i suspect that "cheap energy" is an emergent effect of scientific method, free markets, property rights, and modern capital structures rather than a starting requirement.
no one starts with cheap energy. you get it because it's something a thriving economy requires and therefore pursues through innovation and resource allocation.
in most meaningful ways, the ability to produce and consume energy IS prosperity.
(there's a chart early in this piece that shows the inextricable linkage)
To have any new technology become “ cheap” competition has to thrive and that means cut out subsidies. No one will spend money to improve a product that’s artificially propped up by govt subsidies. It kills innovation and investment.
Same thing with labor. If a person knows that they will be paid the same, regardless of effort. they have no incentive to make the effort.
At various times, I've been salaried, paid hourly, and paid piece rate. How I'm paid affects how I approach the job. That's true of anyone.
Imagine if a psychiatrist got paid based on 'healing' their patient, and not by the hourly sessions. You'd see patients getting healed a WHOLE lot quicker.
More consumers to bill. Drug dealers in lab coats with the legal system backing them up. In case their customers decide they'd rather not buy their stuff anymore. Drug dealers don't take kindly to that.
You don't think Psychiatrists are useful? You don't believe in mental illness and sturggles? Do you not see homeless people walking down the street talking to nobody and punching the air? Have you never known someone who was depressed or schizophenic or suicidal?
How bad does it get? After the Soviet Union fell there was a pig farm with 1200 people working at it. A man and his son decided to leave and start their own. The 2 of them produced as much as 1200 collectivists within 2 years. That's a 600:1 productivity increase.
There is a lot of good being done in mental health care right now. It's not perfect, it could reach many more seriously mentally ill people. A large percentage of the homeless have serious mental illnesses.
I think the mentally ill are a smaller number than the alcoholics, drug addicts and other bums who are homeless because they want to be. And why not? They can continue to be worthless scum and we give them stuff. Shutting off the entitlements for being human trash would go a long way toward solving the problem.
That's why shrinks love Big Pharma. Those drugs can provide short term relief but keep the consumer dependent and going back for more. Shrinks get paid four times as much per hour as when they did talk sessions. They get more respect from the medical community as real-honest-to-gosh doctors. And they keep more long-term consumers. Robert Whitaker (Mad in America; Anatomy of an Epidemic) pointed out how much worse the long-term prognosis for the "mentally ill" has become since the 1980's. Schizophrenics used to have a 70% recovery rate with over 30% making full recovery. Now it's sunk to 16%.
Sometimes it seems people's opinions reflect their experiences. You and I may have seen some things others writing here have not. No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot
Great way to keep a teenager from ever growing up--so they can never have a family or become gainfully employed--and forced to live with relatives or dependent on the government till they die in their early 50's due any one of a number of iatrogenic disabilities along with TBI. Because overriding the brain and central nervous system is how these drugs work.
A parents' short-term convenience is definitely more important than their offspring's future. A lot of moms have great fun keeping these permanent children like domestic animals. These parents can join NAMI for maximum enjoyment of the experience.
NAMI mommies.
When disabled offspring are status symbols Munchausen's by Proxy becomes a fashion statement. I think of the NAMI mommies when I see all the mothers urging little boys to transition into girls. Doctors give full approval for these too. We need to stop thinking of doctors as incorruptible and all knowing. How much do they not know or want to know because of those hefty salaries? How much do the NAMI mommies not want to know because of short term convenience/fear of empty nest/desire to control another/desire to gain attention as saintly mothers?
At what point can we no longer plead ignorance for coercing others into taking destructive remedies? For the good of others--and their own of course. God knows.
But not everyone is like you. In fact, I hazard to say most people aren't.
I am no longer a salesperson because I wasn't especially well-motivated by money. I was good at it. But I also would get to an earning level of "good enough," then start coasting.
"Cure'em and you lose'em"! Gilbert Emick Jr. RPh 1974 My experience has been it's more a matter of the individual's work ethic than how they're being paid. "Men, you've got to figure out how to get the most out of each of these Sailors every day, they're all different." BMC McDonald USN 1968
Gato, you make excellent points about the inherent disasters from knocking down the "productive" though we may not agree on what constitutes productivity. Gaming the system to squeeze and enslave workers? Racing to the bottom, drunk on competitiveness for ever-shrinking subsistence level wages while wealth concentrates into the hands of fewer and fewer "Smaug the Dragon-types" who sit on a pile of gold coins they can't eat and build rocket ships to showcase their vanity?
Since I was a child, there have been hints in plain sight about "free energy" and how patents are bought up and buried when anything gets remotely close to denting the power-structures and money flow as it already stands. Functional Capitalism may be a boon, but dysfunctional, unregulated Capitalism is a cover name for much worse systems of control and destruction.
I also remember in rural gradeschools hearing about computers and how--in the grand future--humans would have more time for leisure and self-actualizing. Nope. We got cuts to education and private prisons for profit. We got excuses for off-shoring jobs, then automation, then a scolding reminder that if we can't do a job better and cheaper than a machine we don't deserve to eat.
If "productivity" is how we designate ourselves as deserving of life, then we need to undo the industrial revolution, make it illegal to supplant productive people with machines, and go back to weaving our own fabric for our two sets of clothes before we set about growing our food for the day. Not the worst idea, but also not likely.
Our system as it stands is brutal. The latest trend of attacking white men (all white people really) as the sole problem on earth for all of time and flooding US resources to anyone but these horribly flawed, skin-pigment challenged scourges...well, it seems to answer the question about whether we are truly interested in doing away with bullying or just changing up the players, and who gets to be on top.
So why? WHO benefits and whose power is divided and destroyed?
As success and education in the US becomes determined by who has the most endorsed victim story and can re-write the definitions of words (disqualifying those who question the game as "not doing the work) I agree, it is clearly a death spiral for both quality of life and "productivity" of any kind.
I grew up in the ‘50s. Our society is not brutal. It is pretty easy. We don’t teach what it requires though. You have to work hard, but far less hard than fifty years ago. But you will have to knuckle down and work CONSISTENTLY for about 4-8 years to get a proper foothold in society. And you have to save. And not waste your money on $5 lattes and $15 cocktails. And we have to be realistic about where to put our energy. STOP GETTING USELESS DEGREES. I saw a young cute girl working on my job site. Not an employee of mine, but of a subcontractor. She was becoming an electrician. In four years she will be making $60 an hour. If she goes on her own she will make a lot more. There are tons of opportunities out there. But…you will have to work. If you do? You will do well.
You need luck, the right opportunity to come your way at the right time, a willingness to take that opportunity, if you can, and then work diligently. And then there are circumstances - like yours - which are rarely ideal. Sometimes they block you from making any headway at all.
I think you are wrong about energy and resources - they are more foundational to our economy and civilization, and are not so much products of the human mind (i.e., creativity, innovation, and technology). Technology is just he expression of human creativity finding more, and more elaborate, ways to use energy and resources. There are hard bio-physical limits to our use of energy and resources that are not overcome-able by any amount of human ingenuity. You should look at the work of Art Berman: https://www.artberman.com/blog/
the world is awash in energy. always has been. until the sun burns out (and perhaps beyond) it always will be.
but it's not useful until you can find a way to capture, store, and use it. that comes from economies and innovation. cave men had access to all the resources we do. they just did not know how to use them as productively.
the idea that there are "hard limits to energy" seems like one of those sematic issue that occludes more than it reveals. fusion, close nuclear force, even just lightning and sunlight provide levels of energy so far in excess of anything we can currently dream of using as to impose no meaningful limits.
Sir, my argument is anything but a "semantic issue." It is the opposite. Please consider a thought experiment: If I am right about "hard" energy and resource limits and we follow your prescriptions, then we slam face-first into those limits in the not-too-distant future, completely unprepared. If on the other hand you are right and we follow my prescriptions, then we just play things a little too conservatively and find ourselves over-prepared for difficulties that don't materialize at catastrophic levels.
The "infinite growth" hypothesis is tricky because it forms part of the core belief system of both left-wing progressives (easy to dismiss as woke-tards) as well as right-wing progressives such as yourself. An added complication is that left-progressive wokies have already poisoned the "limits to growth" discourse space with "social justice"/DEI politics.
I can tell from your essay and reply that you are trafficking in the standard fallacies that populate this topic from both right and left political culture (e.g. the amount of energy represented by insolation or possible fusion). Other analysts - such as Art Berman, Nate Hagens, John Michael Greer, Herman Daly, Gail Tverberg, Wendell Berry, Richard Heinberg, and the "Doomer Optimists" - have debunked these arguments but are unknown or ignored by the mainstream since they cut against the prevailing progress narrative which is embraced by both the left and the right and so don't cleave neatly into culture war factions. There is a platypus here.
I am not trying to be a troll. I truly believe that the issue of energy, resource, and bio-physical limits is the most serious - and most ignored/maligned/misunderstood, and politicized to tragic detriment - challenge of our day. Your cultural criticism is so penetrative and illuminating. I humbly suggest that on the issue of energy and resource limits you should broaden your intake of perspectives and seriously consider that we humans may not be able to innovation-and-technology our way out of many of the fundamental problems we face as a civilization.
"Scarcity" is an economic terms that does not mean a resource is scarce, it means it costs a lot of money to develop the resource. The world is awash in oil and more reserves are discovered all the time. The US was oil independent under Trump because of his "drill baby, drill!" policies. The first thing Biden did upon assuming office was shut it down. That isn't scarcity, that's politics. EVs are politics. They are not environmentally clean or efficient and most people do not want one. As soon as the government stops propping up EVs, the artificial EV market will collapse. I expect it to collapse in the US first and Europe will follow.
Solar and wind are unreliable and inefficient. The only reliable sources of power water, oil and nuclear with nuclear being the most reasonable choice between environmentally friendly and reliable. It would also be cheap if the EPA and Dept of Energy would stop allowing leftist shitheads to sue for decades and decades to make nuclear financially unfeasible. That is the only reason nuclear energy is expensive.
Cheap reliable energy is the key to GOA growth above 5% per year and prosperity for all. But as I wrote, the government fucks up most everything it touches.
It's not either/or. Energy and material resources are both infinite and constrained. Infinite does not mean easily accessible, and constrained does not mean finite. The purpose of technology is to lower those constraints. It is the same process applied to inventing the spear to access animal meat, or inventing a fusion reactor to access energy. Methods change, but there is no reason growth cannot continue. Our solar system has more material and energy resources than we can currently conceive of using. It only requires that we lower the constraints to accessing them. This takes time and effort, but it has been going on for 10's of thousands of years.
Hard disagree. Petroleum was a waste sludge on an otherwise useful lake until human ingenuity transformed it into a powerhouse. There are many such discoveries and transformations happening even today but, thanks FBI & CIA, a black van drives by and you're never seen again.
I think Mises proposed four basic drivers of economic growth and productivity: technological advancement, specialization, transportation/communication, and access to capital. Even authoritarian or totalitarian systems can provide these things and see meaningful economic growth and prosperity. Both Soviet and Chinese communist systems achieved astounding gains in wealth and productivity by focusing on these four. But I much prefer it when capitalism, open markets, and free enterprise are the drivers.
Governments need something to control us with. Back in the day (Sargon's and Ramses day), civilizations like Eygpt and Sumer controlled the population through control of water. SF writer Larry Niven called these Hydraulic Empires. They worked because they existed in deserts. Leave the empire and you have no access to water. The Egyptians went so far as to conquer all the oases surrounding the Nile river valley as well. Concurrently, agriculture that developed in areas with abundant water did not develop strong central governments. Today the Commodity that industrial societies depend on most is energy. I believe that governments today are trying to create "Energy Empires", were energy sources are scarce and controlled by the government. Thus the push for green energy and the creation of an artficial "energy desert".
This is my second post ever here almost 2.5 years ago:
"This has nothing to do with GCC. It is for the elites to control all of the world's energy, thereby giving them the power to dictate whether you can bring life into this world. Seems straightforward and...potentially EVIL. I can't think of a more powerful form of control than to control "power". The zealots are just stooges".
It never got much "attention". I guess it sounds a little Iike a conspiracy....lol...I stand behind it.
Was it Lenin that referred to those you call "zealots" as useful idiots? It seems to me Eric accurately describes them: All mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.
It's not a conspiracy. Look at history. Hydraulic empires allowed leaders to become god-kings, mainly because they had the power of life and death. The key is the desert, because it prevents you from voting with your feet. That's why they want to make the Climate Change Religion universal. Remember, the Aztecs convinced the population that a minimum number of human sacrifices were required each day to get the sun rise.
As a devil’s advocate, they will run into a roadblock called bureaucracy. There will be red tape and imposed standards they cannot meet. By the time all the hands come out of the cookie jar, this will be of no benefit to you or I.
For now yes, absolutely, and they already have. Clarage and co. went in to a nuke company with the new technology - literal proof this new tech works as specified to see if they wanted in - and they were told, 'We like our nuclear waste as it is.' Needless to say the good guys left confounded and scratching their collective head.
What nobody seems to understand is this clown paradigm is about to be blown apart within the next five to twenty years. No question.
The new world is coming and the psychos have an internal ticking time bomb on their hands. People who can look reality in the eye without flinching will rebuild a system based on real physics and true metaphysics.
Whatever it is, the "electric sun" model is not based any known physics, which means it's either a world-changing, groundbreaking achievement (unlikely), or a scam (more likely). I watched the video and still have no idea what fuels this process.
It's electrical. Yes, the entire paradigm is shifting. Gravity is old-school, olde-world physics. The big bang never happened. Black holes don't exist and Einstein was the cut-price budget version of Don Scott and Wal Thornhill, who are (were in the latter case) the real deal.
"Gravity is old-school, olde-world physics. The big bang never happened. Black holes don't exist and Einstein was the cut-price budget version of Don Scott and Wal Thornhill"
Gravity is a racist, white supremacist construct created to keep POC down. Tomorrow, I will jump from the window of my university's HR department (12th floor) to prove it.
Actually, the good news is that nuclear seems to be making a comeback. For example, Sweden has dumped all the green tech and is going to build nuclear plants. There are a lot of other plants going up around the world. And if you want to make money, invest in uranium mining companies.
A cure for cancer would disrupt a very lucrative industry. I always struggle with this because I want to believe in the Atlas Shrugged story as I've seen so many ways in which it has grains of truth, but I just see predatory industry rolling over the planet for centuries. How do we address that? Have we ever had executives that embody the golden rule?
True enough. However I am reminded of the scene in Life of Brian, where John Cleese's character and his crew are discussing the Romans, who they hate: "What have the Romans ever given us? the Aqueduct. Sanitation. Roads. Irrigation. Medicine. Education. the wine. Public Order... "All right but besides all that..." Of course we know all these could be done better/faster/smarter by private actors, but its a funny thought and does make a anarchist like me think, just a little.
Yes. It's quite interesting to see all the problems we have and how easily they could be "solved" by just looking at how they "evolved" in the first place.
This is a perfect example of what bureaucrats are unable or unwilling to do.
No. Because all the ingredients exist for success. I live in BC. BC has energy, water, access to huge markets, a largely law abiding populace, and an abundance of all raw materials. With leadership we would be unstoppable. This was NOT true even 10 years ago. Robotics changes everything.
"Good governance" is an oxymoron. Our founders believed government is an evil necessity. They were right which is why they tried to create a limited government. It didn't take long for those chains to be broken and the Supreme Court has been one of the biggest abusers. People think it is the stay to government overreach, but it hasn't been in the past and still isn't.
How does the problem go away though, when the problem isn't the FDA etc, but the multi-billionaires who control them? The same people "cancelled" natural medicine early last century so they could literally make a killing off a pharmaceutical-based medical system.
People who've developed cancer cures, cheap energy and the like have been murdered to keep these innovations hidden. That's not a beaurocrat's doing.
When a handful of people control the financial institutions, a handful of people control which innovations are allowed to prosper and which fail. Thus, they often control who succeeds and who fails.
That's the problem exactly. Capitalism has been warped and it's no longer a free economy. The playing field isn't anywhere near level when a small group has every agency, government and corporation in their pocket.
The problem with stopping quacks is every one in 20 quack ideas works for someone really well. And when that happens innovation occurs. You can’t stop quacks because if you do you stop the next breakthrough.
I believe all many federal and state standards should be tiered and voluntary. Building codes should be level 1-10, and people should able to build and buy to whatever standard they like.
Zoning ruins a lot of economic activity. Try and get any sizable manufacturing in most cities. You can’t. And if your manufacturing idea works you need workers, who live in cities. So, what happens? You relocate to Asia.
IMHO, there has already been a cure for cancer found. The recipe destroyed and the inventor(s) killed. The Medical Industrial Complex cannot have oodles of money funneled away from them.
Cancers have always been around, but it used to be called "consumption". I suspect that many of the cancers we see today are the result of the long-term effects of food additives that were never used before. This is why I eat a lot of fresh produce and rarely open a can of anything.
Pretty much exactly what I was getting at....EGM makes more sense than most, but I'm not sure about feasibility. That being said, nothing is forever, not even the East India Company or Pharma. Watching our disillusionment with hormonal birth control at the moment with great interest. I think it will be a game changer.
When I was young and both fertile and randy I had the glorious Lippes Loop inserted and that little plastic miracle stayed in place for 17 count-'em 17 years until I was ready to become purposefully pregnant. They don't make it anymore. It was too cheap and safe and sensible.
Probably not what he’s referring to, but fenbendazole, ivermectin along with other supplements have some very good effectiveness. Check out Justus R Hope and fenbendazole cures cancer on substack for more information and studies.
There are constant rumours of cancer cures being suppressed. Here is one. Fast. But fast for 40-50 days. Fast until all your fat and a lot of muscle has been consumed. Eventually your body will eat the cancer, before it starts eating your organs. I know of more than one person doing this successfully.
I know some people who cured themselves of depression, long term chronic depression, by walking. Daily. But about 20-30 km everyday for three weeks. You might have to build to it. And you have to get off their poison first.
The gatekeepers (real people in power not the politicians) have a stranglehold on everything and will suppress anything that will cure or eradicate disease. They will silence anyone who speaks out against them. Just my lay opinion
And if you take the next step, realize that our governance has been increasingly outsourced to the fin/tech elite who are well versed in maintaining monopolies and using the “economy and efficiency” model even when assessing human costs with little regard for life….because, well…quite frankly, they are interested in sealing themselves off from the rest of humanity and establishing their dominance and future with machines. It’s an ugly story whose final chapter has not been written, but people would do well to understand that we are being outsourced and they also intend to reserve all the natural resources to be maximized for their benefit….not the whole of humanity. In short, with automation they no longer need the useless eaters….for either production or for garnering more wealth. For a while they will compete with one another for who manages the masses best through social impact markets, data and human capital. But they will move on from that pretty quickly, especially if the useless eaters resist the global coup. It will be one or/and is to a great degree about the fin/tech elite pursuing their preservation indefinitely not to mention their control of our narrative as a species going forward. Grotesque really, a state of war (think John Locke) that has been overlaid as of late with a narrative of equality, DEI, good health, abundance, etc….which hardly reflects the state of affairs on the ground. But people want their heroes and hold onto hope that those who acquired their wealth through bullying tactics, deception and exploitation are really working for the benefit of society. Funny how they never talk about the elements that are lost with all their innovation and progress, especially the elements lost to the common man. Pssttt….they don’t care….the goal is to pursue what they want even if it is at the expense of the many. Kind of sucks for those of us who are not worshipers of wealth or do not subscribe to the values or lifestyle that wealth has produced in this lifetime. I don’t need or want a private jet, three homes, $1,000 meals….nor do I want those folks lecturing to me about how I can or should spend my days because they need to save the planet from us. But alas, this is where we are…a game of chicken, a cowering populace that cannot think for themselves and can no longer provide for itself….
For me, the answer is not to hand our governance over to the public/private partnership model for the simple fact that the fin/tech elite have repeatedly showed themselves to be untrustworthy. Our current system actually has already become exactly what I fear….and perhaps the reality we are currently facing is those that hold the power are now showing their faces and letting us know that they know we know….and playing a game of chicken with is…will we do anything about it, or will the silent coup stand.
The govt and institutions and corporations are made up of millions of people. They are not all involved in an evil conspiracy. Some of them are, yes. But most people working and creating in tech, finance, etc are not bad people. You really can't put everyone who has made good bit of money in one group. Maybe you have never known anyone to work so hard and so smart that they made a lot of money. Perhaps they were motivated by having several children and wanting to insure that their children were provided for. Maybe they were following their passions and using their talents. Maybe they were just motivated people who were fulfilled by work.
I agree wholeheartedly that we are not talking about some giant evil conspiracy that involves all government employees or institutions. It is a very very different challenge we face than that, which is why it is incredibly hard to counter some of the impacts of a select few….who are pushing and pulling us towards an agenda that serves them. A Trojan horse of sorts. And they have the tools of propaganda to lull the masses into a sense of security and false hope. Many are simply in solid living their story and the more complex our society has become the more the “overlords” have been able to influence the direction of things.
And from where so sit….the likes of Gates….yeah, no….I cannot subscribe to his sense of entitlement to play with people’s lives just because he has $$$, grand ideas and thinks he knows best. My state fell prey to him and other technocrats reform efforts in education which have little to do with the welfare of our students and had everything to do with them trying to turn the public education system into a pipeline of compliant workers for the coming gig economy. And the damage done…ugh. And as MAA would say…”Mistakes were NOT made.”
Oh…trust me, they are well past that point. They have their own plumbers…
The question is going to be…what will we do when we need a plumber and getting one comes with terms or conditions that are rules made by those who clearly intend to control our lives through data, algorithms, access and technology if we allow the digital prison they are constructing to be completed?
Most will blindly and mindlessly enter….as seen with Covid…the mob mentality (uninformed and not able to critically think) will trot after the pied piper….
I worry that the next go round will be even harder when it comes to standing one’s ground.
Think of all that they learned by collecting data, watching social media and studying human behavior during the COVID era. It was as much a social/emotional experience as a big pharma clinical trial. The goal is compliance on all fronts…they want us willing to worship and replace our individual sovereignty with the collective brain/consciousness, which ultimately they intend to control and harness. People never ask about what the goals or values are that they pursue this “one size fits all” tech driven agenda (you will own nothing and be happy….what does that mean? What is the definition of happy here? Who defines it? )where they are the arbitrators of truth and how life should be lived. We will no longer be part of that equation…it has become evident (real evident in political landscapes of the west) that the ship has already sailed…our interests have been sold to the highest bidder by the politicians.
Having a big net worth in a fiat money fractional reserve system is not Smaug like. Smaug sits on his gold. A rich person’s wealth is usually bits of paper. The cash he has, usually a small fraction of his net worth, sits in a bank and is loaned to others to buy homes etc. I have a reasonable net worth because I like doing big things. As does my son. We push ourselves hard. Being a middle class bureaucrat/office worker etc would kill me. So I take big risks and do big projects. In fact my actual consumption, ie the clothes I feel I need, the food I eat, is pretty much the same as anyone else. Probably less than most people’s. My main fun is hanging with my grandchildren or my sons. Socially it is coffee with a buddy or two. Occasional meals out. But rich food doesn’t sit well with me. So even then it is simple meals. Being wealthy in this society is not destructive. In a gold backed economy it could be.
Exactly. If you want to create and build, you need more than enough beans to eat to keep you alive. Once you are secure that your needs will be met, you can think about bigger and more creative things. You can dream and carry out bigger projects. We are more than bodies that need to be fed.
Fenbendazole cures cancer. When the ego can be calmed and silenced and one can start to see the potential of alternatives like repurposed 'dog parasite medicine' (fenbendazole for example), people will start to realise the goldmine they have at their fingertips. Failing to research online means they go down with the old paradigm. The www is the great equaliser. The end of the dark age is here, and we're simultaneously entering the new golden, but it's messy.
Pretty sure it was always part of the plan. Places with heavy tradition like Italy had online classes for schools... many laptops were bought! There are always ways to get us to accept new things when we wouldn't otherwise and technology is no different.
Bingo! They are herding us into the virtual world and “connectivity” needed for them to rule us through machines. One part dependence and second part…they control the machines.
If we disconnect at work and become fragmented working from home we will end up connecting more to family. Working with children around is great for children. They see work is a part of life, as it is. Housing costs will come way down
Maybe, for now, but we need to be online. There is an entire 'thing' with words, I write about that. The olde world was Pisces which is a water sign with top down authority in command. We move in to Aquarius which is a humanitarian sign, whose symbol is Air. We're ruled by symbols (and words). It doesn't matter what is said, if one doesn't understand the deeper meaning of words and symbols nobody will ever understand what is being said. This way things can be hidden in plain sight.
Point about the astrological mention is that the fish (Pisces/us/our next phase of evolution) must be caught on the line (online) and pulled up out of the water so we can breathe the air of Aquarius. There's nothing to be scared about, things just require some deeper thought.
Fenbendazole was first used on humans just like Ivermectin, and it worked well - too well. You can still get the "human versions" of these drugs, but they are incredibly expensive. Big pharma and their cronies really have most people bamboozled.
"to illustrate how Americans are screwed by Big Pharma, two pills of mebendazole cost just $4 in the UK, 27 cents per 100 mg pill in India and $555 per 100 mg pill in the US."
There are a number of potent cures for cancer which has have virtually no effect over Big Pharma's profit margin. Big Pharma has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to maximize profits. They have quite effectively accomplished this through hiding potent cures as well as ignoring those cures which will never allow them to profit.
The Atlas Shrugged story has been playing out right in front of our eyes. The only difference is that instead of the corporate elite packing up and abandoning this sinking ship of an economy, it is the low and medium wage earners. For those who may not have noticed, Atlas Shrugged has become a useful bit of propaganda bolstering the image of the corporate classes.
That is why the American Cancer Society has targeted vaping which is 1000 times safer than smoking. Less cancer means less money for them. They are corrupt scum and have never and will never get a penny from me.
Positions of power nearly always attract the worst people. The idea is to limit those positions of power, or at least minimize their individual fuckery potential, for lack of a better term.
That's where these agencies like the FDA, CDC, HHS, NIH, NIAID, become problems.
They are all examples where congress has abdicated their authority, and placed it in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. Those bureaucrats have no effective oversight. Think Fauci, his agency literally defines terms. He had his agency redefine a scientific definition to his personal advantage. That's absurd.
The creation of such hierarchical systems is one of the primary causes of every problem we face today.
Once a bureaucracy is captured, it can operate unchecked and cause insurmountable harm. Not only that, it can do so unchecked.
I just heard today about a document from the FDA about myocarditis where literally every page is redacted. This does not surprise me. The NIH website has documents from at least 2019 -- that I could find, listing the inherent problems with mRNA vaccines. I link to it here:
The problems we face are built into the system now. Without complete congressional removal of these agencies which are captured, nothing will change.
Trump is also NOT going to push for the removal/disbanding of these organizations. He recently touted the vaccines as, "Saving us from COVID-19." Then Trump went into mRNA's potential for fighting cancer.
We are on our own here. Things are going to get much worse, and at an accelerated pace with absolute disregard for who is elected to what position.
Everyone needs to prepare as best they can. Other than that, there isn't much we can do. That's what the super rich are doing. They're buying land far from population centers and stockpiling food. They sure as hell don't think things are getting better.
When I started my business, I left a government job that had great pay and great benefits. I had no experience, no work lined up, and little savings. People laughed and said my competition would eat me alive. But I learned there is very little competition for honesty, hard work, and providing great service where the customer is truly king and always right.
Love this, I’ve never read a more accurate, compelling and yet succinct explanation of how best to help the poor, drive progress, and reward correct behaviors. Thank you!
Milei, not sure I trust this spokes person, for many reasons, may be a distraction speaker to make different factions look like they care. On the other hand spend a night on YouTube studying the scholarly work of Thomas Sowell, from the time he was a young man to now as a 90 year old cherished elder we are lucky to have. He speaks fluently as a young man til now from about how the quality of the Americans of African families and individuals were faring much much better before the welfare state come into being.
“ they squander what they were given because they have only ever known plenty and fail to understand that it is an achievement, a remarkable outcome of a finely wrought machine instead of the base state to which all are inevitably entitled. they see it as normal, not exceptional and thus seek to efface and eliminate exceptionalism itself as an idea.”
This substack was a brilliant examination.
In North America we are blind to the amazing plenty and efficient infrastructure we still enjoy around us. It works. For how long, we don’t know. Its days may be numbered.
Great Canadian columnist Rex Murphy (echoed by Jordan Peterson) both have remarked that we suffer from a deplorable lack of gratitude.
And a good knowledge of the history and heritage of our North America.
Very well put. There are people who argue that the poor are poor because they are lazy, but many poor people work two and even three jobs just to survive. Yet they never seem to get ahead, no matter how much labor energy they put into working. So something is clearly wrong with the idea that hard work alone will lift you out of poverty. When you look at this picture, it actually makes MORE sense to stop working and live off the dole, especially when the welfare system puts caps on what you can earn/save.
Many of the poor are poor because of their culture. Black culture is a perfect example where education is turning white and being a gang-banger is exalted. It is the exact opposite of Asian culture where hard work and education are exalted.
I agree culture has a lot to do with it. It can make you or break you. I also see a lot of young whites adopting "black culture" where I live. Personally, I don't see the appeal, but I suppose if you don't have much hope that you can break out of the low-income poverty trap, it does offer an identity and a purpose. Much like religion in that regard.
I did not grow up "poor", I grew up in a middle-class household. My father was a teacher. Now I know, because I've had people tell me right to my face, that "teachers make too much money." I'm not sure how much "too much money" is, because nobody ever explained that much. Well maybe he did and he was just a piss-poor money manager or his salary was barely enough to take care of a family of six. I don't know and won't ever know. What I DO KNOW is what it is like to hear over and over and over again the phrase "We can't afford it." To have to sit on the social sidelines as a teen and not be included in any kind of activities that cost money because "we can't afford it." So, no going out with my peers. I don't think that I have to spell what that was like because we all lived like that during the pandemic. We all had a good time staying home, didn't we? So enjoyable that it was such a shame it ended, right?
A while back I got to participate in an exercise called "Walk of Privilege" which was supposed to show me how privileged my life was as a white woman from a middle class background compared to others. Instead it backfired. It dramatically showed me the reality of what I had long suspected, that my family's inability or unwillingness to do certain things had held me back. For those who are not familiar with this exercise, it consists of a series of questions about your childhood background, what your parents did or did not do, and depending on the answer you either took one or two steps forward or you did not move at all. For example, "are you white? Yes, take two steps forward. No, stay in place." This exercise was not meant to measure a person's current status, nor their own efforts (or lack of) in achieving such. It was only meant to measure starting points and factors beyond your control. There were 8 of us, all white, all presumably middle class, all female except for one who was transitioning to male. Given the homogeneity of this group, you would expect the end result would be everyone would reach the finish line pretty much together. Not so. It wasn't even close. One individual pulled ahead very early and finished so far ahead that, as they say in horse racing "she was first, the rest nowhere." The others were in a comparatively close bunch in the middle of the room, and as for me--I had barely budged from that back wall. I think I stopped moving around the third question. It was like I had run into an invisible force field--all due to circumstances I could not do anything about. Again, it was not about "where you are today" but "where did you start out?" It was a very sobering experience, to say the least.
"Walk of Privilege" is woke racism BS. If you let that hold you back, you are only doing harm to yourself.
Your story seems to indicate you grew up in a lower middle-class family and the people you considered "peers" were not your financial peers. It is easy to see why you might be envious, but don't let envy hold you back from achieving your goals. If college is out of reach look to the trades. You can make a very good living in the trades.
Lastly, a family of 6 is a large family and expensive to support. I'm sure your father did his best. Teacher salaries vary from state to state and city to city, but even if your father was making $100k a year, a family of 6 is still a big expense.
I’ve worked in Uganda’s largest slum for over 15 years. Occasionally I’ve taken people with me, and in Jan had a small group plus one Ugandan nurse from a poor community in Northern Uganda. After her first time in the slum, she texted friends and family and said that, despite their poverty, they had nothing to complain about. People here in the States have NO idea what true, grinding, sell-yourself-for-a-meal-at-13 poverty looks like, smells like, and especially feels like. This slum is actually up next to one of Kampala’s wealthiest neighborhoods, which to us would be very middle class. All their goods come from China and are crap - a brand new laptop (even a brand name like Dell) will have a battery life of less than an hour. Fuel was about $1.40/liter in Jan (liter, not gallon) and that was down from over $2/liter in 2022. You are wealthy if you own a car; everyone walks or takes a boda. Most people even in the nice houses cook on charcoal versus using power, which is unreliable and expensive. In the rich neighborhoods. One of the best things I ever did was take my kids with me from the start (combined 16 trips for them) - they are well aware of the consequences of what’s going on here and what poverty really looks like.
"People here in the States have NO idea what true, grinding, sell-yourself-for-a-meal-at-13 poverty looks like, smells like, and especially feels like."
You are absolutely right, and their commie professors feed them BS and lies. However, I am old enough to remember the seemingly endless African famines and the news films of people and their children bone-thin with distended bellies starving to death. Africa has been mostly free of that for the last 30 years or so and our young are ignorant of it.
I've lived in Nicaragua - it's actually pretty ok! haha It's nowhere near as poor as Uganda, which I didn't realize til we moved there. You could send them to most places in Africa, though!
I've tried for the thirty years I've been in business to get people to see that increased productivity/ less man hours means more money for everybody. They have a "by the hour" frame of mind and see the reverse-- "If the job takes more time, I make more money."
Paying more doesn't help, and I've learned you can pay someone too much. If a guy is used to blowing his check on a six pack, ten bucks of lottery tickets, and a couple packs of cigs, when you double his pay he blows it on a twelve pack, twenty bucks on the lottery, and a carton of cigs. Or he works half as many hours. I've tried incentives like profit sharing, raises, bonuses, nothing breaks through the by the hour frame of mind.
Interesting; I’d like to hear more. Incentives should work to increase productivity, just given human nature. Are you paying hourly? If so that would explain the “let’s spend more hours on this project to make more money” mindset. How effective were the bonuses, etc? Have you tried commission only or minimum wage plus large production bonuses, etc?
It's been my experience that you can't incentivize enough to break through that mentality. It is only viewed as working harder, and who wants to do that, lol. I've given bonuses only to have that person call in sick the next three days. I have skilled craftsmen that would not work for minimum wage, no matter how large production bonuses were. They can see their hourly rate but that can't see that imaginary bonus. Once a bonus is given, it is expected every time. If we don't make quotas, well, that's according to greedy me. And that also means they're counting on the rest of the crew to be as productive as them. Score keeping results, and the person keeping score never loses. They don't count their own off days, long breaks, low production days, etc., but they sure count everyone else's.
Not everyone wants to improve their lot in life by hard work and savings. Some people are comfortable right where they're at.
"The poor (and the stupid) will always be with us." (my addition)
No one ever paid me what I think I'm worth and I never refused being paid more money. You are wrong about money not being an incentive. Why else do you even work? Because you really like the people you work with? That doesn't pay the mortgage. If you work for any other reason than money you are a fool. And if you think your company is more than a source of income for you, you are also a fool.
I've been called worse. I guess you've never built a small family business from the ground up, or you would know that's it's more than just a source of income. I love what I do. I make the world a better place. I never work for less than I think I'm worth. I bid jobs every day and put a price on what I'm worth. If people aren't willing to pay it, I don't do the job.
I have owned several businesses. I was specifically talking about being an employee. But even in your own business, if you aren't making money, you should shut it down.
Excellently written piece. As Eric Weinstein often says - free market capitalism is the best system but the current system is rigged. I guess as systems mature this is an inevitability of greed and power.
Another aspect to consider - wasted tax dollars given to companies to distract from the goal of innovating will hinder progress. Rather, the funds are usually not sustainable and the project keeps going back for more government $ and ignores the potential of using their talent for exponential market growth.
Take, for example, cloud seeding. This program was denied for many years among psyop planners and is finally being marketed as an innovative way to “boost water supply/ increase hydro electric production.” However, the program needs a lot of handouts - tax dollars, liability exemptions, permit exemptions… Water resources departments are usually approached by someone in academia to sell them on a cloud seeding plan - often based on gamed computer algorithms! So the education $ starts the ball rolling on a program that is not innovative, not sustainable. The idea is pitched to the water resources agency where they find tax dollars to fund the program (cigarette tax in Idaho bc I’m sure that’s what the tax was intended for!). Enter the power company who is handed the contract and runs the program (a way to add additional layers of difficulty to obtaining information bc you can’t FOIA the power company). Enter companies to make the CS generators and measurement devices. Then the players think the program is too risky and go before the state legislature to ask for no liability and no permits. And then the experimentation gets riskier and there is no opt-out, no notification. All while the tax dollars keep pouring into the program. Tax dollars that could be going to reservoirs and better water management programs, but the snake oil salesmen sold everyone on the meager 5% potential, computer modeled water increase. And you’re probably wondering what happens after they received liability exemptions? Well, that’s when the real open-air experiment begins in cloud seeding with liquid propane and methanol. Nothing about this scheme is progress, but a sad demonstration of why tax dollars going to unsustainable, scientifically questionable programs is bad for citizens, innovation, and our environment.
One again a good article right on point! The fact that work ethic, like all ethics, has to be learned is foreign to many folks. It disappears in one generation if not passed on.
That is all well said. The "welfare state" is a charity at gunpoint, an impossible contradiction. It is state violence masking as benevolence, and too many fall for it.
I used to have a plating company, we did lots of work for automotive here in the US. and yes I can be pretty dense. But geez! Ford had a goal back in 90’s to outsource x billions of JIT parts to China. It always bugged the crap out of me. I’d say how can we keep the work here! Then the JIT thing. Well we saw it crumble with the chip thing in past couple years. All the costs of a system so tight it’s wrought with catastrophic failure and cost. Anyway, the pendulum is returning. Duh! But following what’s popular isn’t usually what’s best in long run. Now what’s popular is tearing everything down a few generations ago they worked their fannies off to build. And demonize the guy with the house on the hill.
When the pendulum finally swings back, I hope we still have opportunities. Not me but the poor. Soon I’m going somewhere else and actually help the real poor. (Yep, one of those very lower economies) The guys that can barely buy shoes. Maybe by the time I’m done here and God takes me home, I might make a difference in the life of a few people and maybe even one or two of them help their friends buy some shoes.
Go back to “You didn’t build that”. A slap to entrepreneurs everywhere. Risk, investment, and executing on an idea seem novel to but a few these days. Too many without creativity sapping it (and outright stealing it) from those that do. Hard work “usually” means your grit is worth it, though infinitely more challenging today.
Surely another 'basic pillar upon which the emergence of plenty rests' is cheap energy
i suspect that "cheap energy" is an emergent effect of scientific method, free markets, property rights, and modern capital structures rather than a starting requirement.
no one starts with cheap energy. you get it because it's something a thriving economy requires and therefore pursues through innovation and resource allocation.
in most meaningful ways, the ability to produce and consume energy IS prosperity.
(there's a chart early in this piece that shows the inextricable linkage)
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/why-progress-is-environmentalism
To have any new technology become “ cheap” competition has to thrive and that means cut out subsidies. No one will spend money to improve a product that’s artificially propped up by govt subsidies. It kills innovation and investment.
Same thing with labor. If a person knows that they will be paid the same, regardless of effort. they have no incentive to make the effort.
At various times, I've been salaried, paid hourly, and paid piece rate. How I'm paid affects how I approach the job. That's true of anyone.
Imagine if a psychiatrist got paid based on 'healing' their patient, and not by the hourly sessions. You'd see patients getting healed a WHOLE lot quicker.
Or else you'd see a lot of psychiatrists go out of business.
Most psychiatrists and psychologists are quacks who have worked to normalized insanity to the detriment of our society.
More consumers to bill. Drug dealers in lab coats with the legal system backing them up. In case their customers decide they'd rather not buy their stuff anymore. Drug dealers don't take kindly to that.
Pill pushers these days, captured by big pharma.
No. You are wrong.
and then they'd be forced to do productive jobs that benefit society
You don't think Psychiatrists are useful? You don't believe in mental illness and sturggles? Do you not see homeless people walking down the street talking to nobody and punching the air? Have you never known someone who was depressed or schizophenic or suicidal?
How bad does it get? After the Soviet Union fell there was a pig farm with 1200 people working at it. A man and his son decided to leave and start their own. The 2 of them produced as much as 1200 collectivists within 2 years. That's a 600:1 productivity increase.
We might actually develop a non destructive mental health system.
The Quakers did over 100 years ago. Much better recovery rates.
There is a lot of good being done in mental health care right now. It's not perfect, it could reach many more seriously mentally ill people. A large percentage of the homeless have serious mental illnesses.
I think the mentally ill are a smaller number than the alcoholics, drug addicts and other bums who are homeless because they want to be. And why not? They can continue to be worthless scum and we give them stuff. Shutting off the entitlements for being human trash would go a long way toward solving the problem.
Ya don't say?
That's why shrinks love Big Pharma. Those drugs can provide short term relief but keep the consumer dependent and going back for more. Shrinks get paid four times as much per hour as when they did talk sessions. They get more respect from the medical community as real-honest-to-gosh doctors. And they keep more long-term consumers. Robert Whitaker (Mad in America; Anatomy of an Epidemic) pointed out how much worse the long-term prognosis for the "mentally ill" has become since the 1980's. Schizophrenics used to have a 70% recovery rate with over 30% making full recovery. Now it's sunk to 16%.
What if your child needed psychiatric help? Or any loved one? It happens.
Sometimes it seems people's opinions reflect their experiences. You and I may have seen some things others writing here have not. No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot
Mark Twain
Great way to keep a teenager from ever growing up--so they can never have a family or become gainfully employed--and forced to live with relatives or dependent on the government till they die in their early 50's due any one of a number of iatrogenic disabilities along with TBI. Because overriding the brain and central nervous system is how these drugs work.
A parents' short-term convenience is definitely more important than their offspring's future. A lot of moms have great fun keeping these permanent children like domestic animals. These parents can join NAMI for maximum enjoyment of the experience.
NAMI mommies.
When disabled offspring are status symbols Munchausen's by Proxy becomes a fashion statement. I think of the NAMI mommies when I see all the mothers urging little boys to transition into girls. Doctors give full approval for these too. We need to stop thinking of doctors as incorruptible and all knowing. How much do they not know or want to know because of those hefty salaries? How much do the NAMI mommies not want to know because of short term convenience/fear of empty nest/desire to control another/desire to gain attention as saintly mothers?
At what point can we no longer plead ignorance for coercing others into taking destructive remedies? For the good of others--and their own of course. God knows.
Excellent points
Promotion due to time on job rather than capability as well. Typical govt system that block’s talented and ambitious employees
But not everyone is like you. In fact, I hazard to say most people aren't.
I am no longer a salesperson because I wasn't especially well-motivated by money. I was good at it. But I also would get to an earning level of "good enough," then start coasting.
I'd say this is a rather common mindset.
"Cure'em and you lose'em"! Gilbert Emick Jr. RPh 1974 My experience has been it's more a matter of the individual's work ethic than how they're being paid. "Men, you've got to figure out how to get the most out of each of these Sailors every day, they're all different." BMC McDonald USN 1968
Gato, you make excellent points about the inherent disasters from knocking down the "productive" though we may not agree on what constitutes productivity. Gaming the system to squeeze and enslave workers? Racing to the bottom, drunk on competitiveness for ever-shrinking subsistence level wages while wealth concentrates into the hands of fewer and fewer "Smaug the Dragon-types" who sit on a pile of gold coins they can't eat and build rocket ships to showcase their vanity?
Since I was a child, there have been hints in plain sight about "free energy" and how patents are bought up and buried when anything gets remotely close to denting the power-structures and money flow as it already stands. Functional Capitalism may be a boon, but dysfunctional, unregulated Capitalism is a cover name for much worse systems of control and destruction.
I also remember in rural gradeschools hearing about computers and how--in the grand future--humans would have more time for leisure and self-actualizing. Nope. We got cuts to education and private prisons for profit. We got excuses for off-shoring jobs, then automation, then a scolding reminder that if we can't do a job better and cheaper than a machine we don't deserve to eat.
If "productivity" is how we designate ourselves as deserving of life, then we need to undo the industrial revolution, make it illegal to supplant productive people with machines, and go back to weaving our own fabric for our two sets of clothes before we set about growing our food for the day. Not the worst idea, but also not likely.
Our system as it stands is brutal. The latest trend of attacking white men (all white people really) as the sole problem on earth for all of time and flooding US resources to anyone but these horribly flawed, skin-pigment challenged scourges...well, it seems to answer the question about whether we are truly interested in doing away with bullying or just changing up the players, and who gets to be on top.
So why? WHO benefits and whose power is divided and destroyed?
As success and education in the US becomes determined by who has the most endorsed victim story and can re-write the definitions of words (disqualifying those who question the game as "not doing the work) I agree, it is clearly a death spiral for both quality of life and "productivity" of any kind.
I grew up in the ‘50s. Our society is not brutal. It is pretty easy. We don’t teach what it requires though. You have to work hard, but far less hard than fifty years ago. But you will have to knuckle down and work CONSISTENTLY for about 4-8 years to get a proper foothold in society. And you have to save. And not waste your money on $5 lattes and $15 cocktails. And we have to be realistic about where to put our energy. STOP GETTING USELESS DEGREES. I saw a young cute girl working on my job site. Not an employee of mine, but of a subcontractor. She was becoming an electrician. In four years she will be making $60 an hour. If she goes on her own she will make a lot more. There are tons of opportunities out there. But…you will have to work. If you do? You will do well.
You need luck, the right opportunity to come your way at the right time, a willingness to take that opportunity, if you can, and then work diligently. And then there are circumstances - like yours - which are rarely ideal. Sometimes they block you from making any headway at all.
You missed my point.
I think you are wrong about energy and resources - they are more foundational to our economy and civilization, and are not so much products of the human mind (i.e., creativity, innovation, and technology). Technology is just he expression of human creativity finding more, and more elaborate, ways to use energy and resources. There are hard bio-physical limits to our use of energy and resources that are not overcome-able by any amount of human ingenuity. You should look at the work of Art Berman: https://www.artberman.com/blog/
the world is awash in energy. always has been. until the sun burns out (and perhaps beyond) it always will be.
but it's not useful until you can find a way to capture, store, and use it. that comes from economies and innovation. cave men had access to all the resources we do. they just did not know how to use them as productively.
the idea that there are "hard limits to energy" seems like one of those sematic issue that occludes more than it reveals. fusion, close nuclear force, even just lightning and sunlight provide levels of energy so far in excess of anything we can currently dream of using as to impose no meaningful limits.
Sir, my argument is anything but a "semantic issue." It is the opposite. Please consider a thought experiment: If I am right about "hard" energy and resource limits and we follow your prescriptions, then we slam face-first into those limits in the not-too-distant future, completely unprepared. If on the other hand you are right and we follow my prescriptions, then we just play things a little too conservatively and find ourselves over-prepared for difficulties that don't materialize at catastrophic levels.
The "infinite growth" hypothesis is tricky because it forms part of the core belief system of both left-wing progressives (easy to dismiss as woke-tards) as well as right-wing progressives such as yourself. An added complication is that left-progressive wokies have already poisoned the "limits to growth" discourse space with "social justice"/DEI politics.
I can tell from your essay and reply that you are trafficking in the standard fallacies that populate this topic from both right and left political culture (e.g. the amount of energy represented by insolation or possible fusion). Other analysts - such as Art Berman, Nate Hagens, John Michael Greer, Herman Daly, Gail Tverberg, Wendell Berry, Richard Heinberg, and the "Doomer Optimists" - have debunked these arguments but are unknown or ignored by the mainstream since they cut against the prevailing progress narrative which is embraced by both the left and the right and so don't cleave neatly into culture war factions. There is a platypus here.
I am not trying to be a troll. I truly believe that the issue of energy, resource, and bio-physical limits is the most serious - and most ignored/maligned/misunderstood, and politicized to tragic detriment - challenge of our day. Your cultural criticism is so penetrative and illuminating. I humbly suggest that on the issue of energy and resource limits you should broaden your intake of perspectives and seriously consider that we humans may not be able to innovation-and-technology our way out of many of the fundamental problems we face as a civilization.
You are an idiot. Not deserving an intelligent response. The LAW of scarcity will ensure that there is ALWAYS energy available.
Read a book. Start with this one...https://www.amazon.com/Superabundance-Population-Innovation-Flourishing-Infinitely/dp/1952223393/ref=sr_1_1?crid=BFSMGTT9H1QU&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.FqTSYN_ycVlSd6qrM2VXfmTTDNhquRkKYltW3xg5Rl7GjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.1MHYGsztc36yvDOo-RwOECb6vAcOV-NqIvvivtxvEkU&dib_tag=se&keywords=abundance+gale+pooley&qid=1709866773&sprefix=abundance+gale+pooley%2Caps%2C284&sr=8-1
Or read up on the Simon-Ehrlich bet from 1980. Ehrlich never paid up.
Now, go away and read and repent of your ignorance and stupidity.
Ehrlich did quite well financially even though he was completely wrong. Many people are drawn to gloom and doom and are willing to pay for it.
"Scarcity" is an economic terms that does not mean a resource is scarce, it means it costs a lot of money to develop the resource. The world is awash in oil and more reserves are discovered all the time. The US was oil independent under Trump because of his "drill baby, drill!" policies. The first thing Biden did upon assuming office was shut it down. That isn't scarcity, that's politics. EVs are politics. They are not environmentally clean or efficient and most people do not want one. As soon as the government stops propping up EVs, the artificial EV market will collapse. I expect it to collapse in the US first and Europe will follow.
Solar and wind are unreliable and inefficient. The only reliable sources of power water, oil and nuclear with nuclear being the most reasonable choice between environmentally friendly and reliable. It would also be cheap if the EPA and Dept of Energy would stop allowing leftist shitheads to sue for decades and decades to make nuclear financially unfeasible. That is the only reason nuclear energy is expensive.
Cheap reliable energy is the key to GOA growth above 5% per year and prosperity for all. But as I wrote, the government fucks up most everything it touches.
Remember the '70s when there was a "gas shortage," and we had to wait in long lines and ony buy gas on odd numbered days?
It wasn't a gas shortage, it was stupidity and more stupidity.
It's not either/or. Energy and material resources are both infinite and constrained. Infinite does not mean easily accessible, and constrained does not mean finite. The purpose of technology is to lower those constraints. It is the same process applied to inventing the spear to access animal meat, or inventing a fusion reactor to access energy. Methods change, but there is no reason growth cannot continue. Our solar system has more material and energy resources than we can currently conceive of using. It only requires that we lower the constraints to accessing them. This takes time and effort, but it has been going on for 10's of thousands of years.
I didn't know el gato was a "right-wing progressive."
So what's our "plan"?
I can't speak for others, but for my "tribe" our plan is this: https://www.magpiehollow.farm
"and are not so much products of the human mind"
Hard disagree. Petroleum was a waste sludge on an otherwise useful lake until human ingenuity transformed it into a powerhouse. There are many such discoveries and transformations happening even today but, thanks FBI & CIA, a black van drives by and you're never seen again.
I think Mises proposed four basic drivers of economic growth and productivity: technological advancement, specialization, transportation/communication, and access to capital. Even authoritarian or totalitarian systems can provide these things and see meaningful economic growth and prosperity. Both Soviet and Chinese communist systems achieved astounding gains in wealth and productivity by focusing on these four. But I much prefer it when capitalism, open markets, and free enterprise are the drivers.
We already have it. It's called nuclear energy.
But instead of using it, as with many options to improve life, our elites would rather glorify the lowest rung of the welfare ladder: prison.
Governments need something to control us with. Back in the day (Sargon's and Ramses day), civilizations like Eygpt and Sumer controlled the population through control of water. SF writer Larry Niven called these Hydraulic Empires. They worked because they existed in deserts. Leave the empire and you have no access to water. The Egyptians went so far as to conquer all the oases surrounding the Nile river valley as well. Concurrently, agriculture that developed in areas with abundant water did not develop strong central governments. Today the Commodity that industrial societies depend on most is energy. I believe that governments today are trying to create "Energy Empires", were energy sources are scarce and controlled by the government. Thus the push for green energy and the creation of an artficial "energy desert".
EXACTLY.
This is my second post ever here almost 2.5 years ago:
"This has nothing to do with GCC. It is for the elites to control all of the world's energy, thereby giving them the power to dictate whether you can bring life into this world. Seems straightforward and...potentially EVIL. I can't think of a more powerful form of control than to control "power". The zealots are just stooges".
It never got much "attention". I guess it sounds a little Iike a conspiracy....lol...I stand behind it.
Was it Lenin that referred to those you call "zealots" as useful idiots? It seems to me Eric accurately describes them: All mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.
Eric Hoffer
That quotes a keeper
It's not a conspiracy. Look at history. Hydraulic empires allowed leaders to become god-kings, mainly because they had the power of life and death. The key is the desert, because it prevents you from voting with your feet. That's why they want to make the Climate Change Religion universal. Remember, the Aztecs convinced the population that a minimum number of human sacrifices were required each day to get the sun rise.
The Safire Project wipes nuclear energy's butt - it literally cleans up radioactive waste.
https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2020/03/10/special-feature-the-safire-sun/
Interesting. Watching now
As a devil’s advocate, they will run into a roadblock called bureaucracy. There will be red tape and imposed standards they cannot meet. By the time all the hands come out of the cookie jar, this will be of no benefit to you or I.
For now yes, absolutely, and they already have. Clarage and co. went in to a nuke company with the new technology - literal proof this new tech works as specified to see if they wanted in - and they were told, 'We like our nuclear waste as it is.' Needless to say the good guys left confounded and scratching their collective head.
What nobody seems to understand is this clown paradigm is about to be blown apart within the next five to twenty years. No question.
The new world is coming and the psychos have an internal ticking time bomb on their hands. People who can look reality in the eye without flinching will rebuild a system based on real physics and true metaphysics.
Bingo
Whatever it is, the "electric sun" model is not based any known physics, which means it's either a world-changing, groundbreaking achievement (unlikely), or a scam (more likely). I watched the video and still have no idea what fuels this process.
It's electrical. Yes, the entire paradigm is shifting. Gravity is old-school, olde-world physics. The big bang never happened. Black holes don't exist and Einstein was the cut-price budget version of Don Scott and Wal Thornhill, who are (were in the latter case) the real deal.
"Gravity is old-school, olde-world physics. The big bang never happened. Black holes don't exist and Einstein was the cut-price budget version of Don Scott and Wal Thornhill"
So... there's no such thing as Mass?
Whoa. That's heavy.
Gravity is a racist, white supremacist construct created to keep POC down. Tomorrow, I will jump from the window of my university's HR department (12th floor) to prove it.
Mass is heavy. I like that.
Haha, nice one. Get me to hospital, my sides split.
Mass exists. All matter has mass, but there is no such thing as negative mass (black holes were an imaginary theory).
TY. I'd like to see someone from the project on Joe Rogan.
Maybe approach Michael Clarage, he's here on Substack.
Actually, the good news is that nuclear seems to be making a comeback. For example, Sweden has dumped all the green tech and is going to build nuclear plants. There are a lot of other plants going up around the world. And if you want to make money, invest in uranium mining companies.
That's not a bad idea for investment.
Look at the price of uranium over the last few years. It's on a tare.
Yup. Like CCJ is up 6% today
i wonder how much has been lost to patents
i think patents are holding us back
They become public domain in 17 years. All those old "buried patents" claiming 70 MPG carburetors and engines that run on water would be free to use.
Patents are like lawyers. You don't want them until you need them.
Tough to get much investment in complicated ventures though, without them.
A cure for cancer would disrupt a very lucrative industry. I always struggle with this because I want to believe in the Atlas Shrugged story as I've seen so many ways in which it has grains of truth, but I just see predatory industry rolling over the planet for centuries. How do we address that? Have we ever had executives that embody the golden rule?
the only thing stopping the disruption are the gatekeepers.
the FDA was created to prevent quacks and snake oil, but has instead become the primary protector and purveyor.
eliminate them (or make them a voluntary accreditation instead of a required approval) and that problem goes away.
The government mostly fucks up everything it touches.
I can't think of anything it hasn't fucked up...especially over the last 40 years
True enough. However I am reminded of the scene in Life of Brian, where John Cleese's character and his crew are discussing the Romans, who they hate: "What have the Romans ever given us? the Aqueduct. Sanitation. Roads. Irrigation. Medicine. Education. the wine. Public Order... "All right but besides all that..." Of course we know all these could be done better/faster/smarter by private actors, but its a funny thought and does make a anarchist like me think, just a little.
Merely a flesh wound to my anarchist spirit!
If only the Roman's had limited themselves to those things.
I think there was the ideal power balance of government in the mid nineteenth century.
So 180 years ago is the last time our government wasn't completely corrupt!...;))
Completely corrupt? Possibly, but not completely powerful.
https://imgflip.com/i/8ifhtc
Yes.
https://patrick.net/post/1379804/2023-07-18-government-should-always-be-minimized
You and I agree on many things. Love your site. You should continue it.
Thanks, it's encouraging to get some compliments. I get a lot of insults.
Telling the truth will not help you make a lot of friends.
Yes. It's quite interesting to see all the problems we have and how easily they could be "solved" by just looking at how they "evolved" in the first place.
This is a perfect example of what bureaucrats are unable or unwilling to do.
So easy to see. None of this shit is tough...
All our problems can be solved with 4-8 years of good governance. We don’t lack resources or innovation. Or anything.
Or 4-8 years of NO governance.
Ha! I posted the same comment before I read yours!
See that's what concerns me. We've always been able to innovate our way out of messes the government creates.
Do we have that this time around? Even if we do, is it too late?
Thoughts?
No. Because all the ingredients exist for success. I live in BC. BC has energy, water, access to huge markets, a largely law abiding populace, and an abundance of all raw materials. With leadership we would be unstoppable. This was NOT true even 10 years ago. Robotics changes everything.
How about 4 - 8 years of no governance? I could go for that. Dreaming about what I can do with that 1/3 of my income that is stolen from me.
"Good governance" is an oxymoron. Our founders believed government is an evil necessity. They were right which is why they tried to create a limited government. It didn't take long for those chains to be broken and the Supreme Court has been one of the biggest abusers. People think it is the stay to government overreach, but it hasn't been in the past and still isn't.
How does the problem go away though, when the problem isn't the FDA etc, but the multi-billionaires who control them? The same people "cancelled" natural medicine early last century so they could literally make a killing off a pharmaceutical-based medical system.
People who've developed cancer cures, cheap energy and the like have been murdered to keep these innovations hidden. That's not a beaurocrat's doing.
When a handful of people control the financial institutions, a handful of people control which innovations are allowed to prosper and which fail. Thus, they often control who succeeds and who fails.
Not true capitalism (free market) at work now. The ugly truth.
That's the problem exactly. Capitalism has been warped and it's no longer a free economy. The playing field isn't anywhere near level when a small group has every agency, government and corporation in their pocket.
This is what worries me. I swing from optimistic to pessimistic and back daily.
I see the optimism in that more people are aware so we can opt out and develop parallel systems with like-minded people.
The problem with stopping quacks is every one in 20 quack ideas works for someone really well. And when that happens innovation occurs. You can’t stop quacks because if you do you stop the next breakthrough.
I believe all many federal and state standards should be tiered and voluntary. Building codes should be level 1-10, and people should able to build and buy to whatever standard they like.
Zoning ruins a lot of economic activity. Try and get any sizable manufacturing in most cities. You can’t. And if your manufacturing idea works you need workers, who live in cities. So, what happens? You relocate to Asia.
IMHO, there has already been a cure for cancer found. The recipe destroyed and the inventor(s) killed. The Medical Industrial Complex cannot have oodles of money funneled away from them.
Cancers are expressions of poor health and function, toxicity, and malnutrition. It’s “cure” is more accurately addressed preventatively
Cancers have always been around, but it used to be called "consumption". I suspect that many of the cancers we see today are the result of the long-term effects of food additives that were never used before. This is why I eat a lot of fresh produce and rarely open a can of anything.
agree
If we all ate 20% less you would see cancer rates drop precipitously.
Diabetes and heart disease too.
You're probably right, William.
Pretty much exactly what I was getting at....EGM makes more sense than most, but I'm not sure about feasibility. That being said, nothing is forever, not even the East India Company or Pharma. Watching our disillusionment with hormonal birth control at the moment with great interest. I think it will be a game changer.
When I was young and both fertile and randy I had the glorious Lippes Loop inserted and that little plastic miracle stayed in place for 17 count-'em 17 years until I was ready to become purposefully pregnant. They don't make it anymore. It was too cheap and safe and sensible.
wow!
that is much better that taking poisonous pills
I was younger when I took those poisonous pills for four years and they weren't so great for my moods, I promise you that.
Dr. Jack Lippes, inventor--rest in peace. My hero. I'm sure thousands of women like me bless your name.
yes, poison exactly.
I’m curious…what is this story? I have not heard this before, the cancer cure.
Probably not what he’s referring to, but fenbendazole, ivermectin along with other supplements have some very good effectiveness. Check out Justus R Hope and fenbendazole cures cancer on substack for more information and studies.
There are constant rumours of cancer cures being suppressed. Here is one. Fast. But fast for 40-50 days. Fast until all your fat and a lot of muscle has been consumed. Eventually your body will eat the cancer, before it starts eating your organs. I know of more than one person doing this successfully.
I know some people who cured themselves of depression, long term chronic depression, by walking. Daily. But about 20-30 km everyday for three weeks. You might have to build to it. And you have to get off their poison first.
Both those two, if correct, and if they work for most people, kill multi billion dollar industries.
The gatekeepers (real people in power not the politicians) have a stranglehold on everything and will suppress anything that will cure or eradicate disease. They will silence anyone who speaks out against them. Just my lay opinion
Government intervention is the at the root of 99% of our problems.
The other 1% is greed.
And if you take the next step, realize that our governance has been increasingly outsourced to the fin/tech elite who are well versed in maintaining monopolies and using the “economy and efficiency” model even when assessing human costs with little regard for life….because, well…quite frankly, they are interested in sealing themselves off from the rest of humanity and establishing their dominance and future with machines. It’s an ugly story whose final chapter has not been written, but people would do well to understand that we are being outsourced and they also intend to reserve all the natural resources to be maximized for their benefit….not the whole of humanity. In short, with automation they no longer need the useless eaters….for either production or for garnering more wealth. For a while they will compete with one another for who manages the masses best through social impact markets, data and human capital. But they will move on from that pretty quickly, especially if the useless eaters resist the global coup. It will be one or/and is to a great degree about the fin/tech elite pursuing their preservation indefinitely not to mention their control of our narrative as a species going forward. Grotesque really, a state of war (think John Locke) that has been overlaid as of late with a narrative of equality, DEI, good health, abundance, etc….which hardly reflects the state of affairs on the ground. But people want their heroes and hold onto hope that those who acquired their wealth through bullying tactics, deception and exploitation are really working for the benefit of society. Funny how they never talk about the elements that are lost with all their innovation and progress, especially the elements lost to the common man. Pssttt….they don’t care….the goal is to pursue what they want even if it is at the expense of the many. Kind of sucks for those of us who are not worshipers of wealth or do not subscribe to the values or lifestyle that wealth has produced in this lifetime. I don’t need or want a private jet, three homes, $1,000 meals….nor do I want those folks lecturing to me about how I can or should spend my days because they need to save the planet from us. But alas, this is where we are…a game of chicken, a cowering populace that cannot think for themselves and can no longer provide for itself….
For me, the answer is not to hand our governance over to the public/private partnership model for the simple fact that the fin/tech elite have repeatedly showed themselves to be untrustworthy. Our current system actually has already become exactly what I fear….and perhaps the reality we are currently facing is those that hold the power are now showing their faces and letting us know that they know we know….and playing a game of chicken with is…will we do anything about it, or will the silent coup stand.
The govt and institutions and corporations are made up of millions of people. They are not all involved in an evil conspiracy. Some of them are, yes. But most people working and creating in tech, finance, etc are not bad people. You really can't put everyone who has made good bit of money in one group. Maybe you have never known anyone to work so hard and so smart that they made a lot of money. Perhaps they were motivated by having several children and wanting to insure that their children were provided for. Maybe they were following their passions and using their talents. Maybe they were just motivated people who were fulfilled by work.
I agree wholeheartedly that we are not talking about some giant evil conspiracy that involves all government employees or institutions. It is a very very different challenge we face than that, which is why it is incredibly hard to counter some of the impacts of a select few….who are pushing and pulling us towards an agenda that serves them. A Trojan horse of sorts. And they have the tools of propaganda to lull the masses into a sense of security and false hope. Many are simply in solid living their story and the more complex our society has become the more the “overlords” have been able to influence the direction of things.
And from where so sit….the likes of Gates….yeah, no….I cannot subscribe to his sense of entitlement to play with people’s lives just because he has $$$, grand ideas and thinks he knows best. My state fell prey to him and other technocrats reform efforts in education which have little to do with the welfare of our students and had everything to do with them trying to turn the public education system into a pipeline of compliant workers for the coming gig economy. And the damage done…ugh. And as MAA would say…”Mistakes were NOT made.”
All too true.
But what are they gonna do when they need a plumber?
Oh…trust me, they are well past that point. They have their own plumbers…
The question is going to be…what will we do when we need a plumber and getting one comes with terms or conditions that are rules made by those who clearly intend to control our lives through data, algorithms, access and technology if we allow the digital prison they are constructing to be completed?
Most will blindly and mindlessly enter….as seen with Covid…the mob mentality (uninformed and not able to critically think) will trot after the pied piper….
I worry that the next go round will be even harder when it comes to standing one’s ground.
Think of all that they learned by collecting data, watching social media and studying human behavior during the COVID era. It was as much a social/emotional experience as a big pharma clinical trial. The goal is compliance on all fronts…they want us willing to worship and replace our individual sovereignty with the collective brain/consciousness, which ultimately they intend to control and harness. People never ask about what the goals or values are that they pursue this “one size fits all” tech driven agenda (you will own nothing and be happy….what does that mean? What is the definition of happy here? Who defines it? )where they are the arbitrators of truth and how life should be lived. We will no longer be part of that equation…it has become evident (real evident in political landscapes of the west) that the ship has already sailed…our interests have been sold to the highest bidder by the politicians.
They are willing to murder off their staunchest supporters too. Think about it.
Being greedy instead of needy motivates people to be productive and work hard.
I disagree. Need is the ultimate motivator in improving one’s state.
Greed, however, is motivated by a selfish desire to have ever more than one needs, or may rightly deserve.
There are a number of people who love to do big things. It is what gets them motivated. They end up rich in this society.
Having a big net worth in a fiat money fractional reserve system is not Smaug like. Smaug sits on his gold. A rich person’s wealth is usually bits of paper. The cash he has, usually a small fraction of his net worth, sits in a bank and is loaned to others to buy homes etc. I have a reasonable net worth because I like doing big things. As does my son. We push ourselves hard. Being a middle class bureaucrat/office worker etc would kill me. So I take big risks and do big projects. In fact my actual consumption, ie the clothes I feel I need, the food I eat, is pretty much the same as anyone else. Probably less than most people’s. My main fun is hanging with my grandchildren or my sons. Socially it is coffee with a buddy or two. Occasional meals out. But rich food doesn’t sit well with me. So even then it is simple meals. Being wealthy in this society is not destructive. In a gold backed economy it could be.
Exactly. If you want to create and build, you need more than enough beans to eat to keep you alive. Once you are secure that your needs will be met, you can think about bigger and more creative things. You can dream and carry out bigger projects. We are more than bodies that need to be fed.
And to do bad things to obtain more of it.
Doing honest work for an honest living is not greed.
Greed is not just wanting money but being willing to harm yourself or others to get it. Bernie Madoff was greedy.
Greed is just wanting more. It doesn't necessarily mean you are willing to harm someone. Bernie had more problems than being greedy.
Fenbendazole cures cancer. When the ego can be calmed and silenced and one can start to see the potential of alternatives like repurposed 'dog parasite medicine' (fenbendazole for example), people will start to realise the goldmine they have at their fingertips. Failing to research online means they go down with the old paradigm. The www is the great equaliser. The end of the dark age is here, and we're simultaneously entering the new golden, but it's messy.
https://fenbendazole.substack.com/
Many reasons to be optimistic! I would go so far as to say the internet saved my life during covid.
Pretty sure it was always part of the plan. Places with heavy tradition like Italy had online classes for schools... many laptops were bought! There are always ways to get us to accept new things when we wouldn't otherwise and technology is no different.
Bingo! They are herding us into the virtual world and “connectivity” needed for them to rule us through machines. One part dependence and second part…they control the machines.
If we disconnect at work and become fragmented working from home we will end up connecting more to family. Working with children around is great for children. They see work is a part of life, as it is. Housing costs will come way down
No one has to work and live in SF NY LA etc. they can live and work in nice little communities.
Maybe, for now, but we need to be online. There is an entire 'thing' with words, I write about that. The olde world was Pisces which is a water sign with top down authority in command. We move in to Aquarius which is a humanitarian sign, whose symbol is Air. We're ruled by symbols (and words). It doesn't matter what is said, if one doesn't understand the deeper meaning of words and symbols nobody will ever understand what is being said. This way things can be hidden in plain sight.
Point about the astrological mention is that the fish (Pisces/us/our next phase of evolution) must be caught on the line (online) and pulled up out of the water so we can breathe the air of Aquarius. There's nothing to be scared about, things just require some deeper thought.
Fenbendazole was first used on humans just like Ivermectin, and it worked well - too well. You can still get the "human versions" of these drugs, but they are incredibly expensive. Big pharma and their cronies really have most people bamboozled.
Yeah! BenFen writes at the end of each post:
"to illustrate how Americans are screwed by Big Pharma, two pills of mebendazole cost just $4 in the UK, 27 cents per 100 mg pill in India and $555 per 100 mg pill in the US."
Oof.
There are a number of potent cures for cancer which has have virtually no effect over Big Pharma's profit margin. Big Pharma has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to maximize profits. They have quite effectively accomplished this through hiding potent cures as well as ignoring those cures which will never allow them to profit.
The Atlas Shrugged story has been playing out right in front of our eyes. The only difference is that instead of the corporate elite packing up and abandoning this sinking ship of an economy, it is the low and medium wage earners. For those who may not have noticed, Atlas Shrugged has become a useful bit of propaganda bolstering the image of the corporate classes.
That is why the American Cancer Society has targeted vaping which is 1000 times safer than smoking. Less cancer means less money for them. They are corrupt scum and have never and will never get a penny from me.
It's the same in most systems.
Positions of power nearly always attract the worst people. The idea is to limit those positions of power, or at least minimize their individual fuckery potential, for lack of a better term.
That's where these agencies like the FDA, CDC, HHS, NIH, NIAID, become problems.
They are all examples where congress has abdicated their authority, and placed it in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. Those bureaucrats have no effective oversight. Think Fauci, his agency literally defines terms. He had his agency redefine a scientific definition to his personal advantage. That's absurd.
The creation of such hierarchical systems is one of the primary causes of every problem we face today.
Once a bureaucracy is captured, it can operate unchecked and cause insurmountable harm. Not only that, it can do so unchecked.
I just heard today about a document from the FDA about myocarditis where literally every page is redacted. This does not surprise me. The NIH website has documents from at least 2019 -- that I could find, listing the inherent problems with mRNA vaccines. I link to it here:
https://ogre.substack.com/p/conspiracy-theorists-advocate-3-covid
The problems we face are built into the system now. Without complete congressional removal of these agencies which are captured, nothing will change.
Trump is also NOT going to push for the removal/disbanding of these organizations. He recently touted the vaccines as, "Saving us from COVID-19." Then Trump went into mRNA's potential for fighting cancer.
We are on our own here. Things are going to get much worse, and at an accelerated pace with absolute disregard for who is elected to what position.
Everyone needs to prepare as best they can. Other than that, there isn't much we can do. That's what the super rich are doing. They're buying land far from population centers and stockpiling food. They sure as hell don't think things are getting better.
Our basic system, well run, not as it has been recently, is pretty good. It allows for greed, which you can’t get rid of.
It's because modern industry is James Taggart, not Dagny Taggart.
You win!!
Get your ass out of bed every day before the sun rises and you'd be surprised at how easy it is to outperform the field.
When I started my business, I left a government job that had great pay and great benefits. I had no experience, no work lined up, and little savings. People laughed and said my competition would eat me alive. But I learned there is very little competition for honesty, hard work, and providing great service where the customer is truly king and always right.
I'll bet you learned that the government is the main enemy of small businesses.
Well, the main enemy you can't do anything about. My own weak human nature is my main enemy. I'm working on it. 😁
That is the secret to success. Defeat your own inner weaknesses.
And congratulations! Well done!
Exactly. There's nothing to tell you where you stand and no greater motivation than having to rely on your own efforts to literally eat.
"Because I have to!" becomes your motto.
OMG. Exactly. It's scary but liberating too.
I guess that's why we did it...and maybe just young and dumb enough to...
.;)
Young and dumb, check and check.
Love this, I’ve never read a more accurate, compelling and yet succinct explanation of how best to help the poor, drive progress, and reward correct behaviors. Thank you!
Milei, not sure I trust this spokes person, for many reasons, may be a distraction speaker to make different factions look like they care. On the other hand spend a night on YouTube studying the scholarly work of Thomas Sowell, from the time he was a young man to now as a 90 year old cherished elder we are lucky to have. He speaks fluently as a young man til now from about how the quality of the Americans of African families and individuals were faring much much better before the welfare state come into being.
“ they squander what they were given because they have only ever known plenty and fail to understand that it is an achievement, a remarkable outcome of a finely wrought machine instead of the base state to which all are inevitably entitled. they see it as normal, not exceptional and thus seek to efface and eliminate exceptionalism itself as an idea.”
This substack was a brilliant examination.
In North America we are blind to the amazing plenty and efficient infrastructure we still enjoy around us. It works. For how long, we don’t know. Its days may be numbered.
Great Canadian columnist Rex Murphy (echoed by Jordan Peterson) both have remarked that we suffer from a deplorable lack of gratitude.
And a good knowledge of the history and heritage of our North America.
Very well put. There are people who argue that the poor are poor because they are lazy, but many poor people work two and even three jobs just to survive. Yet they never seem to get ahead, no matter how much labor energy they put into working. So something is clearly wrong with the idea that hard work alone will lift you out of poverty. When you look at this picture, it actually makes MORE sense to stop working and live off the dole, especially when the welfare system puts caps on what you can earn/save.
Many of the poor are poor because of their culture. Black culture is a perfect example where education is turning white and being a gang-banger is exalted. It is the exact opposite of Asian culture where hard work and education are exalted.
but in earlier times the black community worked hard and provided very well for themselves. It seems the black community were victims of politics.
https://rumble.com/v4fw3ri-great-american-race-game.html
And our government flooding the street with crack
I agree culture has a lot to do with it. It can make you or break you. I also see a lot of young whites adopting "black culture" where I live. Personally, I don't see the appeal, but I suppose if you don't have much hope that you can break out of the low-income poverty trap, it does offer an identity and a purpose. Much like religion in that regard.
I did not grow up "poor", I grew up in a middle-class household. My father was a teacher. Now I know, because I've had people tell me right to my face, that "teachers make too much money." I'm not sure how much "too much money" is, because nobody ever explained that much. Well maybe he did and he was just a piss-poor money manager or his salary was barely enough to take care of a family of six. I don't know and won't ever know. What I DO KNOW is what it is like to hear over and over and over again the phrase "We can't afford it." To have to sit on the social sidelines as a teen and not be included in any kind of activities that cost money because "we can't afford it." So, no going out with my peers. I don't think that I have to spell what that was like because we all lived like that during the pandemic. We all had a good time staying home, didn't we? So enjoyable that it was such a shame it ended, right?
A while back I got to participate in an exercise called "Walk of Privilege" which was supposed to show me how privileged my life was as a white woman from a middle class background compared to others. Instead it backfired. It dramatically showed me the reality of what I had long suspected, that my family's inability or unwillingness to do certain things had held me back. For those who are not familiar with this exercise, it consists of a series of questions about your childhood background, what your parents did or did not do, and depending on the answer you either took one or two steps forward or you did not move at all. For example, "are you white? Yes, take two steps forward. No, stay in place." This exercise was not meant to measure a person's current status, nor their own efforts (or lack of) in achieving such. It was only meant to measure starting points and factors beyond your control. There were 8 of us, all white, all presumably middle class, all female except for one who was transitioning to male. Given the homogeneity of this group, you would expect the end result would be everyone would reach the finish line pretty much together. Not so. It wasn't even close. One individual pulled ahead very early and finished so far ahead that, as they say in horse racing "she was first, the rest nowhere." The others were in a comparatively close bunch in the middle of the room, and as for me--I had barely budged from that back wall. I think I stopped moving around the third question. It was like I had run into an invisible force field--all due to circumstances I could not do anything about. Again, it was not about "where you are today" but "where did you start out?" It was a very sobering experience, to say the least.
"Walk of Privilege" is woke racism BS. If you let that hold you back, you are only doing harm to yourself.
Your story seems to indicate you grew up in a lower middle-class family and the people you considered "peers" were not your financial peers. It is easy to see why you might be envious, but don't let envy hold you back from achieving your goals. If college is out of reach look to the trades. You can make a very good living in the trades.
Lastly, a family of 6 is a large family and expensive to support. I'm sure your father did his best. Teacher salaries vary from state to state and city to city, but even if your father was making $100k a year, a family of 6 is still a big expense.
I’ve worked in Uganda’s largest slum for over 15 years. Occasionally I’ve taken people with me, and in Jan had a small group plus one Ugandan nurse from a poor community in Northern Uganda. After her first time in the slum, she texted friends and family and said that, despite their poverty, they had nothing to complain about. People here in the States have NO idea what true, grinding, sell-yourself-for-a-meal-at-13 poverty looks like, smells like, and especially feels like. This slum is actually up next to one of Kampala’s wealthiest neighborhoods, which to us would be very middle class. All their goods come from China and are crap - a brand new laptop (even a brand name like Dell) will have a battery life of less than an hour. Fuel was about $1.40/liter in Jan (liter, not gallon) and that was down from over $2/liter in 2022. You are wealthy if you own a car; everyone walks or takes a boda. Most people even in the nice houses cook on charcoal versus using power, which is unreliable and expensive. In the rich neighborhoods. One of the best things I ever did was take my kids with me from the start (combined 16 trips for them) - they are well aware of the consequences of what’s going on here and what poverty really looks like.
Good for you. You are blessed with wisdom and have very lucky kids.
"People here in the States have NO idea what true, grinding, sell-yourself-for-a-meal-at-13 poverty looks like, smells like, and especially feels like."
You are absolutely right, and their commie professors feed them BS and lies. However, I am old enough to remember the seemingly endless African famines and the news films of people and their children bone-thin with distended bellies starving to death. Africa has been mostly free of that for the last 30 years or so and our young are ignorant of it.
Your comment reminds me of my occasional desire to drop off my middle school kids who act so damn entitled somewhere like Nicaragua for a stint.
I've lived in Nicaragua - it's actually pretty ok! haha It's nowhere near as poor as Uganda, which I didn't realize til we moved there. You could send them to most places in Africa, though!
I've tried for the thirty years I've been in business to get people to see that increased productivity/ less man hours means more money for everybody. They have a "by the hour" frame of mind and see the reverse-- "If the job takes more time, I make more money."
Paying more doesn't help, and I've learned you can pay someone too much. If a guy is used to blowing his check on a six pack, ten bucks of lottery tickets, and a couple packs of cigs, when you double his pay he blows it on a twelve pack, twenty bucks on the lottery, and a carton of cigs. Or he works half as many hours. I've tried incentives like profit sharing, raises, bonuses, nothing breaks through the by the hour frame of mind.
Interesting; I’d like to hear more. Incentives should work to increase productivity, just given human nature. Are you paying hourly? If so that would explain the “let’s spend more hours on this project to make more money” mindset. How effective were the bonuses, etc? Have you tried commission only or minimum wage plus large production bonuses, etc?
It's been my experience that you can't incentivize enough to break through that mentality. It is only viewed as working harder, and who wants to do that, lol. I've given bonuses only to have that person call in sick the next three days. I have skilled craftsmen that would not work for minimum wage, no matter how large production bonuses were. They can see their hourly rate but that can't see that imaginary bonus. Once a bonus is given, it is expected every time. If we don't make quotas, well, that's according to greedy me. And that also means they're counting on the rest of the crew to be as productive as them. Score keeping results, and the person keeping score never loses. They don't count their own off days, long breaks, low production days, etc., but they sure count everyone else's.
Not everyone wants to improve their lot in life by hard work and savings. Some people are comfortable right where they're at.
Try this:
https://www.cultureindex.com/
one of my best investments ever for recruiting the right people. So good, i invested a bit in it shortly after it launched.
Will do, thanks.
"Paying more doesn't help..." (you)
"The poor (and the stupid) will always be with us." (my addition)
No one ever paid me what I think I'm worth and I never refused being paid more money. You are wrong about money not being an incentive. Why else do you even work? Because you really like the people you work with? That doesn't pay the mortgage. If you work for any other reason than money you are a fool. And if you think your company is more than a source of income for you, you are also a fool.
I've been called worse. I guess you've never built a small family business from the ground up, or you would know that's it's more than just a source of income. I love what I do. I make the world a better place. I never work for less than I think I'm worth. I bid jobs every day and put a price on what I'm worth. If people aren't willing to pay it, I don't do the job.
I have owned several businesses. I was specifically talking about being an employee. But even in your own business, if you aren't making money, you should shut it down.
Sorry, it's hard to get context on these short comments online. I agree wholeheartedly with your last statement.
Excellently written piece. As Eric Weinstein often says - free market capitalism is the best system but the current system is rigged. I guess as systems mature this is an inevitability of greed and power.
I think “poverty traps” are the goal as the country craters (by design)
Exactly
Another aspect to consider - wasted tax dollars given to companies to distract from the goal of innovating will hinder progress. Rather, the funds are usually not sustainable and the project keeps going back for more government $ and ignores the potential of using their talent for exponential market growth.
Take, for example, cloud seeding. This program was denied for many years among psyop planners and is finally being marketed as an innovative way to “boost water supply/ increase hydro electric production.” However, the program needs a lot of handouts - tax dollars, liability exemptions, permit exemptions… Water resources departments are usually approached by someone in academia to sell them on a cloud seeding plan - often based on gamed computer algorithms! So the education $ starts the ball rolling on a program that is not innovative, not sustainable. The idea is pitched to the water resources agency where they find tax dollars to fund the program (cigarette tax in Idaho bc I’m sure that’s what the tax was intended for!). Enter the power company who is handed the contract and runs the program (a way to add additional layers of difficulty to obtaining information bc you can’t FOIA the power company). Enter companies to make the CS generators and measurement devices. Then the players think the program is too risky and go before the state legislature to ask for no liability and no permits. And then the experimentation gets riskier and there is no opt-out, no notification. All while the tax dollars keep pouring into the program. Tax dollars that could be going to reservoirs and better water management programs, but the snake oil salesmen sold everyone on the meager 5% potential, computer modeled water increase. And you’re probably wondering what happens after they received liability exemptions? Well, that’s when the real open-air experiment begins in cloud seeding with liquid propane and methanol. Nothing about this scheme is progress, but a sad demonstration of why tax dollars going to unsustainable, scientifically questionable programs is bad for citizens, innovation, and our environment.
https://eolson47.substack.com/p/cloud-seeding-experiment-in-idaho?triedRedirect=true
One again a good article right on point! The fact that work ethic, like all ethics, has to be learned is foreign to many folks. It disappears in one generation if not passed on.
Never truer words
That is all well said. The "welfare state" is a charity at gunpoint, an impossible contradiction. It is state violence masking as benevolence, and too many fall for it.
Wow big Kat,
You are so spot on with this.
I used to have a plating company, we did lots of work for automotive here in the US. and yes I can be pretty dense. But geez! Ford had a goal back in 90’s to outsource x billions of JIT parts to China. It always bugged the crap out of me. I’d say how can we keep the work here! Then the JIT thing. Well we saw it crumble with the chip thing in past couple years. All the costs of a system so tight it’s wrought with catastrophic failure and cost. Anyway, the pendulum is returning. Duh! But following what’s popular isn’t usually what’s best in long run. Now what’s popular is tearing everything down a few generations ago they worked their fannies off to build. And demonize the guy with the house on the hill.
When the pendulum finally swings back, I hope we still have opportunities. Not me but the poor. Soon I’m going somewhere else and actually help the real poor. (Yep, one of those very lower economies) The guys that can barely buy shoes. Maybe by the time I’m done here and God takes me home, I might make a difference in the life of a few people and maybe even one or two of them help their friends buy some shoes.
Go back to “You didn’t build that”. A slap to entrepreneurs everywhere. Risk, investment, and executing on an idea seem novel to but a few these days. Too many without creativity sapping it (and outright stealing it) from those that do. Hard work “usually” means your grit is worth it, though infinitely more challenging today.