At some point, the oil prices are going to skyrocket, either through peak, or through deflating value of our currency…or simply because of increased competition for the oil. That doesn’t stop the need for us to get to and from things…and its a lot less expensive and easier than doing it in a car.

One of the reasons we don’t have mass transit in this country is the perceived ‘cheapness’ of the car. That’s a massive fallacy. It costs each car owner a ton of money to buy, gas and insure their vehicles, and a ton more to tax us for highways and roads. If one factored in the increased price for goods and services that pay for free parking at the malls, etc, the true value of the car-centric culture would be made apparent.

The reason most people don’t take transit in the United States is that it either doesn’t exist or doesn’t go anywhere you need it to go (and of course, our insane ‘subways are for poor people’ mentality.) However, in the places it does exist and does go to useful places, people use it…both saving the environment, saving some money (I save $300 per month…PER MONTH,) and getting to where they need to go without having to play in traffic.

You changed the subject here…to the highly politicized war-for-oil context. Not that it’s not important, and not that it’s not an issue, but that’s not the subject!

You also do what a ton of people love: complain and bitch about something without proposing a solution. It’s much easier to bitch about Reaganomics and policy descisions than it is to actually suggest an alternative. Mine is mass transit, is to attempt to build a new box to house the free market economy. Others have been progressive taxation, green building…or complete ‘survival of the fittest’ independence [i.e...NO public works, which sounds pretty damn Victorian, no?]

What’s yours? To complain and do nothing is to be just as much a part of the problem as to continue to do the wrong thing, is it not?

Finally, to suggest that “The WAR/s are a desperate attempt to have the rest of the world continue to hold on to increasingly worthless dollars – because they need them to buy oil – because the US has made SURE – that most of the important oil producers are owned by the US military,” seems to suggest that you want the American economy to crash hard when it does falter, instead of landing lightly and transitioning with order.

That’s both foolish and unjust to the rest of the world. Like it or not, the current global system of economic organization makes every country and state coming up to bat at the plate a vassal of the USA. Some people like this arrangement and others don’t, but that’s the system. To crash the American economy is to crash the global economy. And that’s the reason people have been propping it up. It’s no accident that China and Japan buy most of our debt: they are incredibly dependent on our continued purchase of their goods…but the EU is no less dependent. Germany would be much less of a powerhouse if we all couldn’t afford a new VW.

So instead of suggesting a hard and fast fall, and global hardship (well, more hardship,) why not make the economy work? The first step is infrastructure…

…actually, the first step is to STOP bitching and actually DO something productive.

So we invest in a transit system – is like a guy who has just taken on a million dollars of mortgage debt, earns a 100,000 a year, and is in debt by 20K a year every year for the last 5 years – no wonder everyone wants to immigrate here :)

The point is the clock has started ticking thanks to Reagan. the two Bushes – and yes even Clinton – because although he never actually balanced the budget – he just devised an accounting trick where they TOOK money from the Social Security fund to make it ‘appear’ that he did (Thanks Bill – Luv U for taking away any safety net for me and my kids).

The WAR/s are a desperate attempt to have the rest of the world continue to hold on to increasingly worthless dollars – because they need them to buy oil – because the US has made SURE – that most of the important oil producers are owned by the US military.

I am not sure if complete oil hegemony and requiring dollars as a reserve currency will continue to be effective- because at some point – it will be more than Iran/Syria/Russia and Venezuela -who refuses to accept US dollars for oil and more importantly – at some point people may not be accepting US dollars for other things .