🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug22.013907.9370@tss.com> mathon@tss.com (John D. Mathon) writes:
>By what measure do you mean healthier?  The American is still the richest,
>most productive worker in the world BY A WIDE MARGIN.

	[Rest of the long rant deleted...]

	But then why have we lost major industries to the Japanese and
Europeans?

	Example: consumer electronics.

	Which American company is still in _that_ business?

	And which countries produced small and easily affordable cars
for a heck of a long time? Hint: The US is not among them. Detroit has
had a lot of catching up to do.

	I don't know how much of this is really true, but I've seen
serious speculation that the US is getting a bit too Third-World-like
in exporting agricultural and mineral resources and importing
manufactured items. Now that the Cold War is over with the Evil Empire
having imploded (much to the dismay of a heck of a lot of Cold
Warriors, I'm sure), I think it time to turn to improving civilian
manufacturing.

	One thing that we can start working on, to name one of my
favorite examples, is high-speed railroading. The Europeans and the
Japanese are way ahead of us there. Amtrak's fastest route, the
stretch between New York City and Washington, DC, is a heck of a lot
slower than the French TGV, which travels at 180 mph on some routes.

	Public transit also needs expansion. Endless traffic jams and
freeway-building haven't done much to make our cities more livable.
Pushing gas taxes up to reasonable levels might be a good idea; that's
why European gas prices are a lot higher than ours.

	Screaming "We're the greatest!!!" is not going to do much
good.

	I like what one Canadian friend I once had said: what is
considered economically left-wing here in the US would probably be
called conservative (you got it, conservative) in Canada and other
places.


/Loren