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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (145398)	4/18/2002 10:07:26 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574631

Tim, you're wrong on that. It varies from state to state but last year when we had a water shortage in WA, the farmers got cut severely and rationing for them was mandatory whereas our rationing was voluntary. The priority usually is first people, then crops, then animals. When the farmers where "severly rationed" they still probably used more water then they would have had it never been subsidized, and they probably still recieved the subsidy on the reduced amount that they did use. I don't really know as much about WA as I do about CA though. I do know that its fairly rare in the US for water prices to be deterimed by market forces. There is a shortage of oil in this country. We do not produce enough oil ourselves so we must import it. There would be a shortage if we didn't have the ability to import it. But then that shortage would not be permanent. The higher prices resulting from an import cut off would cause a decrease in demand as well as a slight increase in production. Thus no more shortage. It would only be permanent if we did something stupid like implement price controls. consuming an inordinate share of the world's resources etc. We don't comsume an inordinate share of the world's resources. We might use 25% of the oil, but we have 20% of the GDP. Sure 25 is higher then 20, but I figure that since we bear the lion's share of the costs of protecting oil and other resources we deserve and indulgence for that extra 5%. Actually I don't conceed that the concept of "consuming an inordinate share of the world's resources" is a meaningful one. We produce a big chunk of the world's resources. These resources by the way are not limited to natural resources. If we didn't exist the rest of the world would be poorer not richer. That's at least part of the reason why bin Laden and ai Qaeda think we would be easy.....he sees us as soft....nothing but pushovers. If he did think we were soft it was because we did not meaningfully act against him and his friends why they attacked us again and again. Many of his friends have now learned the lesson that Japan learned in WWII after they previously thought we where soft. Using SUVs or burning a lot of oil had nothing to do with it terrorists thinking Americans where soft. Tim