Thursday, July 10, 2008
A Nation of Whiners
Phil Gramm is right. We are a nation of whiners. One can tell from the context of his remarks that he did intend to mean the leaders of the country, and that those whiny "leaders" have resulted in people perceiving a recession where there isn't one (thus his phrase "mental recession"). However, if Gramm has been teaching at a university lately, he would know that he was right in the broader sense -- at least among those getting educated, and those who are already educated. Most of the political whiners are in fact demagogues who are whining just to get more power. But there's an entire generation -- the post gen-x'ers -- who are about the whiniest bunch of people I've ever come across. Worse than the Boomers. My generation, gen-x, were cynical -- but it seems my generation has raised another one that is more whiny than the generation of our parents. Give me cynical over whiny any day. Cynical may be defensive, but at least it isn't weak and lazy.
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3 comments:
no recession--are you kidding me! I'm sorry but its really obvious where I work and around where I live that people (real people who most of whom already struggle to pay bills while working 2 jobs) are really suffering and its getting worse.
And I hate to tell ya, but the economy rests on the back of these people. Another year and these people will have a broken back and we'll be in serious trouble.
I don't watch tv or listen to media anymore btw--so my opinion on this is coming from what I see around me, not what some talking head tells me must be the case. Thats BS...
plenty of people are in recession...
May be true locally, but around here there's no recession. Lots of building going on, etc. I think the national economy is probably a mixed bag, with some places in recession, others not.
Also, what Phil Gramm was referring to was the bizarre situation that occurs in polls, where a large percentage of people will express pessimism regarding the economy, but of those people who expressed pessimism about the economy, something like 90% say they're doing just fine financially, and things look to improve for them. It is this disconnect that Gramm is referring to as a "mental recession."
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