America is still quite wasteful in terms of oil and energy, at least on a consumer level, there are technologies out there that can help reduce this inefficiency if necessary. My worries are more to do with the rather vicious combination of the Fed. printing dollars like it's Christmas and rising energy prices affecting producers. Not to mention the ludicrous amounts of debt being pushed on individuals like a drug. You have a rather noxious combination of inflation destroying the savings of individuals whilst energy prices rise and increase the cost of living.
Add a few other things like returning war veterans, rising unemployment, decreasing standards in education and a growing gap in income and wealth distribution, well, people are not going to be happy. You can also add bailout policies and the decrease in civil liberties to the heap of problems. Lots of intelligent and wealthy individuals globally acting with individual (as opposed to collective social) interests in mind and the aggregate of their undeniably selfish decisions is culminating in a fairly negative outcome.
Honestly, I when I look around at Anglo-American policy making right now (the two are inextricably linked) I feel a lot like Dr. Manhattan from The Watchmen, disillusioned and alienated from humanity. Would be nice to just vacation on Mars. We're all stuck on this planet and have to suffer monumental stupidity from all sides of the political, social and economic spectrum right now. I believe myself to be a moderately intelligent person, which means some degree of awareness of myself and the world around me. Right now I just wish that both sides of the stupid would clash already and just diminish/cancel one another out.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2013 04:24PM by istirith.