Intro - Suicide and The National Debt
G'day steemits,
I have been going through some tough times, since I lost my job 3 years ago. In that time (and my old age) I have become cynical and bitter, while at the same time maintaining a thin veneer of "keeping it all together". Since that time we (my wife and I) have been down scaling everything (lot of debt to scale down) to something we could manage, we are still struggling. But to have to make a decision, to keep our baby or not due to our dire financial situation nearly killed me, she probably felt worse. The thought of hitching a rope to the balcony and tying it around my neck hit me for about two days. I was never like this before, I am cornered, everything that pops up now sets me off, where before I would be able to deal with it. I am not depressed, at least not to my knowledge, I am just tired of slaving away and jumping through hoops just to stay fed, just for the basics, just for nothing, I just want it to stop.
I'm no expert on the matter of finance or economics, however my situation has prompted me to ask why this is occurring, why is it so hard to cope today compared to my fathers time (or is it just me that is useless). I'm going to attempt to discover the answer and leave my findings here in plain language, so you guys don't end up like me.
It seems like a bit of a cliche' to say that banks are stealing off the people, I have heard this for so many years growing up that I thought it was just a matter of people just being stupid with money and blaming it on banks, sour grapes, so to speak. I mean they are a bank, they are reputable, there are regulations right, and the government wouldn't let that happen? Boy was I wrong, and shocked, to discover that the government has no say over the matter and in actual fact the reserve banks (or central banks) are private organisations, with unknown share holders, who lends currency they do not have to a country, on the basis that the people of that country will pay it back over time? If there are financial people who could better explain this to me, please post.
Let me get this straight, our labour is the collateral for our countries loan? Then our taxes pay for that debt? ...What the fuck are you spending it on? So when I was paying over a third of my salary in tax , it was going towards the interest owed on the amount my country borrowed, to do what? What the fuck did you do with it? ...umm we bailed out the banks. WTF, You gave my money to the people we owe money to so they could lend it out to us again for more interest? ...and everybody is OK with this?
The above makes me want to "opt out"one way or another, preferably it wont involve ropes. It makes me angry, however it turns out that I am (apparently) the only one that gets angry over this. Nobody around me cares, its always been this way, they say, what can we do about it anyway, they say? They have to pay for the roads somehow. Yeah right, we have a 5 lane highway leaving my country town with barely 100 000 residents.
Lucky I could not find the courage to end my life, I could not even tell you what it is that stops me, false hope maybe, but I could not be anymore specific then that. Since the above I have prepared a plan to get the items I owe money on working for us. As these plans succeed and fail I will try and post the results here, hopefully you can get as fed up with it all as I am. Hopefully together we can instigate a different financial paradigm, however I remain pessimistic.
Louis B
I am sorry to hear your difficult life journey.
What country do you live in?
Australia, I am sure there are people worse off than me, this is just part of my attempt at turning things around and somewhere to get some feed back. I have found very few people with enough self awareness to be able to share things with. I am sure someone will provide me with the reality check required to get me back on track.
take care
I hope that you kept your baby. That is terrible to have had to consider that.
Personally, we have way too much debt and it's a terrible burden on my husband especially who has to work so hard just to keep things at bay. He has been fortunate to stay employed but is getting worn out. We have made it a priority for me to stay home with our 3 children and homeschool them. I would rather declare bankruptcy and drastically downsize though than change what we believe is the best way to raise them.
In the past one income was sufficient to care for a family, but things have changed where 2 incomes is often needed. The people have become poorer because of government policies and inflation.
I do believe that things are going to change soon, and the governments will be forced to go back on a gold/silver standard as the current fiat system totally fails. The transition will be hard for most people though. If you can manage to buy yourself a bit of silver bullion, that should help you in the transition.
Oh yeah we started purchasing a couple of coins years ago prior to losing my job, but we will probably have to cash them in unfortunately. We have held off until now. You have a lot of good articles I will be going through them to learn more about vaccination. I am in two minds about the matter, on one hand I don't trust anything the government is trying to push, however, preventing these diseases is important.
We have a thing called hendra virus here that effects horses and the vets can refuse to work on the horse unless it is vaccinated. The vaccination (i'm told by vets) is successful. So yeah bit confused, I don't want my mistrust of the government to cloud rational skepticism.
I'm a big advocate for home schooling (people think I am crazy) and for kids to have minimum one of the parents around. In fact during my down time I have opted to go back to get a degree (engineering). Partly to ensure that I have the knowledge to provide a sound education. People always argue that the child doesn't get socialised, which I find amusing because it is just that type of socialisation that we are trying to avoid. The money you pay for education is ridiculous and the education they provide is sub-par. I know, I just finished a year of uni (hard to do at my age) with a clever bunch of kids, mostly internationals (from south east asia) running rings around the Aussies some of which scored in the top 1 %. But I don't want to give away too much, I want to save some for my next post.
Oh Also bankruptcy is not option for me at the moment, and you should really try everything before bankruptcy or check how it effects you guys. It will prevent me from working in certain fields and obtaining professional certification.
I understand. It is a better option than suicide though.
I was just saying that bankruptcy is the worst-case scenario,
and that even the worst-case scenario is better than giving up what I believe is best for our children/family.
I will answer one of your questions for you, it is not YOU that is useless. Society is ruthless (and it seems it is becoming even more so with each passing day). The issue is with the world at large not valuing the average person. I hope you find a bit of comfort here and perhaps just a bit of easment of your economic anxieties through your involvement in our community!
Just posting my thoughts has helped me gain clarity, and I have had some helpful comments. We are still having trouble but we are beginning to plan through our obstacles. If all I get out of this is a clear head I will be happy. Thanks for your post. It was more help then ringing any hotline, I can assure you.
Are there any laws or social rules that completely baffle you?
I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.