The Glade 4.0

We've gotten in over our heads. We're not going to get ourselves out of this mess, we are not going to become fiscally responsible, until there is pain to catalyze the process.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Isn't that what you've been claiming is inevitable?

Seems to be the difference is, one starts from the bottom of the food chain and works it's way up and the other starts at the top and works it's way down.

And, when the pain starts at the top, the solution might just be that much quicker to appear.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I agree, but I don't think many here quite understand exactly how painful this particular rouind of pain will be. Nor do I think our government will simply accept the pain as they should, but instead will go about making a series of blunders making it even more painful.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

The pain never starts at the top, Taskiss. And yes, I've realized it's inevitability for some time now, but I'm certainly not happy to be right.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Rynar, I can think of nothing more important to the people at the top than the value of their fortune or their power, which are basically the same thing.

Which, by the way, is why I don't see any change happening any time soon.

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In time, this too shall pass.

What makes you think they'll lose it?

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

This makes me think it would, if it were to occur.

Again, I don't think there will be appreciable change.

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In time, this too shall pass.

You know, people could start by offering solutions that aren't tantamount to genocide, like all the people suggesting that all government assistance programs be eliminated while at the same time suggesting that we still have too many jobs and that we would be better off if all the people not working now never work again.

yeah, but that's gonna happen anyway sooner or later.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Which word? Tantamount or Genocide? :p

Heheh

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

They're not picking up guns and pulling the trigger, but the fact remains that if you consider the real unemployment rate, close to fifty million people want jobs but can't get them. The so-called "compassionate" conservatives are suggesting that none of these people should ever work again while at the same time suggesting that all government aid to them be eliminated. What do you think is going to happen when that many people can get neither a job or a handout? No, not all of them are going to starve or die of exposure but even if it's only like 1/50th it's still quite frankly sickening for anyone to suggest such a course of action.

Why is it that, increasingly, the "conservative" (Not you personally, but the sentiment of conservatives in general) solution to every problem seems to involve death on a massive scale? The solution to sub-Saharan Africa is to let a third of them die. The solution to the illegal immigration problem is to just start shooting them at the border. The solution to "terrorism" is not to conduct invasions, regime change, or "peacekeeping" operations, just send over a few nukes and slaughter 20, 30, 40 million people as an example. Some people seem to be actively hoping for economic and societal collapse to occur, like it's necessary as some weird form of karmic or divine justice.

I don't think you understand other folk's positions at all.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Maybe if you stopped assuming all these people were just going to die, that would help. "The conservatives" aren't suggesting none of these people should ever work; that's Khross, and in any case that could largely be solved if we no longer insisted on dual-income households as the default. Every adult does not need gainful employment outside the home.

As for problems external to this country - why does every liberal solution seem to involve throwing more money at it, and allowing people to attack us while excusing them from any form of retaliation? If conservatives want to nuke the country responsible for an attack, liberals scream about how many will die and ask why we can't intervene. If we intervene, liberals scream about imperialism and massive death and carpet-bombing (as if this were WWII or something) and want to know why we can't get sanctions at the U.N. If it's sanctions, then it's howls of distress that we're only hurting the poor in that country and they're starving while the rich rulers have no incentive to change, and why can't we just send aid there and maybe if we're really nice it will all be just hunky dory!

If people in sub-Saharan Africa want to butcher each other with machetes, and insist that you can turn Lesbians straight by raping them, why do we need to fix those problems if there's nothing in it for us? If those same people pick a fight with us, why should we tie a hand behind our back? If they don't want to be blasted off the face of the earth, they shouldn't start a fight. It is not genocide when the people supposedly being wiped out are the ones picking the fights in the first place.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I disagree.

So, you need a job, right? But your wife doesn't?

If something happens to you, how will your family survive? Got small kids? Your insurance is good for what, a couple of years income? What then?

Your wife needs a job...a career...if they're going to survive with anything like the standard of living you currently have.

Whether or not your wife 'needs' the ability to continue supporting your family...whether she 'needs' to be able to retire at the appropriate age if something happens to you, well, that's up to you and her.

I know my wife has an opinion on such things that differs from what I think yours is.

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In time, this too shall pass.

That's precisely the problem. Our society is tuned to require 2 adults working.

It doesn't matter if its me or my wife, although my wife has never had anything really resembling a career since we got married, and wasn't making a whole lot of progress in that regard before we got married. She would much rather be at home raising children, and in many ways simply lacks the ability to succeed as a career person. I have no idea why; she just isn't really capable of dealing well with the pressures of the career world. When I was in Iraq, she managed the house fine, but she took that entire year off teaching because I was not home - and now that we're in Texas I find it doubtful if she will ever work again.

If something happens to me, then yes, insurance will have to do, and she'll have to figure something, but for most people, the other parent is quite capable of taking over as the income earner. Right now that's problematic because it's expected you have a career, but if one-income households were the standard, it would be much more acceptable for a person to go from the stay-at-home to the income earner for various reasons.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Our society doesn't require it, our families do if we want to ensure a particular standard of living.

Before you go assuming folks can just pick up and support a family when the primary income is unavailable without a career to fall back on, check out some stats on single income families with incomes under $30,000.

How many kids do you have, DE?

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In time, this too shall pass.

Maybe you shouldn't have a family if you're only making 30k a year? It's not very responsible of someone to start a family if they can't support them. If you have kids, one parent should always stay home to raise them(doesn't matter if it is the father or the mother, but one of them should).

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

30-35k a year is the average woman's income in the US.

Then $550 a month will REALLY shock you.

The average age for a widow in the US is 53, the average income is $550 a month.

http://www.widowsministry.org/index.php ... &Itemid=13

When the decision to have a family is made, I'm thinking the husbands income is taken into consideration to address your points.

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In time, this too shall pass.

And now, we loop back to the expectation that families are two-income.

If that expectation was not there, single income families would not have incomes under $30,000. Why hire the widow who needs a salary of $50,000, when the wife of the working husband down the street will take the same job for $30,000? If that wife wasn't in the market, though, both her husband and the widow would be making $50k, instead.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Would you care to give some examples of these positions?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I think the issue is really the low birth rate. The "expectation" that families are two-income derives from that. If you have six kids, one parent has to stay home, you'll never manage it otherwise. There's also no way you can afford day care for six kids. If you only have one or two kids, it's much easier for both parents to work and afford daycare. Having less kids also decreases the time period where there's a very young child in the family that needs supervision. I'm fairly sure a lot of housewives get jobs simply because they're bored, their two kids are either teenagers and want nothing to do with them or adults and off at college or working, while the husband is always working and never home.

But they have Angry Birds and Farmville now.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Well for starters, there's the popular conservative demand that the debt limit not be raised at all and never raised again. They want to cut 40% of all government spending during a recession, when government spending is the only thing driving the economy. Banks are not lending, businesses are not hiring despite high profits. Yesterday's projection was that the government would run $10 trillion in debt over the next decade. The deal just reached cuts that to $7.5 trillion. 25% of all anticipated borrowing has been cut and it's met with nothing but derision. Congress just agreed to cut the size of the federal government by about 11%, has such a large cut ever occurred in the history of the country? But no, anything but complete cold turkey, stop running any debt right this second is not good enough. The financial calamity and suffering that would result from such a hard-line stance is not only deemed as necessary, but welcomed. People deserve to suffer for allowing Washington to borrow money in the first place!

As for shooting people at the border, it is not an uncommon position amongst more serious conservatives that the illegal immigrants should be treated as foreign invaders/infiltrators and shot on sight. As for cutting foreign aid to Africa, hell I thought that was the majority position.