Baby Boomer Journalistic Hampster Spin On The Economy

We all know about humanities amazing ability to rationalize poor behavior, negative situations and bad outcomes into model behavior, positive situations and good outcomes. For the most part the 'sphere focus on the sociosexual aspect of rationalization and how to use that inherent trait, which resides in both men and women but more strongly in women, to one's own advantage.  Well in this particular instance, we have a baby boomer journalist, who doesn't specialize in economics and finance, espousing how having a greying workforce is actually a great boon for the British economy; due to cultural similarity between America and Great Britain I will assume America as well.

Progressive Fuedalism And The Soft Apartheid

An observation that is made quite frequently is that what progressives profess to care about and their actions are often at odds.  It is not lost on many people that while progressive profess their love for the working class, immigrants, minorities or any other group oppressed by mainline America, they certainly do not like surrounding themselves around them. What we are seeing is an apartheid of sorts.  This modern day progressive apartheid may not have the in your face ugliness of South African apartheid, but it is a soft apartheid of sorts. 

US Has Third of Workforce That Is Elderly

The article, from MSN, reports that the Center of Budget Policy Priorities, an lobbying and advocacy organization, has released a report showing that almost 30% of the workforce is 65 to 69 years old.  The information itself was collected from the OECD, so it as reliable as anything can be when it comes from a large organization.  There are a number of observations and issues that can be taken from this chart. First my observations:

1. The Japanese and South Koreans are as work obsessed as we make them out to be; not all stereotypes are wrong.
2. The Anglosphere nations, particularly the overseas Anglosphere nations, have an elderly population that is predisposed towards working.
3. Even with unemployment and budget woes besetting Europe, many of the European nations have elderly who are are not predisposed towards working.

Now the issues:

1. The fact that almost 29.9% of Americans who would ordinarily be retired are working illustrates that retirement as we know it is disappearing.
2. That the Europeans are in a whole mess of trouble.  The problem of high youth unemployment, while relatively new in the United States, has been a known problem for quiet some time for many European nations.  The fact that Europe is experiencing high youth unemployment, yet seeing low levels of elderly employment indicates that the number of actual jobs in Europe are slowly decreasing.  I remember reading an article many years ago that France, after you had factored in individuals leaving the work force, hadn't added new jobs since the 1970's; though my memory of that information could be mistaken.
3. That the youth of Europe are being strangled by retiree debt funded benefits at faster than the United States.

Lastly, there is one thing that needs to realize is that our modern concept of retirement is a new phenomena. Prior to the 20th century, the concept of everyone retiring while still physically capable of work only existed for the upper class. Even in the middle class it wasn't uncommon for individuals to work until they were to feeble to do so, after which they would live with their most financially well off children.  This trend could be that global society is returning to what has been the norm since time immemorial.  The major problem today being that the are far more parents than there are children, yet enough grandchildren to make extending the careers of our elderly problematic for the way our economy and society is currently organized.

Never Let A Tragedy Go to Waste

Now, whether or not you consider Trayvons Martin being shot by George Zimmer, and found not guilty of second degree murder or manslaughter, a travesty is a matter of opinion; I for one was not surprised as I put 50/50 odds that Mr. Zimmer would be found guilty of manslaughter or not guilty and almost no chance for conviction on 2nd degree murder.  What you cannot fail to notice is that every time something happens that the political vultures begin to circle.

Bullshit Study Is Bullshit: Spanking Bad

Once again we see major media publish an article under a headline, meant to mislead the public, saying that physical punishment tied to health woes, yet the study itself states that there are no findings that proved that spanking is actually harmful to the long term health of a child.  The only reason this is being reported, it's not really news, is because someone wants to plant seed in someones head.  That seed being that parents should ask an authority figure, in this case a pediatrician, what is acceptable and not acceptable way to discipline your child rather than using their own judgement.

We've seen how well this has worked out in the case of education, whereby communities now have to defer to State and Federal authorities on how their children should be educated, and I am willing to put money on it that in 10 to 20 years time, if our current cultural trajectory isn't changed, that we will continue to see more nonsense like this.  Isn't it funny that sociologists, doctors, psychologists and so on and so forth focus on the 'potential' damage around spanking, yet are almost unwilling to talk about the extreme damage that slutting out causes to young women, or the demonizing of normal male behavior to young men, or the fact that their touchy feeling bullshit has done nothing to slow down the number of individuals reporting a mental illness of some sort.

What's even worse is I bet that public money was allocated to this entire waste of energy.

Rampant Cheating Shows Pointlessness of Most Degress

An article written by someone in the know. He not only detailshow expansive plagiarism is, but also that many who plagiarize barely have to write at a third grade level.  It is a scathing easy of sorts because it briefly touches upon the matriculation of high school students into college, even though they have no business being in college, the extremely suspect competency of a person who gets degreed in a soft program as well as a potentially lucrative, though soul deadening, career as a professional essayist for the incompetent, foreign student or the lazy rich.

Garbage Science: Giving Birth To Boys Lessens Life Expectancy

I love it when mainstream periodicals publish junk. During a coffee break today I visited MSN and saw that they had a little article talking about life expectancy on their healthy living page. Now I know that much of what comes out of MSN when it comes to studies is just consumer garbage, but I decided to take a look anyways. The article in questrion was about what effects your life expectancy. Right off the bat I saw something that, if it had been in relation to women, would have never been published or met with a howl of rage.

Man Denied Entry Into Lego Land Because He Isn't With A Child

In bizarre example that displays the absolutely ludicrous of progressive political correctness, and corporate stupidity, a 63 year old man was denied entry into Lego land because adults are not allowed into the amusement park unaccompanied by a child. Now, the adult nights not withstanding, the rule is pretty stupid considering that an an adult pedophile could get into the park if accompanied by a child but a normal adult cannot, because children you see. Moreover what about the park staff? Or how about the fact that 99% of adults aren't going to abuse a child?

I could rail about corporate stupidity in terms of this policy, and it is a very stupid policy, but let's be honest here. Corporations are reactive entities and this policy was put in place because they think, accurately in my opinion, that in the one off chance something bad happens between a child and a random adult stranger, they will be crucified by the public and preyed upon by the vultures that occupy political offices. The only reason such a policy exists is because we take the chicken littles and professional complainers seriously instead of telling them to shut up.  What I can fault Lego land for is cowardice.  If more businesses cared less about their personal image, which will always be held in low regard by simple virtue of their size and the nature of progressives, more about good, efficient and honest business, I know not likely to happen, the less we will see of this kind of nonsense.

Most Movies Today Suck But Not All of Them

This week is a busy week for me, and while I won't be posting some posts that were in the docket or working on some charty goodness's, I cannot resist doing a small post this morning.  One thing I am sure everyone notices post red pill is how terrible movies are today, and I don't mean terrible sets, special effects or fighting choreography because we are in a veritable golden age for those, not only have studios shown that they have no vision by pumping out  mindless sequel after mindless sequel, -for god sakes do we really need a fast and furious 6?-, but there is also the fact that the movies are insufferably blue pill and push a progressive world view on the audience.  When I am coerced into going to the movies there are more than a few times I had to stifle a groan.

Majority of Americans Hate Their Job

CNBC, via Today, reports that only 30% of Americans are engaged in their jobs, while a 52% of us dislike our jobs. One item of interest was the fact that companies, in order to retain talent and promote worker satisfaction, have been offering greater perks than in years past.  The idea that having catered lunches, beer on tap, or in the case of Google, a company hockey rink was largely the brain child of Internet start ups during the late 90s and has continued ever since. It seems like a no brainer right, but it looks like these perks may be about as effective as cookies at the bank.

Differing Worlds: Murder In America

I wanted to do a run up to the data  I was going to present but I saw that the post I was writing was going off the rails into a different subject altogether, cultures and civilizations. Since I am cannot think of a good way to introduce the topic of this post, I will ask you pardon as I do a simple information dump.

Without further ado, here are some cities in the United States and their murder rates. You will notice that there are a wide gulf. Some cities, like Spokane, are almost on par with Europe while others, like Detroit, might as well be in the third world.

http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Chicago-Illinois.html              15.9
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Detroit-Michigan.html            48.2
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Seattle-Washington.html          3.2
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Austin-Texas.html                    3.7
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Los-Angeles-California.html   7.7
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-New-York-New-York.html     6.3
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Des-Moines-Iowa.html           3.9
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Billings-Montana.html            1.9
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Spokane-Washington.html     1.9

Why is that? I have my own ideas but, save for an observation that this might indicate regional decay, I will save my thoughts on this matter for a different time.

The History Channel Sucks

In his latest podcast, the Captain talks about the decline and the inevitable death of radio as we know it. Well, in the spirit of his podcast, I have my own observation to make. We all are aware of the slow death of cable television.  No channel best exemplifies why television is dying than The History Channel. It sucks, and it sucks big time.

Damning Failure: Washington Bridge Collapse

Given that I live in Washington I suppose I should comment on the recent bridge collapse along I-5. Thankfully no one was killed, and traffic hasn't been affected at all in Seattle proper, and it looks like a new temporary bridge should be up in relatively quick order.  But a slue of news organizations are talking about what why this happened, who is responsible and what needs to be done. My opinion is that this bridge collapse is evidence of a damning failure of our government.

Closing the Gender Gap Isn't Going to Help Japan

Goldman Sachs with an utterly fanciful report about how closing the 'gender' gap in the workforce will help move Japan's economy forward.  Increasing the number of women in the workforce will yield no long term benefit for Japan, and the same can be said for western countries. At best such a move will be a net neutral. The reason is that technological innovation, the regulatory environment and demographics matter far more for the prospects of long term economic growth than the percentage of your workforce is men or women*.

What Happens When You Destroy A Culture

You want to see what happens to  a society when its cultural roots are torn asunder and replaced with the morass that tries to pass itself off as culture today?  Just look at Japan, a society that was once the epitome of manly virtue reduced to this pathetic state. Where a women who married a man, probably a former otaku, forced him to 'murder' his virtual girlfriend.  This just symbolizes what is wrong in that nation today, and in many ways this anchorless society we live in today.

1. That a man would be so committed to a virtual person, scratch that just a collection of programmed responses for a game, to invite it to a wedding. Shows the result when you completely emasculate male culture.
2. That a women would be so insecure to force her new husband to destroy his video game.
3. That the man reportedly shed tears when he committed the act. Need I remind you that this is not a sentient being but just a collection of pre-programmed responses.
4. That they photographed, probably at the brides insistence, the event for posterity. Yes lets keep records of your husbands pathetic attachment to a video game character for posterity. I can just imagine this being used as fodder to emasculates him further.

Japan at least has the excuse of undergoing a two terrible nuclear bombings that fundamentally shook their culture to the core and an occupying nation that simply sought to replace the Bushido culture with an amalgamation of pseudo-democracy and capitalism. Frankly, I don't blame America, you start wars and you run the risks of having something like this happening. America put a system in place to benefit her against her fight against the Soviets, and frankly they handled the occupation far better than any of Japans neighbors would have. But that is another discussion.

Japan managed to muddle along, focusing its energies into becoming an economic super power. The salaryman work ethic replaced the Bushido code in Japanese society. What Japan had was a culture, neither anchored in the fundamental values of the west, nor the value of the east; rather, I would say it is the closet approximation of the cultural point that certain powers are trying to push America towards today. And when the sole remaining reason for being and anchor of this culture dissipated, their drive to become an economic power equal to that of the US, their culture went into a rapid nose dive.  Sad, sad, state of affairs it is to go from warrior society to nihilistic pantywaist.

 

Obese Woman Denied Flight Dies

Here is an article that caught my eye today. Apparently a women turned away by numerous airlines in Europe because she was obese died while trying to get back to America.  Now I don't want to fully exonerate the airline companies because they do bear some culpability.  they apparently didn't have a problem bringing her from the US to Europe, but surprisingly did have one when she was trying to return. Moreover, according she had made the flight from the US to her native Hungary every year. Either the airlines just didn't want to deal with her this time around, or they were being grossly irresponsible in flights past.  But there are some other items that need to be focused on.

She had no business flying. Not because she was obese, millions of very rotund individuals fly every day in America, but because medically it was irresponsible to do so.

(The Woman was) an amputee who suffered from kidney disease and diabetes – with a severely distended belly.

 

A person who has kidney disease should not be traveling. Kidney disease can turn into kidney failure far more rapidly than people expect, and I think that is ultimately what killed her. Her death was entirely preventable if either herself, or her husband, had executed any personal responsibility. I know I am coming off as unsympathetic, and I am not unsympathetic to them, but it doesn't take a stretch of someones imagination to realize that her condition made traveling perilous for many reasons. Furthermore, outside of some very rare condition, an individual doesn't end up becoming a double amputee, with diabetes, and kidney failure unless they absolutely did not take care of themselves.  They should have seen this coming from miles away, and unfortunately, due partly to human nature, and partly due to America's current cultural climate, they failed to do so.

And for all the obesity apologetics out there. Obesity is not a disease, it is a condition, one that is usually the result of actions by an individual. I am sure the women was a nice and decent individual, and I am willing to concede that kidney disease might have come first and started her descent into morbid obesity. But being nice and decent doesn't mean individuals should or will to cater to you and your condition, and disease doesn't remove the responsibility of taking care of yourself to the best of your ability.  Whether or not you believe the husband is justified in suing the airlines or not, I am currently undecided, you should take note of what happened in these unfortunate events and then examine your own life.