The Sharp End of the Stick

In my relatively small world, there is a good cross section of Americans, all with many of the same things in common. First off, most of my acquaintances, friends and family are great at complaining but do nothing to change those complaints. They complain about Taxes, fuel cost, and government spending or just not having enough of whatever. The more I focused my attention and pondered on the complaints, I realized that these acquaintances, me included, were spoiled by the evolution of this country. As men and women the world over created ways to make life easier or faster, people everywhere became more and more complacent. I’ll give you an example of what I’m referring too. In the so called old days, the entire family worked together to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads and clothes on their backs. They had to for survival; no one else was going to do these things for them. Also, not so many years ago, if people made purchases on credit, it was their number one priority to pay their creditors back as soon as possible. They had a little thing I call pride and self respect which compelled them to do the right thing. The opposite is true today, where people typically take longer to repay their debt, and think nothing of the interest they accrue in doing so. This practice has pushed a lot of Americans to where they are today consequently, with a large percentage of households much further in debt than financially advisable. Americans everywhere have bitten off more then they can chew as the saying goes, and they are not ready to give anything up to change that fact. Again I say we have become a society that wants it all and are not willing to wait to get it. Today in this country people are losing some of there most pride possessions, like their homes and autos. Yet they still hold on to things like cell phones, cable or satellite television subscriptions, cigarette smoking or going out for dinner, when they should be cutting back and looking for ways to get out of the financial trouble they’ve gotten themselves into. In general, credit companies and society have made it easy not to be held responsible, so their not! This slow decline in American values and morals has also made it so that employees feel their employers or government owes them more for doing less. American workers steal every day from employers, and never give it a second thought. The American way is to waste time at our jobs. We take longer breaks throughout the day, we use company phones to make personal calls, we browse the internet on company time, we take company products home like pens, paper, towels, batteries and so forth, anything people can get their hands on and get a way with. This lack of production and thieving is reflected in everything we purchase today. Employers have to increase the cost of there products primarily due to less productivity and losses. This is the current day American way and values today. This attitude is wrong and it doesn’t seem like it will ever stop, so for broader purposes I will focus on what I feel are the big picture items. Only you as an individual can make changes in America, but not until you’re ready to admit you may be part of the problem.