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Our Social Depression
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
This erosion of opportunities to complete life's stages and core dramas is rarely recognized, much less addressed.
The consequences of economic stagnation are not limited to finance: stagnation is causing a social depression. We can best understand this social depression by examining how the natural stages of human life are being disrupted.
Confucian thought views life as a developmental process with seven stages, each roughly corresponding to a decade: childhood, young adulthood (16-30), age of independence (30-39), age of mental independence (40-49), age of spiritual maturity (50-59), age of acceptance (60-69), and age of unification (70 - end of life).
Each stage has various tasks, goals and duties, which establish the foundation for the next stage.
I see each stage as centered on a core human drama: for the teenager, establishing an identity and life that is independent of parents; for the young adult, finding a mate and establishing a career; for the middle-aged, navigating the challenges of raising children and establishing some measure of financial security; for those in late middle-age, helping offspring reach independent adulthood and caring for aging parents; early old age, seeking fulfillment now that life's primary duties have been accomplished and managing one's health; and old age, the passage of accepting mortality and the loss of vitality.
The End of Secure Work and the diminishing returns of financialization are disrupting these core human dramas and frustrating those who are unable to proceed to the next stage of life:
1. Teenagers are being pressured to focus their lives on achieving a conventional financial success (see "Training for Discontent" in From Left Field) that is becoming harder to achieve.
2. Young adults without secure full-time careers cannot afford marriage or children, so they extend the self-absorption of late adolescence into middle age.
3. The middle-aged are finding financial security elusive or out of reach as they struggle to fund their young adult children, aging parents and their own retirement.
4. Increasing longevity is pressuring the late-middle-aged's stage of fulfillment, as elderly parents may require care even as their children reach their own retirement (65-70).
The financial pressures generated by the demise of financialization and the End of Secure Work are not just disrupting each stage; they are disrupting essential financial balances between the young, the middle-aged and the old.
The elderly, protected by generous social welfare benefits paid by current taxpayers, also benefit from the soaring value of assets such as real estate and stocks. Meanwhile, financialization's asset bubbles have pushed housing beyond the reach of most young people.
Downsizing, lay-offs, low-paying replacement work and poor decisions to buy houses near the peak of the prior bubble have left many of the middle-aged with high fixed costs and a stagnant or increasingly insecure income.
The stresses of trying to make enough money to afford what was once assumed to be a birthright--a "middle class" lifestyle--is taking a heavy toll on the mental and physical health of the middle-aged, leaving many of them too tired for any fulfilling activities and easy prey for destructive self-medication.
This erosion of opportunities to complete life's stages and core dramas is rarely recognized, much less addressed. We are constantly bombarded with messages to innovate, keep up, be fulfilled, etc.--essentially impossible demands for those with multiple generational and/or business duties.
When I talk about the Mobile Creative class, I'm not talking about a finance-centric definition of success or a path to join the top 5% in Corporate America and the government. The herd is chasing those dwindling slots, too, guaranteeing frustration and failure for the 95% who won't secure one of those slots. That is the essence of our social depression.
What we're discussing is a way of living that places a premium on independent thinking, maintaining very low fixed costs, establishing a healthy honesty with oneself and one's associates and customers, the ability to make realistic assessments of oneself, one's successes, failures and errors, and a focus on challenges, opportunities, risks, adaptability, flexibility and experimentation, all with a goal of building one's own human, social and physical capital--the foundations not just of well-being but of any meaningful measure of wealth.
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Utter destruction of American society is all part of the plan.
The assault comes from every conceivable side.
" God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."
"Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else."
Some wise guy. John Galt maybe....
Beautiful, isn't it?
America is like a Juvenile that never grew up, it is a waning empire in it's death throws, and I honestly believe there isn't a damn thing any of us can do to save it at this point. =(
To make matters worse, our leadership has lost it's international relations completely & has the entire east wanting to invade / bomb us...
SPLENDID JOB YOU FOOKING FAILS.
I think you can see the decline in Western culture in general. History always repeats and hedonism, decadence and debauchery, which is where we're at now, is always followed by self destruction and totalitarian rule. Same thing happened in the Weimar Republic before WWII.
Worrying Parallels Between the Weimar Republic and Modern Western Society
http://www.ukapologetics.net/weimar.html
Its what we now call freedom. Freedom to fuck what we want. Nothing else matters.
The Roman empire is leading us.
apostate, you're a whiny illiterate that can't spell "death throes" and uses " it's " instead of " its "
it's ok, though, you're a product of crappy public education, i don't blame you.
It's a fucking mess, it is. And there ain't no white hose savior on the horizon. Those that got us here, the Progressives on one side and the neo-cons (just separate jerseys on the practice field) on the other just want to apply moar while the rest of the folks are staring in disbelief or totally absorbed in the Matrix.
The whole world is fucked.
And if you want to go so far as to include an in depth discussion of the Queen of England's role in the Illuminati's game plan, one could conclude; "We're royally fucked."
Y'all think it's depressing now, just wait until the Clintons are once again in the White House and people truly realize that Nothing's Fucking Changing.
Think Barry's support is slipping?
Well, at least some good will come of it. Bill will no doubt put on one Great Show of getting into mischief of some sort.
Hey!
Maybe he'll host his own reality program; "But ass nikked and loaded". Then he's sorta doing it ex-officio not splattering Hillary with any politically incorrect (whatever that includes anymore) goings on.
The final battle is personal, between establishing and maintaining a reasonable spiritual condition and a false world of accumulating innumerable temporal nouns and pronouns.
aww, sweet knukles, no to worry, there's still a place where you might be saved
check here -
www.provokethegoyim.blogspot.com
@ Big,
Moral bankruptcy, cognitive dissonance & apathy usually proceeds Collapse / Depression.
We've been in a Steath, Incremental Depression since the Bankruptcy & The a Banking Emergecy Act of 1933.
Paranoid nonsense. Smart people abandoning a sinking ship is a far cry from premeditated demolition. You can't be number one forever, particularly not when your production of the one commodity that built your economy peaked over 45 years ago.
Rome's destruction was planned too, right? It took 5-10 human lifetimes depending on which dates you pick and whether you're conservative with your lifespan estimate, but by Jupiter it was a conspiracy.
Its called debt. A 700 trillion-1 quadrillion house of notional derivative cards with tentacles reaching into every crevice of Western economies for collateral to hold it up.
Creditors always react to anxiety about repayment with more control over the debtor. The resulting loss of freedoms eventually impairs the generation of new capital for which the debt was initially generated.
For almost 200 years the Constitutional freedoms of the USA made it a good place to loan money to. Capital is worthless here today.
We still have the infrastructure and natural resources in the U.S. to be the world's manufacturing powerhouse again (or just our own), but we traded it in for iPhones and WalMart.
Stagflation is worse than both Inflation and Deflation.
I was all set to go work for God (end of life) which brought me back to acceptance and spiritual maturity. I didn't care anymore, so what did I have to lose?
We're in a societal Ponzi scheme, that started with the financialization of money (labor) which debased the lives of everyone.
When you can't get a fair shake for your education and hard work it tends to breed anger. If the idiots in Wall Street and Washington push it to societal rage it will be the French Revolution with more people and firepower.
Dumb, dumb, dumb. When you abandon morality and ethics you unravel the fabric of society.
Just look at the D.O.J. and fining the corrupt banks for FX and interest rate rigging; this isn't some odd game of numbers, it is stealing the labor and livelihood of every working person and family. No hand cuffs or jail time for the perpetrators while the FED juices the banks/corporations/insurers with free money on the backs of future generations.
It is murder by any other name; unpunished and supported by .gov.
The laws that ensure our survival do not require being written down or enforced, only respected.
lol
"laws that ensure our survival"
sources?
"When you abandon morality and ethics you unravel the fabric of society."
A rather boring tautology.
"When you can't get a fair shake for your education and hard work..."
Guess you'll be voting for Hillary then.
"When you abandon morality and ethics you unravel the fabric of society." --ebworthen
Ahh, yes: morality. Right vs wrong. Just whose morality have we abandoned? Every belief system produces its own set of rights and wrongs; there is no universal brand. Whatever religion you've chosen -- and I'm pretty sure I know which one -- just know that there are over 4,000 others still extant today, each producing followers who claim their own belief systems to be the correct ones, while yours is dismissed as wrong.
I hope you're wise enough not to come at me with the ol' "our Founding Fathers wanted us to have a Jesus-based theocracy" line of argumentation. I come equipped with a US Constitution, ragged and irrelevant as it may be.
stagnation is causing a social depression
Technically it's the opposite... chnages in social mood cause the events that create depression and stagnation. In the current case, stagnation is just a temporary stop on the way to full-blown deflationary social and economic depression.
http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/recognizing-changing-social-mood-is-k...
In the future, everyone's a perpetual child who is presumed to be incapable of self-reliance and therefore must be under the protective custody of the State. Hey, wait a minute - that's right now! Who woulda thunk the future would come so fast. If the future is now, then what replaces the future?
You know what I just realized a huge problem is?
The mentality of getting/giving a job.
While yes, regulations are more than inconvenient for small businesses and entrepreneurships, how many people actually know how to start a business??
Most people that go to college will major in whatever thing suits their fancy. Some even go for business. But very few actually learn how to start a business. Even the simplest things like creating a balance sheet or knowing how to properly budget, calculate expenses, and profits.
In my opinion that is a huge reason why we see small business creation dropping like a rock. Because we have all these graduates from college with many worthless degrees. And then we have those who have degrees 'worth' something, but they themselves are looking for someone else to give them a job. People need to learn how to give themselves a job. That is a skill that seems to basically be dying for the most part, though it does appear that maybe people are starting to get a clue that they need to create their own job, or earn their own position. But even when they realize that, they're still entirely clueless how to do it.
So many people go around asking for someone else to give them a job. What happens when everybody else is asking each other to give them a job? But nobody wants or knows how to make their own business? Economic decline, death of small business.
I overheard a young person the other day say that nobody ever taught him how to balance a check book.
See, it's always somebody else's fault .....
Sure, it's his choice to not learn something so simple now by fucking googling the thing.
But how much more productive might people be if they start to learn things when they are younger and in school? Ideally their parents would teach them, but then plenty of parents can be worthless. Just as some are outstanding (by forcing their child to make independent choices [perhaps within the parents moral boundaries] and think for themselves).
When you're 12 years old, you can probably learn how to balance a check-book. But I doubt you would have any thought about doing it. On the other hand if there was a basic personal finance course in your school, at least you could learn something like that.
We have to remember that plenty of people are lazy (initially). But sometimes when they see how something can be done, they'll start thinking for themselves how to do it. Have to have that kick-start though occasionally. Just like a child has to be encouraged to walk to mom or dad.
A few classes on entrepreneurship in school and how to properly budget/run a business (or perhaps craftsmanship; knowing how to create something useful from raw materials is nice) would probably be a lot more useful than "physical education" classes...
Do you really need to be taught how to run or exercise.
If you people want to play sports, then they can do it in their own time.
The problem with once people become adults, and trying to search for information on how to start their own business is that by then they can often find themselves in a mcdonald's job. Working however many hours a week. And likely coming home tired and brain-dead with a little time to cook before the next shift. "Time to read up on starting my own business or how to research demand for the product...? I don't have the time right now."
Most people are lazy imbeciles - which is why they find themselves working at McDonalds in their 20's. Even then the halfwits can only think of demanding a higher wage instead of bettering themselves.
My daughter started her own jewelry business at age 8 - making jewelry and selling it at school. I had no idea until she started bringing home the money. At 9, she started her own babysitting service. I still have the business cards she designed and printed on the computer.
ppl who brag about their children are b o r i n g
Jewelry sales? Riight. She was selling pieces of ass behind the teachers lounge, no doubt. (I like my made-up anecdote better than yours)
Glasnost, you're entirely correct. Problem is, as a self-employed entrepreuer (since 1993) I've got to caution, this is about the shittiest time in recent history to start a business. My advice is to offer a service everyone needs that's a staple, not an elective. I wonder how many landscapers are about to lose their shit in Socal with the drought. What lawn? I've been trying to get my stepson to get his physical trainer cert but he thinks waiting tables is more lucrative!
Money on Main St. is tighter now than anytime since about 1981. Sales are sluggish/non existent. Funny story, the wife & are sofa shopping. Walked into a local downtown furniture store in the middle of the day. One guy working and we woke him up! THAT'S how slow things really are!
Anyone who has attempted to run a business has done so with the belief that their success was dependent upon their efforts, living up to their commitments and going the extra mile for customer satisfaction.
That theme is dead.
It has become apparent that the only reliable and intelligent path to financial success is through "advantage". Much of what we think of today as modern marketing in social media is not about actual performance but "connections". Who you know is what makes the difference in a corrupt world. Even when we look at Wall Street we see a domination of high paying positions by school and social affiliations rather than performance. Its who you know. And now with government dominating EVERY POSSIBLE FIELD one is left but one choice....buy an elected official. The surest means of success is through the cronyism that government contacts provide.
The moral slippery slope is well on its way, for when corruption defeats productivity, the masses will suffer. Those at the top will retain their control of their desired resources long after their availability is long gone for the rest of us.
The Soviets/Russians had a name for this, it is called "blat":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blat_(term)
with the exception of computer science, most of the other STEM degree fields require large amounts of infrastructure in order to do those jobs
its unlikely that a kid with a chemical engineering degree is going to create new polymers in his basement or in his dorm room...the software to do what a mechanical engineer does costs thousands of dollars and to get prototypes made up of your widget isn't cheap either.
its more feasible for a kid who can code to whip something together in his sparetime than it is for a conventional engineer to do anything with his skills/knowledge
the same goes for other hard science degrees such as physics or statistics ...but if those kids are somewhat sharp and have some spare $$ they can trade derivatives ;)
"...Even the simplest things like creating a balance sheet or knowing how to properly budget, calculate expenses, and profits..."
If this things are so simple, then try applying them to the people you trully love. That's right, you won't be able to. You will not want them to. Well, you could apply them but it will be a total joke to you, a game.
And if you now look closer what this "little" things really are; they are nothing but a disquise that one is in fact in an act of war, in a painfull trade made of necessity and fear, not of love. And that is NOT only mentally challenging, it is against the spirit of one's Soul.
It seems to me that you reap what you sow. IMO, those in power are now driving cultural changes that will propel people away from government, away from a money centered existence and back to God and each other.
... which is just the opposite of what it seems the intent is. Those in power seem to want to make people less secure so that they cling more tightly to authority and power. But the distrust of government and financial institutions will drive people to hold onto things that are more secure, such as family, friends and religion. People will shun finance and government.
The giving / taking and entitlement mentalities are to blame for social depression. Even the radical left recognizes that there's work to be done, the only disagreement is who should pay for it and how. Despite the cancer of malinvestment instigated by the central banks, the existing foundation of order in this country needs to make use of the surplus labor our government denies exists. I fear the alternative is bedlam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7U7hkYJVrM&t=20m12s
Fuck new age thinking. Look at pre depression pictures of farm life and count your blessings. Life choices by dullards thinking they need every modern convenience to come out and destructive lifestyles will result in a destabilizing of society
Prior to the Great depression, over 80% of people lived on farms, many without electricity or running water. Today 89% of people have no idea where their food even comes from,much less how to grow it, and are barely capable of reading a microwave instruction for popcorn.
We have created the most dependent society in the history of the planet.
If things go to shit, it will be epic. The only natural survival skill people possess is to kill, and they will be directly at it...in a force of numbers.
I am armed, but not for protection from government, but from those desperate mindless eating and killing machines that will be loosed upon society.
Keep them clamoring for the latest shiny ishit. Completely derail and destroy any idea of need or financial ability to pay for such device. Same with autos, subprime loans that will never be paid back on autos that won't last 4 years. America is walking head up eyes forward into the UTOPIAN society. Reality is so easy warp when everbody and eveything you come in contact with tells you moar.
read this on:http://thoughtcatalog.com/jamie-varon/2015/04/this-is-the-new-loneliness...
We’re the least and most connected generation ever and yet if you spend some time on the internet, you see:
depression, undiagnosed, unchecked
anxiety, of the social variety
loneliness, rampant and unbelievable
sadness, like it’s a lifestyle
homebodies, like never leaving our apartments is healthy
introverts, like connection with other people is a bad thing
hate people! like it’s cool…
cancel plans! like it’s kind…
Yes, reality changed in the past 100 years, and you're welcome back anytime*!
*You are encouraged to leave your archaic convictions and values in the past, where they belong.
hahahahaha, true. I like how older generations are like "You've got a smart phone, does that mean you never talk to people face to face, or go out in nature, or read a book?" Like having gadgetry just automatically makes you this alienated human cyborg.
In all fairness, some folks do have a mania for gadgetry and it doesn't reflect well on them, so I get it. There are definitely folks like that around in the younger generations.
We need a realistic and responsible government. We need a realistic and responsible society. We need realistic and responsible citizens. We will have none of the above until we have nothing.
"ask not what your country can do for you"
bla bla bla bla .....FUCK GOVERNMENTS!
2. Young adults without secure full-time careers cannot afford marriage or children, so they extend the self-absorption of late adolescence into middle age.
Yeah that totally didn't start at least three generations ago. Totally new. Trust me (CHS) on this one.
I honestly wonder if CHS has ever even met a single fellow living American.
PS: It's a non-sequitur
Slow rot.
BOO FUCKING HOO!
Too fucking bad you can't have a nice car and a house and a picket fence and two kids.
Look around the world --- MOST people have none of that. Many don't even have enough food.
And you are whining about not being able to live a middle class life? FUCK YOU CHARLES
Get the fuck over it. Because this is AS GOOD AS IT GETS.
THE PERFECT STORM (see p. 59 onwards)
The economy is a surplus energy equation, not a monetary one, and growth in output (and in the global population) since the Industrial Revolution has resulted from the harnessing of ever-greater quantities of energy. But the critical relationship between energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2013/01/Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf
CHS today ... yes, oh, I suppose I agree with a lot of this, but a lot is rather less than metaphysical, a lot of hope is lost by seeing an idiot like Obama squatting in the White House, and everyone stepping up for 2016 looking no better.
A lot of trend lines are down, and our powers that be are blissfully unaware.
It's just sad. (best said in H. Ross Perot's intonation, he was just ahead of his time)
God damn whiners. Shoulda been smart and been born in the 50s like me. I'm pretty sure ill be dead by the time it gets horrific and after that who gives a fuck?
i get chewed out a lot. I think i will again. What happens if I like my sins, what happens if my sins are the shit. I could beat 1000 lifetimes or more just with my fuckups. What happens then, do i go to continuation heaven?
Im going to piss off many a serviceman, sorry. But I fucked this marines girl like she paid me for it, for two months while he was having a mid life crisis. Again....sorry , sometimes three times a day, it hurt me too actually, thats some hours,son.
So if your ever going to invade my area, know this.
Americans are not all what they tell you over a projector presentation, we are very sneaky and will wait forever and take that tough guy dipshit smile right off your face with a glance.
if this doesnt appy to you, pay me no mind
Marge: That's not a Bible. That's a book of carpet samples.
Homer: Ooh... fuzzy.
Q: Why can't you give my dad a job ?
A: Because your dad has no money to buy the products he would produce
bye bye american pie
consume, consume, consume.
you all bought the bs
you all thought you had the world by the balls
you all have no balls
tic toc