"The great American public is not so badly off as some people would like to have us believe"

[Zenlitened]

"Editor: "We can feel for a certainty that business is scraping along the bottom along with most commodity prices, which should begin to firm up due to the marginal producers finding the going difficult and finally being eliminated...The great American public is not so badly off as some people would like to have us believe.

News From 1930

[imdjh]

1. I'm finding it hard to resist the group dynamic. "With the economy the way it is..."

The truth is, that other than some prices rising and others threatening to rise, my situation hasn't changed all that much. The threat of doom, though, has removed some of my emotional safety net which allows me to see a better day for my family just around the corner; a good idea or a new business. I'm afraid- and I caught the fear like a disease.

You know how you can almost sense when you are getting the flu, before the thermometer confirms your fear? Before your hair actually hurts? Before you actually have symptoms? That's something like the emotional edge I'm on. I try to stay positive. I know that my great grandparents, my grandparents, and my parents all lived through the Great Depression pretty much none the worse for wear, other than carrying the memories for the rest of their lives.

I reason that as long as we're all reasonably healthy and our basic needs met, we will find a way to survive this and ultimately win. I feel like I am running out of time. I'm 50, and I know that some American entrepreneurs didn't get their big break or great idea until they were fifty. But I'm not all that healthy, and frankly, if I lose what I have, I'm not sure I'll be able to recover. That means that I won't be able to help my family, and that is what I most fear. I also see less opportunity than my grandparents had. Even though the Great Depression was bad, our society was still a place where a great idea, a better service, and hard work could do the trick. I peg part of the despair in this regard not to the current economic crisis, but to a time about 30 years ago.

Thirty years ago, video recorders/player came on the scene. Small businesses popped up overnight, family owned video rental places. By and large, they sucked, because they were expensive, picky, censored, and limited. The entire business was swallowed up the next night. Health food stores used to be all independently owned. Now there are chains. The old health food stores were inconsistent, and really expensive. The new chains act like the stores we actually rely on. This is happening because these chains do a better job, or at least one which the public finds to be better.

Even brilliant and successful software companies are gobbled up, because if they resist some giant company will simply put an army of workers on the job of "inventing" a new program which replaces the original invention, and then use the giant corp connections to make it the industry standard.

Staying positive is really hard right now. Can you imagine how hard it is for someone who doesn't have a computer to whine on, or a clue where next week's groceries will come from?

[Romulox]

2. Many of us don't see the loss of the status quo as the world's greatest threat

Many of us want the deck re-shuffled; want the powerful humbled.

This idea of a taxpayer supplied Deus Ex Machina for the world's wealthiest people as the "hope" that will eventually trickle down to us is silly, if you say it out loud...

[imdjh]

4. You can take all the wealth in the world, and divide it equally, and everyone will be poor.

And 20 years later, there will be rich and poor. Revolutions don't really reshuffle the deck, at least they haven't thus far. All they really do is reshuffle the face cards and maybe the 10's.

[FiveGoodMen]

5. That's why you have to redistribute continually.

Progressive taxation.

And no, dividing things up equally wouldn't make everyone poor.

[imdjh]

6. Don't be greedy.

My brother's income is about 8 times what mine is. He's made good decisions starting at about age 16 onward, and I have made some seriously bad decisions. He deserves to make more money than I do, he has worked smarter and harder all of his life than I have. If you tax us both at the same rate, he will pay 8 times as much as I do. He's OK with that. Now if you really want to stick it to him and give me a break, pass a national sales tax. Because I am Mr. Frugal and he spends some money.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. K&R