Frankly Tracy, your post-mod lib fem phrasing riddles this hatchet job like cold sores on a crack ho.

For one thing, these women clearly CHOSE this line of work. Where else would they get $200 or more for an hour of their time.

I mean no one made "Marie" give blowjobs for $$$, yet you say she was "pushed" into the sex industry.

And you say that the XXX website's operator gives you chills, really? A professional speaking about the workers in his industry gives you chills? Boy, for someone who was practicing the Kama-Sutra at 16 and dating much older men at 20, you're really prudish and judgmental.

Marie could always scrub floors for $5/hr. Oh, I forget, then she couldn't buy her Louis Vuitton handbags, could she. And she might have to commit the worse evil of all: shop at Walmart.

Given that a woman is under a certain age, say 27, and it's maybe a condition that requires treatment in order for her to conceive.

But for a woman 35 and older who can't have children: sorry! You should've thought of that every time you told your boyfriend in college to wear a condom. But hey, at least you're a sophisticated urbanite, who can pop $400 on a pair of shoes.

Yay materialism!

wrote a book, "The Thief at the End of the World." which includes a whole chapter on Fordlandia.

Basically what Ford wanted to do was corner the Rubber market by building his own rubber plantation down there. (Being dependent on Foreign rubber was big in those days.)

But he went about it all wrong. He imported American managers and Engineers who didn't know the local terrain or even the optimal growing conditions of the rubber trees, the soil was all wrong. Ford thought he could apply his assembly line technique to conquer Nature, but he was wrong.

But what's even more amazing is that Granin doesn't mention this book at all, and instead tries to cram in an analogy (America fails yet again) where none exists.

The reasons for Detroit's downfall have nothing to do with what Ford did in Fordlandia. The structural reasons for each's failure is not comparable.

"To me, she's a healthy, lovely, curvy, desirable woman. Why all the models on runways don't look like her is something I will never, ever understand."

Could it be because most fashion designers are Gay men? And their ideal woman isn't one who has tits and an ass. I'm surprised you don't hear this more often. If a normal straight guy had the opportunity to surround himself with models all day, they wouldn't look like 12yo boys, they would look more like women.

Notice the difference between the Victoria Secrets models, and the models of some couture label. The former look like women who can have children, and the latter look like AIDS stricken heroin addicts. Coincidence?

Isn't the whole point of paying insurance is that it's there when you need it. What's the point of paying for insurance if 1) they're going to charge you hundreds of dollars for getting a checkup 2) if You do have something they'll drop you (i.e, you had acne when you were 15) 3) By the time you do get to the doctor whatever treatment they give you is going to cost thousands of dollars.

It defeats the whole point of insurance. It's as if the insurance companies feel entitled to profit from the ill-health of Americans. Heads they win, tails you lose. All of that so the CEO can buy a second yacht. Seriously!?!?

And paying while your healthy makes no sense, because the whole point of insurance is to leverage the fact that most people are healthy most of the time, however most people are sick some of the time, and a minority are sick all of the time.

I'm pretty sure that this guy was at least in the top 2% of earners, so calling him upper middle-class is not saying enough. Increasingly, being upper middle-class means you don't have to go bankrupt to send your kids to a state school.

This guy is in another league entirely. Let's face it, if you're worried about not being sure if you can afford a second yacht, you're rich, plain and simple.

And increasingly that's what's wrong with America. The profit motive has been perverted by the greed and lust for riches of these monkeys in suits. Seriously? One mansion isn't enough for you? The fact that CEO's basically win the lotto every year, regardless of the performance of their companies, while their employees make $10/hr, if they're lucky, is just evil.

I mean I can understand if they were being offered immortality, or their own planet, or a harem of women or something abstract with lasting benefit. But another house, or a really fast car you can't really drive around in? Is that worth laying off 10 million people, or ruining this country for a generation?