Author Topic: Ghost Towns  (Read 16031 times)

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Chasfield

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Reply #15 on: September 11, 2009, 08:08:08 pm
I'm not sure the U.S. needs to export goods, but rather, I think it could be self sustaining in just about everything.

The politicians are always queuing up to tell us just how terrible isolationist economics would be for us all. It is practically a mantra. But you start to wonder if it would actually make things any worse than they are now for ordinary folk. There might actually be some dignity to be had from making our own stuff.
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The Garbone

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Reply #16 on: September 11, 2009, 09:57:35 pm
The politicians are always queuing up to tell us just how terrible isolationist economics would be for us all. It is practically a mantra. But you start to wonder if it would actually make things any worse than they are now for ordinary folk. There might actually be some dignity to be had from making our own stuff.

I agree,  might be worth a try in the long run,,, would probably build foreign resentment but it would help here at home.
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LJRead

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Reply #17 on: September 11, 2009, 10:19:39 pm
Isolationism is a very difficult problem right now with the amount of debt held by foreign governments, especially China.  They can, apparently, export about anything they want to to the U.S., much of it produced by companies that could be considered U.S. based, at least at one time, and the U.S. is restricted on what it can send to China. If we resist, they can blackmail us by threatening to sell off the debt they hold..  But this mantra that Chasfield mentions, that isolationism is bad and we must go along with globalization, could be traced out by following the money.  Who stands to gain most by globalization?  It surely isn't the good people of America who are trying to make ends meet.  It probably has to do with certain very large corporations, obviously with most members of Congress in their back pockets, who stand to gain the most, along with the Congressional members themselves.

Every time a meeting is held by the leading economic entities regarding globalization there is huge public protest, yet nothing is done.  Frustrating!!!  A few very wealthy and very powerful people hold the world in their pocket and there seems little anyone rational can do about it.

So how do we break this link?  Can it be broken?  Seems like it is pretty firmly held, and I have my doubts that we can get anywhere with the problem.  "we're screwed, blued and tattooed"  by the very people who supposedly are in  the public trust.

More ghost towns are a'comin'.
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Vince

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Reply #18 on: September 11, 2009, 11:50:31 pm
So how do we break this link?  Can it be broken?  Seems like it is pretty firmly held, and I have my doubts that we can get anywhere with the problem.  "we're screwed, blued and tattooed"  by the very people who supposedly are in  the public trust.

     Larry, try these links.
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battl_of_Athens_(1946)
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMinn_ County_War
 
     I'm not very good at this. Iif these don't work, google McMinn County War.
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Vince

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Reply #19 on: September 11, 2009, 11:52:41 pm
     I knew I would screw it up. It's battle. I left out the e.


ace.cafe

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Reply #20 on: September 12, 2009, 01:53:08 am
So how do we break this link?  Can it be broken?  Seems like it is pretty firmly held, and I have my doubts that we can get anywhere with the problem.  "we're screwed, blued and tattooed"  by the very people who supposedly are in  the public trust.

     Larry, try these links.
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battl_of_Athens_(1946)
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMinn_ County_War
  
     I'm not very good at this. Iif these don't work, google McMinn County War.
This is how things will eventually be handled.



Yeah, I know alot about that one.
I live in McMinn County, just outside of Athens. Athens is a 3 minute ride from here, and that's where I go to town to do my shopping.
We're still pretty hard-headed around here, when it comes to getting pushed around.
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scoTTy

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Reply #21 on: September 12, 2009, 04:33:30 am
I think it was nixon that opened up trade with china

wow.. neil young is here I forgOt>>>>>>

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Alaroyal

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Reply #22 on: September 12, 2009, 02:40:02 pm
......... especially China.   If we resist, they can blackmail us by threatening to sell off the debt they hold.. 
So how do we break this link?  Can it be broken? 

We might consider (quietly) telling China there has to be a change, and if they don't allow for a more equitable trade balance, acheived in an orderly progression, we will simply refuse their products without huge tariffs,  A N D  that if they try to sell off the debt, we will just refuse to honor any debt that they sell, and make that fact quietly known to the world economic community.

OK, all the economists can bust my chops now.  ;D
Dave

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The Garbone

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Reply #23 on: September 12, 2009, 05:38:09 pm
Under the theory that even a broken clock is right twice a day...

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-slaps-tariff-on-chinese-tires-2009-09-11

Good job.....  


Man, thats hard to admit...
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LJRead

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Reply #24 on: September 12, 2009, 07:55:42 pm
The problem with the Athens, McMinn incident is that I don't quite see how it can be implemented on a grander scale.  It had to do with local corruption and was handled with a handful of rifles and a group of returned servicemen. 

What we are seeing is propaganda put out by big business, and catered to by Congress.  Ron Paul is a lone voice.  Propaganda is subtle, the spin makers can make anything seem like good news and sound, but underlying it all is the profit motive. 

Civil disobedience?  Boycotts of foreign goods?  I'm afraid it is going to take a lot more educating the masses for anything to be effective, but all this does seem to be a crucially important topic.  How do we prevent more lost jobs to places like China? How do we gain back lost ground?  Now there is going to be new industry concerned with the greening of America, and maybe that can give a boost.  Instead of paying higher taxes, how about paying higher costs for locally made, quality goods?  How about enough simplification of life-styles to get out of the consumer trap and into a new form of living where quality is king?  This would include, I think, changes in diet such that pharmaceuticals become less important and things like health care less needed and less costly. 

I started to modify my eating and health habits a little too late, but what I have done is bearing fruit.  I have lost a lot of weight and can now hoof it up and down the hill without feeling quite so winded.  Wish I had started years ago though.
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The Garbone

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Gary
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LJRead

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Reply #26 on: September 15, 2009, 06:50:17 pm
Very interesting, Garbone, and directly related as well.  I am wondering about the mood of the country (U.S.) right now.  The outbursts at town meetings over the health reform issue, the outburst in Congress calling the President a liar, and then, last evening, I watched Charlie Sheen's message to the President regarding the need for more of an investigation into 9/11.  In that video, Sheen says, very frankly, that the people have a right to know the facts, and that is where the real problem lies, and part of the reason for the ghost towns, the facts just aren't out there and much manipulation is taking place, and people just aren't so stupid as to let it all slide, as they seem to have in the past, when things were going a little better for them economically.

Sheen sent a letter to the President as well as the video, so Obama has to have seen it, and now I'm wondering what his response will be, if any.  It seems to me not to be a time when people (citizens, taxpayers) can be ignored.  I would normally laugh off conspiracy theories, but seeing building seven simply drop of the skyline shortly after the World Trade center was hit, is just too much to ignore.  What has this to do with ghost towns?  I think it is all part of the same picture.
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The Garbone

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Reply #27 on: September 15, 2009, 07:33:28 pm
The mood you ask... Pretty pissed actually...  They had over 1million people march on DC last weekend to protest the direction things are going.. The media chose not to cover it or downplay the turnout..     The wheels are coming off the bus and the folks on the hill are not in touch,  they live in a bubble me thinks.    Funny thing is I think its the same movement that got Obama elected,  folks have realized he is the same old type with a leftward lean and is making  things worse.

They are bulldozing sub divisions in Michigan and  turning paved roads to gravel..  It's as if Atlas Shrugged is real and we are living it...

My opinion...
Gary
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LJRead

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Reply #28 on: September 15, 2009, 08:10:46 pm
It seems to me that a huge number of people walking on Washington years ago would have been a big event, now just getting filtered out.  I read in the economic news today that the tariff that Obama applied was as a result of an American company (Cooper) setting up a tire making company in China and exporting 100% of its product back to the U.S., none going for Chinese consumption.    And people are complaining about 'protectionism' and saying that this hurts everyone.  Seem like a logical step to me.

Then too is the question of why we have formed an economic union with China instead of with the EU or Japan which aren't totalitarian and have closer philosophical ties with America.  Goeff Baker raised this point some months ago and it is a valid one.

Thanks for your comment on the 'mood' of America.  I just get small glimpses into it, but there does seem to be a festering spirit there which almost anything could touch off. The crudity with which the bailouts etc. were handled, keeping the wealthy incompetents in control is enough to piss anyone off.  Will it all come to a head?  That is the question, isn't it?

Lawrence J. Read
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Anon

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Reply #29 on: September 15, 2009, 08:29:12 pm
They had over 1million people march on DC last weekend to protest the direction things are going.. The media chose not to cover it or downplay the turnout..     

The Washington DC Fire Dept. estimated 60-75,000 protestors.  That's not a figure the media came up with, so don't blame them (there's plenty of other things to blame them for, but not that).  There were nearly 2 million people at Obama's inauguration, and that many people caused huge disruption of a type that was not witnessed on Saturday.  The organizers keep trying to claim 1-2 million people turned out (since that was what they predicted/hoped?), but there is no evidence of it.

Eamon
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