24-Dec-18 World View -- Generational Dynamics analysis of the troop withdrawal from Syria

[Higgenbotham]

> If the bubble continues, there won't be a way for a person over 60
> to survive because age discrimination will render them jobless as
> you've noted and inflation will eat up every older person's
> savings who is not in the stock market. Retired people can
> survive off the stock market, as many are doing, but once it
> crashes, they will lose everything. I see no good answer for
> anyone over 55 except to be lucky enough to catch the crash, and
> for deflation to set in, at least for awhile. It's not likely to
> happen.

I agree. As you pointed out in another thread, the suicide rate is
already increasing, and a stock market crash would certainly cause a
giant sucking sound for the exits, to paraphrase a former independent
presidential candidate.

How does your imminent fatherhood figure in?

Any way I slice it or dice it, there are going to be massive increases in suicides of those over 60, either due to a crash or more inflation. People over 60 simply won't be able to make ends meet because they will be unemployed or underemployed at best and there isn't going to be enough income. As after the collapse of the Soviet Union, many more than currently will drink themselves or overdose themselves to death. According to what I read, it was mainly those 45 and up.

On the other topic, I went to the ob gyn office a couple weeks ago and it cost $500 to say hello and $500 for a sonogram. No wonder the birth rate is a record lows. As is normally done in these situations, I am keeping up appearances on the home front with optimistic talk about the coming crash and how it will happen any day now, along with talk about how much I squeezed out of the market on any given day, week, or month. But there is no talk about what happens if it goes parabolic and I can't manage it.

[FishbellykanakaDude]

I do love the cheeriness, today! <chuckle!>

..hey, if ya' can't laugh at "stuff", don't involve yourself in "stuff",.. where "stuff" is a lovely all-purpose placeholder that might stand for, oh, I don't know,.. "risky gambles" or "life" or "a broken-in-half surfboard halfway between the breakers and the damned reef shallows".

I'll be using just plain old sea water as my chemical-'o-doom,.. 'though if I don't get cuttin' and epoxyin' I'll have to simply swim out to the south-west, duckin' the surf, to see how close I can get to Polynesia via my not-too-awful Australian Crawl stroke.

..although, I suppose I COULD get (buy/steal/beg, probably beg) a teeny piece a crap sail powered dinghy to "invade the west ocean".

Or,.. a SUP! Get it OVER with, eh? <chuckle!>

[John]

** 10-Jul-2019 Les Désespérés -- The desperate ones -- Jacques Brel

Les Désespérés -- The desperate ones -- Jacques Brel

They hold each other's hand
They walk without a sound
Down forgotten streets
Their shadows kiss the ground
Their footsteps sing a song
That's ended before it's begun
They walk without a sound
The desperate ones

Just like the tiptoe moth
They dance before the flame
They've burned their hearts so much
That death is just a name
And if love calls again
So foolishly they run
They run without a sound
The desperate ones

I know the road they're on
I've walked their crooked mile
A hundred times or more
I drank their cup of bile
They watch their dreams go down
Behind the setting sun
They walk without a sound
The desperate ones

And underneath the bridge
The waters sweet and deep
There is the journey's end
The land of endless sleep
They cry to us for help
We think it's all in fun
They cry without a sound
The desperate ones

Let he who threw the stone at them
Stand up and take a bow
He knows the verb to love
But he'll never know how
On the bridge of evermore
They disappear one by one
Disappear without a sound
The desperate ones

Les Désespérés - Jacques Brel

Se tiennent par la main
Et marchent en silence
Dans ces villes éteintes
Que le crachin balance
Ne sonnent que leurs pas
Pas à pas fredonnés
Ils marchent en silence
Les désespérés

Ils ont brûlé leurs ailes
Ils ont perdu leurs branches
Tellement naufragés
Que la mort paraît blanche
Ils reviennent d´amour
Ils se sont réveillés
Ils marchent en silence
Les désespérés

Et je sais leur chemin
Pour l´avoir cheminé
Déjà plus de cent fois
Cent fois plus qu´à moitié
Moins vieux ou plus meurtris
Ils vont le terminer
Ils marchent en silence
Les désespérés

Lente sous le pont
L´eau est douce et profonde
Voici la bonne hôtesse
Voici la fin du monde
Ils pleurent leurs prénoms
Comme de jeunes mariés
Et fondent en silence
Les désespérés

Que se lève celui
Qui leur lance la pierre
Ils ne sait de l´amour
Que le verbe "s´aimer"
Sur le pont n´est plus rien
Qu´une brume légère
Ça s´oublie en silence
Ceux qui ont espéré

[Higgenbotham]

"risky gambles"

It's all a risky gamble at this point. The game has been set up so that there will be winners and there will be losers. But in the interim we don't know what winning and losing will really mean because the living will very likely envy the dead before this is over. One day, I may say to myself, "Damn, Xenakis got out when it was easy to get out, and the best tools were available. I really envy that dude! He was smart!"

[Guest]

You guys are depressing.

The stock market can crash, the economy can outlast your personal situation but that doesn't mean you have to give up.

People who survived the Hiroshima bomb didn't give up.

An elderly survivor of the blast lies covered with flies in a hospital set up in what was a bank.

Some victims of the catastrophe take refuge in the rubble of a bank that was transformed to house the wounded and homeless.

[FishbellykanakaDude]

"risky gambles"

It's all a risky gamble at this point. The game has been set up so that there will be winners and there will be losers. But in the interim we don't know what winning and losing will really mean because the living will very likely envy the dead before this is over. One day, I may say to myself, "Damn, Xenakis got out when it was easy to get out, and the best tools were available. I really envy that dude! He was smart!"

That's why, in my own mind at least, and perhaps other's, "life" equals "risky gamble".

Actually, if it DOESN'T mean that, you're not doing it right.

[FishbellykanakaDude]

** 10-Jul-2019 Les Désespérés -- The desperate ones -- Jacques Brel

Les Désespérés - Jacques Brel

Se tiennent par la main
Et marchent en silence
Dans ces villes éteintes
Que le crachin balance
Ne sonnent que leurs pas
Pas à pas fredonnés
Ils marchent en silence
Les désespérés

Ils ont brûlé leurs ailes
Ils ont perdu leurs branches
Tellement naufragés
Que la mort paraît blanche
Ils reviennent d´amour
Ils se sont réveillés
Ils marchent en silence
Les désespérés

Et je sais leur chemin
Pour l´avoir cheminé
Déjà plus de cent fois
Cent fois plus qu´à moitié
Moins vieux ou plus meurtris
Ils vont le terminer
Ils marchent en silence
Les désespérés

Lente sous le pont
L´eau est douce et profonde
Voici la bonne hôtesse
Voici la fin du monde
Ils pleurent leurs prénoms
Comme de jeunes mariés
Et fondent en silence
Les désespérés

Que se lève celui
Qui leur lance la pierre
Ils ne sait de l´amour
Que le verbe "s´aimer"
Sur le pont n´est plus rien
Qu´une brume légère
Ça s´oublie en silence
Ceux qui ont espéré

..I like it in the French. I like MANY things in the French. This is getting overly intimate. Shutting up, now...

Jacques Brel - Les Désespérés

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE33n9EHwds

[Guest]

In all seriousness, if there is a nuclear war, I don't want to live through it. Is it possible to buy cyanide online? I don't want to hang myself or jump off a building. I want to take pills. I want to die as quickly and painlessly as possible.

And now; I'm not winding anyone up. This is a sincere request.

[John]

** 11-Jul-2019 Cyanide online

> In all seriousness, if there is a nuclear war, I don't want to
> live through it. Is it possible to buy cyanide online? I don't
> want to hang myself or jump off a building. I want to take
> pills. I want to die as quickly and painlessly as possible.

> And now; I'm not winding anyone up. This is a sincere
> request.

The government makes it as difficult as possible to get a "suicide
pill."

This is the same government that considers it perfectly OK for a
doctor to take an iron bar, shove it up a woman's birth canal, and
bash open the baby's head just before birth in order to kill it.
Incidentally, I'm neither pro-life nor pro-abortion. I'm simply
pointing out the hypocrisy in the contrast in attitudes between
killing a baby and letting an adult take his own life.

Although there are no "suicide pills," there are still lots of choices
for suicide. The best source of information is the "Peaceful Pill
Handbook" (PPH) that I referenced above. It discusses dozens of
methods, and compares them.

The book discusses cyanide, and points out that it's almost impossible
to obtain it, and it's illegal to even own it. But here's an
important warning: There are lots of people who want things like
cyanide, because they want to kill themselves, and they fall prey to
Chinese vendors who will charge you $800 for a supply of cyanide, and
will send you a package containing nothing but sugar. Desperate
people who want to kill themselves are easy prey for these Chinese
vendors. However, many of the substances described in the PPH have
commercial purposes, and so they're easily available on Amazon and
elsewhere. If you buy the PPH online service, then it also has a
private forum where you can discuss your choices.

The advice I would give is as follows: You'll be dead so you'll get
what you want, but think of the mess that the people left behind will
have to clean up. Preparation will take you several months. Take
whatever steps you can so that they'll know what's coming, and so that
your death won't cause them unbearable financial, legal or
psychological problems.

[Higgenbotham]

That's why, in my own mind at least, and perhaps other's, "life" equals "risky gamble".

Actually, if it DOESN'T mean that, you're not doing it right.

I believe I understand the thought process. Generically speaking, life operates on the "edge of chaos" because the future is unknown. For example, driving a car is a "risky gamble" because it's unknown whether, for example, a drunk will swerve into your lane and kill you, yet you take the risk of driving anyway. But you also presumably mitigate that risk to the greatest extent possible.

There are things civilizations normally do to mitigate risk (such as requiring seat belts, etc.) and that is one of the supposed benefits of having a civilization. One is to pay a rate of interest on savings to those who have performed their societal obligation to work, have diligently saved according to prescribed rules of thumb, and can no longer work. For the most part, this was abolished in 2008 to promote "risky gambles". I would submit that what was done to John and others who were retired and did not want to be forced into "risky gambles" was uncivilized and, for those, there was no benefit to this civilizational arrangement because it did not properly mitigate risk and required "risky gambles" where not appropriate.

We read that the Illinois pension funds (among others) are going to be bailed out by the taxpayers. To a large extent, these bailouts are necessary because the rate of interest was lowered to near zero for 11 years. So who bails out the retirees who saved their own money and collected little to no interest? Why do the pension funds get bailed out but private savers (particularly retirees who have saved more due to being in that stage of life) don't?

Also, if retirees are not able to collect any interest on their savings, why is rampant age discrimination allowed? Either set a rate of interest that is reasonable or allow them to work.