Question of the Day: Do We Need To Make Sacrifices?

by Jonny Lieberman

July 7th, 2008 4:11 PM

question of the day do we need to make sacrifices

Full disclosure. I've made zero. I'm lucky enough to be in a socio-economic bracket (i.e. no mortgage, no children, write my gas off come tax time) where I haven't changed my driving habits an iota. Case in point, I enjoyed a 1,000 mile excursion up to wine country in a gas-guzzling FX50 (review pending) at pretty much 90 mph the entire time. But Sweet Pete doesn't not agree with my lifestyle choices. More on point, he's utterly dismayed at the direction our country is headed, and is using Detroit's tsores as a bellwether for all that's wrong with our country. According to Pete, plenty's wrong. Solution? He's calling for a near Manhattan Project-like national, "mustering [of] this nation's brilliant technical resources and mind power, and unifying it with our manufacturing expertise to forge a new urgency of purpose, with an unwavering focus on getting this country back in shape and on its game." Of course when people talk about big federal projects, what they aren't saying is that we all need to chip in. Only Pete is saying exactly that. Your thoughts?

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4 of 63 comments

Mdf on Jul 08, 2008

David Holzman: the uranium mining process is not just messy; it’s deadly. So is driving a car. In fact, I'd be surprised if the death toll due to all mining/processing world-wide came close to the 40,000 that are killed on the roads in the USA every single year.

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GS650G on Jul 08, 2008

"# brianmack Says: July 7th, 2008 at 5:10 pm @GS650G Re: Not paying dues Didn’t earlier generations fight in wars so their offspring could have a better life and not have to sacrifice everything just to survive?" Each generation pays it forward to the next. I don't think earlier generations thought they were ending sacrifice or struggle at all, they were playing the hand they were dealt. The problem today is people are not even willing to ante up enough or deal. We honor those sacrifices with our own.

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Geeber on Jul 08, 2008
Stein X Leikanger: Eh, I seem to remember that president Bush enjoined his fellow Americans to keep shopping and to keep participating in the economy?? Which was entirely appropriate at the time, as many sectors of the economy had virtually stopped in the wake in the 9/11 attacks. I suppose it would have been better for him to have said nothing, and watched the economy slide into a depression? carlosnegros: First, we must sacrifice some of our own money, in the form of taxes, to pay for the collective need for good public transportation. We already do that - part of the money raised by federal motor fuels taxes is diverted from from roads and bridges to pay for mass transit and other "demonstration projects" (i.e, bike paths). Also, many states have taxes that are funneled to mass transit. In Pennsylvania, for example, a portion of the statewide sales tax is used for mass transit projects. carlosnegros: Second, we must sacrifice some dividends from our Exxon-Mobil stock, and create a national oil company to drill, refine and distribute oil domestically. Why bother, when we have privately owned oil companies that can do the same thing? The Mexican oil companies are nationalized, and their production levels aren't that great, primarily because they can't raise sufficient funds to modernize their facilities and raise output. carlosnegros: Otherwise, any additional oil taken from public lands will only land on the global market and be snapped up by India and China. The only reason an oil is "snapped up" by India or China, as opposed to the U.S., is because they are willing to pay more for it. Do you really believe that a government-controlled entity is going to turn down the opportunity to make more money selling oil to those nations, if they are willing to pay more than U.S. customers are? ttacgreg: Today, “free market” is code for letting the Natan and Society be literally governed by “free market” forces. I'll take that any day over taxpayer funded boondoggles and professional busybodies saying that I need to "sacrifice," which is a code-word for the busybody class taxing particular behaviors that they don't like. ttacgreg: That, friends is formula for not legally codified rights, no blind justice, and basically rule of plutocray. Funny, codified rights and impartial justice first gained real traction in the societies that relied most heavily on the free market to govern their economic system - first Great Britain, then the U.S. So there goes that argument. Also, capitalism is good at TEARING DOWN the plutocracy and entrenched oligopolies (of which the Big Three is a prime example), which is why, when you discover who is really against the free market, it is usually entrenched business interests, "activists" who dislike change, entrenched labor unions and government-funded groups dependent on tax dollars. It isn't the people who actually go out and risk their money to start a business. The simple fact is that, once one stops listening to the Chicken Littles and presidential candidates trying to get elected by telling everyone that they will do everything from reduce gas prices to eliminate erectile dysfunction, one discovers that people (i.e, the free market) are adjusting on their own. Driving is down, mass transit use is up, and the market is moving toward smaller, more efficient vehicles. Higher oil prices are making alternative energy sources feasible. Sounds as though the free market is working to me...

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Quasimondo on Jul 08, 2008
Sounds as though the free market is working to me… And yet, there are those who still aren't satisfied over it.

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