This article at Grist features many people who have discovered more happiness and a different attitude toward possessions after moving into tiny houses, as small as 100 square feet. Here's a short article I wrote in 2007 describing houses as small as 40 square feet.
Here's a well-written article by the Federal Trade Commission about your rights with regard to debt collectors.
This article includes a video interview with the President of Iceland, who explains that part of Iceland's recovery from economic catastrophe was to allow the banks to fail.
In an impromptu interview with the Al Jazeera News Network’s Stephen Cole, Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson explains that his country was able to rebound from the worldwide financial crisis better than all other countries that faced the same problems, by doing just that, allowing the failing banks to go bankrupt.
I've been collecting quotes for years. Here are many of my favorites. See below for my most recent favorites: “I want an avowed atheist in the White House. When time comes to push that button, I want whoever's making the decision to understand that once it's pushed, it's over. Finito. They're not gonna have lunch with Jesus. Won't be deflowering 72 virgins on the great shag carpet of eternity, or reincarnated as a cow. I want someone making that decision who believes life on this Earth isn't just a dress rehearsal for something better -- but the only shot we get.” ― Quentin R. Bufogle "There was a footpath leading across the fields to New Southgate, and I used to go there alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics." —Bertrand Russell "Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles." -Mark Twain “One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.” ― Arthur C. Clarke "No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behaviour to sin; he does not say, "You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go." He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right. An analogous way of treating human beings is, however, considered to be contrary to the truths of our holy religion." - Bertrand Russell in "The Doctrine of Free Will" “Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.” Howard Zinn “It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'Try to be a little kinder.” ― Aldous Huxley, Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics & the Visionary Experience "To refrain from an act is no less an act than to commit one." —Sir Charles Sherrington "The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." Dorothy Parker, (attributed) “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” Ralph Waldo Emerson "To change one’s life start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions." William James.
I've often wondered how our economic system doesn't self-destruct, given that the federal government has borrowed a huge percentage of the money it spends, year after year. This from the Washington Times:
The federal government borrowed 46 cents of every dollar it has spent so far in fiscal 2013, which began Oct. 1, according to the latest data the Congressional Budget Office released Friday. The government notched a $172 billion deficit in November, and is already nearly $300 billion in the hole through the first two months of fiscal year 2013, underscoring just how deep the government’s budget problems are as lawmakers try to negotiate a year-end deal to avoid a budgetary “fiscal cliff.”At Reader Supported News, Carl Gibson of US Uncut describes our system as a huge ponzi scheme:
We live in a fiat currency system, meaning we can print an endless supply of dollars and not run up inflation, since the US dollar is the world's reserve currency. Most of the paper money in circulation comes from fractional reserve banking, where banks lend out money they don't have, which technically doesn't exist, to anyone who applies for a loan. When banks loan this money, they do so with a promise of real wealth to be taken if the bank's debt isn't repaid by a specified deadline. While it costs the borrower all the real wealth they staked as collateral if they don't pay back the debt owed to the bank, it costs the bank nothing to loan out the money they just created out of thin air. However, the bank turns a profit by collecting interest on these loans, regardless of the fact that they loaned out fictitious money. All commercial banks do this, hence why such a Ponzi scheme is legal. And US dollars are no longer backed by gold, so each dollar is essentially a note signifying debt owed to the private banks that control the Federal Reserve, which has been the sole issuer of US dollars since 1913.
Today, the Fed has lowered interest rates on our debt to 0% to keep the debt level artificially as low as possible to preserve the Ponzi scheme that the banks created with the signing of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The act states that the government must borrow money before the Fed can issue paper money, so if the interest rate was at 3% or 4%, the debt would soon rise to such an exponential level that the concept of paying it off would become laughable.
It's hard for me to get my head around these facts, and these many other troubling facts about the economy. I abhor the right wing "solution" to these issues, balancing this debt on the backs of the poor and working poor. I don't see any politician frankly discussing these issues, especially the dangers posed by running a massive debtor economy year after year. I've heard many people suggest that running a country is not like running a household. OK, why not? Because we can print an endless supply of new fiat money? Because the U.S. dollar is deemed the world's fiat economy? How much longer can that go on given the way we are printing money? The only "solutions" I've seen are Enron accounting and little bandages on huge problems.