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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Work Ethic Damaged Beyond Repair? As an increasing number of people that I know have confided in me that their hopes for early retirement are vanquishing, it got me thinking. Most of these people were counting on completely unrealistic and "tip oriented" day-trading type of stock market activity or what amounts to financial ponzi schemes of one sort or another to make them wealthy enough to retire early, say at 50 or 55, and without any financial worries whatsoever relatively speaking. I know as a fact that most did not earn enough to even come close to amassing that kind of wealth by the time that they were 50-55, and given their spending habits otherwise. Others, friends of mine, played Russian Roulette with the housing market, and while many were sitting pretty, very pretty just a few short years ago, today several are in a panic and have gone from being "worth 6-figs" to being in debt or very close to it. i.e., hardly on the cusp of retirement. I could go on but you get the point. My contention is that what led us to this was, at least in part, this notion that work was bad, and that becoming wealthy while doing as little as possible became a rallying cry of the '80s and '90s and the goal to achieve or attain to. "How hard one worked" ceased being looked at through moral lenses and began to be increasingly viewed through the much more superficial lenses of baseline wealth. i.e., Someone who had millions clearly "worked harder" than someone that only had 200K in a retirement account and was getting along fine on a $60K single-income salary otherwise, when the fact of the matter may have very well been that the former worked hardly at all but had had some luck in the stock market, whether via timing or trends or simply trading tips. One of my friends retired in his early 30s after precisely such luck as a financial broker. Obviously no one turns a couple hundred K into millions over the course of a few short years w/o some of those things, at least insofar as the markets are concerned. On a side note, many w/o any investing experience whatsoever made millions in the stock market run-up. What is interesting is that as a result of this, "wealth without work" (WWW), became a goal, and it did not matter how such wealth was attained. Enter the widespread demand for welfare of varying types ranging from food stamps, medicare, and basic welfare to corporate welfare of overpaying MIC government contractors using taxpayer money to make their business owners independently wealthy at the expense of other peoples's money/taxes, etc. In that process, "hard work" was redefined to mean money/wealth, status, power, etc. The single mom working two jobs at 60 hours/week earning minimum wage or barely over it was not "hard working." Nor were countless other Americans that simply were getting by while perhaps only saving nominally in their retirement accounts. So logically then, such "menial" work became scoffed at by the upper middle class and upper class despite its perfectly legit moral underpinning. Then again, in a society whose morals have been replaced with vices, well, it is easy to see why and how such moral confusion began to terminally cloud the picture. It is interesting to say the least what a difference a few years makes. If we would have asked 90-some-percent of Americans whether they thought that there was a chance that we'd be where we are today, back in '06, the answer would have been a resounding "no." But the reality is that even ex-execs have "stooped so low" so as to be working restaurant management and other "menial" jobs earning a mere fraction of what they had earned in a prior time and career. My how times change. Yet, at the same time more and more Americans are extending their hand for any freebies/entitlements, in one form or another, that our out-of-control-Government sees fit to steal from others and after laundering it through their terminally inefficient redistribution mechanism of whatever agency or department it actually goes through, and while claiming that they've created those jobs as a result, a small fraction exits the other end to get to the people that they claim were "targets" for that money. Here's a question, if it's that easy, why not simply make every American a government employee in such an agency? ... but I digress... In short, the solution to "what ails us" is simple; we need to return to a simpler time where the central bankers did not run the show as they are today, however that will not occur until morality and more specifically a solid work ethic and lack of entitlement mentality begins to take root again. Will that happen? Doubtful, as the indoctrination of the current mentality has rooted itself deeply within our culture. At some point however, if liberty is to be retained in this country, and a solution for what ails us found, then the phrase "jobs that Americans won't do" will be relegated to the scrap heap of American colloquy. Ideally America would return to her single-income family roots with stay at home parenting as well, thereby restoring morality in that manner as well. Either way, "hard work" in our country is going to have to once again be redefined to mean what it used to mean if there is any hope. Right now that still rubs against the grain of the "gimme, gimme, gimme" mentality however, and with the latter winning out, making the end-game to this scenario seemingly uglier and fuglier as we move on. Present day Amerika has a nation chock-full-o people that have been indoctrinated into thinking that real work is bad. The outcome can only be one thing with people thinking that way, and FUGLY doesn't begin to describe it.
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#3. To: Eric Stratton (#0)
"Your money for nothing and your chicks for free..." -Dire Straits
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