The technology exists to supply us with our needs

There is plenty of "stuff" out there...massive parkinglots full of gleaming new Toyotas or SUVs that can't be sold, huge warehouses full of consumers goods that the producer is unable to "move" due to the recession, tracts and tracts of empty but basically brand-new and beautiful housing that are decaying because they can't be sold, grain rotting in warehouses while people starve, tower blocs full of empty offices, etc.

At the same time, well, we see a massive recession/depression where people are pinching pennies and increasingly unable to provide for their basic needs.

Take a moment, put down your idological armor, and consider: Doesn't all this seem a bit...paradoxical?

There is a difference between an economic crisis caused by real "shortage" (like a true famine where there simply isn't enough food to go around) and what we are experiencing today, where there is plenty of stuff but the system is all snarled up and bogged down for whatever reasons.

It seems the second scenario (the one we find ourselves in right now) should be easier to solve, doesn't it? On a purely common-sense level, the stuff exists, the needs exist...why can't we match them?

I know that simply "giving away stuff free" leads to socialism, a lack of incentive to work hard and innovate, etc. That's not what I'm advocating here. In fact, I'm not advocating anything. I'm just pointing out the bizzare state of affairs, and wondering if the ATS brain trust has anything to say about the mess from this perspective.

In the 1960s, many "futureologists" predicted that automation and technology would reach a level where we would all be living in a kind of paradise: working less and having access to more stuff and free time. Instead people are working harder than ever (if they are lucky enough to have a job at all) and have less and less access to time and goods....even though the latter exist in abundence and are easier than ever to produce.

Is it just me, or does something seem radically wrong with this picture? How did we get into this mess? And more importantly, how do we get out of it?

Great Post. I will tell you every time I have improved a workplace function to automate the process, I was let go in one way or another. My bosses hate to actually think. I believe there are two different mindsets appearing. Everything is here, and I mean everything. There is no shortage of anything to provide of us our basic needs. There is a problem though with a greed based monetary system and some fundamental problems with capitalism on the world scale. All create a supply issue, to justify the profit margin.

The two mindsets are the old way, and a new way that takes all people into account. The need to look at all sides of an issue, and work in all concerns within the solution. I bet if the government passed a law that stated, a company may not terminate or move a employee to do more work if that employee automates their own job function. The employee should be kept on the payroll for the next 2 years. You know how many people would go home and invent something to automate their job? We have to get out of the slave thinking. We can create anything we desire, but the system is designed to feed that innovation to the top. It's time that changes, where an improvement is seen as a benefit to all.

Consumers need more buying power so that they can consume that stockpiled stuff.

Maybe the government could reimburse all those poor souls who lost 33% of thier portfolio on wall street. I mean it's just not right that those people lost 1/3rd of thier saved up millions. Most of them are barely making a 1% return on thier money right now. Those poor rich people need a bailout. Waaaaaaahhhhh, waaaaahhhhhh, waaaahhhhhhh

This whole thing is like a mexican standoff. Who's gonna blink first? Meanwhile the world turns and burns.


[edit on 12-8-2009 by In nothing we trust]

Originally posted by In nothing we trust
Consumers need more buying power so that they can consume that stockpiled stuff.

Maybe the government could reimburse all those poor souls who lost 33% of thier portfolio on wall street. I mean it's just not right that those people lost 1/3rd of thier saved up millions. Most of them are barely making a 1% return on thier money right now. Those poor people need a bailout. Waaaaaaahhhhh, waaaaahhhhhh, waaaahhhhhhh

This whole thing is like a mexican standoff. Who's gonna blink first?

[edit on 12-8-2009 by In nothing we trust]

Was that suppose to be funny? Most of those funds were retirement savings and college funds for their children. It's a fallacy to think they are all millionaires, rolling in dough. Many futures have went down the drain.

Originally posted by Violet Sky

Originally posted by In nothing we trust

Maybe the government could reimburse all those poor souls who lost 33% of thier portfolio on wall street.

Was that suppose to be funny? Most of those funds were retirement savings and college funds for their children. It's a fallacy to think they are all millionaires, rolling in dough. Many futures have went down the drain.

No one gives a crap about the children.

The more money people accumulate the more greedy, selfish and manipulative they get.

Who says people have to goto college anyways? Education is overrated. You pay someone else to teach you how you can get a job with a multi-million dollar corporation where no one has any job security, everyone is stabbing eachother in the back and the goal of the corporation is to burn and pillage the earth. Hey that's the same corporation that grandma and grandpa are investing thier hard earned savings into.

I actually believe thier real goal is to take all thier money to thier grave with them. They want to be buried with it or they want to leave it to thier disfunctional family and arrogant kids.

[edit on 12-8-2009 by In nothing we trust]

The 'crisis' was engineered to accomplish a 'thing.'

Whatever that 'thing' is was a collaborative effort amongst all nations. An excuse...

America: $700,000,000,000
China: $700,000,000,000
England: $700,000,000,000
Brazil: $300,000,000,000
India: $700,000,000,000
Russia: $400,000,000,000
others: $700,000,000,000

The question you need to be asking is what costs 5 trillion dollars to build?

I would say an offworld Pharoah sanctuary so that others may die. A fleet of ships and support infrastructure to make it over the hump untilit is safe to return.

But, we have thought of that before...

I've been thinking the same thing to. A few weeks ago I drove by a port and there were thousands of cars that just seem to go on forever. All just sitting there waiting to be sold. I've even noticed the meat department in my local grocery store always seems to have tons of meat now, but just last year if you went to the store after six, you were never going to get ground beef or chicken breast. All this stuff just sits there, or gets thrown away, in the name of a capitalist system that in my opinion has gone to far.

Now I'm not a communist or anything like that. I believe people should get compinsated for how they contribute to a society. But it makes no sense to me how a laywer, who was fortunate enough to afford university, can make 400 dollars an hour while the person who answers his phone and sets his calender can make 10 bucks an hour. Is one person really worth that much more to society that it justifies them getting paid 40x more? The whole system needs a reality check. As the years have gone by the middle class population has dropped rapidly. You either have the Lexus, golf membership and 7 bedroom house or the studio apartment, bus pass and food stamps. What happened to the great American dream? And why should people be suffering when the goods are there for them, but they can't have them because of the way our system is designed?