Reality check: Call me what you will, but I guess I'm just a conspiracy theorist or something as I tend to view the world as a global 'Corpocracy,' with multinational firms pulling the strings of 'democratically elected' leaders here and abroad, much to the demise of the average American. Corporations are profit-maximizing machines. They seek out the cheapest labor and resources and avoid costly environmental and labor regulation - this is logical for them as long as the costs of this are externalities, to be born by others. The problem in this new, flat earth is that Americans are going to have to realize that unless this global Corpocracy is reigned in somehow, in a coordinated fashion, human labor will be the lowest cost and more pressured commodity of all, and that means Americans are going to have to come to grips with the very real fact of falling real wages for themselves and their children and they have to bid their services against those they never had to do so before. Americans have only begun to feel the effects of this new reality. And it will only grow at an accelerating pace in the coming years, as fabrication and capital can be located anywhere, and there are billions of humans willing to bid aggressively for work, and the fruits of their labor can be shipped all over the globe at record speed thanks to an excellent and efficient transport complex. And, to really highlight how cheap labor is, factory towns in entire Chinese Provinces are being literally disassembled and shipped to Vietnam and Thailand, because the going rate of 50 to 80 cents per hour was far more expensive than the bids made by Vietnamese and Thai labor - rumor has it by a factor of 3x. While America was still digesting the notion of incredibly cheap Chinese Labor, Chinese factory owners have move aggressively into Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam (especially), to cut their already low labor costs. Good luck in this world of 20 cent per hour labor, America. You'd better develop truly skilled and high tech industry producing goods and services that no one else can, guard the recipe with your blood, and consider economic prosperity as vital as the most fundamental aspects of national defense if you hope to maintain or raise your citizenry's living standards.
There're too many people and they just keep making more. We're all in a LOT OF TROUBLE! Recognize. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ygnwgJ3Y8Es&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ygnwgJ3Y8Es&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygnwgJ3Y8Es
At the Airport tonight i picked up and read the latest copy of "Esquire", the one with the electronic cover. The editorial staff has selected what they believe are the 75 most influential persons of the 21st Century (about a century too early to know). Number seventy-five was George W. Bush. The two pages devoted to him consisted of a brutal assessment of his presidency. This is a breakthrough of sorts, because never before has any mainstream, ostensibly non-political, publication in America dared to attack a sitting president with such venom and truthfulness. We are at a turning point in our history. Is this the end or the beginning? I am not sure which, but it would seem to be one or the other. The current situation may be the wake up call this Country needs to right itself. American political Rhetoric may have been forced, at long last, to reflect the reality of our actions. Let us hope so. And if so, then Mr. Bush has, in spite of his bungling and dim witted leadership, his arrogant trampling of our bill of rights, and his vainglorious expansion of federal power, done all of us a giant favor.
The leftists have got to be gleeful at what has fallen into their lap here. A financial crisis of their own making causes a lurch of power in their direction. I blame Bush for being complicit, he's been the worst enemy of freedom loving people in the US. We are now left to the tender mercies of Obama, Pelosi, and company while republicans have proven they are just too timid to stand up for the principles that get them elected. I believe that speculators will be politically pounded, special taxes will be proposed, you will start to hear about how these 'unearned' profits are evil- a la Sweden pre 1993. The war on capitalism will find itself again and no longer feel it has to take cover in things like the environmental movement. As more and more americans become dependent on leftist government and the bills mount, your skills will have become that much sharper if you want to survive because the drag coefficient will only increase. The left's vision of globalism will only accelerate this process, after all why should you make more than the guy in Indonesia? In the much bigger picture- the american left, along with changing demographics will strongly polarize the US in such a manner that there will be a white flight towards west central states. It's simply a continuation of what happens around major cities only now entire state governments will be run by the left. Eventually this will lead to a Canada style succession movement, or at least feelings along those lines. Probably in about 80 years.
At fault for this dethroning of the US, are the neo-cons and their aggressive greed and corruption of every system. "Old-money" supported their blooming with Bush. They started getting traction during the Reagan years, when the Cold War ended they became emboldened and an economic upturn came along, sights were reset and Iraq was estranged - then they got the Gulf War, they went into overdrive with the booming economy and came into full power with the Bush presidency... they started forcing their ideologies outwards on the world and could not handle the systemic deficiencies they were creating with opposition growing domestically and world-wide. The economic good times and the public availability/access to Internet provided freedom of speech, thought and information in a way and with such profound change which has been unparalleled since the printing press started and was made efficient with Johannes Gutenberg.
At fault for this dethroning of the US, are the neo-cons and their aggressive greed and corruption of every system. "Old-money" supported their blooming with Bush. They started getting traction during the Reagan years, when the Cold War ended they became emboldened and an economic upturn came along, sights were reset and Iraq was estranged - then they got the Gulf War, they went into overdrive with the booming economy and came into full power with the Bush presidency... they started forcing their ideologies outwards on the world and could not handle the systemic deficiencies they were creating with opposition growing domestically and world-wide. The economic good times and the public availability/access to Internet provided freedom of speech, thought and information in a way and with such profound change which has been unparalleled since the printing press started and was made efficient with Johannes Gutenberg. why do you have to follow me with your sophistries? This what I am talking about about with you- gross and useless generalizations that have little correlation with reality. The second paragraph is kind of stupid when you think about it, the rise of the neo-cons and economic god times are correlated. May want think about that one. You are one of those people that demonstarte that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The corruption of this crisis was instigated by the left and I have shown parts of that in detail. I can show more if you wish. So what systemic deficiencies and idealogies were forced upon Brazil? list them, show exactly how they were forced on you by Bush (that is you were coerced). List the other countries that had a neo-con gov't dealogy forced on them by bush. Explain why in one quantitative measure of corruption, the US leads Brazil if it is true that corruption eminates from here. http://www.globalintegrity.org/reports/2006/brazil/index.cfm start a new thread in politics so we don't hijack this one.