The effects of a bad economy

Chicago, July 24th 2010

I have been thinking recently about writing something related to the effects that “bad economy” has had on people.
First of all bad economy is something that does not exist, is something that we convince ourselves it exists...There has been “terrorism” on television and on the magazines insisting that there is less money in general, that people are spending less, that people are losing their jobs and their houses and guess what? Companies thought that maybe in fact it wasn't the right time to invest or hire new people and banks thought it wasn't the right time to land money to buy new houses and all this and more initiated a chain and a vicious circle from where it will be quite hard to come out, unless we finally start saying “enough”!
But for now I don't even want to go and explain in details my economic point of view...I wrote a thesis on the Crac of the '29 and that was a real crisis, much different than what we are facing these years even if some people keep comparing that crisis to this one.
I will surely have my saying about this important matter in another article, but for now let's concentrate on something really important: “the effects of the so called bad economy”.

Have you noticed how people who have a good job and earn good money all over the sudden became “cheap”? What are they doing? Saving for the tough times? Or are they giving their money to the poor people? Of course not! They are just thinking it's fine to be cheap as on television they are saying there is a “bad economy” and we should watch out our spending!
This type of people are spending on themselves as usual to show off that they are still rich, but saving on their loved ones and their friends anyway they can.
I know of people who never buy presents to their loved ones and ask their parents for money even if they now earn much more than them and people who go to restaurants with their friends and try to take advantage of them making them paying more (I promise I saw a rich person who -when the check arrived- told everyone to pay $30 and he put $20 without “almost” anyone realizing what he was doing) or making sure they are not paying the 2 or 3 extra dollars for the one who ordered a soda!
Two ex best friends are not talking to each other anymore because of $2 extra one paid for his friend's drink!
I did travel all over the world and never experienced this before: I think this new “cheap trend” has officially started more or less a year ago.
I would not call it just “cheap trend”, maybe I should say “disgusting and deceiving trend” but this is becoming almost “normal” nowadays and so many people are joining in, that I don't know who's feet I'm stepping on right now!
Of course we always had “cheap people” and generally they were the richer ones in our group or the poor who became all over the sudden rich, but now all sorts of categories have subscribed to the “club”.
The same people go and ask themselves why nobody likes them and why they don't have friends...Did they ever hear the saying: -Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me- ?
Well, friends are not stupid and they shouldn't be treated like that: if they are stupid they'll join the “cheap club” with you and try to take advantage of you next time, but if they are not stupid they'll go and find better friends somewhere else.
There are things more important than money and this comes from someone who absolutely thinks that -time is money- and those things are family and real friends! You can't mess with them...they are in your life, they are your life! Be good and generous to them and it will come back to you one day!
I know this is not the time anymore for the good movies, but everybody should watch again Frank Capra movie “It's a wonderful life”! George Bailey was saved by his friends who gave him the money they could afford to save him from going to jail for something he didn't do. And the Angel in the end of the movie wrote him a simple and great message :- No man is a failure who has friends-.
By friends he surely didn't mean the ones we have on Facebook! Good friends are a treasure and they can't be more than 10-15 if you have been a loving and generous person in your life!

So if you have been lucky and you do have money and intelligence enough to make even more use it wisely, make your family happy, treat them for a vacation and put a smile on their face, go and tell your good friend, who helped you find the new position you wanted, that dinner next time is on you and leave a few extra dollars to the nice waiter who treated you better than he was supposed to during your dinner!
Not only in your little way you'll contribute to stop the vicious circle of the bad economy, but you'll be a better person, someone who has real friends and that people respect and admire!

Religulous

Religulous

In the part of Europe where I lived (Italy, UK, Spain, France), religion was used to be (and still is) something quite private. Nobody would come and ask you what is your religion or if you go to Church or not...They would look at you in a curious way only if you go out showing the symbols of your religion, but they usually still would not ask questions.
If someone tells you “god bless you” in Italy, you either have a priest in front of you or a crazy person, in which case you would touch wood, iron or something else (ask Italian men and they'll tell you) to avoid bad luck.
Over here in the USA, once they ask you where you are from, they want to know (with direct or indirect questions) what is your religion! They absolutely feel the need to put a label on every person they meet, which is so unpleasant. And they say “ god bless you” even when you are just polite to keep the door open for someone...

In Countries where you study Latin, Literature and Philosophy the majority of people know very well that religions are just a fantasy, all of them, and one is not better than the other. Some of these people might have their own spirituality and decide to believe just part of what they are told: they do not accept what is just written or said somewhere, they have plenty of questions and doubts.
I am of course not saying that we should deny anything: everybody should be free to believe what they want to believe, Zeus, God and even Pinco Pallino if they feel like it, but this “freedom should end where other people freedom starts” and nobody should feel superior to another or try to make others believe in what they believe. Spirituality should be something we have inside and there should be no need at all to show it with any external symbols. How good we are or simply what we are is determined purely by our actions.

Everyone should read Lucrezio, Leopardi, Schopenhauer and open their mind to what other important people before them experienced and felt in their life...people, not gods!
We have been living in this Earth for so many centuries and if we exclude technology, we are still the same kind of people we were centuries ago. Religions and politics (sometimes they become the same thing) still try hard to keep the population ignorant in order to control them, instead of helping them.
We keep putting walls in front of us and we call them religions and races.
We did not learn to respect other people opinions and we still did not learn to listen and open our mind to new ideas: only very few people do it unfortunately!
We still do not understand that actions are better than prayers: sometimes we can help and we just don't want to do it. A human being can be powerful with his mind, his heart and his money!
This is the reality!

I like what the famous Oncologist Umberto Veronesi said about religion: - La religione, per definizione, è integralista, mentre la scienza vive nel dubbio , nella ricerca della verità-, literally -Religion for definition is fundamentalist, while science has doubts and is always searching the truth-.
To what he said I would just add that Science together with Art are the truth, they are our truth, they are what we see, what we know, what we can do!

Is there a life after death? Who knows, maybe there is...but nobody knows it for sure or has been able to demonstrate it.
We do have this life right now though and we better make it worth it: we should study and learn and achieve great things while we are here and while we can!