence of trade barriers. Indo-China produces everything more cheaply, that's all. But this cannot continue indefinitely. Once a new economic equilibrium is reached and established, Americans and Europeans will again find it profitable to produce things for themselves. We just must be patient. It is also very important that while waiting for that equilibrium to return, Americans and Europeans should maintain their skills, so that when things change people will not have to learn everything from scratch. And believe me, our modern day innovators and job creators stand not a chance against the tidal wave of new global economic reality. Also no amount of hollering at the pseudo royalty is going to be helpful. This is just barking up the wrong tree.

        • Brock Hardwood

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          Jan 23 2013: Obviously you didn't understand the mechanism proposed....

          Estate/trust fund taxes are taxes on transfers of wealth from one generation to the next...

          "in the form of jobs" are the jobs government creates by spending those taxes.

          Trade is part of the problem, but equilibrium can mean one of two things, either declining standards for the American worker or increasing standards for the Chinese worker. Given Chinese efforts to artificially keep weak the value of their currency, it is clear that the American worker is the one that will pay the price. This is unacceptable.

          Maintaining a strong middle class maximizes demand for goods and services, and as such, maximizes GDP growth.

    • Jarek Steliga

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      Jan 22 2013: Bob, all is not lost when there people like you around. I wish I lived somewhere close by to benefit from your example and advice in gardening, animal husbandry and that wind generator (since you do not strike me as one begrudging advice to anybody).

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