"We now have a smallish house in a nondescript working class Seattle neighborhood with no sidewalks. We have one car, a battered old minivan with a large dent on one side where you have to bang it with your hip to make the door shut. Our boys go to public schools. Our jobs pay enough to support our lifestyle, mostly anyway. If we wanted, we could both do the "next thing" on our respective career paths. She could move to a bigger company. I could freelance more, angle to write for a bigger publications, write a book, hire a publicist, whatever. We could try to make more money. Then we could fix the water pressure in our shower, redo the back patio, get a second car, or hell, buy a bigger house closer in to town. Maybe get the kids in private schools. All that stuff people with more money than us do.

But ... meh. It's not that we don't think about those things. The water pressure thing drives me batty. Fact is, we just don't want to work that hard! We already work harder than we feel like working. We enjoy having time to lay around in the living room with the kids, reading. We like to watch a little TV after the kids are in bed. We like going to the park and visits with friends and low-key vacations and generally relaxing. Going further down our respective career paths would likely mean more work, greater responsibilities, higher stress, and less time to lay around the living room with the kids.

So why do it? There will always be a More and Better just beyond our reach, no matter how high we climb. We could always have a little more money and a few more choices. But as we see it, we don't need to work harder to get more money to have more choices because we already made our choice. We chose our family and our friends and our place. Like any life ours comes with trade-offs, but on balance it's a good life, we've already got it, and we're damn well going to enjoy it.

That's the best thing about the medium chill: unlike the big chill, you already have it. It's available today, at affordable prices!"

The medium chill involves what economists call satisficing: abandoning the quest for the ideal in favor of the good-enough. It means stepping off the aspirational treadmill, foregoing some material opportunities and accepting some material constraints in exchange for more time to spend on relationships and experiences."

grist

-------------------------
"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

that's unAmerican.

Just interviewed for a job at a F500 corporate conglomerate. Late nights, weekends, permanent Crackberry appendage, chest pounding managers, brown nosed back stabbing subordinates. What a miserable way to eke out an existence. Drafty windows, dead lawn, and cheep beer ain't so bad.

 

God forbid...you have to participate in capitalism.   What happened...the market for incense and bracelets fall apart?

No matter, The Clown will have us on the barter system soon enough.   Hang in there.  Don't forget to voluntarily send your gubment more taxes.

In this case, 'capitalism' is a three headed monopoly monster with 24 tentacles in Uncle Sam's cookie jar. It redistributes wealth and taxes from the poor to the reich quite efficiently.

Because people go in business to lose money or to support the poor.

 

God, you're an idiot.  It's called private enterprise you moron.

Go give one of those socialist staes a shot AND REPORT BACK FROM THE GULAG.

"It's called private enterprise."

Yeah, because they're privately collecting tax revenue. Life in the 'private sector' is good when the government cheese comes in an easy squeeze bottle.

If  I hadn't read the "Seattle" part I would have assumed that was an interview of the Clown.

But, sure, to each his own. I happen to like working hard. It suits my personality. I'd rather work than sit around on my ass. That I get paid a lot is a bonus, but not my motivation. I do my own yard work for 4 yards because I like it, not for the pay (lack thereof, to be precise). Mind you, I do hate missing good surf because of work - but I get in my share.

-------------------------
I :heart; Q

Capitalism is the best way to distribute goods and services.  It is the most efficient and it is the most equitable (as long as the government enforces freedom through protection of civil rights, property rights, and enforcement of contracts).

It's just that some people don't realize that best does not mean flawless.  It can be corrupted.  It will be corrupted in the long run as it is ultimately a zero-sum game.  Eventually a few players will win enough outcomes to come to dominate the entire system.  When this happens they will co-opt the peoples' government to be their own and will enforce regulations and taxation that benefit their interests and stifle possible competition.  We are starting to see this today. 

I'm guessing 3rd knows this and this is why he put 'capitalism' in quotes.  Up at the top among the guys that have bought the government and the media and are running the country, capitalism doesn't really exist any more.  If you are a small business owner or a wage earner they've got their thumb on you.  In the mean time they've got the government bending over backward to provide them services that they refuse to pay for.  ADM doesn't want to pay to maintain the 1000's of miles of waterways on which it transports its goods.  Nope, it wants you who live in Florida to pay to maintain those locks on the Arkansas, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers.  Don't even think about growing crops from your own seed stock.  Monsanto will find some of its engineered genes in your seed (that drifted in with pollen from your neighbor's corporate crop) and sue your ass into non-existence so it can take over your farm.  And capital markets?  You know where your 401K went?  Into a hedge fund manager's pocket after the big players like Goldman Sachs crashed the market and pocketed massive money cashing out while your 401k "rode it out" losing value the whole time.

-------------------------
...

Edited: 07/19/2011 at 08:38 AM by scombrid

was it Churchill that said capitalism is the worst system, except for all the others... it's not capitalism that's corrupted. it's human nature. that's what corrupts the system.

-------------------------
yeah, I'm that guy...

Something like that.

 

Capitalism outperforms socialism and communism precisely because of that human nature.  Capitalism exploits man's inherent selfishness.  Socialism is undermined by it from the outset.  Capitalism works great as long as there is a mutually agreed upon third party to enforce contracts and prevent those with more leverage from abusing that leverage.

 

-------------------------
...

yes, human nature enables capitalism to work better than socialism or communism, but it (greed) also corrupts capitalism and can lead it down the path of oligarchy/corporatocracy, where both wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few, who use the power and legitimacy of government to further their own interests and the expense of the interests of others. 

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yeah, I'm that guy...

Isn't it odd that the more we move away from socialism, the more the right screams that we're on the brink of socialism?

 

It's "the best defense is a good offense" strategy.

 

They get enormous tax cuts and then scream that we're getting close and closer to socialism.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the right screams that we're getting closer to socialism.

The banking industry was totally deregulated, causing billions (trillions?) in stolen money, and the right screams that we're on the bring of socialism.

 

Good strategy.  It seems to be working.

-------------------------

It's official.  I'm bored with this.

 

See you again in a few months.

Escape from the Zombie Food Court
---------
This financialization of our consciousness under American style capitalism has become all we know. That's why we fear its loss. Hence the bailouts of the thousands of "zombie banks," dead but still walking, thanks to the people's taxpayer offerings to the money god so that banks will not die. We believe that we dare not let corporations die. Corporations feed us. They entertain us. Corporations occupy one full half of our waking hours of our lives, through employment, either directly or indirectly. They heal us when we are sick. So it's easy to see why the corporations feel like a friendly benevolent entity in the larger American consciousness. Corporations are, of course, deathless and faceless machines, and have no soul or human emotions. That we look to them for so much makes us a corporate cult, and makes corporations a fetish of our culture. Yet to us, they are like the weather just there.

All of us live together in this corporate fetish cult. We agree upon and consent to its reality, just as the Aztecs agreed upon Quetzalcoatl and the lost people of Easter Island agreed that the great stone effigies of their remote island had significance.

Strangely enough, even as a population mass operating under unified corporate management machinery, most Americans believe they are unique individuals, significantly different from every other person around them. More than any other people I have met, Americans fear loss of uniqueness. Yet you and I are not unique in the least. Despite the American yada yada about individualism, you are not special. Nor am I. Just because we come from the manufacturer equipped with individual consciousness, does not make us the center of any unique world, private or public, material, intellectual or spiritual. The fact is, you will seldom if ever make any significant material or lifestyle choices of your own in your entire life. If you don't buy that house, someone else will. If you don't marry him, someone else will. If you don't become a psychologist, lawyer or a clergyman or a telemarketer, someone else will. We are all replaceable parts in the machinery of a capitalist economy. "Oh but we have unique feelings and emotions that are important," we say. Psychologists specialize in this notion. Yet I venture to say that none of us will ever feel an emotion that someone long dead has not felt, or some as yet unborn person will not feel. We are swimmers in an ancient rushing river of humanity. You, me, the people in my Central American village, the child in Bangladesh, and the millionaire frat boys who run our financial and governmental institutions with such adolescent carelessness. All of our lives will eventually be absorbed without leaving a trace.

Still though, for Western peoples in particular, there is the restless inner cultural need to differentiate our lives from the other swimmers. Most of us, especially as educated people in the Western World, will never beat that one.

Fortunately though, we can meaningfully differentiate our lives (at least in the Western sense) in the way we choose to employ our consciousness. Which is to say, to own our consciousness. If we exercise enough personal courage, we can possess the freedom to discover real meaning and value in our all-too-brief lives. We either wake up to life, or we do not. We are either in charge of our own awareness or we let someone else manage it by default. That we have a choice is damned good news.

The bad news is that we nevertheless remain one of the most controlled peoples on the planet, especially regarding control of our consciousness, public and private. And the control is tightening. I know it doesn't feel like that to most Americans. But therein rests the proof. Everything feels normal; everybody else around us is doing the same things, so it must be OK. This is a sort of Stockholm Syndrome of the soul, in which the prisoner identifies with the values of his or her captors, which in our case is of course, the American corporate state and its manufactured popular culture.
-----------



-------------------------

What I'm getting from this article is that I have "choice" to live this way. What if this is not the way i choose to live? does this make me greedy? I think everyone has a comfort level and mine is a little above this.     

God forbid...you have to participate in capitalism.

This from a guy with summers off.

-------------------------

Learn something.  Anything.  Please.

Next time you should pick the right major instead of hanging at Dead concerts....

why, don't these people realize that if they're not on the treadmill - running fast - that they aren't productive members of society?

how did they get this cushy existance?

thru the blood, sweat & tears of PROUD Amercians. 

now, get out there and SPEND!

"What if this is not the way i choose to live?"

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No one is telling you what to do.

-------------------------

Learn something.  Anything.  Please.

What?! When has someone made too much money though? The writer of this piece has chosen to go for a more modest lifestyle. At what point has someone else made so much money that the writer of this column has earned a piece of it? Many of the "rich", that the Dems want to make out to be the root of all problems, don't know what it is like to drive to or from work in the daylight and their personal and work lives are so intertwined that the concept of having a weekend off escapes them. So you say "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." but you guys contradict that statement daily by the policies you advocate. You should say: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...BUT if you pursue too much happiness, we reserve the right to play Robin Hood with your profits and call you greedy, regardless of how hard you worked to get where you are.

-------------------------
"The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul," - George Bernard Shaw

“End of quote. Repeat the line.” - wise words from Joe Biden

“Your boos mean nothing, I’ve seen what makes you cheer” ~ Rick Sanchez

Thank you.

Do you jokers realize what the top tax rate was for 7 of Reagan's years?
Do you realize what it is now?

I still run into people telling me Obama taxed them to death the last two years
Tax rates have not changed at the personal income level.....The tiers only changed for inflationary increases
In other words, you jokers are FOS....funniest part is you cry about robin hood politics/etc and don't even touch the brackets that "might" be affected

-------------------------
Ograbac is a fat lazy bearer of false witness against people.....He is a hypocrite and fake christian.

Yes. During the Carter years, the top bracket payed 70%+. Reagan dropped it to 50% in 1981, dropped it to, 38% in '87, and then 28% in '88. We are at 35% right now. My issue is more along the lines of the demonization, by the current administration, of anyone who makes a healthy living and does it outside of government work. The AVERAGE salary for a government worker is over $70K. It's close to $10K higher than the public sector and they don't really produce anything. (not to say they don't do anything but they don't make a product or sell much of anything)



Most revolts end up with the peasants on the doorstep of the government.

-------------------------
"The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul," - George Bernard Shaw

“End of quote. Repeat the line.” - wise words from Joe Biden

“Your boos mean nothing, I’ve seen what makes you cheer” ~ Rick Sanchez

That happens when the rich and the government become one in the same with the rich using their might to do nothing but protect their entitled divine status.  You can ask the British, French, or Tsarist Russia about that. 

Granting corporations, many being essentially multinational with no particular allegiance to the United States, complete personhood under the 1st Amendment in the Citizen's United decision is a step in that direciton.

-------------------------
...

No, it happens when the government gets the people dependent on programs that are unsustainable. Eventually the government is forced to pull the rug out from under the people (i.e. Greece and Wisconsin and soon to be California) and it doesn't go over well.

-------------------------
"The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul," - George Bernard Shaw

“End of quote. Repeat the line.” - wise words from Joe Biden

“Your boos mean nothing, I’ve seen what makes you cheer” ~ Rick Sanchez

It most certainly is not a zero sum game. Ever heard of wealth creation? Google and Facebook created 100's of billions of dollars of wealth where none existed before, to cite two examples.

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I :heart; Q

It ultimately is. 

Wealth creation will not keep pace with power consolodation, never has, without some sort of tempering force.  Infinite wealth creation requires infinite resources.  Such does not exist. 

What exactly did Google create?  I think it just pulled in wealth from elsewhere. 

What about agriculture?  There were many.  No there's ADM and Monsanto.

Banking?  We are down to Wells Fargo, Chase, BOA and a handful of penny ante local banks. 

 

Not to say that wealth can't be created.  Discovery a new energy source or a cheaper more efficient way to extract or use an existing source?  That's new wealth. 

But building a sports stadium that revitalizes downtown doesn't make new wealth.  It just attracts it from somewhere else.  Building the best search engine and media sharing center just takes that business from somewhere else.  My successful restaurant might co-exist with others but if I really want to do well I take all their market share.  It is this push and pull of competition that makes Capitalism great because it makes me have to provide better food and better service than the next guy.  But it is also an achilles heel should any player come to utterly dominate the market and be able to use that leverage to prevent competition.

 

(No the restaurant example isn't the best because people have such diverse tastes in food that it is hard to completely dominate the market but the idea about market share is sound enough.  The Borders example is better.  The market has moved on and left them behind.  That's capitalism working and providing the products that consumers desire.  Now if Kindle somehow comes to be the sole provider of content then the system fails but that isn't likely to happen as competition is easy to come by in that market provided they don't somehow co-opt ISPs and get some kind of rule passed that allows them to contract with ISPs to excluded any similar content provider from a network...).

-------------------------
...

Edited: 07/19/2011 at 09:17 AM by scombrid

piling on:

... just ask the folks at the Yellow Pages how their 'business model' is doing.

Forgot about the first drop

The 28% is misleading because of the recapture

-------------------------
Ograbac is a fat lazy bearer of false witness against people.....He is a hypocrite and fake christian.

Don't worry, as long as you guys keep buying into the message fed to you by Koch Industries they can continue to consolodate their power.

Wow, you really put Wisconsin and Greece in the same statement as if they are really analogous.

 

-------------------------
...

This great country was built on the promise that a man or woman dedicated to hard work, self-reliance, and an eye towards seizing opportunity when it showed itself, could achieve the riches that life had to offer.

It has produced more personal wealth than any society that came before it, or that has existed in its same timeframe. Its great universities produced the educated class that gave the world the discoveries of science's grand marvels, that split the atom, and that put Man's footprint on the moon.

And yet, it has also produced a subset of malcontents that sit in criticism of all that American ingenuity, know-how, and personal achievement has wrought. They who have attained little, or who have made no mark whatsoever, blame those that have for all of their shortcomings, and in so casting such blame, expect those that have obtained wealth to surrender it to them.

To this I say: Bullsh*t!

Those know nothings who have obtained little.....???
Can we just call them magazine writers/local paper writers? They ejaculate some pretty crappy writing and stories

-------------------------
Ograbac is a fat lazy bearer of false witness against people.....He is a hypocrite and fake christian.

Listen to the Obamazombie tell us about economic no-nothings.  That's a hoot.  You must be an ejaculation master huh?  Easy  on the lobstersauce big willy.

It's a damn shame that our government can't take a page from this playbook and be happy doing less.

-------------------------
"The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul," - George Bernard Shaw

“End of quote. Repeat the line.” - wise words from Joe Biden

“Your boos mean nothing, I’ve seen what makes you cheer” ~ Rick Sanchez

That's why I'm hoping for a default.  In fact, if it happens I'll throw us a party on Aug 2 snipes!

I think these are the malcontents as well that write pithy bitchy letters to local newspapers about peanut free airplanes being some kind of afront to humanity and freedom.

-------------------------
...

 

Yeah...the same losers that complain about killing terrorists and 6%unemployment.

the same busybodies who are constantly worried about what other people are doing and what's beyond their control, rather than looking at what they're doing. they are constantly looking to remove the speck from their brother's eye, whilst they are blinded by a log in their own. don't like those people...

-------------------------
yeah, I'm that guy...

 

Obama IS the speck in America's eye.

In that case America better start looking for the log in its own eye...

-------------------------
yeah, I'm that guy...

I wonder how much of that wealth and how many of those innovations were produced by first and second generation immigrants.

and how many of the malcontents that you speak of are 5+ generation US Americans.

-------------------------
yeah, I'm that guy...

I also wonder if what you say Streets just serves to support the initial post in this thread. even though our society has produced all this wealth and innovation, yet we also are among the unhappiest of societies - or malcontents as you call them. perhaps one can conclude that money and wealth don't bring happiness. that learning to live within our means (both at the individual and at the government level) and being satisfied with what we have, rather than constantly trying to produce and gain more wealth and doing whatever we have to, including going into debt, to keep up with what society tells us we NEED to have, is the key to happiness.

-------------------------
yeah, I'm that guy...

Perhaps...but this country was founded on the principles of liberty....whatever that means to you.  If wealth is what makes folks happy great!  More jobs and materials they consume.  Good for them.

I agree that people should have the liberty, freedom, etc. to pursue wealth and wealth creation. I think from an individual perspective, it's a vain pursuit however.

-------------------------
yeah, I'm that guy...

That may be your opinion...but success and wealth can take care of many many people and do a lot of good if it's allowed. 

I'd say do-nothing, slothlike behavior is far more pathetic.

I agree with your second statement wholeheartedly. being satisfied with what you have and learning to live within your means however is not the same as being slothful and not providing for yourself and your family, nor are the concepts of being satisfied with what you have and being a hard worker mutually exclusive.

-------------------------
yeah, I'm that guy...

Interesting how you started with Carter and mentioned the 70%...It had been MUCH higher than that prior to him
Reagan left it there until his very last year (very interesting)

If the current govt demonizes everyone except public workers, why is it getting rid of so many govt workers?

-------------------------
Ograbac is a fat lazy bearer of false witness against people.....He is a hypocrite and fake christian.

When Reagan took office he dropped it from 70% to 50%. In '87 he dropped it from 50% to 38% and in '88 he dropped it to 28%. I'm not one of these guys who thinks Reagan was the second coming of Christ but at least get your facts straight.

-------------------------
"The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul," - George Bernard Shaw

“End of quote. Repeat the line.” - wise words from Joe Biden

“Your boos mean nothing, I’ve seen what makes you cheer” ~ Rick Sanchez

the point of government, the very reasons that humans banded together and abandoned the state of nature and created civil societies with governments instituted, was to protect life, liberty, and your ability to pursue your happiness. all members of society derive a benefit from the existence of government. however, some derive a greater benefit than others. the more wealth you have, the greater benefit you're deriving from the government's protection of that wealth. so doesn't it make sense that you also pay more (i.e. a greater share) toward the maintenance of that government than someone who has no wealth, and therefore isn't deriving as much benefit from the existence of that government as you are?

-------------------------
yeah, I'm that guy...

Nobody is begrudging people that work that hard. 

I don't think that applies to the paper pushers at hedge funds though. 

I don't think it applies to CEOs whose companies were bailed out and then turned around and got 23% pay raises.  Don't you ever find it a bit perverse that a CEO makes 400X or more what any wage earner in the company makes?  That tells me that there probably isn't actually enough competition in that market.  I know of no smaller business in a competitive market where the owner or president takes compensation like that.  They are too busy putting the capital back into the company, not vacuuming it out.

-------------------------
...

Life , liberty and happiness was the point I was trying to make.

Mechanical engineering is the wrong major? LOL.

-------------------------

Learn something.  Anything.  Please.

 

apparently you don't get summers off so yeah...

Who pays your salary? Consumers or taxpayers?

-------------------------

Learn something.  Anything.  Please.

You guys still really believe this 16 year old kids assertion he is a teacher?
Even after he started as a hot tub salesman
Bragged about making $25 per hour
has changed his age 4 different times
posts when teachers are at work, but students are at home


Come on now.....tell me you are just having fun with the little turd

-------------------------
Ograbac is a fat lazy bearer of false witness against people.....He is a hypocrite and fake christian.

That sounds like a lot of Italians I know (Italy Italians, not the Jerzee type), except the standard of living is higher over there.

-------------------------
"Are you a Communist?"
"No I am an anti-fascist."
"For a long time?"
"Since I have understood fascism."

-Protagonist Robert Jordan, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (Hemmingway)

The time might come when the government has to try and keep the peasants from pillaging the castles of the rich.


-------------------------
"Are you a Communist?"
"No I am an anti-fascist."
"For a long time?"
"Since I have understood fascism."

-Protagonist Robert Jordan, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (Hemmingway)

As I mentioned before, the rich pay taxes at the roughly same (actually for practical purposes lower; ask Warren Buffett) rate as everyone else.

So I don't get all the bellowing about being contradictory. If you want to work hard and make little money, do that (e.g., jazz musician).
If you want to make money however you can, do that (Trump). If you want to chill, do that.

Also, life is not that simple. Some people work like dogs and make nothing.
Others have trust funds. Life is not fair, equitable or linear.

-------------------------

Learn something.  Anything.  Please.

it is simple. at a personal level, whether you have little or much, the secret to happiness is being satisfied with what you have. at a macro level, the job of the government is to protect life, liberty, and property. that is the foundation of our society.

-------------------------
yeah, I'm that guy...

Of course that's true; I was talking about circumstances...there is no such thing as perfect fairness.

-------------------------

Learn something.  Anything.  Please.

What Scombrid said.

-------------------------
"Are you a Communist?"
"No I am an anti-fascist."
"For a long time?"
"Since I have understood fascism."

-Protagonist Robert Jordan, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (Hemmingway)

What scombrid said and yes it is more or less a zero-sum-game. It's also divergent. The richer you are, the more clout you have and the more
control you can acquire. That's not a condemnation of the rich but rather of government and corruption.

I wouldn't call an oligarchy (like we are heading toward) capitalism. That's not a free market; it's a very tilted playing field.

-------------------------

Learn something.  Anything.  Please.

"demonization, by the current administration, of anyone who makes a healthy living and does it outside of government work"

Example?

-------------------------

Learn something.  Anything.  Please.

Well, let's see. There were the doctors and those who work in the health insurance, oil, mining, financial, banking and pharmaceutical industries. Then there are the rich (i.e., anyone making over $200,000/year or couples making over $250,000/yr), who are not paying their "fair share," which, by implication, suggests that they are greedy, selfish bastards. Those are the ones who I can name off the top of my head - I'm sure that there are more.

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I :heart; Q

Wealth creation is BS, as is the invisible hand.

The sum only increases as resources are used more efficiently (or new sustainable resources are found).

-------------------------

Learn something.  Anything.  Please.