tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906854738305262612.post2071446624325116045..comments2024-01-16T13:45:18.658-06:00Comments on The North Coast: Peak Coal: Coal Production Projected to DeclineThe North Coasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14292115710427172625noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906854738305262612.post-16214465627156250902009-09-07T19:34:36.113-05:002009-09-07T19:34:36.113-05:00I was about to write about the Chinese export ban ...I was about to write about the Chinese export ban on rare minerals, but the entire subject so fills me with rage, that I can scarcely organize my thoughts.<br /><br />But I believe everyone will understand the root of my anger. <br /><br />What was all the bullshit we've been fed for the past 30 years concerning the outsourcing of first, our manufacturing and with it all the layers of jobs that made our working and middle classes in this country the wealthiest in history? <br /><br />What we were fed is that it was all for the good, and how American workers were being freed up to do better jobs and how wonderful it was to be that all the dirty "smokestack" industries were moved off shore. We were told that "globalism"-the perpetual quest for lower wages- was good and that it served all the people rendered jobless and/or cast into lower-paying jobs.<br /><br />Well, now we know, don't we? In exporting our manufacturing and outsourcing our good jobs, we have enriched an enemy country with a thug communist government, and impoverished ourselves. We gave them our jobs, our manufacturing base, AND our most sensitive and valuable technologies. <br /><br />Now they are wealthy and we are poor. Our manufacturing capacity is so decimated we could not mobilize for a war. They own our pile of unrepayable debt. As I discussed in a previous post, they are taking advantage of our impoverishment and of their wealth-that we sent to them- to lock in future supplies of oil and other essential resources. <br /><br />Congrats to the neocons who have been preaching the virtues of globalization for the past 25 years and their cheerleaders. We are now an impoverished low-wage haven that cannot possibly support the levels of consumer spending necessary to keep all the Walmarts and Home Depots and Targets and other chain retail operating profitably, and these chains will start to die just like all the local economies they helped bury- with tax-funded subsidies, no less.<br /><br />Please forgive if my rant is a little hysterical and disjointed, but the entire business puts me in a bad, mad mood. <br /><br />I have lived long enough to see my country commit suicide, and it has not been fun to watch.The North Coasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14292115710427172625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906854738305262612.post-2965320351870678162009-09-07T14:25:07.614-05:002009-09-07T14:25:07.614-05:00Lots to worry about.
China's about to pull th...Lots to worry about.<br /><br />China's about to pull the plug on access to their rare minerals:<br /><br />http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6082464/World-faces-hi-tech-crunch-as-China-eyes-ban-on-rare-metal-exports.html<br /><br />Ouch!!<br /><br />We've got a set of mutually amplifying disasters. Just from the US perspective, we will need real leadership that does just about everything right for the next 30 years or so, and then we'd need a voting majority to support that direction for that period.<br /><br />Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?<br /><br />Sometimes you're in a hole so deep, it doesn't matter who's in it. You're just in too deep.<br /><br />I don't know when the "shtf", but I suspect some of the stuff is hitting the blades right now.consultanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06212860754280555647noreply@blogger.com