Do you people actually sit around and worry about this stuff? Our country has hardley scratched the surface of its natural resource, we currently are able to raise enough food to feed the world, we have state of the art technology in industry and war. Every day a 2 mile long train of coal runs through Bismarck, then later in the day a 3 mile long train full of oil runs through Bismarck, then another train of various grains goes through. Yeah, I don't sit around biting my finger nails over this shit, but I guess it's something to argue about, so carry on!
Originally Posted by: DakotaT
On this you are correct. In fact you understate our productive capacity. Even with the shithole that American education has become over the last three generations, America has a capacity for productivity that is still second to none. Problem is, we seem to be collectively doing everything in our power to ensure that that productive capacity never gets realized.
Do you realize just what kind of production the USA could have had in the 30s had not the Republican Hoover and the Democratic Roosevelt combined to do everything they could to that a quarter of the workforce was first unemployed and then, through the massive redistributions of the New Deal, underemployed? Then, having spent a decade plus screwing with the production system, and thanks to the bastards in Berlin and Rome and Tokyo, we had to use that very productive capacity to ratchet up the destruction of wealth, human and otherwise, around the world. Only in the late forties and, especially the fifties, did America start putting those amazing resources of human capital and human ingenuity, far more massive in their productive ability than the mere physical resources of oil shale and corn, to work doing productive stuff.
So what do we have now? The Hoovers and the Roosevelts duking it out with their bad economics.
North Dakota will be fine regardless, I expect. At least until Washingtonians figure out that an "excess wealth" tax on the shale field owners can be used to finance those trillion dollar coins for a few months. Or think about creating a new "conservation corps" of unemployed lawyers and college professors to plant daisies along the highway and paint road lines with a kindergarten brush.
Or build dormitories for American citizens or wannabe citizens of Hispanic descent who are taking jobs from True Americans.
I've long since passed the point where I worry about it, though. Besides I'm too busy trying to figure out how to take responsibility for and deal with the consequences of my own bad financial decisions.
Fortunately, I'm lucky to have Ecclesiastes and John 3:16 and Romans 1:5 and Romans 12:2 to fall back on. In the end, I don't have to worry about whether Ben Bernanke or Bill O'Reilly is the bigger pinhead. I only have to recognize that the problem comes when I believe so much in my ability to have the answers, or when I believe it is important for someone to have such answers.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)