Part of being rich is that you become shielded from the realities of life and unaware of what is going on in the real world.
The USA is currently embroiled in overseas conflict because of the profligate use of oil by Americans. This has involved other nations in the cause as well.
I disagree with Australia's involvement in the Iraq war, but since we are I think this gives me the right to criticise the US.
I am astounded at what americans accept as frugal motor vehicles. 35 mpg!! You have to be kidding. The little Volkswagen of the 1950s was getting that level of fuel economy, and by 1970 I had a little Fiat (500cc) that was getting 60 miles per gallon.
I am currently driving a 30 year old car that gets 6 litres per 100 kilometres, which is the same as the modern hybrids. (equates to 50mpg)
Ah, you say, but we can't determine what manufacturers make.
Yes you can. Change your politics.
The role of government is not to govern the people, but to act on behalf of the people. Let me stress that - act on behalf of THE PEOPLE. Not the corporations, not big business.
So it is legitimate and required that business be regulated. What the corporations want is a free open unregulated market, which essentially means having the ability to plunder at will. Freebooting, robbing, piracy are the words used to describe such behaviour.

Take the example of the film "Who killed the electric car?" GM justified its scrapping of the electric car because although it had a waiting list of 40,00 only 400 committed to buy. (These figures are not exact, but of the correct orders of magnitude.)
What the film did not highlight was that it was not in fact a pruchase they were offering but lease deals. Most people don't want to lease their cars. They want to buy them outright.

I don't think electric cars will solve the problems of global warming, in fact in the short term shifting to electric cars will aggravate the problem. But the answer to manaufacturers not delivering fuel efficient cars is to regulate. For example just change the regulations regarding registering cars.
If your car does not provide fuel efficiency of at least 0.1 litres/100 kilometres (490 mpg) then you may not register it to drive on our roads.
Experimental cars are getting this level of fuel efficiency, but no-one will build them because it is not economically viable.
US citizens instead of thinking that they live in the godzone and that nothing could better what the United States do, would do better to look outside and start following others instead of bullying the rest of the world to follow them.

I definetly think we (USA) should step up and help support alternative sources of energy - and that we should all, as a nation start conserving as much as possible.

This can be done in simple easy ways too, like turning off the damn lights in the 10 rooms of your house that you aren't in. By re-using as much as you can, and recylcing everything humanly possible. By walking and riding a bike and taking public transportation instead of your stupid car everywhere. And when you MUST drive, drive a car that gets decent gas milage (30+ mpg how about) instead of that stupid SUV that you totally DONT need!!

The list kind of goes on, but yeah. I spent a year in spain and the attitude is just so different there - lights aren't on in every room in the house, people walk all the time.. its just a different attitude towards energy, because it costs so much more. Maybe someday the US will be like that too...

Why does the US owe anything to anybody just because we are successful? By what right?

Because the USA is successful at the expense of the rest of the world. The USA are net importers of protein, importing things that could and do feed people in other places, but in the US is fed to pigs, so that americans can do what, get fat?

News flash: Economics is not a zero-sum game.

I'm sure the sellers of that protein appreciated the dollars they received, and will put them to good use, whatever that may be.

That might be true. But, how much bacon does the USA really need?
Have you ever lived in a 3rd world country? Then you haven't seen how bad their lives are and how the west(its not only the USA you see) exploits them.

How is need relevant here?

Once again, I fail to see the relevance. The roots of third world poverty lie in the third world, generally in the forms of government they seem to choose. Perhaps you should work on persuading them to reform their houses before you try to lay unearned guilt on mine.

I live in a 3rd world country who is doing its best to become a developed country. This is not the first 3rd world country I lived in. I must agree with utabintarbo, that the roots of poverty lie within the countries themselves. I also suspect that there is a strong cultural factor that makes Western countries and Confucian countries especially good at making money .
The reason corporations are successful has more to do with human nature then some kind of conspiracy. Most people like comfort and corporations are best at giving this kind of comfort. Microsoft Windows is a good example. Most people don't want to tweak their computers or even know anything about it, MS gives them that option.

Having said that I do agree that the world need US citizens to look outward.

It isn't really the western culture. It's what they make, for example, a commodity such as tea doesn't make a lot of money compared to the manufactured goods such as computers. Let's say if tea prices slashed by half and computer prices slashed by half. You would probably rather get the computer than the tea. Tea can be replaced with any agricultural product and you can replace the manufactured goods with any manufactured good and you will probably see the same result.

Hear Hear,
Yet again i start a reply with me beng a young lad :-)
I feel that we (being US) feel that we are the best at everything that we do, and that every other country should be just like us. When the average american looks at Canada (not to insult any canadians) they feel that they are wimps because of they way that they handle politics, then you look at a more aggresive country like..........wow i cant think of a more aggressive country besides US that pushes their way of life on all of the other countries out there.(if someone can think of one please tell me)

Exactly how do you think these things are made? Do you think PC's spring from the ground?

It is precisely our culture (and the requisite political environment) which fosters the invention of PC's, etc. If your people prefer manufactured goods, start a manufacturing enterprise, and supply them. This seems self-evident to one who is brought up under the American (and some others') culture.

Since you are talking about government, does that mean that democracy doesn't seem to be working anywhere? Even though they might be different tastes of democracy. Now I'm getting a bit off topic, but lets just say that it is very hard for 3rd world countries to increase their revenue even if they have a comparative advantage in labor. Oh well, I don't really have anything to say. Guess you win, but you won't fully understand until you visit a 3rd world country with street kids throwing feces at you.

Culture??
It's education and factories that create computers. Factories with skilled labor that is.3rd world country don't have the educated workers at the moment.

Ummm, where does the education and consequent factories come from?

I am sure we can follow this down over several (hundred) posts to the ultimate seed of the problem. Let me cut to the chase...human freedom, and its recognition by government is the key. Until you have an environment of freedom backed by law, nobody will risk capital in the third world, either monetary or human.

Try to dig beneath the surface. Therein lies the way to truth.

well the whole sum up of the pollution problem and bad resource management is people as a whole need to change. People - all of us - need to realize what the crude realities of life are, example years ago one would save up money for say a stereo system, it would be a costly article compared to ones wage and considered an investment, now naturally we all like things to be cheaper, so what do corporations say ? oh the silly d!ck heads of our customers lets produce stuff that is a tenth the quality will last one fifthieth the time and cost one fifth. So what happens we all run out and grab these cheap (and disgustingly low quality) articles of any nature electronic, food, clothing anything made today - cars, we will find that we just buy and chuck, buy and chuck we are such wasteful and greedy beings that we only think of right now not of the long term so we now produce much more use more energy produce more waste ecc that is not neccesary and don't give a damn about it. I have equipment and tools that belonged to my father and grandfather that still work perfectly after all these years how long do modern tools last ?

We used to eat more veg but no now we are rich fat pigs we want meat all the time, it takes 4 Kg of cereals fed to a cow to get 1 Kg of steak and there are no more nutrients in the 1 Kg of steak than there are in the 1 Kg of cereal. Oh and then people go and say ooooh global warming hot houses gases they are caused by all these cows farting, what a stupid exscuse and if it were remotely true lets eat less meat.

the list is endless I compiled a number of enery saving tips in a long rant (not half long enough yet) on my site: The future between renewable energy and pollution let me know your comments on it I want to organize it a bit better and extend it

utabintarbo:
I am not sure it is freedom. Korea , Taiwan and Hong Kong were not democracies when they got rich. China is getting rich these days and it's certainlt not the land of the free (the economy is more free and compared with the days of communism ,freedom is on the increase)
i think Weber had something when he talked about the 'protestant ethics' , it seems that something about western culture (and confucian culture) makes good at making money. placing value on education? logical thinking hard working? discipline?
i dont know what it is , but there is certainly something.
of course government policy is very important , if you have a communist rule you will never grow economicaly.

I suspect it is the work ethic. The protestants pushed a very strong work ethic. Historically Americans have worked hard. Today, Easterners work much harder than we do... and they're overtaking us. But other cultures do not seem to have a strong work ethic as and integral part of society. (The only first hand example of this is when I visited Ghana, the men did an awful lot of hanging out in the shade). I'm not really advocating a "work your life away" attitude, but it surely does produce results.

The thing is, when you look at how American people live, and how other nations live, you see lots of differences. 3rd world nations don't put much importance on work ethics as education, and that seems to cause them and their people to suffer.

Extreme Coder

well, is good to hear such diferent opinion. What i wonder is if economy is a war? Should we die if we loose? and if you win. Do you get the profith or who does?
I don't think that americans are so diferent from the rest off the world. They are just as much opressed like everybody else, but they get an ilussion off wining and freedom. But were is the money from the victory? Were it goes?(i'm really asking here). sorry for my english i hardly can write but i can speak well.By

It is harder to find other countries that 'push their way of life' now, because the US, for all its faults, tends to keep other countries from succeeding at such things. However, most peoples will harbour some resentment over being told what to do, just as most people (one at a time) resent the same from around age 12 or so...

Oh - and speaking of Canadian politics - at least we didn't get a Bush yet - though we came closer than I like last time out....