I picked up some nasty spyware on this site (retailmenot.com)
-- either as a driveby or from downloading the firefox extension mentioned above, not sure which.
It's redirecting my google searches, and so far, anti-spyware software has not detected it.
but it's really quite important. There are many who think this is a ridiculous and/or disgusting topic, but it's a fact of life. If you live in a city, you simply flush away your effluvia (and all your worries apparently), and you don't have to deal with the reality of your body and your lifestyle and your waste.
I was intrigued by this post because I am in the design process of building a new home. I am designing a home that will not require a septic tank and where all the greywater is recycled into a flower garden. That means I'll have to have some sort of composting toilet and (brace yourselves, potty-talk-haters) deal with my own waste!
It's not as awful as it may sound. There are some extraordinary composting toilets available and they're in use all over the world. Vancouver even has an entire office building that uses composting toilets and everything works fine. They are saving the city water and they've eliminated their impact on the sewage system. (The building also uses its greywater onsite.)
So, the bottom line is saving water and reducing your impact on your city's sewage system is good for everyone.
makes a similar claim and tries to document it with 258 events of 1933. Even with that number, a lot of important historic turns are omitted.
A case can be made that life as it was being lived through, say, 1980 began in 1933 plus or minus a year. And a case could also be made that many of the changes beginning in 1981 represent a falling away from the ideas and practices of the most successful period of American history.
We may hope that Obama will be able to restore some of these good ideas and sound practices. For example, his announced plans seem to suggest that he's looking to a return to such successful projects as the Civilian Conservation Corps (begun 1933).
You said: "Still, I think there's a lot of retro available to be mined from those decades. To start with, there's frugality. There's also a curious blend of independence and a willingness to pull together and work for a common purpose." -Add the concept of sacrifice in there. The greatest generation has a lot to teach those living in this age. Let's hope a great many of us can learn those lessons, and quickly.
Frankly, if you were one of my friends, I would look forward to your gift every single year. I loved the idea of the Christmas stamped paper lunch bags as well. Thanks!
Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I've never experienced value commensurate with the effort of shopping with coupons. It always seems like a trick to me. The largest savings I experience come from 1) shopping fewer times. The less I am in a store, the fewer pointless or extra purchases I will make is what I have discovered about myself. 2) shopping from my list 3) use up those leftovers before they spoil and have to be thrown out as waste. This probably saves my 10%of my grocery bill and I still haven't perfected it yet. I can probably save another 5% once I master this aspect of maximizing my dollars. and 3) shopping as low on the "value-added chain" as possible. Basic ingredients only.
In terms of stocking up, I try to keep it down to a reasonable amount. If I come close to running out, or heaven forbid actually *run out*, the last time I checked the stores will still sell me the stuff if I bring them money. So the maximum I stock of any item, ideally, is a one year supply if it is something that doesn't spoil. I only do this to get the lowest cost per unit, buying on sales. I also make a point of using *less* of things and making them last longer. e.g, using just half a tablespoon of dishwashing powder in the washer instead of filling the receptacle. I have found it works just as well. And I *never* fill the prewash receptacle. Same story with shampoo, soap, clothes washing liquid--you name it.
I just focus on shopping less often (once every ten days to 2 weeks) and sticking to what I need. In between shopping trips I eat out of my fridge and my pantry. If I had to stay in my house for 2 months straight I would be fine as long as the water and the electric kept working.
I used to think that $140 per month for one person (me) was kind of a minimum amount, but recently I have discovered that my costs are plunging to the $100 and lower level because I have (a) stopped wasting and throwing away food and (b) cut down on expensive items like cheese, milk, and meat. Now that I make stock from the chicken bones, one chicken can feed me for a week and provide stock for the month, so it seems wasteful to me to buy more than one chicken a month. I have largely stopped buying beef for various reasons, including that it seems absurd to spend $3/lb at minimum when I can buy other food for $0.99/lb nominal price and $1.50/lb or so for the meat alone (cutting and deboning the chicken myself). I buy the larger roasting chickens as these are a better deal in terms of pounds of meat-to-bones and carcass weight.
The biggest-and saddest-thing I have noticed is that there are so many lonely people. They have no one to talk to but strangers and they tell you their life stories. I try to listen and sympathize, but when I have several customers standing around waiting to pay, I try to move them along gently. We, too, may be in that situation some time.
98% of art on ebay is great in my mind ebay is one of the best places to find and buy a real nice piece.selling my art cheap or otherwise helps me to be more prolific, I prefer my art to be on someone's wall rather then in my attic.
The point is that when we are in roughly the 80 percentile of income in the nation, we still can't really afford the things that people think middle class families are supposed to have. There's something very strange about that.
Not so strange. The expectations are based on TV, which is fiction.
You seem to regard the Brady Bunch as an accurate representation of raising 6 kids in the 70's. My grandmother, who actually raised 6 kids in the 50's, 60's, and into the 70's, always commented that Alice would cook 3 pork chops for dinner to feed that crowd. It's fiction.
I understand that children have a hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality (an excellent argument for not letting them watch network TV), but adults are supposed to have mastered that distinction.
back to topic, I notice that days when I get my 6+ cups of decaffinated green tea, my meter readings are good all day.
Things like 89, 110, 116 whereas if I just take the herbal fenugreek my readings will be up a bit like 155, 148, 160.
Once you reach 180 you will begin spilling sugar into your urine
& of course "damaging" your blood vessels, eyes & kidneys, this needs to be avoided if you want to live long and prosper like Mr Spock says. I take various herbals to keep potential high blood sugar consequences at bay. "cholestoff" plant sterols that lower cholesterol, fish oil capsules (blood thinner, lowers triglyceride)
Vitamin D 1600 units, magnesium, helps the body use insulin.
B vitamins & folic acid (these combat oxidative stress in the body)
grape seed extract (lots of good effects)just like red wine without the alcohol.
I am a bit late to this conversation however I reaffirm your findings Green Tea lowers blood sugar! I am prediabetic & a registered nurse, looking for natural ways to deal with my problem.
I start my day with a double shot (so to speak) i use 2 decaff green tea bags, & a flavored black tea (decaff also) like india spice chai from celestial seasonings, sometimes I even use a 6oz
dinner style cup so the good stuff gets in my blood stream in a hurry. I also use the herbal "fenugreek" this lowers blood sugar too with no side effects, it really works as I "notice" hunger pangs after I have had the fenugreek. Did you know that "falling"
blood sugar levels can be detected on yourself? Just pay attention to your body, blood sugar levels that are dropping send out little waves of hunger pangs, sometimes you can ignore them (the liver maybe kicks in some glucagon to subside the pangs) I have been in a situation where they just keep lowering & I get voraciously hungry thats when I believe my own pancreas wakes up & puts out an insulin load.
Solar energy requires a large footprint. For existing treatment plants in urban areas, it is impossible to get the amount of land require for the generation of the solar energy. Also, don't forget that there are chemicals involved in the treatment process that requires manufacturing. The production of those chemicals are not going to be run on solar energy either.
For people using well water, don't forget that there is often a pump involve that uses energy to get the water out of the ground and into the house. Then once they flush, well, then your local municipal have to treat the sewage.
Sure, water is a renewal resource, but are you willing to haul water from a well and carry it home? That is the only way to not use any energy to transport the water over vast distances to your house so that you only need to turn on a tap.
And are you ready to empty it into a hole in your yard after your business? That is the only way to not use energy and chemicals to treat the sewage before it can be release back into the river and ocean so we can use it again once it goes through nature's filtration.
And your analysis, Philip, eccoes well with the argument laid out by Swedish writer Johan Norberg in his 2003 book In defence of Global Capitalism. You might want to check it out. Amazon seems to be temporarily out of stock but it looks like it is available at the Cato Store. Or try your local library if your like me:)
Your examples of Thai sauce is funny, but also reminded me that I have used a lot of soy sauce in my life, and most of it was made in the USA, in Wisconsin. I've eaten a lot of rice, and it was mostly from Calfornia. I've eaten a lot of tofu, probably tons, and it was produced locally. All the exotic vegetables were grown locally in California. Until recently, the fish was mostly local too, the farthest sources being Hawaii. Same for noodles - until recently, most were produced in the US, not imported. Without a doubt, we bought a lot of imported tea, seasonings, dry goods, kelp, and other unusual things, but, the majority of my "Japanese" cultural experience was grown or produed domestically. (Including cars.)
So, you can have a global, international experience that's mostly produced here.
A few import quotas and tariffs probably figured into the story above.
The reason why there's political pressure for globalization isn't because the government wants us all to have an international kum-ba-ya experience. It's because rich lobbyists are working for big corporations that wanted to expand into other countries, make stuff there, and then "import" it back into America without paying a tariff. That's how it started.
@madjayhawk - yer fulla it.
Wal Mart's profit margin is higher than the other stores, meaning the workers make less per hour than they deserve. Wal Mart is the elitist, to think they shouldn't give people a small raise instead of taking the money and giving it away as dividends to bankers and rich investors.
Do this long enough (see above) and you end up with excessive wealth at the top, and poverty at the bottom, and economic crises that eventually "even out" the situation. (Now, if they even it out by giving more to the rich, like they do with the bailout, the next crisis is going to be even worse, if you catch my drift.)
My community fought Wal-Mart because it was going into a vacant lot zoned for an office (where wage could be higher right), because they wanted the city to pay for a big sign, and they want to operate 24 hours a day next to a residentially zoned area full of old people.
Yes, we're all elistists here in an area where the median house price is below the county's median.
Yes, we're elitists because we didn't want to give Wal-Mart special favors.
@margaret
Poor people breastfeed, but poor people who work have a hard time breastfeeding. Most, poor people, at least in cities, come here to work, and they work long hours. There's a law that says women are supposed to have a room to express breast milk. That's nice, but, there are a lot of workplaces where people get treated lousy and don't get regular breaks.
Also, if you're poor and get WIC, that'll pay for formula.
There's another bacteria-sharing trend we need to bring back -- pre-mastication. Chew up food for your child, and then give it to them to eat. I told this to my friend, because my mom did it for me. My friend was disgusted. Eventually, after a second child, she came around to the logic of it. (The main risk is spreading a disease to the child early. Figure out what diseases you have that you might not want to transmit.)
@heather
You said it. Even since I moved back to a lower-middle class part of L.A., all the eco-friendly-globally-trendy stuff I learned up in Berkeley was hard to find, and over time it became hard to learn about what was trendy, until the internet. By then, I didn't care. This is in freakin Los Angeles suburbs.
Now I just have simple rules: eat everything I buy, don't buy on impulse, try to give it away, and try to get it free or used.
And I'm a liberal bleeding-heard. I voted for Obama, and I'm pissed at his conservative cabinet, and he's not even in office yet. That dude they got for Dept. of Interior ... what a mess.
@poor boomer
Will the landlord pay for weatherstripping and window film?
I cover windows with 1 inch foam insulation panels.
Another tactic is to steal electricity from the outdoor lights to power your heater. Just kidding.
@Cheap Yankee
We probably don't see eye to eye, but you said it right, like Malcolm X "All chickens come home to roost..."
Globalization isn't right when people around the world are working more, and making less money, and when they fuel their modern industries but leave their masses in poverty. We need a global 40 hour work week, global health care rights, and global reasonable environmental standards. These need to be better standards, not worse ones.
I don't see a return to the 1950s and 1960s though. We'd just gone through the New Deal, which was as close to Socialism as we got. Unions were powerful and pervasive. The USSR was looming large, putting pressure on our government to support our "proletariat".
All this globalization mania went gangbusters after the Berlin Wall fell. It was both Republicans and Democrats doing it. Trust the market for anything was their belief.
Now, we're getting back to the bad old days of privatized fire fighters, "gold bugs", cash in the mattress, and homeless encampents.
I'm reading a book, Fascism and Big Business, about the rise of Fascism in Germany and Italy, written around 1938, by Guerin. The parts about the collapses and the bailouts and the confusion and whatnot, are like reading about today.
Thank you, I just moved home and I had no idea - I will add them to my list. I also recommend bowling at Maplewood Lanes - dinner under $5 and a game under $5
A friend of mine in MN just found out his home was in foreclosure. The landlord continued to collect rent and say nothing. Thankfully, the bank offered him a substantial amount of money to move by the 23rd, so he accepted their offer and is moving. Apparently in MN you have to have made no payments at all for 3 years before it can be foreclosed on. Perhaps that can help other renters there to find out about the properties they're renting.
I am a self-saboteur when it comes to resolutions. Now, instead of writing out resolutions each December, I look back and write out all the lessons I learned and things I discovered throughout the previous 12 months. It's much more satisfying.
It is; so you're already incorrect. A ponzi scheme is marked by HOW it does what it does, not by the claims made by/about it, or whether or not it can be avoided.
The rationalizations identified here are the same ones that [surprise!] litter the Social Security Administration's weepy, weepy website in response to all the [justifiable] criticism of the ponzi scheme they operate. They could claim plagiarism, only their own rationalizing words are so embarrassing, I strongly doubt that they'd take it to court
first of all it does not make wild claims about making money fast
Irrelevant.
It also does not claim to be investing your money so it is not actually fraudulent
Also irrelevant.
These last two items together are the difference between being robbed by a guy at gunpoint versus being robbed by a guy who promises to re-roof your house after a hailstorm and skips town with your newly-cashed check. Social Security is the guy with the gun. Frankly, that's not an improvement.
It is also based on taxes so it is not a voluntary scheme like the original
Payroll taxes, which means that if you don't work you don't pay. A meaningless quibble
when a person dies then the payout stops under Social Security so it is possible that some people who contribute never see a single penny returned
If old Chuckles Ponzi had been able to keep his juggling act going for a few more years, he would very likely have had one of his "coupon" holders die on him, ... and the coupon would then have become part of the dupe's estate, and an heir or assign would have tried to collect on it ... just as "survivors" can collect on a cadaver's SocSec Bennies today.
This is another meaningless quibble.
The Social Security Administration actually calls the program a "pay-as-you-go insurance system"...
The folks who work for them are idiots; what do you expect? This is as idiotic a redefinition of reality as you can find.
"Insurance". Good god!
If it were "insurance" then the payments would be called "premiums" and would be based on an actuarial evaluation of an individual's likelihood of actually collecting: the more likely you are to collect, the higher your premiums.
And as such, women would pay [significantly] more than men, and "certain ethnicities of Asian" [screw PC; let's be specific here: Orientals] would pay more than whites, and whites would pay more than blacks. Because on the longevity-scale -- which is ultimately what we're talking about here -- the longer you are statistically likely to live, the greater chance you have of collecting SocSec bennies, and the more you would pay in taxes when you "contribute"...
...IF IT WAS INSURANCE.
But it's not. Which means that their equivocative descriptions are entirely hooey, and meant to appease the simpletons.
Regardless of the semantics, in the near future there will be many more retirees than working folks so the demographics shift will make Social Security pay out more than it takes in.
Bingo. And you've just answered your own rhetorical question, albeit in the way you didn't want to.
This is EXACTLY what makes a ponzi a ponzi: the necessary geometric progression of "investor"/taxpayer to recipient, the inability of the real world to sustain that geometric relationship, and the ultimate collapse of the thing.
Another term for this is "pyramid scheme". A ponzi is simply the most well-known pyramid scheme; they are all essentiall the same: they rely on an unsustainable financial model for viability.
But perhaps the most damning bit of evidence hoisting SocSec on its own petard is this:
If you were to implement a pension plan for the Xin Lu Corporation based on the Social Security Financial Model -- current employees fund current retirees' retirement income, with "excess receipts" being channeled back into corporate bonds -- the SEC [Securities & Exchange Commission, at least I believe that's the group; "government regulators" at any rate] would be all over you like pork fat on a Mississippi barbecue for operating a financially fraudulent pension plan. You'd be charged with financial crimes from RICO on down.
Why? Because despite the flowery rationalizations the government throws out in order to convince us all the SocSec is a fine, fine program, they know very well that it's not. They just hope to keep the juggling balls in the air long enough that some "wisdom of the future" can fix it all.
Hello! simply super resource
Can I go ahead and coin the term "poorpunk"? Or maybe "depressionpunk"?
Or do those sound less like aesthetic movements and more like genres of people listened to by people I don't want rubbing up against me at venues?
The 40's did have the best clothes....
My mom and my aunts have some great ideas they shared from growing up in the 30's and being young adults in the 40's during rationing and such.
I picked up some nasty spyware on this site (retailmenot.com)
-- either as a driveby or from downloading the firefox extension mentioned above, not sure which.
It's redirecting my google searches, and so far, anti-spyware software has not detected it.
So beware.
but it's really quite important. There are many who think this is a ridiculous and/or disgusting topic, but it's a fact of life. If you live in a city, you simply flush away your effluvia (and all your worries apparently), and you don't have to deal with the reality of your body and your lifestyle and your waste.
I was intrigued by this post because I am in the design process of building a new home. I am designing a home that will not require a septic tank and where all the greywater is recycled into a flower garden. That means I'll have to have some sort of composting toilet and (brace yourselves, potty-talk-haters) deal with my own waste!
It's not as awful as it may sound. There are some extraordinary composting toilets available and they're in use all over the world. Vancouver even has an entire office building that uses composting toilets and everything works fine. They are saving the city water and they've eliminated their impact on the sewage system. (The building also uses its greywater onsite.)
So, the bottom line is saving water and reducing your impact on your city's sewage system is good for everyone.
The early 1930s and especially 1933 were a pivotal time in world history, a time when many things ended and many new things began. This website
http://www.19.5degs.com/element/507.php
makes a similar claim and tries to document it with 258 events of 1933. Even with that number, a lot of important historic turns are omitted.
A case can be made that life as it was being lived through, say, 1980 began in 1933 plus or minus a year. And a case could also be made that many of the changes beginning in 1981 represent a falling away from the ideas and practices of the most successful period of American history.
We may hope that Obama will be able to restore some of these good ideas and sound practices. For example, his announced plans seem to suggest that he's looking to a return to such successful projects as the Civilian Conservation Corps (begun 1933).
You said: "Still, I think there's a lot of retro available to be mined from those decades. To start with, there's frugality. There's also a curious blend of independence and a willingness to pull together and work for a common purpose." -Add the concept of sacrifice in there. The greatest generation has a lot to teach those living in this age. Let's hope a great many of us can learn those lessons, and quickly.
Frankly, if you were one of my friends, I would look forward to your gift every single year. I loved the idea of the Christmas stamped paper lunch bags as well. Thanks!
Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I've never experienced value commensurate with the effort of shopping with coupons. It always seems like a trick to me. The largest savings I experience come from 1) shopping fewer times. The less I am in a store, the fewer pointless or extra purchases I will make is what I have discovered about myself. 2) shopping from my list 3) use up those leftovers before they spoil and have to be thrown out as waste. This probably saves my 10%of my grocery bill and I still haven't perfected it yet. I can probably save another 5% once I master this aspect of maximizing my dollars. and 3) shopping as low on the "value-added chain" as possible. Basic ingredients only.
In terms of stocking up, I try to keep it down to a reasonable amount. If I come close to running out, or heaven forbid actually *run out*, the last time I checked the stores will still sell me the stuff if I bring them money. So the maximum I stock of any item, ideally, is a one year supply if it is something that doesn't spoil. I only do this to get the lowest cost per unit, buying on sales. I also make a point of using *less* of things and making them last longer. e.g, using just half a tablespoon of dishwashing powder in the washer instead of filling the receptacle. I have found it works just as well. And I *never* fill the prewash receptacle. Same story with shampoo, soap, clothes washing liquid--you name it.
I just focus on shopping less often (once every ten days to 2 weeks) and sticking to what I need. In between shopping trips I eat out of my fridge and my pantry. If I had to stay in my house for 2 months straight I would be fine as long as the water and the electric kept working.
I used to think that $140 per month for one person (me) was kind of a minimum amount, but recently I have discovered that my costs are plunging to the $100 and lower level because I have (a) stopped wasting and throwing away food and (b) cut down on expensive items like cheese, milk, and meat. Now that I make stock from the chicken bones, one chicken can feed me for a week and provide stock for the month, so it seems wasteful to me to buy more than one chicken a month. I have largely stopped buying beef for various reasons, including that it seems absurd to spend $3/lb at minimum when I can buy other food for $0.99/lb nominal price and $1.50/lb or so for the meat alone (cutting and deboning the chicken myself). I buy the larger roasting chickens as these are a better deal in terms of pounds of meat-to-bones and carcass weight.
The biggest-and saddest-thing I have noticed is that there are so many lonely people. They have no one to talk to but strangers and they tell you their life stories. I try to listen and sympathize, but when I have several customers standing around waiting to pay, I try to move them along gently. We, too, may be in that situation some time.
What about your vegan friends?
98% of art on ebay is great in my mind ebay is one of the best places to find and buy a real nice piece.selling my art cheap or otherwise helps me to be more prolific, I prefer my art to be on someone's wall rather then in my attic.
You wrote:
The point is that when we are in roughly the 80 percentile of income in the nation, we still can't really afford the things that people think middle class families are supposed to have. There's something very strange about that.
Not so strange. The expectations are based on TV, which is fiction.
You seem to regard the Brady Bunch as an accurate representation of raising 6 kids in the 70's. My grandmother, who actually raised 6 kids in the 50's, 60's, and into the 70's, always commented that Alice would cook 3 pork chops for dinner to feed that crowd. It's fiction.
I understand that children have a hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality (an excellent argument for not letting them watch network TV), but adults are supposed to have mastered that distinction.
These new rates are for both purchase and refinance.
However to get those rates your fico needs to be at 740+
Every 20 point decline on your fico means an increase in rate.
Example: 740 fico today = 4.625% with 0 discount points.
640 fico today = 6.00% with 0 discount points.
With the majority of borrowers having scores in the 600s, the benefits will be available to fewer people.
These are facts, not opinions.
back to topic, I notice that days when I get my 6+ cups of decaffinated green tea, my meter readings are good all day.
Things like 89, 110, 116 whereas if I just take the herbal fenugreek my readings will be up a bit like 155, 148, 160.
Once you reach 180 you will begin spilling sugar into your urine
& of course "damaging" your blood vessels, eyes & kidneys, this needs to be avoided if you want to live long and prosper like Mr Spock says. I take various herbals to keep potential high blood sugar consequences at bay. "cholestoff" plant sterols that lower cholesterol, fish oil capsules (blood thinner, lowers triglyceride)
Vitamin D 1600 units, magnesium, helps the body use insulin.
B vitamins & folic acid (these combat oxidative stress in the body)
grape seed extract (lots of good effects)just like red wine without the alcohol.
I am a bit late to this conversation however I reaffirm your findings Green Tea lowers blood sugar! I am prediabetic & a registered nurse, looking for natural ways to deal with my problem.
I start my day with a double shot (so to speak) i use 2 decaff green tea bags, & a flavored black tea (decaff also) like india spice chai from celestial seasonings, sometimes I even use a 6oz
dinner style cup so the good stuff gets in my blood stream in a hurry. I also use the herbal "fenugreek" this lowers blood sugar too with no side effects, it really works as I "notice" hunger pangs after I have had the fenugreek. Did you know that "falling"
blood sugar levels can be detected on yourself? Just pay attention to your body, blood sugar levels that are dropping send out little waves of hunger pangs, sometimes you can ignore them (the liver maybe kicks in some glucagon to subside the pangs) I have been in a situation where they just keep lowering & I get voraciously hungry thats when I believe my own pancreas wakes up & puts out an insulin load.
Solar energy requires a large footprint. For existing treatment plants in urban areas, it is impossible to get the amount of land require for the generation of the solar energy. Also, don't forget that there are chemicals involved in the treatment process that requires manufacturing. The production of those chemicals are not going to be run on solar energy either.
For people using well water, don't forget that there is often a pump involve that uses energy to get the water out of the ground and into the house. Then once they flush, well, then your local municipal have to treat the sewage.
Sure, water is a renewal resource, but are you willing to haul water from a well and carry it home? That is the only way to not use any energy to transport the water over vast distances to your house so that you only need to turn on a tap.
And are you ready to empty it into a hole in your yard after your business? That is the only way to not use energy and chemicals to treat the sewage before it can be release back into the river and ocean so we can use it again once it goes through nature's filtration.
And your analysis, Philip, eccoes well with the argument laid out by Swedish writer Johan Norberg in his 2003 book In defence of Global Capitalism. You might want to check it out. Amazon seems to be temporarily out of stock but it looks like it is available at the Cato Store. Or try your local library if your like me:)
@Guest -
Your examples of Thai sauce is funny, but also reminded me that I have used a lot of soy sauce in my life, and most of it was made in the USA, in Wisconsin. I've eaten a lot of rice, and it was mostly from Calfornia. I've eaten a lot of tofu, probably tons, and it was produced locally. All the exotic vegetables were grown locally in California. Until recently, the fish was mostly local too, the farthest sources being Hawaii. Same for noodles - until recently, most were produced in the US, not imported. Without a doubt, we bought a lot of imported tea, seasonings, dry goods, kelp, and other unusual things, but, the majority of my "Japanese" cultural experience was grown or produed domestically. (Including cars.)
So, you can have a global, international experience that's mostly produced here.
A few import quotas and tariffs probably figured into the story above.
The reason why there's political pressure for globalization isn't because the government wants us all to have an international kum-ba-ya experience. It's because rich lobbyists are working for big corporations that wanted to expand into other countries, make stuff there, and then "import" it back into America without paying a tariff. That's how it started.
@madjayhawk - yer fulla it.
Wal Mart's profit margin is higher than the other stores, meaning the workers make less per hour than they deserve. Wal Mart is the elitist, to think they shouldn't give people a small raise instead of taking the money and giving it away as dividends to bankers and rich investors.
Do this long enough (see above) and you end up with excessive wealth at the top, and poverty at the bottom, and economic crises that eventually "even out" the situation. (Now, if they even it out by giving more to the rich, like they do with the bailout, the next crisis is going to be even worse, if you catch my drift.)
My community fought Wal-Mart because it was going into a vacant lot zoned for an office (where wage could be higher right), because they wanted the city to pay for a big sign, and they want to operate 24 hours a day next to a residentially zoned area full of old people.
Yes, we're all elistists here in an area where the median house price is below the county's median.
Yes, we're elitists because we didn't want to give Wal-Mart special favors.
@margaret
Poor people breastfeed, but poor people who work have a hard time breastfeeding. Most, poor people, at least in cities, come here to work, and they work long hours. There's a law that says women are supposed to have a room to express breast milk. That's nice, but, there are a lot of workplaces where people get treated lousy and don't get regular breaks.
Also, if you're poor and get WIC, that'll pay for formula.
There's another bacteria-sharing trend we need to bring back -- pre-mastication. Chew up food for your child, and then give it to them to eat. I told this to my friend, because my mom did it for me. My friend was disgusted. Eventually, after a second child, she came around to the logic of it. (The main risk is spreading a disease to the child early. Figure out what diseases you have that you might not want to transmit.)
@heather
You said it. Even since I moved back to a lower-middle class part of L.A., all the eco-friendly-globally-trendy stuff I learned up in Berkeley was hard to find, and over time it became hard to learn about what was trendy, until the internet. By then, I didn't care. This is in freakin Los Angeles suburbs.
Now I just have simple rules: eat everything I buy, don't buy on impulse, try to give it away, and try to get it free or used.
And I'm a liberal bleeding-heard. I voted for Obama, and I'm pissed at his conservative cabinet, and he's not even in office yet. That dude they got for Dept. of Interior ... what a mess.
@poor boomer
Will the landlord pay for weatherstripping and window film?
I cover windows with 1 inch foam insulation panels.
Another tactic is to steal electricity from the outdoor lights to power your heater. Just kidding.
@Cheap Yankee
We probably don't see eye to eye, but you said it right, like Malcolm X "All chickens come home to roost..."
Globalization isn't right when people around the world are working more, and making less money, and when they fuel their modern industries but leave their masses in poverty. We need a global 40 hour work week, global health care rights, and global reasonable environmental standards. These need to be better standards, not worse ones.
I don't see a return to the 1950s and 1960s though. We'd just gone through the New Deal, which was as close to Socialism as we got. Unions were powerful and pervasive. The USSR was looming large, putting pressure on our government to support our "proletariat".
All this globalization mania went gangbusters after the Berlin Wall fell. It was both Republicans and Democrats doing it. Trust the market for anything was their belief.
Now, we're getting back to the bad old days of privatized fire fighters, "gold bugs", cash in the mattress, and homeless encampents.
I'm reading a book, Fascism and Big Business, about the rise of Fascism in Germany and Italy, written around 1938, by Guerin. The parts about the collapses and the bailouts and the confusion and whatnot, are like reading about today.
It sounds pretty interesting.An introspection do add to life.Well all that is needed is to live in present.Wish you all a Happy n Joyful New Year
Thank you, I just moved home and I had no idea - I will add them to my list. I also recommend bowling at Maplewood Lanes - dinner under $5 and a game under $5
Let's do it.
A friend of mine in MN just found out his home was in foreclosure. The landlord continued to collect rent and say nothing. Thankfully, the bank offered him a substantial amount of money to move by the 23rd, so he accepted their offer and is moving. Apparently in MN you have to have made no payments at all for 3 years before it can be foreclosed on. Perhaps that can help other renters there to find out about the properties they're renting.
I am a self-saboteur when it comes to resolutions. Now, instead of writing out resolutions each December, I look back and write out all the lessons I learned and things I discovered throughout the previous 12 months. It's much more satisfying.
So why is Social Security not a Ponzi scheme?
It is; so you're already incorrect. A ponzi scheme is marked by HOW it does what it does, not by the claims made by/about it, or whether or not it can be avoided.
The rationalizations identified here are the same ones that [surprise!] litter the Social Security Administration's weepy, weepy website in response to all the [justifiable] criticism of the ponzi scheme they operate. They could claim plagiarism, only their own rationalizing words are so embarrassing, I strongly doubt that they'd take it to court
first of all it does not make wild claims about making money fast
Irrelevant.
It also does not claim to be investing your money so it is not actually fraudulent
Also irrelevant.
These last two items together are the difference between being robbed by a guy at gunpoint versus being robbed by a guy who promises to re-roof your house after a hailstorm and skips town with your newly-cashed check. Social Security is the guy with the gun. Frankly, that's not an improvement.
It is also based on taxes so it is not a voluntary scheme like the original
Payroll taxes, which means that if you don't work you don't pay. A meaningless quibble
when a person dies then the payout stops under Social Security so it is possible that some people who contribute never see a single penny returned
If old Chuckles Ponzi had been able to keep his juggling act going for a few more years, he would very likely have had one of his "coupon" holders die on him, ... and the coupon would then have become part of the dupe's estate, and an heir or assign would have tried to collect on it ... just as "survivors" can collect on a cadaver's SocSec Bennies today.
This is another meaningless quibble.
The Social Security Administration actually calls the program a "pay-as-you-go insurance system"...
The folks who work for them are idiots; what do you expect? This is as idiotic a redefinition of reality as you can find.
"Insurance". Good god!
If it were "insurance" then the payments would be called "premiums" and would be based on an actuarial evaluation of an individual's likelihood of actually collecting: the more likely you are to collect, the higher your premiums.
And as such, women would pay [significantly] more than men, and "certain ethnicities of Asian" [screw PC; let's be specific here: Orientals] would pay more than whites, and whites would pay more than blacks. Because on the longevity-scale -- which is ultimately what we're talking about here -- the longer you are statistically likely to live, the greater chance you have of collecting SocSec bennies, and the more you would pay in taxes when you "contribute"...
...IF IT WAS INSURANCE.
But it's not. Which means that their equivocative descriptions are entirely hooey, and meant to appease the simpletons.
Regardless of the semantics, in the near future there will be many more retirees than working folks so the demographics shift will make Social Security pay out more than it takes in.
Bingo. And you've just answered your own rhetorical question, albeit in the way you didn't want to.
This is EXACTLY what makes a ponzi a ponzi: the necessary geometric progression of "investor"/taxpayer to recipient, the inability of the real world to sustain that geometric relationship, and the ultimate collapse of the thing.
Another term for this is "pyramid scheme". A ponzi is simply the most well-known pyramid scheme; they are all essentiall the same: they rely on an unsustainable financial model for viability.
But perhaps the most damning bit of evidence hoisting SocSec on its own petard is this:
If you were to implement a pension plan for the Xin Lu Corporation based on the Social Security Financial Model -- current employees fund current retirees' retirement income, with "excess receipts" being channeled back into corporate bonds -- the SEC [Securities & Exchange Commission, at least I believe that's the group; "government regulators" at any rate] would be all over you like pork fat on a Mississippi barbecue for operating a financially fraudulent pension plan. You'd be charged with financial crimes from RICO on down.
Why? Because despite the flowery rationalizations the government throws out in order to convince us all the SocSec is a fine, fine program, they know very well that it's not. They just hope to keep the juggling balls in the air long enough that some "wisdom of the future" can fix it all.