Originally Posted by
KraneXL
<br /><br />Now you see that's just my point. But things don't have to get that bad. Our political leaders sit on their hands until we reach the point of catastrophe before they act. We knew about our growing dependence on foreign oil long before the first oil embargo in the 1970s and yet we ignored it and continue with no Plan B.<br /><br />The worst part was even after they crippled the nation's transportation network, all we did was slow everybody down via a lower national speed limit, and here we are nearly a half century later and with an even greater dependence than before.<br /><br />Imagine how far along our country would be by now if we had begun building a HSR after that embargo back in the 70s? With 10 year phases would could have been crisscrossing the U.S. by now.
Lowering speed limits would have been a good start, but a resistance/rebellion grew against the austerity, which for some reason is hell-bent on denying that rejecting rationality causes detriment. These people who ignore detriment are probably just unconcerned about the well-being of all people, and they assume the people who they do care about can be protected from the detriment.
Even the Brazilians were smart enough to learn from the embargo and develop a Plan B for it's population. Why are American leaders so inept at this?<br /><br />If -- or better still, when -- there is another embargo or transportation catastrophe who do you think will be the first to suffer for it? Has anyone ever considered what would happen if gas prices were to double? They know we have no viable transportation alternative so we'd have no choice but to pay it. Suddenly the glamor of independent travel would lose much of its appeal. Particularly for commuting.<br /><br />Having alternatives prevents any one mode of transportation or industry from having all that power and control. How we can fall back into the same trap so easily is unconscionable. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but am I the only one that can see this coming?<br /><br />President Obama was the first president to seriously put into motion a HSR system. But even he fell short of giving it sufficient emphasis to really push it through.<br /><br />This needs to be made a National Plan just like our highway system was in the '50s. Especially where there are so many people around today that were alive to witness the horrendous economic devastation of the first oil embargo.
I think the US is viewed globally as a place to go make easy money. "The streets are paved with gold," is an old expression that was once popular. So I think it has become a global pastime to obstruct reforms in the US that would reduce waste and thus make money harder to make. It is much easier to make money in markets where people and businesses are hemorrhaging money because pathways to efficiency and waste-reduction have been obstructed and obfuscated.