On the onset of 2011...
Many Americans have lost their confidence, one of the traits we are most known for. Our moxie has lost it's nerve and it's easy to understand why with the economic, social and political problems we are facing that, alas, are intertwined. Then again, many other Americans are in a happy recovery mode, which somehow seems surreal and more like denial.
I think I know why there are these two juxtaposing viewpoints.
Read or watch any media outlet and you can find both good news and bad news about the economy, social problems and political issues. Take your pick which you want to believe. My favorite example is the seemingly opposing stories, very often on the same page, headlined something like "Unemployment is down and job outlook improving" and another story with the seeming flip side headline "Personal income is down."
Well, yes...both are true because some people are getting jobs but they are lower paying. It's good news that is not coupled with the countering bad news in the same story. The media outlets spit the news in half chunks. Some people read the chunk they want to and others read both and either make connections between the two or they don't, for a variety of reasons.
The actuality is that we face significant social, economic and political problems in the coming year. The sovereign debt crisis in other countries will affect us, unemployment is still high and stagnant, the mortgage/foreclosure crisis is unresolved, debt overhang threatens financial institutions, we're at peak oil, there are global currency problems and the stock market is flirting with highs far too dangerous for the underlying fundamentals of the economy are among the major ones. The biggest problem is that postponing the inevitable by "Quantitative Easing" and keeping the money printing presses rolling, isn't working quite as hoped, preventing us from getting on with clearing up the certain aftermath that is coming after it all inevitably falls apart, which is likely to occur in 2011.
Which leads back to confidence, which I think we can regain. My belief is Americans are struggling with confidence because they feel a sense of pending doom and rightfully want to get it over with. The American way is to face a challenge head on and overcome it, not dilly dally with it like some European diplomat. The dominoes are lined up and with one slip they all fall. Let it happen so we may commence with picking up the pieces and rebuilding a real and sustainable recovery.
That's the kind of confidence and determination that Americans are best at. The malaise is caused by the political and business classes stretching out to maintain the old while the new is overdue waiting to be born.
Showing posts with label Only In America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Only In America. Show all posts
12/28/10
12/1/10
Only In America
Ten reasons to believe in Americans...
We're culturally and racially diverse but more alike than different.
1. America is a large continent spanning from one ocean to another, rich with natural resources. Although sometimes exploited and under-utilized, they're still available to us and we're capable of using them wisely.
2. We're innovators, especially in the areas of the arts, science and technology. We figure out new ways to do old things and create new things the rest of the world admires and uses.
3. We are easily mobile and can move around the country because we are an educated work force and technologically savvy. Opportunity is available to most people who seek it.
4. English is the dominant language and literacy is high allowing us to communicate among each other well. We have a sophisticated communications system.
5. Millions of Americans are still hard-working (or want to be), motivated and the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well. We will rise above economic crisis no matter how hard or long it takes.
6. Legal immigration. Immigrants have always brought to this country a desire to succeed and do better for themselves, revitalizing everyone. They bring their dreams, enriching us all.
7. The Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and our form of government. Although currently racked with failure by a Political Class of two seemingly entrenched parties, they still do not own the system.
8. The Second Amendment. Millions of Americans legally own guns and we can defend ourselves against our government if we are forced to. Most likely we won't have to because of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
9. Freedom of speech and the press being overtaken by the internet, which is making self-publishing, creative endeavors and the spreading of ideas wide open to everyone.
10. Reinvention of self. There are dozens of ways to break from our personal past and begin a new life for ourselves if we have the will, utilize our resources and are willing to start over.
We're culturally and racially diverse but more alike than different.
1. America is a large continent spanning from one ocean to another, rich with natural resources. Although sometimes exploited and under-utilized, they're still available to us and we're capable of using them wisely.
2. We're innovators, especially in the areas of the arts, science and technology. We figure out new ways to do old things and create new things the rest of the world admires and uses.
3. We are easily mobile and can move around the country because we are an educated work force and technologically savvy. Opportunity is available to most people who seek it.
4. English is the dominant language and literacy is high allowing us to communicate among each other well. We have a sophisticated communications system.
5. Millions of Americans are still hard-working (or want to be), motivated and the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well. We will rise above economic crisis no matter how hard or long it takes.
6. Legal immigration. Immigrants have always brought to this country a desire to succeed and do better for themselves, revitalizing everyone. They bring their dreams, enriching us all.
7. The Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and our form of government. Although currently racked with failure by a Political Class of two seemingly entrenched parties, they still do not own the system.
8. The Second Amendment. Millions of Americans legally own guns and we can defend ourselves against our government if we are forced to. Most likely we won't have to because of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
9. Freedom of speech and the press being overtaken by the internet, which is making self-publishing, creative endeavors and the spreading of ideas wide open to everyone.
10. Reinvention of self. There are dozens of ways to break from our personal past and begin a new life for ourselves if we have the will, utilize our resources and are willing to start over.
11/11/10
Only In America
The relevance of learning irrelevant things...
Just about everything I've ever done in life, no matter how seemingly irrelevant or unconnected at the time, later on has played a part in something I did afterwards or what I'm doing now.
Who knew when I started showing people, when there was no capable supervisor or a trainer around, how to do a technical support job that was growing exponentially at the time, that it would lead to my becoming a certified instructor? I wasn't asked to do it, there was a need and I did it to stop being asked questions in the middle of my work, to make my life easier. Years later, when I had gone as far as I thought I could as a technical instructor, I applied for a job for which I had no experience, running a vault and money processing center. They hired me out of the blue because they needed a leader who could teach and figured I could learn the specifics on the job. Little did I realize a few years after I had left and was working as a technical writer and was laid off, that my experience in a money processing vault would get me hired at a credit card processing company. The work I currently do I can trace back to at least six different apparently unrelated things I learned at a time they didn't seem pertinent. I know better now how what once seemed like odd things can fit together...everything to it's own purpose.
Never turn down the chance to learn something new, even if it doesn't seem applicable to what you're doing now. Always learn from others who are willing to show you something that may not seem important at the time and also teach others as you go along in return. One day it will pay off, because time has proven it usually does.
Just about everything I've ever done in life, no matter how seemingly irrelevant or unconnected at the time, later on has played a part in something I did afterwards or what I'm doing now.
Who knew when I started showing people, when there was no capable supervisor or a trainer around, how to do a technical support job that was growing exponentially at the time, that it would lead to my becoming a certified instructor? I wasn't asked to do it, there was a need and I did it to stop being asked questions in the middle of my work, to make my life easier. Years later, when I had gone as far as I thought I could as a technical instructor, I applied for a job for which I had no experience, running a vault and money processing center. They hired me out of the blue because they needed a leader who could teach and figured I could learn the specifics on the job. Little did I realize a few years after I had left and was working as a technical writer and was laid off, that my experience in a money processing vault would get me hired at a credit card processing company. The work I currently do I can trace back to at least six different apparently unrelated things I learned at a time they didn't seem pertinent. I know better now how what once seemed like odd things can fit together...everything to it's own purpose.
Never turn down the chance to learn something new, even if it doesn't seem applicable to what you're doing now. Always learn from others who are willing to show you something that may not seem important at the time and also teach others as you go along in return. One day it will pay off, because time has proven it usually does.
10/25/10
Only In America
We're all working class...
Americans have notions about the term working class often also associated with definitions of labor and lower end jobs, words that are also heavy with meaning relating to organized labor and unionism, farmers and farm workers. Depending on your position and place, being working class is either a noble thing or something a noble person wouldn't do. It denotes "blue collar" in the minds of many people and more specifically, working with your hands, the implication also meaning not with your brains.
It's a peculiar attitude for Americans to adopt since almost everyone, whether descended from original settlers or recent immigrants, works in this country in one fashion or another, to achieve their vision of the American Dream. The current assignation, associating working class with unionism, the labor movement and farming, is a result of mostly 20th century history. In reality, the Founding Fathers, although some of them considered themselves members of a new aristocratic class in the New World, were all people who worked at some occupation. Thomas Jefferson was a lawyer and Alexander Hamilton, an illegitimate orphaned immigrant child, worked his way up from being a clerk. Since WWII pretty much everyone has had a job, whether they call it a career, a profession or labor, it's still working for enumeration.
With few exceptions, everyone in America works to earn money to live, which may range from low end to high end. The haughtiness of a Wall Street white collar employee making a high salary looking down on a blue collar worker on Industrial Boulevard is an absurd affectation since they still both work for someone else. As we have recently witnessed, the CEO and Presidents of major banks can be fired and even if it is with a fat payout, they were still at the mercy of their employer as the boss.
That is not to say there aren't disparities between the euphemistically phrased white collar worker, pink collar worker and blue collar worker in more than just pay. Our society is naturally stratified by what type of job someone holds and the associated compensation. For all the talk about the "rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer" and resulting economic class differences, in America there still are no titled people of nobility and only a small minority live on inherited money or large sums of money they earned. Even for people of wealth, if they're smart, they must work at maintaining their assets, a job in itself based on fear of losing it all. That is still a small group. The vast majority of people, even high income earners who may have delusions about how important their career is and how much they earn, have as the average person says, a J.O.B. and work for someone else for their money. That sounds like labor to me.
In that sense, essentially we're all working class, especially in this current economic era.
[Written with a nod to Mike (7anby) of rock and confusion.]
Americans have notions about the term working class often also associated with definitions of labor and lower end jobs, words that are also heavy with meaning relating to organized labor and unionism, farmers and farm workers. Depending on your position and place, being working class is either a noble thing or something a noble person wouldn't do. It denotes "blue collar" in the minds of many people and more specifically, working with your hands, the implication also meaning not with your brains.
It's a peculiar attitude for Americans to adopt since almost everyone, whether descended from original settlers or recent immigrants, works in this country in one fashion or another, to achieve their vision of the American Dream. The current assignation, associating working class with unionism, the labor movement and farming, is a result of mostly 20th century history. In reality, the Founding Fathers, although some of them considered themselves members of a new aristocratic class in the New World, were all people who worked at some occupation. Thomas Jefferson was a lawyer and Alexander Hamilton, an illegitimate orphaned immigrant child, worked his way up from being a clerk. Since WWII pretty much everyone has had a job, whether they call it a career, a profession or labor, it's still working for enumeration.
With few exceptions, everyone in America works to earn money to live, which may range from low end to high end. The haughtiness of a Wall Street white collar employee making a high salary looking down on a blue collar worker on Industrial Boulevard is an absurd affectation since they still both work for someone else. As we have recently witnessed, the CEO and Presidents of major banks can be fired and even if it is with a fat payout, they were still at the mercy of their employer as the boss.
That is not to say there aren't disparities between the euphemistically phrased white collar worker, pink collar worker and blue collar worker in more than just pay. Our society is naturally stratified by what type of job someone holds and the associated compensation. For all the talk about the "rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer" and resulting economic class differences, in America there still are no titled people of nobility and only a small minority live on inherited money or large sums of money they earned. Even for people of wealth, if they're smart, they must work at maintaining their assets, a job in itself based on fear of losing it all. That is still a small group. The vast majority of people, even high income earners who may have delusions about how important their career is and how much they earn, have as the average person says, a J.O.B. and work for someone else for their money. That sounds like labor to me.
In that sense, essentially we're all working class, especially in this current economic era.
[Written with a nod to Mike (7anby) of rock and confusion.]
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