many Americans are the worst with money...this is a crisis in the US

You'd have to disagree with him, Firegirl, for that to happen.

(Sarcasm - I'm glad you have a wide audience who respect your views. I don't agree with some of your conclusions, but I personally appreciate how you arrive at them. And I do agree with much of what you have to say).

Have a good weekend, all.

 

I think it is fantastic that you have such excellent values instilled in you by loving parents. I hope the parents who waste time on DP each day are capable of imparting such common sense and down to earth advice to their own kids, instead of encouraging a valueless culture of consumerism.

I wouldn't put you on ignore even if you disagreed with me. You're not intellectually lazy or obsessive.

 

In other words you agree with him.

 

Actually, as much as we disagree on what I would guess to be everything else, and although Guerilla was once again making the stupid attempt to malign my fatherhood with his post above (obsessing on a discussion I once had with Rebecca),*** we actually agree on the notion of consumerism.

I think consumerism is a sickness that has no apparent end. A few, very early thoughts. Hope it provides some useful food for thought:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=857986&postcount=17

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=859014&postcount=21

(This thread was actually on the death of J.K. Galbraith, and Will and myself were engaged in a good debate. Relevant here, I speak more to the rampant need for more, more, more, without thinking on value. I have long thought we're just running faster and faster, we clamor for new baubles and penny whistles, and we have no idea where we're running to. A ridiculous way to proceed as a species, if you ask me).

***Pretty funny, actually, to be preached to on "wasting time" on DP: at G's 18 posts per day, I'd guess he's up there for top blatherer...certainly beats my 5/day, and I would guess the balance of most DP members; as well, pretty funny to be preached to on family and fatherhood, from a guy who apparently lives alone, has for his entire adult life, and who seems to have found his life's meaning by cutting and pasting Mises.org and RP material here on DP.

 

Arent you a typical liberal...

If people are spending money I could care less what it is used for. The more spending, the better the economy. It makes no difference to me what anyone wants to spend their money on as long as they are spending it.

 

Rhetorical question?

Precisely my point. "What it is used for" should matter. We're filling our lives up with crap, and salaciously salivate for the next, equally ephemeral thing. We never get filled. And I just have the opinion, a value judgment, that it's a pathetic marker for modern life. In short, it is my opinion that, impressed by conspicuous consumption, we've become seriously skewed over what matters in life, and we only run faster to feed an increasingly voracious machine.

In saying so, I don't know that I'm a "typical liberal" as much as an observer unhappy with much of what I see. Take it or leave it, as you wish.

 

Sounds like common sense to me. People need to quit buying stupid garbage to fill the hole in their heart.

 

This nails it, for me, earth. Nicely said.

 

I disagree. If someone has a hole in their heart and can fill it by purchasing something, more power to them.

The problem is that people are spending money they do not have, because the system is geared to punish saving and reward debt. Before you know it, we have a culture where nothing is saved, recycled or maintained. A consumerist throw away culture where everything is valueless and disposable.

Buying things is not the problem. Buying consumable, disposable goods with debt is debilitating in the long run IMO.

 

Im just saying that I dont really care about what other people do with their money. Instead of being someone with third-world mentality who posts on forums about their woes of the secular nature of the economy and the country, I am going to try to get those people to buy products and services from me.

 

northpointaiki is a stupid liberal and nobody should care or listen to anything he says

 

OK. I do. I think our society is filled with flash, and it breeds a culture of toss-away worthlessness, in so many ways more than consumer goods. Seek instant spiritual enlightenment? Take a weekend workshop - choose your instant path from among hundreds of top-dollar gurus! Don't want to spend the years in college drudgery? Fuck it! Dump the humanities crap, take the (name the biz/tech/you name it) fast road to big bucks! Tired of your spouse? Dump him/her, EZ! And so on.

If I sound like a romantic, I am. I don't like much of modernity, and I don't see it getting a great deal better. We have eschewed wisdom and sought the acquisition of information.

I do not understand much of the above paragraph, except that your focus is on selling products and services, presumably to a kind of lesser people, as best as I can tell?

 

thank u 4 pruving the point do u feel beter now dat u 1/2 puked "stoopid" on da page if dis iz da future wre fooked peeps

 

Does it fill it for anyone you know? Why do people feel the need to fall into this consumerism trap? Just because the deck is stacked against you doesn't mean you have to be a dumbass and get 10 credit cards you can't pay on and buy plastic crap from Wal-Mart because it makes you feel good to know you own something. There seems to me to be this philosophy of buying stupid shit these days, and I don't think the economy will screech to a halt when people stop. How many things do you consume that eats your investing and saving power that you could avoid? How many bottles of water do you think people buy? How many trash bags do you think they buy and fill with empty water bottles. Just the tip of the ice berg of what I am talking about. Don't buy stuff you don't NEED. Conserve. Ya know, like conservative only somehow wildly different according to some. And on that note, the government needs to quit buying stupid shit as well.

 

are u serious? nobody can even understand what you're saying..AHAHA

loser

 

What I am saying is that every time some group of people in history get into this anti-secular mindset, it halts progress, regardless of the fact that we can see it always turns out in a happier, healthier, and overall better population. My focus is on making money. My guess would be that you think that people that have money are most of the time immoral, regardless of the fact that these are the people that make the world a better place.

I also suspect that you are being very hypocritical in your argument.

 

Democrats don't deserve to add substance to threads

 

i like spamx182 and what he says

 

Well, as I am an atheist, I'm fairly "secular" in outlook. And I am not against progress. I just don't equate "progress" to 400 varieties of toilet paper. I do think that in our march to modernity, we have lost some pretty key things.

Wealth is neutral. It can do good, or it can do ill.

As to my presumed hypocrisy, you would have to tell me why, I guess, especially as you have no idea who I am, or what I stand for, based on a few posts on DP.