At 63, I lived thru the 70s to early 80s economic disaster, and believe what we are currently experiencing will come to pass once adults are elected, again. I have extreme faith in our system, the FF were highly intelligent MEN and I do believe they had Divine Guidance, but that is another discussion.
Curious as to what you first concern is for our future as a Nation. Is it the economics of today, or the social engineering, woke-ism that has gone too far? The Republicans seem to have a perfect storm building, both of these are working against the Dems right now. If tightening monetary policy works to curb inflation, the potential for a "soft landing" before mid-terms is real. This might take the economy away from the Repubs, but more than likely we will be in a recession so I still believe both issues will work against the Dems this November.
For me, and please excuse any perceived insensitivities because the high fuel and food prices are taking a swipe at our budget, but at this point the economic conditions do not matter to Robin and I. We think we are in the fight of our Nation's life for our collective soul. This social engineering, hidden under terms like diversity, equity, inclusion and justice is doing nothing but causing hate between groups and ripping us apart. It must be reversed. I see glitter of hope that maybe Americans have had enough, but we need a rout this November.
Am I on the wrong track, is the economy a bigger concern to most of you, or the social aspects? I understand they both are valid concerns, but which would you give the higher priority to?
Thanks.
The economy is always important, but I agree with you. The America I know and love is being destroyed and rebuilt with wokeness and gaslit materials. What was always a brick is now something else and everyone that still thinks it is a brick is ignorant and racist. It is unbelievable.
We’ve kicked God out of everything we can and are somehow puzzled that we cannot figure out what is happening and that evil is abounding.
Feelings over facts is costing us all.
The Boomer generation had two things going for it; a large labor pool and very high consumption. Both of these things kept prices suppressed as high output satisfied demand that was matched by high(er) earnings and many households had two incomes. Also, more households began to have fewer kiddos, spreading domestic wealth around for other stuff instead of necessary consumables.
Each generation after the Boomers has been subsequently smaller reducing the labor pool and most Boomers are now retiring and actually spending less than before. Smaller labor pools and lower consumption of output decreases the quantity demanded increasing price, accordingly, to keep the lights on.
The high price fuel thing is completely unnecessary, and while it does affect price on the shelf, is a short run effect.
The biggest threat to our republic? IMO it is the people who see existential threats around every corner and feel the need to take things into their own hands to address them rather than letting the natural cycles steer the ship.
"Smaller labor pools and lower consumption of output decreases the quantity demanded increasing price, accordingly, to keep the lights on."
Decreased demand results in increased prices? Ever economics courses I've taken taught that the opposite was true. Every example I can think of in life as well.
RACE & GENDER
This should be a wake-up call if you don’t already know this… A recent poll was conducted by a national polling outfit. Names don't matter. They are all the same. This one was "YouGov”. Results to these questions asked of average people on the street.
What percentage of the country is black? Answers 41%... Actual 12%. If you watch commercials, you will think it is 90%.
What percentage of marriages are mixed race? Answer 50%...Actual 1%. If you watch commercials, you will think it is 90%.
What percentage is "Latino"? Answers 39%... Actual numbers 17%.
How many families make over $500,000 a year? Answers 26%... Actual figure 1%. We think a quarter of the country is rich.
What percent of Americans are vegetarians? Response? 30%… Actual 5%.
What percent of Americans live in NY city? Answers? 30%... Actual 3%.
What percentage of Americans are 'transgender? 22%... Actual number 1% (People believe this BS!).
What percentage of your fellow citizens are Gay? Result? 30%... Actual 3%.
So why do people have such inaccurate thoughts on these counts? THE MEDIA! The media run race, gender, and wealth stories constantly. Result? You are being brainwashed by the national left with the media. Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would be proud if he had half the success.
Disney just went full-on "gender" They will no longer welcome guests with the traditional "Welcome ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls" Why? Because 1% of the population dictates to the other 99% (that would be the vast majority) and corporate America falls for it.
Regardless of what you think. Less than 20% of Americans use "Twitter" yet Twitter controls 80% of public opinion, why? The media.
Next time you are thinking Americans have changed and not in a good way, remember, it's fake. It's all a lie. Most people think just like you do but the media has brainwashed Americans with constant broadcasting of “LIES".
The vehicle by which that failure comes may be different in different times, but at the end of the day success more often than not breeds failure a few generations later. Wealth breeds silver spooners. For the US/Canada it might be wokism, and whatever else. The fact of the matter is why does this exist? The only way it exists is because people are allowed to live their life and spend their time on something that doesn't even matter. People can live a perfectly comfortable life doing absolutely nothing but being counterproductive. Go to a 3rd world nation and that person is dead. Literally dead. You don't find many African tribesmen worried about the 45 shades of gender. Why is that? Because they are worried about their next meal. They don't have time to sit and reflect that maybe their son with a penis is really a mostly woman in disguise. If they don't find food they go hungry.
I may not be sophisticated enough to figure out exactly what the problem is, I just zoom out to the 30,000 foot view and say what we are seeing is a symptom of once well off countries filled with fat and sassy individuals. Just bound to happen. Has been happening since the dawn of time.
And I think APauls hit the nail on the head too.
Economy, they roll in cycles
Biggest threat we have is the extent of "us vs them" and everything needing to be neatly labelled. There's no room for thought, discussion, disagreement without the mud-slinging, name calling, violence we have now. Honest discussion and debate is how we move forward, that is lost, hopefully not forever.
While neither scare me, I am concerned that we’ve drifted so far from God that the reckoning will be one we all feel.
The history in the Bible is reason enough for me to believe that we are all going to suffer as a whole for the sins of our elected officials. Not mistakes. But, greed driven sin. And, I can’t say that enough.
Here’s a pic from today. Taken about noon. I do this 4-5 times a week across several vehicles. I’m trying to limit usage but, I’ve got a company that requires the use of these vehicles. So, my personal economic position is suffering from social issues. Created by evil people driven by greed.
But, let’s keep paying our taxes and turning the other check. That’s bound to fix it. Wait, didn’t the baby boomers do that? It worked good too. For the government.
I totally agree. And one of the biggest drivers of that is curated news. When it was just "the news", we didn't have this problem to near the extent we have it today. But with people watching feel-good news calling it like they want to see it rather than more objectively unbiased news calling it how it is and making them have to think a little, the "us versus them" and the inability for rationale discourse has gotten out of hand. People need to shut off Fox and CNN/MSNBC and look at AP or Reuters (as a couple of examples of more middle-of-the-road news sources).
I believe that this great social/medical experiment that is happening with children right now will come out over the next 20 years and attitudes will adjust based on what happens.
I'm not too worried about the USA's long-term economic viability because we've always figured it out in the past and risen to every challenge that we've been presented with.
What I am not happy about and worries me, is the old Cold War rhetoric that has resurfaced in Russia (I thought we were past the risk of nuclear war once the Soviet Union imploded when I was a kid) and the rising militarism of China along with a strong sense of Chinese nationalism. These two things are not good.
I feel that Russia will just implode again because their country is corrupt and their military is a paltry skeleton of what it once was, but they still have nukes. I hope we can avoid war with China through my children's and grandchildren's generations, but things don't look good.
When I spend time pondering the above, as someone who was born in 1978 and came of age at a time when the military was downsizing and allowed me to pursue an academic career without the worry of any kind of war, it really makes me thankful to our veterans who made that possible. In 2022 at the age of 43, just passing the ages that I'm allowed to even join the Reserves, I feel I and my peers are very fortunate to be born when we were and hopefully there's a lot more of those years to come, but the world situation is tenuous.
It's unfortunate that the war-mongers of the world just don't seem to go away and the USA is in the situation it's in in the first place and being invaded by enemies from within who would tear the country down with their self-loathing.
But overall, I'm optimistic that we'll figure it out and those voices will be silenced when and if the $#1+ hits the fan.
I sort of disagree Greg. And I'll tell you why:
While those numbers you quoted don't surprise me at all, I'll tell you where it comes from and I feel that the media is at least partly a "what came first, the chicken or the egg" sort of scenario.
I take my kids on a vacation to a destination of their choosing over each of their spring breaks. Well, my oldest daughter asked (to my dismay) to go to NYC.
I hate NYC. I hate all cities. I've spent my adult life in two towns, both population 3500 and I just moved to a town of 1200. But it was her choice, so off we went.
Along the lines of your numbers, I had heard some bit on the news or some sort of media that talked about making TV "more representative of what America really looks like."
As I thought about this, I thought, well, TV already seems very diverse from a racial standpoint and most people in the USA are white, so, I don't really understand that.
Then I went to NYC.
Keep in mind, I spent a good part of my teens and 20s in Southern California, where white people are a minority.
If your world view of the USA is NYC, then I can totally understand seeing movies and TV shows where most of the people are white and thinking, wtf... NYC is all gay people, trannies, asians, black people, middle easterners, etc.
Now think about the standpoint of, say, NBC: They have this huge studio right downtown in NYC. If that's your world view of the USA (NYC), then I can understand thinking that white people are a small minority who are over-represented.
The thing is, no one travels across this country except in airplanes from city to city. Their experiences are the few large cities like NYC and L.A. and they base their world views off of what they see and what they see is people who are not white and not heterosexual and not identifying as cisgender, etc, because people who don't fit that definition who are born in middle town America, move to the cities to find communities of people who are like them and immigrants from Africa and Asia largely land in American cities (the exception is Latino immigrants who are more comfortable in small-town USA because they're from small town Latin America).
So yes, I think the media does misrepresent USA-actual, but not from their perspective. Their perspective is NYC and L.A., not small-town Kansas.
Thing is, so much of urban USA has their entire world-view shaped by the television and digital media and that is an urban world view.
However, one scenario as a manager stuck out to me which was pointed out in this training. Say I send an email to my group wanting them to be diverse in what they can do, not just be good at one task, but to be able to cross train and know how to do multiple tasks. I tell the group that I want them to be a “Jack of All Trades”. Well that can be perceived as a form of harassment because I am assigning a gender in my email by saying “Jack”. There are other examples, but that one just sticks out to me.
I might be a little old fashioned but I feel like people and sensitivity can be self regulating much like capitalism. Say something stupid? Get rocked in the mouth. Now you learn. Case closed. I guess the problem is if you knock someone's teeth out now you're part of toxic masculinity. You know- the kind that built our great nations.
Toby. Use “jackasses of all trades” gender neutral , should be no compaints
It’s very illogical to be a social libertarian and a fiscal conservative, because in a society such as ours individual choices always have societal consequences.
And I’m not just talking about the social issues that have most conservatives up in arms right now, like LGBTQ, etc.
Straight white dudes that drink too much and get multiple women pregnant while refusing to man up and be a father and take care of their kids - this happens every day and the financial consequences are profound. Kids growing up in homes like this are much more likely to end up in foster care and eventually prison.
The 75% out of wedlock birth rate in the black community: same consequences.
The list really goes on and on.
On the other hand, I view these more as spiritual issues with societal level consequences that have fiscal side effects.
But not everyone agrees with that, and legislation alone is incapable of fixing these things.
Righteousness exalts a nation. But good legislation can help some ;-)
The war we are in now is a 'cultural war". The escapism from responsibility practiced by believers in God has produced a huge ignorance of maintaining freedom and liberty in the general population. As predicted by John Quincy Adams; "While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. (FROM TO THE OFFICERS OF THE FIRST BRIGADE OF THE THIRD DIVISION OF THE MILITIA OF MASSACHUSETTS, 11 October, 1798)
America is overpopulated with unbridled people, and too many of them are in government office.
Lawrence W. Reed, "No people who lost their character kept their liberty"
Improvement in America happens one character at a time, be a patriot and work on your own. Ask/pray to God for mercy and grace. If you doubt this, read the following promise of God. "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2Chronicles 7:14
Habitat for Wildlife's Link
MANY on here are GUILTY of it.
If you can't see how Politics has replaced religion, even those who claim to be religious. When your Party is right no matter what (in the face of empirical evidence to the contrary) and the Other Party is Wrong no matter what, there is no hope for rational dialog. The point of democracy is we can agree to disagree amicably and productively for the common good. That's not happening
As to religion, when you believe your GOD hates the same people you do, then you have created a false GOD in your own image....
"The point of democracy is we can agree to disagree amicably and productively for the common good. "
Democracy is mob/majority rule and is not amicable, that's the inherent flaw of democracy . Our founding fathers gave us a constitutional republic and shuddered at the thought of a democracy. The only democratic aspect of our government is the popular vote of most elected officials. That's why the electoral college is under attack by the progressives. The electoral college assures an even balance of power among the states in the election of President.
party platform and power. numbers mean majorities...majorities mean power...power means everything...right down to what will and will not even be brought up for a vote.
Just look at your retirement statement this week. Its not just our savings but fiscal mismanagement by politicians can wreck your standard of living. When it takes a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread that’s trouble.
I think with the right political group of fiscal conservatives in charge in the US we will be fine. If we go on much longer with this Biden clown show, all bets are off.
Feelings over facts is costing us all.
"Never saw sexual pref flags flying on the staff."
They don't reproduce, they recruit.
