moe:
http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htmFriday February 6, 2009 07:55 CDT
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How A Depression Unfolds - Jobs
We're in a hugely interesting period of time, one that arguably is one of the best possible times in which to experience Life, since there is just so much going on, so much opportunity to change at the personal/soul/spirit level, that nothing has been like it --maybe ever!
When I was born, which wasn't that long ago, there was no microwave cookery, no cell phones, no air conditioning in most cars, worldwide there were less than a dozen (or so) nuclear weapons. Land was cheap, the skies untainted by pollution or chemtrails, the first satellite was years away and solar power was a laboratory novelty used by photographers for light metering and that was about it. In photography, chemicals were the order of the day, computing was done by vacuum tubes, AM radio ruled the day.
But above all this, the social contract was solid. A middle class couple in America could look forward to the husband working in one job for perhaps 30-40-years, collect a decent pension, and have time for hunting or fishing. A commute of more than 30-minutes to work was unheard of. Transit systems were largely electric save Southern California where diesels had been bribed into service based on arguably false pretenses.
A wife could expect to be a 'stay at home' mom, do some canning when local fruits and vegetables were cheap, and projects like picking blackberries were, at least where I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, one of those summer chores that paid dividends for the rest of the year. There were no gangs because the legions of stay-at-home moms wouldn't hear of it; you got out of line and an adult administered a directly felt lesson in what authority was all about with a hand, hairbrush, or even a belt. No one called the cops claiming 'abuse!' and a legal industry based on payback and retribution was still decades away.
People not only owned large equities in their homes, but they had regular mortgage-burning parties and the 'special interests' had not yet completed their insidious, slow-motion coup d'état.