samhill wrote:If you just look at the so called developed nations as American workers we don`t fare as well as you may think in terms of hours worked & vacation time & standard of living.
So what country should we look to as a model or example to emulate? France? Germany? Britain?
The concept of "standard of living" is an illusion since it does not address the real needs of man which were fixed in our genes hundreds of thousands of years ago. We are obsolete in terms of modern civilization, or at least that civilization which our leaders envision. Our founding fathers were aware of the needs of man and in their genius they spelled it out in The Declaration of Independence. A few simple sentences with a world of meaning that is too easy to gloss over in its very brevity.
The first thing a wealthy man does as soon as he achieves wealth is to buy a country home to get away where he can be human again. It seems to me that many like Freetown Fred are already there without being cumbered with wealth. Pope John the twenty third said he was brought up in "blessed poverty"so there must have been factors other than poverty that this most saintly of men recognized as blessed. Things that money can't buy even though a friend of mine said,"give me the money and I will do my own shopping."
I heat the house with a hand fired coal stove. I do it to save money which is a good reason in spite of the work involved, but the real reason is the feeling of satisfaction that comes from being self reliant and independent, something that is basic to the nature of all of us. It is not always easy to deduce the real reasons for the actions of ourselves and our leaders since they so often defy logic.
