Cultural Effects of Loss of Labor

[The Conservative]

My son will know what it means to get his hands dirty. He will play in puddles, dirt, create forts, and learn what it means to earn money using his hands by doing chores at home, and then latter working...

I refuse to let my son grow up being a pansy... I want him to live hard, play harder, and thrive... I want him to see a problem and not be afraid to get his hands dirty to get the solution... if that makes sense?

Same for me. I don't know if I'd hold out on him quite as much as my dad does, but I certainly won't pave the way for him. I'll administer a good kick in the ass for lazy behavior, and catch him whenever he falls.

I refuse to hold him back like my father did... but I will not let him give up... and catching him when Peter falls is nothing short of what a good parent should do... I feel that people today are too soft, but that may be me.

[SuburbanFarmer]

My son will know what it means to get his hands dirty. He will play in puddles, dirt, create forts, and learn what it means to earn money using his hands by doing chores at home, and then latter working...

I refuse to let my son grow up being a pansy... I want him to live hard, play harder, and thrive... I want him to see a problem and not be afraid to get his hands dirty to get the solution... if that makes sense?

Same for me. I don't know if I'd hold out on him quite as much as my dad does, but I certainly won't pave the way for him. I'll administer a good kick in the ass for lazy behavior, and catch him whenever he falls.

I refuse to hold him back like my father did... but I will not let him give up... and catching him when Peter falls is nothing short of what a good parent should do... I feel that people today are too soft, but that may be me.

Responded to your earlier posts too, on the last page - FYI.

[The Conservative]

Same for me. I don't know if I'd hold out on him quite as much as my dad does, but I certainly won't pave the way for him. I'll administer a good kick in the ass for lazy behavior, and catch him whenever he falls.

I refuse to hold him back like my father did... but I will not let him give up... and catching him when Peter falls is nothing short of what a good parent should do... I feel that people today are too soft, but that may be me.

Responded to your earlier posts too, on the last page - FYI.

I know

[Xenophon]

@Bjorn - I don't disagree, but the strength of a national economy has little or nothing to do with how hard its workers work. It's almost exclusively about military and diplomatic strength.

That military is paid for by....?

Whatever their fiat currency can be manipulated to pay for after corruption. I'll be generous and speculate that a real "can do attitude" will generate some 1% better GDP, but it's irrelevant on the national scale.

Easiest examples would be anything in the third world. Those people often work like animals compared to westerners, yet their national economies remain shit.

The opposite is true, in Africa at least. Hash has been down there, and something he's noticed (let me know if I'm misquoting you, Martin), is that the men are obsessed with living a western, celebrity-esque lifestyle, while their wives are the ones having to raise the children and work.

Singapore is the shining city on a hill, anyways.

[SuburbanFarmer]

That military is paid for by....?

Whatever their fiat currency can be manipulated to pay for after corruption. I'll be generous and speculate that a real "can do attitude" will generate some 1% better GDP, but it's irrelevant on the national scale.

Easiest examples would be anything in the third world. Those people often work like animals compared to westerners, yet their national economies remain shit.

The opposite is true, in Africa at least. Hash has been down there, and something he's noticed (let me know if I'm misquoting you, Martin), is that the men are obsessed with living a western, celebrity-esque lifestyle, while their wives are the ones having to raise the children and work.

Singapore is the shining city on a hill, anyways.

Yeah...

[jbird4049]

It use to be, the harder you worked, the more successful you were going to be, especially if applied some thought. Even if you failed, it was easier to recover. Nowadays, not so much. Don't get me wrong, it is still often to succeed with hard work, but too often it's just shy of being a lie. Too often, hard work will only put you deeper into that hole in the ground. For too many, what's the point?

What, are you wanting to MAGA?

What do you mean by "hard work?" Tell me your definition of "hard work" and I'll share some thoughts. But your definition matters.

What the heck does MAGA mean?

What is my definition of hard work? It might be easier for me to give examples. Studying for hours, until you can't think. Doing manual work until you are so sore you can't sleep. Or smell of manure, and dirt, and sunburned. Again. That was fun. Working 40+ hours a week, going to class. Although how my parents did that, and raise children all at the same time, I haven't a clue, but they did it. And they went somewhere

I guess one of my criticisms about "hard work" being so important is that there is growing disconnect between work, and success especially as the rungs on the ladder are being removed. It is getting ever harder to do what my parents' generation did.

Not everyone should go to college, but the non college educated jobs that pay anything are going away, if for no other reason than the management doesn't want to pay, or train, or support their employees. Just look at Carrier. It moved its production, it was profitable, but it could squeeze little more profit, by firing all the current workers, and move to Mexico.

It's also all working long hours, doing whenever they want. If you want promotions, better have a degree, even if it is not needed. But HR says so. It's qualification inflation.

So let's say you have the aptitude for college, that you can pay for the every increasing cost of it. It still doesn't mean much because the value of it, is declining. So you work part-time, or full time, get that degree, go into debt, get that craptastic job, get job sent overseas, or get replaced by H-1B workers like at Disney.

Were I worked, I saw entire swathes of management, or longtime employees(who were the higher paid ones), get fired, or forced out, not because they weren't needed, but because some number crunchers could justify it. It is not nice seeing employees who worked at company longer than you've been alive, or management who worked 60 hour weeks just disposed of.

Of course by then, you might have college debt, or a mortgage, or children. Then what do you do? You are now worse off then you were before college. Once you lose that job, what are the chances that you will get any job that paid as well as before? I also think much can be said of non college, but skilled trade work, but without the college debt.

As others have mentioned, the social contract in this country between businesses, and workers, is broken. All the all the rewards go towards the upper management, and stock holders, with all the costs, and risks going towards the employees. Like Wells Fargo demanding that its employees commit fraud, or get fired. Five thousand were fired anyways once the fraud was exposed. But upper management still got those bonuses.


Think of those immigrants from south of the border we all complain about. They work like dogs, often for nothing wages. Not because they want too, but because they do not have choice. As hard as struggle, most will not get anywhere.

[Speaker to Animals]

There exists no social contract between businesses and workers. There exists a social contract between the government and the governed. That's it.

A lot of the progs in my area built their own alternative economy. They have their own organic farms. They have the farmer's market (huge). They have their own local-food restaurants (delicious). They make their own shit as much as they can.

Join the alternative economy, dude. Stop bitching.

[BjornP]

Growing your own food to sell is "building an alternative economy"...? I am betting that's a line you heard from those hippies selling the greens, right?

[Speaker to Animals]

Well, that's what it's called, genius. Take it up with them.

[Okeefenokee]

There exists no social contract between businesses and workers. There exists a social contract between the government and the governed. That's it.

A lot of the progs in my area built their own alternative economy. They have their own organic farms. They have the farmer's market (huge). They have their own local-food restaurants (delicious). They make their own shit as much as they can.

Join the alternative economy, dude. Stop bitching.

I thought it was lost forever.