The fleecings of America

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: Stark
i live in the "poster child" region for urban sprawl, and it sucks.

What Dallas-Fort Worth?

As for Houston, the pollution is mostly from the oil refineries and fertilizer plants along the gulf coast of TX/LA. Most of the US's oil is refined in this region and almost all of the chemical based fertilizer is made here as well.

Another thing about Houston, and other major Texas cities, it annexs strips of land, eventually surrounding small unincorporated areas, then it swallows them whole. This is really why the "urban sprawl" in Houston is the way it is. It annex's so much land a year and as it annexs it, it has to provide service.

 

[Zebo]

Stossel's moron like most myopic and forgets about the hidden costs we pay for our cheap gas like $50 billion in taxes to protect access to Persian Gulf oil, we pay in smog and premature deaths from air pollution, we pay in climate change.

Gotta agree wih most of his stuff though besides the "cheap gas" and "outsourcing" mantra. But I'm not worried about the outsourcing Oil delpletion (the stuff that ships use) will fix that soon enough. Same with Cheap gas.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: Gobadgrs
Its a good read, but he doesnt list where his stats and assertions come from.

Well duh he was whoring out his book.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Stossel's moron like most myopic and forgets about the hidden costs we pay for our cheap gas like $50 billion in taxes to protect access to Persian Gulf oil, we pay in smog and premature deaths from air pollution, we pay in climate change.

:roll:

So have the courage of your convictions and stop driving.

The fact is, the mobility and heat provided by oil has greatly extended our lifespan and increased our survivability.

Would you be more happy living in the 1880s? (That is, if you survived)

Obligatory Ayn Rand quotes:

"If it were true that a heavy concentration of industry is destructive to human life, one would find life expectancy declining in the more advanced countries. But it has been rising steadily. Here are the figures on life expectancy in the United States:
1900 - 47.3 years
1920 - 53 years
1940 - 60 years
1968 - 70.2 years (the latest figures compiled [as of January 1971])
Anyone over 30 years of age today, give a silent "Thank you" to the nearest, grimiest, sootiest smokestacks you can find."
-- "The Anti-Industrial Revolution," The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution

"Even *if* smog were a risk to human life, we must remember that life in nature, without technology, is wholesale death."
-- "The Anti-Industrial Revolution," The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

 

[Zebo]

So have the courage of your convictions and stop driving.

Fusk that I use gas like water. All I'm saying is we pay more than two bucks a gallon like he thinks

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Zebo

So have the courage of your convictions and stop driving.

Fusk that I use gas like water.

LOL

:beer:

 

[Zebo]

As far as taxes, we all hate them.. but they seem to be a nessesary evil to deal with huge problems. But like the gas conviction, I avoid them whenever the code allows me....thye certianly could be lower..and flater.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Zebo
As far as taxes, we all hate them.. but they seem to be a nessesary evil to deal with huge problems. But like the gas conviction, I avoid them whenever the code allows me....thye certianly could be lower..and flater.

50 billion is about $200 per US citizen (if I counted my zeros correctly)

That's easily made in existing federal gas taxes.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Ronstang

Originally posted by: beer

Originally posted by: Amused
Great. Let's nanny everyone because they cannot be trusted to live their lives the way they want to.

This is the fascism of the nanny-state. Orwell almost had it right. It should have been named "Big Mother."

When the decisions of others impact my health in such a way that it clearly takes years off my life, yes, they had better do something about it.

You just keep your dumbass liberal self in Austin and leave Houston alone. The traffic here isn't even that bad compared to other large cities. If you don't like the environment because you think it is bad for your health then you just go move where you like and leave us alone. Typical liberal idiot.....moves somewhere and then proceeds to fvck it up trying to changing all the things he doesn't like until it is just like the sh!tpit he came from. California was a great place to live until all the liberals ruined it and now those people fleeing CA are proceeding to screw up Arizona, Oregon, and even Texas.

I'm almost with you, but could you elaborate a little more? How is the "...decisions of others negativly impacting my quality of life" viewpoint ruining AZ, OR and TX?

I'm pretty sure I'm liberal, but OTOH I completely understand your point about "If you don't like the environment here, you're free to move wherever you like." That's your right, nobody is forcing you to live where the environment is polluted.

But then I also understand the opposite viewpoint. Who are you to infringe on my "right to health"?

Damn, where do you draw the line?

/head explodes

Is there such thing as a "right to health"? Or have I created one of those made up rights, something all too easily done it seems?

 

[vi edit]

RE: Concerning Smog.

Trying to say that smog isn't a factor by quoting increases in life expectancy is erroneous.

Advancements in health care and pharmaceuticals (especially antibiotics) over the last 100 years grossly skews the impact of any single environmental factor.

I've lived in the rural/urban midwest, and I've lived and worked in the smog ridden southwest. I KNOW there are health factors along with intangible problems like environmental esthetics that smog does cause.

The air quality in Las Vegas is miserable due to pollution. Your eyes burn, it makes you sneeze and cough. It's miserable on bad days. In Phoenix the smog was so bad it made it hard to see a mountain on the other side of the street!!!

My apartment overlooked the downtown area. When smog advisories were in effect, the downtown area was obscured by a brown cloud that just lingered above the metro area. If you went up to the top of South Mountain you couldn't see the city because of the brown cloud that hovered above it. Truely disgusting.

If we connect the dots on many of Stossels points it's easy to see why this is a problem.

My biggests problem is with his final point about "private ownership". Here's my hitch with it. WE ALL own the earth. Sure you as an individual may have a peice of paper that says "I own this chunk of land", but none of us stake claim to oceans, rivers, the sky, the underground aquifers, ect. What you do on your land DOES affect other peoples land and the land that we all own. I'm not trying to be a tree hugger here, but people just can't seem to grasp this concept. If you don't like having crap laying around your own place, be considerate and don't leave it laying around other peoples. It's the simple golden rule. If you wouldn't want it done at your place, don't do it at/on someone elses.

It just seems like the concept of conservation is lost to too many people. It's just a simple concept that was taught to me at a young age. Don't take more than your need, and clean up after yourself when you are done. It's a simple concept that seems to have been lost along the way.

For the people in urban sprawl - carpool and cut down on smog and half your gasoline prices that you so dearly like to bitch about. Don't needlessly buy a gigantic vehicle when something more modest would easily have sufficed and you won't have to bitch about gasoline prices.

I'm sure I sound like some granola munching greenpeace member...but really I'm not. I just try and promote some personal responsibility and thinking about what happens outside of that 3 foot bubble too many people have around themselves.

 

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
RE: Concerning Smog.

Trying to say that smog isn't a factor by quoting increases in life expectancy is erroneous.

Advancements in health care and pharmaceuticals (especially antibiotics) over the last 100 years grossly skews the impact of any single environmental factor.

I've lived in the rural/urban midwest, and I've lived and worked in the smog ridden southwest. I KNOW there are health factors along with intangible problems like environmental esthetics that smog does cause.

The air quality in Las Vegas is miserable due to pollution. Your eyes burn, it makes you sneeze and cough. It's miserable on bad days. In Phoenix the smog was so bad it made it hard to see a mountain on the other side of the street!!!

My apartment overlooked the downtown area. When smog advisories were in effect, the downtown area was obscured by a brown cloud that just lingered above the metro area. If you went up to the top of South Mountain you couldn't see the city because of the brown cloud that hovered above it. Truely disgusting.

If we connect the dots on many of Stossels points it's easy to see why this is a problem.

My biggests problem is with his final point about "private ownership". Here's my hitch with it. WE ALL own the earth. Sure you as an individual may have a peice of paper that says "I own this chunk of land", but none of us stake claim to oceans, rivers, the sky, the underground aquifers, ect. What you do on your land DOES affect other peoples land and the land that we all own. I'm not trying to be a tree hugger here, but people just can't seem to grasp this concept. If you don't like having crap laying around your own place, be considerate and don't leave it laying around other peoples. It's the simple golden rule. If you wouldn't want it done at your place, don't do it at/on someone elses.

It just seems like the concept of conservation is lost to too many people. It's just a simple concept that was taught to me at a young age. Don't take more than your need, and clean up after yourself when you are done. It's a simple concept that seems to have been lost along the way.

For the people in urban sprawl - carpool and cut down on smog and half your gasoline prices that you so dearly like to bitch about. Don't needlessly buy a gigantic vehicle when something more modest would easily have sufficed and you won't have to bitch about gasoline prices.

I'm sure I sound like some granola munching greenpeace member...but really I'm not. I just try and promote some personal responsibility and thinking about what happens outside of that 3 foot bubble too many people have around themselves.

:thumbsup:

 

[Stark]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
RE: Concerning Smog.

Trying to say that smog isn't a factor by quoting increases in life expectancy is erroneous.

Advancements in health care and pharmaceuticals (especially antibiotics) over the last 100 years grossly skews the impact of any single environmental factor.

I've lived in the rural/urban midwest, and I've lived and worked in the smog ridden southwest. I KNOW there are health factors along with intangible problems like environmental esthetics that smog does cause.

The air quality in Las Vegas is miserable due to pollution. Your eyes burn, it makes you sneeze and cough. It's miserable on bad days. In Phoenix the smog was so bad it made it hard to see a mountain on the other side of the street!!!

My apartment overlooked the downtown area. When smog advisories were in effect, the downtown area was obscured by a brown cloud that just lingered above the metro area. If you went up to the top of South Mountain you couldn't see the city because of the brown cloud that hovered above it. Truely disgusting.

If we connect the dots on many of Stossels points it's easy to see why this is a problem.

My biggests problem is with his final point about "private ownership". Here's my hitch with it. WE ALL own the earth. Sure you as an individual may have a peice of paper that says "I own this chunk of land", but none of us stake claim to oceans, rivers, the sky, the underground aquifers, ect. What you do on your land DOES affect other peoples land and the land that we all own. I'm not trying to be a tree hugger here, but people just can't seem to grasp this concept. If you don't like having crap laying around your own place, be considerate and don't leave it laying around other peoples. It's the simple golden rule. If you wouldn't want it done at your place, don't do it at/on someone elses.

It just seems like the concept of conservation is lost to too many people. It's just a simple concept that was taught to me at a young age. Don't take more than your need, and clean up after yourself when you are done. It's a simple concept that seems to have been lost along the way.

For the people in urban sprawl - carpool and cut down on smog and half your gasoline prices that you so dearly like to bitch about. Don't needlessly buy a gigantic vehicle when something more modest would easily have sufficed and you won't have to bitch about gasoline prices.

I'm sure I sound like some granola munching greenpeace member...but really I'm not. I just try and promote some personal responsibility and thinking about what happens outside of that 3 foot bubble too many people have around themselves.

:thumbsup:

I'm reading the book Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World and one of the things that it really makes clear is how good the human race is at completely screwing up our environment. We think nature is some endless resource that will magically repair any damage we do to it, but that's just not the case.

 

[beer]

Originally posted by: Ronstang

Originally posted by: beer

Originally posted by: Amused
Great. Let's nanny everyone because they cannot be trusted to live their lives the way they want to.

This is the fascism of the nanny-state. Orwell almost had it right. It should have been named "Big Mother."

When the decisions of others impact my health in such a way that it clearly takes years off my life, yes, they had better do something about it.

You just keep your dumbass liberal self in Austin and leave Houston alone. The traffic here isn't even that bad compared to other large cities. If you don't like the environment because you think it is bad for your health then you just go move where you like and leave us alone. Typical liberal idiot.....moves somewhere and then proceeds to fvck it up trying to changing all the things he doesn't like until it is just like the sh!tpit he came from. California was a great place to live until all the liberals ruined it and now those people fleeing CA are proceeding to screw up Arizona, Oregon, and even Texas.

I spent nearly 20 years in DFW - not austin. I like austin more than DFW but I can speak from both.

 

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: Stark

Originally posted by: vi_edit
RE: Concerning Smog.

Trying to say that smog isn't a factor by quoting increases in life expectancy is erroneous.

Advancements in health care and pharmaceuticals (especially antibiotics) over the last 100 years grossly skews the impact of any single environmental factor.

I've lived in the rural/urban midwest, and I've lived and worked in the smog ridden southwest. I KNOW there are health factors along with intangible problems like environmental esthetics that smog does cause.

The air quality in Las Vegas is miserable due to pollution. Your eyes burn, it makes you sneeze and cough. It's miserable on bad days. In Phoenix the smog was so bad it made it hard to see a mountain on the other side of the street!!!

My apartment overlooked the downtown area. When smog advisories were in effect, the downtown area was obscured by a brown cloud that just lingered above the metro area. If you went up to the top of South Mountain you couldn't see the city because of the brown cloud that hovered above it. Truely disgusting.

If we connect the dots on many of Stossels points it's easy to see why this is a problem.

My biggests problem is with his final point about "private ownership". Here's my hitch with it. WE ALL own the earth. Sure you as an individual may have a peice of paper that says "I own this chunk of land", but none of us stake claim to oceans, rivers, the sky, the underground aquifers, ect. What you do on your land DOES affect other peoples land and the land that we all own. I'm not trying to be a tree hugger here, but people just can't seem to grasp this concept. If you don't like having crap laying around your own place, be considerate and don't leave it laying around other peoples. It's the simple golden rule. If you wouldn't want it done at your place, don't do it at/on someone elses.

It just seems like the concept of conservation is lost to too many people. It's just a simple concept that was taught to me at a young age. Don't take more than your need, and clean up after yourself when you are done. It's a simple concept that seems to have been lost along the way.

For the people in urban sprawl - carpool and cut down on smog and half your gasoline prices that you so dearly like to bitch about. Don't needlessly buy a gigantic vehicle when something more modest would easily have sufficed and you won't have to bitch about gasoline prices.

I'm sure I sound like some granola munching greenpeace member...but really I'm not. I just try and promote some personal responsibility and thinking about what happens outside of that 3 foot bubble too many people have around themselves.

:thumbsup:

I'm reading the book Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World and one of the things that it really makes clear is how good the human race is at completely screwing up our environment. We think nature is some endless resource that will magically repair any damage we do to it, but that's just not the case.

Case in point:

Just check out our (Canada) east coast fishery. We have depleted the cod to the point where it is uncertain if they will recover. Our cod fishery has been banned for nearly 10 years and the cod is still not recovering much.

 

[Looney]

No, it's a public health issue when you let development run rampant like in Houston and your city has so many problems it's unbearable to go anywhere because of traffic. Houston is far bigger and worse in sprawl than Phoenix and KC, and that reflects in the statistics of the city, namely 'the fattest city of america', one of the longest commutes, etc. When you can't even go outside for three months out of the year because of the pressure-cooker type environment pollution has left, its a BIG health issue.

Maybe it's all the restaurants and fastfood places in Houston. I've been to Texas several times, and the amount of restaurants there are absurd.

 

[Looney]

In the long term, yes, efficient allocation of resources is a GOOD thing for the global economy. However, the short term effects of outsourcing definitely have a negative impact. If I'm a skilled worker and my skill is outsourced overseas, where am I going to go for a job? I have to acquire new skills, but new skills require time and money. In the meantime, I don't have a job and I probably have to rely on government funds to help me get by. Expand this over multiple industries and you have a serious economic problem (again, at least in the short term).

You can say that for anything then... why use assembly lines, because that makes labor cheap, and makes specialists useless. Who needs to spend $1k on a table to have a carpenter make it from scratch, when you can make the same table using an assembly line for only $100.

Lets not replace manual labor with robotics on those assembly lines, because that'll put people out of employment.

 

[Zebo]

Liberals huh? My Bush supporting neighbor is a tree hugger extrodinarie. He called the cops cause I sometimes burn my own trash. I love riding my two stroke by his house and plumming blue smoke or starting my boat which is two stroke too, I started using motoroil instead a while back in all my two stroke implements/toys a) it's cheaper b) it makes lots more blue smoke than regular 2-cycle oil just to piss him off.

He'll prolly be joining this party after I'm done with him. "Libertarian National Socialist Green Party" LMAO talk about contridictions.
http://www.nazi.org/library/faq/

 

[b0mbrman]

They say New York's the city that never sleeps. Well, how could you sleep if you live near one of its nightclubs? We met people on a Saturday night who were being made miserable because of the street noise outside a club on their street.

"It is like something out of the Day of the Locusts. There is noise, there is cars, there are people screaming," one woman who lived near the club said. What did the clubgoers have to say?

They were unapologetic. "You gotta expect it. You live in the city, deal with this," one man said.

Hmmm...the woman who lived near the club could have found out through research how much noise there would be and she probably got a better deal on her condo/apartment because of it.

But the reality is that the "record high gas prices" are a myth. The U.S. Department of Energy records show that when you adjust for inflation the price of gas is now lower than it's been for most of the twentieth century. Prices are lower now than they were 25 years ago. Yes, they price is up from the 1998 all time low of $1.19, but they are a dollar lower than they were in the early 1980s.

Absolutely. Gas prices are just too visible though that everyone blows them out of proportion.

Young says the bridge is worth it because it would create jobs here. But that's just politicians' folly. Political spending doesn't create jobs. It just robs Peter to pay Paul ? takes jobs that would have been created by taxpayers if their money hadn't been taken from them ? and moves that money to where the politically connected live. In any case, a study paid for by Alaska found that once the construction jobs are gone, the bridge would create only 40 permanent jobs.

This and its corollaries are things a lot more people need to realize.

Now most businesses that can't make a profit go out of business. Woolworth closed. So did TWA. So do 20,000 restaurants every year. It's that freedom to fail that's helped make America as prosperous as she is, because it frees people to do more productive things.

Yes, oh God yes...

Allowing outsourcing creates opportunity. It's easy to see the pain of the workers who are laid off; it's harder to see the benefits of free trade, because those benefits aren't news.

Yup, because the benefits don't have a human face.

Overall, this is very good piece. I've got it bookmarked for later...

 

[Brutuskend]

Interesting read.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Rhin0]

Urban sprawl isn't bad? Lets sell all our farmland to yuppies from the city who decided they want to have their cake and eat it too and commute an hour in their H2. If you have never lived where there was once farms an no traffic problems and it was converted into yuppie Dominion home communities you have no room to talk. Eyesore, loss of farmland, problems with schools, and traffic problems.

It's simple... No farms, no food.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Rhin0
Urban sprawl isn't bad? Lets sell all our farmland to yuppies from the city who decided they want to have their cake and eat it too and commute an hour in their H2. If you have never lived where there was once farms an no traffic problems and it was converted into yuppie Dominion home communities you have no room to talk. Eyesore, loss of farmland, problems with schools, and traffic problems.

It's simple... No farms, no food.

The only thing here that is simple is your mind. We are in no danger of running out of farm land. 95+% of our country is undeveloped.

Why not read and look at the facts instead of parroting what you've heard?

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: Rhin0
Urban sprawl isn't bad? Lets sell all our farmland to yuppies from the city who decided they want to have their cake and eat it too and commute an hour in their H2. If you have never lived where there was once farms an no traffic problems and it was converted into yuppie Dominion home communities you have no room to talk. Eyesore, loss of farmland, problems with schools, and traffic problems.

It's simple... No farms, no food.

Funny. 90% of so of the US is undeveloped.

 

[MisterCornell]

A lot of American cities are badly run, and have sh|tty school districts. So most middle class people flee to new developments in the suburbs, which are cheaper to live in and give you a higher standard of living.

Complaints about "urban sprawl" come from inner city politicians or liberals who want people to go back into living crowded, Democrat/union/minority controlled cities.

Keep in mind Bush won 97 out of the 100 fastest growing counties in the nation.

"Smart growth" is basically a liberal scheme to combat a demographic trend that is highly unfavorable to them.

 

[cmv]

Am I the only one that used to like John S. but now thinks he is a jack ass that went "Geraldo Rivera"? I avoid ad hominem attacks but he gets under my skin.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: cmv
Am I the only one that used to like John S. but now thinks he is a jack ass that went "Geraldo Rivera"? I avoid ad hominem attacks but he gets under my skin.

Hes always been the same ole cycnical/pessmistic libertarian atleast the past ~8 years Ive watched his reports.