A country with no means

seami

Im totally lost with what is going on, in our country, as Im sure most decent non political folk are. Why are
we in this mess? We all know the answer to that, corruption in politics and business, they go hand in hand.
But yet the same folk are still in power, nobody has been held accountable. Why are the same people in
power?
In one sense I think it is wonderful that this has happened. It brings alot of people down to earth with an
almighty bang. These greedy money hungry dogs deserve it. But what about the normal workers? MONEY, GREED, MY
HOUSE IS BIGGER THAN YOURS ATTITUDE, LOOK AT THE CAR THAT IM DRIVING/helicoper Im piloting (ridiculous!), My
house has 8 bedrooms (its a complete farce!).
Thankfully I wasnt silly enough to buy into all of this (nor none of my family has been, we were brought up with a sense of cop on & normality at an early stage). Money, Money, Money.

What if we had no money (now we dont)?. What do you think society would be like? Would we be fairer, more just? Would there
be more of a community feel? Would there be less suicides? would there be less crime? Would we be happier? Would we be outcasts? Would this matter if we could cloth, feed, and educate our children? Is it possible to go back to a community way of living after being exposed to what are currently?
My question is: Is Ireland able to survive without any international intervention? Can we live by ourselves alone? grow all the food we need? Do we have enough enery resources to keep the 'average' person warm? Do we need the likes of Intel? Thanks.

looksee

Even with all the issues and problems we are still better off than we were 30 - 40 years ago, which is not all that long.

At that stage, even with a professional salary (teacher) coming into the house, we lived at a much simpler level than we do now - costing individual meals, making clothes, having one aged car so my husband could get to work, a weeks holiday in a caravan with our children. We never went hungry, and it did us no harm to have to 'manage', but I am grateful to be better off now.

As a 'blow in' I never experienced the sense of community that you talk about, so I don't miss it, but realistically we have had several generations of children being reared to understand that their personal rights are paramount, they are not going to go back to the 'I know my place and I will conform to that' attitude. It was that attitude that allowed for the level of corruption we have been trying to defeat for the last number of years.

Even 30-40 years ago you basically needed shelter, warmth, clothing and food, anything over that was a luxury. Now computers and other electronic equipment are also 'basic', that's not a criticism, just a fact. Your car has to be in better condition than it would have been then, you are expected to be independently mobile to get to work. Children are being supported for longer, they are in education to the early 20s, do we go back to minimal education?

You cannot go back, only forward. You can learn from the past but you cannot remake it. If we did go back we would have to do that struggle all over again. There is not really anything romantic about hunger and poverty and lack of medicine and education, and the further back you go the more of that you find. It is easy and comfortable to indulge in nostalgia, but the future is what matters.

Joe1919

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.156.3561&rep=rep1&type=pdf

These guys claim that there always was boom and bust cycles and have given details of same for the last 800 years.
But anyhow, console yourself. In the past, people starved ( up to 25% of population) to death during recessions. Hopefully, this wont happen this time.