Whether you’re a young, old or middle-aged man or woman, of any skin color, inexperienced or experienced, and possessing many or few degrees, you’re unlikely to be hired initially, or ever again, by any large private company as a full-time employee. Get over it and figure out how you’ll make a living by your wits, determination, charm and overall doggedness.
We have to realize that persistently high unemployment and under-employment exist principally because we have yet to figure out how to be flexible and competitive self-employed entrepreneurs and independent contractors who can effectively and consistently sell ourselves to many other individuals, business enterprises, and public entities.
Don’t expect the U.S. Federal, State or Local governments to help you or your family for the short or long terms. They exist solely to help the wealthiest five percent of the country and to care for the nation’s largest and most influential private corporations that have completely “purchased” most of our elected officials. Since most Americans are not part of that small group of people and enterprises, you and I have to look to ourselves and each other to support our families and various smaller enterprises.
Income [in-]equality [plus vast wealth discrepancies] will continue to grow because the national economy and our political system are hopeless “fixed,” paralyzed and corrupt. The nation’s number of poor and uneducated will also rise to depressing levels. However we only waste time and energy decrying these basic facts of national life that cannot be changed. We should move onto discussing and thinking about things that we can actually change. True wisdom comes from knowing the difference between these two realities. [Corrections made in response to first reader comment.]
Don’t expect any meaningful political or economic reforms from Washington DC. Both political parties, the Beltway Media, the tens of thousands of private lobbyists, and all the employees of various governmental bureaucracies, biased private think tanks and the multiple single-issue interest groups are effectively incompetent, dysfunctional, corrupt, self-centered, narcissistic, greedy, ideologically paralyzed, close-minded and out of touch with reality. The U.S. will collapse as a world power before anything ever changes there so get over it and let’s move on.
Don’t expect large American businesses and financial institutions to give a damn about the United States or any of its citizens. They have effectively un-coupled themselves from our country and their focus is global. They will continue to favor other countries that better cater to their greedy self-interests. They won’t change their investment and job foci until they get seriously “screwed” by the other countries, and then it may be too late and too far into the future. This cruel reality will not change so 90% of the people here must live life knowing that the top 10% will not help the rest of the country. The wealthy will move themselves and their families out of here to safer environs if things get worse – and expect things to get worse. As a society, we no longer share any common interests and we are unwilling to make any significant sacrifices for the common good.
Don’t expect to get any financial assistance from any large American banks or from the vast majority of wealthy investors. Look for loans and investments from local community banks, friends, family, and supportive colleagues to fund your good ideas, and don’t be afraid of approaching anyone and everyone with your ideas. Write a focused business plan and basic financial projections of between 3 and 7 pages in total length for each good idea and be able to explain it to any person in an entertaining 60 to 120 second oral presentation with an additional 2 to 5 minutes prepared and saved for tough follow-up questions. Anything longer in writing or time will not work. Don’t expect to turn any profits from a new endeavor for at least 2 years. Everyone else should be patient with those who are struggling to start over against such daunting odds and financial limitations,
Don’t expect your children to get a good public education because there’s a limited amount of public money and too many students just really don’t care. If you want to learn anything, it’s up to you and your parents. Stay away from nihilistic and unenthused fellow students. Good teachers explain subjects well and inspire some students but students must do the hard work of learning and personally expanding the synapses and connections between their brain cells. Don’t expect to make an easy living in sports, entertainment or illegal activities. These professions are short-lived and only available to less than 1% of all people. To achieve anything of significant value takes hard work and a considerable amount of time.
If you don’t care about learning new skills and ideas, and being able to think and make an honest living, it’s really only your fault. This is not a liberal or conservative position but simply one that recognizes reality. You can’t force another person to give a damn about themselves or civic life. If you don’t care about your future, why should anyone else care? Why should the public support you economically if you haven’t cared to improve your lot for most of your life?
You certainly have limited options without a High School, Trade School or College education, but it really comes down to the choices you start making during your teen years and early 20’s. Please don’t blame your parents, peers, classmates, ethnic backgrounds, poor neighborhoods and a myriad of other intractable factors. Just look in the mirror instead. We still have plenty of prison cells and electronic monitors to make lives miserable for those who make lousy choices.
Don’t fall for all those sociopathic self-help gurus whose only profitable accomplishments in life have been to screw thousands of people out of money peddling their worthless advice. They really don’t know “shit” about business, investing, the overall economy, and how to make a real living. They only know how to fool people to buy their books, videos and computer programs that promise no more than a much-copied business plan of how to make money convincing others that you can teach them to make money. They make illogical circular arguments and create new Ponzi schemes.
Don’t expect any major healthcare assistance or national healthcare reforms – you should live so long. Instead everyone should concentrate on losing weight, eating right, exercising regularly, and taking mass transit instead of driving. As an increasingly aging and obese society, we really don’t have the funds to collectively pay for the consequences of our many poor personal health choices.
We should all avoid getting so many needless tests and unquestioningly trusting anyone who works in the U.S. Medical industrial complex that caters principally to wealthy hypochondriacs. Most Americans definitely should stop wasting so much money ingesting so many useless drugs, whether they are prescription, over-the-counter or illegal substances. Most people cannot do their jobs well or consistently think clearly, and we deprive ourselves of much-needed private capital, by being the world’s largest collective consumer of all legal and illegal drugs.
Your overall health is principally in your hands and sadly in your genes. Stop expecting everyone else to care about you and spending gobs of public and private money keeping you around. Your life only affects your family, some friends and a few business colleagues. The rest of society doesn’t care and you can be easily replaced because there are so many skilled humans on the planet. So get over it and take care of yourself.
Expect other countries, (i.e. China) to quickly surpass the United States as global economic, political, military and cultural powers. We started this trajectory of national decline over 20 years ago by our many short-sighted political and economic choices. These prior decisions are not going to be altered or reversed by those who control our politics and major businesses. Don’t live your life expecting things to get better.
Many other people around the globe will quickly match or have higher standards of living than many Americans, including better physical environments and schools, more modern cities and transportation systems, and more overall job security. Many other countries and regions will have near monopolies on the manufacture of most of the business and consumer products we use in the 21st Century. At best, your self-employment will permit you to buy some of the newest and best consumer products of the future. Work with what you have, and not become paralyzed or depressed because none of your wishes can come true.
Don’t stay in smaller cities and towns and expect to find the “critical mass” of clients to support you and your family. Your best choices will be in living in the 25 largest cities and urban areas in the U.S. in order to find enough people and small businesses willing to buy your localized goods or services. These large cities will have the most dynamic and involved public sectors, universities, and a diversity of private businesses. They will also have the most culturally, ethnically and racially diverse populations so get used to a lot of competition and demands for knowing more languages.
Seriously consider relocating to other big cities around the globe. There are many great places to live in the world but you just don’t know anything about them having spent too much time living insular and isolated lives only in the U.S. It may take about 2 years of research, work and accumulating enough savings to make the move, but it will be worth it for many people.
People can buy in any language but to effectively sell anything or yourself, you must speak the buyer’s preferred language. Get used to it if you want to survive in 21st Century America; otherwise learn sustenance farming. The only thing worse than dealing with stiff competition is facing a persistent lack of adequate customers. The first situation will makes you better; the latter inevitably will lead to bankruptcy.
Make a strong and constant effort to stay informed about and involved in your urban area of choice. Invest your time and money, along with regularly pestering major civic, business and political leaders to act in the best long-term interests of the residents of your big city, particularly making it competitive globally not just nationally. Make sure that your local taxes are well-used and be willing to pay them and even raise some on a regular basis for the good of your entire community. You should be proud to run for elected office, participate in civic life, or to work as a public employee in these urban areas. Mail thoughtful letters, and not just send emails or make phone calls that can easily be ignored. Letters are still the most memorable and effective means of getting someone’s attention.
The U.S. will increasingly be a minor factor in the 21st Century for you, your family, friends, and fellow citizens. Forge strong ties with people and businesses in your chosen major urban area’s numerous “sister” and “brother” cities in Asia, Latin America, Europe, and around the globe. This will mean inviting more people to move from these places to economically develop your own North America city.
Buy from local businesses and avoid national chains for your consumer and business purchases even if it means you pay up to 20% more. Think of the extra cost as continuous worthwhile long-term investments in yourself, your children, your neighbors, your business colleagues, and your entire community. Buy things assembled or made in North America before considering purchasing anything from China. Go without some consumer products – a limited number of choices are often economically and psychologically better than having endless and often meaningless choices.
Think and act both locally and globally. Forget the useless middle-men and their public institutions which consist of the 50 state and federal governments in the U.S. You will lead more fulfilling, satisfying, profitably lives and leave a better planet to your children. This is the only way to deal with the intractably rapid, steady and irreversible decline of the United States within a highly-connected and competitive global community.
This coming November, if you go to the polls, vote out all the incumbents of the two political parties and vote for or write in the names of complete unknowns and independents. Better yet, just don’t bother going to the polls at all. Under our current political system, elections have no consequences anyway unless you write in “none of the above” and that person wins.
Go to the public library to read some good books with which you would normally disagree. Regularly talk and really listen to the people sitting next to you in coffee shops, entertainment and shopping venues, and in airports and train stations. Turn off your many self-centered isolating electronic gizmos and fully live in the moment where and with whom you find yourself.
Accept the fact that about half of your opinions are inaccurate or completely wrong. Now go out and find some new opinions. Be open-minded and honest enough to change them frequently to comport to the objective facts and reality as it exists.
Critically evaluate and reject when necessary all intransigent old ideologies from every established political, economic, social and religious viewpoint. Your “gut” feelings and base emotions are only worthwhile when they are limited to making eating choices, handling wild animals or jumping off cliffs. Everything else requires using your brain.
Get over diminishing national pride and pointless nationalism. Concentrate instead on places and people over which you can positively influence. Stop blaming others who happen to be financially, physically or intellectually different from you. All Americans are to blame for the collective mess we’ve created over the past few decades.
Stop your perpetual whining, get over all the “injustice and unfairness” of life that cannot be changed under the current system, and start concentrating on what you actually can do well for yourself and your family. And on a regular basis, hug and kiss the ones you love.
Submitted by Marc Pascal ranting happily from Phoenix, AZ, I have realized that my various unique opinions dropped as “pearls to swine” in the huge 24/7 news, opinion and entertainment Media and Internet blogosphere are more and more ignored and useless. My TMV rants have come to resemble primordial screams in the wilderness. Luckily after finishing my real work and my daily screaming, my pretty wife will join me every night back at our desert “cave” and we can share a meal and then have great sex together.