Skip the Valium jokes, I don't want to calm down.

[bunnerabb]

From that other website in response to a person who said "Avril Lavinge is banal. No wonder the industry is in the shitter".

Less get this straight.

The "industry" is in the shitter because marketing cun*s try and sell pop songs and pop artists like cheeseburgers and we let them.

The "industry" is in the shitter because any song that can be played can be losslessly copied for free.

There ain't no business model for rock and roll.

Avril Lavigne is a mediocrity and she is packaged to make 13 year old girls go "OMG she is so TOTALLY kewl I <3 her so much!"

This is called "gurrrrrrl" power and the same cun*s who thought up packaging music like cheeseburgers invented this notion to sell to 13 year old girls when screaming about 24 year old boys was no longer "OMG so kewl!"

Mediocrty abounds because mediocrity is safe. See (Television Programming - American)

She can't sing well.

It's not the point.

Do something that is the point and stand on the highest soapbox you can, and DO something to make it count.

Rock and roll as we know it was the music of rebellion against bad ideas.

We're still up to our tits in bad ideas but as long as looking down your nose at the other person with nothing to complain about, either, is what's in fashion, music will continue to have nothing to say and say it loudly and with very little remuneration from the comfortable kids with comfortable lives - who totally want that new Scion in red - who keep stealing the recordings of that music.

And nobody will say anything about those bad ideas.

"The Man" couldn't have subverted the revolution any better if he had been allowed to just gun down youth in the streets with rocket launchers.

They'll just cop whatever pose they bought into and try and make poking holes in your body, buying things, being angry, or bitchy, or slutty, or "eeeevyl" some sort of fuc*ing grand statement.

We've run out of things to bitch about and the music must change. Perhaps something celebratory.

Avril Lavinge doesn't matter.

Avril Lavinge is a cheeseburger.

Wait.. that's ranting. Ranting is so unkewl. OMG!

:Roll eyes:

[Bob Olhsson]

..."The Man" couldn't have subverted the revolution any better if he had been allowed to just gun down youth in the streets with rocket launchers.
:Thumbsup:

[bunnerabb]

I continue to shout into the wilderness on that other forum about the music.

I could be wrong on some points.

In a thread where somebody posted a snippet of songs from the top 40 in 66, a discussion ensued as to why that sort of music isn't coming out any more.

See... Here's the deal:

Those songs?

They were either by professional pop writers OR bands that, after the Beatles ushered in the era of writing your own songs, decided they had to have their own thing to compete.

Or, even better, they weren't trying to compete, they were just trying to get their foot in a very wide door with their own sound.

At this point, creativity and innovation in sound and musical composition was the driving wheel for the "new music".

That era was the single most creative time for popular music for a confluence of reasons.

It was brand new and exciting and the huge generation of baby boomer kids ate it up with a spoon. They WANTED new music. They wanted NEW sounds and their guitar wielding peers were there to accommodate. Everybody could get up to bat.

In other, not so indie camps, you had the Motown machine, shatteringly brilliant writing from the Holland Dozier Holland team who had people like Levi Stubbs, Marvin Gaye, the Tops, the Temps, Diana Ross, Mary Wells, the Funk Brothers... all at their beckon call, 24/7.

You had Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Glen Campbell, all finding a new, huge market for their work on mainstream, AM pop radio.

The British invasion front, old school, new school, country, pop, rock, heavy stuff, saccharine ballads ALL getting airplay, back to back, on radio.. that shining orb of the living room, dresser top and automobile without ANY thought as to genre, style or musical statement.

This was called radio. And everybody was listening to everything.

Radio is shit, now.

There was a brief and shining moment between, say, 64, and 77 when radio was where the music flourished.. the form was emerging and the technology was what it was and it was used and adapted to serve the music. The whole idea of there being "one way to do things" was the very antithesis of what created the sounds on those records. There were no limits, no one way to do things, no grid, no "this is how a hit record sounds".

Then the mooks came.

Millions from kids listening to other kids poured into the coffers of labels and management companies.

Tribes gathered, merch was printed, lunch boxes, T-Shirts, board games, etc.

Youth marketing was born.

To be fair, it'd always been there, but things targeted at kids were sold to parents because the parents held the purse strings and decided if little Jimmy got a Daisy BB gun or a GI Joe.

This was different.

The shit all changed up.

All the sudden, people in their twenties were making music that had a huge sense of emotional purchase with everybody from 7 year olds to grandmothers and radio was the vending machine. And the kids had dough. Their own dough. And they spent it on records and radios.

19 year old kids were starting bands and it they had a catchy song or a unique sound, people wanted to hear it.

And more money poured in.

And then it started to be packaged and sold like cheeseburgers.

And people started saying things like "sellout" and "poser".

Because this was OUR music.

The kids who lost their dad in WWII. The kids who lost a brother or a cousin in Nam.

the kids who said "War sucks, you're all full of shit, your whole approach to life needs to be reviewed and we're strong enough as a generation to try and call for positive change."

It was a soundtrack to the lives of the largest, most politically and culturally aware and, frankly, spoiled rotten and pampered generation in history.

We wanted to change the world with whimsical ideas, college texts and music.

And it became the first quasi tribal generation in the western world.

And the drums spoke and we listened to the winds of change and all of the turmoil and hopes and whimsy and dreams of that generation came out in the music. This new fusion of African, Celtic and Appalachian folk music, pushed to new forms and modes of expression with electricity.

Songs of anger, songs of revolution, songs of love that spoke of the endless hope of simply holding hands and looking out at the future.

Everybody from Blue Cheer to the Carpenters to Johnny Cash to Lennon and McCartney had a story to tell, a dream to muse upon and a patch for this immense quilt.

And we started to see that a lot of the stories were about the same things and we began to learn about life from listening to each other and the music we made.

And all that shit is now sitting under a mire of trash that is being pumped out to feed the machinery that grew from the music and the music now serves the machine.

It's supposed to be the other way around.

but until we look at who we were and how we got the music this far and have something to say about NOW that must be said.. that doesn't fit into "Yeah, I'm a violent gangster and I'll shoot your ass cause.. yeah!" or "OMG I am so totally like.. totally and boys are dumb and.. yeah!" or "GRRrNRNRRGHGHGHHH - eeeyvil! Hate! Death!" or whatever else people are waiting in line with their version of... like some cat in the unemployment line with his UB-40 all filled out, trying to blag a free ride from some trash they knocked up in their bedroom...

It wont come back.

Because that was never what the music was for, or about or offering.

And when that one band or artist or some kind in Wyoming says something that has to be heard, that resonates with the world at large and stands in and of itself as a statement and a song with a story.. you will be able to capture it with anything from HC Accel 7.2 to a Wollensak with ceramic mics and it will be very easy to get it heard.

Radio or no.

Get in touch with what this music means to you and skip trying to impress marketing jagoffs who want to sell it like shoes.

The music was never about a payday.

But if you concentrate on that music and that history and what you NEED to say with it, the payday can come.

Don't let anybody tell you why the music is important. Not some wanker in a suit, not somebody who only listens to "post muse core thrash grunge", not even me.

And remember:

the mic can't see your tattoos.

Now go make music.

Stop letting the tail wag the dog.

Peace out.

[Bob Olhsson]

Actually the late 1920s and the '30s were even more innovative and it was a direct result of live music on the radio late at night that was sponsored by the hotels and amusement parks where the music was being performed. Then Madison Avenue discovered they could use radio to sell soap and, according to lots of folks who were there, everything went to completely to hell.

The process repeated its self when Madison Avenue abandoned radio for television in the early '50s leaving radio to kids who got paid minimum wage DJing. A guy named Todd Storz noticed that when people really liked a song, they would listen to it over and over. He adapted this to radio by gathering information from local record stores to determine what to play. The result was "top 40" radio. Once again for the first time since the '30s there was a pretty direct link between popularity with fans and what got exposure. It became wildly successful resulting in Madison Avenue using radio to target the youth culture, sell them pimple cream and screw everything up again.

Now we hit the '60s. The big national managers and promoters are still the guys who launched big bands back in the '30s. The rock promoters are local top 40 DJs. Enter one Albert Grossman, a Chicago campus restaurant owner, who has discovered that a revival of pre-swing era country and blues music has college kids going absolutely nuts. He quickly organizes tours of America's large universities and starts mining the lively Toronto singer-songwriter scene when he can't find enough "folksingers" in the States. Numerous others jump on this bandwagon in their own cities and the result is a national "underground" scene of new artists that has little or nothing to do with radio. Many were writing their own songs and a number of indi labels were recording them.

By the mid '60s a few adventurous fans are talking FM classical music stations into doing folk shows with artists from the college scene. One of these is a fellow in Detroit named Larry Miller. Miller put on a free-form extravaganza every Saturday night that was the most stunningly great music radio I have ever heard. Miller moved to San Francisco and talked a background music station owner into letting him do it every night. The results, unfortunately weren't as good as his show in Detroit that had a weeks worth of research put into it but they were good enough to capture the attention of Tom Donahue who was a major top 40 DJ and concert promoter. He talked the same station into letting him do a show and the whole thing evolved into what would become known as underground FM radio. Again popular music had made an end-run around Madison Avenue.

Enter San Francisco Mime Troupe manager Bill Graham. When he couldn't get co-operation from the San Francisco musicians' union for a benefit he wanted to put on for his theater group, he turned to the local folk scene where bands of "baby beatniks" had been supporting themselves by throwing rent parties in their homes. Bill rented the cheapest hall in town for his benefit, the Filmore Auditorium, and the rest is history. Building on what Grossman had created, Bill created most of what we now know as the rock scene within three or four years. And once again Madison Avenue took it all over because of its popularity.

It's all a cycle. We're just considerably more than a decade overdue for another end-run around Madison Avenue and the big change that will result.

[bunnerabb]

Ah, broad perspective. Thank you. You're a treasure, Bob.

Thanks for having been where you've been and keeping the long view of this history alive and sharing it.

:Thumbsup:

[Bob Olhsson]

http://www.reelradio.com/storz/#storz

Join reelradio and listen to this documentary!

[radiationroom]

It's all a cycle. We're just considerably more than a decade overdue for another end-run around Madison Avenue and the big change that will result.

Call me a heritic for saying this, but there is nothing more "Madison Avenue" at the moment than iTunes and digital music.

[Mixerpuppet]

How long can the cycle continue?

The cycle looks a lot like how an addiction cycle works, where you keep trying more radical chemicals to achieve a new high until you tax the cycle beyond it's ability to sustain the continuation of the cycle and you die.

So what is "underground" now that we can expect the capitalist machine to grab onto and exploit it for every cent it can?

Maybe the reason the cycle hasn't continued is because there are too many different directions and so "entropy" has caused the cycle to stall?

[Bob Olhsson]

Very little of what is called "underground" today really is. I think the key to the cycle lies in the end run around national advertising-financed media.

Imagine a music party that's broadcast live on the net. It could be 1928 plus 1968 all rolled in one. Imagine real time CAPE with listeners sitting on the edge of their seats wondering what is about to happen next!

This is affordable to do for the first time in history.

[radiationroom]

Very little of what is called "underground" today really is. I think the key to the cycle lies in the end run around national advertising-financed media.

Which flys right in the face of every "new music business model" being proposed by the tech press, Madison Avenue, and apparently the majors themselves. I wonder how long it will take for the tech biz to realize that what they are betting on is a money loosing proposition...

The next question is "where is the talent?" If it wasn't for copyright issues as well as professional confidentiality courtesies I'd post a few real doozies I've recieved over the years so you could all get a good laugh, throw up, or both. :Mad:

[Mixerpuppet]

Imagine real time CAPE with listeners sitting on the edge of their seats wondering what is about to happen next!


Its called Pay per View Ultimate fighting! :lol: :Twisted:



I think your right about it being something that come directly into the home.

From my little mushroom I've seen a trend in America (outside of the music/entertainment industry) of the cost of living forcing more people to work longer hours on top of having more distractions. I personally have less time to see movies or go to clubs and what time I do have I'm completely wiped out and would rather sit at the PC or TV and be entertained.

In addition...
One of our local movies theaters is down to $2 and $1 once a week and their still having a hard time. On the other hand my wife wanted to go see the Blue Man Group for my daughters Bday... except we don't have the $200 for a family of 4 when Im already living paycheck to paycheck.

How does a local economy impact the cycles?

Most schools have also reduced thier music programs as the US focuses on the global comptetitiveness problem with non-human commoditites.

I have friends who think Im nuts because my kids are in a local youth orchestra rather than some sport...

Culture has to play apart in this...

[radiationroom]

Most schools have also reduced thier music programs as the US focuses on the global comptetitiveness problem with non-human commoditites.

Most public schools are cutting to the bone because of "No Child Left Behind", which is the Bush Administration and GOP's efforts to turn the brains of a whole generation of Americans into the creamy filling that one finds in the middle of an Oreo cookie. Replacing music and visual arts classes with more "No Child Left Behind" curricula has NOTHING to do with making America competitive in the world market. If there is anything, the GOP and the multinationals want exactly the opposite. They want to turn America into a 3rd world nation so they can enslave you and me at two dollars a day no benifits while they use taxpayer money to line their own pockets. And to do that, the first thing they want to kill off is anything that will teach a person how to think critically. Evil!

[Bob Olhsson]

... I wonder how long it will take for the tech biz to realize that what they are betting on is a money loosing proposition...They are only betting on their ability to convince stock analysts that it's a winner. The folks who buy stock in the Brooklyn Bridge are who will be the losers.

[bunnerabb]

They want to turn America into a 3rd world nation so they can enslave you and me at two dollars a day no benifits while they use taxpayer money to line their own pockets. And to do that, the first thing they want to kill off is anything that will teach a person how to think critically. Evil!

Yeah, they do.

Here's something to have with your morning scone and tea on your designer plate:

It's working.

This may be the last chance we have, as a country, to turn this shit around.

You should be poised, catlike, waiting to pounce on voting machines in the 2008 election. The kleptocracy will be poised, I assure you.

We should start a national referendum to remove Diebold from that process.

Diebold rigged the touchscreen maps on the voting machines to arbitrarily register hyperlink A over to hyperlink B, in the last one.

the guy who wrote the lines of code, said so.

Got that?

Rigged.

2008 may be our last chance at not waking up in a cold water flat in 10 years, unless we're investment bankers or attorneys.

It may be the last shot we have at the foothold for the idiocracy.

Vote no on structured avarice.

Vote no on usury.

Vote no on the dismantling of America.

And make music.

Maybe protest music.

.02 USD

[Mixerpuppet]

Most public schools are cutting to the bone because of "No Child Left Behind", which is the Bush Administration and GOP's efforts to turn the brains of a whole generation of Americans into the creamy filling that one finds in the middle of an Oreo cookie. Replacing music and visual arts classes with more "No Child Left Behind" curricula has NOTHING to do with making America competitive in the world market. If there is anything, the GOP and the multinationals want exactly the opposite. They want to turn America into a 3rd world nation so they can enslave you and me at two dollars a day no benifits while they use taxpayer money to line their own pockets. And to do that, the first thing they want to kill off is anything that will teach a person how to think critically. Evil!

Im not sure I'm going to agree with that completely since I have kids in school and spend a good portion of my evening helping my kids with their homework. The No Child Left Behind" act was meant to hold teachers and school administrations to the task of teaching more effectively. For decade standards were being lowered so that every kid passed whether he had learned anything or not. So colleges are now stuck with a class of idiots. Then some company goes to hire someone who has 4 year degree but really struggles with 5th grade math.

The 2 basic problems are/were, parents in crappy neighborhood and low paying jobs for teachers who happen to be inner city.

Another reason is that No Child left behind is not working is because teachers are purposefully trying to make it fail to get the government to find someone else to monitor. Welcome to the world of partisan infantile politics. I don't like politicians as a general rule regardless of what party they pretend to represent. I dont' buy into the good cop/bad cop routine the 2 party systems plays with Americans..

As far as Bush...

He's a capitalist. He wants you to make $2/hr for the same reason you don't want to.... and it's solved by outsourcing to a $.50/hr 3rd world country where the EPA has no agents and way less taxation.

Why turn into a 3rd world country when you can rent one?

But he does recorgnize the need for schools supplying scientists, business executives and technology to remain globally competitive. It doesn't benefit the US if there is no part of education feeding the "control mechanism" of Capitalism... (notice tuition cost are outside of affordable)

I do know for a fact that all the money is put into science and math (the non-critical thinking classes) :Roll eyes:
That is where the capitalistist in Corporate America wants it. To most high level executives, art and music is frivolous and a complete waste of intellectual resources. Im a design engineer who is also the son of a retired corporate executive who is all to familiar with the discussion growing up. He paid in full for my sisters Psychology Masters Degree and refused to even pay half for a music degree. Many of his corporate buddies have an equal disdain for musicians, they are a lower class of people like circus clowns and freaks. Its' not a sad story because I pursued music on my own and have both my kids playing string instruments and one in 2 orchestra's.

Your views are probably different :Surprised: but I don't subscribe to any "State" run, homogenized education system.
It is not an environment where learning happens. Whether it's Democrat or Republican, thier both "State" run with many corporate agendas attached. Socialism, Communism and Capitalism are all equally dangerous because greed it the mechanism common to them all.

Even if we disagree on the politics on why....

The solution to fixing the problem is the same...

If you want kids who are smart, then you need to spend time at home teaching them before they get to school. IF a parent isn't involved with their kids then whatever the State decides, your going to get stuck with it...(I don't even have time to address the corruption problem or the pedophile issues in state run education)


Parents used to take the time but now they don't so in alot of ways the Government can't really fix the problem...
(state run education usually precursor to dictatotships)



So maybe this where the run around Bob is talking about will have to come from... IF the State run schools systems are intertwined with Madison Ave, then the only way around it is for parents aware of the problem to intervene and actually teach thier kids rather than expecting the Government to do it.

:Twisted:

Mu hah ha ha ha!

[Bob Olhsson]

The solution is small class sizes. That's the elephant in the classroom.

The problem is that most communities aren't willing to pay for small class sizes and public schools are forced to get involved in funding from grants having utterly absurd and wasteful requirements just to cover their most basic expenses.

If taxpayers paid just a tiny bit more, schools could drop depending on grants and the excessive administrative requirements required by grants, increase their teaching staffs and do a much better job.

[ggunn]

I do know for a fact that all the money is put into science and math (the non-critical thinking classes) :Roll eyes:

Huh? Are you saying that science and math are non-critical thinking classes, or are you being ironic?

[bunnerabb]

state run education usually precursor to dictatotships

Oddly, our state funded education system worked marvelously, for years and turned out many millions of children who were prepared for university.

Sorry, that's malarky.

I should fix that for you.

state run indoctrination usually precursor to dictatorships

Ah.

Much more... accurate.

[Mixerpuppet]

Huh? Are you saying that science and math are non-critical thinking classes, or are you being ironic?

The Eye Roll meant sarcasm....

[Mixerpuppet]

Oddly, our state funded education system worked marvelously, for years and turned out many millions of children who were prepared for university.

Sorry, that's malarky.

I should fix that for you.



Ah.

Much more... accurate.


Thanks Bunner.... it is more accurate to say indoctrinated since I have this stuff come home in my kids back pack...

If your saying prepared for Universites only means their critical thinking abilities have been disabled. I agree. Now there are exceptions to the rule, but in general.

Just because you have millions of greeduates from universities, doesn't they are not indoctrinated with corporate values.

Im getting the feeling that your well indoctrinated Bunner...:Razz:

Bob, I don't think it a problem of not having enough money in some cases. Too many State Education administrations misappropriate funding. My state is suing the federal government for not funding our schools based upon the number of students, but the politicians failed to see the problem of the schools not using what they were given. One school district in my State had a 9 million dollar surplus in one hand while whining into a microphone in the other....

I say parenting is the first problem. If the parents are not teaching their children to be critical thinkers the schools can't change that. Also, if a parent is into sports or playing Mr. Stock Market, then more likely than not, the children will follow that example (up to a point.)

Im pretty much a freak in any crowd so I don't get too hot and bothered by disagreements...

It makes me feel that much more Rock-n-Roll!!!:Coolio:


Got any valium left?

[bunnerabb]

Im getting the feeling that your well indoctrinated Bunner...

And I'm getting the feeling that snide remarks when confronted with a differing opinion are another form of the results of indoctrination.:Wink:

My old man had to drop out of school in eighth grade, during the depression, so he could help make enough money to eat. He taught my sister calculus in one evening.

None of that is the rule nor did his lack of education stop him from learning nor did he not wish he could have pursued a structured one in an academic environment.

Most kids can't soak up calculus in five hours nor teach it with a middle school education. Half of these motherfuckers can't spell properly on their college admissions forms...

As for me being "indoctrinated":

No university,here. Couldn't afford it. Don't much care, at this juncture.

No love at all for 20 million a year cocksuckers running America into the ground using corporate status.

No guru,

no method,

no teacher.

I built me from scratch.

What are your children bringing home?

Homework?

My nephew brings home math, history, English and science.

That's not indoctrination and critical thinking is marvelous if you know what the fuck those things that you're being taught to think critically about are based upon.

Teaching our children to roll their eyes at concepts they don't even understand is definitely indoctrination.

Teaching them those concepts is called education, unless we've all started shitting Krugerrands and education is no longer good.

rock on.

[Johnny]

I don't blame State schools per se, I do blame the underlying philosophy brought into them in the early twentieth century. What we're seeing in kids nowadays is the fruit of those ideas.

There are also a whole lot of problems formed in a child's mind by trying to teach them a phoenetic language as if it were a pictographic one. I believe "ADD" is a symptom of that nonsense.

[Bob Olhsson]

...I don't think it a problem of not having enough money in some cases. Too many State Education administrations misappropriate funding. My state is suing the federal government for not funding our schools based upon the number of students, but the politicians failed to see the problem of the schools not using what they were given.
The schools are forced to spend money on nonsense in order to qualify for the grants that keep them afloat financially. If they cut out the nonsense, they don't end up with enough money to stay open. Politicians bend the numbers around to make it look like schools are wasting a lot of money when in fact they are severely underfunded.

[ckerian]

Musicians Friend, guitar center, and my local target sell Fender T shirts.

Think about that for a second. Why would anyone buy a t-shirt to advertise a product.

We're the people in Idiocricy trying to figure out why you can't grow a crop on Gatorade (even if it has "electrolytes, it's what plants crave"). We all have a fender T-shirt don't we? Well, I have a gearwire shirt that was sent to me for free but make no mistake.. I would have paid 5 bucks for it at Spencers and got the second for 1.00 all because it has a stack on the front of it.

Van Halen is charging $150 a seat for their shitty little band. Why the hell does Eddie think i want to see his fat son waddle around stage? CAN HE PLAY? IS HE A MINI Eddy? cause if he isnt then I dont give a shit. My local radio station was discussing VH and 1. the cnt didn't know who valleri was and 2. they said Wolfgang played guitar.

I blame mixerpuppet!

[radiationroom]

Musicians Friend, guitar center, and my local target sell Fender T shirts.

Think about that for a second. Why would anyone buy a t-shirt to advertise a product.

Because it's "cool". It makes someone feel like they belong to part of a pack or tribe. Wearing a Fender t-shirt is a way one musician can indicate to other musicians that "I am a musician" without having to go shake every stranger's hand and say "I'm a musician dude!" :Roll eyes:

I have a very nice sweater with the "Sony" logo embrodered on the front right side, about a third of the way below the shoulder. Got it as a freebee in the mid-1990s as part of a promotion Sony was doing for a new line of video equipment. I like wearing it on ocassion because it makes me look "professional". Then again, that sweater would likely sell for more than a hundred dollars in todaze money. Can't say a Fender t-shirt would have the same effect on my appearance. Especially with my mop of hair that hasn't been cut since 2003. :grin:

[jerryskid]

If you want kids who are smart, then you need to spend time at home teaching them before they get to school. IF a parent isn't involved with their kids then whatever the State decides, your going to get stuck with it...

The problem is that most parents have to both work, some 2 jobs, just to pay the bills. Alot of kids are coming home to empty houses just so there's a house to come home to. Then when the folks are home, they're too fucking tired to spend any quality time with the kids........:Wink:

[Mixerpuppet]

The problem is that most parents have to both work, some 2 jobs, just to pay the bills. Alot of kids are coming home to empty houses just so there's a house to come home to. Then when the folks are home, they're too fucking tired to spend any quality time with the kids........:Wink:

Which goes back to why Bob is right about the cycle having to do with something different than the old model which had more to do with live performances. The fan base is now online and not in front of the stage.

The 2 job thing is greed driven by the swing between Corporate Capitalism Model of Government and Socialism of Taxing the Rich to pay for a social deficits caused by item one.

Which is the olden days was called rape and pilliage... :Twisted:

Trying to keep up with the Jones is a widespread problem. I live on the edge of the "projects" and I always get a little chuckle when I see an old lady driving a tricked out Trans-Am and enough "faux" gold jewelry to cause a wobble in the earth orbit at the same time as trying to by smokes with food stamps. My bets are they have an X-Box 360 and 42" HCTV.....

In another example my brother-in-law makes about $50,000 a year an complains he needs to do OT just to put food on the table. ?Wants a better education to get more money as not have to do overtime. His girlfriend makes $65,000 a year and they live together with a combined income over $100,000 and thier having trouble putting food on the table?

Maybe the 2 trips to Hawaii and one to NC for a NASCAR event have something to do with it? Or maybe the fact of HOW MUCH food is on the table.... or the 2 new cars?? or the boat...

Mmmm....

They both seem oblivious to how to connect spending more than they make contributes to the food deficit. My wife asked about the trips and the girlfriend responded "thier only $1250 a person and it's not like were going first class or something extravagent"....

Sometimes working 2 jobs is because of being stupid. But mainly I think its because the cost of living has skyrocketed in some areas.

Im a single income family and we budget. We saw the problem coming and positioned ourselves to live within meager means so my wife could stay home. She also volunteers at the school and we never miss a parent teacher conference and take advantage of every opportunity to get in comments.

How do we get out of that cycle first, to allow other things to cycle?

Certainly Government can't help.... its part of the problem currently.

One of the things I did recently was give a young man who loves music and the bass guitar, a bass guitar, amp, tuner and free lessons. My mother-in-law is benevolent with her time and gives kids used violins at no charge so they have take lessons. She constantly scours music stores for deals and I thought it was a good idea so she talked me into easing into doing the same thing for her students that want to move from Cello or Upright to electric instruments. It's called the Mozart model ;)

Personal benevolence will always mean more and go farther than artificial benevolence via the Government taxation Process.

That way in the future you might have a deeper pool of people populating the government than what is currently represented.

[Johnny]

Lots of people have two income homes because they have to, but a great deal could also make some sacrifices and benefit their kids in the long run. I'm already planning towards that for when we have kids.