The Challnge of Our Times
For the past decade or so, the main driver of the economy has been to make housing more expensive -- with those predictably disastrous consequences -- that most will not be able to keep up, of which there is no provision for addressing those real needs -- instead of the highly-contrived of union workers that they are not keeping up with their peers in the top 1% -- and so we have to pay the school teachers $100,000 a year minimum.
The median income is $27,000 -- and not the proffered $50,000 per HOUSEHOLD -- which can be two or more income earners, that the unions like to confuse the issues and justify their own massive power grab. That's the real source of the inequity in that they demand those above median incomes for life -- and even retire to double-dip, which means less for everybody else, and especially those who have very little.
So the most disturbing thing about the Occupy movement, is that it was co-opted by the unions to protect their middle class entitlements and way of life -- rather than addressing the real problems of the truly needy -- for which there is no money "left over" after paying for these incessantly increasing demands by the powerful unions -- which are substantially more than the 1%, and therefore a steady drain on community resources.
Studies on the top 1% of income earners, note that such high incomes are not guaranteed for one's entire lifetime, but that there is a high turnover such that a person can have one good year, and many bad ones -- but there is another person who will have their one good year in their place -- which is the reward of taking risks. But you can't pay a large number of people guaranteed lifetime high incomes no matter what -- as the auto/steel/education industry and the cities like Detroit have demonstrated -- without total devastation to such communities.
Jobs used to be about addressing real needs -- and not just the career/economic aspirations of highly "entitled" people -- which were what the most recent revolutions have been about. The great challenge of these times is building that lower tier society -- and not more money for the middle class to buy more houses, take more vacations, and whatever else they think they are entitled to -- to keep up with the Joneses (rich).
Every time and place has its unique challenges, and that is the challenge of these times -- to create alternatives that work marvelously now, and not just wallow in the mud like at Woodstock -- and thinking that is the Age of Aquarius, and the best of all worlds.
The Revolution in Thinking
Any fool can make a simple thing seem very difficult and complicated -- not because it inherently is, but foolish people think that is what smart people do -- try to seem more intelligent (knowledgeable) than they actually are. Mainly that is achieved by simply repeating what all the people pretending to know what they are talking about -- are saying, simply because they believe that many people thinking it so, makes it so. Other variations of this social phenomenon, is that might makes right, which is usually the defense of the dominant and domineering status quo -- or the powers that be, and intend always to remain so.
And so the first thing they enforce, is the belief that everything they say, is true, just because they say it is -- and there is no greater truth and validity beyond that. That is the lesson of Columbus, Galileo, Paracelsus -- and every other heretic who ever challenged authority -- with good reason to believe that theirs was a better understanding, that conformed to the observations, rather than the insistence, that one could not trust their senses, but had to rely on the proper authorities in the hierarchies to tell them the right thing to think -- which we know today, as the political correctness insisting that "consensus" must be achieved as the highest end -- even if we are all wrong, and eventually dead-wrong.
But before that happens, there is just the general feeling that everything is not right, and nothing makes sense anymore, because all that we were taught to be true, doesn't seem to explain anything at all -- except that we need more of that kind of education (indoctrination). Eventually, as the pre-Industrial Revolution poets wrote, everything falls apart, but is replaced by a greater social order and productivity -- until the next, but always towards a greater simplicity and accessibility to all, and not just the old favored few.
That is also the disruption of these times -- when a few think life is getting worse, while for many others, they are getting better.
Yet we are still conditioned to think, that life must be hard to be noble, virtuous and good -- and only through that route, can one reached the "promised land. " This is especially true of the more primitive cultures that believe that in order for anyone to win, everybody else must lose -- and not that there is enough for everybody to win, if the resources (abundance) is managed wisely. That requires shared intelligence (information), rather than the old model, of the knowledgeable, exploiting the lesser -- and so on.
When everyone has all the information, individual actions predispose that reality and outcome for everyone -- including oneself subsequently and inevitably. Any society loses its vitality and sustainability when individuals become dependent on many others for their basic needs and survival rather than the ability to sustain and improve themselves -- all their lives.
That is the challenge of these times. How can we continue to get better all the days of our lives?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv_NEo6NzqY&feature=related
