Regarding exploited human lives, have you read my comment? People should have the possibility to simply reject jobs as you have described them. I have never and will never advocate getting rid of the welfare system (which in the US was abolished by Bill Clinton). I'm not aware that ever any politician in Germany has ever suggested that seriously. So Bill Clinton would be too much of neocon, to even be in a 5% party.

Nature is complex and it is very difficult for me to give distant advice to the US on that. However, I think global warming may be extremely dangerous and is international.
The US should drastically increase taxes on carbon emissions. For Germany, well have you read the diary(?), I do not advocate to reduce taxes on gas, but not taxing a standing car (and I don't have a car and try to avoid to need one as possible). I would like to see as well taxing of heating oil, natural gas, fertilizer. And I'm for a longer use of nuclear power, which is quite the line of the conservative party in Germany. But private people have as well to do a lot and are often more effective than the gov.

To Consumption, have you really read the diary (?), I have already made clear that I don't think the steady increase is that much sustainable and have critisised the GDPism of the CDU. Overpopulation may be an international problem, but in Germany we have a declining number of inhabitants despite the people become older and older. This will lead as well to problems and I doubt that immigration can solve all the problems especially as there are no German speaking former colonies.

"I wonder what happened to the notion of conservativism   as the attitude not to be over-enthusiastic with new ideas or enforcement possibilities."
First I'm accused to want to go back to the 50s and then this...

Again, have you read my comment? I have not suggested Germany should go 3/4 in the direction of America, but only one half. There are so many single political issues and it is not even always clear what is right and what is left (some left-leaning people agree e.g. that our Riesterrente, something similar like your 401(k) is bad). As nature economy is complex and one would have to debate single issues.

"It is the European pro-corporate reformists"
You are once more confusing fascists and conservatives. I'm not pro-corporate (at least not if my dictionary is right about the definition of corporation). Big corporations can often easily avoiding the employment laws, while only small business partnerships are suffering from the strict rules and e.g. avoid to employ more than 20 people if this means new rules. Actually the socialists are much closer to the big corporations than conservatives. They advocate more subsidies for settling corporations, they advocate collective agreement which help the big corporations to get rid of smaller concurrents and advocate exceptions for the big corporations if they get in trouble, why the small companies, which can't outsource easily are ignored. Endless rules and bureaucracy make it difficult to start a business. The US has its good aspects and I would like to take them without copying everything. I would like to have a google, yahoo, microsoft, ebay, facebook or so.
German social networks were in danger to break. Social security has been fixed now, but it still would be better if the demographic situation would be better, e.g. more children.

With regard to globally decreasing inequality I was referring to income gini. Your sources are just talk, if you like numbers, you will like this page.
The Chinese source is mainly talking about what developing countries should or should not do. That's not the point. The point is, that we should be open for them. US protectionism would have killed the Chinese economic miracle. And our openness is exactly what makes the pressure on wages in our countries. In 20 years this is over. Let China, India and Brasil become half as rich as the developed world and you will see that gloablisation starts to become a better game for workers. In the meantime the go has to help those who can't live from their work in the developed world.

Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den Menschen
Volker Pispers