Economy

Letting Your Kids Watch Screens? Their Brains are Shrinking

If you’re a parent that keeps your kids off screens you should be congratulated and cherished. Yes, it is hard work – for the kids want the screens. Plus, you have to fill the time they would otherwise be on screens with something else…which usually requires your attention and energy.

But it is essential to do this.

I read this article showing that screen time use by children leads to lower brain development. Which, thinking about it now, is common sense. But many don’t understand the true harm they are causing their kids by keeping them glued to screens all day.

I was about to leave a grocery store recently and a lady was walking up to her car, parked next to mine. I waited on her to load her groceries before I backed out. She had a little child, maybe 10 months old. She put the boy into his car seat and I noticed a strap attached to the back seat that faced him. She velcroed a tablet onto the strap so that he could watch movies as they drove around. She appeared to be a pleasant young lady of medium to good means.

I felt sorry for the poor kid. Probably not even old enough to say no, he was force fed blinking images of whatever trash was coming across the prompter.

What I saw backs up the data in the article. “About 90% are using screens by age one,” said Hutton, who published a number of studies that used MRIs to research the impact of reading versus screen use by kids. “We’ve done some studies where kids are using them by 2 months old to 3 months old.”

Why have kids if you’re going to give them a screen to look at all day? Isn’t the purpose of having kids is to enjoy them?

Why so much screen time? Mom and dad both worked all day, they want to relax, not play with the kids. The kids have been at school all day watching screens and ‘learning’, so they’ll gladly keep watching. The living standards of the middle class in America have been falling for decades. The great revolution whereby the women went to work in the 60s and 70s was just so many more slaves on the plantation.

In the ’60s a man could be a construction laborer and buy a house and support his family on one income. His wife didn’t have to work. But with the fraud at the center of fiat money creation, everyone has to work to support a family. Americans have been growing poorer now for over a century.

Ultimately it goes back to fiat money. A select few individuals and companies get the lion’s share of the newly created money. Pushing prices up for everyone. The living standards for the vast bulk shrink, along with the size of their kid’s brains.

Marxists are Only Concerned About Money. Just Like America

Marxists are only concerned about money and the economy. The quality of life of the people, how they actually live, is of no interest to them. We see this in our current society. The chief determining factor in the quality of one’s life is how much money they have and how industrious they are. It doesn’t matter if that person is a swine, or a cheater, or cruel. They win with a large bank account. They lose with everything else. So goes the thinking in Marxist America.

Who cares about the drug addicts, and others struggling? They didn’t succeed in the game of money and so they are worthless. Who cares about the quality of their life? What is life like for the bulk of people in society? Do they wake up, drop their kids off at indoctrination centers, rush off to a job for 8+ hours, get home, put their kids in front of a tv, eat corn syrup and genetically modified ingredients for dinner?

Nock said, “Not a world of industry and efficiency, but a world of joy.” Are the people joyful, that is the question. Do they live a life of joy?

St. Paul said in Philippians 4:4 – “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” Joy and joyfulness resonates through the ages.

The Marxists have it all wrong, as does the bulk of american society. Life is about joyfulness and the quality of a person’s life. The amount of money they have is of no consequence.

What about the rich man? Who cares about the quality of his life? He is rich, that is as good as it gets. If he is depressed or feels terrible or lives a sad life it is of no consequence, for he is rich. And this is all that matters in a Marxist country…in our Marxist country.

What Happened to the Trucker Convoy?

I guess the USA trucker convoy has disbanded. They made a small stir, driving from California, tooting horns and hollering. “We’re going to clog up the beltway!” “We want to negotiate!” and other such drivel. Then they got to DC and folded. I’ve tried to find out why they folded so quickly but there isn’t any info on the internet. It appears they simply just gave up and drove home.

One has to give the trucker convoy some marks for the appearance of strength. They looked strong, they gave the appearance of strength – flags whipping in the wind, idiots giving speeches. But in the end, it was mere sound and fury.

I guess they saw all the Canadian truckers go to prison camps and decided it wasn’t worth it. They quietly went home and are now moving vegetables to the local Kroger along route 65. They turn up the radio on a freedom song. They’re dreaming dreams of revolt, as they yield to oncoming traffic.

Mr. Friday Night: Movie Reviews – All Wars Are Bankers’ Wars

This was originally a radio show by Michael Rivero, and is probably best listened to, rather than watched. In it, Mr. Rivero describes how the dollar system is used by central bankers to maintain their power over everyone. This system will be maintained at all costs. The dollar system will assuredly fail at some point, but before it fails the bankers will do everything possible – including destroying the world – to keep it functioning and maintain their power. Beautifully put together, must watch:

An Easy Business to Start

I realized last week that I needed a part for my gutter. I looked briefly online and couldn’t find it. So I started calling gutter installers within a 50 mile radius to see if they had the part in stock. Out of the 10 businesses I called, not one answered the phone. 2 days later, none of the businesses have returned my call.

How to Turn Away From Money

Thoreau made the perfect pencil, then never made another

Regarding society, I keep thinking back to Dylan’s song – Everything is Broken. What other way is there to describe society? Everything actually is broken. It is almost pointless to talk about how broken everything is. Why? Because there is no firm philosophical footing to stand on. Should money be made by the market? Sure. But that’s not how it is and not how it’s going to be for the foreseeable future. Best just to hunker down, stand up for what is right in whatever way you can, take your family to church. Prepare for more brokenness. None of these problems are going to get ‘fixed’ in any meaningful way. Society is headed to catastrophe, and then after that something else can be built. Hopefully in a way which follows the light of Christ.

Modern man has had his hurrah. He built his skyscrapers, his great monuments on the “glowing wisp of vapor” and now it is time for the next chapter. I hope the next chapter is based on the principles of Christ, but it will probably more of the human same – power for a few, great slavery for everyone else. Modern man chased money, false idols, ignorant economic theories. He has been ripped off of so much in life that is great – morals, values, good living, family, praying to God, meditating on the life of Christ. He has gotten sports icons, economic theory based on catastrophically foolish ideas such as printing fiat to prosperity, and heavy debt load as the means to true wealth. This has allowed a great false boom, a hollowed mountain, giving the illusion of lasting power, but as fragile and fleeting as the wind. And so many bought it, built fortunes with it, spent their whole life in pursuit of that which is nothing.

I remember a story of Thoreau, whose father had a pencil-making business. Thoreau set out to improve the pencil. He succeeded. Then he stopped. Moved out to Walden pond, wrote in the mornings and wandered in the afternoons, moving forward with life. Now, the modern man, if he had devised a clever new device, he would contract with a factory in Thailand, or China, to produce barrels full of pencils. He would hire an ocean going shipper to bring them into america, truckers to truck them across the country, retail stores to properly place and sell his wares. He would grind out, day after day, the business of business, and increasing profits, decreasing expenses. He would do his bookkeeping and taxes. He would have an attorney on standby. His life would revolve around his pencil business. He might grow rich, divorce his wife, buy a yacht and get drunk on it. He would get new teeth as he aged, maybe expensive injections into his face to look younger. In short, he would be a fool. This is why I think Thoreau will be read forever. No one will care about warren buffet in 1000 years, just as no one cares about JP Morgan only 100 years later. But the people of the future will remember Thoreau.

Which reminds me of one of Thoreau’s great passages. In a week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, he goes sailing with his brother. The writing is some of the best I’ve ever read – vibrant and joyful – maybe because he is writing about time he spent with his brother. I looked recently to find that part of the book and didn’t find it. I will have to reread it. Thoreau was not interested in increasing the profit margins in the pencil making business. He was interested in sailing with his brother. This is life.

“Ain’t no use jiving, ain’t no use joking, everything is broken.”

But it’s just another beautiful June night in Florida. Hot and balmy. Sweaty and perfect. The sweet sweet summer. Here’s hoping you’re sailing on the water with a brother, loving your great wife, kissing your sweet children and praying to the good Lord above.

The Goal of Life – Not Money, but Spiritual Enlargement and Enrichment

The Rabid desire for more fake fiat bucks, endless amounts of fake wealth…the great illusion

I see so many toil endlessly for money. And though I can appreciate the desire for money and having money – for it can buy freedom from necessity, I cannot understand the endless grubbing for it. If someone has a million they want 2. If someone has a billion they want another. I heard Rick Rule say recently that he and his wife can live the rest of their lives in comfort, never having to sweat again. They have more money than they need. Then he said, “I want more.”

Mortgage Rates Are Exploding Higher

There’s no way the rise in mortgage rates can maintain this trajectory. If it does, the housing market will collapse post haste. If housing goes, everything goes.

Either way, massive changes are coming to America that will result in the decline of everyone’s living standards. Look for war with Russia to divert attention away from economic collapse in the homeland.

(Chart from Zerohedge)

The Decline of NPR Mirrors the Decline of America

At various times in my life I have listened to npr on local public radio stations. They covered stories with more depth than other outlets, and I didn’t have to listen to the endless ads.

Now it seems the place is infested with people who find great mystery and fascination with the lower order of things.

A Short Note on the Reaction to the Free ‘Money’ Spewing forth from the Fed

When the Fed came out with the spending bazooka earlier in the pandemic, though it was reckless and destructive to the american people, many cheered. I talked with some of the cheerers about it and everyone of them were for the PPP loans to businesses. I heard the same thing from each of them, which went something like this: “Do you know what would have happened without the PPP loans? You can’t have millions of people unemployed and starving in the street.”

But with the weekly $600 unemployment benefits, which passed in the same bill, the people I spoke with were adamantly against it. “You can’t give free money out to the lazy, the slobs. It pisses me off.”

I find it interesting that they cheered the PPP giveaways to slob businesses but wanted to fight the “unemployed slobs” who received unemployment. Both policies are equally destructive to society, but the people I spoke with couldn’t grasp it.

What was the cause of this acceptance towards PPP and dislike toward UA? Simple jealousy? I don’t know, but leave it here as a curiosity.