Could not find the original post.

But here’s more background:

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/chaya-raichik

link

By the way, the Southern Poverty Law Center has an encyclopedic data base on this sort of crap.

Further, I did make some good points regarding the last 50 years of failed pessimistic predictions. Although recent political trends do indeed look alarming at least in the short term! And environmental trends are a serious concern for longer than that.

At any rate, Happy New Year brother. I hope you find your way through the difficult personal times you face. For what it’s worth, we’re all here for you.

It took the Romans centuries to slide into medieval stupor. Time flows faster muchthese days, we have the internet.

Happy Fucking New Year.

America is in decline. “Its downhill all the way from here.”

In the ’70s and early ’80s, the USSR would pass us up and we will be a second rate power. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Japan would pass us up and we will be a second rate power. In the late ’90s and into the ’00s, the European Union will become the largest economy in the world and we will be a second rate power. In the ’10s China will pass us up in a decade and we will be a second rate power.

We have left them all in the rearview mirror every time. China is currently experiencing something akin to Japan’s epic decades long slowdown that began in the 90s and persists today. The American economy has a resilience based on so many economic assets and such amazing flexibility other nations cannot match. Capitalism is what they call creative destruction. The old and inefficient is replaced by the new powerful economic phoenix always rising from the ashes.

As for the youth of today, seriously, they don’t have a clue. They have been raised to believe they deserve everything for free: Free music, free movies, free games, free everything to download. No concept of the need to pay for these these thing in order for them to exist. Sure things cost more but we make more and things will cycle back.

I remember someone telling me about 15 years ago how the US economy was doomed in the long run because Social Security and Medicare obligations would reach $50T by 2050. He showed me all the numbers leading to this calculation at the time. I pointed out there were two obvious things missing in the analysis. He couldn’t guess what they were. Simple: Economic growth and inflation. $50T BACK THEN would be an unsustainable burden, but by 2050 it would a managable number.

I say thee nay to the doom sayers.

♫ Let them brush your rock and roll hair, let the good times roll ♫

Beware.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libs_of_TikTok

And there’s something else, too. These kids have been told from day one (by us!) that if you “work hard and play by the rules, eventually you will make it”. The unspoken corollary to that is, of course, if you give it your best and still can’t get anywhere it must be because something’s wrong with YOU. When you’re working two jobs and can’t make the rent on a cheap apartment, when you’re in hock for the rest of your life for the worthless college degree that left you with no real job skills, and where all the old farts on going on cruises and living in gated communities while you can’t afford to get that nasty rash on your back looked at.

Today’s kids are in a tough spot, but its not all their fault. Sometimes they think the world is hostile and malicious, but they’re young and they just don’t know that it is actually indifferent. And if their elders never taught them differently, can we really blame their children?

My parents grew up during the Great Depression, defeated both Fascism and Communism, but from them I heard the talk about the old days, and I learned that even times of unprecedented prosperity can end brutally and unexpectedly. I may have rolled my eyes then, but enough stuck to me that I was able to make some preparations for our current Age of Anxiety.

That young woman was never told the truth, at least, not the whole truth. She may be young and inexperienced and impatient and even a little overblown with her own sense of self-importance. But she was lied to, and she’s just now starting to figure that out. And she’s busting her ass at two jobs and can’t even pay her bills, much less the interest on her student loans. She’s pissed, but she’s the future.

And every year there’s 1% less ice at the poles.