WAKE UP, FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE!

Wake up. Americans, Canadians, Europeans…wake, the hell up! Give your head a shake. The dream is over, gone, done. You aren’t all that and a bag “o”chips anymore. It isn’t Obama’s fault – Bush left him with a sunken economy that ain’t going to be fixed anytime soon. Particularly with the generalized attitude of the West. Want it? Buy it. Put it on the credit card. Harper didn’t sink the Canadian economy; we can thank the Liberals and their stupid programs for that. Before that – Mulroney and NAFTA/free trade. Free for the Americans – we still have to pay.

How about paying people for having kids? Really?

Welfare with no pay back? Okay, that’s sound economic thinking. Here..take this money, it is free/gratis and don’t worry – you don’t have to ever pay it back. In fact, hell – we’ll throw in free dental care, cut rate prescriptions and housing just for you! Don’t worry; the middle class will keep you in Fritos and beer.

Nobody seemed to notice that the potholes on Easy Street weren’t getting fixed. Those potholes created more potholes and started to grow. We’re all in deep doo-doo. The mentality that the government would look after our affairs is laughable in its naiveté. No, not naiveté – stupidity, laziness, greed and financial immaturity. Governments do not look after the people; they look after themselves and theirs’.

Politicians don’t go into politics to benefit you or I. Politicians go into politics for the money, for the pensions, for the perks. They don’t give a rat’s ass about the people. Look up sociopath and what the dictionary should contain, are photos of politicians.

Countries are bankrupt but the politicians aren’t. Seems to me that their salaries should reflect the state of their constituents’ financial state – the state of their countries’ economies.

It is time to smarten up and act like grown-ups. Understand the basics of Economics 101 – if you can’t pay cash? Don’t buy it. Get rid of your debt. Your kids won’t collapse if they don’t have a cell phone or an IPhone. They won’t be forever scarred if they can’t shop at H & M for their clothes. Wal-Mart offers clothing at reasonable prices – if your kids object? Tough. Tell ’em to get a job and buy their own.

You work, you come home exhausted and the house is a mess? Your offspring are on the computer or watching DVD’s – maybe texting their little deposable thumbs off? Get them off their duffs and contribute to the running of the house. Texting, computers, gaming are all time luxuries. Best they learn this now. Responsibility is not a 4-letter word. You can’t be a good parent if you’re exhausted. Give your over-privileged little buttnuts a clue. Lawns do not mow themselves. Snow does not magically disappear. You don’t need to pay a landscaping company to have your damn grass cut. Kids need to be taught that nothing in this life is free.

You need to cut down on useless expenses. What happens if you go into your job only to find that your position is no longer viable to the company? Believe me, you aren’t immune. Those statistics of unemployed are made up of people who thought their job was secure. Do you have enough savings to pay all your debts for the next 6 months? If the answer is negative, then you need to get your head out of your ass and act like a responsible adult. Cut the fluff. Get rid of the internet, the cable or whatever else you don’t need to survive. Do it until you have the savings that can sustain you and your family. Pay off the credit card, cut the damn thing up.

So you’re tired after a long day at work and you don’t feel like cooking. Walk away from the take out menu. Don’t drop into the local restaurant or fast food joint. You simply can’t afford it; that $30 more or less, can buy groceries and add to the amount that you can pay your creditors.

Stop moaning about your lack of cash and do something about it. If the family vacation requires a credit card or money that can be used to pay off a creditor? Then? Don’t take the vacation – find something to do locally. On the cheap. Let the Jones’ go to Disney World, a beach resort or their cottage. It won’t be long before they find themselves in a dire situation – a foreclosure or a bailiff at the door, looking for money. The economy is sinking and sinking fast. You aren’t protected by anyone or anything. You need to protect yourself. Your politicians will be home with their families, in the bought and paid-for homes, collecting their pensions consisting of your tax dollars. They will never have a financial worry, while you may end up wondering where your next loaf of bread will be coming from. This isn’t scare tactics – it is cold, hard truth. The Yuppie days are long gone. Your kids will be lucky to find jobs, let alone jobs that will keep them in IPhones. A BComm holds about as much promise as a B.A. these days. “Do you want fries with that?” If the jobs aren’t there, the jobs aren’t there. No number of degrees will change that. In fact, in the coming years, those degrees may be something they will need to hide. Nobody wants to hire a waitress with a degree.

Get rid of the car with the monthly payments. Find a beater and keep it going until your debts are paid off, your savings are what you would require and then, save to buy a car with cash, not credit. Furniture on credit? You are a fool. Televisions, computers, all on credit? Then you truly are an idiot. You are the worst possible example of a parent for your kids. Irresponsible. Materialistic. Shallow and foolish.

The future is not bright. The future is very dark for the West and unless PEOPLE, not politicians change their attitudes, in very short order – they can look at this blog’s accompanying photo and envision themselves in it.

Pissing Away A Gift

What is wrong with the Western World? Rhetorical question.

For crying out loud people, wake up!  Here we are, without question, the most privileged continent on the planet. Every single one of us has the opportunity to create something with our lives. We have to gift of living in a society where we can be anything we chose to be, we have only to open our front door and take that first step toward our goal.
Such a gift, we’ve been given! And is it appreciated?

Look around, read the paper, watch the news and you may come to the same conclusion as have I; no, it is not appreciated. Not only is it not appreciated? It is taken for granted, spat on, denigrated, perverted and shamed.

We are raising a generation of self-centered monsters with little to no concept of what life is truly about. They want and they want and they want. They do not feel that they need to give back, simply take but to be fair, it isn’t their fault. The fault lies with their parents and only their parents. They too, feel that life seems to owe them something. Society owes them something. It owes them a wage, it owes them food and shelter. They need put nothing into the life process; they need only to take what they wish and if they don’t get it? Well, the hue and the cry, the whines and the complaints are deafening.

I am ashamed of North America. I am ashamed of Europe. I am ashamed of a Western Civilization that can’t seem to get beyond their sociopathic views of life. A society where the most important issues of a day can well be whether to buy the X-Box or the WII, whether a Blackberry or an IPOD is the more desirable, from a status perspective.

A society where parents farm their children out to day cares so that they can afford the aforementioned gadgets, so that they may have two vehicles and vacations. So that they can shop at the mall and enjoy the best, yet not give a thought to how fortunate, how absolutely incredibly lucky they are to have these opportunities, to be fortunate enough to have a job, to live in a country where safe, affordable day care is even an option.

Make no mistake, it is an option. It isn’t a life given right, it is a privilege. A privilege afforded them by others.

A society that worships the rich, the indolent and the depraved. The likes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan afforded media attention. The Oscars, where one dress could feed an entire family for a year. None of this would happen if we, the public, didn’t buy the tabloids, the trash mags or watch the shows that highlight these disgraceful exhibitions.

Our ancestors came here with nothing. There were no social programs. There was no welfare. They built this country, without relying on government or hand-outs to do it. How shameful what we have done to their legacy of courage, of tenacity, of invention and their will to survive.

Not so very far away, our opposites struggle to survive. They possess gratitude; gratitude for finding enough food to feed their children, at least one meal. They can’t afford to whine, to complain. These people, these human beings are too busily involved with trying to keep themselves and their families alive.

What is so hard to fathom? What is so hard to understand? Life is a gift and unless you live in a refugee camp in the Sudan, unless you wake up, unsure if you can feed your children, unsure if you will make it to sunset alive? Then you have no right to complain about your life. It is what you choose to make it.

Such a simple concept, such an easy philosophy by which to live; being thankful for what we have, what we did not earn but are fortunate enough to live in a place where we can reap the benefits. Yet this simple line of thought, these simple realities seem to be so beyond the capacity for the Western world to understand. We can’t save the world but at the very, very least, we should be grateful for what we are offered and we should shame those who choose to take life for granted, who abuse their privileges.

Your life is your responsibility. Piss it away don’t expect anything more than you put in.