youtube.com/watch?v=RlumHzseiYw&eurl=
‘They’ -want- this union. It’s already been planned.
I wonder how they’ll get it through?
That’s the thing you don’t get Pete, the Democrats could and would pull off a 9/11 if that’s what they tell Edwards to do. The scary thing is that the democrats wouldn’t be nearly as sloppy.
Eyes and ears peeled people…
Can You stop the Plutocracy?
Your link takes too long on this computer to load. Can you give me some details? thanks.
It is a video of a few Texans bitching and moaning about the widening of I-35 and the converting of the Texas portion of it into a toll highway.
Shoot, I lived in Texas for 8 yrs. Texans bitch as a hobby. If they aren’t bitching they are talking about bitching Oh and the Dallas Cowboys.
Texans can find anything to bitch about. And loudly too. Go to a Texas bar, they drown out the overly loud house band. Nothing makes a Texan happier than to have a good bitchfest or verbal or physical brawl. My best and dearest friends are all Texans or adopted Texans. Their bitching hobby makes for interesting and fun blowouts.
Make em pay the toll it will give em something to be happy about. 
yopele,
This is one time where you are oversimplifying to a fault.
No, I don’t believe in conspiracy, but my Uncle who is a life long journalist from the east coast, told me about the whispers of this activity a long time ago.
The video may be a bit over the top, but ED is, well, how do I put this graciously, FUCKING BULLSHIT, and it does happen all too often. The town of my early childhood, Long Branch, N.J., is one such example. Yahoo/Google ED and Long Branch … you’ll get some interesting information on the reality of it, and how it works out in the end, especially for home owners and landowners.
Are corporations and the government in bed? Uhhh, duh, yeah. But we, the impotent people of the Amerikan Mental Midget society, graciously allow the constant sodomisation, administration after administration. So, we reap what we sow.
Personally, I hope this does become a bloodshed war right down the middle of the country … at least there would be four or five people who would get it then.
The fact is, the Euro conglomerate that is slated to hold this operation, doesn’t want to use American workers even, and this story is basically old hat. All the proceeds will go to Europe, Canada and Mexico … and whomever holds power in our government at the time.
Hey Yopele,
You’re so smart… you must know that the Federal Reserve bank is only named the ‘Federal’ Reserve, and that in fact all of the US’ printed money is done by a PRIVATE European corporation.
So seeing as how you know that, is it really so hard to conceive of a plan beyond the scope of what you as an average american thinks possible? The people running this colony are doing so under a completely different paradigm – that is what you have to realize.
I may be calling wolf like the rest of the kids throughout the years my age, but there is a difference… sooner or later the wolf finally comes. Often times it’s the same everyone’s been talking about too.
Imp is fucking right, Viva la Revolution!
Mas, I know that I oversimplified it; I was being lazy. And I am not a fan of eminent domain (The City of New London was a BS decision) either; but it’s going to happen and I believe it’s at least acceptable when it happens for highways. I mean the State is the original grantor of all property within its boundaries anyway.
I am a free trade proponent. So you and I will likely not see eye to eye on this. But trust me when I tell you that I am looking toward the future of my family when I support trade-related projects, and I’m sure that in your opposition you are looking after your own.
And, Gobbo, keep howling! I’ve become accustomed to the sound and hardly hear it any longer. In fact, it’s kind of soothing.
Yeah well I hope you like the soothing sound of prison bars
You are precisely correct in your assertion, well thought out as always. Everyone deserves a few mental apathy moments. Have at it.
When you feel more interested, I would be entertained in hearing why you would find this to be an economically sound strategy, and correct me if I am wrong, but I haven’t read anything that has shown a benefit to our economy, (and by “economy”, the building/furtherance of wealth for a majority of the populace).
Elucidate for me please.
10.26.06.1612
I am looking foward to our own Civil War II… the rest of the country holds so many different views contrary to the South… especially Texas. In fact, Texas should be it’s own country.
Let the South rise again…
Mas,
For me, free trade is the removal of unnecessary obstacles to international commerce, and it is a shift away from mercantilism and protectionist measures that make poverty contagious. I agree with those who met at Bretton Woods back in '44 and decided that trade is also a manner in which allies can be made of former enemes. I think Ricardo was right when he demonstrated the principle of comparative advantage. I believe excessive tariffs do not make products cheaper for me, nor do quotas. I believe most subsidies end up hurting economies, both local and global.
Can I prove this stuff? Not really - there are too many other factors that influence growth rates, interest rates, inflation rates, rates of unemployment, etc, etc. And I am not an economist. But I do generaly support most efforts to make trade easier and less costly for the businesses. As far as the “NAFTA Highway” is concerned, my support is much more localized and personal. I have two very good, but very personal, reasons to support this project, which I do not feel inclined to share with the class. But, I’d be happy to share them with you in a PM if you are interested.
They are the owners of the Empire, and yet they resist. The US has had its eye on Canada for a long time. Some day, we will have it in every way that counts, without paying for Canadians’ health care.
If Free Trade was detrimental, on balance, I can only wonder how much more dominant the US economy would be without it, insofar as free trade now exists. It would be incomprehensible. I’m not sure how much more dominant the US economy could be, regardless of the methods used to attain it.
I live near a bridge that was built by a private corporation, as a toll bridge, decades ago. This was once common. The state owns it, now. Under Massachusetts law, the Mass Turnpike is considered a private road, although it was built and is operated by a government agency. The people whose land was bought, not “taken” have to pay for the right to use it, just like every other toll road.
This is nothing new.
In Maine, near where I live up there, the state widened Rte 1 (a forty-foot wide road), by five feet on either side, to make it safer. Protests were made, demonstrations held, construction workers were threatened, the land of farmers whose family had downed it for generations was “confiscated” - all for a breakdown lane. Incidently, these abutters who protested so loudly got some much-needed driveway work out of the deal, for free. I watched all this happen. You’d think that citizens were being sent to the Gulag.
Much ado about nothing. Every interstate ever built has had the same issues. If the road started in KC and ended in Canada, no one would bark. This is Unionism - trade unionism. That would not be so bad, if it was admitted. The rest is propaganda.
There are sound economic arguments against unionism, for free trade and for this project. Unionism is the biggest factor right now in unemployement and the death of manufacturing in this country. We killed british soldiers over protectionism, in favor of freer trade.
Real wages have, in fact, gone up in this country in the last twenty years - especially so if total employee compensation is the measure, as it should be, and as it is, by any serious economist. But the real economic story is that the price of most important consumer goods has fallen off a cliff. Fifteen years ago, or twenty, I bought a (crt) Sony 13’ TV for $325.00. Anyone know what I could buy that for now? Know why it’s so cheap?
I liked Tom Friedman’s comments about all the hand wringing over “out sourcing” There is no such thing. There is only “sourcing”. In a global economy, all the protectionism offered by governments is nothing but politics designed to maintain power. They serve no one but themselves. The only problem with free trade is that Americans have the farthest to fall in life style ‘adjustments’. Shit, I might not be able to afford that new Ipod I’ve been looking at…
Is it not so that housing, education and health are not included in US inflation indexes ?
I take it it is not about some wee little highway in Texas, but the proposed superhwy that goes from mexican border to Canada and it will exact tolls ,that you all are arguing about. What labor should be hired and where the profits go.
Hmm. I suppose whatever company that builds and maintains the hwy. should get the profits, paying taxes of course to the states that it cuts through. American labor should of course be pushed as first choice in labor postions. I understand leaving supervisors to their own. Ahhhhh wait, hey if a foriegn Company brings their laborers here. Would it still cost them less than paying our minimum wage?
Kris,
Highway projects in the U.S. always involve federal money via fuel taxes. This means Davis-Bacon wage scales, so if it is left to private companies, with no federal strings, there would be a windfall savings in wages. A company could pay three times minimum wages and still make a bundle.
sven - these are not measured by the Cunsumer Price Index, but that index is used mostly for Colas. And for sound-bite news reports. There are many indexes used to measure inflation, and all of them have to be adjusted for locality, which is sometimes a state, and sometimes a region.
yopele,
I completely understand your reasons, and keeping them private. I am the same way, no reason to break that privacy either.
My problem with this is twofold:
The numbers for this scenario are not likely to work out well for our economy, and they certainly won’t help the American worker. The inherent problem, that receives no real attention, is that by and large the undercurrent of practices like this scenario, are going to affect our labor base, and strangely, no one cares. Personally, I could give a fuck if some schlep in another country has a job, not my problem, not my children’s problem. The other side is, we keep letting foreign companies and conglomerates take hold here … where are Americans going to work?
WTF happened to national security? First the attempt by the government to blow by the facts on the Dubai deal, and now this bullshit. Somehow with the Patriot Act, Iraq/Afghanistan war, “War on da Terra” … starts to all reek of odious stench. Sounds like a money game, added with Big Brother crap to further the agenda of those in power, and leave the society by the short hairs economically.
Middle class is what defines wealth within an economic system. Historically, these are taxpayers who support the vast majority of the GNP. Ours is disappearing, although under Bush, corporate profits have soared to a fifty year high, more than doubling the standard set back in the sixties. Also take into account, that under inflation adjustment, wage base for the middle class has actually slipped, and Americans work longer and have less free time than any other first world nation. (For those about to baulk on that, save it, the difference in expendable income comes from a nation that supports itself by credit debt.)
Certainly as a parent and an employee, (unless you are engaging subterfuge and in actuality are a member of aristocrats or fiduciarily elite), none of this really can be in your best interest, or that of your children’s future.
Think about it for a minute. We keep selling off to every Saudi rag head puke, or every Asian country still in third world status looking to use our economy for their foothold to a level up … where do you think your children will be working in twenty years?
Yes, Mas, the middle class is shrinking. The implication is that this loss has been the poor class’ gain. But it hasn’t. The class that has grown is the upper-middle class and the wealthy. I fail to see how this is a bad thing. The poor are mostly not former anything - they are former residents of another country - they haven’t sunk, but risen. Again, how is any of this bad?