Is American Excess Now Realizing Its Limits?

In my opinion the solution lies in the moral and the political spheres. Considering the current state of both of these,(morality is out the window and the politicians are blindly corrupt) then, there really is no viable solution. The limit has been realized.

I'm wondering what does it mean to "sell out"?

To 'sell out' could mean to demean or diminish some good quality in the pursuit of short term interest. To exchange a human or social 'good' for short term gratification.

Like going on a diet. We don't eat those delicious fatty foods because we want to be healthy over the long term. So to go ahead and to eat those fatty foods right now would be a form of selling out our health in order to obtain immediate gratification.

The real human and social goods require long patience hard work, and sacrifice. But schools and universities seem to focus more on pop culture and also the politicization of the curriculum. Most of the overly specialized graduates are taught to hate the virtues or at least they are ignorant of the long hard patience that goes into being a good person, and having a good society, really requires. I have met many specialists who just desire to make money. And who can blame them in this social climate?

I am routinely insulted by the amount of advertising that is promoted in our society. I am also greatly insulted by the tone and message of these blaring, disgusting ads. There are lawyers who are chasing ambulances. These lawyers are, by the account they give in their own advertising, disgusting money-grubbing low life's chasing after the cheap buck. This does not promote a respect for the law. Yet it is a non-stop orgy of solicitation of the lowest order: and nobody says anything. (By the way, I see their commercials on a regular basis where they are ripping off Medicare and Medicaid in broad daylight.)

In fact, the bulk of the television stations carry so many commercials when they show something that they are unwatchable. The penis enlargement commercials run all night long ripping off the stupid men who fall for the promise of a larger genitalia. Genitalia cannot in fact be enlarged by medication or by creams. And even Bob Dole, the former 'conservative' candidate for president has endorsed Viagra (Viagra does actually work at least, but is this the kind of medicine we really need right now?)

But people have been cheating others out of money by using sex since the beginning of time. In the short term we can all get high and have sex but are we trading something that could be truly excellent for short term pleasure?

The pharmaceutical industry is out of control in America. The amount of people using prescription drugs in America is astronomical. They are literally bankrupting the entire health care system and not one person ever says that maybe we should not take so many drugs. I see no end to this trend outside of absolute bankruptcy.

The pornography industry has completely morphed and been absorbed into the whole society at large. I am not a prude but I think the emphasis upon short term gratification has a downside. But I don't believe it can be denied that America has become a pornographic society. I actually think that a lot of people are proud of this fact. The American people have become an immoral people.


The emphasis upon the lowest common denominator has dumbed down the people at large so that nobody knows the difference between right and wrong outside of the force that it applied to wrong doers. To most people the very idea that there could be a 'right' and a 'wrong' is not acceptable. Again: there is no real reason to do the right thing outside of the fact that force will be applied against one.

They keep on building more and more Casino's in America. The state governments never ever cut the size of their budgets. They would rather have slaves to the slot machines than cut the intrusive size of government. But with the advent of the lottery the state become the legal bookie a long time ago, it's just that now they are totally out of control. Gambling in my opinion reinforces the idea that short term gain is better than long term sacrifice. The state governments, by endorsing and profitting from this behaviour, are absolutely immoral entities.

Wall Street has become a cesspool. They are committing securities fraud in broad daylight. They are taking, sometimes in secret, billions and billions of taxpayers dollars and giving their staffs billion dollar (that's right, billion!) bonuses. The entire housing bubble was nothing but a ponzi scheme orchestrated by the federal reserve, which lowered interest rates to near zero in order to produce asset inflation. The bankers on Wall Street in turn sold million dollar houses to jobless immigrants and speculators in order to secure their fat bonuses. And they got away with it scott free. They made their short term gains at the expense of the taxpayer and the nation at large.


And of course, obsesity in America is out of control. The American people are the most obese people in the entire history of the human race. What I am suggesting is that there is a link between the obesity and the other short term thinking that I've mentioned. This is a large scale cultural disease that we're dealing with.

America is also in debt. We owe more than any other nation. And they have outsouced everything they could. They are bleeding the country dry.

Money is or has become more important than human life. Especially the human life that is worth living. The Federal Reserve, by printing so much money. is currently risking hyperinflation. Hyperinflation is as bad as a nuclear explosion. It is a devastating phenomenon. We are in a very bad position right now.

In my opinion the solution lies in the moral and the political spheres. Considering the current state of both of these,(morality is out the window and the politicians are blindly corrupt) then, there really is no viable solution. The limit has been realized.

Most of these problems being the result of our corporate system. We invented a legal person who is obligated, under the law, to do nothing but make as much money as possible. That is the height of immorality.

The legal person is the corporation. Due to a series of Supreme Court decisions around the turn of the century, corporations were granted legal personhood, with the unique status of being obligated, by law, to be concerned only with turning a great a profit as possible.

This is not a political matter, but a judicial matter. Concern over corporate personhood is an issue that radical leftists and radical conservatives have all brought forth.

In effect, granting corporations legal personhood is intrusion of the government into what it means to be a person.

We must also remember that in order to fix a political problem, we must act politically. In this instance, it would seem to me that we as voters should focus more attention on what Presidential candidates look for when they appoint Judges, and we should also reevaluate the system by which in some states, like West Virginia, Judges actually campaign for their office.

I know that in the past our political disagreements have come to the fore front, but on the issues you have wisely mentioned, I think we have a great deal of ground for agreement. Especially concerning wealth disparity, which is largely the result of government subsidizing big business and structuring the tax codes in ways that favor the wealthy by providing loopholes for the wealthy to avoid paying the full share of their taxes according to tax brackets.

We are talking about problems so massive and complex that politicians refuse to address them - for, among other reasons, that they do not understand the full complexity of these issues. And neither do I, for that matter. I'm not sure anyone fully comprehends the depth of our collective milieu, which is only that much more terrifying.

I would have to agree that Corporations and Laissez-Faire economics plays the largest role in the destruction of American ideals than anything else. Pythagorean, you were asking whether american "Selling Out" has reached it's limit, and that the short term gains of years past are now yielding to largely negative repercussions.

I would suggest that Corporations led the charge in "Selling Out" american prosperity for short term wealth. The influence of Friedmanist economics is unmistakable on the Educational system, the housing market, tax codes, and government intervention.

Educationally, around the Mid-80's, The education system was revamped to play a vital role in children's development. Unfortunately, this Role almost exclusively focused on Future employment in Corporate Jobs, something that not only killed Children's love of learning, but also destroyed the Citizen's image and replaced it with the image of a consumer.

Corporations also led the charge to de-regulate financial markets, and put immense pressure on the fed to keep interest rates low.

Now, I'm not saying that only corporations should be blamed. I don't think Didymos Thomas is either. But If you're asking about definitions of "selling out", I think we can all agree that A corporation is the very epitome of just that. I can think of nothing else, in fact, that so lives up to the very essence of "Selling Out", than the vast majority of Multinationals that comprise american makeup so definitively.

I find it fairly interesting while reading threads such as this one, that no one mentions the fact that American presidents receive a wage for the rest of their lives. I'm kind of wondering what the labor factor is in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. American excess. The United States invented it.

I would have to agree that Corporations and Laissez-Faire economics plays the largest role in the destruction of American ideals than anything else. Pythagorean, you were asking whether american "Selling Out" has reached it's limit, and that the short term gains of years past are now yielding to largely negative repercussions.

I would suggest that Corporations led the charge in "Selling Out" american prosperity for short term wealth. The influence of Friedmanist economics is unmistakable on the Educational system, the housing market, tax codes, and government intervention.

Educationally, around the Mid-80's, The education system was revamped to play a vital role in children's development. Unfortunately, this Role almost exclusively focused on Future employment in Corporate Jobs, something that not only killed Children's love of learning, but also destroyed the Citizen's image and replaced it with the image of a consumer.

Corporations also led the charge to de-regulate financial markets, and put immense pressure on the fed to keep interest rates low.

Now, I'm not saying that only corporations should be blamed. I don't think Didymos Thomas is either. But If you're asking about definitions of "selling out", I think we can all agree that A corporation is the very epitome of just that. I can think of nothing else, in fact, that so lives up to the very essence of "Selling Out", than the vast majority of Multinationals that comprise american makeup so definitively.

My advice for people who want to be prepared is to grow a vegetable garden, secure firearms and invest in gold.

Thomas, I'm not familiar with this issue.

It is my hunch that you are focusing upon corporate and business greed and I grant you that the business community is as part of the problem as is every other community. But just reforming the business community does not address the true problem, in my opinion. As a matter of fact I don't believe that the business community could ever really be reformed without properly addressing the problem.

I call what you wrote an undue politicization of the issue because you are bringing to the table what I consider to be a narrow focus upon businesses and corporations.

The current economic crisis is a symptom, not a business problem, and cannot be solved by a simple reform of the business community.

The basic scheme of taxation in any democratic society is not merely a procedural matter, in my opinion, but rather it is reflective of a moral consensus. What I mean is that, without the proper morality (essentially, in the absence of good people) then any attempt to provide a fix to the problem will only rearrange and shift the problem around. All short term solutions will fail.

What is the connection between Judges and the true nature of the predicament?

I do appreciate your interest and all the credit to you for recognizing the severity of the matter. That's more than I can say of most politicians both conservative and liberal alike.

But I have to say by focusing upon business and corporatations I believe you are missing the essence of the problem. The greatest challenge that we face is in identifying the true nature of these problems. I believe they are moral and political too and that all parties are to blame which means the solution necessarily involves great and difficult changes throughout the entire socicety.

The United States is quicly transforming itself into a third world type of nation. The two-tier economy is an unmistakable sign of this trend. Raising taxes upon the very rich may well be part of a sound solution. However, if the real issues go unaddressed, then even heavy taxation of the super-rich will not solve these problems.

Our society is replete with specialists and this fact tends to obscure the overall picture. But they are all human beings and they are all mortal, and in the end and all motivated in similar ways. More technical analysis is not necessary, nor would it solve anything in my opinion.

Well, I think too many people have this ideal kind of belief about how the United States was formed. Sure, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine spoke out against wealth concentration, but if you seriously look at how the country was founded, you will see the precursors to the modern corporations with their hands in the formation of the country. This whole financial fiasco that we are facing now was started back during the Revolutionary War, and the subsequent founding of the country.

But I think that American Excess is now realizing its limits because the rest of the world is starting to pressure the U.S. and there is also a growing number of the have nots that are starting to realize why they are in the situation that they are in. I love this discussion. Carry on!

I don't mean to poke this thread in the eye or anything, Pythagorean, but when I see things like the videos you posted I can't help but wonder if there's a political agenda involved. I don't mean to suggest that you have one, but that perhaps the people in the videos, such as Ron Paul, a politician, might. I mean, those videos seemed like little more than fear mongering, with the end result screaming "Buy gold now!" Then I go to facebook and see an ad on the side saying "Wall Street suggests investing in gold." Perhaps the science and economics of it is correct, but the presentation seems a little like the very advertising that the OP chastised.