4 ms·

America hasn't exactly helped Europe out by displacing millions of refugees and creating a humanitarian crisis on their door step. Not to mention doing practica

America hasn't exactly helped Europe out by displacing millions of refugees and creating a humanitarian crisis on their door step. Not to mention doing practically nothing to tackle climate change for the last 30 years. Sure Europe is in a difficult place right now, but who knows, they might emerge beter off and more ready for space exploration down the track?

tracker1 10y ago
wrt climate change, any plan that excludes China and India is short sighted and wrong, which almost every proposed plan has done. Beyond this, the U.S. would do more to reduce emissions by eliminating "express/air" delivery services. Most plans/suggestions don't even look at the economics, or secondary factors. Like open-mining of rare minerals, mercury, etc in the mfg of low-energy light bulbs. I'm all for reducing pollution and waste... I have a hyper-sensitive sense of smell, and the smog even in Phx is getting to be too much, let alone other cities I've been to. And, littering in general just pisses me off... but having 4-5 containers for recycling to sort things into, and then having that basically be a jobs program for sorters, when in the end most of it is still land-filled is a bit wasteful in itself. There needs to be some pragmatism in terms of getting the biggest bang for the buck, and ineffective feel-good programs aren't the way to do get real impacting change. ---- In terms of trade, not allowing trade with countries that don't meet or exceed U.S. quality of life requirements for workers would be a start. Disallowing diesel ships the ability to dock in U.S. ports over the next decade would do a lot as well. Disallowing airmail transport of packages, or heavily taxing would help a lot too. Tax credits for hiring employees with less than a 20 minute commute could also go a long way too. Include employees able to work from home at least 60% of the time. Enacting a national energy tax on companies with over 1000 employees could be a large impact as well. It's possible to do a lot of these things without creating a lot of hard to manage subsidies that will exist long beyond the reasons for making them in the first place.
anon1234321 10y ago
None of those are related to Europe's malaise. The fire that drives people to build great things, to push themselves harder, to try to make a better life for themselves, has been extinguished in Europeans.
- internaut 10y ago
  We have a positive surplus of intelligent ambitious people in Japan, Europe and America. What we don't have is savings or capital. This malaise is generational, not regional.

tracker1 10y ago

wrt climate change, any plan that excludes China and India is short sighted and wrong, which almost every proposed plan has done. Beyond this, the U.S. would do more to reduce emissions by eliminating "express/air" delivery services. Most plans/suggestions don't even look at the economics, or secondary factors. Like open-mining of rare minerals, mercury, etc in the mfg of low-energy light bulbs. I'm all for reducing pollution and waste... I have a hyper-sensitive sense of smell, and the smog even in Phx is getting to be too much, let alone other cities I've been to. And, littering in general just pisses me off... but having 4-5 containers for recycling to sort things into, and then having that basically be a jobs program for sorters, when in the end most of it is still land-filled is a bit wasteful in itself. There needs to be some pragmatism in terms of getting the biggest bang for the buck, and ineffective feel-good programs aren't the way to do get real impacting change. ---- In terms of trade, not allowing trade with countries that don't meet or exceed U.S. quality of life requirements for workers would be a start. Disallowing diesel ships the ability to dock in U.S. ports over the next decade would do a lot as well. Disallowing airmail transport of packages, or heavily taxing would help a lot too. Tax credits for hiring employees with less than a 20 minute commute could also go a long way too. Include employees able to work from home at least 60% of the time. Enacting a national energy tax on companies with over 1000 employees could be a large impact as well. It's possible to do a lot of these things without creating a lot of hard to manage subsidies that will exist long beyond the reasons for making them in the first place.

anon1234321 10y ago

None of those are related to Europe's malaise. The fire that drives people to build great things, to push themselves harder, to try to make a better life for themselves, has been extinguished in Europeans.

internaut 10y ago
We have a positive surplus of intelligent ambitious people in Japan, Europe and America. What we don't have is savings or capital. This malaise is generational, not regional.