A Scary Fact.

[tecelote]

It took humans 200,000 years to reach a population of one billion. That was in about 1800.

By 1960, we topped 3 billion.

Today, 55 years later, we're at 7 billion.

This is not our parent's or grandparent's world. Our children will be living in a very different world than we live in now.

Until I see empathy and compassion in capitalism, I'm all for moving a bit towards socialism.

We hear about "the entitlement generation" and how people these days are leeching off the government. In my mind, the government is for the people and of the people. Therefore, the people should benefit. If some surfer dude eats lobster while on welfare, he is offset by a dozen single moms supporting their kids.

Americans deserve entitlements. We deserve safety nets and we've earned it.

I've worked my entire life and have never needed unemployment or welfare but I want to know that my kids have that safety net if the company they work for moves their job overseas and leave them high and dry.

In my kids' lifetime, our population will probably double. It's time we started to care for our children and our planet. Profits be damned.

[brewens]

1. The looting by the 1% is the reason why more people need benefits. I'm convinced one reason

more are trying to get on disability is because so many of the good jobs are now gone. It used to be that someone that was beat up by years of physical labor would try and hang on to make retirement age if they had a good job. The older guys ended up with the easier jobs and could handle it.

It's brutal out there now. Many people that have been retired for years have no clue. I talked to a wine salesman a few weeks back. He had the same job as I did with our main competition when we started out. Now he's in his mid 50's as I am and there is no slack time. They mercilessly drive those guys. When we were kids back in the 80's, the guys that were our age now didn't have it half as hard. The difference is that all those little privately owned distributors have now all been bought up by bigger companies. My boss back then could be an asshole but he wouldn't work a 60 year old guy to death to squeeze a little more profit out of him.

[tecelote]

2. The reality is that even welfare has been transferred from the people to corporations.

Walmart couldn't exist without tax breaks and the social welfare system their employees need to exist. Our taxes support their profits.

As you say, when you were a kid the small distributors cared more because they were local people doing business in their community. Now, these companies are large conglomerates based thousands of miles away only caring for the dividends their stockholders receive. People are only instruments to generate profits.

[brewens]

3. The 1% are actually way in the black when it comes to tax dollars. At least many of them

I can't believe I don't see that point hammered as more than enough reason to raise taxes on them. They take in more than they pay out easily and I know it can be proven.

[GitRDun]

27. I absolutely love your take on these issues..

The media wastes so much time and effort discussing public sector "redistribution of wealth".

Private sector redistribution of wealth, e.g., Walmart, along with socialization of private sector businesses (sports stadiums et al) and losses (BP gulf spill, etc.) is killing this country.

[rock]

12. "The looting by the 1%" sucking up the wealth

or as I like to put it: the 1% really suck.

[Kablooie]

33. And the 1% are the ones who want to take it away.

First they destroy the means for people to make a living then they want to take away the benefits that allow them to remain alive.
Essentially they want to exterminate the poor and unskilled.

[brewens]

34. They create the problem and then point to the problem and make that the reason to cut

things. I've actually had two jobs like that.

I took a wine delivery job at the beer distributor I worked for when they expnded into the wine business. The old school beer guys that ran the place really wanted nothing to do with it. The lady owner forced them into it, her expand and deversify strategy that should have been sound.

I quickly found out that the bosses intended to make it work partly by not paying top dollar as our competition did. We ended up with an alcoholic wine salesman that never did his job. Before long, as soon as we had expanded, they were cutting slow selling products (that shouldn't have been) and everything else they could do to put us on a downhill spiral. It lasted about three years.

They dumped the wine business because it just wasn't profitable they said! So our competition ends up with our wine lines and everything else we had in that department and does just fine with all of it. They probably wouldn't have gotten away with all that if the manager had not been part owner as well. It was he and his son that were the main problem along with an assistant manager that was caught in the middle of it all. I couldn't blame that guy for just wanting to dump it.

I'd probably be in the same boat now if I didn't work for a not for profit blood center. We're an independant sort of but controlled by a much larger corporation. They are basically forcing the people calling the shots locally to make things work or we'd already be shut down.

[drynberg]

4. Global population of 14 Billion? Very doubtful, as the globe is bounded by carrying capacity

Plus, with seas rising 10 feet or more by 2100, the dry land will be much less worldwide. It is time to mitigate our situation, but unfortunately the situation will degrade with each passing year...it's just a matter of how much and how fast it degrades.

[tecelote]

5. You could be right. We'll never double because our planet can't handle it.

And, we might just wipe ourselves out. If we do, humans go extinct but the earth will rebound.

So, I'll say it again. It's time we started to care for our children and our planet. Profits be damned.

[dreamnightwind]

6. Agree

More socialism less capitalism would be a great change for this country.

Another problem with capitalism is it is biased towards growth. It's like cancer, it grows and grows and kills the host eventually.

At this point, we need to shrink, not grow, and fairly rapidly. Capitalism doesn't know how to scale back gracefully. We need many less people on this planet, and that will require scaling back strategies. The capitalist model is more like a species that has no predators and expands until it outruns its environment, when it tragically crashes.

We change, now, or we perish.

[Enthusiast]

7. Kicked and recommended!

I heard that woman on the Ed Show. She was all about privatizing Medicare, siding with Jeb Bush.

She was bragging up Medicare Part D about how wonderful it is. She was FULL of misinformation. Ed and the other guy tried to counter her corporate lies as best they could. If this is a sample of the sort of programming MSNBC has in mind for us after Ed leaves, "entitlements" will soon be a thing of the past.

It's a war, a war on the General Welfare of the American people. It is being waged by multinational corporations and their congressional employees. Our side can barely fight back because the game is so thoroughly rigged.

[awoke_in_2003]

16. It is a war on people everywhere

Look at the way some European countries are trying to scale back entitlements. Look at Greece. They want us back to feudal days.

[Enthusiast]

17. There are no alternatives to Social Security and Medicare but fucking death.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. Yep- die on the job

if you're lucky.

[gregcrawford]

8. I agree...

... but I would recommend being a bit more circumspect in the use of dog-whistle terms like "Entitlements." It's used by the Republicans as an oblique way of suggesting that someone is getting something they don't deserve, which, like all the verbal vomit spewed by conservatives, is a bald-faced lie.

And you're dead on regarding capitalism and corporations, but there will be a skating rink in Hell before you will ever see a Higgs-Boson-sized particle of empathy or compassion exhibited by a corporatist. They are, without exception, textbook sociopaths, congenitally incapable of comprehending the concept of empathy, let alone showing it. Otherwise, they wouldn't be allowed in the club in the first place.

And they all think the Sun shines out of the bony dead ass of a third-rate hack novelist who called herself Ayn Rand. Alisa Rosenbaum (her real name) was evil incarnate, and would rant for hours about her hatred of altruism, an essential element of which is... empathy. I met the bitch, however briefly, in 1968. I was 21 and my employers were ardent admirers. Her talk focused on what vile parasites working people are. Take it from there.

In typical fashion, conservatives conflate capitalism and free enterprise. Capitalism is the prostitution of free enterprise. In free enterprise, you provide a product or service for which you are compensated in a manner commensurate with the quality of said product or service.

Capital is money. Capitalism is all about the accumulation and control of money, while expending as little as possible to acquire it. Just look at Wall Street, if your stomach can stand it.

Corporatism is the single most virulent cancer afflicting humanity, and if it isn't wiped off the face of the Earth soon, our extinction as a species is an engraved-in-stone certainty, along with nearly every other life form on this Blue Marble. The cockroaches will survive, and probably evolve into corporatists again. Sigh... the circle never ends.

Well. Have a nice day!

[90-percent]

10. gregcrawford

Darn excellent post, my friend! My compliments.

-90% Jimmy

yeah - entitlements is republican dog whistle. I prefer the term "earned benefits" for SS and medicare.

[gregcrawford]

15. Thank you, 90%!

ZAPPA RULES!

[90-percent]

19. Been in to FZ since the Oct 16, 1971 Stony Brook late show

Here's some wonderful recent Zappa news:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/frank-zappa-documentary-by-alex-winter-starts-production-20150724

I hope it sees the light of day!

-90% Jimmy

[gregcrawford]

20. Saw the Mothers of Invention live in Boston...

... back around 67, I think; the sixties are a bit hazy. Their superb musicianship was sometimes eclipsed by lyrics like "... smother my daughter in chocolate syrup, make her do it on the White House Lawn!"

[daleanime]

9. K&R.....

[salib]

11. Profits be damned.

[uponit7771]

14. People need HBO or some other hobby

[Hydra]

21. Climate change will force us to switch to socialism

Or we'll simply die out. I'm certain we have less than 10 years to get it right- arctic ice is melting at a compounding rate, and the storms and droughts are already wreaking havoc.

I'd have no hope at all about this- the 1% are praying for this, as they can go into their little underground cities and escape it, leaving most of us to die...but most of the positive changes the last 2 years have come from the people themselves. LBGT equality movement, legalization, climate change awareness, the end of capitalism...all of these things are coming despite our leaders getting in the way of it.

[Duppers]

30. Even the 1% will not be able to escape the coming hell.

Ultimately it will affect everyone. Some one percenters must know this---it's just that they don't care about their grandchildren. Unbelievably selfish, evil people.

(It's strange that more people aren't addressing the population problem here, as folks in environmental and energy forum do.)

[Hydra]

36. Personally, I don't think the population issue is a huge problem

Wherever birth control is easily available and there is a good standard of living, you suddenly run into negative population growth. Capitalism demands growth, which demands population growth, which negates the two points I mentioned above.

All of our current problems have a root cause, and as soon as we address that, I think everything will fall into place. The question is IF we'll address it though- status quo is appealing for too many people, if only because they are afraid to give ip what they have.

[The2ndWheel]

22. I guess it depends on what you mean by profit

Roads are a type of profit. They're also one of the worst things we could do in regards to the environment, because they allow human beings to do more, which is the root of so many of the issues.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

23. And despite that massive population increase, this still fits a lot of people...

[Skittles]

24. yup

too many people just love the Pope, even though that church stance on birth control has very much contributed to over-population

[tclambert]

25. Don't worry, the population will crash soon.

The fossil fuel industry will make sure of it.

[Scootaloo]

26. And in another century we'll be nearing 2 billion

The scary thought isn't the rapid changes these four generations have seen... it's the massive contraction that the next four are going to see.

[raven mad]

28. It's time birth control was regulated.

[Duppers]

31. Regulated?

Or mandated? I agree.

[raven mad]

32. I meant mandated, but couldn't think of the word!

I've have one child, my husband has one child. Population control is where we all went wrong.

[mwooldri]

29. What some politicians call "entitlements" is actually insurance.

National, socialized insurance.

And that surfer dude who has lobster for dinner while on "welfare"? The surfer might have caught it themselves.

Why does the population grow? Simple: the adults are in part attempting to secure their own old age. In the developing world there isn't Social Security like we know it, or a fully comprehensive national health insurance system, and a pension can be a dream. It's why you see birth rates in the economic North sustain or even shrink a population size. China's population growth has slowed. India though is still going up and up and up... and it's not going down in Africa either.

[Uncle Joe]

35. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, tecelote.