You are pretty calm considering that the USA is broke now, broke 20 years into the future, losing the dollar as lead currency and being at the mercy of China. China could decide to sell all dollar assests, causing the currency to crash and in addition make US bonds too unattractive to buyers. Total defeat. Of course, China will unlikely do so. They tend to act carefully, patiently and with great foresight. If they should decide to do so however, we can be assured that they'll have tho
NAFTA, finance market deregulation (directly causing the housing market collapse), war against terror, tax cuts for the rich, budget cuts in maintenance (see new orleans levys), ... But can I assume by your last answer that you are not interested in looking into these topics but rather want to bash on me for not liking Bush?
[quote who="Leauki" reply="461" id="2353335"] despite all those shiny neo-liberal free market measures introduced during the bush era What exactly where those measures? [/quote] This is probably another poisoned topic but let's mention "outsourcing" amongst others. You could google something about the bush economy and see if some of the arguments against neoliberalism make sense now.
[quote who="Leauki" reply="459" id="2353257"] I don't know if the US imports more from China than the EU or other parts of the world. ... But an "ally" I wouldn't call China either. [/quote] Currently China is one of the world's greatest export nation and the USA is the top customer by far: US$337.8 billion in 2008. (source 1 , <a href="http://www.uschina.org/st
ah, poisoned topics. Ignore my personal inflections. Sorry, I made the same mistake I accused your political debates of doing. Anyway, about the china thing: China has strong interest in keeping the dollar strong and it relies on americans importing goods from them. That's what I mean with "ally". And I will refuse to discuss the willingness of the USA to fight wars - worthy or not. So I'll just concede that point: The USA is not preparing for a war against China.
I honestly don't know what would have happened if Obama didn't bail out these failbanks. I think one of those banks (AIG, I think) was involved in government bond trading and having that fail might have prevented the admin from getting new money. Anyway, the US economy always was pure anarchy with regular crashes every 10 years or so, some of them epic. And thanks to lobbyism the whole bloody country is nearly unreformable, especially if a weak president is in power with naive ideas l
[quote who="psychoak" reply="448" id="2353100"]We're devaluing our currency, this pisses China off. [/quote] [quote who="az0th" reply="441" id="2353039"]"The government only gets as much money as it can tax." The government can also print money - the resulting wealth transfer from private to public hands is called 'seignorage'.[/quote] [quote who="k10w3" reply="436" id="2352680"] We don't have to cut down on ALL military spending...how about we just decid
To be fair, a company has to be terminally stupid to make a trailer that looks like shit. And some trailers are actually awesome and close to the original - like the Team Fortress 2 - Meet the Team trailers.
This shirt was quite popular for a time ... The text obscured by the hair reads: "US World Domination Tour". [quote]That being said though, when was the last time we weren't in the middle of a war? By your logic we can never, ever cut military spending.[/quote] That's the business model of the military industrial complex.
[quote]..and people won't buy it unless they know they'll enjoy it. Catch 22? [/quote] Dude, that's what TRAILERS are for! Trust the marketing department!
[quote]Cutting military spending is not a brilliant idea in the middle of a war, especially when the military is the most visible advantage. Must be a confused person.[/quote] I remember you cut the ruinous spending of the F-22. How unbrilliant. I wonder if there are publicly available numbers out there just screaming to be discussed. Maybe scratch some planned wars from the business schedule.
I wonder when someone gets unrealistic ideas like "Cut down on military spending to pay off debt and produce thingies again to sell stuff" and gets elected into a position of political power. Oh wait, I think there's a colored gentleman ... whathsisname...
Oh, I'm sure that filesharing hurts the copyright owners to some extent - although not as much as they claim. Just because a game gets downloaded a million time doesn't mean that these million people would have bought the game otherwise. A small percentage, perhaps, but not all. Mostly filesharing enables people to enjoy a product they'd never have considered otherwise.
I want to recommend an awesome science fiction movie: The Man from Earth (2007) Even though it's a science fiction movie, it doesn't have spaceships or aliens inside. It's not even in the fu
There is something else I read (but forgot about) and just heard again from an investigative reporter whose work I trust: Greg Palast. Before the conservative right starts dissing anything he says on behalf of him being a partisan liberal (which he isn't), please read this first: Greg Palast is against the health care reform if the drug company bargain deal cuts in. What concerns him specifically are behind-closed-doors negotiations with dru
[quote who="psychoak" reply="16" id="2349177"] Negative, I'm an Alaskan. ... The cost of health care in Germany is not $264, it's a whole bunch of dead people. [/quote] He can see dead germans from his house! . . . sorry, couldn't resist.
[quote who="jpmurph1" reply="10" id="2350760"]I worked for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Correction for 23 years, and privitization is a really bad thing, take it from experience, I am retired of course, after 20 years in unifrom you can retire,[/quote] Did you by chance witness the change from state prisons to privatized prisons? This should have started in the Reagen era - mid 80s. Care to share some stories?
[quote who="Hawkeye666" reply="3" id="2350692"]Allowing a prison industry is a morally reprehensable act of a greedy, immoral society. This is indeed capitalism at its most evil extension. Only in America.[/quote] Generalizations don't help in a civil discourse. For one, they inflame. For another, they are usually easy to rebut by other generalizations not necessarily related to the actual topic. [quote who="Leauki" reply="5" id="2350724"] <
[quote who="Leauki" reply="2" id="2350664"]I wonder why prisons are private businesses. What's the point of paying not only prison guards and support staff but also profits for the owners? [/quote] There's this conviction that market mechanisms improve efficiency on every level: If you want to make a profit you have to be better than the competition. And that increases efficience and lowers prices. According to an interview, prices for housing prisoners lowered indeed after
[quote who="pseudomelon" reply="100" id="2350538"]I cannot work out a way one could possibly and legitamately defend piracy... However, with all the anti-modding business going on, I have to say that once you own a copy of your game (or system), whatever you do with it (barring distribution) should be your own personal business. The exception is, of course, mods that enable you to use pirated software.[/quote] me mates call these mods "cracks", harr!
(this forum software is pure shit when dealing with several nested quotes.) Quoting Melchiz Quoting Aroddo, reply 340 As foreign observers we have a different perspective of the things that happen in america. And the health reform opposition clearly looks like the exploiters of the current system are doing everything they can to prevent something we take for granted. <p style="padding-
@zyxpsilon, @the_Monk: What monk said. I, too, originally assumed that americans share the same values our "socialist" societies do, but they seem to differ substantialy in some aspects. Generally speaking, of course. Now, we people here are still relatively civil to each other, despite our obvious differences. Ok, we doubt each others sanity at times, but that's fine. There's even screaming going on when we basically agree with each other but squabble over nuanc
This thread shouldn't be about rape. Keep it workplace safe. The prison industry of america is an interesting topic, too, but I only mentioned that to exemplify the paradoxical relation between american values and policies. We can gladly talk about this in another thread - the topic is hilarious. E.g. did you know that the worth of a prison company's stock is measured by the amount of prisoners?. So, let's get back to topic
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