Germany - Poverty - Underclass

[Skybird]

Or flatten a country by something like WWII. there is a reason why in Germany there was a Wirtschaftswunder - plenty of stuff needed to get build. Well, that has changed a bit.

I avoid going into town for the most. Seeing all this many crap stuff being for sale just makes me sick, and angry. Priorities of many people are seriously flawed, I think. Adn when they start to become unhappy about their lifes, they end up talking to me I only visit the city for work anymore.

Anyone knowing these two wonderful movies, "Fight Club" and "American Psycho" (no america-bashing intended) ? Exaggerating things a bit, maybe, but there is some truth in their analysis of the emptiness of modern living style.

[Yahoshua]

Perhaps what is more disturbing as a root cause of this is the fact that we are increasingly (Europeans and Americans alike) are becoming a throwaway society.

We use something until it doesn't work, and then we throw it away and get a new one to replace it. Most people don't even bother fixing things themselves.

When a person is unusable, we throw them to the old peoples home. Same concept, and it's becoming more and more ingrained in our society.

Not only that, but corporations are increasingly becoming profit driven.....and to what end?

What is possibly gained from making more profits than you need? Aside from saving up for a rainy day or engaging in risky scientific adventures, all that money is going into the pockets of the selfish. When it really belongs in the circulation of the national economy where there will be less chance for poverty to take hold.

I suppose we could begin by instituting the Jubilee law every 50 years.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Yahoshua

Perhaps what is more disturbing as a root cause of this is the fact that we are increasingly (Europeans and Americans alike) are becoming a throwaway society.

We use something until it doesn't work, and then we throw it away and get a new one to replace it. Most people don't even bother fixing things themselves.

When a person is unusable, we throw them to the old peoples home. Same concept, and it's becoming more and more ingrained in our society.

Another symptom of one and the same state of our culture. It all are symptoms of one and the same crisis.

Not only that, but corporations are increasingly becoming profit driven.....and to what end?

It has always been like that. Critically it only becomes when profit craving demands the freedom to grab profits at the costs of vital community structures, that holds commnites together. the lethal competition that seeks monopoles by wiping out rivals, at all cost. Here it adds general power to the immdiate financial profit. Competion must not be bad and can be a motivation (the geography of europe encouraged very strong competition over the cneturies -. the result was the most advanced and intellectually superior civilization mankind has ever seen - but this competition came at a price: oftejn it turned into wars).

Every competition needs to know limitations, like in sports you do not seriously try to kill the opposing team, but simply "ritually" defeat it. That concept is not known in economics. In Germany i see it turning city centres and shopping environments into monocultures. Chain stores dominate. Single sellers become rare.

Hehe, this thread already covers a wide spectrum, doesn't it!?