an argument for a deflationary policy in the You Ess of Heeeeey

[Phox]

Incidentally, where are your family and friends in all of this?  No one (or very few) can be an island and survive.  I tried my very hardest to never ask for help when I was still struggling, but without my family and close friends (mostly friends as my parents could barely take care of themselves much less two children), it's highly likely I'd still find myself in a bad situation.

Welcome to my world. I am only able to live like I do because of my financial aid checks. They keep getting smaller and smaller. The fact remains that I am unemployed (and to most places unemployable), and unless I secure an alternate means of income, I will be in a pretty bad situation by May. And the thing is, Pickles, my friends can't help, because they're doing well as it is to make ends meet. My parents... hahahaha, well, we leave them out of this. It's not for lack of trying, nor pride, nor any personal failing.

[Doktor Howl]

Incidentally, where are your family and friends in all of this?  No one (or very few) can be an island and survive.  I tried my very hardest to never ask for help when I was still struggling, but without my family and close friends (mostly friends as my parents could barely take care of themselves much less two children), it's highly likely I'd still find myself in a bad situation.

Welcome to my world. I am only able to live like I do because of my financial aid checks. They keep getting smaller and smaller. The fact remains that I am unemployed (and to most places unemployable), and unless I secure an alternate means of income, I will be in a pretty bad situation by May. And the thing is, Pickles, my friends can't help, because they're doing well as it is to make ends meet. My parents... hahahaha, well, we leave them out of this. It's not for lack of trying, nor pride, nor any personal failing.

The system is broken, so the obvious thing to do, of course, is blame the people that have precisely zero control over it.

So, it's just like my job.

[Phox]

Incidentally, where are your family and friends in all of this?  No one (or very few) can be an island and survive.  I tried my very hardest to never ask for help when I was still struggling, but without my family and close friends (mostly friends as my parents could barely take care of themselves much less two children), it's highly likely I'd still find myself in a bad situation.

Welcome to my world. I am only able to live like I do because of my financial aid checks. They keep getting smaller and smaller. The fact remains that I am unemployed (and to most places unemployable), and unless I secure an alternate means of income, I will be in a pretty bad situation by May. And the thing is, Pickles, my friends can't help, because they're doing well as it is to make ends meet. My parents... hahahaha, well, we leave them out of this. It's not for lack of trying, nor pride, nor any personal failing.

The system is broken, so the obvious thing to do, of course, is blame the people that have precisely zero control over it.

So, it's just like my job.

Yup, the system's fucked. But, Dok, fixing the system is easy. All you have to do is make it deflationary! That way my checks will get bigger and bigger, rent will go down, my friends will be able to lend me a hand, and oh yes, my parents will still totally hate me, but they will be much better off. 

[Doktor Howl]

[Yup, the system's fucked. But, Dok, fixing the system is easy. All you have to do is make it deflationary! That way my checks will get bigger and bigger, rent will go down,

[Disco Pickle]

Incidentally, where are your family and friends in all of this?  

For some reason forgot you guys know each other.

Pickle, you can't make exceptions because some dude just needed to get their broken arm fixed or whatever.  What you want to happen to people with poor self-control, this same thing would have to happen to everyone else.  And you know, I'm not talking about myself here, because I don't even qualify for credit, and my income is still low enough that I receive state help.  Anyone who works twenty hours a week at minimum wage no longer qualifies, but they got rent and utilities, gas, food, all that stuff to pay, and what are they going to pay it with?  They don't have enough money, so credit cards it is.

Freeky, my opinions are colored by my own personal experience.  I'm frequently wrong about things, or at least believe things that some people would say is cruel or "inhuman" because they appear to lack compassion.  I grew up in a hard home with little food and lots of drugs.  My sister and I both were looking at a possibility of continuing that family tradition unless we got out of there and ended our childhood early in favor of a better future.  We started with nothing, no support network, no family to speak of, we've both worked some of the shittiest jobs you can imagine just to stay fed, and now, after 15 years of struggling, she's a manager at a bank making more money than me, and I'm working in a technical field I never even went to college to study.  I have a healthy streak of "If we can do it, other people can" and that'll probably rub people the wrong way but it's what I believe.

But we all know I have the wrong values.

I'm living with Dok, basically for free.  My parents are paying for y car, though they frequently wish that i could help pay for it (so do I).  The medical bills I just skipped out on, and hopefully I'll be able to find the collectors who have it when I get income.

FFS, I'm using child support to pay for my classes.  I am basically an example of the world's biggest piece of shit, okay?  So do me a favor and don't tell ME that I have help, because I'm already using all that shit up.

That's the kind of guy I imagined Dok is.  The type of guy I try and be as well.  If any of my friends gets knocked down, my door is always open and there's always enough food to share.

No, you're not.  You're on hard times.  That doesn't make you a piece of shit, a bad person, any of that.  That's a horrible thing to say and think about yourself.  You're awesome and that awesomeness doesn't change because you're not making much money.

[Doktor Howl]

Freeky, my opinions are colored by my own personal experience.  I'm frequently wrong about things, or at least believe things that some people would say is cruel or "inhuman" because they appear to lack compassion.  I grew up in a hard home with little food and lots of drugs.  

Unnecessary to state the above.  It is a well-documented fact that all Libertarians grew up in a cardboard box, fighting rats for the scraps of filth that came down the sluice, and worked their way up to living in a castle made out of the tanned hides of their unsuccessful competition.

[Disco Pickle]

Freeky, my opinions are colored by my own personal experience.  I'm frequently wrong about things, or at least believe things that some people would say is cruel or "inhuman" because they appear to lack compassion.  I grew up in a hard home with little food and lots of drugs.  

Unnecessary to state the above.  It is a well-documented fact that all Libertarians grew up in a cardboard box, fighting rats for the scraps of filth that came down the sluice, and worked their way up to living in a castle made out of the tanned hides of their unsuccessful competition.

Yeah, I know it's cliche as hell.  Doesn't change the facts.

[Freeky]

Pickle, honey darling.  Listen here to me a minute, okay? 


Even if is true, you are very.  Very.  Lucky.  Perhaps a handful of people in the world can achieve a rags-to-riches story.  For the rest of us, we have to deal with MOTHER FUCKING REALITY WHICH IS COLD AND HEARTLESS AND ACTIVELY SEEKS TO CRUSH THE POOR AND DESTITUTE BENEATH ITS MONSTROUS HEEL.  Please to keep this in mind when you are basing your opinions on your happy shiny good good experiences. 

Thanks.

[Doktor Howl]

Pickle, honey darling.  Listen here to me a minute, okay? 


Even if is true, you are very.  Very.  Lucky.  Perhaps a handful of people in the world can achieve a rags-to-riches story.  For the rest of us, we have to deal with MOTHER FUCKING REALITY WHICH IS COLD AND HEARTLESS AND ACTIVELY SEEKS TO CRUSH THE POOR AND DESTITUTE BENEATH ITS MONSTROUS HEEL.  Please to keep this in mind when you are basing your opinions on your happy shiny good good experiences. 

Thanks.

You just made Horatio Alger cry.

I hope you're happy.

[Freeky]

Pickle, honey darling.  Listen here to me a minute, okay? 


Even if is true, you are very.  Very.  Lucky.  Perhaps a handful of people in the world can achieve a rags-to-riches story.  For the rest of us, we have to deal with MOTHER FUCKING REALITY WHICH IS COLD AND HEARTLESS AND ACTIVELY SEEKS TO CRUSH THE POOR AND DESTITUTE BENEATH ITS MONSTROUS HEEL.  Please to keep this in mind when you are basing your opinions on your happy shiny good good experiences. 

Thanks.

You just made Horatio Alger cry.

I hope you're happy.

Fuck that guy in the eye socket. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Freeky, my opinions are colored by my own personal experience.  I'm frequently wrong about things, or at least believe things that some people would say is cruel or "inhuman" because they appear to lack compassion.  I grew up in a hard home with little food and lots of drugs.  

Unnecessary to state the above.  It is a well-documented fact that all Libertarians grew up in a cardboard box, fighting rats for the scraps of filth that came down the sluice, and worked their way up to living in a castle made out of the tanned hides of their unsuccessful competition.

Yeah, I know it's cliche as hell.  Doesn't change the facts.

I think you need a perspective shift. For everyone who DOES make it out of a bad situation OK, there are nine more who don't. A huge part of what means you make it out OK is simple luck; in my case, the luck was that my parents are highly intelligent and come from educated families. What does that have to do with it, you might ask? I was raised with the expectation that people read for pleasure. I was poor, sometimes hungry, didn't go to school, and at times was perilously close to homeless, but I was highly literate and I had a library card.

So, you might use that as an area of judgement upon people who don't have that advantage... "Anyone has that opportunity!", you might say.

Except that isn't true. Anyone COULD have that opportunity, if they only knew it existed and understood what it could mean for them. Some kids happen upon it by chance, and they usually do well for themselves. But kids from families who aren't highly literate usually do not, themselves, go on to be highly literate.

So, what if you hadn't been one of the ones who made it? I bet you can think back and remember some close calls, some critical turning points where if something had gone differently, it could have been disastrous. What if you hadn't been born with a relatively high potential for intelligence? That is luck.

On some level, Pickle, you didn't make it because you're better. You made it because you're lucky. 

[Disco Pickle]

Pickle, honey darling.  Listen here to me a minute, okay? 


Even if is true, you are very.  Very.  Lucky.  Perhaps a handful of people in the world can achieve a rags-to-riches story.  For the rest of us, we have to deal with MOTHER FUCKING REALITY WHICH IS COLD AND HEARTLESS AND ACTIVELY SEEKS TO CRUSH THE POOR AND DESTITUTE BENEATH ITS MONSTROUS HEEL.  Please to keep this in mind when you are basing your opinions on your happy shiny good good experiences. 

Thanks.

Noted.  I don't mean to seem insensitive to your situation.  I'm still learning and plan to for the rest of my life.  This is just one more lesson.

[Disco Pickle]

Freeky, my opinions are colored by my own personal experience.  I'm frequently wrong about things, or at least believe things that some people would say is cruel or "inhuman" because they appear to lack compassion.  I grew up in a hard home with little food and lots of drugs.  

Unnecessary to state the above.  It is a well-documented fact that all Libertarians grew up in a cardboard box, fighting rats for the scraps of filth that came down the sluice, and worked their way up to living in a castle made out of the tanned hides of their unsuccessful competition.

Yeah, I know it's cliche as hell.  Doesn't change the facts.

I think you need a perspective shift. For everyone who DOES make it out of a bad situation OK, there are nine more who don't. A huge part of what means you make it out OK is simple luck; in my case, the luck was that my parents are highly intelligent and come from educated families. What does that have to do with it, you might ask? I was raised with the expectation that people read for pleasure. I was poor, sometimes hungry, didn't go to school, and at times was perilously close to homeless, but I was highly literate and I had a library card.

So, you might use that as an area of judgement upon people who don't have that advantage... "Anyone has that opportunity!", you might say.

Except that isn't true. Anyone COULD have that opportunity, if they only knew it existed and understood what it could mean for them. Some kids happen upon it by chance, and they usually do well for themselves. But kids from families who aren't highly literate usually do not, themselves, go on to be highly literate.

So, what if you hadn't been one of the ones who made it? I bet you can think back and remember some close calls, some critical turning points where if something had gone differently, it could have been disastrous. What if you hadn't been born with a relatively high potential for intelligence? That is luck.

On some level, Pickle, you didn't make it because you're better. You made it because you're lucky. 

Oh, plenty of times when a bad decision or some chance happening would have fucked me.  That actually never goes away in my experience and so I've become pretty good at planning, and then having a backup plan and a backup for the backup.

Still, you can't plan for everything and I'm no more than one really bad accident or stupid decision away from being really set back.  I take a lot fewer risks in everything now that I have a spawn to care for.  I recognize there's luck involved, but it's never been primarily luck.  It's been learning and learning and making contacts and doing whatever I do as best I can possibly do it.

[Freeky]

Pickle, honey darling.  Listen here to me a minute, okay? 


Even if is true, you are very.  Very.  Lucky.  Perhaps a handful of people in the world can achieve a rags-to-riches story.  For the rest of us, we have to deal with MOTHER FUCKING REALITY WHICH IS COLD AND HEARTLESS AND ACTIVELY SEEKS TO CRUSH THE POOR AND DESTITUTE BENEATH ITS MONSTROUS HEEL.  Please to keep this in mind when you are basing your opinions on your happy shiny good good experiences. 

Thanks.

Noted.  I don't mean to seem insensitive to your situation.  I'm still learning and plan to for the rest of my life.  This is just one more lesson.

A hint that your thinking is flawed, at least here, at least most of the time,  is that you will be told that a thing you said is stupid.  That doesn't mean, for some people who say it, that they mean YOU are stupid, it means that the thinking you used to get to that idea was stupid (or just flawed).

You can't count on that though, since breaking people's balls is just funny sometimes.

[Freeky]

Oh, plenty of times when a bad decision or some chance happening would have fucked me.  That actually never goes away in my experience and so I've become pretty good at planning, and then having a backup plan and a backup for the backup.

Still, you can't plan for everything and I'm no more than one really bad accident or stupid decision away from being really set back.  I take a lot fewer risks in everything now that I have a spawn to care for.  I recognize there's luck involved, but it's never been primarily luck.  It's been learning and learning and making contacts and doing whatever I do as best I can possibly do it.

No no no no no.  See, you are dismissing the luck argument again in favor of "If I can do it anyone can" again.  You won't get anywhere in learning about this particular subject, and thus you won't evolve as a human being, unless you do.  Planning may have had something to do with your success, but making contacts is luck, and making the right decision the first time was luck, and your success is due in large part to luck.