Who cares? Oil for Food is what started the Petro Dollar vs Petro Euro War... Beginning to an end of Dollar Hegemony. Duh...did you just figure out control of natural resources is why we fight? Welcome to the world.
Still obsessed with the Euro? Not sure why I should expect otherwise...bringing up Saddam and the Iraq Euro fad from back in '02. This isn't 2002. The Euro isn't doing jack. The Ruble is now the #1 competitor with the dollar long term. Read up, son.
How shocking! That politician is trying to drive OPEC away from petro-dollar. And you don't care? Where is your nationalism?
Sure, I care...why do you think he's so cozy with the Russians? But he's not powerful enough to mean anything...and he really is just a crazy small time nothing that pisses off the US because he can...
U-huh, Yeah right. Except for the house saud, they all want to trade their oil with whatever currency that benefits them the most. If anything, it's in the best interest of China and Japan to keep Petro-Dollar. Who has the largest Dollar reserve in the world besides the US?
...and who's dumping the dollar at the fastest rate? Who is getting in with the Russians to open up a ruble oil-trade?
First, no it's not a chicken vs. egg argument.
Yes it is.
Second, even if it is, it is a good argument. Union may have been necessary at one point. But not today. If anything, it had a tremendous negative affect on our auto-industry. Only an idiot fails to see it.
They had a "negative" effect in the sense that they refused to take a minimum wage for high-level work. The reason the auto industry "died" is because labor in less industrialized nations is insanely cheap. If there was no union at all, the US manufacturers would have still been unable to compete with the sweat shop an ocean away. Why would they work for $10/hour working in hellish conditions when they could make twice that in the service industry as an insurance salesman?
Don't get pissed off just because other countries can do things cheaper while the US union articificially jacked up our labor and benefit cost that eats away at the US auto industry progress.
Yeah.."artificially." They made a product and bargained. They have power. As soon as the American worker grows a pair, they run off and pay very, very poor workers **** for their labor. And if it was that big of a deal, they could just not hire the union. But guess what...American labor is more expensive, period. Non-union manufacturing jobs have gone away, too. A union is not some magical evil death-knoll to American manufacturing. The existence of third world labor that works for 1/20th the price is. It's all fluid, anyway. I could just as easily say that the American workers get a fair wage and it's the third-world labor that artificially
lowers the wage.
In fact, that would be much easier to argue...you tell me which is most likely a fair wage - $1.25/hour or $20/hour? Ha...artificially inflated. Riiiiight...
I can complain about wealth stratification here, but in China it's disgusting. They need unions and wage reform over there like crazy. They are being exploited. If we had balls, we'd cut off trade to them until they reformed both economic and human rights issues...but we don't...we like our little fiat gravy train too much, right?
So, take your pick. Your pissed off others can do things cheaper but meanwhile you suppor the union by trade sanctions against countries with no minimum wage? Capitalism or Union?
That's not a black vs. white concept...making a "take your pick" question out of the subject is incredibly shallow and short-sigthed. If you want to bury your head in the sand, feel free. But crazy old Stalin was right. The capitalists will sell you the rope you hang them with. It's basically our economy over the last 30 years in a nutshell.
Hmmm..thought VIZIO was made in Taiwan and Olevia uses LG LCD.
Like I said, assembled in the US...parts from multiple countries. Learn to read, oh wise genius.
Yeah..but where is your nationalism? You should boycott all TV! And your cell phone (if you have one) is made where?
Yeah, ok...back in the real world, that's not realistic. Your entire logic for anything relies on over-the-top hyperbole and black vs. white logic with no shades of gray as an option. How the hell can you support US companies when foreign manufacturers have a monopoly on the market? It's a weak-ass "gotcha" argument you are trying to turn into a slippery-slope argument. No, if I try to support US companies above foreign companies, it does not mean I can't use things that US manufacturers do not produce.
