Unemployment

Unemployment is a direct result of the profit motive in a capitalist economy.

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When does unemployment happen? What does it actually mean for unemployment to exist?

Unemployment does not mean that there is nothing to do!

For example, there can be homelessness, there can be sick people, there can be starvation, at the same time as there is unemployment.

The streets can be dirty, with lots of trash laying around, the infrastructure can be crumbling or inexistent, etc.

One would think that if that as long as those issues exist, there is work to do, and therefore there should not be any unemployment.

But if a poor person is starving, or homeless, or whatever, this does not lead to employment opportunities, because in a capitalist system, the economy is run by private owners, for the profits of the private owners.

The poor person has nothing. They are not an owner. So their needs do not lead to employment opportunities. 
In a capitalist system, it’s almost like those people don’t even exist at all.

The market is completely blind to a poor person starving.
Demand for goods and services is not when people actually need things for survival.

Demand for something is only recognized by the market system if it can be expressed in terms of willingness to pay. 
Poor people who can’t pay for housing don’t create a demand for housing.

Only people who have money can express their needs and desires in the market system. You vote with your money, and when you don’t have money, you don’t get to vote, your voice is silenced.

It’s only when a wealthy person can be made even wealthier, when there is a profit incentive for the wealthy, that there are jobs.

If the wealthy cannot be made any wealthier right now, then there is just nothing more to do as far as markets and capitalism is concerned, everything is already running at peak efficiency, since the only criteria taken into account for deciding if something is efficient or not, is whether it is profitable for the owners.

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This is something that people don’t seem to notice, or understand.

As a worker in a capitalist economy, the only thing you have to sell is your body.

If nobody wants to buy you for a couple of hours to use for their pleasure or power, then you don’t have anything at all.

Your wages are not based at all on what you actually do, or what is produced. Your wages are entirely a result of supply and demand.

In other words, you don’t get paid based on what you do. 
You get paid based on the ratio between how many desperate poor people there are, and how concentrated wealth ownership is.

If there are lots of desperate poor people that can do something, and few owners, then the wages will be low.

You could be well educated, and doing something extremely productive, it doesn’t really matter. If there are many other people who can do it, you can all forget your dreams of living a decent life, put away your master’s degrees, and start looking for unpaid internships and min wage jobs.

Likewise, the amount of jobs available is not a result of how much work there is to do, but is based on who controls the wealth and the money.

In the regular recession/depression cycles of the market economy, people have no money, therefore there are almost no jobs available because average people can’t pay for anything, therefore there is less employment, and less money available, and so on.

A recession doesn’t mean that there is nothing to do. 
It doesn’t mean that everyone is healthy. It doesn’t mean everyone has housing, it doesn’t mean that every kid has quality education.

It just means that there is no profit motive to provide any of those things, because the people have no money.

There is no market demand for anything when the people don’t have money.

Only unemployment: 
An oversupply of poor people with nothing to do but sell themselves by the hour, competing against each other to see who can accept the worse conditions.

Principles ?

 I used to believe principles were absolute. I grew up (like many people) reading stories about principled and idealistic people who gave up their lives for their honor. According to these, you’re either the hero who upholds your principles, or you’re the petty villain who gave up and made compromises.

After I grew up, I started to realize, life isn’t that clean cut. I realized that if a person is able to uphold a principle simply because that principle was never challenged, and they never need to make a difficult decision, that’s not being principled, that’s having privilege. And perhaps we should have a little bit of compassion for those who make the compromises.

I studied art in college, went to grad school for it.

When I graduated, I wanted to be a concept artist for games or movies. Of course, concept artist is the most coveted position in game production and the competition is insane. But, I have a dream. I’m going to go for it. Only losers give up. I found a non-game related desk job that paid the rent, I took out more student loans and got a second BA while working full time. I participated in various online art competitions.

And come 2008, the financial crisis hit. I got laid off.

I didn’t give up. I got my unemployment insurance and COBRA. I hunkered down and kept at it. It was depressing. So many game companies had gone under. I would send out resumes to THQ one week, and two weeks later, read the news about their bankruptcy.

6 months passed, my COBRA expired.

I didn’t get a single return from any game companies.

So, I lowered my expectations. Started to apply for any positions I can do, production, QA, anything, art or not. As long as I could get a game-related job.

Another 3 months passed, more companies went under. I wasn’t sure if I could get an extension of my unemployment.

I started to send resumes to non-game companies. Any job would do. As long as they needed people, and I could do the job, I would do it.

Mind you, I was living at my parents’ place. I didn’t have a mortgage, my student loan was on furlough. Yes, I was unemployed for 9 months, but I wasn’t in any real danger of being homeless.

In desperation, I went to blackjack dealer school, since casinos were the only place still hiring contractors.

I talked to people who had graduated and were working as dealers, getting to know the casino industry better, about what my future life might be. And at that moment, I gave up. I thought this was my life now. Finish training, get a job at a casino, and stand for long hours, in second-hand smoke, doing basic math for the rest of my life. Joint pain and lung cancer, a one-bedroom house in the middle of nowhere (California casinos are all built in the desert).

That’s how easy it was to kill my dream: all it took was a bad economy and 12 months of unemployment.

Of course, I eventually bounced back and found a job in the video game industry.

But I’ll always remember that moment when I accepted defeat and got myself ready for a different life. And that gave me a bit of a different perspective about people and their choices.

When I see people who work in retail, cashiers, cleaning crew, waitresses, telemarketers… The jobs that people look down upon. People think these people are either lazy or stupid. People play pranks on telemarketers and laugh about it.

They aren’t stupid or lazy or evil. They’re just desperate. They make compromises.

If a telemarketing company was hiring back in mid-2009, I would jump at the opportunity, and be ridiculed by the people I called. Imagine if it’s you, in that position, imagine if you have kids and mortgages, and your house was about to get foreclosed. Would you not take that job? Would you willing to go homeless because telemarketing as an industry has dubious morals and you wouldn’t lower yourself to that level?

And I realized the reason I get to be a principled person the majority of the time isn’t that I’m a better person. It is because I got lucky. I’m privileged enough to never have my principles challenged. I never need to choose between “feeding myself” and “my principles”. I never need to choose between “take your boss’s racism” and “be fired”. I never need to choose between “let your husband beat you” and “leave your home and live in a shelter”. I never need to choose between “my sexual orientation” and “my job”.

And if I were to put into that situation, I honestly don’t know how I would choose.

So now, my principle is: be kind and have compassion.

And I hope if my principle is challenged, I would have the courage to do the right thing

-Feifei Wang

Blessed ?

Wasted Your 20s ?

Imagine you don't like pizza.

 The guy you are dating really likes it so you say you love pizza to make him like you.

You don't like pizza and end up eating pizza often rather than speaking up.

You risk ending up angry at him for always picking pizza.

Your anger builds up. You can't see it now but you are not angry at him. You are angry at yourself.

This is people pleasing.

Now imagine you don't like pizza and all your friends like it. You say you don't like pizza, but you like spending time with them so decide that you can be flexible, that this time you can set your preferences aside to be accommodating.

That's being nice.

I understand how this can be a fine line but the first will make you feel used and resentful and diminished and the second will make you happy because you own where you stand and are being generous.

People pleasing is not about making things easier for others but rather involves compromising who you are. It means trying to make everyone happy at your expense and realizing that despite your effort it cannot be done.

It's a losing battle to play against yourself.

It's sacrificing you to such an extent you lose track of who you are.

That's not nice. Nice begins by being nice to yourself.

-Dushka Zapata

The Robots will come for you

Not all expectations are the same.

Do you expect the other person to send you flowers at work? To always be the one who pays the bill? To spend all their time with you? Do you expect the other to accommodate your emotions? (I feel jealous of your women friends so you can’t see them.) Do you expect the other person will be responsible for your happiness?

Reconsider those.

Do you expect to be treated with consideration, with respect? Do you expect a certain degree of empathy, understanding? Do you expect a mutual trust? Do you expect another to be interested in your life? Do you expect the person you are with to follow through on what they say they are going to do?

-Dushka

How to make Right Decisions ?

Will you start by “listening” and starting to read TODAY?

 “You’re too young to start a business, Son! There are no shortcuts!” my dad told me before I started my parking lot business outside my college campus.

“Come on! It can’t be that difficult, Dad! I’ll figure it out!”

I failed!

“Son, hard work is not good enough! You’ve got to work smart and stay disciplined!”

“You're telling me I’m stupid, Dad? What’s wrong with you!”

A few months later, still during my College years, I tried my second business … I purchased a Xerox machine to sell photocopies to students in an apartment building.

I failed!

My dad patiently was watching me fail.

Humiliated, I finally started listening to him.

“It’s not just your hard work, Son; It’s how smart you work!” he insisted.

What do you mean smart work? I asked offended.

“Son, in life you either learn from others’ mistakes or you learn from your own. It’s cheaper and faster to learn form others’ mistakes! You need to develop the habit of reading and listening to others!”

“Reading? That’s boring! Listening? I can hear you, Dad! I’m NOT deaf!”

After several years I finally understood the lessons my dad was trying to teach me.

“Never minimize the power of a book, Son! Books give you the experience of a lifetime in just a few hours. Imagine living 100 years in one year! What would that result in?”

“What do you mean, Dad?”

“If you develop the habit of reading, you could read 100 books in a year! That’s 100 years of knowledge!”

For the first time, I listened to him and I never forgot that!

Books are amazing! There may be thousands of books in a library or a book store, but their abundance will NEVER be a commodity. Never minimize the value of the wisdom each book contains!

1. Wealthy people develop the habit of reading.
2. Wealthy people develop the habit of listening to others, the reason they surround themselves with the best advisors in the world.

Will you start by “listening” and starting to read TODAY?

-Hector Quintanilla

Toxic Relationship

 1. Too Many Compromises

Often one-sided, if I may add.

Compromises are good, and if you want to build a healthy relationship, you must be ready to compromise. It might stink for a bit, but you made your partner happy and a few kisses later you’re totally fine with your choice.

However, while I’m saying that, I also want to add, that compromises shouldn’t conflict with your values, goals, dreams and overall wellbeing. They must be an exception.

That’s not the case with your partner, though. If you feel like you’ve been compromising for too long with too many things in your life, then that’s an indicator something’s not right.

In a toxic relationship, often the compromises are one-sided, and you feel like you’re going against yourself too much.

Is that your case?

2. Your Health Is Affected

Now, that’s something that not everyone will pay attention to.

However, if you are in a very toxic relationship, that’s literally what it happens – it poisons you and your mind. Sooner or later, your health gets worse. You feel depressed, low energised, lose or gain weight (depends on how your body reacts to stress). Your mental and physical health suffers from the toxicity in your life.

After the end of my last toxic relationship, I had lost so much weight that none of my clothes fitted me. I still keep a specific photo of me from that period, just to keep me aware that I should never again get myself into something like that.

3. You Feel You’ve Done Something Very Wrong

Have you got that weird feeling that you’ve done something horrible? That your choices aren’t leading you to the right place in life?

I had it.

I still remember how I sat down on the sofa in the living room and loudly asked myself: Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Is this how I will spend my life? Is this present also my future?

At this point, I panicked. I realised that if I have to spend the next 40 or 60 years of my life in this relationship, the way it was at that moment, I would be the most miserable and unhappier person I know. Right there and then, I decided that it’s time to break up with my partner.

Therefore, if you feel like something went very wrong with your life… you’re most likely in a toxic relationship.

Trust your guts.

-Jonathan S Perkins

Telltale Signs of Narcissim

 1. Deeply repressed shame

Narcissists don't feel much guilt because they think they are always right, and they don't believe their behaviors really affect anyone else. But they harbor a lot of shame. Shame is the belief that there is something deeply and permanently wrong or bad about who you are. Buried in a deeply repressed part of the narcissist are all the insecurities, fears, and rejected traits that he is constantly on guard to hide from everyone, including himself. The narcissist is acutely ashamed of all these rejected thoughts and feelings. Keeping their vulnerabilities hidden is essential to the narcissist's pretend self-esteem or false self. Ultimately, however, this makes it impossible for them to be completely real and transparent.

2. An inability to be truly vulnerable

Because of their inability to understand feelings, their lack of empathy, and constant need for self-protection, narcissists can't truly love or connect emotionally with other people. They cannot look at the world from anyone else's perspective. They're essentially emotionally blind and alone. This makes them emotionally needy. When one relationship is no longer satisfying, they often overlap relationships or start a new one as soon as possible. They desperately want someone to feel their pain, to sympathize with them, and to make everything just as they want it to be. It's a form of codependency, except they have little ability to respond to your pain or fear or even your day-to-day need for care and sympathy.

3. Lack of boundaries

Many people lack boundaries or cross other people's boundaries regularly, but among narcissists, this is status-quo behavior. Narcissists can't accurately see where they end and you begin. They are a lot like 2-year-old. They believe that everything belongs to them, everyone thinks and feels the same as they do, and everyone wants the same things they do. They are shocked and highly insulted to be told no. If a narcissist wants something from you, he'll go to great lengths to figure out how to get it through persistence, cajoling, demanding, rejecting, or pouting. These are all common narcissist behaviors.

4. Perfectionism

You can spot a narcissist through their extremely high need for everything to be perfect. They believe they should be perfect, you should be perfect, events should happen exactly as expected, and life should play out precisely as they envision it. This is an excruciatingly impossible demand, which results in the narcissist feeling dissatisfied and miserable much of the time. The demand for perfection leads the narcissist to complain and be constantly dissatisfied.

-Jonathan S Perkins

Wasted Your 20s ?

 I am way past that age, but I have some really good advice for you.

• You really do not have to worry too much about the time you have lost. Unfortunately that time would not come back, but you can do some significant improvements in your life and lifestyle for future.
• Fortunately, you can make up for all the things you could not do back in your twenties.

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• First of all, what you really need to do is to eliminate things that do not matter in your life. For example, cut connections with negative people, and then negative activities.
• You have to put an immediate stop to all those things. Without this you really will not change, and nothing will be better in future.
• This will sound hard, and feel bad in the beginning, but this is actually good for you. It will bring an immediate impact and then you can focus on great activities.

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Next, you should find three things in your life: Inspiration, motivation, and discipline.

• Inspiration: You have to find a set of people with whom you are willing to swap positions. Write down on a paper why you think those people are amazing. They must have done some great things in their lives. You have to identify those things. You have to read books and increase knowledge. You have to gain the experience they gained. You have to develop the habits they developed, and refine those habits for your purpose.
• Motivation: You have to look up to the great things you can do now, and how things in your life would look like when you have achieved them.
• Discipline: You have to build daily habits that help you get closer to your dream. You have to be very consistent with these habits, and keep tracking your progress on a weekly basis.

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Some greedy approaches:

• You can find out from others what are good skills to learn whether you like them or not. You have find out from others what daily habits they follow and reason with them why those habits are valuable.
• Last but not the least, you have to tell yourself, that any great success comes to you in 10 years, and a short version of it can be realized in five years.
• If you go by this plan, and systematically work on your life, you can achieve a lot, and your future can be significantly bright.

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Stay blessed and stay inspired!

-Rohit Malshe

The MIT Experience

Fear is a Frankenstein Monster