Originally Posted by TransitBiker

Of course there are sometimes tradeoffs, however if the american consumer only bought the solid durable stuff, thats mostly what they'd sell & make. Problem is wages and taxes are too low, and we have too many service jobs & not enough "real" jobs, the list goes on and on. It's a huge problem.. in that we've set ourselves up for disaster being so dependent on foreign manufacturing & cheap domestic employees with all the money going up instead of out. Our economy is basically based on construction, mining, and service jobs. There's too little manufacturing, and too little re-investment across the spectrum.

We have settled for less than what we previously had, and that needs to be fixed. It is a complex and difficult to talk about series of interconnected issues, and us cyclists bear the brunt of some of those poor decisions & policies, just look at our roads......

In any case i need to take a nap, i've been awake too long hah.

- Andy