Public Employee Unions Must Be Crushed !

[999969999]

But earlier you mentioned Sweden as a shining example of a socialist country with a high standard of living. I've been there with my family on several trips. While it is a nice place to visit, I was so happy to get back home after the vacation was over. I would not want to live there.
I hear a sigh of relief so audible it crossed the Atlantic. Sweden thanks you.

Let's take nearby Finland as a better example-- one which I am quite familiar with. I have relatives living in Lapland and Helsinki, and have visited them a number of times over the years. The ones in Helsinki have a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home, similar to what we would call a "town house" and they are so proud of it. I love them dearly, and I am happy for them, but their place is tiny. We have 7 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms in our Eagar home (and my grandparents' home in Eugene, Oregon is even bigger!). And here's the other thing... they only have one tiny car! And they hardly ever use it! They use mainly public transportation to get around in the city. Almost every time they took me anywhere, we had to use public transportation and it was okay, but not nearly as nice as riding in a car and getting to your destination quickly. It took forever to get anywhere!

So no, I don't think they have as high of a standard of living as we do. I wouldn't want to live like that. Once again, nice place to visit, and I had a lot of fun with my cousins, etc., but I was so happy to get back home.

You conflate ostentatious consumerism with a high standard of living.
How many people live in your seven bedroom McMansion?
In your grandparents Versailles?

And gee, how stupid of the Finns to not be beholden to oil cartels by building and using public transportation.
They probably all secretly lust after Escalades, it's their damned socialist governments thwarting them.

I agree with you on that part. That is a good point, and I wish we were more like them in that respect. But our way of doing that is through more drilling here, using our oil, natural gas, coal, and building more nuclear power plants.

As for ostentatious consumerism... isn't that the whole point of working? So, you can spend it and enjoy it?

[clocker]

Your solutions to our energy dependencies are all fraught with major downsides.
"Our oil" is of unknown quantity and at least a decade in the future.
"Our natural gas" will be extracted primarily with processes that require massive amounts of water and you have heard that a large part of our natural gas reserves are in bone dry major drought areas.
Coal is a filthy way to generate power.
I'm not completely averse to nuclear generating but it would have to be preceded by a significant infrastructure upgrade.
Issues like disposal, transport, and grid rebuild get decided before the ideas for plants are accepted.

As for ostentatious consumerism... isn't that the whole point of working? So, you can spend it and enjoy it?

Perhaps for you it is.
You don't seem to allow for the possibility that something different from your comfort zone is not automatically inferior or the worst possible alternative.
Don't you imagine that should your Finnish relatives ever visit Eagar, they'd be as disoriented as you were?
Maybe go home and make snarky comments to the reindeer?

[999969999]

Your solutions to our energy dependencies are all fraught with major downsides.
"Our oil" is of unknown quantity and at least a decade in the future.
"Our natural gas" will be extracted primarily with processes that require massive amounts of water and you have heard that a large part of our natural gas reserves are in bone dry major drought areas.
Coal is a filthy way to generate power.
I'm not completely averse to nuclear generating but it would have to be preceded by a significant infrastructure upgrade.
Issues like disposal, transport, and grid rebuild get decided before the ideas for plants are accepted.

I'm glad to see you are at least open to the idea of building some more generating stations. At least you are reasonable.
It will take over a decade to get them built. Why not start building them now, and take care of the disposal, transport, and grid rebuild issues while we are building the new nuclear generating plants?

As for ostentatious consumerism... isn't that the whole point of working? So, you can spend it and enjoy it?

Perhaps for you it is.
You don't seem to allow for the possibility that something different from your comfort zone is not automatically inferior or the worst possible alternative.
Don't you imagine that should your Finnish relatives ever visit Eagar, they'd be as disoriented as you were?
Maybe go home and make snarky comments to the reindeer? LOL! I LOVE THIS!!! THANKS FOR PROVIDING MY CHUCKLE OF THE DAY!!! They have been to Eugene, but not Eagar yet. They like Eugene, but then, who wouldn't like it? It is a wonderful place. Eagar, on the other hand, is an acquired taste. I think most people would be hopelessly bored with it.

...

[clocker]

It will take over a decade to get them built. Why not start building them now, and take care of the disposal, transport, and grid rebuild issues while we are building the new nuclear generating plants?

Because that's what we did fifty years ago and none of those issues have yet been addressed.
The "Build it now and we'll figure out the rest later" mindset is actually code for "Build it now,we'll ignore the consequences later" which is why the US is littered with improperly stored nuclear waste material that no one wants to acknowledge or deal with.