The world is a vampire......

[glam_junkie]

Using a line from a band I'm not overly find of, but it seems apt... The World Is A Vampire.

 

Do you ever get the feeling that the world is just sucking you dry and then spitting you out the other end?

I was always told as a kid that if you work hard, you can get ahead.

Whereas now you look back and think no matter how hard you work or no matter what you do you will always be part of the machine working week to week, paying a mortgage and making some global corporate entity millions or billions of $.

 

In reality 99% of us will only get ahead by either

a) being born into money

b a stroke of luck, possibly even being in the right place at the right time

c) breaking the law.

 

Whilst you toil 40-50-60-70+ hours a week to pay for the house and kids, someone in a high rise in the corporate cbd above is raking in millions of dollars, changing your life with decisions they make over an orange and poppy seed muffin at morning tea. Whilst they think of what car or what boat to buy next, or what company to take over and who to sack, where some heads should roll... somewhere else these is someone struggling to put a meal on the table, wondering what to sell to pay the bills.

I'm not saying I'm in this position, but the further I get thru my working life the more I see the self serving and self preserving are the ones with their snouts in the trough bleeding the common day worker dry. The ones that live to the motto "do as I say, not as I do". Whether is be a politician, a white collar business man, etc... they all seem so self serving. Corporates go bankrupt and who lose out? Not big business, .... its always the worker or smaller company. The worker loses their entitlements, the small business loses their money, Then the same person who goes bankrupt starts up again under a new name, clear of debt and the whole cycle just starts again. Where do these millions of bankrupt dollars go? They don't just disappear? Someone is becoming rich out of every company that goes bankrupt, out of every house that is repossessed, out of every person made jobless.

Under what logic can these white-collared folks all of a sudden decide your home or your savings, your shares or bonds that you have strived and saved for are no longer worth what they once were? Do you get the feeling that the whole economic climate is being manipulated by a chosen few in positions of power, further fueling their need to have more and ensure others have less?

And the funny thing is, most of the people making these decisions are just a small cog in the same machine as well. Making decisions on behalf of someone above them, earning someone else above them a Christmas bonus, and themselves with one day be sucked dry as well

I've always wondered why people would pack up and move as far away from humanity as they can, but now i think I'm starting to understand.

[KarpetRydOFunk]

Oh, definitely. The entire world is heading towards something terrible. I have a feeling we'll be facing some kind of crisis within the next ten years. I don't know what, but we can't keep on going the way we are.

[Geoff]

Christmas bonuses... wow, I remember those. They were the best years of my working life.

 

Now I just work for horrendously low pay and don't even get holiday pay, let alone any bonuses of any sort. And it's all for a company that is no doubt one of the wealthiest in this land. Anyway, point is, I couldn't hate it all more either, but nothing we plebs can do about it.

[glam_junkie]

Christmas bonuses... wow, I remember those. They were the best years of my working life.

 

Now I just work for horrendously low pay and don't even get holiday pay, let alone any bonuses of any sort. And it's all for a company that is no doubt one of the wealthiest in this land. Anyway, point is, I couldn't hate it all more either, but nothing we plebs can do about it.

How do you have a job that has no holiday pay? (do you mean no paid holiday time at all, or just no holiday loading?)

Unless you were casual i didn't think that was even possible.

 

And bonuses... nah, never got one in my life. But I've worked for people obviously have. That could be the only explanation for the way they drive people and companies into the ground. It's like they're handling their own money.

 

My mate was telling me about an Australian company he works for that the recenlty acquired big boss drove the company into the ground to the point where they now need to relocate overseas, and everyone here is going to be outta a job. Their Australian leg will now just be distrobution, not manufacturing. But the disturbing part.... the manager who did it in the space of a couple of years was then "apparently" offered a $700,000 separation package! So whilst others are losing jobs, and having to go to court to fight for their entitlements against this "large" company, the snout-in-trough manager at the top walks with a $700k payout.

[Dead Planet]

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, that is the way of the world and it gets worse each year. One day not long away we will wake up to find that the middle class no longer exists and there are just the 5% rich and 95% poor left...and that is when things will fall apart.....

[martinsane]

Good thread. Hate and suffer from the same as all but true sentiments abound.

 

If there was no middle class there would be no economy or anything for that matter. We pick up the majority of the taxation which supports the nations.

[glam_junkie]

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, that is the way of the world and it gets worse each year. One day not long away we will wake up to find that the middle class no longer exists and there are just the 5% rich and 95% poor left...and that is when things will fall apart.....

 

totally agree.

middle class is disappearing. a good honest living is hard to make these days. the reality of those futuristic apocalyptic movies may not be far from the truth.

 

From a young age you are sold the fairy tale of the American or Australian dream.... owning a home and all that stuff. In reality I now just see that as major business and banks locking you into 25 years of mortgage and the rat race. Take out a mortgage.. you are in their clutches for the next 25 years. Not sure if it your dream or theirs - I'm guessing theirs.

 

I cant even fathom the idea of having so much money that you couldn't possibly spend it in a life time if you tried, yet still going out to make more at the expense of others.

[glam_junkie]

If there was no middle class there would be no economy or anything for that matter.

 

That's why they need to lock you into a mortgage for 25 years.

 

And just when the middle class is getting ontop or getting comfortable.... the economic giants cause mayhem like stock market crashes, housing market crashes, interest rate rises or whatever else. Simply to keep the middle class right where they want them.

[KarpetRydOFunk]

If you lot haven't seen "Inequality for All," yet, I highly recommend it.

[glam_junkie]

If you lot haven't seen "Inequality for All," yet, I highly recommend it.

 

haven't seen or heard of this. movie? documentary?

[Geoff]

 

Christmas bonuses... wow, I remember those. They were the best years of my working life.

 

Now I just work for horrendously low pay and don't even get holiday pay, let alone any bonuses of any sort. And it's all for a company that is no doubt one of the wealthiest in this land. Anyway, point is, I couldn't hate it all more either, but nothing we plebs can do about it.

How do you have a job that has no holiday pay? (do you mean no paid holiday time at all, or just no holiday loading?)

Unless you were casual i didn't think that was even possible.

 

 

Yeah mate, permanent casual... that's me. It is a full time job, but I (and 95% of my co-workers) are paid as casuals. We can all be put on as full time employees if we want, but the pay is basically criminal.

 

Even working and being paid for only approx 46 paid weeks per year, we are much better off than being paid the shitty sum they offer full time workers split over the 52 weeks of the year. I hate the situation, but when you're talking about the difference in pay it's a no-brainer for me.

[Nightrain]

This thing actually isn't new and it happened since hundred years ago and it'll always happen in the years to come. I mean, do you remember the Great Depression in USA in 1929 ? that lasted probably more than 5 years and eventually one of the cause of WW2 ? We're not in a totally different situtation, there's an ongoing currency war and who knows that it'll be the cause of the next war ? Let's hope not !

 

Economy crisis is always happening and I learn that there's a big cycle on every 10 years, perhaps starting from 1928 until the last one in 2008, and probably as expected, one will happen in 2018 which is 3 years from now, and the trigger of it should be US dollar bubble. I really don't know what will happen but what I'm afraid is that many assets will be vaporized, currency stumble, bank collapsing, something big and perhaps one of the safest bet is gold later on.

 

Although no one will be able to predict such thing accurately, no matter what our current position was, better to stay focus on the cashflow, reduce unnecessary expense, reduce debt, maintain cashflow and prepare for the worst, sometimes that's the only thing to survive.

[simo]

You guys have shares or bonds? See I'd never do that, rather try and be happy with what I have (even if it's not much) than trying to earn a couple extra bucks per year. The problem with investments is that your money is tied up, and in cases of a crisis or collapse (which seem to be happening more and more often now) your investment is only worth 50% all of a sudden

[Geoff]

You guys have shares or bonds? See I'd never do that, rather try and be happy with what I have (even if it's not much) than trying to earn a couple extra bucks per year. The problem with investments is that your money is tied up, and in cases of a crisis or collapse (which seem to be happening more and more often now) your investment is only worth 50% all of a sudden

 

That's why you invest in property and property alone.

[glam_junkie]

 

You guys have shares or bonds? See I'd never do that, rather try and be happy with what I have (even if it's not much) than trying to earn a couple extra bucks per year. The problem with investments is that your money is tied up, and in cases of a crisis or collapse (which seem to be happening more and more often now) your investment is only worth 50% all of a sudden

That's why you invest in property and property alone.

 

Didn't US property values collapse a few years back?

 

They say in times of hardship the areas that are still prospering are alcohol, porn and prostitution.

[glam_junkie]

This thing actually isn't new and it happened since hundred years ago.

I know it's not new, but the whole point of the original post is the dream you are sold as a youngster, and then the reality of it all.

 

As I said, I was always taught ... Work hard, be the best you can, save and you'll get ahead and be successful.

 

20 years later I now know that is a crock of shit. No matter what I've done, how hard I've worked I'm still and always going to be middle / working class and a slave to the corporate world.

And sometimes I feel I just wanna break out of that, but it's not possible to do so in the way you are brainwashed into believing.

[simo]

 

This thing actually isn't new and it happened since hundred years ago.

I know it's not new, but the whole point of the original post is the dream you are sold as a youngster, and then the reality of it all.

 

As I said, I was always taught ... Work hard, be the best you can, save and you'll get ahead and be successful.

 

20 years later I now know that is a crock of shit. No matter what I've done, how hard I've worked I'm still and always going to be middle / working class and a slave to the corporate world.

And sometimes I feel I just wanna break out of that, but it's not possible to do so in the way you are brainwashed into believing.

 

As sad as it sounds, I believe nowadays if you want to be successful you have to be ready to f... people over, that's it

[DaHun72]

 

This thing actually isn't new and it happened since hundred years ago.

I know it's not new, but the whole point of the original post is the dream you are sold as a youngster, and then the reality of it all.

 

As I said, I was always taught ... Work hard, be the best you can, save and you'll get ahead and be successful.

 

20 years later I now know that is a crock of shit. No matter what I've done, how hard I've worked I'm still and always going to be middle / working class and a slave to the corporate world.

And sometimes I feel I just wanna break out of that, but it's not possible to do so in the way you are brainwashed into believing.

How else do you get kids to study, or find a job? I completely agree with what you're saying but what's the alternative for parents, teachers etc? Imagine if you knew then what you knew now? Where you be? What would you be doing?

[glam_junkie]

 

As sad as it sounds, I believe nowadays if you want to be successful you have to be ready to f... people over, that's it

Definitely. But then there Must be a point where enough is enough. Ok.... So you're well off and successful..... But then feel the need to make people homeless, jobless and hopeless in order to be even more successful. How is that success?

[glam_junkie]

 

 

This thing actually isn't new and it happened since hundred years ago.

I know it's not new, but the whole point of the original post is the dream you are sold as a youngster, and then the reality of it all.

 

As I said, I was always taught ... Work hard, be the best you can, save and you'll get ahead and be successful.

 

20 years later I now know that is a crock of shit. No matter what I've done, how hard I've worked I'm still and always going to be middle / working class and a slave to the corporate world.

And sometimes I feel I just wanna break out of that, but it's not possible to do so in the way you are brainwashed into believing.

How else do you get kids to study, or find a job? I completely agree with what you're saying but what's the alternative for parents, teachers etc? Imagine if you knew then what you knew now? Where you be? What would you be doing?

I find in life that even those at school that were out smoking bongs a skipping class are nowadays in jobs no worse than those when kept to the 'company line'. Sure, there's always the exception (the bloke who ended up in jail, dead or whatever) but generally not much difference in where people end up in the end.

[Jacob M.]

What I love is when companies go out there and talk about all the great things they are doing for their employees. In reality they have just figured out a new way to screw them over and come out looking good in the process.