Gas Prices, NAFTA, etc

[garym053]

Read an article tonight that said in China the top car sales are SUV's and Luxury autos.
Seems to me that thanks to NAFTA many countries are now driving up the demand for oil due to their increased productivity while we continue to lose manufacturing jobs. In doing so we drive UP their standard of living and they in turn want bigger cars and MORE oil and gas, imagine that!
 One study says that 77% of the jobs in our country are sales. Can we really sustain an economy where all we do is sell stuff to each other?
I guess when retail sales goes into the gutter we can all sell on Ebay!!!
IF only I could invent a car to run on the hot air out of politicians!

[McCampers]

I'm your huckleberry.  

I'll venture into this territory with you.  The short answer to your question is no.  The better answer is, no nation can pay people not to produce, or pay for it's inhabitants healthcare, or for their accidents, or for their single parents, or for all the other social programs this country does and get away with it for long.  We as a country and as a people are swirling the bowl.

Push the envelope a little further.....  People putting screws in a widget on an assembly line can not make as much as the guy who sold the widget to the widget buyer, or as much as the president of the widget making company, or as much as the guy who stands over his shoulder with the stop watch to make sure he puts his screw in fast enough.  There has always been haves and have nots.  There always will be.

The great thing about the U.S. is you can be any of those people.  IF..you make the right choices, and are willing to do what it takes and then act upon that willingness.  Your station at birth does not have to be your permanent station in this great nation.  

But......certain political parties would like it to be that way.  Have you ever noticed the more the government gets involved in anything the less freedom you have concerning that matter?  We as a nation and people have forgotten with personal liberty comes personal responsibility.  That statement is true in every facet of our life.  We as a people and a nation need to hold EVERYONE in this country accountable for their actions and inactions.  If we will do that we will win, if we don't.........

It's not too late, but it's close........

[Old Goat]

Well said...you pay attention to whats happening in Amrrica too......

[waygard33]

:compumad:  Here's another log on that fire...

In WWII, America was able to do great things, partly because we had a huge manufacturing society. We stopped making cars and quickly converted to tanks and planes, etc.

Now, much of what we have is made in China and many other locations. Even what we do make...we don't make entirely. Instead, we assemble.

I heard/read previously that in a poll in China, most chinese expect their next major conflict to be with the United States.

Do you think they will continue to make our tank parts, computer parts, communication parts, satellite parts, plane parts and all the rest when/if that major conflict ever happens?

On a side note, I just recently purchased an expensive, high def video camera made by Sony. I just had to laugh when I turned it over and it said, 'Made in China'. I guess we're not the only ones in that boat.  :eyecrazy:

Finally, it's not me I'm worried about. It's the kids. What are they going to do. I would say we are a sales/service/sports society. It's hard for me to imagine being real proud of my kids accomplishments when those are the choices. I hope they surprise me.

[McCampers]

Gosh I'm glad to have lit a small fire, but a fire just the same.

[austinado16]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's already too late.

In WWII we had a singular purpose.  After that time, we began the slide to the disolutionment that has led us to this date and time. Unions have broken the backbone of manufacturing in this country and the cheap/expendable labor pouring into this country from Mexico is a tide that can not be turned back.  Throw in the Walmart/Costco shopping mentality and all companies fleeing to mexico, china, thailand and anywhere else they can find no environmental controls and humans living in cardboard boxes and grass shacks willing to work for $1US a month......and we're done.

Come to California, or any other state overrun with the tide from Mexico or Cuba, and you see what looms in the future.  And I'm not making that a racial statement.  All of the working class jobs are slowly falling to "cheap labor".......all of them.  And like the previous poster mentioned, the social programs that provide housing, dental, medical, and food suppliment assistance checks are running full tilt.

Circling the drain?  Uh, yeah.....I'll say.  Press 9 to hear this message in spanish.

Diesel fuel just topped $4.79 and I've seen it as high as $4.89 just to the south.

[Dee4j]

IF only I could invent a car to run on the hot air out of politicians!

gee EVERY car in America would be in great supply....it would probably cost us double even tho it's free for them to produce....:eyecrazy:  

[McCampers]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's already too late.

In WWII we had a singular purpose.  After that time, we began the slide to the disolutionment that has led us to this date and time. Unions have broken the backbone of manufacturing in this country and the cheap/expendable labor pouring into this country from Mexico is a tide that can not be turned back.  Throw in the Walmart/Costco shopping mentality and all companies fleeing to mexico, china, thailand and anywhere else they can find no environmental controls and humans living in cardboard boxes and grass shacks willing to work for $1US a month......and we're done.

Come to California, or any other state overrun with the tide from Mexico or Cuba, and you see what looms in the future.  And I'm not making that a racial statement.  All of the working class jobs are slowly falling to "cheap labor".......all of them.  And like the previous poster mentioned, the social programs that provide housing, dental, medical, and food suppliment assistance checks are running full tilt.

Circling the drain?  Uh, yeah.....I'll say.  Press 9 to hear this message in spanish.

Diesel fuel just topped $4.79 and I've seen it as high as $4.89 just to the south.

That is precisely what I'm talking about.  We need to take the country back, or find a new country.  The motor is slowing, and WILL stop in the near future if we as a nation and people do not do something to turn it around.  The start is really very simple.  Stop all the politically correct crap, and speak your mind.  Before you do that you'd better exercise your second amendment rights and arm yourself, because people won't like it.  People need to defend themselves and their way of life.  

It is simple if you can produce, you will.  If you can't you shouldn't survive.  We need to stem the politically correct thought of everyone should survive.  Those able to produce, and be decent contributing members of society should go on and the others shouldn't.  

Priority number one,  prove up to reproduce.  If you can't afford them, don't have them.  Don't be allowed to have them.  Just because you can reproduce doesn't give you cart blanche' to do it.  In a better time when you had too many children and you couldn't afford them, THEY DIED.  Chances are you didn't make it to reproduction age if you weren't of good enough stock to carryon and produce and contribute to society.  I know this sounds hard, but it IS reality.  If we want to change what's going on these are the kind of steps necessary.

Illegals should be rounded up made to build a security fence around the country paid wages only for their work, and sent back to where they came from.  No body enters that can't contribute and produce.  

Joe Arpaio should design and run all prisons.

Legalize all drugs, prostitution, and gambling.  End all government social programs that assist people who harm themselves or put themselves (through bad choices, or lack of choices) in bad situations.  

Seems pretty simple to me, but you had better arm yourself regardless whether anyone does anything about it or not.  Because it is going to get even more rough in the near future.

[austinado16]

I've got some major hangups with the whole "PC" thing and the actual dumbing down of America to pander to the very lowest common denominator.  I can't speak for other states, but it is terrible here.

There was a time in this country just a hundred years ago when foreigners came here because they wanted to be Americans.  They may have started out living in "Little Italy" or "Little Germany" or whatever, but they came, learned the language, melted their customs into "our" customs, and they helped forge a great nation.  When we went went war, they were Americans and went to war.  They were Americans.

Now we have people coming here to suck on the gravey highway that was paved by the bodies of real Americans.  These people don't want to contribute, they simply want to live somewhere, where they aren't going to be killed by roadside or suicide bombs, where they aren't going to be ripped out of their homes in the middle of the night never to be seen again, where they don't have to live in poverty in a carboard shack or a house made out of garage doors with a dirt floor and tin roof.....where their kids can get a real education (paid for by ALL of us) and real medical attention, real dental and vision care, and on and on.  But they won't become Americans and they don't want to become Americans.  

Labels have to be in at least 2 languages now to pander to this tide.  At my daughter's school, we can't use phrases like (or have) Christmas parties, Thanksgiving parties, Halloween parties or costume contests, Easter parties and the list continues to grow.  Heck, these people don't even say the pledge of allegence, nor do their children and I'm surprised the school can even fly the flag.

"We" are not the only ones suffering from this.  I have friends in the UK and it is exactly the same and even worse over there as their nation (like ours) turned a blind PC eye to the tide of foreigners, and then one day woke up and said..."What the @$#& have we allowed to take root?"  And like here, "they" have more rights than the actual citizens.

It's part of the flushing of our great countries and since you brought up reproduction, "they" are reproducing at a rate probably 3 or 4 times higher than traditional American families.  They don't care how many offspring they have, their females get pregnant in their very early teens and by the time they are 20 have had more children than the average American family will ever have.  The fathers hope from young teen to young teen, so by age 50 have "fathered" several familys while the rest of use are still working one our first. And exponentially it continues as each generation begins reproducing in their early teens.

It scares me to death.

[wavery]

[McCampers]

I've got some major hangups with the whole "PC" thing and the actual dumbing down of America to pander to the very lowest common denominator.  I can't speak for other states, but it is terrible here.

There was a time in this country just a hundred years ago when foreigners came here because they wanted to be Americans.  They may have started out living in "Little Italy" or "Little Germany" or whatever, but they came, learned the language, melted their customs into "our" customs, and they helped forge a great nation.  When we went went war, they were Americans and went to war.  They were Americans.

Now we have people coming here to suck on the gravey highway that was paved by the bodies of real Americans.  These people don't want to contribute, they simply want to live somewhere, where they aren't going to be killed by roadside or suicide bombs, where they aren't going to be ripped out of their homes in the middle of the night never to be seen again, where they don't have to live in poverty in a carboard shack or a house made out of garage doors with a dirt floor and tin roof.....where their kids can get a real education (paid for by ALL of us) and real medical attention, real dental and vision care, and on and on.  But they won't become Americans and they don't want to become Americans.  

Labels have to be in at least 2 languages now to pander to this tide.  At my daughter's school, we can't use phrases like (or have) Christmas parties, Thanksgiving parties, Halloween parties or costume contests, Easter parties and the list continues to grow.  Heck, these people don't even say the pledge of allegence, nor do their children and I'm surprised the school can even fly the flag.

"We" are not the only ones suffering from this.  I have friends in the UK and it is exactly the same and even worse over there as their nation (like ours) turned a blind PC eye to the tide of foreigners, and then one day woke up and said..."What the @$#& have we allowed to take root?"  And like here, "they" have more rights than the actual citizens.

It's part of the flushing of our great countries and since you brought up reproduction, "they" are reproducing at a rate probably 3 or 4 times higher than traditional American families.  They don't care how many offspring they have, their females get pregnant in their very early teens and by the time they are 20 have had more children than the average American family will ever have.  The fathers hope from young teen to young teen, so by age 50 have "fathered" several familys while the rest of use are still working one our first. And exponentially it continues as each generation begins reproducing in their early teens.

It scares me to death.

If we don't each of us do our part.  We're going to have to fight for it.  That day is getting closer by the minute.  I like numbers.  Here's one for instance 19,000 that's the number of unwanted teen pregnancies in one year in North Carolina alone.  Here's another one 26,000 that's the number of unwanted baby girls born each day in China.  Yep, each day.  They have thousands of state run ophanages that house over a million unwanted female children who get left there everyday.  The world is over populated and getting worse by the second.  Science said that the world population sustainment was 4 billion humans.  We have more than doubled that and are climbing by the second.  We hail Jonas Salk as a hero, but before it is all over we'll curse the day he was born.  It has to break and soon.  Exercise your second amendment rights!

[austinado16]

I don't think it's time to lock and load.  I think it's time for people to wake up and see what's really going on.

For example:  "We" conquered Germany and Japan at the same time in 5 years.  4 years into it, neither country (with their vast military and industrial might and cutting edge science and technology) could do little more than hang on and brace for the bitter end.   Now, compare that to Iraq and Afganistan.  7 years later "we" are still being told that these 3rd world countries are a tremendous threat to the world, and after 7 years "they" are still able toss around RPG's, AK-47 rounds and road-side bombs as if they were on sale at a Walmart in Bagdad.  Mmm.....go figure.  How is that a 3rd world country is still up to it's eyeballs in munitions.  the only thing these people are a threat to is cheap oil.  Oh, wait, it's not cheap anymore.....and yet we're still there.  Why again?  Maybe we should tell the Saudi's, "We'll take oil at $20/barrel, or we're packing up and going home, and you can mount a .50cal to the roof of your Benz and defend your own back yard for a change."

Nah......that'd be silly.  What am I thinking.

PS:  Diesel here is now $4.85/gal.  That's up .06 cents from just yesterday, and up .20 cents in about a week.

[SheBantam]

We may have been handling Japan almost singlehandedly, but come on...Europe??? sure most of Europe had fallen to the Nazis, but England and Russia (after a sudden change of heart) were fighting with us. Both took huge huge losses.

But there was a coalitiion, an alliance that we do not have in the middle east...the other countries who have helped out with aid or with military are one by one yeilding to the will of their people.  

In the meantime BIG OIL is getting richer and richer, though minimum wage just went up, the cost of everything has gone up...so the working poor are worse off than ever, the middle class is becoming the working poor as we see our dollar devalued more and more, and the price of goods from some of the same countries who's money has increased in value against the dollar, getting more and more money out of us, but are those companies giving their employees a true living wage...chances are they are not.

Our "friends" like Suadi Arabia are seeing dollar signs...they are going to suck us dry, while they can.

[austinado16]

Yes, when I said "we" conquered, I meant that, as you say....with help, just as we had when this fiasco in the middle east started.  Our allies; Australia, Philipines, and New Zealand...and the Chinese before we ever declared war...were with us all the way in the Pacific Theatre, and we know who the players were in the European Theatre.   Point is, we destroyed the 2 most powerful armies, air forces, navies, and industrial machines in the world.  In fact, the United States was a blip on the radar military-wise when Pearl Harbor was attacked.  And from that position, we became a super power and took down these 2 giants.

Compare that with what we've done in 7 years against a bunch of "goat hurders" (pardon the expression).

And today, diesel is $4.99/gal.

[McCampers]

Living wage?  What does that mean?  Live like Puff Daddy or live like a hillbilly in West Virginia? Like I said there have always been haves and have nots.  There always will be.  Americans need to understand everyone can't drive a brand new car and live in a 3500 sq ft house on the water. Just because you are born in the US doesn't mean you are guaranteed a "living wage" for whatever you decide to do.  Any job is only worth what the employer is willing to pay for that value.  When the Government steps in it messes it all up.  Everyone can't have health care.  Only the ones who can afford it can have it.  That is a simple concept.  You get what you pay for nothing more.  Everyone can't be a doctorate holding fry cook either.  99% of the world is not intelligent enough to hold doctorates, but to hear most people tell it everyone should have a college education. Most aren't truly intelligent enough or have enough drive to get a real education.  What they are handing out at most establishments of higher education is not worth the toilet paper it is written on, and guess who's paying for it?

I think the lefties in this country have truly messed us up to the point we will struggle for years to get out of this mess.  We need refinery capacity.  We need to be driling for oil everywhere we can here in our country.  We also need to find something other than fossil fuel to drive the world.  You know why we don't?  Because the predominantly leftist US government has a nasty reputation of taking good ideas and giving them to the rest of the world.  Why bring out a good idea?  It will just be stolen, and given to your competition anyway.  It's all done under the guise of "its for the good of the country, or the world, or your neighbor"  I'm tired of my neighbor and everyone else having their hand in my pocket without me inviting them.  Give me back my money and go make your own!