Just got home from having a drink at an out-door cafe. I could see my breath. Summer and fall are definitely over. For all who live in northern climes, dig out those woolen socks.
Bottom line.....the bottom just fell out of the smoke and mirrors commerce system that is called "Free enterprise". The Western world hates the word, Communism, yet we take pride in helping out our neighbours or family members.....in other words, communism.
For the most part, the corporate interests have told us what to buy via TV ads, and most people have complied. If they didn't, there'd be no jobs to manufacture the needless junk that people are told that they need.
In 1984, Canadians owed about $187 billion in personal debt. Today we owe more than $801 billion. Has your salary kept up ? I think that it would be similar in the U.S., and Europe.
I was talking to a neighbour today, he asked me how long I've been single. I really had to think about it; it's been 10 years but feels like 2 or 3 years. I would guess that it all depends on the circumstances of the relationship breakdown.
Yes we do, but we have no choice. The average N. American car is about $19,000.00, a house, $189,000.00, food and other necessities, about $12,000.00 a year. Our pay structure has not kept up in any way over the past 20 years. Unless you're a DINK, (Double Income, No Kids ) you don't stand a chance. Credit is the only option, and credit is designed to keep us toiling 'till we drop dead.
For you youngins' out there, I remember when a loaf of bread was 18 cents. A gallon of gas was 21 cents. A 3 bedroom house was $12,000.00. A glass of draught beer was 10 cents. Credit cards didn't exist. No, don't even go there, because it wasn't all that long ago.
The entire world is on the verge of a depression that will make the last Great Depression look like a walk in the park. Globalization has shrunk this world to one village. We tend not to think internationally when it comes to our day-to-day lives. One world, one people, we are all connected at this point in time. The Wall street crash has affected financial institutions from Greece to Iceland. But somehow weapons are still affordable....so we can export our will on countries who we deem a danger. At this moment the US is their own worst enemy, via greed and ethnocentrism. Point a gun to a Muslim's head and tell him to embrace Christianity, he may say, "Yes", wouldn't we all.
9/11 cost 4000 lives. The Muslim world has lost millions of innocent people because we think, "We're Right and they're wrong".
Shame on us (Canada, USA., etc) imposing our f**ked up values on another culture.
We are in the midst of world war three, but too many are eating pizza and watching some TV show to pay attention to what's really going on.
You'll remember that $85-billion US taxpayer loan to the American International Group (AIG). That was made on Sept. 16. In return, AIG surrendered 79.9 per cent of its stock to the government.
Less than a week later, the company's executives, clearly to ease the mental strain they had been undergoing, pitched up at the exclusive St. Regis Resort at Monarch Beach in California.
It's not easy running a once-profitable insurance company into the ground, then waiting nervously for taxpayers to bail you out. The resort allowed these men and women to pull themselves together.
In one week, AIG executives spent $440,000. There was $200,000 for rooms. Another $150,000 in food, $23,000 at the spa, $1,400 at the salon and $7,000 in green fees. Then there is the old favourite, the bar tab, which topped out at $10,000.
Now for the kicker.
Joe Cassano was president of AIG's financial products division. Under the terms of his contract, the committee heard yesterday, Cassano and his executive colleagues were paid 30 cents on every dollar these CDS products made. All told, Cassano made $280 million running this division, a fact that raised the ire of many lawmakers.
Ruining is perhaps a better word than running, since the division lost $11 billion, which led to the near-collapse of the company. Cassano was fired Feb. 29 of this year, but was allowed to keep $34 million in bonuses.
How can anyone receive a bonus for this kind of track record?
PS: Cassano was then kept on as a consultant for $1 million a month.
I am so disappointed with my government as well as the United Snakes of America. The highest ranking British military commander as well as a high ranking U.S., official announced today that the war in Afghanistan can't be won. DOH ! Did we not learn anything from the USSR, having to admit defeat when they tried to defeat Afghanistan ?
Ideology/religion can't be defeated at the point of a gun. Dialogue is the only answer, no matter what the cost. Yes we will have to give up some of our ethnocentric stand points, but if it saves lives and moves us one inch closer to peace, then it is worth it.
Humans require very little; food, shelter and family, yet we insist in killing each other for a myriad of reasons based on religion, money, power and colour of skin.
Have we progressed in the past 2000 years ? NO. We have landed a man on the moon and that is interpreted as progress, yet more people are dying via war than any time in human history. (I will not mention the extinction of mammals etc., on a monthly basis)
gentlepaws Forum Posts (9,583)
RE: ..Sweetest Day...Misery Loves Company..Grumble or Share What Makes Single Life Bearable For You?
"What makes single life bearable?"Hope and being able to eat an entire apple pie in front of the TV.