Really? you think that the interstate road system would have been built by private industry on their own? Free to use for everyone?
Um...The interstate system WAS built by provate contractors.
The Industrial revolution was not an American only phenomenon. Germany was more advanced than us back then. We were still newcomers....Our big advantage was Natural resources that were unmatched. Greedy men exploited those resources and treated their employees like dirt. It wasn't until industry was so desperate for labor to fill the needs of the military that they would give their left nuts to get people into the factories that our economy grew beyond our wildest expectations.....because people had money to spend...even on trivial shit like Radios, TV's and electric razors.
Doesn't matter....Nobody prospered from the industrial revolution more so than did America...Primarily because we had vastly fewer bureaucratic lampreys sucking the life blood out of the productive.
That's what you don't get. The consumer is business' biggest friend. Who are the consumers, by and large? Employees of other people. To **** them is to cut your own throat.
What you don't get is that gubmint is the consumer's AND business' worst enemy.
Ok Oddball, You know I like you...I think it was the cool Donald Sutherland Avatar you used to have.....but....here's where you are wrong, and I guess in a sense, I was too.....so let me rephrase...
Who PAID for the interstate system? Without the investment from the Good people of the US of A, it wouldn't have been built. Who paid for Hoover Dam so that the West Coast could have them "newfangled" electric lights? The TVA? Hell, the inter-contintinental railroad? Levee systems, running water and sewage? The Internet? My God, the list goes on and on.
You knew what I meant when I said "built", but decided to play a semantics game.
Flash forward to today.....our infrastructure is falling apart....bridges and roads. Dams that haven't even been inspected in a decade, water delivery systems, sewer lines. An electrical grid that operates at 40% efficiency. That's right, for every Kilowatt generated, 60% of that kilowatt is lost till it gets to your home.....who do you think pays for that?
How many private sector businesses are lining up to fix all that shit out of the goodness of their hearts? None.
Add to that, the fact that employee wages are stuck in the 70's and the cost of materials and what contractors charge has gone way up since that same period of time....guess what? not enough revenue coming in to turn our crumbling infrastructure into a modern day, state of the art one.
Because that's one area where you guys are right....there's not enough 1%ers to make a dent in what our country needs. It all boils down to the masses, and if they can barely keep a roof over their heads, they can't be expected to pay for all of that shit. So, the movers and shakers have to decide what's more important....their country or their portfolios. They need to start paying people as if their businesses depend upon labor to make it work, instead of viewing them as serfs who deserve whatever THEY say they deserve.
I know....you're gonna say....it's not business' job to make sure that workers have a good one.....but, if they want all of that pressure off of them concerning the "evil 1%", if they want not to get taxed to death, if they want a more efficient infrastructure....that HELPS their business....it would behoove them to pocket a little less and pay a little more.
