I heard one guys opinion, an interview, where he said "recover to do like WHAT?". That we no longer manufacture much anymore, "race to the bottom" in getting costs down (hmmm -- wouldn't some countries call that "treason", shutting down factories, shipping them overseas, and teaching THOSE people (obvious potential enemies!) all the technology, all so that "we" (guess who) have higher earnings.
We had a VERY nice run after WW2 -- we and the Germans had bombed everyone to hell, hardly more than 10 or 20 bombs had hit our shores (was Alaska even a state then? NO! When I was growing up (50's), we had 48 states on the flag!
FINALLY, they started to recover.
I recall Japanese transistor-radios (miracle of tight packaging!) in late 50's, and their EXCELLENT cameras (early 60's); German cars, cameeras, ...
But we were still the source of machine-tools, etc.
Then came the 70's, and the gap was narrowing.
Now we live on borrowed money, they say, and get away with it ONLY because the dollar is the world's reserve currency -- and how long can THAT last, really?
The game might actually be over.
Capitalism (well, let's call it "*Patriotic* Capitalism" made the U.S. into the world's richest and most powerful conuntry.
In the last 20 or 30 years, that "patriotic" capitalism has turned into "Gordon Gekko" (from the movie) capitalism, and in the last maybe 15 years into "Gordon-Gekko-SQUARED Capitalism", into now:
I want it ALL -- ALL ALL ALL!!! ALL of it. EVERYTHING! So I'm screwing the small guy? Fuck him -- he deserves everything he gets. MAYBE if he'd WORKED a little harder, and SMARTER, to. Mother Nature -- that's what Darwin said. "Bloody in tooth and claw". Survival of the fittest.
Damn, it's GOOD that's he's down in the dirt, groveling like the worm he is. And early to get sick and die.
Help raise him up, give him another chance? NO WAY! He'd just propagate himself a bunch -- exactly how it's NOT supposed to work out!
Treason? Huh? You kidding? My collapsing of industries in the U.S., moving them to China, Vietnam, Malaysia? To countries that either will soon or have already been our DEADLY ENEMIES? And you call that TREASON?
Wouldn't I have to be an AMERICAN for that to hold?
Look, you don't get it. We entrepreneurs who're out there doing this kind of work, remaking the world -- We're not citizens of ANY particular country -- we're citizens OF THE WORLD!
I don't know. It's 3:24am. I go off for a few words on a tangent, and I'm still typing an hour later. Not the first time, either!
Hey, Cheers! We're in the Garden of Eden, and everything is in front of us. The gods are smiling, our children and their children and their children's children, et al, life will just be getting better and better and better.
And if it gets to croweded here, thanks to W. Bush we'll be able to go to Mars -- the whole place is empty, wide open, and heck, for something really big, there's Jupiter -- golly, it'll take us a long time to fill up THAT place up, not even for a LONG time having to live in 5-story houses, or apartment buildings, the place is so big.
Gosh, I was born too soon. These young people today, entering their teens, man have THEY got it made.
And all the while the stars and stripes will be flying from Moscow and Peking, and Beh-jing too!
God, do I envy them!
David (the rarely-seen optimist part)