# When will things stop sucking? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 6, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832 "2010-01-06T01:14:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/21 "2010-01-06T05:32:44Z")
We won’t stop hearing a sucking sound until they repeal NAFTA. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/22 "2010-01-06T05:33:13Z")
\ -XT ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/23 "2010-01-06T05:36:49Z")
Food pantries are running a shortage nowadays because donations are down but demand is up. A person can get enough calories to survive (assuming you get by on 2000 a day) for $1/day or less if you plan it right. Eat a lot of discount store bread, rice, oatmeal, cake mix, peanut butter sandwiches, etc. I honestly don’t think starvation is or should be a problem if a person really plans things out. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/24 "2010-01-06T05:39:12Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Food pantries are running a shortage nowadays because donations are down but demand is up. Thank you for reminding me, I’ve been meaning to drop some stuff off at the local pantry. > [@](#): > > A person can get enough calories to survive (assuming you get by on 2000 a day) for $1/day or less if you plan it right. Eat a lot of discount store bread, rice, oatmeal, cake mix, peanut butter sandwiches, etc. I honestly don’t think starvation is or should be a problem if a person really plans things out. Right. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/25 "2010-01-06T06:53:49Z")
Remember the song “These Are the Good Old Days”? The problem with good times is that we rarely recognize them until they’re over, i.e. there are always problems, and it’s all relative. I look back at the “good” (or at least “better”) periods I’ve lived through, and they only seem good in retrospect. ---
**Author:** ![CutterJohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/91b2a8/32.png) [@CutterJohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CutterJohn)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/26 "2010-01-06T08:13:33Z")
Life is better for a greater percentage of the human population than its ever been before, and it will keep on improving. Sure, there are momentary hiccups, but I’ll take the world now, today, over anytime before it, hands down. Tomorrow… It will be even better. Somehow, despite what oftentimes seems to be our damnedest efforts to the contrary, we really are doing good and making right. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/27 "2010-01-06T08:35:05Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Then comes the economy and it was bad, but that’s only the correction from having a ridiculously amazing economy for so long, and still things are not truly horrible. We might have to relax that fantasy where we are all richer than our Daddies, but otherwise our day to day survival isn’t in doubt, and besides electronics are cheaper as a proportion of income now than before, so we can still buy as much stuff with our discretionary income as Daddy, we just spend less of a proportion of our overall take on luxuries. > > So what the fuck ever, people are a bunch of wankers. Things are more or less ok. They get better today. That’s it, just take your own life into your hands and stop being such pansies. 😉 Nonsense. [Six million Americans have no income at all besides food stamps](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/us/03foodstamps.html); much less “disposable income”. And the economy hasn’t been “ridiculously amazing”, or even good for most people for a very long time. Most people have at best stagnated for decades. You are just spouting rah-rah Republican rhetoric. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/28 "2010-01-06T12:55:54Z")
There’s a graph at [Washington Monthly](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_01/021734.php) that shows just how bad the 2000’s were relative to other decades in terms of job growth. > [@](#): > > It’s a painful overview, as the chart helps demonstrate. “There has been zero net job creation since December 1999,” the WaPo piece explained. "No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/29 "2010-01-06T13:00:41Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Nonsense. [Six million Americans have no income at all besides food stamps](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/us/03foodstamps.html); much less “disposable income”. And the economy hasn’t been “ridiculously amazing”, or even good for most people for a very long time. Most people have at best stagnated for decades. You are just spouting rah-rah Republican rhetoric. So two percent of the population has no income besides food stamps? I’d say capitalism is serving the populace pretty well in that case. Certainly much better than any other economic system, that’s for sure. I’d wager that two percent of the population was on the streets even in communist countries where everybody lived like shit just so nobody would have more than somebody else. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/30 "2010-01-06T14:47:17Z")
IMHO we are in a cycle called a ‘end of an age’, it happens throughout history where a power gets too powerful and controlling to the point that it can’t support itself anymore and will collapse, and a new world power will arise, rinse, repeat. This I believe is related to scriptures where the people at the bottom cry out to God of the weight of oppression on them, God removes them, and the structure undergoes collapse. IMHO, it is not the end of the world, just the end of a ‘age’ or perhaps ‘empire’ would be easier to understand. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/31 "2010-01-06T14:53:19Z")
Heh, the 2000s only “sucked” if your perspective was narrow. My grandparents raised a family in the 30s and 40s. Now _there_ were a pair of decades that sucked! I grew up in the '70s - another decade full of suck (though less so of course). ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/32 "2010-01-06T14:55:42Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > We won’t stop hearing a sucking sound until they repeal NAFTA. There’s this new school of economic thought called “mercantilism” that’s all the rage, maybe the US should adopt it. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/33 "2010-01-06T15:18:56Z")
Have recent times necessarily sucked for everyone worldwide? Seems the EU is making gains, and India and China have certainly taken huge economic strides. What may have ended is the US’s assurance that we are - for some reason or another - guaranteed a standard of living and permitted a level of consumption that is higher than the vast majority of our planet-mates. As the parent of 3 young adults I often think about the type of world they are inheriting, compared to what I inherited. And it is pretty easy to come up with a lengthier list of negatives than positives. Sure, medical technology and life expectancy have improved, and food is cheaper. But I’m not sure where the jobs are going to be in the near future, where anyone will be able to safely invest their money, or what the state of the environment will be. Things don’t really suck for me right now, because I have always been quite conservative in my expenditures and investments. I never understood how the booming economy was sustainable and, as a result, undoubtedly missed out on many opportunities. However, I also shielded myself from a lot of the unpleasantness many are experiencing. And I have been very fortunate in terms of job security. One way for things to stop sucking would be for people to adjust their goals to being more consistent with a universably sustainable lifestyle. For several decades our primary goals seem to have been maximizing the consumption of consumer goods, with no eye to the environmental or policiical repercussions. Far more people desire to get rich, than to live a good life. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/34 "2010-01-06T15:53:38Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > IMHO we are in a cycle called a ‘end of an age’, it happens throughout history where a power gets too powerful and controlling to the point that it can’t support itself anymore and will collapse, and a new world power will arise, rinse, repeat. This I believe is related to scriptures where the people at the bottom cry out to God of the weight of oppression on them, God removes them, and the structure undergoes collapse. > > IMHO, it is not the end of the world, just the end of a ‘age’ or perhaps ‘empire’ would be easier to understand. So, the world economy is controlled by God? At the behest of the lower class? I see. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/35 "2010-01-06T16:19:51Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > So two percent of the population has no income besides food stamps? I’d say capitalism is serving the populace pretty well in that case. Certainly much better than any other economic system, that’s for sure. I’d wager that two percent of the population was on the streets even in communist countries where everybody lived like shit just so nobody would have more than somebody else. It’s not capitalism that’s giving those 2 percent food. It’s the government. The system that serves us so well is a mixed economy, incorporating elements of capitalism and socialism. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/36 "2010-01-06T16:24:01Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > In the broadest sense. > > In the 90’s things were pretty good: The economy was booming, communism was defeated, and there was a general sense of optimism about the future. Sure there were some bad things happening, but, for the most part, things were kind of okay. THINGS DIDN"T SUCK. > > Now the economy is in the crapper, lots of people have been out of work for a long time, they’re defaulting on their mortgages and losing their houses, we’re running huge deficits, we’re mired in two unending wars, terrorists are trying to kill us, the paranoid anti-terrorism security is beating us down, we’re running out of oil, and global warming is going to destroy the environment. Things suck. > > I don’t want to hear about how we got to this point. I want to hear about when it will end. When will things stop sucking and start being kind of okay again? Not for quite a while, [in the opinion of James Howard Kunstler.](http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/12/forecast-2010.html) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/37 "2010-01-06T16:31:30Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Nonsense. [Six million Americans have no income at all besides food stamps](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/us/03foodstamps.html); much less “disposable income”. And the economy hasn’t been “ridiculously amazing”, or even good for most people for a very long time. Most people have at best stagnated for decades. You are just spouting rah-rah Republican rhetoric. Stagnated for decades? I guess you don’t even know how to read statistics. The 90s and the first part of the oughts was the pinnacle of wealth for any society in human civilization ever. Seriously, look at the data, not shit you simply just made up. And that people even CAN get food stamps shows that we are phenomenally wealthy. In Victorian England them would’ve simply starved to death, like they would’ve in any other culture in history. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/38 "2010-01-06T16:33:50Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Heh, the 2000s only “sucked” if your perspective was narrow. My grandparents raised a family in the 30s and 40s. Now _there_ were a pair of decades that sucked! > > I grew up in the '70s - another decade full of suck (though less so of course). Exactly. People who think that we have ‘stagnated for decades’ are ignorant beyond the level of what a High School Freshman should know. They need to learn about queuing for gas in the 70s, or need to read ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ over and over and over and over and over, and recognize that there was no such thing as Food Stamps back then. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/39 "2010-01-06T16:53:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not for quite a while, [in the opinion of James Howard Kunstler.](http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/12/forecast-2010.html) This very much reflects my mindset: \*I’ve noticed that what’s being clamored for is a set of rescue remedies - miracles even - that will allow us to keep living exactly the way we’re accustomed to in the USA, with all the trappings of comfort and convenience now taken as entitlements. \* ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832/40 "2010-01-06T17:02:09Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > There’s this new school of economic thought called “mercantilism” that’s all the rage, maybe the US should adopt it. :rolleyes: Seems to be working well for China. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-things-stop-sucking/523832.md?page=3)