Free Trade Fears on the Rise

http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/18/news/economy/worldgoaway.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008011811

Now that you Centrists 'get it', let's talk about how to undo the damage.

First things first: The oil economy, we can't have it anymore. Public transportation... a must. Free public education to the BA/BS level.

Then, dissolve corporate person-hood, strictly reform business accounting practices, hire enough inspectors in every federal agency to make sure we are safe from bad food, poison materials in products, air and water pollution, and bogus medicines. Restore the right to collectively bargain and do not award govt work to companies that discourage it.

That is a Keynesian stimulus that prepares America for the 21st C. and insulates us from fascism, as educated societies are better armed to destroy it. It gets us off oil into renewables and into Kyoto, or its successor.

It would strengthen our position in the community of nations almost as much as reversing every law and court decision that has weakened the bill of rights since the war on drugs started. We need to do that, and get hempseed oil in our feedstock for industry.

Almost as much as cutting our military/intel budget by 50%. We need a smaller, smarter security force, and less imperialist control. AND IT NEEDS TO BE A MILITARY FORCE not blackwater or caci thugs.

That's what you need to do, DLC. Glad to see you wake up and smell the industrial waste you've been being sold as coffee.

Whenever I argue for mass transit in the form of light-rail, high speed rail, and bus fleets, I get a push-back in the form of simply replacing the current auto fleet with nothing but electric cars. That's all well and good in terms of cutting gas consumption, but it's not in terms of being raped by auto insurance, the waste of steel and other resources in terms of constructing all those vehicles, and massive gridlock in urban areas.

If I don't get that argument thrown at me, I get the argument that "Americans would never replace their cars in favor of mass transit. It's simply not American."

I fear that a consensus on public transit will only be achieved AFTER the bleeding really begins. Ideally, change comes before the bloodletting.

putting in a universal rail transit system would itself mitigate the economic damage the car is doing us right today.

I don't buy that Americans wont ride meme. You wanna see the meme killer, videotape 2 mins of Chicago Union Station at 0630.

n/t

We don't have "towns" much anymore.. We have sprawl and duplication everywhere.. How MANY walmarts within a 10 mile radius, are enough? Does everycommunity "need" THREE Chili's? or FIVE McDonalds? or TWO Super-Targets? or FOURTEEN branch banks? or THREE malls?

Bedroom coomunities are famous for not having jobs that can support families, so wage-earners often have to commute grest distances to work that pays enough to support them.

Eliminate all tax credits for homes you don't live in..That would cut down on the "land barons & flippers"..and would reduce the cost of housing for the rest of us..

Utilities need to be LOCALLY owned and operated.. (co-op style and transitioning to solar ASAP)

oil companies need to be nationalized (oil is a national security issue)..

we get to nationalizing an industry...

Tax homes and structure for less than X people which are not owner occupied. Go to locally owned utils (break up monopolies)

:shrug:

Nationalizing oil is not going to make it any cheaper in the long run... And I don't favor nationalization of industries *period* regulate and tax crap all you want but the government should not be in the business of owning things.

Suburbia will become the new ghetto.
The remaining ultra rich will be moving to rural estates.
The current upper middle class will be the new lower middle class.
And suburbia will be a buffered area of the under employed.

However, there will be transportation nexii in the suburbs, but the terminal 100 yards in the city trip will be a terminal mile in the suburbs. I suspect adult trikes will be the new soccer mom vehicle for 50% or more of errands and the kids old enough to ride will ride 8 months of the year and more.


Nationalizing oil is not about cheap oil, there is no more cheap oil. But it is about using the income to fund the new transportation system.

We also need to create policy that returns us to small farm holding agriculture, because the green revolution is ending, and the genetic crop technology may be generations from being safe to manage. In its place we need to re-create an energy and petro feedstock frugal agriculture. Hint-- it will require more humans and smaller equipment.


Farming will return to the Urban landscape. A lot of brownfields work will have to be done, but that will be good for the economy as well.

Didn't he write in his book that he believes in free markets?

As long as anyone is listening to those idiots, they're dangerous- much like the fundies.

of not surviving 2009.
This week's financial turmoil will be dismissed because of the market maker's swift response.

But how many times will the media and the cognoscenti be able to pull that rabbit from out their butts?

So the worst thing that could happen to the third way would be to win. Because our last 8 years of corrupt management, combined with 20 years of fast track, globalist policy are going to fack us up.

We will be a collapsing economy in a worldwide recession. I predict a 2010 'new dollar', good for all domestic debts, but entirely non-convertable, and an investment 'old dollar' for paying our debts.

Only one of these will be secured by assets.