the psychological benefits of lowered economic expectations
$Zero
cha' ching!
-$Zero...
when optimism lets you down, look on the bright side...
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.writing/msg/0dd7e25c69b713a6
Bill Penrose
> the psychological benefits of lowered economic expectations
>
> cha' ching!
Benefits?
WQ's and my parents never really recovered from the Depression. Having
spent most of a decade scrambling for work and stretching every penny
to transparency, they were unable to enjoy the fruits of prosperity
when it came. The first and foremost consideration for the next six
decades was always to avoid debt and prepare for the next catastrophe.
My folks never took a real vacation, just in case they might need the
money someday when the economy tanked.
The irony was that now that the next economic catastrophe is almost
upon us, the Great Depression children are almost all gone, leaving
their carefully hoarded wealth to my generation of spendthrifts and
credit slaves.
DB
Grand Mal
"Bill Penrose" <pen...@iit.edu> wrote in message
news:dce2254e-dc69-4b95...@d77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
If the depression hits here and I'm laid off, I'm giving the job search one
week before I head to Texada Island and start growing pot. Unemployment
Insurance will cover me 'till the first crop is safely cured and then I'm
recession-proof. The market is guaranteed by all the strength and will of
the US government. God bless the DEA and the war on drugs.
serenebabe
<...>
> Having
> spent most of a decade scrambling for work and stretching every penny
> to transparency, they were unable to enjoy the fruits of prosperity
> when it came. The first and foremost consideration for the next six
> decades was always to avoid debt and prepare for the next catastrophe.
> My folks never took a real vacation, just in case they might need the
> money someday when the economy tanked.
Sounds like my Grandmother, though her stuff started before the
depression. She came from a family of coal miners, was the first in her
family to go to college. Frugality was survival. Then the depression
and general personality issues and she used to complain, for example,
about how many squares of toilet paper someone used in her bathroom. We
are the generation that are benefitting from her passionate need to
spend almost nothing.
--
It's All About We! (the column)
http://www.serenebabe.net/
serenebabe
Hit send before I removed the extra "that are."
> We are the generation benefitting from her passionate need to spend
> almost nothing.
I still don't care for the sentence. Hmmm.
boots
Hello?
Why d'ya think the next economic catastrophe is almost upon us? Well
duh, all the folks who actually know that the iron really is hot and
really will burn your fingers have croaked off! The kids don't
believes it, they gotta learn for theyselfs...
The really good part? Baby-boomers are retiring and sucking on the
social security tit which is supported by the slacker generation. It's
gonna be a real hoot.
OWWWIE!
--
Don't read this crap... oops, too late!
[superstitious heathen grade 8]
boots
I keep reading about all the fires in California. I've been waiting
to read about firefighters in Mendocino county being overcome by the
smoke from burning marijuana fields. So far the word is mum.
Grand Mal
"boots" <n...@no.no> wrote in message
news:dmle7411qn7l1gn83...@4ax.com...
It's a little too soon in the season. The plants likely haven't finished
budding yet, even with the early start they probably have down there.
Bill Penrose
> Why d'ya think the next economic catastrophe is almost upon us?
Look over your shoulder.
Or if you have a 401(k), check your statements.
DB
boots
Uh...? You mean, the third crop? I've seen it budding in May.
boots
Once upon a time I was into all that stuff. Of course once upon a
time I thought having a perfect stereo would be the greatest thing
ever, then I learned that when you do have a near-perfect stereo you
get to hear all the noise in the recordings. I'm working on moving
past money as a middleman these days, just pick the bolts I need out
of the bin instead of trading money for them, trying to work my way up
to electricity which I understand even less. After all it's the trip
that has value, not getting anywhere different. Which is a roundabout
way of saying the world's economic system is hosed beyond repair and
seeing no hope for it I'm trying to make my involvement in it moot,
and whether I succeed or fail in the end I'll die just like everybody
else, Cosmo.
Grand Mal
Really? How are we supposed to compete against that?
They must grow year-round.
boots
In California the stuff will sprout like a weed most anytime. There's
a lack of sunlight during some parts of the year, often a little cool
during the winter months. It's a good place for plants to grow when
they can get what water they need, in this case not much.
Why compete, anyway?
--
Bill Penrose
> ...Which is a roundabout
> way of saying the world's economic system is hosed beyond repair and
> seeing no hope for it I'm trying to make my involvement in it moot,
> and whether I succeed or fail in the end I'll die just like everybody
> else, Cosmo.
This is right out of the 60s hippie ethic, and it worked for some of
them. When I left Newfoundland in 1980, there were still some hippie
communes there, left over from the 60s. Most had disintegrated in the
meantime, their members going back to selling insurance or bagging
groceries, but a few committed folk soldiered on. It's a lot more
difficult life than selling out to The Man, even in hard economic
times.
I noticed while driving through eastern Missouri that there is lots of
rich, gorgeous farmland up for sale just about everywhere. That's a
place to start the independent life if you're going to.
DB
boots
We're living as independently as we can, in our own way, at 10,000
feet in the Colorado rockies where life is harsh in the winter and so
soft in the summer that it tries to make you forget that another
winter is on its way. It is a difficult life as anyone who has had to
remove the heater from his travel trailer during a blizzard and repair
it will tell you, but at least the problems are ours and real rather
than someone else's and imagined, and we can solve them more or less
as we choose... or not solve them and perish for all the world cares.
Good farmland should not be up for sale, it should be worked by
farmers. The fact that it is up for sale is bad juju. Independent
farmers are an endangered species, the Industrial Revolution doomed
them when their best workers (the kids) fled to the easy money in
cities. Now there is mostly noplace for the kids to return to even if
they wanted to, unless they want to drive machines owned by corporate
farms.