<html> <body> OK. I'll behave myself. But hopefully, there are no more of these or I might not! :-) Avery At 02:44 PM 9/15/05, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Responding to Ernie's comments, which I certainly might echo: Looking at matters simply from the physical viewpoint (large holes in Saudi Arabia now full of slightly greasy salt water) (rows and rows of containers full of nicely made Chinese consumer goods lined up in Long Beach, CA) (tangled and bent oil and gas pipelines offshore near New Orleans)  large-scale globalization of consumer goods manufacturing is a short-lived idea with many drawbacks (widespread unemployment in North America, for instance) which has not been with us long, and which will not be with us much longer. (Its demise will be unlamented by me.) The sooner we write off the Walmart kind of company, and put our emphasis and what's left of our money on local endeavors and solutions (straw bale mulch to build garden fertility, 1/4 of grassfed local beef in the freezer to eat this winter), the better off we'll be. Susan "May you live in interesting times." -- Old Chinese curse At 03:21 PM 9/15/2005 -0400, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""> Responding to Alan's comments, below, which many might echo:   Alan Barnard said: <dl> <dd>Responding to Susan's comments, below, which many might echo: <dd>  <dd>... <dd>  <dd> but the government cut taxes (oh no, oh my, gloom and doom from some ...) and what happend?   The economy came roaring back and the flow of money into government coffers substantially INCREASED. It always works. </dl>Really? Your share (and mine) of the national debt ($7,961,868,911,485 and now increasing at an average of ~ $1,660,000,000 per DAY) is now ~$26,792. If your "tax cut" was greater than that, then, yes, I'll certainly admit that I'm wrong and, at least for you, the economy must certainly be better.   If someone gave me a buck (that I didn't ask for) and then said I now owe them a hundred, I wouldn't exactly consider that to be a windfall for me, nor would it be likely to cause me to think better of them. So, if you have found a way to make out better by using these "tax cuts," please share with us how you were able to do this. Sharing business advice like that is what makes lists like this so useful for our entire industry.   "Don't worry, be happy"? Is that like "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."   I do appreciate that you are trying to look at the positive, but I think a more balanced approach that analyzes a thing for what it actually is, both the positive and the negative, is much more useful in the long run. Ditto for judging America's business and economic situation in the coming days by only surveying very wealthy individuals or very wealthy corporations, of which I would bet you a buck the vast majority of folks reading this list are neither.    </blockquote></blockquote></body> </html>