Amazon in hot water

[JL 0513]

What's so funny DriveInDriveOut?

 

[wkmac]

How would you like to pay $8.50 for a gallon of gas? Welcome to Sweden. It costs you $6.50/gal in New Zealand. A gallon of milk in NZ is $6.50. Good times. We as Americans too easily forget how good we have it.

Milton Copulus, the head of the National Defense Council Foundation, has a different view. And as the former principal energy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a 12-year member of the National Petroleum Council, a Reagan White House alum, and an advisor to half a dozen U.S. Energy Secretaries, various Secretaries of Defense, and two directors of the CIA, he knows his stuff.

After taking into account the direct and indirect costs of oil, the economic costs of oil supply disruption, and military expenditures, he estimates the true cost of oil at a stunning $480 a barrel.

That would make the "real" cost of filling up a family sedan about $220, and filling up a large SUV about $325 (when oil was $10 a barrel cheaper than it is now!).

Due to the enormous military cost of protecting Persian Gulf imports, the hidden cost of oil from that region amounts to $7.41 per gallon of gasoline. The cheapest gas out in my part of the Bay Area is $3.11 a gallon for regular. Add them together, and the true cost of my gas is probably around $10.52 a gallon.

We use 21 million barrels a day of oil. At $480 a barrel, that's $10 trillion a year draining from the national coffers.

The True Cost of Oil

 

[DriveInDriveOut]

What's so funny DriveInDriveOut?

Patriotism.

 

[JL 0513]

Patriotism.

Glad you're amused.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

There's actually a lot of truth to that.

Yeah, and that perspective could make one either (1) support gov't like in FrigidPTsups case, or (2) go the other way.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

So are these nice places? Sure. "Greatest country in human history?", I think not. You have to measure history, developments/accomplishments, power, lifestyles, and everything to measure a country's status. The title goes to the USA. It's actually not even arguable if you're thinking rationally.

You....YOU...have to measure U.S. history under those conditions and standards.

Frankly...."power" to me is what drags the U.S. down more than props it up, so again it's funny how people can view things so differently.

 

[JL 0513]

I was a libertarian in high school. Then I grew up and realized much of the stuff we have now would not have happened had our government been run by libertarians.

There's actually a lot of truth to that.

All the "stuff" we don't have the money for? And when we can no longer borrow trillions, where does the stuff go?

 

[JL 0513]

You....YOU...have to measure U.S. history under those conditions and standards.

Frankly...."power" to me is what drags the U.S. down more than props it up, so again it's funny how people can view things so differently.

I'll take the power. Weakness isn't for me. If one of these Nordic countries suddenly had a nuke pointed their way, what do you suppose they'd do?

And you may turn around and say that it won't happen proving your point, but all it proves is their irrelevancy in the world. Those on top always have enemies. It comes with the territory.

 

[wkmac]

I'll take the power.

“All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

 

[UnconTROLLed]

I'll take the power. Weakness isn't for me. If one of these Nordic countries suddenly had a nuke pointed their way, what do you suppose they'd do?

And you may turn around and say that it won't happen proving your point, but all it proves is their irrelevancy in the world. Those on top always have enemies. It comes with the territory.

There is a reason that there are no nukes pointed their way, yet we (and apparently you?) are always afraid. that is a weak argument for "power".

"Power" as I see it, in definition, is more than military muscle.

I'll take dying free and unafraid, from a nuke by an "enemy" - over living under an unaccountable, privatized oligarchy of corporations and politicians.

 

[JL 0513]

There is a reason that there are no nukes pointed their way, yet we (and apparently you?) are always afraid. that is a weak argument for "power".

"Power" as I see it, in definition, is more than military muscle.

I'll take dying free and unafraid, from a nuke by an "enemy" - over living under an unaccountable, privatized oligarchy of corporations and politicians.

We don't have nukes pointed our way for a reason either. Who said I or we are afraid? I'm not.

Military power was just one little piece of the power rating I was referring too.

You say you want to be free and yet are liberal. Modern liberalism is giving all of your freedom to government. Every new program, new law, new regulation, new entitlement, new welfare benefit, equals less liberty and more government power over you. How can you say you favor freedom and liberty?

 

[oldngray]

Some countries are not targets of aggression because they have little anyone else would want. If that changed they would be at the mercy of the compassion of other countries. Good luck with that.

 

[wkmac]

You say you want to be free and yet are liberal. Modern liberalism is giving all of your freedom to government. Every new program, new law, new regulation, new entitlement, new welfare benefit, equals less liberty and more government power over you. How can you say you favor freedom and liberty?

Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. [Ambrose Bierce, "Devil's Dictionary," 1911]

Modern liberalism with the emphasis on modern and in its noun form, you would be for the most part correct. Historically however and in its adjective form, not so much.

You might note that the root word of liberal comes from the latin "liber" from which we get the words liberal, liberty, libertarian and also library as in Roman times the word was associated with books, where one gains knowledge which is a fundamental aspect of liberty.

As to the etymology in its adjective form:

liberal (adj.)

mid-14c., "generous," also, late 14c., "selfless; noble, nobly born; abundant," and, early 15c., in a bad sense "extravagant, unrestrained," from Old French liberal "befitting free men, noble, generous, willing, zealous" (12c.), from Latin liberalis "noble, gracious, munificent, generous," literally "of freedom, pertaining to or befitting a free man," from liber "free, unrestricted, unimpeded; unbridled, unchecked, licentious," from PIE *leudh-ero-, probably originally "belonging to the people" (though the precise semantic development is obscure; compare frank (adj.)), and a suffixed form of the base *leudh- "people" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic ljudu, Lithuanian liaudis, Old English leod, German Leute "nation, people;" Old High German liut "person, people").

With the meaning "free from restraint in speech or action," liberal was used 16c.-17c. as a term of reproach. It revived in a positive sense in the Enlightenment, with a meaning "free from prejudice, tolerant," which emerged 1776-88.

In reference to education, explained by Fowler as "the education designed for a gentleman (Latin liber a free man) & ... opposed on the one hand to technical or professional or any special training, & on the other to education that stops short before manhood is reached" (see liberal arts). Purely in reference to political opinion, "tending in favor of freedom and democracy" it dates from c. 1801, from French libéral, originally applied in English by its opponents (often in French form and with suggestions of foreign lawlessness) to the party favorable to individual political freedoms. But also (especially in U.S. politics) tending to mean "favorable to government action to effect social change," which seems at times to draw more from the religious sense of "free from prejudice in favor of traditional opinions and established institutions" (and thus open to new ideas and plans of reform), which dates from 1823.

And then there is classical liberalism which is important to the American form of libertarianism especially as it has generally manifested in the latter 20th century.

The Rise, Fall, and Renaissance of Classical Liberalism

 

[wkmac]

We don't have nukes pointed our way for a reason either. Who said I or we are afraid? I'm not.

Military power was just one little piece of the power rating I was referring too.

"War is the health of the State."

Randolph Bourne

 

[UnconTROLLed]

How can you say you favor freedom and liberty?

I don't vote, my voting record speaks for itself.

 

[wkmac]

How can you say you favor freedom and liberty?

I don't vote, my voting record speaks for itself.

In the outcome of any given election, regardless who wins or policies imposed, someone will be FORCED to choose an action that in full liberty they would not make of their own free will. Voting is force and even what you may think is liberty in that which you support, for someone else it may not be.

 

[MAKAVELI]

Don't Forget the Amazon Warehouse Workers
http://gawker.com/dont-forget-the-amazon-warehouse-workers-1726443572

 

[Babagounj]

Amazon Prime Will Soon Deliver Booze

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/26/us-amazon-com-prime-idUSKCN0QU2AR20150826