Amazing, and beautiful. Which is what it is to be alone. I’m not lonely, that’s not what alone means.

Many people are often surprised when I tell them how many things I do alone, by myself…I find that telling. How can anyone else know you if you don’t know yourself? If you can’t be alone, how do you know who you are?

Sometimes, I get discouraged, run down, and worry about getting to do all the things I’ve always dreamed of doing. However, when I stop to think about it, I’ve done so many amazing things that others only dream of, and I really need to always remember what I’ve done and how it’s made me who I am.

I wanted to put my life into perspective, so I decided to apply my life experiences to the kiddie question “When I grow up, I want to…”

When I grow up, I want to travel Europe. Done it.

When I grow up, I want to live in London. Done that, too.

When I grow up, I want to study in Greece, France, Belgium, and England. Check.

When I grow up, I want to spend time in Jordan learning about the Middle East and getting certified in Conflict Resolution. Check, Check, Check.

When I grow up, I want to go to college. Yup.

When I grow up, I want to fall in love. Sure have.

When I grow up, I want to have a fun car. Check, Golden Nuggett.

When I grow up, I want to have lots of good friends. They’re the best.

When I grow up, I want to live in a big city. ATL, baby!

When I grow up, I want to live in a nice place with a swimming pool. Check.

When I grow up, I want to be close to my family. Love them.

When I grow up, I want to have a fun job in a cool place where dogs can come, too. Got it.

When I grow up, I want to have a fun, enjoyable, independent, and glamorous life. Sure do.

When I grow up, I want to make lots of money so I can keep traveling. Working on it……

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Not bad, if I do say so myself, and there’s honestly so much more that I’ve seen, done and experinced. A very good, much-needed exercise.  That, and this quote:

“There are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”
-”The Third and Final Continent,” Jhumpa Lahiri

I’ve never been able to find a better way to express how I feel about my experiences.

I found the following quotes and have been thoughtfully considering the meaning and application:

On Distributism (vs. Capitalism, vs. Socialism)“According to distributism, the ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (state socialism) or a few large businesses or wealthy private individuals (plutarchic capitalism).”

G.K. Chesterton said “Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.”

As I meet more and more business owners, and discover more people who have been forced into self-employment (laid off, then hired back as a “consultant” for less pay and no benefits whatsoever), I am becoming more and more unsure about my fiscal political leanings. I have never been in support of aristocracy, or the slick and oily relationship between big business and a government that lets those companies reap far too many benefits with zero accountability.

Indeed, even the laws that have led us to have fewer and fewer communications choices (and will probably lead to the end of net neutrality) are outrageous to me. Consider how many cell phone service providers there were just 7 or 8 years ago. In my small town alone we had Cingular, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, Cellular One, and a couple of local providers. The local ones are gone now, and there are, in the minds of most, only two left.

How is this reduction in competition better for the consumer? It’s not. The companies have consolidated, laid off workers, and are now tightly controlling the market (aka reduced offerings and price points). And then there are the lovely cable companies. Wait, wait. Where you live there is really only one.  What about Microsoft and it’s complete monopoly on something like Office, which (and I will argue this with you) does not work the same on a Mac? So much for free market and competition, huh?

Which brings me to my thinking that maybe I need to re-evaluate how I feel about this. The idea and existence of monopolies within the private sector have long had me pushing animosities towards those companies and verbally fighting for a government to exert more control.

But more control by the government would simply create more of these situations, across all industries, due to their disgusting, incestuous relationship with flea-infested Corporate America. So I don’t want the state socialism as mentioned above either. I struggle, because I don’t think government can do it better, as I once did. But I also STILL believe that Corporate America will always screw us, too. They cannot be left to themselves.

I’m left with this very interesting theory of “distributism” and I must say, I feel a certain comfort at thinking about this. However, on further thought, it is an absolute oxymoron in almost every single capacity. How can we ensure as a society that the means of production are spread as widely as possible? This ends with either government regulation (and along the way gives us the entitlement programs, which are another cause for concern) OR with the larger corporations gobbling everything up under the premise of giving society more “resources.” It almost seems as though this theory tries to marry conservatives and progressives, which is interesting indeed.

I suppose that’s why it’s a “theory” – all things being equal, holding all other factors constant  – which are phrases from economics that frequently pop up when I hear that word. One good thing - I feel like I’m thinking a bit outside the box, and at least considering where we actually are in this whole process of an economy. How would we go about achieving this? Or is it simply not possible?

L to R: Laura, Me, Tessa, Wendy, and Erin at STATS Atlanta for the YP City event.

Why are younger people REALLY waiting so long to get married, start families, and enter in to traditional definitions of adulthood? A NY Times article says it has to do with empowerment of women, and their desire to have careers, along with younger people being supported and helped by their parents for longer periods of time. This is highlighted in the article by the recent Obama administration implementation of people up to age 26 being able to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans.

But that’s where the explanation stops, and I don’t know about you, but that’s not nearly enough analysis. The first, BIGGEST, reason for young adults postponing all those things is money and finances, which is a direct result of TWO main things. The first one is the outrageous cost of college that imposes heavy responsibility on so many young people. Instead of saving money for a down payment on a house, or a new car, or for a wedding, or even for their future children to go to college, they are shelling out hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month to pay back student loans.

You might say something along the lines of “Well, they foolishly took out those loans.” And, in theory, you are right. but you’re speaking about 17 and 18 year olds who are fed extreme propaganda, and pushed into 4 (or 5) year college degree programs because “they won’t make ANY money without that.”

Right. So if the degree is needed for a good job, they should be able to pay back those loans, AND save a bit, correct? This is what young people are fed, and groomed to believe and do, since basically the time they have an opportunity to take an advanced course in the 6th grade.

The reality? My mom told me what she made in 1983, when she was 25…and it is within 10% of what I am making at the same age, 26 YEARS LATER! Another person I know defended my low salary with what she made at my age…the same amount, but 15 YEARS AGO! My mom didn’t go to college until after I was born, and her company paid for it (something that will never exist for our generation), and my other friend did not incur anywhere near the expense for college 15 years ago as we do now.

College is more, gas is more, cars are more, rent is more, houses are WAY more, travel is more, food is more, clothing is more, health insurance is OUTRAGEOUSLY more…I could go on and on and on (acutally, about the only thing similar in cost for this young professional group at entry-level salaries are the taxes. Go figure.).

Why aren’t we buying houses, having babies, and becoming adults? Because we CAN”T AFFORD IT. Our parents, and society as a whole, has dumped us into a massive whole of debt, with no real wage increases, and fewer overall jobs and career opportunities. It’s time this society starts to realize what this situation REALLY costs everyone…and it’s not a little amount.

Yes, it’s outrageous, but it’s just so funny…extreme Layman’s Terms. Love it.

Atlanta Chicks Tweetup

Shared via AddThis

Posted using ShareThis

The unemployment figure in this country is a JOKE. You mean to tell me that we were losing over 600,000 jobs per week in Feb, but somehow we only lost 690,000 for the whole month? Where did we create those other jobs? yeah right, those other people are probably no longer collecting unemployment. And what about the part time workers and the ultimate small businesses…the self-employed. they are never counted if they are out of work. Our unemployment rate has got to be at about 20% at least.

These companies are snakes…how do they think they are going to survive if Americans can no longer buy their stuff? you think those “middle class” workers in China and India will buy the cars, computers, ipods, etc? Hate to break it to you, but the media is stretching it a bit…the middle class in those countries is still insanely small (1 or 2%) and most arent able to buy the stuff.

Thats one of the reasons automakers pay their workers more (even the foreign ones that come here do this) so that their workers can actually buy the things they make. If this fails to be the case in this country, ie. we all work at Wal-Mart for $8 an hour, this country as we know it is finished and we are headed for third world status.

I’m ready for a worker revolution. How can we do it?

http://conyers.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Issues.Home&Issue_id=063b74a4-19b9-b4b1-126b-f67f60e05f8c

I will be back to discuss more details on this soon.

I was delighted to read about such an idea in the New York Times today. Ruth Y. Goldway, a member of the United States Postal Regulatory Commission, laid out a way to use some of the stimulus money to fit all the postal vehicles to electric. Although this may not be a new idea, she expanded by saying that the customers could plug their own vehicles in at their community offices when they mail parcels, etc. Great idea!

Additionally, she correctly identified that “Green jobs — outfitting buildings, converting trucks — would be created in neighborhoods nationwide. Converting just its 142,000 standard delivery trucks would reduce gasoline consumption by up to 68 million gallons a year and save the Postal Service millions of dollars.” Saving the Postal Service money would be a wise move, since mail delivery has seen some decreases.

This is the kind of change I was thinking about. This is the kind of change I can believe in.

Break the stimulus into the following parts:

1. Repairing bridges, roads, etc. throughout the country. Hire those laid-off autoworkers, hire engineers and project managers.

2. Give an enormous amount of money to green industry…solar panels, wind power and mass transportation. don’t just give enough for states to keep their existing transit systems…give them more to make the expansion they need due to increased ridership.

3. Restructure the electrical grid. Help fund and give contracts to companies like Better Place, which will send a message to Detroit that there WILL be an infrastructure in place to support the Chevy Volt and other cars when they come out. Oil will only go up.

4. Increase unemployment benefits and let the unemployed go onto Medicare for a time. Find a way to help those who are self-employed and independent contractors…many of whom are illegally paid in this fashion and suffer from extraordinarily high taxes.

This is ALL that should be in this bill. Of course, education reform and health care, etc. are important. My fear is that if we only do half of what is needed in these areas in this bill, when we try to do more, the Republicans will scream “We already spent money on these programs” and we’ll never get it done right.

Democrats, save some bargaining room. Health Care and Education should be addressed later (even in a few months, just to separate from this current bill) and if you dont spend anything on them now, you will have a better place to argue from when you need complete spending to do them right.

Also, let’s get this thing done without the Republicans. Obama needs to stand up to them more…they were not voted in. We wanted a bold, daring stimulus-and this is not it-this is a hodgepodge. It looks like a pot-luck dinner when we wanted and needed 5-star dining. We dont want more tax cuts or credits, either.

designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE )

and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA )

 After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet  (MADE IN INDIA )
 

he sat down with his calculator
(MADE IN MEXICO ) to see how much he could spend today.

After setting his watch
(MADE IN TAIWAN )
 filled it with GAS
 (from Saudi Arabia )

to the radio
(MADE IN INDIA )

he got in his car
 (MADE IN GERMANY )

 and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

 At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his
 Computer
(Made In Malaysia ),

 Joe decided to relax for a while.

 He put on his sandals  (MADE IN BRAZIL )
 
poured himself a glass of wine
 (MADE IN FRANCE )

and turned on his TV
 (MADE IN INDONESIA ),
 

and then wondered why he can’t find  a good paying job in AMERICA .”

I think we know what the point of this story is. Competition is good, but it needs to include American competition. Lets get our act together.