Posted On: Tuesday - May 30th 2023 10:55AM MST
In Topics: Globalists Economics Americans Big-Biz Stupidity
There was a whole lot to be proud of about America and Americans going back a ways. One thing, representative of the types of people who founded and settled the country, was the great deal of social trust. The iSteve commenters and the like will often note that it is the northwestern European peoples - Scandinavians, the English, French, Germans, and one could expand this a bit - who are genetically prone to creating high-trust societies. I agree with them.
In other lands around the world* there is no such thing. This results in not only a lower quality of life (life, that is, not material possessions), but also economic transaction "friction". If one can't trust the word of another man, and business can't be conducted with handshakes, and with always someone trying to "get over" on somebody else, more time must be spent in verifying, suing, fighting, or whatever.
The Old America was a high-trust society. That was, and still is to a degree, on the small-scale. I don't claim that governments at all levels, Captains of industry, the MIC, etc. haven't been corrupt for a long time. Before the Feral Gov't became this overreaching Beast that it is and Big Biz became oppressingly Woke, most of us didn't have to deal with or care about the high-level stuff.
What if it's a matter of Big Biz vs the people? Should we work in a high-trust manner in and with the Big Biz world of today? It's not the 1950s through '80s, with IBM and GE workers being set up for guaranteed, stable, Middle-Class life. They don't care about taking care of their Human Resources. Worse yet, they actively hate their straight White men employees.
Short answer: NO. We should not work in a high-trust manner with Big Biz. Modern big corporations are down with the Globalist agenda. Whether an employee or a customer, it's something we should all be fighting back against. The example of the push for cashless payments is an example and a Peak Stupidity fixation. We have a number of posts built up on this topic with the Economics topic key. As specifically related to low-level corruption, I refer the reader to Keep Cash King! and Keep Cash King II - the Tower of London each with an example of my using cash through a corrupt deal with a cashier.
Interestingly, both instances of my paying cash to the cashier who simply pocketed it involved Black! cashiers. The White lady at the same location as in my 2nd example, wouldn't budge, as noted in this follow-up post. What does that tell us? This lady figured taking my cash was wrong, period, and wanted no part in any petty corruption.** Those high-trust genetics are still at work, and they may be the death of us! (More on this.)
This post came out of the downright hilarious story of corporate D.I.E. stupidity discussed by a guy I know who reads the New York Times, one Steve Sailer. Peak Stupidity discussed a different aspect of this story in our recent post This is no way to operate a country. I commented to the effect that, with this money-wasting stupidity going on at the top level at Uber (and probably more box-checking wokeness a driver must pretend to agree with to keep a contract with these idiots), I would be even less averse than before to corruptly cut out the middle-man. (That'd be Uber itself. I believe it's 25% that they take off the customer's agreed-upon fare, based on what my driver friend told me a few years back.)
Imagine you're barely scraping by, doing this Uber thing, running all over the place at night transporting decent people, but many drunkards, and some people you really don't know about. Uber Corporate feeds you the whole Wokeness line, with threats if you decide for yourself you don't like and won't take some of the worrisome passengers. Then, you hear about this waste of your money - that 25% cut - with that D.I.E. bullshit at the headquarters among those highly-paid people who hate the very guts of people like you.
What do you make of all that? Well, I don't know about you, but I'd start making and handing out business cards. No, you don't have to MAKE them, on the spot, like Jim Rockford in his Firebird. Maybe they shouldn't even be too official looking, for some of that tasty plausible deniability. ("No, Sir, that was just a note in case my customer lost his phone and needed to call me - people leave stuff in my car all the time ... you know ...")
This is a level above the muffin or taco "purchases", as your Uber customer already has no problem using his piece of iCrap and CC for payments and being tracked, and whatever-else-have-you. This isn't about that particular principle, though making a point about cash being King would be nice. No, relying on Uber to initially hook you up with passengers, making your own side deals is indeed small-scale corruption. Remember though, that they hate your guts.
My friend who drove for Uber until they yanked his contract (too many fenderbenders) would bid(?) for some trips that were 100 miles each way. He's a sociable guy and he could get to know the people on these long trips, and they may very well need to have done the trip again. Well, Uber even makes sure that the driver and passenger have the other's phone #'s , so just a remark or two about "next trip call me directly ahead of time, and I'll give you a better deal" may suffice. Or, yeah, hand out business cards. There's word of mouth too.
I have no respect for these Globalist, hateful, asinine, Big Biz Corporate Wokesters. At this point, I'd have no qualms about using their marketing "genius" to drum up enough business to enable me to cut out this middle-man and do business on my own. This is not 1950 or 1985. It's more than another 35 years after that, and this is another country. Once more, remember, that they HATE your guts!
* OTOH, I read that it's the same in Japan and perhaps S. Korea. I have not been or dealt the the people in these places enough to know if it is really of the same level and quality.
** It's not that there was a proper way to deal in cash - that was the basic problem. The Big Biz running both these places wants people out of cash. There was a drawer underneath the
Comments:
Moderator
Wednesday - May 31st 2023 12:03PM MST
PS: Thanks for the illuminating take from your own life, RadicalCenter. These kinds of comments from our own experiences are great to read. They may help me personally make some decisions.
The Alarmist
Wednesday - May 31st 2023 11:52AM MST
PS
I never use Über’s, Lyfts’s, AirBnB’s business models, which skirt relevant laws that serve in part to protect consumers, are the epitome of a low trust society.
I never use Über’s, Lyfts’s, AirBnB’s business models, which skirt relevant laws that serve in part to protect consumers, are the epitome of a low trust society.
Moderator
Wednesday - May 31st 2023 11:29AM MST
PS: Mr. Blanc, I don't equate the reliability of say, a car mechanic, with the trust factor. No doubt competence has gone down, and perhaps you mean a mechanic not keeping his word on the schedule for your vehicle or something like that. (I'd say that kind of thing has gone downhill too, but I may have backwards-looking rose colored glasses...)
Or, by "reliable" do you mean that merchant X might just screw you out of money?
Or, by "reliable" do you mean that merchant X might just screw you out of money?
MBlanc46
Wednesday - May 31st 2023 9:15AM MST
PS The majority of my neighbors are white. And the blacks who live here are of the sort who had the psychological resources to succeed in the white economy. It’s pretty high trust. The village government? Not so much. There are people that I do business with that I think are pretty reliable. But, it’s a case-by-case thing. You just can’t assume that merchant X is reliable.
RadicalCenter
Wednesday - May 31st 2023 8:16AM MST
PS - The ongoing loss of our beautiful high-trust society and economy doesn't get enough attention. It can't be quantified but it's vital to a peaceful, efficient, healthy (not constantly stressed and suspicious) life.
Our kids have grown up in LA, spending 9 months per year here. We have a few favorite Chinese restaurants where they're reasonably friendly (by Chinese standards), prices are better than average for good food, and the kids can be coaxed into practicing their Mandarin.
At one such place, kids are pretty close to the owner and a long-time employee. But they've now calculated our bill wrong twice last year, then twice more in the past few months.
People make mistakes, of course, and I wouldn't want someone distrusting me even for a couple mistakes over a fairly long period of time. But "coincidentally" the error favored the restaurant, not us, all four times.
The last time I pointed this out to the owner and said "it's more believable if you make an error in OUR favor once in a while, you need to rethink things." She knows English well and understands that we are starting not to trust or feel fond of her anymore. Sigh.
(Between the "accidental" overcharging pattern and the owner wearing a Black Lives Matter hat for a month, we've almost stopped going there. I had asked her, in front of other customers, "When can we expect to see you wear a White Lives Matter hat for my life, or an Asian Lives Matter hat in respect of my wife and children? Do you think our lives matter LESS? When can we expect to hear your apology? Will you wear an ALL Lives Matter hat if we buy you one and if not, why not?
Her store window was smashed in a couple years ago during the government-endorsed violence and disorder here in LA ... so she's likely physically afraid of the baboons and their allied white antifa goons. Ostensibly she thinks that wearing the hat will somehow protect her, lol......
It's a bad feeling learning to presumptively distrust people generally. But it would be rank naive schmuckery to behave like we're dealing with the people we grew up with, or our parents grew up with, in the old America.
We're advising our kids accordingly. We told them, "if you decide to stay in the US, you need to know that it's not my US or the one your Mom thought she was coming 10,000 miles from her home for. You'll need to be fluent in Spanish. You'll need to live in a jurisdiction that lets you carry a handgun both openly and concealed, where prosecutors, courts, and juries protect people shooting aggressors in self-defense. You'll need to stay out of debt, out of self-inflicted medical problems and expenses with our vicious medical scam system, and far away from ANY concentration of Africans. Be fair and honest yourself, but never assume that you're dealing with people who feel the same obligation, even after you think you know them."
Our kids have grown up in LA, spending 9 months per year here. We have a few favorite Chinese restaurants where they're reasonably friendly (by Chinese standards), prices are better than average for good food, and the kids can be coaxed into practicing their Mandarin.
At one such place, kids are pretty close to the owner and a long-time employee. But they've now calculated our bill wrong twice last year, then twice more in the past few months.
People make mistakes, of course, and I wouldn't want someone distrusting me even for a couple mistakes over a fairly long period of time. But "coincidentally" the error favored the restaurant, not us, all four times.
The last time I pointed this out to the owner and said "it's more believable if you make an error in OUR favor once in a while, you need to rethink things." She knows English well and understands that we are starting not to trust or feel fond of her anymore. Sigh.
(Between the "accidental" overcharging pattern and the owner wearing a Black Lives Matter hat for a month, we've almost stopped going there. I had asked her, in front of other customers, "When can we expect to see you wear a White Lives Matter hat for my life, or an Asian Lives Matter hat in respect of my wife and children? Do you think our lives matter LESS? When can we expect to hear your apology? Will you wear an ALL Lives Matter hat if we buy you one and if not, why not?
Her store window was smashed in a couple years ago during the government-endorsed violence and disorder here in LA ... so she's likely physically afraid of the baboons and their allied white antifa goons. Ostensibly she thinks that wearing the hat will somehow protect her, lol......
It's a bad feeling learning to presumptively distrust people generally. But it would be rank naive schmuckery to behave like we're dealing with the people we grew up with, or our parents grew up with, in the old America.
We're advising our kids accordingly. We told them, "if you decide to stay in the US, you need to know that it's not my US or the one your Mom thought she was coming 10,000 miles from her home for. You'll need to be fluent in Spanish. You'll need to live in a jurisdiction that lets you carry a handgun both openly and concealed, where prosecutors, courts, and juries protect people shooting aggressors in self-defense. You'll need to stay out of debt, out of self-inflicted medical problems and expenses with our vicious medical scam system, and far away from ANY concentration of Africans. Be fair and honest yourself, but never assume that you're dealing with people who feel the same obligation, even after you think you know them."
Moderator
Tuesday - May 30th 2023 7:20PM MST
PS: PS has written a lot about the big drop in competence, SafeNow, at all levels. The demographics have EVERYTHING to do with this.
No, I wouldn't my reserve rigger to have the motto "good enough for government work."
No, I wouldn't my reserve rigger to have the motto "good enough for government work."
SafeNow
Tuesday - May 30th 2023 3:31PM MST
PS
Yep, I don’t trust big business. But here in S. California, which is minority majority, I must be very careful about trusting SMALL businesses as well. The problem is corruption, yes, but more so, competence. And, what psychologists call “mirroring” has made “good enough” an ethos that many traditional Americans have succumbed to. (What is the opposite of “good enough”? It is the motto of military parachute riggers, which is, or at least used to be: “Be sure, every time.”)
Yep, I don’t trust big business. But here in S. California, which is minority majority, I must be very careful about trusting SMALL businesses as well. The problem is corruption, yes, but more so, competence. And, what psychologists call “mirroring” has made “good enough” an ethos that many traditional Americans have succumbed to. (What is the opposite of “good enough”? It is the motto of military parachute riggers, which is, or at least used to be: “Be sure, every time.”)