american standard of living

is it possible to solve any of our problems (global warming, wars for resources, global poverty)

while maintaining our standard of living?

because that is what all our leaders, democratic or republican, seem to be committed to

...in the debate the other night. It might have been Bill Richardson. He hesitated saying it. But I believe that citizens would respond to a presidential call for sacrifice. I believe that most citizens are willing to work for solutions.

the little people pay out the ass and corporate America rakes it in.

"Alternative Energy" - the reason why the R's are getting behind it is because Ethanol is very profitable in many many ways. Corporate farms rake it in. Ethanol producers rake it in. Every food manufacturer in this country rakes it in when the price of raw products is forced up by a shortage caused by ethanol production.

But hey, we are "saving the planet". -- Even though ethonol produces more overall polution than gasoline (though less greenhouse gasses)

..the candidate was referring to people cutting back on their energy use.

Ahhh, yes, here it is!:

(Reagan)
It's a choice between two fundamentally different ways of governing and two distinct ways of looking at America. My opponent, Mr. Mondale, offers a government of pessimism, fear, and limits compared to ours of hope, confidence, and growth. He sees government as an end in itself. And we see government as something belonging to the people and only a junior partner in our lives. They see people merely as members of groups, special interests to be coddled and catered to. We look at them as individuals to be fulfilled through their own freedom and creativity.

My opponent and his allies live in the past, celebrating the old and failed policies of an era that has passed them by, as if history had skipped over those Carter-Mondale years. On the other hand, millions of Americans join us in boldly charting a new course for the future.

From the beginning, their campaign has lived on promises. Indeed, Mr. Mondale has boasted that America is nothing if it isn't promises. Well, the American people don't want promises, and they don't want to pay for his promises. They want promise. They want opportunity and workable answers. And that's why we're here -- to talk about the record, the record of the administration in which Mr. Mondale carried a full partnership.

Mr. Carter himself said, ``There wasn't a single decision I made during 4 years in the White House that Fritz Mondale wasn't involved in.'' In those years, they took the strongest economy in the world and pushed it to the brink of collapse. They created a calamity of such proportions that we're still suffering the consequences of those economic time bombs. What they left on our doorstep in January 1981 was a snarling economic wolf with sharp teeth.

The suffering of America, the deep and painful recession, and the outrageous and frightening inflation -- these things didn't start by spontaneous combustion. They came about through the concerted mismanagement of which Mr. Mondale was a part, and his liberal friends who controlled the Congress.

They gave us five -- count them -- five different anti-inflation plans and managed to give us the worst 4-year record of inflation in nearly 40 years. While it took them five economic plans to nearly triple inflation, it's taken us only one to cut it by about two-thirds.

Senior citizens were driven into panic by higher rents, exhorbitant fuel costs, dramatically increasing food prices, and Federal health care costs, which went up a massive 87 percent. And they called that fairness.

They punished the poor and the young, who struggled as prices of necessities shot up faster than others. Millions of Americans led a life of daily economic terror, fueled by these unrelenting costs. And they called that compassion.

Well, let's look at interest rates. My opponent has referred to something he calls real interest rates. Well, people don't pay interest rates based on some academic smokescreen or foggy economic theory. What they know is that when Jerry Ford left office, the prime interest rate was 6\1/4\ percent. When Mr. Mondale left office, it was 21\1/2\ percent, the highest in 120 years.

Average monthly mortgage payments more than doubled. Young people couldn't buy homes. Car loans were hard to get and expensive. The automobile and homebuilding industries were brought to their knees. It's little wonder that the American people yearned for leadership in 1980. And after all this economic punishment, our opponents blamed you, because you lived too well. And they told you you had to sacrifice more and that we were now in an age of limits.

Audience. Boo-o-o!

UTexas

Mention "sacrifice," and the Small World crowd goes bonkers...

n/t

most industrial societies are experiencing a native population birthrate decline

russia is so bad that putin has officially stated many times that declining birthrate is the biggest problem facing their nation right now

it's the developing countries that are experiencing a population growth, may be because they have a culture of having really big families

so how exactly do you propose we make them slow down their population growth?

Russia is awash in cash right now, its natural resources exceed its own demands and as a result wealth is flowing into the country. True this situation is not sustainable nor distributed equally but that is another line of debate.

They were a competing superpower under communism, so it seems strange that they are not when they allegedly have capitalism.

Also they are closer to countries sending out immigrants - India and China, for starters. With China, they have their own Mexico.

I wonder if Russia will grow and become a superpower again eventually and this era is just the fallout from trying to adjust from one system to another.

and people in other first world countries.

n/t

All those lights take energy, as does the manufacture of synthetic plastics, running manufacturing plants and providing transportation for goods and people.

Unless the cost of energy in the future is less than or equal to the benefits we derive from our current non-sustainable sources a decline in the standard of living is assured.


Since population growth tends to be exponential, limiting that is more effective than the linear increase in available resources through conservation or capacity increase.

Our agriculture is not sustainable nor is our commercial fishing as well as numerous other activities which rely on natural capital.




I rather be a world of few and affluent than many and poor.

if we had a more socially just system of distribution. It is true, the average American consumes much more than the average person in the world, but that US average includes people who the current system enables to consume waay, waay "too much."

And, while I agree we need to limit population growth, we don't have a population growth problem here. We are currently running at below replacement rate for native-born Americans. Our population growth has been accomplished by immigrants, on their backs--we are letting the world's poor do our reproducing for us the same way we let them do all the hard work. Too many in the US have opted for selfishness, because having kids would require them to grow up, or because they have been misled into thinking that they cannot have kids because there are "too many people" on the planet. Yet the mere existence of people who have huge families (such as the Duggars in Arkansas) does not morally require me not to have two or three kids, any more than the fact that my neighbor drives a Hummer requires me to sell my car and walk everywhere.

As of the 2000 Census, 137.5 million residents, or 48.9 percent of the population, live within 50 miles of the coast. If we found a way to move jobs into the interior, we could live a better lifestyle more rationally and economically. Hopefully, that might also cut down on our seafood consumption (and maybe change the way we fish), which, as you note, is a horrific problem.

Not because I don't want to grow up, not because there's too many humans. The future is probably going to suck a lot, but even that's not really why I don't want to have kids.

I just don't want to have kids. It doesn't mean that I'm selfish. It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with me. It just means that I have made a different lifestyle choice than the one you have made.

I now realize that that's what it might sound like, but it's not what I meant.

There are lots of reasons for not having kids. For example, for many years I chose not to because I couldn't really afford them. Some people cannot do it, and choose not to adopt. Some don't want to do it because they don't have anyone to do it with, or because pregnancy might threaten their health, or a wide variety of other reasons.

I absolutely respect most of these reasons, and yours. I do think that a lot of people have used overpopulation as a silly rationale for their own personal lifestyle decisions. If, for whatever reason, someone don't want kids, that's great, but they shouldn't act as though it's the only responsible thing to do and hang what is basically a personal decision.

(The other reason I really don't respect is the "It's too terrible a world to bring a child into" canard. People who genuinely feel this way should not only not have kids, they should consider slitting their own wrists to end their own misery. And not, I'm not making light of either depression, or suicide--again, what's really galling is how a personal choice is made into the only possible moral choice, yet based upon a premise upon which there ought to be serious doubt).

As for selfish people who won't grow up, I'm thinking of my brother in law, and a lot of people like him. Single, financially successful, goes out drinking with his buddies from high school five nights a week. Theoretically open to marriage and children, in reality uses the promise of this as a hook to lure a succession of young, attractive girls into short relationships wherein he treats them like the fratboy jock he was in college before they realize that his booze and high school buddies will always be more important than any mere woman. There are a lot of folks like that out there--come to think of it, it sounds a lot like the personal history of a young George W. Bush.

I do understand your feelings about the future. I was born in Charlotte, and I'm sure that if I lived there still I would feel the same despair.

I appreciate the clarification.

I decided not to have children for a very simple reason: I don't want to. I've never wanted to. I'm pushing 40 and nope, still don't want to. And I firmly believe a LOT of misery has been perpetuated by people who don't really love children having them anyway, by accident or because it was expected of them, and believe me, there's no way to hide from a child if you regret having him or her. That's one of the places that abuse and neglect come from. It may be selfish of me to make my choice based on my lack of desire for children, but at least it does no harm to anyone--UNLIKE bringing a child into the world and THEN realizing you shouldn't have, when it's too late!

I have never misled anyone about this. I've always made it clear that I would love a lifetime partnership, but not children. Imagine how unhappy the children of someone like your brother in law would be if they existed. It's better that they don't.

First and so far only kid will be three soon, might not have another due to nearly fatal complications my wife had with the first one. Don't want to be single parent, so it's her call.

Still, by far the best thing we've ever done, more happy than ever thought we could be. Filled with the zeal of the newly converted. Mixed feelings about what you say, as I had shitty father but excellent mother. Hard to say if it would be better if brother in law had no kids, I'd prefer it if he at least grew up first. Hoping it's only a phase, as he's "only" 29.

Do be careful. I have a friend who had a kid at 43 who has a boy the same age as mine. A surprise to her, but sometimes these stories end in unexpected ways--though she never wanted kids, she now loves it, has made many sacrifices for that boy, and is proving to be an amazing mom.

"It's different when it's yours." And no doubt that's true for many people. I don't want to risk it, though--what if it isn't?

Full disclosure: I was unexpected, I think my parents were too young and not really equipped to be parents. I have no doubts they loved me and still do, but memories make it pretty clear they didn't really know what the hell they were doing, had no idea what to expect from a child, and didn't have a lot of patience and were, at times, neglectful. Mom acknowledges this and has apologized a lot. I forgive her totally for being human, and it's not like I think I shouldn't have been born...BUT there was no way little spongebrained me didn't pick up on how unhappy she was at the time and that that didn't make a lasting impression.

I know for a fact I'm introverted and moody and need a LOT of private space. If I feel homicidal at just the occasional burst of construction work in the morning invading my space, I'm pretty sure I couldn't handle a baby doing it all the time. It's for everyone's safety.

to learn from your parents' mistakes. I had a dad who chose to divorce my mom and engage in legal wrangling so that she would only get $100 a month for each of us in child support. I have a stepbrother who he did raise who hates him. I'm sure glad he didn't raise me. My own dad's a raving narcissist who sees himself to be in competition with me in some way, and cannot see anything of himself in me. I revenge myself by spending virtually every waking moment with my son, by loving him and trying to make sure he has the happiest childhood possible.

It can be rough, although not every kid has colic. Mine slept through the night at the age of one month and still takes a two-hour afternoon nap. I do think older people (i.e. 30's) are a little better at parenting an infant than most young people. I know I would never have had the patience in my teens or early 20's. OF course, I know several women in their early 40's who have had kids, and they seem constantly worn down--as you get older, it's hard to have the energy it takes to keep up with a little one.

I respect your choice. For what it's worth, I think you have enough sensitivity and insight that you would have been an excellent parent, if you had chosen to go that route.

first of all you don't have to go through pregnancy

and if you adopt a kid who is 5-6 years old you don't have to go through bullshit of dealing with a baby

adoption is like a shortcut, zoom zoom zoom, and you're there

and since you can't even tell who's kid belongs to whom short of looking at a tiny dna molecule through a microscope, i don't see what's so important about having biological offsprings

that's a pretty broad net you're throwing...

there are a lot of factors that went into our decision not to have children- for me, being diagnosed with a congenital disease that causes intense and chromic pain was a biggie- i didn't want to be responsible for foisting this hideous condition onto another generation...i felt that doing THAT just to experience parenthood would have been "selfish".

the middle of the desert no we can not maintain it.

we are worried about "maintaining our standard of living", but we´ve been living off credit from the rest of the world, stealing equity from fellow citizens, raping the environment, and I don´t mean just the air which we breathe in the US.

NO, we will not be able to maintain our standard of living, because the rest of the world´s population is already fed up with our "I need, I want, I have to have" and has begun working on international structures which do not include the US as a major player.

whose execs aren't paying the price everyone else is.

Never mind the attitude of the world, "We hate you US but thanks for the jobs", of which the quality of the work in return isn't as good. So much for hard, good work being rewarded.

I am not saying you don't have a point. I'm saying the whole picture is not as simple, nor as one-sided, as you want it to be.

if you get to be middle class in america today, the standard of living is so NICE compared to a lot of other places. i mean half the world labors to produce stuff that we consume, that is a genius system, may be evil, but still breathtaking when you look at the big picture

there is a reason why so many people want to immigrate here

i guess enjoy the party while it lasts? we still have quite a while to go imo, before the system gets completely overstrained (natural catastrophies via global warming, market crash via international debt, world runs out of oil, medicare crisis), may be another generation before it's all over?

Oh, other countries produce things for others to consume. It's not all China->US. I mean, Europe exists too... and China is importing useless fluff like champagne too. Why not? Celebrate the poisoning of the world's people; Europe probably won't be buying anything "made in China" for much longer either.

And the American standard of living, which people worked and fought and died for is no doubt welcoming. The "golden age" started in, oh, the 1950s.

which means they have work and we don´t. But, the workers earn pennies a day while the US corporations are earning millions. What those penny earning people don´t do is to buy a house which they can NEVER pay off.

Sorry, the party is already over.

we are worried about "global poverty" as if the rest of the world is waiting for the US to solve the problem.

The rest of the world is waiting for the US to "straighten up it´s own household", "sweep in front of it´s own door", "take care of it´s own business".

If the US public had "moral business sense", US corporations would behave differently, and then many of the poverty stricken regions of the world would have a chance to develop and flourish.

we're putting more of our own into poverty and friends who have friends that travel the world are seeing how offshoring is HELPING those countries' quality of life. That part is good, but why are hard working US citizens having to suffer in return? First by offshoring jobs, which diminishes interest, and then the same offshoring entities whine nobody here has an interest so they want more from the outside. Never mind the same people also say "The dollar is going to fall", and that was from a few years ago. Gee, the dollar dropping due to offshoring and they want more while manufacturing excuses.

Right now, who is going to want to get into massive debt to go into a field that probably won't be there? THAT is as much wasteful spending as much as anything our government has done.

Unless "money is an incentive" is as old school as everything else; maybe we should be looking at the "now" instead of living in the "past". Times are changing, but sacrificing one's credit rating on a gamble - when the media and even higher echelons in the government tell people to save and not use credit... it's a bag of mixed messages. Too big a bag, perhaps?

this won't be an issue for much longer.
:shrug:

that everything is going well in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Americans are definitely the most optimistic creatures on the planet.

as so many people remind me often enough? :think:

Optimism is a valid trait. It's also optimism that helped humanity through darker times in its history.

Yes life is tough sometimes, I am a stuggling single mom. But compared to most of the world my standard of living is like that of royalty. I think it is important to keep fighting to make our lives better and I think we can improve our standard of living while reducing waste and consumption, with the right Captain at the helm.

Compared to History....we live like gods. Better and longer and for the most part...happier.

Some folks are just "glass half empty" types. They just see things from a different angle.

the life here, even for the underpriviledged, can not even compare to what people in the developing countries have to live like

and you can be the most progressive person, trying to improve the quality of life in america, or europe, for everybody in that particular country, and even succeed, while in reality your success is built on raping the rest of the world of their resources

I think with the right leaders we can move towards a less wasteful way of life without sacrificing our standard of living. We need to put far more resources and money into developing new technologies. I have great hopes that this will indeed happen. It just may take a major catalyst to motivate people, as is often the case.

between optimism and self-delusion.

that didn't exist then".

In the mind of the Amerikan Consumer, buying toys = standard of living. It's just sad.

What the most useless and expensive , energy consuming piece of crap in your home?

Oh dear. Two for one.

I spent a year in the States with people who had an automatic pet food can opener. A vacuumcleaner with selfmoving frontend. Five cars, none of them do better then 35 MPG.

Having it better then tour parents doesn't mean you have tot have more crap. It means you have to take less crap.

By which I mean redistribution of income from the rich to the poor, not the other way around, which has been what's been going on since about 1979 (a year I like to use because that is the year that income for male high school graduates in the US peaked).

The conventional wisdom has long been that "a rising tide lifts all boats." We find, however, that it is possible for a rising tide (i.e. economic growth, however you want to measure it) to lift some boats while sinking others. In "The Conscience of a Liberal," Paul Krugman argues that the increasing income inequality in the US is not simply "natural" (i.e. the result of changes in technology or the unfettered "free market") but largely due to politics. He also argues that, while income inequality may go down in times of relative prosperity, it is increasing equality that causes prosperity, not the other way around.

Many of our social problems are due to poverty, and so increasing income equality would probably save the government money. Krugman also contends it would bring economic growth, which completely destroys the Republican case against progressive taxation.

Can we afford social justice? The real question is whether we can afford to do without it.

As for our other problems, i.e. endless war, pollution, global warming, etc., these are real problems that people would want to solve politically if they knew the truth. The problem is that there is a massive totalitarian propaganda apparatus, from FOCKS News to the pulpits of many churches, that strives to keep people ignorant, hateful, reactionary and afraid.

the interesting thing is, you have these corporations that fuck over people in the developing world - paying them nonlivable wages to produce stuff for us, destroying their environment, and then they come over here, and fuck the people in this country as well, while raking enormous profits. if these corporations actually shared even a portion of their wealth that they got from fucking over people in other places with us, we could theoretically accomplish social justice in OUR country, and i think that is what lou doubbs democrats are really looking for. The question is, is there enough desire to accomplish social justice for people outside our country as well, or are we just lookiing out only for ourselves?

I don't think we should control the governments of other countries. Absent US interference, the politics of most nations is more progressive than those of the US. At a minimum, should stop meddling, supporting US corporations with our military, overthrowing democratically elected governments, etc.

As for whom it is who ought to benefit in the US, I mean the American people, by which I mean the average person. We need to help the middle class by moving all the nation's poor into the middle class. Such a choice should not entail oppressing other nations. We have the money, or, rather, some US citizens have the money, even if it's in offshore tax havens. We should get it and put these tax cheats in prison.

As for corporations, we could at least increase the rate of corporate taxation, the highest bracket of which has moved down to 35% today from 52% in the 1950's and 1960's.

"We need to help the middle class by moving all the nation's poor into the middle class. Such a choice should not entail oppressing other nations."

no, it should not, but it's easier that way, isn't it? that's why i think the elites are shooting themselves in the foot here, they could economically opress developing world and then use some of those profits to make sure every american is taken care of through social safety nets, if they did that i have no doubt in my mind that 90% of the people in the usa would be firmly behind all of their policies and actions at all times. instead they economically oppress americans as well by dismantling social programs here (fueled by their free market ideology), creating all this populism and social unrest, that will contribute to their downfall. not very smart.

there are a lot of very progressive, egalitarian countries in europe that have a great social safety nets and take care of their citizens - free healthcare, free education, but at the same time the reason they are able to do that is because they consume goods made by millions of slaves in other countries, because that's what those sweat shop workers really are - working 80 hours a week in horrible conditions and getting paid pennies for it

every industrial economy in today's world is built on their backs

Europeans don't have to consume so much energy driving around as we do.

We need to rebuild our rail network.

The US is the worst offender in this regard. In Europe, offshoring has been more moderate. According to the German Ministry for Economics and Technology, the textile industry in Germany employs 122,000 people, and "In 2006, the domestic production of textiles concentrated on clothing (30%), home textiles (30%), and technical textiles (40%). With this production, Germany is still one of the largest textile and clothing exporters worldwide with an export quota of 41.7%. At the same time, the country is also the second largest importer of textiles behind the United States and has become since the 1980's an attractive export market for many textile exporting countries worldwide." Why are the Germans able to have over a hundred thousand workers in the textile industry compete internationally and at good union wages while our corporations claim it's just not possible to do this kind of work in the US?

I think it's due to the business culture: the Europeans seem to realize that not everybody is going to go to college to get those supposedly well-paying "tech jobs" that are supposed to save the economy. Our corporations realize the same thing, but don't care. In other words, it's not just the social safety net, but jobs, and the idea that companies owe some responsibilities to the nation in which they were established.

fat and happy!

Until one day suddenly it does not. Still, network television is a lot cheaper way of keeping people passive and ignorant that providing a genuine social safety nt would be.

Anyway, I was suggesting a possibility for us, not the elites. They might try any number of screwy things. I do think that, when you add up all the costs, using our military to subdue whole nations so that they could serve as underpaid labor for US corporations isn't terribly efficient.

I do think you hit the nail on the head there: ideology has trumped rationality in the current administration.

The borrow-and-spend chickens are coming home to roost. This country is borrowing money to maintain itself and it's many ventures. At some point the bills are going to come due, and we won't be able to just pay the interest on them as we've been doing.

Somebody's going to have to cough up the money...guess who?

so who exactly is going to collect and how?

may be that's what our enormous defense budget is really all about, the people in charge view it as an investement against anybody trying to call in on our debt, lol

assuming no one went nuclear, in which case no one would win.

They couldn't beat the popular resistance. Our experiences in Iraq and Vietnam demonstrate this. We're not Rome--heck, even Rome wasn't really Rome.

yeah, that's what i am talking about

the only reason we've occupied iraq is to try and get their oil production back online

if we fought north korea i see no reason why we would stay there after we destroyed their active military and their nuclear facilities

what i am saying is it's kind of hard to collect a debt from someone who is stronger than you and does not feel the need to abide by any laws

for other reasons which have more to do with keeping Iraqi oil production offline. For example, the longer we're in Iraq, keeping things unstable, the more valuable all other oil and gas deposits in the world become, and the more profit Exxon-Mobil and the House of Saud make. While that may seem like a conspiracy theory, there is also the theory, publicly avowed by many neoconservatives, that a "democratic, stable Iraq that is an ally in the war on terror" would be invaluable in enabling the US military to have large, permanent bases in the Middle East. That a truly democratic Iraq would never actually be a US puppet state is something that apparently never occurred to these alleged sages.

We wouldn't fight North Korea. They have nukes. They could also demolish Seoul even without nukes, and that is a consequence major enough to give even the most drunken cowboy pause.

Anyway, real power is economic, not military--our military might is caused by our economic power, not the other way around. Our creditors will get paid. The US has spent the last 60 years building an international financial structure that guarantees it. We might--probably will have to--deflate our currency, but the US government will honor its obligations, and no number of marines can stop that. The consequences of not doing so make even the prospect of a nuke in downtown Seoul pale in comparison.

They are in it for themselves. Look at the wage stagnation. Look at the lies about inflation. We have the widest income disparity between the top 10% of earners and the rest of the population since the days of the robber barons.

if they screw the regular person too much, there might be another revolution, political or otherwise. so it's in their best interest to make sure that majority of the americans have a somewhat comfortable existence and thus don't rock the system

i mean it is possible theoretically to have a very economically unequal society, but still make sure that the people that end up on the bottom of the economic ladder can make a respectable living. the problem is that elites get too greedy too fast, and like i said that's when the revolution happens. imo we are still very far away from that point though

What some people call the "American Standard of Living", I prefer to call the "American Standard of Waste".

Americans waste energy.

Americans waste natural resources.

Americans waste food.

Americans waste, waste, waste!

Americans could solve problems like global warmikng, wars for resources, and global poverty if we could learn to stop wasting so much.

:kick: & R

they talk about materialistic privileges of living in a first world country; not so much about liberty, democracy, or freedom

Reducing poverty requires economic growth. Economic growth requires global warming(we do not get to have all this stuff and not have an increasing impact, we just don't). Global warming requires expansion(because physical reality would catch up to us if we didn't expand), which result in wars(in some form) for resources.

if you are referring to standard of living in the traditional socioeconomic sense, ie a country with a good standard of living being one with an economy that allows people to earn a decent living, provide for themselves and their families, are able to meet basic needs, have access to health care and access education so they can improve themselves and the world around them.

Without an adequate standard of living, the US can't help other nations, can't keep a strong world economy going, etc.

"Without an adequate standard of living, the US can't help other nations, can't keep a strong world economy going"

Why should it be up to the US to "help other nations" and "keep a strong world economy going"?

There are plenty of other countries (China and India come to mind) that could take the lead in keeping a strong world economy going.

Why should Americans have to consume and consume and consume and waste and waste and waste in order to help other countries??

It is an utterly ridiculous proposition, considering that the entire edifice of international capitalism is based on the limitless accumulation of wealth by any means possible, which includes genocide, slavery, imperialism, conquest, exploitation, looting and plunder. Some of these crimes are going on as I type.

Help, my ass.

The massive dollar devaluation and resulting hyperinflation will render most savings practically worthless. A prime example is Argentina.

i see things getting progressively worse over the next generation but i don't see a sudden collapse

Or just stabilize the population and live more efficiently (wasting less of what we have).

For the past 20 years, this economy has run on a credit card...spending beyond its means on both the government and consumer level. It's stayed afloat as the lenders...the major banks...could and gladly extended more credit in an effort to get more interest that drove profits. That extra money people paid on revolving charges, the finance charges on every financial transaction and even the interest on the national debt...the more the merrier. The game led to a distribution of the wealth out of the middle class that is now about to correct itself.

The supersizing of corporate America is starting to buckle under its own largess. Companies are on the verge of bankruptcy as revenues shrink and debts grow. Government bailouts are getting less effective as both the weak dollar and the growing debt makes it harder to find additional funding. But then this couldn't have happened to a better group of people. However, it's the rest of us who will pay the price.

I see similar circumstances now that existed in the 70's...rapidly rising oil prices along with a war-induced debt that led to the inflation of the late 70's. We're headed in that direction again and this will shake out a lot of the "weak" links in the economy. But where the large fail, the smaller can emerge and prevail. Reinvestment in this country's infrastructure and energy problems could spur a new "WPA" that could create new jobs and opportunities and recharge both the country and the economy. We caught a glimpse of it with the tech boom of the 90's...and there's no reason it can't happen again.

Cheers..

people keep talking like the whole house is about to come crushing down in a year or two

i think we are circuling the drain, the recessions will be getting worse and worse in coming decades, but we still got a long ways to go as a superpower with the global economic system we've built

Neither were the gas lines or the ever-rising cost of virtually everything. The real killer of that recession was the number of jobs it killed that were never replaced...when the "rust belt" truly began to rust and the value of the dollar was weak at that time as well. While it wasn't like the Depression (my late mother kept comparing the economic conditions during those days), it was a tough time to try to establish oneself.

Those who claim the US is "in decline" as an economic power are delusional. While foreign markets are now catching up to ours, the American economy still is the most dynamic in the world...the source where trends and innovations still flow. The big difference is how much of this wealth now trickles down to the "masses".

the country bounced back and the economy continued growing for decades

Sorry people, not having an iPod won't kill you.

:evilgrin:

Most of my stuff is recycled, vintage or antique. When I buy new stuff, first I'm struck by how expensive it is for the price, and secondly I'm struck by how cheaply it's made for the price.

If more people paid CASH for the things they buy, they would the wake the HELL UP and see how much money they've wasted because of the load of crap they've been force fed-FOR YEARS-courtesy the corporate masters who try and control us all at every turn.

not counting the racism, but the standard of living was good. The scariest part is how far will we fall & how quickly, looking at Iraq & Somalia it horrifies me. If you had to choose: your toilet or your dishwasher, which water-user would you give up? I think in Orme, Tenn. they should ban showering, tub bathing only, weld all showerheads shut. I've also thought about what electrical devices I'd give up: I'd rather give up most electrical lights than my computer, so I'm willing to read online by candlelight. I wonder just what will happen, though. The bullies tend to grab power during chaotic moments & that would be very ugly.

And why would we want to? The "American way" is gross.

without being an imperialist planner?

We have to be honest with ourselves.

A big problem is that many of the systems that would lead to saner less energy efficient way of living have been cannibalized. This was done purposefully by large corporations with politicians of all stripes signing off on it.

But fortunately, history has a way of proving our predictions wrong. So I hope I'm proved to be full of beans on this one.

and they ain't giving up their SUV's until you pry their dead hands from around the steering wheels. I don't care if gas hits 10/gal, people will still fill up their gas-guzzlers until they are flat-broke. You have to give people an incentive to do something and there are no incentives for being green saving fuel, etc.