Let's Get Rich | Gathering Spot

Seat belts were a ploy to strip of us our wealth? Interesting point. But the car makers resisted it tooth and nail, so... ANHHHHH-a buzzer goes off in my head. I had an almost head-on collision with another car at a combined speed of maybe 80 mph. Me and the other driver climbed out of our back windows and walked over to ask one another if we were OK...Anyone who tells me I'm wrong for believing that (the useless, mandated) seatbelts saved our lives doesn't get any further into my head. His point is actually a standard manipulation worked on liberty-minded people year after year. The motivation for such talk isn't liberty(in the guise of freedom from corporate greed)-it's actually to rally support for deregulation for corporate greed-and real human needs be damned. Sure one can make valid points for how people game the system now, but it didn't start the way he says. We can thank deregulation (stripping away of post-Depression era banking laws during the Reagan years) for the insanity of our situation right now.

Hi Brian-

I have to believe that if cars were still offered without seatbelts that they wouldn't be very popular. Were air bags and anti-lock brakes also mandated by government? I'm honestly not sure but safety seems to be a big selling point for car manufacturers whether or not the government mandates it. Same is becoming true of gas milage when you look at the good sucess of the Prius. Government deregulation did speed up the process of the financial collapse but government regulation gave the Fed the monopoly on the money making process in the first place. Hopefully soon the 99% will establish a new economic system that sideswipes all the monopolies.

Good points and I love your take on how things can move forward! I support your vision 100% Wendy. 'Resistance is futile'...so lets bypass the whole shebang-nice.

Ralph Nader was instrumental in mandating air bags in American vehicles. I don't know who enacted seatbelt requirements.

I recently read an article about a Florida school district that is installing fingerprint scanners on school buses to take attendence electronically http://www.neatorama.com/2011/10/08/florida-school-district-installs-fingerprint-scanners-to-take-attendance/. My initial thought was that the money could be better spent installing seatbelts on school buses. To my knowledge, none of them have installed anything to protect children in the event of a crash.