That politics bring out the best in people. There is so much love to be felt from both sides of the political fence on this board.

Yes war sucks, but it is and will always be part of human nature.

Unemployment goes in waves. I hear so much about Bush this and Bush that. I think people forget that the boom of the late 90's was based on companies with no real monitary value or companies that were cooking their books. Regardless if Kerry or bush gets elected we will have swings in the economy and unemployment.

Out-sourcing. I have had my wallet impacted by this trend several times in my life, but I understand that businesses are built to make money and build value for the share holders. Not give or create jobs. People are tools just as any other tool. If the company is not making enough money from one tool they will get another. Join the food service industry. Based on our American waist lines, eating doesn't seem like something that will be out-sourced any time soon.

Freedom of speech. That is a cylical thing too. Many think Janet and Howard are offensive. Many do not. The liberal Media is keeping their lips shut. The conservitive media is too.

So it seems we will have less freedom for now, until we have more. (Poohism)

The rest is just Blah Blah Blah

I want to know where bush and Kerry stand on Skin Cancer? Pretty soon it will be killing a few more people. Everyone should run out and dig caves to live in. I have it and I'm hopping mad!

If political discussions just sounds like whining to you, maybe you're out of your medium. If whining is bothersome to you, how can you feel vindicated whining about whining?

Unemployment: you've experienced cycles.  Do you wish to experience collapse?  This economy just doesn't look stable.

Outsourcing: If the company and the shareholders can use the workers as tools, might the workers not use the company and shareholders as tools? What makes one more questionable than the other?

Eating is a growth industry, until all those obese people begin to die of diabetes and cardio-vascular disease.  Then where will our consumerism be when the consumer "mine" is exhausted?

But your arguments are already exhausted.

/Zin

Collapse? Unstable!? Oh please! And I guess the sky is falling too?

This is the same thing people said in the 60's, 70's 80's and 90's. We have had a recession in almost every decade since they kept track! We also have had growth.

Hey I agree that some people are struggling because they are caught with out marketable skills, but is that the President's fault? Any President? Who is responsible for whom?

I am a firm beliver in free-agency. You have every right to take your skills and knowledge anywhere you want. Companies no longer have loyality, why should the employee? Knowledge and skill are king!

Consumerism is global. We are prepping places like India and China right now. Look at places like Bangalore or Hyderabad? Every day another culture is breaking under our influence! You have already lost your freedom! It seems you just don't know it or won't accept it.

I don't believe any of them actually turned out the stats that this one has on consumer debt.  "The Economist" magazine has said this economy is breaking records.  Plus the fact of downward trends in wages at a time when most of the world depends on this consumer market.  The undercutting of consumers' income for industries that depended on them to buy their goods was one of the exact situations that created the Great Depression, and made it so daunting to recover from.

If this matches what people said 60s-90s, please cite the source.  Also be informed, the fact that other people guessed wrong four times predicts nothing about the successive guesses, by completely different people.  I had no predictions in the 60s-90s.  I have no predictions now.  I just say, it doesn't look stable to me.  I haven't been able to find a source to show me how it could be stable.  

As for whether it's the president's fault, the layoffs and outsourcing isn't, the ballooning federal deficit and rise in federal debt is most definitely his fault.

I'm a firm believer in free agency, too.  Including free agency in the political process, though.

I don't follow you in the last paragraph.  Please clarify how you relate consumerism breaking out everywhere to my losing my freedom but not knowing it yet. What "freedom" are you citing?
Yes, there may be other consumer markets to mine, more people sitting on their butts in front of the tube turning over their money and ruining their health getting fatter.  If consumers can't improve themselves with consumerism, it is a failure.

/Zin

Quoting stats from the economists does not make you right nor does it make you not right. In fact most stats can and are manipulated to show some sort of biased opinion. Which speaks to my last paragraph.

If you think spouting quotes from the economist as having freedom you are sadly mistaken.

What I am saying about freedom is big business and its influences have limited your perspectives on what your choices are.

OK you can choose to buy what kind of car you want, what TV shows you want to watch, what kind of food you want to eat, where you want to live, what news media you choose to listen to, what doctors to see when you are sick, what medicines to take to keep your pecker hard, how you choose to take care of the sick, elderly and poor, who to vote for, but all of them are not controlled by you. They are controlled by consumerism, the paying public.

Laws that are designed to protect us limit our life choices everyday. They affect every one of the list above. And who is making those decisions? The public? Please! Our dollars? Please. They tell us how to think, spend, live, love, eat, sleep, fuck, smell, be born and how to die. If I’m wrong give me an example?

Marketing is not the pursuit of if you will buy, it is how to get you to buy!

Our basic freedom to pursue happiness is a farce.

Vote for whom ever you want, but it will only change who is the figurehead of the moment. Every day our freedom gets bought up, shuttered, or legislated out of business.

So go listen to whom ever and watch out! the economy is falling!

Looking at stats may not be a good measure to take. I know of all the flaws, but it's far better than forming one's opinion from pure, lazy ignornance.  Lazy ignorance will not make you right or not right either.  If anything, it randomizes you.  

I would be less inclined to believe The Economist report on credit debt if it didn't check out against other things I'm seeing.  Such as, most of my friends, middle class people during the '90s, are saying that if they go bankrupt, the might as well do so at $100k rather than just $30k...

I was never so mistaken as to think of spouting quotes from The Economist as being freedom.  On your next point, yes, big business  strives to limit my choices, and everyones choices.  It's not a bygone conclusion that they succeed at it, however.  Businesses, after all, are just themselves collections of individuals, who are finally, as prone to manipulation and a herd mentality as anyone.  It's the consumers who have to fight back.    

And, yes, laws do limit choices, because the only source of choice is the will of the individual.  Attempts to invoke it any other way will fail.  This board, however, would be an example of your being wrong.  My rebellion against monogamy shows that there are times the marketing fails.  There are other examples.

Pursuit of happiness: it has always been an odd phrase.  I do sometimes wish Jefferson hadn't written it.

If given the choice between dispassion and replacing the figurehead, I'll replace the figurehead everytime.  I'll go further.  Anything is better than exhaustion and dispassion.

/Zin