NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/sci/econ/9889

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-28 | 3.6 KB

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From: [e-mail] ()
Subject: Re: US as No. 1 (3 data books)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 19:45:57 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Curtis Jackson) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] () writes:
>}      Going back to food, the U.S. offers some of the worst sausage
>}      it has ever been my dubious privilege to taste.  Oscar Meyer
>}      would cause riots in the streets in Poland, never mind Germany.
>
>Ah, but that is our *chief* advantage, you see. The unwashed masses
>may eat Oscar Meyer sausages, drink Budweiser beer, and eat Velveeta
>brand processed American cheese-like (not!) food-style product, but
>I don't. And why not? BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE TO, here in the SF bay
>area.

    This is exactly what I was getting at.  Life is good for some
    Americans in some parts of the country.  What about the poor
    counties of Mississippi, what about the areas where the life
    expectancy of African-American men is lower that of the
    average Bangladeshi male?

>
>What America lacks in the large commercial advertised arena it more
>than makes up for in small local businesses, many of them run by
>Nth-generation immigrants, where N is a small number. So I get my
>sausages at one of several local German delis, I get my beer from
>local microbreweries, and I get my cheese from local organic dairies.
>I also get my Thai food at restaurants run by Thai immigrants, my
>Vietnamese food at Vietnamese-run restaurants, and my Japanese cooking
>ingredients at a large local Japanese-run grocery.

    There are of course, no decent butchers, bakers, or brewers
    anywhere else.  Why can't one get a decent French loaf anywhere
    in the U.S.?  Simple enough, you can't get the right grain.  I
    used to live round the corner from a Thai grocery in Berlin
    and about a block from the nearest Vietnamese restaurant.  I
    also had access to a cheese counter offering over 1500 kinds
    of cheese.  We didn't have the many Japanese in town now that
    I think of it...

>I have these wonderful nearly-infinite choices of locally-produced
>good quality foods, yet I still have the advantage of the electronics
>and clothing and myriad other consumer goods mass-produced in this
>country. So the American advantage is that the things we lack on a
>national scale can usually be made here by small businesses run by
>people who know how to do them right, whereas the things that Europe
>lacks would require huge capital investment and large factories.

    Hate to disillusion you, very few of those electronics and
    clothes are made in the U.S.  What things does Europe lack
    that would require large capital investment?  Aircraft
    carriers perhaps?  Lousy freeways?  A rapacious health-care
    system?
>
>And, yes, Iowa is horrible, but America is so huge and diverse (despite
>the raging on-slaught of generic television and fast food franchises)
>that one can choose to live in some place almost, but not quite,
>completely unlike Iowa, yet remain in the same country.

    To put it another way, life is good, provided you can go where
    the good life is.

    Alec