Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Or how about government and industry work together to find better, cheaper, more environmentally friendly power sources.> Why can't we use our existing resources while we look for more?
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder The more I see the rising price of oil have a domino effect on the rest of the U.S. economy (American Airlines charging for checked baggage), the more I have to agree with Dub here. The Saudis just told Bush to go pound some of their sand when he asked them to increase the output. The oil execs just told Congress the same thing. This has the potential to bring us to our knees. If we can help ourselves and not rely on others, it's beginning to sound more and more like something we should do.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <The oil execs just told Congress the same thing.> From what I heard of the hearing, the oil execs told Congress that the people stopping domestic production is Congress.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo "Dave maybe thought we looked a little run down but where was he looking? Newark, New Jersey? What was he comparing us to?" Well, we went to San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Newport Beach, Anaheim, Carlesbad and San Diego - and my comparison was based on Europe, particularly the UK. We saw a lot of poverty, poorly mantained roads, run down houses and the like. The stores felt downscale, and IT facilities felt antiquated. As a proud Californian, I was shocked and sadened by it. RT, EUrope has caught up and in many ways surpassed the US now. I was shocked! And grocery stores had less choice too. I was astounded. 22 years ago, there was a huge disparity between the US and Europe. Now, not so much.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Ahhhh... California. 'Nuff said. California use to be ahead of much of the United States when it came to looking great. Now immigration, population pressures and tax cuts have taken their toll and it has fallen behind. Much of the country isn't like that.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<The U.S. public debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product is not much higher than long term lows and is lower than it was during the go-go years of our great presidential god William Jefferson Clinton.>> Oh please. A lot of that GDP "growth" was the housing bubble. And besides, who said that we were in good shape during the Clinton years. <<Our technology is unsurpassed.>> Yeah, we make such great cars and consumer electronics. Even our "elite" businesses like IT and aerospace have been busy offshoring R&D. <<Dave maybe thought we looked a little run down but where was he looking? Newark, New Jersey? What was he comparing us to?>> IIRC he was talking about California. But I have heard these comments about Calif from others. One told me that its starting to look very third worldish. <<The worst thing about your statements is the fact that you undoubtedly believe they are true. And believing crap like that will leave you making terrible decisions that ARE truly destructive to our country.>> I never knew that I had so much power! Pray tell, how will I destroy the US? By saving my money instead of buying a foreign made LCD TV on credit? <<Congratulations!! Hyperbole reaches a new peak on Laughing Place!!>> You tell me how the Feds are going to make good on all the unfunded liabilities that they have. By some estimates they add up to as much as 50 trillion dollars.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<California. 'Nuff said. California use to be ahead of much of the United States when it came to looking great. Now immigration, population pressures and tax cuts have taken their toll and it has fallen behind.>> Keep in mind the communities he used as examples: San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Newport Beach, Anaheim, Carlsbad and San Diego. Most of these are supposed to be the creme de la creme. I know that its hard for proud Americans to accept, but we are falling behind.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<Oh please. A lot of that GDP "growth" was the housing bubble. And besides, who said that we were in good shape during the Clinton years.>> The increase in housing value only impacts GDP when a house is purchased. “Paper appreciation†of housing has absolutely no impact on GDP calculation. <<Yeah, we make such great cars and consumer electronics. >> That is manufacturing, not technology. We design it better. They build it better. If we don't design it, they have nothing to build.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<We saw a lot of poverty, poorly mantained roads, run down houses and the like. The stores felt downscale, and IT facilities felt antiquated. As a proud Californian, I was shocked and sadened by it.>> Its not just California, most of the US is becoming like this. The state of our national infrastructure is scandalous: highways, bridges, the power grid, etc. We are way behind in broadband access. In many countries 2-3 megabits/sec is considered slow, here it is considered state of the art. The poverty situation is especially embarassing. By some estimates 1/4 to 1/3 of the population qualifies as "working poor". A real sign of the times (IMO) has been the growth of "payday loan" store. These are businesses that provide short term (about 2 weeks) loans at truly usurious rates (say 100%+ APR). I have seen shopping centers in my "prosperous" home town that have two of these establishments, on opposite sides of the grocery store that anchors the shopping center. I read recentlty that in Ohio they now outnumber fast food places! The situation for the working poor and lower middle class has become so grim that the armed forces are still able to recruit, even though it is clear that most recruits will end up in Afghanistan or Iraq. A term has been coined for this: "Economic conscription". Next on the chopping block: employer paid health insurance. So now, not only will we have the most expensive healthcare in the world, most Americans will not have the means to pay for it. John McCain has even made this a platform in his campaign. He is proposing a system of tax credits to help Americans buy their own insurance at the retail level, but I suspect that these will be insufficient for many, if not most people. We Americans can stick our heads in the sand while chanting "USA! USA!", but the truth is that we borrow and offshore. Which is why we are falling behind.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<The increase in housing value only impacts GDP when a house is purchased.>> And a highly disproprtionate number of houses were sold during the bubble. In most communities residential and commercial construction dwarfed other industries.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>That is manufacturing, not technology. We design it better. They build it better. If we don't design it, they have nothing to build.>> We, kemosabe? As an employee of one of the US's premiere "technology" companies, one of the Dow Industrials, I can assure you that very little "design" is still being done here in the US. My company has a consumer electronics division and we don't design squat. Marketing compiles a list of product requirements, which are handed over to our Asian "partners", who do all the real work. Same thing in our PC/laptop biz.
Originally Posted By barboy ////Topic: It's time....//// ......to go all Japan on Saudi Arabia. That Saudi---sovereign or not--- is a stinking hell hole just like Iran and the earth would be a finer place if she were conquered swiftly and had her liquid assets distributed to a more worthy place like Canada.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<I can assure you that very little "design" is still being done here in the US.>> I guess we are talking different levels of design. I'm talking about initial research discoveries and or innovations that make new types and classes of products available. An example of this would be Bill Gates and the PC operating system; agricultural innovations that have radically increased crop yields; drug and medical innovations that have significantly increased our longevity. Much of the pure R&D done in the world is still done in the U.S. by U.S. Universities. We may not hold the edge on manufacturing that we once did and we don't always make our innovations affordable for the poor (health care for instance). But the U.S. still innovates better than any other country on earth. I'll accept the U.S. weaknesses, but you need to acknowledge the U.S. strengths. It sucks to be poor here, but there is no better place in the world to have money!!
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo >>>the U.S. still innovates better than any other country on earth.<<< Hmmmm, I would kind of like to believe that, but I no longer do. The Pacific Rim, India, and Europe are way up there these days. In fact, in my last international plc, we could buy cheaper from the US, but we found more cutting edge stuff in Sweden, India, Sth Korea and Japan! So that's where our R&D went. Drugs, yes, well produced in the states, but it is not surprising when they are a marketable commodity. I pay $12 a quarter for my hypertension in the meds. In the US, $200 a month. wonder why pharmacology research is big ;-) Can't argue that Gates and Jobs, as well as the film industry are second to none however. Don't get me wrong, I love the US and am proud of my heritage. But if the US would focus more making things better, and learning from other experiences, then it could rise again. But jingoism hurts more than it helps.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<But jingoism hurts more than it helps.>> No jingoism here... just a fair evaluation: <<I'll accept the U.S. weaknesses, but you need to acknowledge the U.S. strengths.>>
Originally Posted By ChurroMonster This is exactly the type of discussion I hoped would ensue. Of course I would never advocate invading yet another sovereign nation. I was just trying to make the point that of all the nations we have invaded, or are currently threatening to invade, Saudi Arabia would've been a more logical choice. The idea that we went to Iraq for oil is about as idiotic as the idea of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima for rice.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Well, I don't think we went there for the crude (sorry for the pun) purpose of just grabbing their oil, but I do think that oil figured largely in the decision to go in. You can see a who's who of the future Bush admin. arguing in the Project for a New American Century that having a permanent US presence in the region was, in their view, vital to keeping the oil flowing freely, and with the US bases in Saudi Arabia soon to close, some other country would have to host us. The obvious candidate was Iraq - 2nd largest reserves, and right in the middle of everything. Of course, as long as Saddam was ruling Iraq, we would never be invited to set up permanent bases... Many in the PNAC, I believe, saw invading Iraq as killing two birds with one stone, deposing an unfriendly government and setting up permanent US bases there, while still having Saudi Arabia as a nominally "friendly" government (at least friendly to oil interests). So while I don't think the Iraq invasion was about TAKING their oil, I also think there's no way we would have invaded if their chief export was carrots. As Alan Greenspan said, “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Note that Greenspan supported the invasion, not so much on fear of WMD, but on fears that Saddam would try to choke off the Straits of Hormuz and gain greater influence in the world oil market. "No, no, no," he said. Getting rid of Hussein achieved the purpose of "making certain that the existing system [of oil markets] continues to work, frankly, until we find other [energy supplies], which ultimately we will." <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/16/AR2007091601287_pf.html" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/..._pf.html</a>
