[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Macsporan', ' ')
My understanding is that there was fuel rationing in the US during the war. In Europe it was food, fuel, clothing and lots of other things.

[I_Like_Plants]

No, no, no, there's never ever been rationing in the US!!

I have this little theory that anything that happened more than 5 years ago isn't remembered by the American populace, likewise, anything more than 5 years in the future is unimaginable.

Thus, we're in a replica of the dot-bomb bubble in housing, and since no one remembers the dot-bomb (it's just hitting that 5 year mark now and currently is being wiped from Americans' memories) people are jumping in to lose their shirts once again. You can get into a fistfight in the US right now by saying that property can go down, because to Americans, it never did. The truth is, it has gone down, it went way down in the 1930s, and it went down considerably in early 90s.

And that gas may be $5 a gallon 5 years from now, is likewise unimaginable. Or that natural gas may be past peak, etc. It's more than 5 years from now, it's not going to happen.

-----

I'm too lazy to look back and see what I originally meant when I said laws to specificially look out for citizens are only found in communist and socialist countries. It's interesting though how people are jumping on it assuming it means communism/socialism are evil and wrong - there's nothing asserting that in that statement. Good dogs!! See the commie-word, foam at the mouth!! Here's your milk-bone, shaped like a proletarian, pat, pat.

I have sure seen our government mess up when trying to do things "for the people's good" and don't trust government at all. No real American does. But, there are some examples even in the US, of some struggling steps towards something decent. Our food purity laws are not as good as those in Germany, but they're a step in the right direction. Our EPA and USDA etc are not as good as they have in Europe, but they're steps in the right direction. I know that the FCC was set up in the 1930s and that radio stations had to prove they were helping the common good. Each station had their papers kept where the public could read them, and the public could complain about a station's operation, if there were enough complaints, no license renewal for that one! We can't seem to institute college aid for our citizens in the US without instead inciting race war, so we lose there. (I'm utterly astonished that a person like Helen Caldecott, in Australia, could get to be a doctor simply by being smart enough and a good prospect to become a doctor. In the US you need to have a lot of money and be the right color, or you'll be bondo'ing cars for the rest of your life no matter how smart you are.)

I'd love to be French, or even Canadian or British. Guess what? It takes about a million bucks to get to leave the US and go live someplace like that. The US is becoming like classical China, where they recently have discovered that the Great Wall was more about keeping the Chinese citizens in than supposed enemies out. China had a big problem with their people leaving because life was better out on the steppes.

[darren]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', '
')
I'd love to be French, or even Canadian or British. Guess what? It takes about a million bucks to get to leave the US and go live someplace like that.

[Pops]

Once utilities were closely regulated monopolies. Electricity for example flowed through wholly owned generation, transmission and distribution systems. Rates were set and investments controlled by government.

Lots of these essential services began to be deregulated to let the old free market find the lowest price. Of course since the free market doesn’t give a rip about how essential it’s service is and only about how profitable it is, it isn’t too surprising we’re just going back to the future as plant indicated. By the 30’s large ‘holding companies’ owned most electrical utilities – essentially unregulated monopolies. Roosevelt managed to closely regulate them through “…one of the toughest legislative battles of the New Deal.”
( http://www.washingtonfreepress.org/32/Power.html )

The effect of deregulation can be seen easily in the amount of spare capacity the old PUs had compared to what they have now – something that is known as Stranded Costs” to unregulated companies trying to maximize profit. IIRC, the increase in the capacity of the electrical grid has been half of the increase in demand since deregulation and the investment reduced by a third – no use wasting that money! Better to wait till there is a shortage and then increase cost to consumers big time to pay for upgrades – sounds sort of like refineries, huh?

Oh another interesting thing about ‘privatized’ utilities, Bush the senior backed a bill to allow utilities to make political contributions – something disallowed since the 30’s. I wonder how much money has flowed into political campaigns since? All in the public good I’m sure.

Damn commies anyway!


http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle ... fects.html