heretic888 said:
Really?? So... you're saying outsourcing millions of jobs to underpaid workers overseas has nothing to do with the staggering unemployment rate in our country?? Or, that irresponsible environmental policies on the part of apathetic coporations has nothing to do with the diminishing health of certain regions' youth?? Or, that repeated attempts to research cheaper, unpolluting, clean energy sources has nothing to do with corporate strangleholds on our government??
Opportunity needs to be tempered by responsibility its true, but this assumes that there is an opportunity in the first place.
Heretic,
I believe it was in May of this year that Money Magazine, and some really nice articles. I made a post on this, you could search for "Outsource - Unemployment - Parsons - Robertson" and come up with the post.
In general though round number speaking in the a three year period there were about 120,000 jobs outsourced. That three year period being 2000-2002. In the same period due to increased productivity there was a loss of 1.2 million jobs per year. Or a factor of 30 times more jobs lost do to improvements in technology, then to outsourcing in the same time frame.
The outsource cry is something to be concerned about, it is not the najor concern though, from the data I have seen or read.
As to large corporations, I owe my job due to CARB and the EPA. Without the increased requirements they put on the vehicle manufacturers there would be no need to increase the technology to meet those clean air standard. And at todays cost of $2 plus per gallon, and only getting 8 to 12 MPH versus the 20 to 30 MPH today, would be a difficult time to begin.
I agree that policies, need to be tightened, including the Federal Government that has the authority to ignore the rulings of the EPA. The fact that the Clean Water act form the 70's said that "Navigable" water needs to meet certain standards. Now, it is being debated about what the word Navigable, meaning large water ships and ocean going ships, so the Great lakes would be safe, only that, the water ways that feed them would not be safe. Yes, this needs to remain, and or increased. Yet the fines from the 70's legislation is not sufficient nor always enforcable. I believe that good regulation by our governement will help. This meas that our elected officals will have to decide between the votes to remain in the office or the election campaign money to run again. Hence it is not just the large corporations, it is also the responsibility of the people to vote and make their opinions known.
So, vote everyone. Your vote is not wasted, they (* The large two politcal groups *) count all the third party votes to see how serious people are.
As to cheaper, forms of energy, some of the regulations actually enforced recently was with teh pwoer companies and the amount of sulfur coal they can burn. Hence the cheapest form of energy is nto available to them. They now turn to natural gas, and there are no reserves for this winter, so these compaies will now have to pay the higher winter market prices and pass the prive onto you. As to investigating cheaper, cleaner, I agree that solar and wind woudl be nice, only the return for investment is still not there. They amount of windmills is not productive for the land is deemed to be better used elsewhere. As to solar the storage and conversion cells are still expensive, and yes, it would be nice to have them cheaper.
Fuels cells aka hydrogen Oxygen to form water, reactions are just now getting to 50% on the reaction alone. The problem is that it costs more to produce the HYdrogen, then other methods. Plus the safety issues of dealing with Hydrogen on large scales has not been dealt with compeletly. I agree that it should continue, and it is.
:asian:
