Debt

All over the Web at the moment - people complaining about government debt.
Fine - why no complaints about business debt?
Why no complaining about personal debts?
The government should not be running up debt as it affects future generations.
Doesn't the same apply to business and personal debt?
Especially when much of that debt is required merely to gamble on "values" in the hope that somehow it will turn out to be profitable. And if it does turn out to be profitable how much of the debt will be paid off?
Or will it sit around on the "wait until I am ready" principle?
The point is - it is debt culture that is the problem. The people who vote in governments are probably playing this silly game with debt themselves (this is particularly applicable to those who believe in Friedmanism, which is a philosophy that cannot eliminate debt from its thinking - it is fundamental as to how it works). The government debt is merely a reflection of the not so frugal habits of the voters. If private individuals cannot restrain their spending, and live within their means, why should anyone expect their governments to think or act differently? The government eventually is the body representing the people, and that includes everything that that involves - including its psychology.
My own take? We need an end to debt culture in all areas - it only leads to poverty and instability.

Government propaganda and facts - German style

Yesterday there was an announcement that Germany has now 1 million skilled jobs that it cannot fill.
It would be interesting to know where (certainly not in IT! - I will tell you that from experience!).
t-online.de asked its readers to relate their experiences and held a poll asking people to vote on this.
81% of people indicated that the job market was as near to impossible as it gets and there were still no jobs out there. Dozens of people wrote in saying exactly the same.
Perhaps we need to know what these 1 million skilled jobs are, where they are and how people should apply for them. Merkel should get her ministers to publish a list!
My suspicion is that the definition of "skilled" these days means "flipping burgers" at McDonalds or Burger King!

Political Terminology Explained

For those confused by different political terms, an allegorical explanation:

Capitalism – owning the casino guaranteeing that you are the only winner, but even you can lose if you get too greedy or drink away the proceeds.

Fascism – working with the casino owner to take over any competition by forceful means, eradicating all the people whom you think (on a totally arbitrary basis) should not be in the casino or anywhere else for that matter, and giving dirty jobs to a large number of the remainder.

Conservatism – playing the casino all the time expecting to win, borrowing large sums so you can do so, laughing at all the losers, but crying like a baby (and always blaming someone else) when you lose yourself.

Socialism – still playing the casino, thinking somehow you can get everyone to win when reality constantly proves that it is not possible, and making sure the winners don’t get to enjoy their winnings by taking their winnings away and trying to distribute these by way of freebies (drinks, food, tee-shirts) to everyone there.

Communism – taking over the casino and closing down all the games played inside it, wondering where all the money has gone, and then forcing all the people still inside to stay even if they do not want to, and tying up in chains, or shooting, the people who argue.

Environmentalism – playing the casino and trying to replace the chips with flowers.

Anarchy – blowing up the casino.

NOTE ALSO

Libertarianism – see Conservatism (these were previously different. There was something else called Conservatism, where people simply kept their winnings and left the casino, or only came back with the money that they had won, not with borrowed money. This is now though a defunct theory and has merged with Libertarianism, apart from the fact that former Libertarians smoke reefers, while traditional Conservatives do not).

Another job rejection

Today after two months waiting for a reply, I got another job rejection from a company that will remain nameless.
This job suited my talents to as close to 100% as any can. I sent a very detailed explanation on a point by point basis to them as to why I was suitable for the position. I gave them very clearly in all the questions that they asked to answer (in a spreadsheet) clear and precise responses.
There is no reason except ageism why they should not at least have interviewed me.
This morning after TWO FRIGGING MONTHS, they sent a rejection. Explanations? NONE!!!!
Just the usual trash answer reading along the lines of wishing you luck with further applications etc. BULL****! If they are not interested in taking on someone that talented, why should anyone else be?
Of course the frigging conservatives out there who created this global economic crisis think that it is really easy finding a job.
I would gladly wish LONG-TERM unemployment upon every frigging conservative on this planet - they might learn something! Maybe they would be happy to become slave labour at McDonalds!
I will happily commit suicide before anyone tries to impose that solution upon me though. I am a brain worker, I am very good at my job when allowed to be and nobody is going to reduce me to menial slavery! I would rather die first!

Obama, sounding like Schröder, proving the Republicans right!

In India this weekend, Obama remarked that the Indians were not stealing jobs from the West, rather that they were creating them.
This is a bit like Gerhard Schröder's famous need to import 20,000 Indian IT technicians to Germany as the "skills did not exist and we need them to get economy moving".
You want to know how many IT specialists there are unemployed in Germany at the moment, and remember one of Merkel's cohorts commenting the other week that Germany doesn't need any more immigrants to do IT work ....
So if the Indians have not stolen my job and created jobs instead, what I am doing unemployed? Where is my job? What am I supposed to be doing? Why do I keep sending out applications by the dozen and getting no reply?
Of course there is the US Republican Party answer to this (in line with "the poor have created their own poverty" and their denial that the financial crash ever happened in 2008) - namely that the unemployed are lazy and don't want to work.
The jobs don't exist therefore I don't want to work. The problem is that this weekend even Obama  subscribed to that.
If he were right about the jobs being created incidentally, then please let me know where! Something in line with my qualifications, experience, intelligence, and something that will at least keep the wolf from the door!
I will happily do German to English or French to English translation work as an alternative incidentally.
I would like to see Obama proved right for once (can any sensible person on this planet want to see the Republicans back in power in the US with the same bankrupt ideas and their need to start unnecessary wars?), but he increasingly comes across as being brilliant at rhetoric and that is it.

Tea Party Logic

Quoted from Cynthia Tucker's latest column (without permission - I hope she won't mind, this deserves more publicity) on the US Tea Party.
The underlining and use of blocks is mine though:

They are mostly ultraconservative Republicans. They may be frustrated with the mainstream GOP, but they've aimed more of their fire at Democrats than Republicans. In Georgia, for example, it's no surprise that Julianne Thompson, state coordinator for the Atlanta-based Tea Party Patriots, is a longtime activist in Republican politics
But for all the supposed tea party anger about government spending, most of its supporters tend to favor entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, according to The New York Times. And they don't seem aggravated by the Pentagon's budget, either.
Why would they be? According to the Times, 57 percent of them hold a favorable opinion of George W. Bush, whose tax cuts, two unfunded wars and massive increase in entitlement spending -- the Medicare prescription drug plan -- wrecked the federal budget. Meanwhile, however, more than half the tea partiers told the Times that Obama's policies -- which they consider "socialist" -- favor the poor.
This really isn't a new blend of tea, after all. It's the same brew of ultraconservative ideology that's been served on the right for decades.

And my own comment on this, I expect that most of them will be happy to see an invasion of Iran under President Palin in 2013, no matter how much it costs!

Spare me the polemics

One thing of which I have become aware over the years.
The more polemical your argument (fascist, conservative, socialist, communist), the less likely it is to work in practice.
What do I believe in?
Pragmatism.
Whatever works, and not just for me, but for the good of everyone.
When we have eradicated unemployment, underemployment, poverty, debt, war, nationalism etc, we will have succeeded.
As not a single one of any of the polemical beliefs as listed above will get us there, I will regard them ALL as failures.
Pragmatically they do not deliver the goods.

Another Day, Another Idiot

I went on Helium.com this morning to check out the front page.
Occasionally they have some interesting stuff (once in a while some of mine), sometimes some really rivetting stuff.
Today? Headline item, some guy going on about Obama being a Socialist.
Again?
Does he know what he is talking about? No. Absolutely not, but then I have more or less given up on common-sense or intelligence from such individuals.
Is Obama a Socialist? OK - define "Socialist".
In my university days (when dinosaurs roamed the earth), I used to pal around with "Socialists" - all 57 varieties of them.
In the 2002 French elections there were three Trotskyist candidates, two Communist candidates, one mainstream PS (Social Democrat) candidate and one independent Social Democrat candidate. All of them "Socialists". Really - six out of seven would not have agreed with what the other "Socialists" thought, they were not real "Socialists".
And I frankly doubt that Obama would have been on the same page with any of all seven of them.
I have stayed out of the American Health Care debate (not my business), but as a neutral observer, I would remark that the only way that it could have contained traditional Social Democrat elements would have been if it had included a "public option", which was dropped from the bill early in the game. A public option like they have in that country full of dangerous Marxists called .... "Canada"! Stephen Harper, Alberta's answer to Karl Marx? I saw a seditious poll incidentally indicating that some 13% of Americans disapproved of the Health Care bill as it did not include a "public option". Not my issue, I digress.
Anyway I read the Bio of this guy on Helium's front page this morning. He is a conservative blogger.
A conservative? A George W Bush (run up 7 trillion dollars worth of public debt and let's invade yet another country without being asked) conservative? A Margaret Thatcher (close down the textile mills, close down the steel works, close down the mines, close down half of the ports, now where did all these idle feckless unemployed come from? Never mind, borrow, speculate, borrow some more, speculate some more, borrow even more, speculate even more, and, while we are at it, let's bomb Libya) conservative? A Carly Fiorina (25% decline in the HP share value and thousands of jobs exported to China and India while she was CEO) conservative? A Sharron Angle (let's get rid of Social Security and make the elderly who need it live in tents) conservative? A Sarah Palin (I couldn't even finish my term as Governor of Alaska without quitting, but now I want to run the country for 8 years, and while we are it let's increase military spending, even if we cannot afford it, and invade Iran) conservative?
Nearly as wide a variety of them as there are "Socialists"!
And about as much sense from all of them .....

Personal Responsibility

Personal Responsibility?

I agree completely, utterly and without reservation that we should be responsible for our own actions.

Where I do not agree is the way that this is used as a political slogan. That we should not depend upon others for providing for us is a great idea. The problem is that economically we are! Even if you run a shop, your own business, you are dependant upon customers buying your services or products, and at a price where you make a profit. If not, then you are dependant upon banks to keep you in business.

Quick reminder at this point – banks are not charitable organisations either! Banks are also there to make a profit, often at your expense!

If your business loses money, the bank will not keep you alive for long. Bad debt it does not need, it hurts their profits (or it spoils their ability to have fun speculating with the money that you have invested with them – they have no problem losing your money for you, that goes with the territory!).

And if you are the quiet, shy type of individual (like myself) for whom selling is a chore (to say the least), then how do you manage to practise this concept of personal responsibility? Finding someone who believes in your ability sufficiently to employ you and pay you enough money to meet all your requirements.

Just how easy that is can be summed up by the increasing tendency of businesses to close down their operations where they pay decent but not amazing salaries to talented, industrious, hardworking, very competent individuals (like myself) in the developed world, and move them to less developed parts of the world, where they can pay the proverbial peanuts.

Easy? NOT AT ALL!

And what happens to the concept of “personal responsibility” then? No point running to a bank, they are not there for that purpose. In fact banks (the most fundamental basis of any capitalist society NB) are the last people who will be there when you need help – unless you want someone to help you with some speculative venture from which they can gain themselves!

Rather you end up, reluctantly, despite yourself, asking a government agency for help. Frankly it stinks! But where are the alternatives?

Polemical answers I do not need. Just a job (or a regular, and not particularly excessive source of income), and adequate money to keep me afloat so that I can take care of my personal needs. I do not need lessons in personal responsibility, particularly from people who supported the individuals who speculated us into the current crisis, and are prepared to vote to put the maniacs back in charge of the asylum!