Economists: Hold your breath or wash your mouth out with soap

“If you really think the environment is less important than the economy try holding your breath next time you count your money”

Guy McPherson


I think we need to wake up to the economic myth and relegate it back to where it belongs.

The so called leaders in our society trumpet the economy as the paramount thing that needs to be sustained. At the cost of the environment. At the cost of people who are socially and economically excluded. At the cost of any animal population. At the cost of water that is safe to drink or air that is fit to breath.

We are mind controlled into a way of thinking about the economy as if the economy where a living breathing thing, like a starving child, when it is just an abstract concept. Totally abstract. Completely intangible.

To those self important few herding us like cattle, those who say the economy is the most important thing in community life I say:

“Liar, liar pants on fire!!”

An economy is just a structure that provides a means for us to experience leisure, pleasure and sufficience.  Unfortunately greedy men have manipulated this system and manipulated the discussion around it so that the average man, woman and child accepts gross environmental destruction as a necessity to maintain ‘the economy’.

Interestingly in generations gone economy had a totally different meaning. Being economic was associated with being a spendthrift, with reusing or recycling. With making do without market place solutions. Now being economic is associated with excessive consumption and with the production of massive amounts of personal refuse buried and forgotten.

Why did we let these greedy guys take us here? Why don’t we discuss this in public forums? Why aren’t we protesting in the streets to relegate the economy and transform to a system that supports everyone and protects the natural world that permits our life?

I’m sure you know why and it’s a sad sad state of affairs.  Really really sad.

The true reason is a story of fear, distraction and what can be achieved on a global scale through bombardment of state sanctioned bank industry propaganda. Because we are told these lies so regularly every day we cannot see through them to the truth.We become conditioned to think any of the alternatives are extreme, irrational and unrealistic.  But isn’t the course we are on extreme?




The triggers for transforming your roof into a part-time job


Ralph Nader

Our house is old. Over a hundred years. We need a new roof. That will cost about $60,000 for labour and materials. Less if we did it ourselves.

I’ve had a holding treatment on our roof. It consists of found roofing iron and car inner tubes. The car tubes will give 3-5 years life before they perish if you paint them and use the right adhesive.

But whatever cheap innovation, or temporary solution we can’t escape that we need a new roof. No doubt about it, but I am not going to buy a roof. I am going to buy a farm that generates an income. See there are new solar panels out now that double as the waterproofing. Before you needed the roof then the panels on top now you can get a product that does both.

We estimate that this will cost us $100,000. We have also estimated that this should generate about $650 per month. Less what we pay on power ($80-150) and that’s over $6000 per year income after paying our energy bill. $160,000 over the life of the roof plus free electricity during this period. The panels have about half the effective life of roofing iron, but they pay themselves back around the mid point in their life. This doesn’t take into account escalation. If the price of power goes up so does our income.

One trigger to consider…

Is this a good use of $100,000?

$6000 per annum on $100,000 is only 6%. We could get a better return than that on a number of alternative investments, but the net return on investment ratio is 1.5/1. Meaning by the time we need the next roof as pensioners we’d have the cost plus a large additional deposit that would have been earning interest for 15 years.

Even if we sold our house the income from farming sun would be a significant factor in the resale price. The only problem….when is the best time to buy technology?

Well it is always next week. Technology will be better and prices will be cheaper…

Still I’d rather have an income producing roof and free time to a traditional roof and enforced economic slavery of another part-time job!

Guard your mind against negative programming

“Oh you hate your job? There’s a support group for for that. It’s called everybody!”

Graffiti on a wall

If you had your life to live again I bet you think it would go differently for you. You’d make better choices. You’d start out ahead of the game. Everything would go right. I like to think this way too, but truth is we’re the result of our consciousness, the choices and decisions we make and our emotional reactions to the situations around us. We’re also deliberately molded and shaped by society at large to be passive little worker bees that only live to shop. So chances are our lives would go exactly the same if we got a second shot at it.

Think about it like this. If you are reading this on a computer or an internet capable device then you probably have at leastt 1/2 of your life left. One third at a minimum. All the sunrises that you’ve seen so far don’t have any bearing on what you could do or what you could achieve in your remaining sunsets, but what are the chances that the second half of your life would deviate from the safe and predictable course you re on?

To make a shift you’d need to guard your mind against negative influences. You’d need to get around people that have already achieved the success that you are seeking. You’d need to learn to react differently to situations. You’d need to grow resistant to failure. You’d need to stop wasting your life on the internet, movies, TV, mobile phones or video games. You might need to get over your mental baggage. You may even need to restructure or terminate some of your closest personal relationships

Sure things could go completely differently for you, but you’ll need to kick the ride out of autopilot and take conscious control of your situation. Where this roller-coaster called life takes you in the next decade of your journey is completely up to you.

Smile laugh and keep on trucking

Ralph Waldo Emerson


Sometimes you get treated like shit at work. There doesn’t seem to be any relationship between how much you are paid and how many shit sandwiches your employer serves you. The natural reaction is to become annoyed or angry. Most people have to swallow their pride, calm down and quietly get right back to work. Its hard to find another job and its always better not to do anything rash.

About now you’re probably expecting a story about me telling a former employer to stick it. Sure I’ve done that, but that’s not the message. I try hard to avoid negativity. Negativity is inevitable and without experiencing fear, anger or sadness we could never really know joy, bliss or happiness. That said their is no point courting negativity. The environment we live in will programme our minds unless we consciously do it ourselves.

So when something riles me (usually work politics) instead of flying off the handle I find some distance. I examine my rage from a dispassionate 3rd party perspective. Almost like the anger is happening to someone else. Rage is a blinding emotion so this takes practice and maybe some help to trigger yourself into another reaction to anger.

In my experience I usually laugh. Most situations that enrage me are totally trivial. I don’t really care about the situation. I’m not really personally invested in it say in the same way that I might be if I owned the cafe rather than work in it. Getting some space between yourself and the anger lets you see how silly it all is. You also get the choice of moving on and forgetting it. Living with the moment instead of having your day ruined and then taking it home with you to infect your family that night.

Emotions are like a virus in that they like to leap from person to person and feed off them. I choose to infect people around me with happiness. I’m attracted to joyous people and happy environments. If I find myself in negative spaces I take it as my personal mission to cultivate enthusiasm, lightness and fun. I want to have a positive experience on people around me and I can’t do that if I allow myself to be captivated by purposeless emotional responses like anger.

Anger is our response to either frustration or a personal threat. There is no need to be frustrated. There are infinite means to achieve an objective. Likewise their is no actual danger. No real personal threat. Most workplace threats are benign. The personal threat is mind created and carries no element of physical danger.

So smile, laugh and keep on trucking my friend!

Illusions within the dream of life

“How strange when an illusion dies. It’s as though you’ve lost a child” 
Judy Garland


1. The Illusion Of Free Will

We all imagine ourselves living freely, yet most of the stuff that we do we do not choose it. We do it to avoid consequences rather than doing things purely for joy.

Solution: Do what you love.

2. The Illusion Of Time

We are the only animal to invent time and as a result we suffer the fear of running out of time for our entire adult life.

Solution: Cast off your watch.

3. The Illusion Of Identity

We feel that we have a clear cut identity based on specifically selected and carefully reconstructed memories and experiences. Our identity is just a mind phenomenon. It can’t be located within us. It is just a series of ideas.

Solution: Shed your self-limiting preconception of who you are and what you are capable of achieving.

4. The Illusion Of Separateness

Because we are not rooted like a tree we think we are separate from other people. Really we are like the apples on the tree. We are related to all the other apples through our shared relationship to the tree. And like the apple I guess we die when we are finally picked. The illusion of individuation is so pervasive that we think we can live separated from the natural environment or from each other.

Solution: Act from a perspective of unity.


Specious media chicanery: Living beyond mass media metaphors


Thomas Sowell







  1. How does this story make me feel?
  2. Does it evoke positive or negative emotions within me?
  5. Is the underlying narrative worthy of my attention
  6. How was this story retold to me?
  7. Why was it told in this way?
  9. How do they benefit?



The Idlers Guide to Unjobbing

“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups”

George Carlin












