There are Four Expectations of every living, breathing American adult...
You are expected to work, pay taxes, obey the law and consume.
Anything beyond that, and no one really cares what you do.
When you work, you are not only generating the revenue to pay taxes and consume but usually are so absorbed in your own life and hopefully to government, so utterly exhausted at the end of each day, you don't have time or interest to follow the daily corruptions and economic Lies they spew..
A remote channel 'click' -- that took care of that..
~ How cool.. four people talking to others but not each other inches away
When you pay taxes, obviously it gives the government the revenue necessary to throw away on needless war and other frivolities most people would never willingly pay for if allowed to directly specify what areas of government were to receive their taxes.
And obeying the law is obvious-- no one wants others to do them physical, emotional or economic harm. Of course government isn't so much concerned with that-- it is more interested in making sure you don't galvanize protest and do so publicly..
Quite OK to say whatever you wish in protest "pens" far away from where the targets of such demonstration may hear.. Better yet, pick up a stuffed teddy bear in the privacy of your home and scream at that..
Just don't find like-minded people who share the anger and build a consensus then a larger movement-- That has to be stomped out.
And oh yes.. the fourth thing -- Consume.
And on that count, government and the Fed is worried.
See, we're not consuming enough, especially the 'Millennials"
From Yahoo News:
"They’re narcissistic. Apathetic. Pampered. And addicted to their four-inch screens.
If you believe the conventional wisdom about the millennial generation — those 16 to 34 years of age, by most calculations — you’ve got considerable reason to worry about the future of the U.S. economy.
Millennials show far less interest in buying cars, homes and other big-ticket items than their parents did at the same age, which has generated an intense effort among companies that produce those things to crack the code of these crazy kids and figure out how to sell them stuff."
That means more insipid commercials filled with taglines and awful puns, where strategically every race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and age demographic is represented in a 15 second spot...
~ More 'cool' kids socializing w/ others far away and not each other...
Because we all know all it takes for a Hispanic or lesbian or a Sikh to buy a product is seeing a representation of them in the far background smiling goofily at a car or truck since we must be all too stupid to buy something for real reasons like price or quality or value...
But we digress...
"Millennials seem to scoff at the open road. The percentage of 16-to-24-year-olds with a driver’s license has dropped sharply since 1997, and is now below 70% for the first time since 1963...
Millennials, as a whole, are also buying homes later than prior generations, having children later and delaying their careers. It’s as if America’s youth are rejecting social conventions that generations have held in common for decades...
~ iPod buds shoved firmly into ear canals to block out life
The national unemployment rate is 7.5%, but it’s 16.1% for 16-to-24-year-olds. Many baby boomers are working longer, to rebuild wealth lost during the recent recession, which has pushed the retirement age to the highest level in more than two decades. That has reduced turnover in the labor force, further limiting openings for younger workers in an already challenging job market."
As Scooby Doo would say, "Ro-Ro!" (Uh Oh ! translated for adults)
Its the greed and short-sightedness of the system that has altered the spending habits of a generation of young people.
No one in power has the guts to come clean and admit going to college is an Utter waste of money and most should not be attending. And parents don't seem to possess original thought so they keep pushing it on their children..
As a result many, many young people attend, party hard and leave with a degree in worthlessness and debt that shackles them Forever...
And no one in any position of power wishes to create meaningful jobs that pay a good wage. Everyone is content with us being a finance economy filled with lots of temp jobs or a service economy or an entertainment and porn economy.. anything but a manufacturing one.
In reality, this has been going on for generations but is just more dramatic in the present-- this expectation that everyone must start at the absolute bottom with shit wages and no benefits and work, work, work their way up slow and incremental in little turtle crawls until by the time they make good money, they are choked with bills and responsibilities, hate their job and hate their life..
~ $300 noise-reduction headphones to block out other 'humans'
Doesn't matter if you're brilliant or super-talented or exceptional.. Nope-- bottom. No exceptions-- Everyone climbs the ladder and sells their soul rung by rung...
Besides, no boss has a strong enough ego and self-esteem to hire the person who will ultimately replace him/her...
So what has happened is this: Young people are desperately needed to consume yet not given the jobs to create the wages needed much less enough income and social security taxes to keep the ball rolling and are tens of thousands in debt before allowed to take their first legal drink at a bar...
And because most young people are docile and express frustration in cellphone keystrokes rather than outward expression i.e. protests and sit-ins, few to none know or care of their concerns or how their future is being systematically taken from them.
One of the most popular little sayings from President Kennedy came from his Inaugural address where he espouses, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"
Its clever.. has a nice cadence.. but it is also utterly wrong...
Especially today.
If government wants to have so much power and control over our lives and constantly look to curtail our freedoms and liberties and steal more of our money via higher taxes, then it owes more in return than a shit slogan that we the people should make no demands upon it.
The correct slogan should be "Ask not what I should do for my country when my country does not care of me. Ask what my country shall do to improve the quality of my life, and to make it so"
Squeaky wheels get the grease