Like as not, tariffs against imports forced American industries to fill the gap, and produce their own versions of foreign goods. Remove those, and cheap imports flood the market and destroy domestic productivity, with the consequent destruction of domestic living standards, since foreign labor is cheap unless unionized. Which is partly why unions were destroyed here, so the average American would have to compete with foreign labor.

And it’s happening all over again.

Hey Kaptinemo, remeber when walmart was all ..”Buy American-Sell American”? What happened to that? America was sold out thats what happened. Many of us back then was warning everyone what would happen.

We are giving warning again.

END THE DRUG WAR OR ELSE!

I think the old guard of treatment “professionals” have to largely go. They won’t be up to the task in a world where they can’t get clients referred by the criminal justice system, and they won’t have the philosophical stance to comprehend what’s really needed of them.

Nobody is willing to actually talk about that part.”

The time for that is running out. Those whose grasp of economics is no better than that of a 6 year old with a piggy bank will soon be overtaken by the monstrous effects of a ’service’ economy’ which produces very little durable goods to sell and can no longer afford the imports that we’ve allowed in so that foreigners would buy our (mushrooming) debt.

Those foreigners are now actively looking to divest themselves of their increasingly worthless dollars. ‘Balance of trade’ is not a diaphanous concept but something that’s very real and hurts people…as does inflation causing by fractional banking. The writing’s been on the wall for decades, but few American pols wanted to read it, and now we face financial Armageddon as a result.

It’s not a matter of choice, anymore. The inexorably slow grind of the mills of the economic gods are reducing the country’s fiscal options into fine dust. Triage is in order to save what can be saved, and get rid of what was never that important to the nation’s welfare to begin with.

Like the DrugWar. And so the issue of resource allocation will eventually arise. The question is, will it come before a fall…or after?

We have to get to a point where defending WoD-jobs becomes as embarrasing as saying:

“I’ve worked 20 years on segregation and I really feel it’s extremely important to separate whites and blacks, and it would just be a slippery slope if we allowed the blacks to sit anywhere in the busses. Sure, law enforcement isn’t a sufficient tool, but it’s definitely necessary to punish the blacks for their crimes´. I mean, they’re just culturally different and don’t have the same tradition as whites do. If we capitulate we’ll see a total degeneration of our culture.”

I see the prohibs becoming increasingly embarassing… in that they are totally intellectually challenged. When one includes in the discussion of the drug war, the harms – that litany of names we know far too well – wrought by the WO(s)D, there is no honest conclusion other than a condemnation of failure. Costs? tremendous… Benefits? none… unless you include the perspective of the cartel businessmen and women. Any industry in the world would be glad to have an 8% chunk of total global trade. And… I suppose we otta include the domestic criminal justice industry as a beneficiary, a lot of tax dollars going down that rat hole…

There is also an ethical abyss that swallows any logic in their arguments defending the drug war. Denying us our due and our voice lasted for awhile… but with the light we have collectively brought to the issue, we are no longer an insignificant background noise.

And I just have to add, they’re a pack of punks. Let’s see ‘em debate. Cole v Kerlikowske… Bennett v bennett (lol! I like this match up!)… Guither v Barthwell… etc, etc.

For some reason the image of the Frankenstein villagers just came to mind… pitchforks and torches and lots of attitude. And Marty Feldman of course.

OT! Saw John Cleese on tour the other night. Great! If you get a chance see his show, do it. Brilliant… and funny as hell.