indifference pays 3 of 3

INDIFFERENCE PAYS 3

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note: thanks, Green Mountain Dude click here for pointing out that the BBC series Survivors ( the original, do not touch the remake with your worst enemies junk ) is available at YouTube.  Of course, the way the gods laugh at me and punish me for being a dumbass and not thinking to check this myself, I find this out one week after I receive the DVD's in the mail ( you can order your copy to support me if so desired, although I understand the allure of free.  How often would you re-watch them, anyway? DVD from Amazon http://amzn.to/2H6yxrk ).
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note: and speaking of YouTube, they have different ways to turn stainless steel pans into non-stick.  I didn't even know that was a thing.  As much as I love cast iron, they do seem to take extra oil, and that might be rare at times, so this is an option.
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As financial services have taken over the manufacturing economy, more and more goods and services are taken from the realm of the housewife or handyman and moved to the private economy.  I’ve always railed against the Starbucks of the world, as one CUP of their coffee compares to a dozen POTS being brewed at home for the same price.  That is a special kind of insanity that I cannot comprehend.  When a dozen Soviet T-34 tanks met ONE Panzer on the battlefield, it didn’t matter how much better the German tank was constructed. 

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I’ll take slightly less flavorful coffee for a week and a half verses one cup one time.  I was also never able to comprehend choosing to feed the family one MEAL instead of feeding them three meals a day for half the week or even a full one ( which is about what eating out costs.  Even a Big Mac is the same cost as four pounds of raw meat ).  Now, I can comprehend WHY.  Work blows and work has sucked more and more as once rational thinking couples were pushed out of business by unthinking morons in suits from the corporate world.

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( and no, my dear Kunstler, that was not a greedy move to consume more plastic baubles-it came about for the same reason all the other poor choices were made the last two generations.  When your wages fall you do what you must.  No one LIKES moving out to the suburbs and commuting two hours a day.  They do it to avoid the urban ghetto dwellers killing their families and they do it to afford a house.  One suburb house plus commuting is cheaper than one house with no commuting close to work.  If the work is even close to anything.  Businesses move to the edges to also save money.  Doubling down on distance was about the need to save money NOW, not about saving a resource that will disappear later )

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As businesses must reduce their costs ( just as in society in general, the top skims off the profit and the organization itself is cannibalized ), work environments become more and more stressful.  So the average worker who doesn’t choose to live like a bare assed savage is seeing their purchasing power contract yearly ( now it seems like it is becoming quarterly, and that is at a time where at least mercifully the grocery costs are steadier.  Just wait until that doesn’t hold anymore [ now the cost is reduced by lower customer counts, most drawn to eating out-soon oil/weather increased costs jack up food regardless of where you buy it ] ), costs on almost everything going up, and going to work not only itself more expensive ( it doesn’t matter if gas costs the same when the vehicle and insurance double in cost ) but WAY more stressful due to the idiots in suits expecting you to repeal the laws of physics.

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I can see how easy it is to give into the Siren call of saving time and effort in life outside of work.  You are already screwed by commuting cost, so what’s another few bucks to upgrade to an SUV from a compact?  Why not swing by Starbucks and get a great tasty cup ( instead of a nasty tasting cup at home ) which will be your only simple guilty pleasure in an otherwise cherry on a crap sundae day?  By the end of an eight hour day that turned into a nine hour ( shaving off fifteen minutes from lunch, starting early and finishing fifteen minutes late.  All off the clock, obviously ) day plus the commute of upwards to two hours ( up from one hour when traffic wasn’t as bad-which also increases your stress because you know one out of five of the drivers is an illegal without insurance ), why not pick up a prepared dinner at the deli?  You simply don’t have the energy to do anything else.

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Now, it doesn’t really matter that this is all a personal choice and doesn’t really have to be thus, does it?  Most folks step into the trap one little choice at a time.  Upgrade the college education, upgrade the safety of the neighborhood, earn just a little bit more, refuse to compromise another time.  Give in to one temptation.  Accept an easier form of something.  People aren’t so much weak as they are exhausted and creatures of habit once a choice was already accepted.  And everybody is like this.  Your kids won’t shop at Wal-Mart ( forget the abysmal quality, they just won’t shop there because they won’t downgrade social class ), they have to get the better looking pair of tennis shoes or eyeglasses ( when I was a kid there wasn’t designer frames.  I just refused to wear the ugly things until I had no choice ).

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No one is immune to this.  When the culture upgrades minimalist expectations you go along to stay in your economic class.  That is simple mating rituals, and nobody goes broke betting on mating.  And so, finally, to the point.  Every time there is an upgrade of minimalism, folks become just a little bit poorer and the ability of family or friends to help is diminished yet again.  If I asked you for a thousand bucks, I could live off that for up to six months.  The average person asked you, that would be eating out a couple of times, one months credit card bills and a car payment.  They would still be hungry and need to fill up the gas tank in one or two weeks. 

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And so, over time, as our buying power diminishes ( and keep in mind, the last forty years of falling real wages doesn’t account for the last few years of medical hyperinflation ), the natural response to not being able to assist others financially is to adapt a mental attitude to justify NOT helping.  My kids were always great, never asking for help except in emergencies.  I never minded.  But right now the NOL has a renter who is getting his mother to pay the rent, every month, even though he is working.  Yes, single dad, but…really?  That is the kind of expectations that are so damn difficult to meet, even for a short time ( I imagine she willingly pays to keep him out of their house.  His two year old cries all the damn time when she visits here.  That doesn’t negate the financial aspect ).

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How can almost anyone afford to help out family in need?  Forget friends, right?  As wages dip alarmingly, as unemployment in the real world exceeds the Great Depression, you can’t help yourself, let alone others.  And when the others see little to no help, the favor is going to be returned.  They look at their own need, see you have no where near the bills like they do, don’t stop and think only by pinching every penny can you survive, and the downward cycle of indifference and lack of mutual assistance continues.  People have no choice, this is just another symptom of the collapse.  But it is also another reason people cannot form protective tribes during the collapse.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2FZIEgd )

 

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