Pornography, Prostitution,and the Economy

Regarding the argument that pornography creates jobs for people who would other wise not have them:


The economy is going down the drain worldwide, but the sex trade is booming.
Porn is addictive, where many other forms of media are far less so, or are not addictive at all.
People are hooked on porn, and they get an arousal addiction. They spend money on that, and don't have it to spend on other forms of entertainment or other luxuries or, in severe cases, even on necessities.

How does that benefit it the economy?
If the money that was going into the porn industry were used for about anything else, it would go a lot farther. If it were invested, it could start thousands of businesses and create jobs that people might choose freely and not out of extreme desperation.
NO ONE chooses to work in the sex trade freely,trafficked or not. If the other option is dying for lack of basic resources, that is not freedom of choice being exercised.
Put the money into building the economy, not into exploitation.

I met a young lady once, in her early twenties. She lived in horrible poverty growing up and suffered considerable abuse and willful neglect (not a lack of resources causing her mom not to meet her needs, but deliberate neglect even when resources were available). Her mom had actually stolen her identity, ran up several thousands of dollars in bills, and then left it like that so when she came of age it impacted her employability and her ability to get an apartment and etc. She had to get her apartments in someone else's name,usually a man who put her bills and such in his name in exchange for you-can-guess-what, and then she paid the bills out of her disability check. Off and on, from her adolescence, she had sold her body. In her late teens, she had worked for an escort service, which brings me to my point in telling his story:
She told me of a a time when a man paid her $7,000 to do something very disgusting, which I wish she had never told me about.... Most of it went for drugs to try to survive the emotional damage that this lifestyle, I guess especially that incident, caused her,and from which she never really recovered. She saidit generates an amazing amount of money but is not worth it. She took huge amounts of prescription anti-depressants and street drugs to keep from resorting to suicide. Several years after leaving that behind her, she still needed a lot of anti-depressants for severe suicidal depression, and endless counseling.
If a person has $7,000 to spend on a night out, how many concert tickets,t-shirts, and EPs might that buy them? There are so many things a person can get that can be enjoyed for many years, that cost less than that. There are numerous ways a person can amuse themselves on a weekend, making memories worth having with those they care about. Addiction of the sort that man almost certainly had robs people of the ability to enjoy those things, and this does a lot of damage to the economy. The music and film industries are both suffering now, along with many others. Yet this addictive and damaging industry is thriving, Its not that there is no money, but little money is going into productive things. Buying band T-shirts supports the band, the silk-screeners, the makers of the t-shirt, those involved with growing the cotton, the makers of the dye, the makers of the equipment used to make the dye, grow the cotton, weave the shirt, and silkscreen it, and all the transportation businesses involved in getting these various products to the next phase in the process. Buying CDs affects bands, and everybody in any way connected to producing the CD or the equipment used in making and recording the music.
When that young woman gave in to that man'swishes, she, her pimp, and drug dealers benefited financially, no one else. She also suffered tremendous psychological damage from these activities, in addition to the circumstances that pushed her into those activities in the first place.

The sex and illicit drug industries are worse about hogging profits then mega corporations are, and do not improve the economic conditions in the areas where they thrive.
If you care about people having jobs, don't support, or tolerate, the sex trade. 
Unless you want an economy that runs solely on hard drugs and various forms of prostitution, don't support,or tolerate, the sex trade.

Godspeed.

~Mother Star

NEVER! GIVE! UP! - A Slap in the Face with Some Good Progress

Messaged my investment-class mentor about my prospective first move. Put my car on craigslist. Saw a truck on craigslist for same price that is ten years older but still runs.

My meeting this morning could have gone better, but could also have gone worse.
My friend basically let me know he thought I was a bum.
He's in his 60's and drove a truck for over 30 years. He has a CDL and a handful of endorsements on his license with 30 years at same company and spotless record. Employers are begging for people like him, not the other way around. He has a unique situation. As a retiree, he does not realize what "2nd most declining economy in nation" means. It has to do with job scarcity, layoffs, a glut of desirable employees in job market and a vast shortage of jobs for them to fill. That means hard-working, responsible people with good work ethics can end up jobless for extended periods of time. Lots of them. Droves of them apply for same jobs, along with all the people who really don't want to work very hard. Employers don't even try to be nice to people applying for jobs and are curt, sometimes even downright rude.
At the non-profit where he works, they need people with his qualifications who will work for minimum wage. People who will do that are retired, and are often not willing to do just anything the company needs. So the company hires people who treat it as badly as some companies - like for instance the meat packing business - treat their employees, yet they continue to have a position there. Therefore, he gets a very inaccurate picture of what's going on!

He eventually changed his tune, and he did tentatively agree to be my partner. that means do the driving and the negotiating, since he's good at those things, in exchange for 50%  of the profits. We are to meet again on Tuesday. Hopefully, that meeting will begin and end better than this one began.

My poor, dear little car. It is on craigslist now, if anyone wants it. You can find the ad here.

Godspeed.

~Mother Star