On Our Economy

Food: Instead of using the much healthier sugar (sucrose), they use high-fructose corn syrup. Some studies have show that it can be addictive. The result? An increase in obesity in this country.
Clothing: Whenever my Mother shops for clothes for my sister, she complains that the clothes are too tight, too revealing, and too thin. She can barely find descent clothes for my sister. It's been noted that skirts and shorts for girls are growing shorter and shorter each year. The result? More and more women being forced to dress in a way that will probably makes them look like whores.
Factories: Company A starts to outsource jobs overseas to make their products very cheap. Companies B, C, D must do the same to compete with Company A. The result? More and more Americans lose their jobs to people in China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, etc.
Drugs (leagal & illegal): Let's start with the illegal drugs. These drugs are illegal because they are dangerous to us and to people around us, or so they say. Marijuana, aside from it's hallucinogenic effects, has been noted to be very effective in treating various diseases.
     So are these drugs really banned to protect us? Look at smoking! It's a fact that smoking cause slung cancer and other breathing disorders. In fact, the tobacco plant naturally absorbs Uranium that is in the ground.
     And what about Afghanistan? They produce the most of the poppy seeds in the world. These can be used to make medicinal morphine at a very cheap price. But where do these poppy seeds go towards? Drugs. Why? Because pharmaceutical companies don't want to lose money on the morphine that they manufacture themselves so they can overcharge us.
      In fact, they try to overcharge us for everything. The same drugs that cost hundreds of dollars here can be paid for with what's in your wallet in many other countries.
      As a result of drugs like marijuana being illegal, they have produced other negatives. Many city gangs get their money for guns from selling these drugs a high prices. The result? Increased robberies, shootings, rapings, and deaths of hundreds of people each year.
     Now if you don't give a shit about what people that live in the equivalent of a hell hole, maybe this will: Money is leaving the United States. The countries that create and manufacture these drugs, like Mexico and Columbia, are taking this money and putting it into their own economy (sometimes to buy guns and oppress their people).
Energy/Oil: (Neocons can relax, I'm not targeting you here.)
     Oil is what drives most of the most powerful countries in the world. But the rest of the world is trying to catch up with us. India and China are consuming more and more oil, and if they reach our level of oil consumption, we're gonna have a problem, because there will be a heated competition for obtaining it.
     The world is running out of oil. We're using more oil than is produced by the Earth. We can't keep using this much oil. The thing is, we can't, otherwise the economy is going to crash.
     Energy is what drives an economy. It is the limiting factor to how fast your country can grow. That's one reason why Iran is so bent on obtaining nuclear power.
     Of course, we're trying to get more oil without devastating our own land. Back in 2000, Bush wanted to drill for oil on Alaskan wildlife reserves, but there was a big opposition to that. The solution? Get it from overseas! We get so much of our oil from Saudi Arabia and Iraq that it's not even funny.
        We need to get into nuclear power. We need to get into solar power. We need to get into wind power. We need to get into bio-fuels. We need to get into fuel-cell research. But do we? No. Republican presidential candidates are just starting to hop aboard the same train the Democrats have been on for the past 5 years.
     I'll address global warming in another post, this post is getting waaaaay to long.
     Gas prices are sky rocketing, and our nation loves SUVs. (How many of these things actually go off-road anyway?) We've been told back as early as the late 80's about the oil problem and rising gas prices, but we're just starting to listen, because we're starting to feel it on our wallets!
     So now we're making hybrid SUVs (Hummers getting 15mpg?). But it's not enough, and we need to get into other forms of power fast. So what do our American car companies do about this? Produce a car line up that is getting an average of 25 mph at best, while Asian car companies are selling cars that are getting 30mpg, 34mpg, and 40mpg.
    In addition, these foreign competitors are making cars cheap as hell. The Indian car company, Tata Motors, is going to sell cars in the US that cost $2000. They can't go past 60mph, but how many people really need to use the freeway everyday?

In a nutshell, we're becoming a bunch of under-dressed, overweight, unemployed, drug-dealing, drug-taking, gas-drinking people. In fact, we're starting to identify ourselves this way!

God! This country is starting to piss me off.

</rant>

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SaikotikGunman on

Re: On Our Economy

Biofuels have their own pitfalls. Ethanol will never be a viable, effective alternative. It exists solely due to subsidies. Big oil likes ethanol because it takes a lot of oil to produce, from synthetic fertilizers to the energy to process it. Let's also remember how much diesel it takes to plant, spray, irrigate, and harvest corn, which itself is a nasty crop for the soil, especially in high yield applications on the corporate mono-crop facilities where much of it is grown for this.

Biodiesel is much more viable, but only to the point that it can fill the gap left by shrinking diesel fuel production, which would otherwise cripple American farm and freight industries.

That bastard Ted Kennedy is an example of why wind power is a long way off int widespread use. The wealthy in Washington, even the supposedly eco-friendly Dummycrats have an asinine not in my backyard approach to projects which could actually make a difference.

In Europe, with a little help from us, the struggle is still ongoing towards building a viable tokamak, and that's the future of power if we can shake Exxon-Mobile and have everyone on Capitol Hill butchered.

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FiveAcez on

Re: On Our Economy

You do know that fusion has been achieved here in the US right (with parts from the local junkyard)? The only problem is making it so the output power is greater than the input power.

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SaikotikGunman on

Re: On Our Economy

Yes, I know.

But the next step toward viable fusion power is ITER, which is planned to be operational in 2016.

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FiveAcez on

Re: On Our Economy

True...Oh, BTW the US is one of the 7 participants in ITER.

And also, since when are you against companies and for government action? Aren't you a Libertarian? lol

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SaikotikGunman on

Re: On Our Economy

I'm not a huge fan of corporations, because corporations would not exist as they do today without the government creating an environment where they have unnatural advantages.

And just because I'm a Libertarian leaning Republican doesn't mean I have to like corporate America.

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FiveAcez on

Re: On Our Economy

lol ok

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SaikotikGunman on

Re: On Our Economy

If you can point to one person who fits a particular party or ideological stereotype, I can point to an idiot.

No thinking man can possibly fit into such a mold.

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FiveAcez on

Re: On Our Economy

Ah, so you're a person, not a conservative. Smart.

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SaikotikGunman on

Re: On Our Economy

Like Chris Rock said, there's some things I'm conservative about, and there's some things I'm liberal about.

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FiveAcez on

Re: On Our Economy

"Crime, I'm conservative. Prostitution, I'm liberal."

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SaikotikGunman on

Re: On Our Economy

Something like that.

I associate most closely because I tend toward small government. Agricultural subsidies, which benefit the massive company farms rather than small farms which need the help, for instance, need to go. However I support government intervention to directly protect the environment and farmland from both urban/suburban sprawl and industrial damage. The former hasn't happened much, save for small parcels on the local and state level, and one of my dreams is that America will come to its senses within the next generation to take up the task of protecting every acre of American soil that is tillable before this older generation of farmers dies of old age. The average age of the American farmer is over 55 years old. We should force development corporations to redevelop land they've already destroyed, rather than pave over the farmland that will become ever more necessary as populations continue to grow. Without petroleum based fertilizers, the American ag industry would take a huge hit, and the diet of the American people would be forced to take a drastic shift from corn-based products to a diet consisting of more cereals and a lot more meat, which can be grazed on soil without reliance on fertilizer. Most people don't realize that corn takes tremendous amounts of nutrients out of the soil, and that very little of that ever comes back to the soil, as human waste is not recycled to any significant degree.

I have a hard time associating with the Dummycrats because I'm pro-gun, don't like the idea of a welfare state, and am fairly pro-life, and I have a hard time associating with the Republicunts because I'm against the war, tend to like the idea of not dumping toxins into the environment, and have no problem with extending the legal benefits granted heterosexuals to homosexual couples.