The Short Story of How We Lose

[jtuck004]

Ilargi: As the White House and separate states are divulging budget cuts that would until recently have been unthinkable, even though they're based on completely unrealistic economic scenarios and will therefore turn out to be only a small and lukewarm beginning of the cutting heat that's coming our way, it's good to reflect on the psychology behind it all.
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A good story,here.

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A while back someone posted a query in this forum suggesting that we ask candidates what their plans are for no growth, and how they would manage that. Now we are seeing it in action. Is all this horror people are expressing too early? Maybe this is just the tip of a wedge...

But I thought this was a good story about how people feel when they realize what they had is gone...'cause when that cheese is gone, brother, it is gone. Time to go find more cheese...

[Hannah Bell]

1. Their passages on SS are full of bullshit. Therefore, I don't trust the rest of the essay.

[jtuck004]

2. I can only suspect that if there is an avalanche coming toward me,

I may not see the rock that isn't dislodged further up. But I probably will have my attention focused on all the ones that are coming my way.

You are absolutely correct, that was a dumb thing to put into print, and I blew right past it. And although he is correct about the coming pension problem, and I suspect housing will not be the mask for our life of living on credit that it was even before the tentacles of the financial sector wrapped around it, I think the assertion that we might have to wait till the end of oil as energy before we recognize our "systematic" loss is just a shot in the dark. I think we are going to find out much sooner, perhaps as a result of actions by the financial sector.

But I really liked the story further up. I have seen loss aversion in action, and I wonder if we are suffering from that as a nation.

I see a fair amount of speculation and hopeful thinking that people would take to the streets. We watched it happen on Al Jazeera English, however, and there are a couple of differences. They were marching toward something they never had - autonomy, their idea of "democracy".

We, on the other hand, have "had" it, and lost it. Perhaps that should inform or guide people who want to speculate (or encourage) about people taking themselves into the street.

Maybe it will take 2-3 generations from now, from a group that has never "had", after their history holo-cube reads to them about how we let it all be stolen away.

[Possumpoint]

3. Thanks For Sharing

K&R