Do people need to change their personality to overcome TMS

Only problem with a Ms Klein's "people's economic revolution" is with whom you're going to replace the Neo-liberal "Chicago Boys"? The Berkeley "mafia"? The Keynesians at Harvard and NYU? Or may be it would be with the socialists at the London School of Economics? Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your self-interested perspective), the Neo-liberals now own all the pitchforks (the police, the army and the prisons), so any change is going to be potentially quite violent and, in the long run, probably ineffective or downright self-destructive. It's taken 70 years since the end of WWII to get into this economic cul de sac and it's not going to change except gradually without a complete economic meltdown. In the meanwhile, Twitter just issued a 10 billion dollar IPO and Facebook has a 60 billion dollar IPO so things are just great where I live.

 

Interesting comments everyone. I am very happy to hear that I am not the only one with a negative bent. I really have been trying to stay more balanced.

njoy - I read your link on IFS and I thought it really had merit. I realize that only part of me looks only at the negative. I want to tone it down, but I realize that it is trying to protect me. It leads me to become more knowledgeable about finance to see the lessons history has to offer and not be fooled by our corrupt "leaders". I think our leaders want us to be as "dumb" as possible and not see the terrible job they are doing and how they have sold us out to vested interests.

Bruce - I think - at least for me - that this issue of finance does have a lot to do with TMS. I think all of us know deep down inside that our leaders have screwed us over, but are afraid to see the truth because, heaven forbid, they might actually have to do something about it. Finance is closely related to safety and security issues, like getting healthcare, so it can really be a significant stressor. I also don't just worry for myself, I worry for everyone.

I can only try to be more balanced.

 

Bruce, the good economists are the libertarian Austrian school. This stuff comes from the likes of Adam Smith and Carl Menger who really did understand human economic nature.

 

Every time I hear about the Chicago boys I want to scream! It pains me so much that I always avoid the topic. I can't control my anger. Fascist Chilean economist were trained in Chicago after the military coup of 1973 and they imposed this immensely unjust economy that we still have. Chile is a very rich country, lots of copper, but the distribution of health is so uneven, that the middle class almost disappeared in Chile. I know I have to work on this anger, but just thinking of all the pain, deaths, imprisonment, torture, evilness and exile that we had to endure in order for them to impose this so called Neo-liberal program makes me still furious.
Leonor

 

If I change my personality, I wouldn't recognize myself. My dog would bark at me.

I see myself as a nice guy but don't take advantage of my friendship.
Betrayal of friendship will not be tolerated.
I'd rather hug you, but if you give me TMS, so long, and it wasn't good to know you.

 

Chickenbone and Leonor, I don't think anyone in the USA knows what kind of damage the "Chicago Boys" did to the economies of countries like Chile where the middle class was almost entirely eliminated due to their policies. I used to climb with the son of the founder of the Austrian School of Economics. He's a Hoover Fellow at Stanford U. in Palo Alto right now. And Naomi Klein has "grabbed the pitchforks" and is at the "barricades". She's an economic advisor at the UN, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. She's no lightweight "Anonymous" prankster. She was one of the only ones who successfully predicted the economic meltdown of 2007-2008 so Noami's got big bucks behind her right now:

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

I'm beginning to wonder whether the epidemic of back pain that started approximately 30 years ago in the Western developed world is rooted in the ongoing stress we all feel due to economic policies designed to keep the consumers in perpetual credit debt. I see that Dr Sarno places a big mortgage high on his list of traumatic events lead to the development of PPD (psycho-physiologic disorders). But what about when the entire middle class of a country is crushed under revolving debt as a way of life? Must have some affect/effect on the collective psyches of the consumer classes. Just not like living as a hunter-gatherer on the Serengeti Plain anymore.

 

Bruce, to me, debt, especially credit card debt, is one of the biggest TMSers we have.
I don't think a lot of people got into credit card debt by buying expensive cars or taking luxury vacations
or having million-dollar weddings. They got into debt by trying to keep paying their mortgage and
other bills as the economy began sinking and then sank.

I was going to write what I think the reasons why they're in debt but that becomes political,
and politics do not belong on the forum.

But I totally agree that debt and financial worries cause a lot of people TMS.

 

Bruce, this is very interesting. Every time I visited Chile I noticed a lot of people dying of cancer. I asked around and I noticed that in Chile nowadays there is an epidemic of cancer and fibromyalgia sufferers, very common there.
Leonor

 

Yes, Leonor, when the level of debt gets so high that it stresses people out, the "Body Says No" like the title of Gabor Mate's book implies. Big macro correlations exist between economics and physical and mental health no doubt. Lots and lots of people went crazy in the Wiemar Republic when inflation spiraled out of control during the early 1920s during WWI.

 

Debt is just a form of "benevolent" slavery. I think at the core, most of us realize this. I really believe that economics is at the core of a lot of TMS problems. Unfortunately, most people don't understand it and don't want to even admit it to themselves, mainly because they don't think they could do anything about it. For me at least, it is really important to recognize it, at the very least. That is why my husband and I moved to Panama after we retired. It gave us an out from the corrupt US economic repression. We are still partially trapped, but not totally.

10 or 15 years ago, people like me who don't trust the bubbles in the stock market would be able to invest conservatively in US Govt. bonds and earn 4 or 5% in retirement. However the Fed's financial repression in the form of practically zero interest rates has robbed savers, pensioners and retired people of the interest on savings. All to save an insolvent banking system.

I do believe, like Dr. Sarno said that in order to heal, we don't need to solve our problems and issues, but we do need to bring them out of unconsciousness into the conscious mind to examine them. We, as individuals, can't solve most of the problems in the world, but we need to recognize what is bothering us.

 

I wish I could move to Panama, or somewhere. A friend moved to Costa Rica years ago and still loves it.
He taught English at a village school and married a Costa Rican girl and they had a daughter.

America needs a complete overhaul of its business-political marriage. A divorce. But it will never happen
and meanwhile we all suffer. You're right in that economics causes a lot of TMS pain.
So do computers that act up, like mine.

 

Right, Walt. Panama is great for a laid back lifestyle, but we live on the beach where the internet is not good. I am not able to really participate in most of the great stuff on this forum because of that. I think it would help me if I could. There are other place where I can access better internet, but usually there is no privacy and too much noise.