Thursday, November 20, 2008

On A More Serious Note, aka Dave rants...


So, we here at Baroke have been blessed to the point that we still have jobs, pretty much have school wrapped up, and are able to make ends meet - by the way, thank you for supporting us as always, but especially in such a vulnerable time for small business. Thanks :)

That said, I have been staying in tune with Congress and corporate America at such a pivotal time for our nation. One thing that has irked me of late, is the auto companies' seeking $25 billion. We made a shirt this line, 'the suburbs are killing us,' and that shirt speaks to the physical environment in which the majority of Americans live in today: the suburbs. The suburbs have quite a history- and I want to TRY and stay on topic, so I'll only discuss what's relevant to the video below for now.

During the 1950s, auto makers like GM did things like buy transit systems. They then proceeded to drive those transit systems right into the ground. Why? Because they wanted those riders on the trains and trolleys to become drivers on the highways that they would later cause to be built (with your tax dollars, of course).



Next, the suburbs kept growing (due to de-industrialization and racist FHA neighborhood ranking systems that denied loans to specific neighborhoods, as well as racist realtors). The suburbs grew further and further away from the city center, and as time progressed, it became an absolute necessity to own a car in order to live in these enclaves and low-tax bedroom communities. People lived less and less densely, with McMansions sprouting along the periphery of the region, leeching off of the city proper. These homes need cars, and cars need roads. As I mentioned a moment ago, the residents insist on paying some of the lowest taxes in the entire world. So who pays for those roads and firemen and policemen and water pipes and schools to be built? EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T LIVE THERE! They get the money from the taxes that the general public pays, and then wealthy people move in, taking with them the taxes they paid in their former hometown.

This means that schools on the inner core get less money, and neighborhoods that were formerly populated by the haves fall into squalor for the have-nots. Many automobile and oil producers have squashed electric car development and successfully lobbied congress to repeal the miles per gallon standards that were put in place by Nixon and Carter. My point....

The autoworkers are people I feel for. The auto-ceos are a bunch of shortsighted idiots who leech off of our money and feed us products and habitats that are unremarkable and wasteful. I was taught in 4th grade - and yes, I lived in the suburbs - that we would have oil shortages by the year 2000. That happened, gas prices went up, and people stopped buying SUVs. Gas prices are only low now because of low demand for all the products - i.e. plastics, gasoline, etc. GM's CEO said he didn't see it coming.

So when these morons who we've given too much money to already are asking for more, I say only give them loans if they build air compression or electric powered vehicles. If it wasn't for the jobs (and the fact that I was raised by a mechanic), I would say screw 'em, and let some companies who know what they're doing come in and take their market share. Let the people who deserted their city bring back their tax dollars. I'll shut up now, here's the vid:



-Baroke "hippie idealist" David

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