Greg Smith Blows Whistle on Goldman Sachs

Something very unusual occurred today that is worthy of a post on this blog.  Greg Smith, a high-level executive at Goldman Sachs, resigned and went public as to why he left the firm.  He decided to leave one of the most successful and powerful investment banks in the world because his conscience could no longer absorb the “toxic” culture.  In a New York Times article, he wrote an opinion piece Greg Smith that blasted the inside culture at Goldman Sachs.  He said, “I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.”

Isn’t that a scary statement?  After all, Goldman Sachs is one of the main culprits that benefited from the housing derivative scam that brought the United States financial system to its knees.  How can such a firm become even more “toxic and destructive” after being exposed for such a legal crime against the country?  And this guy isn’t some hack.  He is a Stanford graduate and Rhodes Scholar.  And, in his own words, “I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world”.  He also points out “that Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of the largest asset managers in the United States, and three of the most prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. My clients have a total asset base of more than a trillion dollars.”  He follows these highlight points up with “I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.”

Folks, honesty like this from an insider at one of the cornerstones of our fascist construct is very rare.  All I can say is that this points to how corrupt and inept our leaders have become to correct the flaws in our current United States power construct.  I am certain the press will be employed by the hidden powers to discredit this whistle-blower and his voice will fall like a tree in a forest, but I heard it and so did you.  His statement is more powerful that anything printed after the financial collapse in regards to these legalized crooks.  And these legalized crooks represent the culture that is spreading like cancer throughout our entire economic system.  We must separate the government and the legislative process from these extremely powerful financial institutions or we will continue on the same destructive course.  Power loses touch with the conditions of the average citizen.  If government doesn’t separate itself from the fascist control, I am afraid we will have to take matters into our own hands and that will be in the form of a bloody revolution.

The Social Networking Bubble

I wanted to inform my limited participants that I have created an additional WordPress blog entitled The Social Networking Bubble.  I have created this additional blog for a few reasons.

First, my original incentive to create this blog, Contemplating the Human Direction, was inspired by the fact that I was continuously censored from commenting on a WordPress blog that supported Enron.  This occurred before I even knew what WordPress was and I had never considered creating a blog.  Enron, as you may or may not know, was a prime example of a corrupt United States business enterprise that robbed naive investors and employees of millions and billions of dollars through a Ponzi scheme and cooked books.  The corruption and Ponzi scheme was conducted not only by the executives of the company, but also by audit firms, big banks, investment banks, and Wall Street.  Some also implicate members of the government including the Bush family.  Look up Enron if you are interested in the details, but don’t be lazy and read Wikipedia as they are owned by the crooks that control Wall Street and Investment banks so they paint a limited picture.  A good movie to watch on Enron is called “The Smartest Guys in the Room”.

Second, I was also disgusted and nauseated with what caused our financial collapse in 2008.  The corruption, greed, and politics involved with that collapse is truly the pinnacle of our country’s decline.  And the fact that the crooks and current power construct behind this financial collapse are still free and conducting business as usual takes me to the edge of my peaceful tolerance level.  In order to control my anger, I write as opposed to taking other actions.

One of the primary points of this blog is that man’s focus on economics and money prevents us from evolving to greater heights as a species.  There are many other high-level subjects (and personal subjects) discussed in this blog, but I sincerely believe that our hyper-focus on economics is the obstacle preventing us from moving onward and upward.  So many of our problems can be linked to this man-made invention and I have covered these arguments within this blog.

The new blog, The Social Networking Bubble, deals with a very narrow and focused subject matter.  More than likely, many of the posts will be uninteresting to many of you poets, creative writers, philosophers, artists, and broad thinking people.  But the final results of this new blog, if my hypothesis is correct, will be very enlightening and powerful because it will be based on facts.  We will all be able to witness through the Social Networking Bubble how our country has become hostage to a corrupt Ponzi scheme at the expense of driving towards true worthy and valuable goals.  We will see how those that are well connected and entrenched in the power structure work together to make billions and further increase the gap between those that have most and those that have little.

This new blog will also enable me to channel more economical thoughts in that direction which will free me up to post more broad and philosophical posts on this blog that is more focused on the direction of the overall human species.

I am sorry that I haven’t been in the right frame of mind to get to your blogs as of late, but this additional blog has consumed much time and energy.  I look forward to catching up with you and your thoughts.

The Facebook Fraud

If you want to observe how the insiders at Wall Street commit fraud and make themselves richer at the expense of the public and the average investor, just watch what happens with Facebook over the next several years.  I am certainly on a Mike Stathis kick as of late and this post was primarily derived from his point of view expressed in numerous articles.  Although he is not alone in warning that when Facebook goes public with its upcoming Initial Public Offering (IPO) that it will do so at a ridiculously over-priced valuation of what the company is really worth in the long-term, he goes on to argue that Wall Street insiders are behind the scenes pumping up Facebook’s projected valuation.  In fact, he calls it Fraud.

Mike Stathis uses the term “Pump and Dump” to describe the tactic presumably used by Wall Street insiders to make millions or billions off naive investors.  I won’t go into the details of this scheme, but I provide a link here where all of Mike’s articles can be found on the Facebook scam as well as his articles on other important financial topics. Articles written by Mike Stathis AVA Analytics  All you need to know is that Wall Street insiders create bubbles or inflated stock prices and get out or sale their huge stock holdings cashing in billions of dollars and profits before the bubble pops (or simply, by selling all their shares, lets the bubble pop).  Those on the outside end up losing huge sums of money that simply have been transferred to these Wall Street insiders.

The main point I want to make is that these Wall Street insiders, the same crooks that made billions off the Dot Com bubble, or made billions off the housing bubble via fancy financial instruments, are still freely engaging in the same fraudulent activities with no outcry from the public or our puppet government.  For example, Goldman Sachs, the same guys that made out big on the housing market bubble and following collapse, are one of the primary crooks behind the Facebook IPO and looming pump and dump scam.  And, this pump and dump may not be just targeted at Facebook, but the entire social media sector including LinkedIn and Twitter (once it goes public).  If you want to see some proof in regards to LinkedIn, see this article written by Mike Stathis  Linkedin-Insiders-Head-For-The-Exit-Gates.html  Mike Stathis claims the social media industry is the next bubble being fabricated by the Wall Street insiders.

Of course, you will have to be patient to see if my support of Mike Stathis’s claim is warranted.  Most likely, we won’t see the social media bubble blow up for a few years.  But if it does occur, perhaps you will remember this post.  Unfortunately, by the time you recognize this prediction was correct, another bubble in some other sector will already be inflating through the same stinking hot air.  In fact, Wall Street insiders and other crooked folks in the finance realm most likely have multiple bubble projects in the pipeline at any given time.  Case in point — Gold.  Have you seen those ridiculous ads scaring you into buying gold?  Pump it up folks and watch these crooks pull out and leave you with worthless golden rocks.  Remember, the U.S. dollar has a stronger tie to oil and commodities than gold.  This is why you see inflation hitting at the gas pump and in the grocery store.  The Federal Reserve keeps pumping out and printing U.S. dollars for their own agenda and you and I are paying for it.

I am tired of the corruption, the financial Ponzi schemes, and the fraud that is continuously occurring right in front of our faces going unpunished and taking down this country and the quality of life.  We are being shrewdly raped by Wall Street insiders, a ball-less and paid off government (lobbyists), a corrupt Federal Reserve, and a myopic public opinion.  I am probably more passionate about what is going on because I am a member of the long-term unemployed and have personally experienced a severe drop in my quality of life.  The majority of American citizens haven’t experienced what the millions of the long-term unemployed have experienced in the last few years.  As a result, the majority of American’s don’t really care about stock market fraud.  Why?  Because people feel powerless to do anything about it.  Because people are just comfortable and content enough to turn the other cheek.  Because people don’t realize how this type of unpunished fraudulent behavior will eventually impact them.  But as this “Silent Depression” continues, over-time, you too will begin to understand that our country is infected with cancer.  This fraudulent behavior is a cancer that has spread throughout all the vital components of this country and is close to becoming terminal.  Eventually we will receive the diagnosis, but it will be too late for treatment.  If you are interested in more commentary on Facebook and the social networking and media bubble, I have an additional blog called “The Social Networking Bubble”.  If you google it you will find it.  I am tracking this scam from pump to dump.

Why the U.S. “Middle Class” is Poor

The Federal, state, and local government takes in over five trillion dollars in the form of tax revenue each year.  Guess where the majority of that tax revenue comes from?  No, it doesn’t come from huge corporations, or investment banks, or insurance companies, or Wall Street.  Close to 90% of that tax revenue comes from you and me and really small businesses.  Never mind that these government entities can’t break even with all this money as that is a topic for a much longer post, but just imagine for a moment that we the citizens of the United States provide the Federal, state, and local governments with approximately $4+ trillion in tax revenue.  Larger corporations only provide roughly 6% of government revenue through taxes.

Large U.S. based multinational corporations have been enjoying record profits during the last few years while main-street american citizens are struggling.  Large corporate profits are approaching $2 trillion a year.  As a result, the stock market is fairing pretty darn well considering the struggles many Americans are facing economically.  Huge American corporations are enjoying cheap international labor and a lean base of U.S. employees that are terrified of losing their jobs.  Labor productivity is very high for these large American companies.  Why hire U.S. citizens when profits are hitting historical record highs?  Those at the top of these large U.S. corporate entities are rolling in the money as are investment bankers, Wall Street, and the rich that are in the know and invest money to make more money without doing anything to make that money.  Is it any mystery why the income gap in our great country is wider than any other developed country in the entire world?  Is it no wonder that the gap is still increasing?

Now, in addition to the enormous tax burden individuals and small businesses absorb, there is another high-priced burden — prices of everything we buy.  How do corporations make a profit?  Because we, the ordinary citizen, pay more for those products than they cost to produce and distribute.  Because we believe all the advertising bullshit that makes us think a product is worth more than its cost.  The marketing gurus call this “perceived value”.  So, as a result, not only are we supporting all our governments with the majority of their tax revenue, but we are also giving excessive money to huge corporations so that they can enjoy profits.  We, the middle class, are getting fucked on both ends.  And guess who gets all our money?  The government and the 1% that runs corporate America (huge corporations, investments banks, Wall Street, banks, insurance companies).

Now, in addition to the above two burdens, most of us must resort to forms of credit and loans to enjoy life.  As a result, we end up forking out money in the form of interest payments to the altruistic banks.  If we a buy a car, a house, or simply enjoy a vacation or dinner out — along comes the extra expense in the form of monthly interest payments.  Or, if you are young without wealthy parents and want an education to get a job then you also need to take out a loan (a loan you will be paying for the majority of your youthful life).  And since the corporations we work for aren’t going to give us annual pay raises above the rate of inflation (or hire you young folks after taking out that big loan to get an education) we will never be in a position to pay off that debt.  Therefore, monthly interest payments simply become a life-long additional expense in addition to income taxes, sales taxes, and inflationary prices coined “perceived value”..

The final piece of the elimination of the “middle class” comes in the form of higher inflation above an beyond the already considerable price inflation forced on the individual through corporate prices that are far above production and distribution costs.  This additional inflation is caused by the incompetence and cronyism of the Federal Reserve combined with our governments that can’t contain spending to the some $4 trillion bucks we hand over to them.  The crook-like Federal Reserve just keeps printing more and more U.S. dollars which simply waters down what little dollars we have left in our wallets.  Why do they keep printing more and more dollars?  I am not the one to answer that question, but it has something to do with our mounting Federal debt, trade deficits, and currency wars.  But it really doesn’t matter why when you consider that in the end it is the “middle class” that ends up disappearing.  How much more are you spending to fill up your gas tank?  How much more are you spending at the grocery store?  How much more are you spending when you travel and have to check bags?  How much more are you paying to heat or cool your homes?  How much more are you paying for entertainment and dinner out?

I don’t have a fully developed solution outside of a Utopian creation, but I do have a broad fundamental concept.  It is time to tax the shit out of the rich.  It is time to tax the shit out of huge corporations that are taking our money by shipping jobs overseas, charging us too much money to buy their products, and working current employees like dogs without raises greater than inflation.  It is time to cut the shit out of government spending.  I don’t care if the stock market takes a major hit.  All I want is the middle class to have a chance to get back on its feet.  A country without a healthy and strong middle class isn’t going to be around long in its current form.  And I for one am reaching the point where I would be more than willing to ensure that current form no longer exists.  But, a new form must first be envisioned through logic and true leadership.  Tearing down a corrupt and broken form without envisioning a radical but workable new form simply leads to a bandwagon of buffoons beating their chest and demanding a free bushel of bananas in exchange for nothing.  My Utopian visions could solve our problems, but then again, people would have to understand and agree that money is a myth and that the true form of currency is human energy, motivation, cooperation, sacrifice, and acceptance of some inequality not in gender or race, but in ability..

Our “Silent Great Depression”

I made a post a few days back regarding Mike Stathis and summarized some of his views, but I think the below short excerpt from a three-part article he wrote at the end of 2010 should be shared.  I provide the links to the three-part post below at the end of the excerpt for those that want to better understand what transpired during the collapse and what may happen in the near future to most of us ordinary American citizens.  Although Mike is a financial advisor and expert in his field, he writes in a manner such that the non-financial expert can comprehend his points.

Mike accurately predicted the economic collapse in great detail via a book he published in 1996 called America’s Financial Apocalypse.  In my opinion, and based on personal experience and intuition, I think he has and is hitting the nail on the head.  I am interested to know your thoughts on the below excerpt and if you have time also your thoughts on the three-part detailed post provided via the links after the excerpt.

Excerpt from “America’s Second Great Depression Year-end Update 2010 Part 1”, by Mike Stathis:

….”Instead of the severity of unemployment seen during the first depression, this depression will be characterized by chronically high unemployment combined with massive underemployment. Thus, full devastation of the real unemployment picture will be masked.

We won’t see bread lines as we did during the previous depression because Washington issues food stamps ( Tincup comment:46 million Americans currently on food stamps). But unless Washington decides to provide housing to the homeless, we will see tent cities similar to the Hoovervilles from the previous depression. We are already seeing this today.

As well, we won’t see banks close their doors because we have the FDIC which was created in response to the previous depression. But what good is money if its being printed continuously?

The inflationary forces building up will certainly create severe problems for the U.S. and the rest of the world since the dollar is the universal currency. All of this will put further downward pressure on U.S. living standards for many years to come.

The most harmful effects of America’s current depression won’t be due to a crisis. It will be only heightened by a crisis. The real devastation will be due to an accelerated transfer of wealth and jobs overseas. It will be a silent depression.

In a few years, the real estate and banking crisis will have cooled off and Washington will start reporting much improved numbers; numbers that will continue to be manipulated and boosted by deficit spending.

In reality, things will only get worse. Real wages won’t budge, inflation for basic necessities will continue to rise, and job quality will continue to decline. We are already seeing this now. It will be a silent depression because there will be no crisis. But the effects of this depression are likely to be more severe because they will persist for decades.

You won’t feel the full effects on any given day. If you’re in the lucky majority, you will go to work and carry out your life as usual. But you just won’t be able to make ends meet like in the past. Each year things will get worse so you’ll spend more on credit.

It will be more difficult for your children to move up in socioeconomic status because higher education is becoming an unaffordable luxury for the wealthy. Many younger Americans who are willing to take on the enormous debt burden required for higher education won’t be able to find jobs in their field. This will be true even for the most secure of majors like engineering, math and science.

Some Americans with math and science degrees will seek employment as high school teachers, due to lack of options. This will be an ironic fate, as America’s educational system has been designed to keep the people stupid, all while brainwashing them to accept America’s fascist philosophy. Some won’t have the skills of their counterparts in Asia.

Others will be pushed out of a career they prepared for due to the effects of unfair trade. Some will opt for a 1 or 2-year program in healthcare by one of the hundreds of for-profit colleges that understand America’s healthcare system is a gravy train. Others will work for Wall Street criminals and banking vultures; some naively, others not caring that they will be selling their souls to the Devil.

Millions will be stuck in slave labor, working for low wages and no benefits. But they won’t be working in factories churning out goods for the global economy. They will be working in service jobs, tailoring to the needs of America’s wealthy.

In fact, I predict in coming years we will see an ironic trend in the U.S. Instead of U.S. consumers speaking with Indians in Bombay for customer support from U.S. corporations, Indians will be speaking with U.S. citizens who will provide them with phone support.

Many Americans will never realize they lived through America’s Second Great Depression, because the effects will be spread gradually for many, many years. Most Americans will never be able to fully retire. They simply won’t have enough money to live on. Many will end up selling their home to pay for medical bills, even though they have health insurance. Others will have a much worse fate.

What the “experts” don’t get is that this depression will be much more difficult to reverse because it will be gradual. There will be no urgency. But the effects will be cumulative.

Many will wake up one day and realize that they just can’t make ends meet; they’ll have very little if any retirement assets. It will be a continuation of declining living standards to a point that could lead to some major permanent societal problems.

Economists have claimed that the depression in the 1930s was caused by the failure of the Federal Reserve to open up the currency printing presses. This is not at all true. You cannot print your way out of a recession and you cannot print your way out of a depression.

Although there were certainly numerous causes, America’s Second Great Depression was caused by use of a fiat currency, unfair trade policy, cronyism and years of mismanagement by Washington.

Today, the criminal Federal Reserve Bank continues to kick the can forward by printing trillions of dollars. This is having significant adverse effects, not only in the U.S. but throughout the globe. Instead of deleveraging, the global bubble has been reflated as discussed several months ago. We are now seeing global inflation begin to take off. [55]

Washington, Wall Street and their many hacks have even made preposterous claims that the recession ended in June 2009. Of course this is a complete fabrication.

I want to remind you that a recession is caused by an oscillation of the business cycle from peak to the trough. In contrast, a depression is a long period of social, economic and financial decline. Within a depression you are likely to see two or more recessions. But this merely accounts for the economic consequences of a depression.

The social consequences found within a depressive period are a reflection of the devastating effects of chronic economic catastrophe. But the useless media has used the term “Great Recession” in order to downplay the true severity of this period.

Haven’t you had enough lies, deception and hype from the media?

Despite what some of you may think, there is NO ONE in the media, not a single person that truly understands what is going on AND is committed to helping you. That includes all of the perma-bears and gold bugs who have been preaching doom for decades. If you think otherwise, then you haven’t been documenting their track records.

The contrarian crowd is trying to scare people so they will buy gold so as to pump up the price. At the end of the day when these delusions of gold $10,000/ounce and hyperinflation have NOT materialized as salesmen and hacks like Peter Schiff, Marc Faber and others have insisted, the media knows that its audience will run back into the arms of Wall Street.

You will never win if you embrace extremes. Neither the perma-bear or perma-bull market extremists offer you anything other than a chance to lose more money. Never forget that. So if you are unable to navigate an up and down market, you might be best to remain on the sidelines because even many of the big boys have gotten thrashed over the past two years.

If you pay attention to the media, you are sending them money because they sell ads based on the size of their audience. And because Wall Street buys the ads, the media serves their interests by flooding you with extremists and other hacks. Thus, by paying attention to the media, you are serving as an accomplice in your own exploitation.

I leave you with my best piece of investment advice. It’s one of the rare exceptions of investment advice that never changes.

BAN THE MEDIA.

DON’T READ THEIR NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES, AND DON’T TUNE INTO THEIR TV AND RADIO SHOWS.

If you don’t follow this advice you will be just as responsible for your demise as the media and Wall Street.”

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Americas-Second-Great-Depression-2010-Year-end-Update-Part-3.html

 

Generation Skip — Planting the Seeds

We have now offered up several site locations, built infrastructures, but there are no beings present to occupy these frameworks.  We must now begin the difficult process of selecting and then planting the seeds.  There are multiple options available to us.  We could, on one end of the spectrum, populate this infrastructure with orphans, unwanted babies, those up for adoption.  On the other end of the spectrum, we could develop a very systematic, scientific, goal focused method to populate the framework with our best newborns.  At this far end of the spectrum, we could use genetic testing on the parents, measure the parents IQ quotient, judge their physical beauty, the temperament and quality of their being and traits.  We could ensure these potential parents eat the best foods, are cared for and nurtured to result in a healthy and unstressed pregnancy term, and then analyze and review all the infants to select the best quality from the crop.  And then there are numerous options in between.

I offer up the entire spectrum.  Part of me wants to pick the orphans, and part of me wants to pick the other end of the spectrum.  The former appeals to me because it eliminates so many problems with the status quo when it comes to my ideas of what needs to be done with these infants.  I also find it appealing because these little innocent beings have come on-line without really being wanted.  I fear this occurs far too often which I already covered in the prologue.  The later appeals to me because it more closely resembles what occurs in the natural world, where there is a battle to earn mating rights and the victor, assumed to be the strongest and most healthy specimen, passes on the best genes to the offspring and thereby increases the probability of survival and perpetuation of the species.  As such, I am going to select the later, but will not exclude the former or all those in between the two extremes as options.  But to be clear, I choose the scientific and more naturalistic approach.  Besides, picking the later is more interesting for now it forces me to describe sacrifice, approach Freud, and offer an alternative and point of differentiation from the status quo.  These parents and offspring will be a cross-section of races and ethnicities and the selection process will ensure a well-rounded representation.  We must also ensure a balanced representation of males and females.

Once the prime infants have been selected, they will be transplanted to the utopian sites and infrastructures.  The participating parents may live in the infrastructure as guests, but not as permanent residents.  The mother will have access to the infant for nurturing and breast-feeding, and the father given access for whatever purpose he may serve, but overall, parent time with the infant will be limited.  In fact, this is the sacrifice which I spoke of earlier.  The parents will play a very limited role with the child.  Once the child has developed his or her own mind, sense of being, the parents may have all the access they want and vice versa.  The parents are corrupt, and as such, must not be a significant influence in the child’s development.  The parents are corrupt from what is, from what has come before, from their experience in what is, and from their struggle to succeed in what is.  The parents are corrupt because they are merely spinning around on the wheel.  Their experience and insight is useless in the fresh utopian framework.  These participating parents must also make yet another sacrifice.  Both individuals will have the functionality of their reproductive systems rendered inactive.  They may still enjoy the pleasures of love-making, but their reproductive efforts are finished.  Why you ask, would I impose such a sacrifice?  Because this utopian framework is not going to add to what is one of the primary problems we face as a species – overpopulation and limited resources. 

Why would any potential parents be interested in participating in the population of this utopian construct given the two above sacrifices?  Because their child is going to be given access to cutting edge education.  Their child is going to be treated as the focus of this upstart community and therefore will have the access to the best food, healthcare, and opportunities for self-development ever recorded in human history.   These little beings will be the only focus of the community with undivided attention, not a peripheral project, object, or means to perpetuate what currently is.  Their child is not a seed to be groomed for perpetuating the profit motive; rather their child will be groomed for innovation, creation, a new birth and hope in the human experiment and resulting direction.   The next post will focus on education.

Generation Skip — Site Location

The first step in creating this utopian construct is finding a location site for the birth of Generation Skip.   Before I get into this topic, I want to point out that Generation Skip isn’t the name of this utopian construct, rather, this term merely signifies a break from the wheel or treadmill that generation upon generation has been subjected to for far too long.  Selecting a location site for this utopian foundation should not be underestimated.  If we look back in time, it is clear that the geological features surrounding a culture had huge implications and impacts on the beings that dwelled there.  The features, the resources, the fauna, the temperatures, the seasons, all impacted the development of the culture.  The surrounding land and water features, climate, plants and animals, seeped into their very being. 

The location site could be anywhere in the world but we must ensure that the following minimum criteria is achieved.  First, the site must be relatively isolated from the current human world.  Second, the location must be well protected by the existing society outside the perimeter which would act as a sort of guardian, nanny, or distant mother.  Third, the site must have fertile land and resources which can enable the culture to become self-sufficient over time.  Fourth, the location should be surrounded by abundant and bountiful nature, beauty — unspoiled.  We could put these sprouts in the middle of a desert or an arctic icescape, which would be interesting, but why not pick a site with fresh rivers, forests, mountains, ocean, and or fertile plains?  Why not place them among the noble wild beasts, the Orca, the bear, the eagle, the hawk, the wolf, or the tiger, the crocodile, the python, and the leopard?  Such unspoiled places do still exist.

We mustn’t get hung up on one site, for I envision many utopian constructs developing all over the world in a wide variety of geographic landscapes and fauna.  We want variety, differentiation, experimentation, and variation.  We do not want one singular solution, but we do want environments and locations that meet the basic criteria outlined above.  And we most certainly want open frameworks that free these upstart human utopias from the wheel.   What is that?  Did you say “utopias” as opposed to just utopia?  Yes, I did.  Do you foresee potential conflicts, disagreements, war, between these various experimental utopias?  Do you foresee potential conflicts, disagreements, war, between these various utopian constructs and the status quo societies – us?  I will be interested to see how these new upstart cultures deal with such tension between themselves and with the cultures that surround them at large after they have been enlightened to man’s history.   

I have offered some images in this post and I would love to have a vote if we had to choose just one site, but I am afraid we don’t have enough visitors to make it interesting.  As such, I enjoy contemplating multiple utopian site locations as well as multiple utopian solutions and visions sprouting up from these virgin, unspoiled, free territories.  The potential, the imagination, is wide open, limitless, and open to be defined.  The next post will briefly discuss the temporary infrastructure to support these new upstart communities.

Generation Skip — Prologue

I often grow tired of observing and then criticizing the current human direction.  Therefore, I decided to take a break and offer my thoughts on how the human species could attempt to take control of its own destiny and set a potentially more fruitful course than the direction we have currently chartered.  I will say that like Socrates, I realize I know nothing and therefore these utopian visions are merely offered up to you as a form of contemplation or an impetus for us to discuss and debate the content, the ideas, or whatever comes to mind.  Of course Socrates would use the dialectic to explore such a concept and would not approve of this essay type format so it is my hope that some form of dialectic occurs in the comment sections.  I apologize if the length of these posts exceeds the more marketable short post format, but I need to expand my thoughts on this topic.  I am less interested in attracting a large crowd than I am in attracting a few that may understand and appreciate the awful predicament in which we currently find ourselves. 

Generation Skip will involve several posts and attempts to throw a wrench in the powerful cogs that have led us to what I have defined as “Gridlock” (see previous post).  In essence, this group of posts will communicate with broad strokes an outline or framework for a utopian solution to Gridlock.  Creating a utopian outline within the context of what currently exists as “human reality” is a very difficult and multifaceted project which can take many forms.  Previous and much more intelligent thinkers have already provided a variety of utopian visions or in some cases, comedies or nightmares.  My outline is merely one of an infinite number of potential frameworks for a utopian structure which is why I will in fact leave the ultimate goals and visions up to those beings living in Generation Skip to define on their own.  I am merely trying to remove and free these beings from what I perceive to be the primary mechanisms that have led us to Gridlock.  My goal is to free them from the heavy freight train-like momentum which has led us into a state of Gridlock.   

The problems which I have observed in our current human world have all been touched upon in previous posts contained in this blog, but I want to briefly recap the big issues here and now.  I think after outlining these key problems that my intention and logic for creating Generation Skip will make more sense and appear less comical and more logical. 

First, I believe we have lost our way and allowed ourselves to be almost entirely consumed by and with economics.  In fact, I fear that economics has become the primary focus of our energies, goals, visions, and spirit.  Economics has always been a piece of civilization, but I believe it has become by a large margin (excuse the pun) the biggest piece of the pie.  I fear that it over-rides, dominates, and suppresses all of our other potentially wonderful human traits, abilities, and creations.  I fear that it holds hostage science, technology, medicine, education, law, politics, engineering, religion, spiritual endeavors, art, and other wonderful fields.  All of these fields are held to constraints by funding, profits, money, and capital resources.  None of these fields are short of human beings with great brains and talents.  I am taking the above claim as a given and will not take time and space to prove these points.  If you disagree, then by all means state your opinion and corresponding argument.

Economics, and in particular, capitalism, is based on one very important assumption – the human being is not motivated to create, innovate, or act effectively or efficiently without the incentive to make money, turn in a profit, and become wealthy.  In the most primal aspect of this primary assumption, the human being is placed in the realm of training and motivating a young puppy.  Many assume that a puppy will not act “appropriately” or learn to heal, sit, lie down, shake hands, or rollover unless you offer or reward the puppy with a treat.  The treat in economics or capitalism is money or accumulated wealth.

I have more hope, confidence in and respect for the human being and its potential than do capitalists and economists.  All I have to do is look at children.  Do children learn to walk, talk, read and write in exchange for money?  Does a child hug his mom because he is expecting a buck in return?  Does a child laugh and cry, play and fight, dream or imagine only because he or she wants to make some dough?  Do children play team sports and work together for common goals based on the assumption that they will make coin?  Does a child become interested in a musical instrument or singing in hopes of becoming rich?  There are so many intangibles that motivate or cause children to do what they do, and money and profit isn’t one of them.  It is only when these children reach a certain age that they begin to become concerned with earning money and entering the “real world”. 

I want to make a few broader points here.  If you observe the natural world around us, not a single animate species is motivated by or acts for the exchange of money.  The same principle applies to all that is inanimate – momentum, gravity, chaos, order, creation, destruction, all occur without earning a penny.  The human being is THE ONLY thing in the entire universe (as far as we know) that is addicted to or functions on the concept of money.  We must realize that everything we have created, infrastructure, airplanes, automobiles, skyscrapers, technology, satellites, space shuttles, antibiotics, were all not created by economics, capitalism, profits, and money.  All these things that we enjoy were created by man’s brain, hands, and cooperation.  All these things and perhaps more could have existed independent of economics, capitalism, profit, and money.  In fact, if you contemplate the structure of skyscrappers, which are impressive, one has to realize that their shape and structure was developed with one purpose in mind — economy.  How many people can we stuff into one structure while using the least amount of land as possible.  Look to the past to see more beautiful structures and architecture.  Money creates nothing – money is a piece of meaningless paper.  If you are interested in this concept or argument that money, debt, and financial institutions are a myth and have caused great harm in our direction and assumptions about value, I urge you to read my first post on this blog entitled “The Human World without Money, Debt, and Financial Institutions”.  It is shorter than this rant. 

Economics, capitalism, money, profit, these things accentuate, emphasize, or reward certain human traits or behaviors. The words I would use to describe the traits or behavior or outcomes driven by these concepts include greed, shrewdness, swindling, inflation, recession, depression, market collapse, ponzi scheme, ripping off, miser, exploiting, cheating, selfish, hoarding, excessive, desensitized, cold, ruthless, criminal, deceptive, and the list goes on.  I have worked in business for over a decade at some relatively high levels and have seen firsthand corruption, petty politics, exploitation, and massive layoffs where people are escorted to their cars as though they had committed a fucking crime.  I have had some pretty good internal insight as to how the large powerful capitalistic corporation functions and makes money for the entity, those at the top of the entity, and those involved with banks and Wall Street.  It isn’t rocket science.  Just within the last two decades we have seen the rich getting richer and the middle class disappearing, companies making huge profits by exploiting cheaper labor abroad while laying off and killing jobs in the home country.  We have seen suspect wars that could be linked to the need for oil which is a key piece to our capitalistic society.  We have seen horrible examples of greed including Enron, Bernie Madoff, the housing derivative scam, the bailouts, and the continuing bullshit that occurs on Wall Street where investment bankers and traders use smoke and mirrors to make themselves and those in the know huge amounts of money from speculation and short selling.  We have seen our government become hostage to lobby firms which are simply the guns of huge and powerful capitalistic entities.  None of the above would have come about if there was no such thing as money, loans, debt, and financial institutions. 

My second major concern or problem that needs to be solved is quite simply our massive and increasing population – currently at seven billion.  I don’t care about the pros and cons and facts and figures spewed out by environmentalists or far right capitalists.  All you have to do is open your eyes, ears, and nostrils to know for certain that our huge numbers combined with a capitalistic highly industrialized product driven society is degrading our planet and destroying or negatively impacting huge numbers of animate creatures and polluting the most precious resources on planet earth – air, water, and land.  People, we are on a flying ocean rock alone in a giant chaotic universe that doesn’t care whether we exist or not.  So, why don’t we take it easy on the number of beings we bring into our world?  I’ll tell you why not.  Economics, capitalism, profits, money, demands that we keep bringing more and more beings on-line.  If we actually began to significantly reduce our population, how in the hell would companies be able to show upward trending sales and profit graphs and therefore where would the fuel come to keep the banks, Wall Street, and the investment banks humming along?  It is a horrible wheel we have created for ourselves isn’t it?

Our increasing population combined with our winner take-all mentality leads to fewer and fewer resources and money to properly educate and nurture all of these new little beings coming on to our beautiful planet.  Governments and states are running out of money, schools have more children and fewer teachers, which is leading to a dumbed-down growing populace. To make matters worse, huge pockets and numbers of people are ignorant, extremely poor, sick, suffering, yet it is within these very pockets that relatively more innocent little beings are brought on-line.  This has to stop.  It is not only cruel but it is also not sustainable when we attempt to appease their suffering by simply throwing money and welfare at them to buy food.  Such short-term action may make us feel better, but it is not the solution.  And it further strains our already empty public coffers.  It is a fact that poverty breeds more poverty.

Generation Skip will attempt to free a group of beings from the above wheel in manner that hopes for further adoption without bringing down and destroying the status quo in an abrubt catastrophe.  A sudden switch over to a utopian model for all human beings is not possible given our status quo.  The framework and methods used to do so will seem rather strange and perhaps harsh, but compared to other potential utopian frameworks or visions the harshness and sacrifice required is rather mild.  One of the fundamental principles of Generation Skip is that sacrifice over individual rights must occur for the culture to get up and running.  The tension between individual rights and a unified whole is the conundrum we face as American’s and as a human species.  Both sides of this spectrum are desirable and important, but if the balance falls too far to one side or the other, we lose a great deal of value, power, and potential as a civilization and as a species.

Generation Skip — (draft preserved for comment section)

This is a follow-up post from “Gridlock”.  Generation Skip is a radical concept that most likely won’t appeal to many folks in our current society.  I am not sure it even appeals to me.  But, desperate times call for desperate measures.  Generation Skip is an idea that acts as a stop-gap to our current insane treadmill – bringing more children on-line within a society that has a multitude of unsolved problems which become further exasperated by more and more human beings coming on-line.  For example, poverty is a horrible unsolved problem, yet often within these poverty pockets more children are brought on-line in greater numbers than more fortunate pockets of society.  One doesn’t even need to point to poverty.  The average family in one of the richest countries in the world makes just enough money to squeak out a living.  Is it desirable to bring children into this hand to mouth environment?  Generation Skip sidesteps the cogs and in essence begins the process of a new human reality within the context of reality – that reality being all that exists outside of the human domain, the inhuman reality from which we came and are ultimately subject to.

Generation Skip is steeped in short-term sacrifice for long-term gains and rewards. 

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I am putting this post on hold as well as intended follow up posts related to Generation Skip.  I would trash the post but I want to preserve the comments and I believe they provide more food for thought and contemplation.  After reading through the comments and composing my own comments in response, I really wasn’t comfortable with post below the above line.  I find it easy to observe and critize the status quo, but developing a vision or more detailed utopian-like solution to pull us out of Grid Lock is beyond my comprehension at this point.  It may in fact remain beyond my comprehension and I may not return to the idea of Generation Skip.  I do like the above picture:)

Gridlock

We built the automobile to increase our freedom of mobility.  We built the freeway to enable our automobiles to travel fast and free.  I find it strange that we often find ourselves in traffic jams.   Does this not defeat the very intention of the two inventions in the first place?  And oh my, how expensive these inventions are indeed.

When you contemplate many of man’s creations, which appear so ingenious upon birth, they seem to lead to dead ends or more appropriately defined– gridlock.

Take religion.  Religion is a beautiful concept with many good intentions, but what human invention has led to more misery, ignorance, censorship, persecution, bigotry, and bloodshed than religion? 

Take industrialization.  Industrialization has led to great comfort, widgets, and trinkets, but at the same time it also led to slave labor, child labor, commoditization of the human being, and environmental destruction. 

Take Politics.  Politics was developed to represent and care for the people yet corruption and incompetence has led to bloody revolutions, civil wars, and enormous public debts. 

Take science.  Science enlightened us to many realms yet it also equipped us with the means to destroy ourselves on a massive scale both in terms of weapons and environmental degradation. 

Take law.  Law was conceived to provide order and fairness yet one can hardly take a shit without worrying about the sewage (LMAO).

Take economics.  Economics was invented to serve us, yet we and all of the above inventions serve it. Except for the very few who have grown disproportionately rich or inherited great wealth, we can’t control economics otherwise we wouldn’t experience recessions, depressions, market crashes and collapses, large-scale unemployment and underemployment.    

There seems to be only one way to solve this gridlock conundrum.  Everyone needs to simply get out of their cars and leave them behind.  We need to walk together and begin the long and gradual process of tearing it all down so we can begin anew. 

Next post will put forward one idea of many to come that deals with breaking through this gridlock.  The post will be called “Generation Skip”.