On the train...

So, I try to keep a good attitude but at the moment I think a word about something is appropriate. 

I love Amtrak don't get me wrong but in this case their service is well, a disservice. I've finally managed to procure a seat in the food car after boarding the train an hour ago. Now, it doesn't bother me that I didn't get a seat I paid about $100 for but in the case of the family sitting nearby I'd have to say they really deserve to be as pissed as the mother seems to be. Basically, the poor woman, her husband and her probably age 7 daughter have a seat finally, but it's in the food car.

What if they had been traveling with and an elderly person? A sick person maybe? 

It seems the conductor has gone out of his way to accommodate the family but of course his options are limited. I feel bad for them but I would've been pretty pissed if it was me. Ah well, maybe it's just another side effect of the shrinking economy.

Maybe we'll send our jobs to economies with cheaper labor and then one day they'll give us the gift of train travel a la their style?

I very much support globalization but I believe domestic macro capitalistic powers (I won't pretend to be an economist here - that is a term I made up and understand ... sorry if it doesn't mean anything to you ...) anyway... will show the true value, or lack thereof, of the American dollar through their increasingly poor delivery of services and goods.

So I believe wealth is leaving the United States... can't prove it... just a hunch (hello rising price and diminishing supply of oil, weakening dollar, increasing cost of real estate...)

I can't claim original thought on these ideas... I'm heavily influenced by a few sources - a book called "The World is Flat", a documentary called "The End of Suburbia" and a few others as well as some other context clues derived from watching the world... 

Dunno... just a  thought...