The “Middle Class”, Public Service Union Workers, & why Economies are shrinking presently

          The “Middle Class” is not helping the economy grow because presently they are in debt to banks (ex: credit cards, line of credits, and mortgages).  In other words, the “Middle Class’s” earnings are paying one lender.  It is going from their employer to the bank.  That means that their cash is not being dispersed throughout the economy through consumption (which occurred during the “Golden Era” and when most economies were robust).  A national and regional economy can only grow if people consume wisely.  Being in debt is bad for the economy, good for the lender.  This is why economies are shrinking and why markets correct themselves from time to time.  If the “Middle Class” (who has the highest purchasing power in an economy -other than the Rich and Wealthy) is not consuming, it means companies and small businesses are missing their profit margins (which is occurring presently).  The Rich and Wealthy often shop at “Higher end” retailers, which leaves majority of the others retailers and small businesses outside that “high end” scope, open to the “Middle Class” and the“Working Poor” to prop up and keep open through their earnings.  However, since the “Middle Class”  is highly in debt to one lender, their money can no longer prop up those retailers and small businesses (who are either closing or moving to other locations where they can meet or exceed their profit margins).
         Now, add to the fact that the “Middle Class” is predominately public service sector workers such as nurses, teachers, E.M.S., Firefighters, Social Service Workers, and Cops who earn their wages from public tax dollars and this is the sector that needs to be eliminated in order to disperse the money everywhere.  This is why the market is targeting the public sector workers presently so that it can break the unions, allow other workers to enter the workforce, and allow money to be dispersed throughout the economy.  Since most public service workers do not own small businesses, this is leaving a huge hole for economies to try and fill (which they cannot) without investment.  Since investment will not come without eliminating the public service sector unions we are presently in a quandary.
         Furthermore, if foreign investment and corporate investment does not come into the country and the public service sector continues to remain the way they are presently, then post secondary institutes will keenly depend on international students to keep them open since majority of jobs will not be available for post secondary graduates.  This will allow “brain drains” to occur since post secondary graduates who are in debt do not have the luxury to be unemployed.  “Locally born citizens,” who are witnessing the high amount of unemployed post-secondary graduates in their country and in their region will not allow themselves to enter into post secondary institutes because without an opportunity to work, there is no incentive to go into debt.  Presently, most post secondary programs are also being computerized which in other words means they are becoming more online courses and less in class courses.  This too brings up the question of why post secondary institutes are receiving government subsidies and why tuition is so high (which will be sorted out in the future with more difficult choices made).        Nevertheless, eliminating the unions and bringing in the private sector does create precarious employment but not receiving the private sector and their investments means, no jobs will be available for those unemployed and those currently 16-30 years of age (which is the highest unemployed age group).  If a huge underclass of skilled workers remain without work and in debt and the government seems to be accruing debt in order to keep the public service unions in place, then the markets will step in by bringing down the credit rating of that country (since no economy can hold onto so much debt without raising taxes.  Since small businesses and corporations will also be closing due to missing their “profit margins”, raising taxes in order to keep the public service workers in place  means speeding up more job losses and eliminating many of the smaller business at a expedient pace).
        Logically, making the deal with Business might be against what we “morally” feel is correct since it creates job losses, allows for wage freezes, and eliminates unions -however if we do not make the deal with business (and since we cannot stop technology from creeping into our countries and our regions) jobs losses will still occur.  If we cannot stop “brain drains” from occurring for people looking for work –our regions and our countries will still be in peril because the dynamic of our country will have changed.  If we cannot stop small business owners from closing and we cannot stop corporations from going somewhere cheaper to find cheaper labor, then what is left is an economy that cannot pay its debt off while having a huge underclass of unemployed workers dependent on the government who no longer can afford to pay for programs and services to sustain the large underclass of workers that are dependent on them in order to survive.  This situation will allow for austerity measures to be introduced.  In other words, either you make that deal now or you make it later.  However, making the deal with business later just involves more pain for all involved instead of making the deal now and allowing people to adjust themselves to it accordingly.  No one but the public sector union workers placed themselves into debt during the “Golden Age” with their choices, their lifestyles, and their purchases.  Instead of asking everyone else to make concessions and sacrifices for them to stay alive, it is time for them to step aside and allow jobs to be created and exist (whether they are high paying jobs or not, they are still jobs that will be created by the private sector and through investment into the region and into the country).  Governments can no longer go into debt to prop up their public service union workers.  The Cold War is over, the world of the 1950's to the 1990's ended, and with that said, public service unions have been on “borrowed time” since the 1990's and since the end of the Cold War.  The rapid increase of Globalization and the expedient advancement of technology world wide has put an end to the public service union workers.  It is time the public service union workers woke up to the social reality that faces them.  The "good old days" have passed.

A Repeating, Historical Cycle (in two quotes)

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
(PRESENTLY WE ARE AT THE "LOOSE FISCAL POLICY" PART IN OUR TIMELINE)

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the 
beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 
years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacencyFrom complacency to apathy;From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage."
(PRESENTLY WE ARE AT THE LAST FIVE STAGES IN OUR TIMELINE)

Let's do the honesty test:
1.) TAXES AND UNION DUES - Who has honestly ever looked at their paycheck and been happy paying taxes?  Or looked at their pay check and been elated paying union dues?  Who has ever been given a "high five" by a co-worker for paying taxes and union dues or for that matter, even "high fived" a co-worker for paying taxes and union dues?  Who has ever looked at their pay check, seen all the deductibles, and said, "money well spent"??  The truth is, NO ONE!!  When you look at the pay check you look at how much money you made because every minute at work is time you spent, giving all you have in order to make the wages you do.  Then when you look at the check, you realize it amounts to so little due to the heavy taxes and union dues you pay.  So logically speaking, is paying less taxes better than paying more taxes?? Paying less taxes would mean that the individual would be able to do what he needs to do with the profits he makes at work (as opposed to the government deciding what it wants to do with your hard earned tax money).  The government and it's services and it's service workers are not using the abundance of tax money on others as it often says it does (as the first quote mentions).  Often this is when they are raising their own wages and creating extra services and more regulations which will create jobs (at a minimal level) but will most definitely bring in more money to their coffers which again will allow for them to create jobs (at a minimal level) and again fill up their coffers   (Which brings us to the second point).

2.) CHARITIES - If you want to use your money from your pay check to help around the community, or to help out a charitable organization, or a political organization, please do help out and donate. Feel free to donate as much money as you want to a cause and to charity, or an organization, or to your community.  However, while doing it, why not get a tax break as well rather than paying taxes to services you will never need or use and which does not affect your life.  If you feel like donating to the hospital in your area please do.  If you feel like donating to your local firefighters or police, please do.  This way, your paying less taxes, serving your community more, and getting a tax break on top of it for helping something you truly care about as opposed to paying higher taxes for stuff you will never use.  Hospitals like St. Mike's, Sunnybrooke, Mount Sinai, etc. thrive and survive on fundraising and donations.  Toronto Scarborough Hospital who receives very little from donations and fundraising is struggling to stay alive.  This is why donating money and getting tax credits and tax breaks is essential three fold.  It helps you, it helps hospitals and patients, and it helps people keep jobs.  If you want to put more money towards retirement savings, or pay off your debt, or pay off your mortgage payments -please do.  However, all of this"self help "stuff only occurs when you pay less taxes and that can only be done when you reduce the size of government and you eliminate government debt (which does in turn reduce and eliminate government services and government workers).  WHICH BRINGS US TO OUR THIRD POINT.

3.) SOCIALISM AND SOCIALIST GOVERNMENTS - The "Hand out" mentality.  This mentality started in the 1950's due to "safety nets" needed and created by governments in order to ensure Communism and Socialism did not creep into their countries.  In order to stimulate their broken economies, countries borrowed money from private banks (who charged interest which is paid back by our taxes) in order to stimulate their national economies and create jobs.  This led to a "golden age" from the 1950's onward which crashed slightly in the late 1980's, and again crashed in the early 1990's (which led to Free Trades being signed in the 1990's).  Free Trade allowed markets to have full control over national economies and find ways for businesses to go into areas it was never a part of in the past.  It allowed for money to be brought into economies and into people's hands and allowed the private sector to pump money into the economy.  However, it took the more expensive jobs and the stronger unions and weakened them.  This is what the market does.  It zones in on certain sectors of the work world and eradicates it since the market is the greatest equalizer and what it says goes (not unions or governments.  They can either agree or disagree but that only prolongs the issue or speeds the healing process through acceptance or by denial).  In the 1980's it was the manufacturing sector that the markets zoned in on.  In the 1990's, it was teacher's unions.  By the late 2000's, it was the hospitals and the public service sector.  In truth, the market will always correct itself over time.  What people do with their money and opportunity is on them since the market allows choice by eliminating waste and by creating risk.  (Which brings us to our fourth point)

4.) OPPORTUNITY & RISK-  With risk, comes opportunity, exploitation, gains, and losses.  Stuff like "flipping houses", "managing stocks and portfolios" comes into play.   Risky markets also isolates many groups of people and populations by pushing them into trying to make "quick money" and a livelihood by entering the "black market".  The problem doesn't lie with the market though, it lies with human conditioning.  Everyone wants to make profit, a "little extra", a "quick buck", "fast money", etc..  People tend to stimulate their brains with images related to "predictive programming" and live their lives accordingly to what they want to see and what they see.  For national economies, governments and the business sectors allow for the entertainment sector to create marketing ads in order to stimulate their economies and create jobs by making their own populations consumers rather than savers.  This is what fuels the economy and creates jobs for people.  Spending, spending, spending, which is why when you read the poem above, abundance is mentioned.  The question that must be asked is why would you, as an individual, be mad at the greed of corporations who also realize abundance is fleeting, changeable, and a variable ?? (corporation are by the way competing against one another and are looking for an "edge", any "edge", when making profit).  In turn, this allows for the corporations to solely focus on profit and neutralize the human and emotional element when making decisions.   Corporations are looking for the quickest way to make cash and that means laying off people and bringing in technology that is available for them which will allow them to make profit.  If it is "human conditioning" and "predictive programming" which allows individuals to look for money anywhere and everywhere in order to create a particular lifestyle for yourself and your family, and it is people who run the corporate world and social institutions, do you think (using logic) that they would do anything different than what the ordinary person does when he is looking to make an "extra buck" here and there?  The corporation acts just like an individual with all the contradictions that comes with being a human being.  Corporations might say they are "doing it for others and for the betterment of the communities" but it is no different than individuals saying, "this choice I make is solely selfless and I don't do it for any gain to myself".  In every choice an individual makes he eliminates other choices that could have been made at that exact same moment.  The key in determining the choice often times is avoidance of pain (either his or others). The terms "Selfless" and "selfish" cannot be split from one another in any aspect of life.  They are intertwined with one another in every choice you make.  (Which brings us to our fifth point)

5.) MORALITY, RELIGION, AND PRAYER -"Two hands working together has done more than two hands clasped in prayer".  Though prayers allows a "moment to yourself" and allows for energy to circulate through your body and through the universe therefore re-vibrating around you and others, prayers do not stop wars, or rapes, or kidnappings from happening.  That all depends on what you do in the physical world and how much time you spend acting after you have visualized a path and a direction.  Use whatever motivates and inspires you, but do not think prayers can alter your physical reality without action being repeated and carried out (based on your perception).  Presently, the market is correcting itself (action).  Investors are not investing (action), spenders are not spending (action), and savers are not saving(action).  What this is allowing is for economies as a whole to shrink (action) because only through investment and spending (and borrowing from banks) does an economy revolve, circulate, and exist.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Money does not grow on trees and you cannot take money from one area, without it affecting another area.  With money being spent on the public sector workforce and public services so heavily (and being heavily mismanaged) we are at this present day crisis.  Jobs are being lost but there is nothing you can do about it than be grateful for the opportunities you have and utilizing the opportunities you have (whether they are many or few).  It is similar to an athlete being cut from a team or being traded.  There is nothing that the athlete can do but prove to the team that cut him that they were wrong about cutting him or trading him.  Same thing applies here. Investors are pulling back their money, spenders are not spending, and less people are borrowing from banks -which means the economy is shrinking gradually (and in some cases expediently).  Therefore, in order to keep your job or get into the work world, you have no choice but to work harder than you did before (and harder than the past two earlier generations in the previous decades where money was flowing into the economy steadily and jobs were easier to come by).  You must prove to yourself and the "team"/reality -that you are a survivor and you can make it.  If you don't work hard presently, you will drown in this present work world.  The educational system (that since the 1950's created the "hand out" mentality and entitlement mentality because it was teaching inside a box) allowed for students of that era to believe they were in the best country in the world (wherever they lived as long as they were in the First World).  The box that the educational system created, taught their students by comparison.  "The country you live in is so great because other countries don't have this". The educational system taught the students that by comparing social services and education to parts of the world that didn't have social services and education it made us better than them.  However, the education system did not teach those same students that the reason the First World was so great was because the First World was taking from the Third World and bringing the gains back to the First World.  The education system did not teach those students that those countries in the Third World did not have education, or social service, or jobs because the markets were eating away at them in order to create the comfort and life that the First World citizens lived in.  Without the market eating away and creating a Third World there, there would be no First World here, and like it was written earlier, you cannot take money from one area without it affecting another.  Money was taken from the First World to create Corporations(investment opportunities) who fed on countries coming out of the Colonial period and forced them into being the Third World.  Money was then brought into the First World from the Third World where it was spent on the economy (by re-investment, consumption, and over consumption -which in return created jobs and opportunities and risk for others who wanted nothing more than to partake in this exploitation of the Third World and in doing so bettering their own lives in the First World).  When the economy was good, how many people actually asked themselves, "why am I paying so little for this product?  Why am I not paying more?  Why is the person making this, not earning more and why am I not paying more for it to happen??"  It wasn't asked because money is hard to come by and if you are chasing the "American dream" in order to be "Successful", then everything else fades to black and your focus is solely on accumulation.  Hence, the argument about prayers being able to cleanse your body makes absolutely no sense 'nor has any logic.  Why in the past, many religious institutes taught their adherents, "though you are living in hell, your soul is free", "though your body is tainted while you live in the physical world, your soul is not".  Why still makes no sense since your soul is energy and energy vibrating is what connects the whole world together and connects all vibration and all material, immaterial, physical, and non-physical things together.  Hence, what is key here is your moral view and your perception of sin, otherwise, your actions in the physical world will always contradict your requests for"world peace" and "equality for all".  WHICH BRINGS US TO OUR SIXTH AND FINAL POINT

6.) COMPLETING THE CIRCLE -The circle/pattern could not be created without individuals trying to make a "quick buck", a "fast dollar"and by taking those risks to ensure it can happen.  By paying taxes, you limit the chance to choose what to do with your money.  You limit your chance in allowing an opportunity to help yourself (especially as you age) "For though you can be poor when you are young, you cannot be poor when you are old".  Raising taxes does not allow for economies to grow.  It only creates the opportunity for corruption to occur since so much money will not be accounted for when it is raised through taxes.  Money that the market needs to pay off debt will be shifted to creating more public service jobs and again the market will step in and correct it because just like energy, money needs to constantly move, and if it stays in one place, it is hazardous and explodes.  You can only fill up a cup so much before it spills.  In other words, "too much of one thing, is a bad thing" and if money is not moved, the market will force the move.  You can delay the market from correcting itself but you cannot stop it. That is why by taking personal responsibility for your choices and your actions, you allow the market to act naturally and you allow for less dependence on the government by individuals and therefore less need of government which means less taxes on individuals.  Again, if you choose to be "moral" and a philanthropist, then feel free to create organizations that will help individuals.    However heavy taxes and raising taxes will not solve the problem, they create more problems and a dependency issue.  This is why (as the quotes above explain), through hard work and risk (courage) you will create something.  Through the gains of Colonialism and World War 2 (and the Cold War) victorious countries exploited losing nations and other nations.  Victorious countries loaned money with a huge interest attached to it in order to gain for their own people and their own nations.  When that did not work as effectively as in the past and there was very little money to drain from losing countries and their citizens (and therefore very limited money allowed to be circulated in their own countries), those same victorious nations allowed for banks to free up money in their own countries so that their citizens could borrow and use and thus speed up the "condo surge", or the "housing surge", or the "entrepreneur surge" and invest into "small businesses opportunities".  Where money was still moving, the market corrected itself very slowly (i.e: Canada, France, U.K., Germany, U.S.A.).  In countries where money was barely moving, the market corrected itself quite expediently (i.e: Greece, Iceland, and Spain).  The only thing left to ask is, and what we started the article with at the onset in point one, taxes and union dues and what that does for money and the market.

We're in winter presently

Where we are presently

Disconnected from Reality (presently)