I'm saying what typically passes for "achievement" in the world isn't worth rewarding. Look at what China has "achieved," for instance -- status as the world's fastest-growing industrial polluter and the leading purveyor of toxic junk to consumers everywhere. What a triumph! High-fives and lavish bonuses for all concerned.
Here in the moldering USA, what passes for "achievement" is typically financial and legal innovation that creates the illusion of prosperity while leaving most people hopelessly mired in debt. Consider the item from Barbara Ehrenreich's blog that B. just posted to the list:
"... In fact, easy credit became the American substitute for decent wages. Once you worked for your money, but now you were supposed to /pay/ for it. Once you could count on earning enough to save for a home. Now you’ll never earn that much, but, as the lenders were saying – heh, heh—do we have a mortgage for you!
"Pay day loans, rent-to-buy furniture and exorbitant credit card interest rates for the poor were just the beginning. In its May 21^st cover story on “The Poverty Business,” Business Week documented the stampede, in the just the last few years, to lend money to the people who could least afford to pay the interest: Buy your dream home! Refinance your house! Take on a car loan even if your credit rating sucks! /Financiamos a Todos! /Somehow, no one bothered to figure out where the poor were going to get the money to pay for all the money they were being offered. ...
"Global capitalism will survive the current credit crisis; already, the government has rushed in to soothe the feverish markets. But in the long term, a system that depends on extracting every last cent from the poor cannot hope for a healthy prognosis. Who would have thought that foreclosures in Stockton and Cleveland would roil the markets of London and Shanghai? The poor have risen up and spoken; only it sounds less like a shout of protest than a low, strangled, cry of pain."
If there's much more "achievement" like this we'll all be living in caves.
Carl
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