DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Christians4LessGvt on October 11, 2014, 01:19:44 PM
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11154553/Dam-breaks-in-Europe-as-deflation-fears-wash-over-ECB-rhetoric.html
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Simply unsustainable.
I read somewhere recently, how one of the left's favorite countries to compare the U.S. to is the Swiss, especially as it relates to registering all weapons, apparently just voted down yet another liberal pillar....the single payer government run health care system, and keeping an all private system that its been running for ..... a looooong time. Add to that how they voted down a raise in the minimum wage and voted down an attempt to implement higher taxes on "the rich", just becasue they are, has me thinking about possibly investing in a nice Swiss Chalet now ;-)
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Yeah. you should go do that.
The most conservative parties in Switzerland are to the LEFT of US Democrats, by the way.
And no, Switzerland is not going to collapse, either.
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Who said Switzerland was going to collapse? On the contrary, the electorate there seems to be the most rational group in all of Europe, as they vote down more and more progressive liberal/socialist efforts to expand. HARDLY to the left of DC Democrats ::)
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Go there and find out for yourself, genius.
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Don't need to...I can read how they're voting
- Voted down a minimum wage increase
- Voted down increased taxation of "the rich"
and my favorite
- just voted down a single payer government run healthcare system, in order to keep to their ALL PRIVATE healthcare
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, especially as it relates to registering all weapons, .....
I think this is an error, they register certain classes of firearm .
Such that a revolver or shotgun would not need to be registered , but an M-1 would be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
This website is of the Swiss equivalent of the NRA.
http://www.protell.ch/de/
There was an increase in gun registration in 2008, with little effect on anything.
I think the Swiss were behaving pretty well without the regulation.
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I sit corrected Plane, thanks.
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Simply unsustainable.
That's why liberalism is a myth....a fraud doctrine...
it is unsustainable to pretend money grows on trees
and that the Gvt is Santa Claus to hand out "Free Goodies".
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And here's a few more fraudulant premises that the liberal left employs, on the social side. As accurately referenced by John Hawkins:
….If you oppose illegal immigration, you must hate Hispanics.
….If you oppose Affirmative Action, you must hate blacks.
….If you oppose free birth control, you must hate women.
….If you’re concerned about radical Islam, you must hate all Muslims.
….If you oppose gay marriage, you must hate gays.
Yet, liberalism promotes those lies incessantly to keep people at each other’s throats. Liberals have to convince their supporters that they’re hated for who they are to keep them from asking uncomfortable questions about why liberalism fails, both economically & socially and conservatism works
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Switzerland's biggest problem in recent years is that the Swiss Franc has become very popular to the degree that its value has soared. This has made Swiss products so expensive that have difficulty competing. Switzerland is a small nation and not a member of the EC.
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Ummm....ok
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I think conservatism can fail in different ways than liberalism.
The most rational thing to do would be to evaluate every idea on practicality on its own merits.
But there is a team to join , and without team play nothing gets done and no one gets elected.
So you wind up with a system too pure to work, pretty often.
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I don't think one calls Switzerland a "Model Welfare State" Nowhere in this screed did it say that Switzerland was having trouble sustaining itself, either.
Switzerland has a national health plan uses private insurance companies, rather than a government-run plan. That is why it referred ti so often.
The Swiss Franc is a strong currency,and that has attracted lots of people to buy Swiss Francs, which are therefore in short supply, and therefore have increased in value. That makes Swiss watches, chocolates, army knives and other exports expensive and non-competitive. This is NOT the fault of Socialism or of the Swiss at all. They are being punished for managing their Franc better than Europe does the Euro or Hungary does the Florin, and so forth.
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Yes the Swiss cannot live in a vacuum, their economy is interdependent even if they try not to be.
What is the rest of Europe doing that they could have done better?
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I don't think it is accurate to say that European countries have failed. They have a smaller percentage of poor people as well as a much smaller percentage of their citizens in jail than the US. They take often four weeks of vacation each year, and do not have to worry about going bankrupt due to illness.
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Recently they seemed on the verge of collapse, but they did get their act together and tightened up and are much better now.
Did they get better through austerity?
I think that there is a level of Socialism that can be supported by the productive part of society . Europe must be marking the edge between as much socialism as can be supported and the amount that cannot be sustained,
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Greece could be an example, but the problem with Greece is not mostly socialism, but tax evasion.
Greece was taking advantage of the Euro being a rather stable currency, and the Greek style of governance has been pretty much the opposite. The Germans are great admirers of the Greeks, because mostly of ancient history and perhaps being seen as a bulwark against Miuslims in general and Turks in particular. One could argue that Greece was allowed into the EC and the Eurozone for ornamental purposes.
The individual and the family and public services are better and more uniform in the EC if you compare it to the US. We have many times the natural resources in the US, we have a longer growing season and better weather, and should be ahead of the Europeans in everything, but the fact is that we are not.
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We have been subsidizing them for decades.
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We have NOT been subsidizing Greece.
We have troops in Germany, and Germany pays the freight.
The entire world pays the US simply because the dollar is the currency of world commerce.
They don't pay you or me, but they do pay American banks.
The Federal Reserve is not exactly a part of government, remember.
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We subsidize all of NATO.
If the US stops providing military might on their behalf they would have to carry a much bigger load of defense expenditure.
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What, precisely, are we defending them against? Putin? The boogieman?
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What we are "defending", as per the origination of the thread, is the boogieman referred to as the "modern welfare state", (aka liberalism <--> socialism), specifically the unsustainability of either, as a functional governmental system. Sure it could, but at the very expense of what this country holds to dearly, freedom. Be it economic freedom, religious freedom, or political freedom. And no, that doesn't equate that we, or the European countries are functioning like Stalinist Russia or Fascist Germany, only that those practices and policies that Europe is trying to model is demonstrating its financial unsustainability. And no amount of "taxing the rich" is going to fix it.
It's also why the Swiss electorate debunks you're notion that the most conservative of them run left of our DC Democrats, by voting down the very same efforts, the left is trying to push here. So you can keep the 4wks of vacation a year, and I'll go with the more economic & political freedom here
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Yes.
Before there were Americans , how many fifty year periods were there in European history without a land grab between them?
We have protected Europeans from Europeans and from their East for seventy years.
Soon after we stop , they are very likely to revert to their normal behavior, and if they do not , their Eastern flank will become the growth frontier of the people there.
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The entire world pays the US simply because the dollar is the currency of world commerce.
They don't pay you or me, but they do pay American banks.
The Federal Reserve is not exactly a part of government, remember.
This is not true.
The dollars that are paid to England are English property until they use it to pay someone else.
The exchanges of Dollars between third parties pay no American anything.
When a dollar that has been used in international trade returns to the US it will be in exchange for a service or trade item. Wheat or Chicken or a movie. This is an exchange of value which gives us no advantage over use of Euros or gold or whatever.
The exception is that inflation is a sort of tax that the government benefits from , but so does anyone who owes a debt in dollars . The reason that the Dollar is so popular is that it is less prone to this sort of inflation than most of the alternatives.
The Chinese have for several years thought it smart to fix the value of their own currency as a value in US dollars, but they do not pay any rent for this service.
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What, precisely, are we defending them against? Putin? The boogieman?
Notice the keen change of subject?
Plane says we subsidize Europe via Nato.
Instead of admitting that truth..that the US pays the bill.
XO changes the subject and questions why we do that.
Which is a completely different subject.
The point is Plane was correct,
but rather than admit that...XO changed the subject.
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SOP
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If we are not defending them against any danger, then we are wasting our money. That is not changing the subject, it is questioning whether what we are doing is even necessary. And no, we are not defending them from one another, that is just stupid. The Europeans learned their lesson in WWII.
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Piffle
The Europeans learned in WWI the lesson of how do do it better and faster in wwII!
What did the Ruyssian Europeans learn in WWII?
European habits are pretty hard to break , if they have learned that democracy is peace they might have some.
If they still think wealth is peace they are going to start stealing it from each other again.
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So now you are an expert on Europeans.
Europeans manage their own countries in the way that the citizens wish in the countries that have democratic elections (which is most of them).
The Netherlands is apparently managed so well that one never hears the names of the politicians running it, or their political parties.
The economic system of the US cannot sustain itself, nor can that of any country in which stability depends on growth. Eventually the resources top grow are no longer available, or the population has outgrown the resources. This is true of nearly every planet on the globe, but especially those that do not recycle or conserve.
I have no idea of who pays the bill for NATO and neither do you.
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So now you are an expert on Europeans.
And yet another deflection. You're no expert on Healthcare.....does that make any opinions on the matter invalid? Not to be considered? You're no expert on the military, having never served. So should we can ignore any and all comments you may have that topic? You're not a politician either, yet you opine incessantly on them, in particular, Republicans. You're obviously no expert, so....we should be considering all those commentaries null & void??
I have no idea of who pays the bill for NATO and neither do you.
Actually, we do:
(http://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pictures/stock_2014/20140611_140601_NATO_common_funded_budgets_2014-2015.jpg)
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So now you are an expert on Europeans.
I have been to Europe.
The place is loaded with people who have a hopelessly provincial world view .
And they think they know Americans well because they have watched a lot of our movies.
They are mostly Democratic right now, but with the exception of Greece and Switzerland this is pretty recent, and only Switzerland seems to have found a formula for stability.
Are you not sure that democracy is present in places like Italy and Germany because there were Americans force feeding it to them one generation ago?
Are you certain that democracy doesn't exist in places like Poland because there was American influence and threat?
The end of WWI demonstrated the value of European style diplomacy, The aftermath of WWII demonstrated the value of a much more intrusive, assertive American presence.
You know ,I suppose , that European diplomats almost killed Woodrow Wilson ?
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Were you visiting the Europe on Planet Earth?
Every country in Europe is stable. They all have elections, none have coups, and the parties that are in often are followed by the opposition. In Europe you can actually vote for a party that has most of your beliefs. In the US we have two parties, and one of them is so replete with assholes that I would never even consider voting for it. Europeans compromise and they allow for differences of opinion. This country is hideously polarized. Europeans nearly all speak two or three languages. Americans are the provincial ones. They took Spanish/French in High school and have difficulty with menus at McDonalds.
The only real dictatorship in Europe is Belarus. The Russians certainly have difficulties with basic concepts at present, but Russia does have elections.
The French and the Italians did not need the American CIA plotting to keep the Christian Democrats in Italy and the Gaullists in power for so long. The CIA was the major OBSTACLE to democracy in France and Italy. The bought off the press, they did all sorts of dirty tricks.
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Almost killed Woodrow Wilson! The Horror! The Horror!
I am sure that is breaking news. Wilson was president when my father, who would be 112 years old, was a teenager.
The US had no business involving itself in WWI. This was done so that the Brits would be able to pay the House of Morgan all the money they borrowed.
Most of the casualties in WWI were the result of truly idiotic generals, very few of whom were ever close enough to a battle to be harmed
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You may brag of modern Europe.
But so may Uncle Sam who taught them how.
How much of what you are positing was true at any time before 1945?
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I cannot visit Europe before 1945.
I can only visit the Europe that exists NOW.
The US helped (with huge assistance from the Soviets) to remove Hitler. The Marshall Plan refinanced the rebuilding of Europe. Europeans did most of the rest. And it was Ger,ans, not that damned old Reagan that tore down the wall.
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Professor Literal strikes again ::)
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It is literally true that no one can visit the Europe of 1945.
It is also literally true that Reagan had very little to do with the end of the Berlin Wall.
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And Plane didn't actually expect you to jump into a time machine when he was rhetorically asking the question. And no, Reagan wasn't one of those literally taking down the wall, but his policies and his bully pulpit definately helped
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So it was a dumb question, wasn't it?
The one person who was most influential in bringing down thew Berlin Wall, was Gorbachov, who decided not to send Soviet troops to prevent the wall from being torn down. It is somewhat problematical if the troops would have obeyed him, I suppose, but he was tired of Russia always being the Bad Guy. His attitude would not have changed if President Mondale had been in office.
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No it wasn't. It was rhetorical. Context Professor Literal
And no one claimed Reagan alone brought the wall down. Merely that he had a distinctive role in it
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I did not claim at any point that anything I said was valid before 1945.
I was not referring to the Europe of 69 years ago.
The countries are different and so are nearly all of the people that inhabit them.
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AND NO ONE SAID YOU DID? Good gravy
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I did not claim at any point that anything I said was valid before 1945.
I was not referring to the Europe of 69 years ago.
The countries are different and so are nearly all of the people that inhabit them.
There it is!
Europe has become a pretty decent place , during the time that it was occupied by the US.
All previous times may very well be forgotten, the best history they have ever had is recent.
The Soviets , just to make the experiment valid , kept about half of Europe strictly under European control, there was a certain number of people who tried to leave the American occupied area and live in the USSR dominated area, but the number that preferred the American way of occupation was orders of magnitude greater and necessitated the building of a wall to prevent the depopulation of the East.
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Europe is not presently under American control.that is just silly.
The Russians are not exactly typical Europeans, nor do the think like Europeans.
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I didn't say "control" did I?
I started with subsidy and wound up with occupation, I don't know where you get the silly "control" idea, we never controlled them very much .
In Japan we exercised real control , briefly, since then the Japanese have used the tools we forged .
Europe has had a golden age , in which its military responsibility and internal conflict was not only focused but subsidized by American cash and manpower.
This is drawing to a close , I think we will live to see the dissolution of NATO, and then we will learn whether Europeans have the power of will and memory to keep the balance without us holding them up.
We are like a parent launching a kid on its bicycle , there is some risk , but we can swell with pride to see them stabilize and speed up as we let them go.
Unless of course the Caliphate achieves its aims and captures a lot of that territory and sells everyone that they do not kill into slavery.
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You said we occupied Europe. I assume you refer to the present day, since we still have troops in Germany and several other places. If that is not control, how do you think that Europe benefits from it?
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Firstly , their armed forces are much smaller than they would need to be without us.
Europe has enjoyed this advantage on our coin since 1918.
Secondly they have learned enough about how we do things to emulate the better parts.
There is hardly any excuse for them to not do better.
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How many troops does Belgium need to prevent it from being invaded? No Belgian army has ever successfully prevented Belgium from being overrun. No one has wanted to overrun Belgium for the past 69 years. The same is true of the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway.
These countries are not currently having any more difficulty sustaining themselves than the US is having. You cannot name the leaders of any of these countries, can you?
Why is that? Because they are very well run and there have been no serious scandals in any of them.
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No one has wanted to overrun Belgium for the past 69 years.
You mean the NATO period?
You are welcome Belgium.
The army in Belgium is a famous joke , they know that they are not depending on their own military power at all.
Seventy years ago , when they were still serious colonizers, they had a serious army, but they were using it in the Congo, even if it had all been at home , it might not have been enough anyway, their invader was an order of magnitude, or better ,stronger.
Norway was secretly a good ally during WWII , whatever happened to Quisling anyway?
He was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress, Oslo, on 24 October 1945.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling
Hmmm.... about as I expected.
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You keeop referencing a great point Plane. The vast majority of these "successful" countries need only spend a fraction of a fraction of their country's budget on their military or defense needs....specifically because of the U.S. & NATO. We're not supposed to be the global police, but countries, just like Belgium welcome and even expect it. That way, the vast majority of their budgets can go into social engineering & related programs.
No one wants to overrun Belgium, or any other country, because of the presence of the U.S. as well as NATO. Everyone saw what happened to Iraq, when they tried it. Of course now, with the new placating policies being put in place, countries like China, Russia, and North Korea feel embolden, especially when they see how ISIS can make such geographical gains, despite our "military presence"
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So, are your saying that but for NATO and the US, Belgium would be overrun by North Korea, China or Russia?
I find that rather unlikely.
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Did I say that? I think not
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So, are your saying that but for NATO and the US, Belgium would be overrun by North Korea, China or Russia?
I find that rather unlikely.
Why do you find it unlikely?
Didn't something like that happen to Poland in an eastward direction , then a westward direction? ?
Didn't something like that happen twice in Belgium early in each WW?
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There is no longer such a threat to Belgium
Or Poland.
This is not 1939
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And as Plane accurately referenced....."Thank you, U.S. & Nato"
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I am sure Belgium appreciates you and Plane thanking the US for them.
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Our pleasure
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There is no longer such a threat to Belgium
Or Poland.
This is not 1939
Yes , but does this prove your point or mine?
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Mine, of course.
The defeat of Hitler ended rabid nationalism. And the Soviets probably did more to bring him down than the Americans. They certainly lost more lives.
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If the Soviet effort had been as well run as the American Army they might not have lost more territory during the war than anyone else. The Soviet soldier was incredibly tough but very poorly led and supplied, a lot of their worth was wasted .
You could argue that strategic retreat is a winning strategy when there is plenty of ground to give up and other circumstances are improving...
But.. Stalin specifically forbade retreat in any form , and ran the war like an idiot. The purges that he had just conducted prior to the invasion of the USSR didn't only get rid of officers that had disloyalty , it also got rid of officers with good education and spine.
The Russian weather did more to defeat the Nazis than the Soviet leadership , what would the Soviet situation have been if operation Barbarossa had been carried on with twice the amount of aircover and many more soldiers on the ground? If the RAF had not done so well during the earlier Battle of Briton, the Nazis would have not needed to leave so much airforce west of this action, and would not have needed so many soldiers left in France . So the damage done to the USSR early in the invasion was reduced by the RAF than it was by the Soviet Army.
Why did WWI promote rabid nationalism and WWII brought it down?
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After WWI the mantra was that empires caused the war and should be abolished. Every nationality should have its own country.
This evolved into rabid nationalism, Italian empire building and then German empire building.
Fascism and Nazism were the syntheses of Empires and nationalism. WWII demonstrated that this would result in the destruction of the continent, because that was what it did. The new syntheses was that countries should ally themselves of their own free will and economically, rather than politically. That is what the EU is. a free economic alliance in which no nation gets to claim superiority over any other.
Action-> reaction -> syntheses. That is the way history functions.
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The new syntheses was that countries should ally themselves of their own free will and economically, rather than politically.
That is what the EU is. a free economic alliance in which no nation gets to claim superiority over any other.
And this IN MY OPINION is what fuels our open border policy.
This is the reason there are more than 20 million illegals in our counrty.
This is the reason you hear "Press 1 For English" more now than ever.
The Oligarchy years ago decided that there is no way the citizens of the US would vote in a "EU like" system for the US/Central America.
So the way around the vote is to flood the US with illegals for a few decades and "Central America-ize" many parts of the US.
There are parts of Dallas that resemble Central America already.
So if you can't win at the ballot box the Oligarchy makes it work without a vote.
The Oilgarchy foresees a day when the US, Central America, and probably Canada are like an EU zone.
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There is no "Open Border Policy". Just walk into Mexico and try to get back into the US without going through the Border checkpoints. I bet you cannot do it. I bet you realize that this is so difficult that you will not even bother to try.
Observe the traffic that comes across from both directions at McAllen or Laredo. How would you manage to shut that border so that no one gets through?
Not even the Volkspolizei in East Germany ever successfully sealed the border between the two Germanies.
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You continuously & purposely try to blurr legal vs illegal entry into this country. Once you can get your head around the difference, you'll be able to be taken more seriously, on this topic.
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The legal traffic is immense, and consists of many containers on semi trailers, far too many for customs to inspect each one.
There is no "Open Border Policy" At any given moment there will be a line of people seeking visas several blocks long in from of every American Consulate in Latin America. There is a large fee that must be paid to apply for a visitor's visa, over $150 US. If the visa is denied, the consulate keeps the money and the applicant gets nothing.
People pay as much as $3000 to get smuggled into the US. If there were "Open Borders", no one would waste that much money.
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And legal immigration is perfectly rational to discuss compared to illegal immigration, to which Cu4 was eluding to, as it relates to the "open borders" twits
And under the current circumstances, of both increased terrorist activity + a potenally fatal pandemic virus, that comes from outside of this country, makes enforcing our borders THAT MUCH MORE IMPORTANT, vs the nonsense of open borders and trying to make it even easier to get into this country
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This country does not have open borders. That is crap.
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Professor literal strikes again ::)
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Action-> reaction -> syntheses. That is the way history functions.
I don't think that " History" functions. History is actually mindless, only God could know .
Sometimes large groups or even populations reach consensus, but the learning curve on large populations is ridiculously long.
I do not agree with your evaluation of the European attitude at the end of WWI. The surviving empires cut up the properties of the expiring empires and remained just as Colonialist as ever.
Empires are not separate from Nationalism, they overlap quite a bit.
After WWI the mantra was that empires caused the war and should be abolished. Every nationality should have its own country.
This evolved into rabid nationalism, Italian empire building and then German empire building.
Yes to the nationalism and the empire building, but do not leave out the Belgians, English, French and Soviets.
How is this construed as the end of Imperialism?
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Human history functions in a predictable way, just as moths function in a predictable way. Human beings are social animals and act with in parameters of their design. Nature is not entirely random, there are patterns.
If God knows the future, then we have no free will. We will only do what is already in God's mind. So if there is a supreme being, I choose to believe that he is as ignorant of the absolute future as I am.
Russia is the only country that is even remotely like an empire today,in that it has many nationalities that do not have the option of becoming independent.On the other hand, they do have elective self-governance, unlike the pre-WWI empires.
After WWI, the remaining empires were England, Portugal and France. I think Spain had some territory in Morocco it no longer has, and I think there were small Italian colonies in Libya and Somaliland. The Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire was disbanded. Russia lost Poland, the Baltics and Finland.
The Empires in Europe were disbanded, other than the British in Ireland, which they gave up in 1921.
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Human history functions in a predictable way, just as moths function in a predictable way. Human beings are social animals and act with in parameters of their design. Nature is not entirely random, there are patterns.
Interesting idea, but it doesn't seem to be true, Humans struggle and strive, history is mindless , unless there is God as a director. If God knows the future, then we have no free will.
No this is a false dichotomy. If I understood you so well that I could predict you , that would not be the same thing as controlling you, also if I were able to observe your behavior for all time and communicate across time this would give me knowledge of your choices without control of them. . We will only do what is already in God's mind. So if there is a supreme being, I choose to believe that he is as ignorant of the absolute future as I am..
What does this choice improve? How does your choice influence what is true?
Russia is the only country that is even remotely like an empire today,in that it has many nationalities that do not have the option of becoming independent.On the other hand, they do have elective self-governance, unlike the pre-WWI empires..
Just wait until the Caliphate gets rolling, as an idea Imperialism isn't dying, Also China / Tibet.
After WWI, the remaining empires were England, Portugal and France. I think Spain had some territory in Morocco it no longer has, and I think there were small Italian colonies in Libya and Somaliland. The Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire was disbanded. Russia lost Poland, the Baltics and Finland.
The Empires in Europe were disbanded, other than the British in Ireland, which they gave up in 1921.
Why do the colonies outside of Europe count differently?
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WWI was fought over European territory, which was important to Europeans. The overseas possessions were only important to the few who profited from importing and exporting from them. Any disagreements were easily settled by treaties, That was the reality of the times.
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Any disagreements were easily settled by treaties, That was the reality of the times.
You realize how tweaked a statement that is, correct? Was there not a "treaty", following WWI, that specifically limited the size and weight of German Battleships?? Treaties are merely a piece of paper. There is no obligation that a country adhere to one......unless there are serious and tangible military repercussions. Simply holding your breath, stomping up & down, and saying "you're cheating.....you shouldn't do that", is going to accomplish squat
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WWI was fought over European territory, which was important to Europeans. The overseas possessions were only important to the few who profited from importing and exporting from them. Any disagreements were easily settled by treaties, That was the reality of the times.
Land grabs in Europe started again with the Treaty of Versailles which distributed some captured plums from the losers to the winners.
Resentment of the Germans at the terms of this treaty was one of the factors that led to the repeat .
Whatever Europe did learn from WWI, they didn't learn to make good treaties.
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The treaties signed after WWI stalled countries in building weapons and all manner of battleships. The Germans did not have an adequate number of battleships at any point during the war to compete with the British.
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Not the point now, is it. Your rationalizations aside, the point is that trying to claim treaties are all that's needed to address & settle some issue easily, is bunk, when any country can simply ignore it
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Treaties signed after WWI being enforced or not is NOT the point of this discussion, either.
The treaties also involved several other types of weapons that Germany was not to be allowed to have. The proper time for France & England to act was when the Germans marched into the Ruhr Valley. At that time they lacked the weapons to take it by force, had there been any force.
In any case, if the European countries cannot sustain themselves, neither can the US. Our economic system requires a growing population, and since resources are limited, eventually the US will no longer be able to do this. Perhaps Iceland has a sustainable economic system, but I am pretty sure that most of Europe, the US and most of the rest of the world does not.
And whether "American Liberals" love something is entirely beside the point and has no effect , either.
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Treaties signed after WWI being enforced or not is NOT the point of this discussion, either.
Actually, it is, when you brought them up as some supposed panacea to problems & disagreements. Sorry to say, they're not, WITHOUT some more of severe military &/or economical repercussions, should one of the parties decide they no longer need to abide by it. That's in response to the point that you brought up
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Why don't you go back and follow the thread of this and see for yourself?
Not all treaties are broken. There are many concerning the borders of theis country, Canada and Mexico that have been followed over the years.
But that was not the main point of this discussion.
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One more time, I wasn't addressing the point of the thread. I was addressing your tangent regarding the notion that treaties alone suffice in dealing with disagreements between countries
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Treaties signed after WWI being enforced or not is NOT the point of this discussion, either.
The treaties also involved several other types of weapons that Germany was not to be allowed to have. The proper time for France & England to act was when the Germans marched into the Ruhr Valley. At that time they lacked the weapons to take it by force, had there been any force.
In any case, if the European countries cannot sustain themselves, neither can the US. Our economic system requires a growing population, and since resources are limited, eventually the US will no longer be able to do this. Perhaps Iceland has a sustainable economic system, but I am pretty sure that most of Europe, the US and most of the rest of the world does not.
And whether "American Liberals" love something is entirely beside the point and has no effect , either.
That WWII did happen , and that the Germans did make a serious dent on the defenses of the rest of Europe proves that the Treaty of Versailles was more a problem than a solution.
Our economic system requires a growing population, and since resources are limited, eventually the US will no longer be able to do this.
No.
Our economic system could easily cope with shrinking, many businesses "right size" themselves to improve their situation, even if they are reluctant to do it , it is practically a standard practice .
Our Government and social spending cannot cope with shrinking, but why can't it be changed to be able to shrink?
I think you have a misconception that the government is a part of our economic system.
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The government is a part of our economic system. The Fed Chair is appointed by the President, just for starters.
When the government had nothing to do with the economic system, there were panics, recessions, crises, and depressions every 7-10 years. History is evidence of this.
Mother nature has a way of telling people not to drink methyl alcohol. If you do this they go blind and die.
Capitalism tells people not to speculate too wildly. When too many people cannot resist the urge, which always happens, the economy goes bust and everyone pays the price.
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The government is a part of our economic system.
Yes , the way that you are a part of your car.
The demise of one might cause the demise of the other, or unrelated things can end one without faulting the other.
Governments have many times been changed out without changing the economy of the country much.
Economic change happens without government danger sometimes too.
What has to happen for someone else to drive your car? A revolution?
Not so much , Brazil reformed its government management of currency a few years ago , just by appointing a few whiz kids to replace the stupid parts.
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Your analogy is absurd and it sucks.
Brazil manages its currency just as every other country does.
The exchanged New Cruzeiros for Reals at a specific ratio.
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The exchanged New Cruzeiros for Reals at a specific ratio.
They did , but in the process ended a spiral of inflation with an ingenious trick.
It was practically the application of the placebo effect to an entire nation.
It is a great story.
I will see if I can find it again.
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The point I was making is that it was the GOVERNMENT of Brazil that did this. You claim that the government is NOT a part of the economic system. I claim that this si balderdash. The government does not entirely control the economic system, but it is certainly a part of it.
If you claim that the government does not affect the economic system, tell all the right wing weenies that they have no business accusing Obama of being a poor manager of the economy. You cannot have it both ways.
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So your point is that President Obama is a poor manager of the economy ?
I can certainly go along with that.
The point I was making is that it was the GOVERNMENT of Brazil that did this. You claim that the government is NOT a part of the economic system. I claim that this si balderdash. The government does not entirely control the economic system, but it is certainly a part of it.
Yes , the way that you are a part of your car.
The government of Brazil and the people of Brazil were having a lot of problems with inflation, a crew of whiz kids fixed it.
Did this require the government to fix?
Yes , the same reason it required the government to goof it up.
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That is a terrible analogy and makes no sense at all.
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Then I have done a bad job of explaining that "the economy" and "the government" can be considered independently.
Sorry , I tried.
Do you have trouble thinking of "the government" and "the society" or "the nation" or 'the people " as terms for things that can be considered separately?
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Not entirely independently, because all these things are interrelated.
None of these can be entirely understood independently.
You can try, but you will never succeed at understanding these separately, because they are connected.
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That is fair.
But I consider my point to be valid , that "the economy" is not "the government " .
Also "the economy" is not a function of "the government ".
If your point is that the government has a strong effect on the economy , this I do accept as true, I might even accept that the economy has an effect on the government .
What I didn't accept was the idea that the economy didn't exist independently from the government.
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The economy and the government are intertwined everywhere.
In small countries, people realize that the government has little control over some things.
For example, in Costa Rica, the world price of coffee affects the economy severely, and often some insect or roya (fungus/rust) in a place like Brazil scan make coffee prices rise rapidly, as is about to happen. When the disease has been overcome, the Costa Ricans will have a minor economic crisis. As a rule, the two parties interchange positions every term.
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Intertwined and even interdependent I admit .
But different in nature enough that thinking them the same thing or even parts of a larger whole is a mistake.
How do you consider the global economy?
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The global economy is, of course a hodgepodge of different influences, some acting in harmony. probably more in disharmony with one another.
The Argentine peso has been plummeting lately, because Kirchner tried to keep the vultures who speculated in pesos from making the big bucks and keeping the peso at 4 to the dollar at the same time. The IMF is making an example of her. She is none too bright, this has happened before.
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The global economy is, of course a hodgepodge of different influences, some acting in harmony. probably more in disharmony with one another.
Exactly right. And though it is an economy , it hasn't a government of its own.
The Argentine peso has been plummeting lately, because Kirchner tried to keep the vultures who speculated in pesos from making the big bucks and keeping the peso at 4 to the dollar at the same time. The IMF is making an example of her. She is none too bright, this has happened before.
Currency speculators are not being productive in any normal sense , but the vultures do keep governments from getting away with ridiculous fiat valuations.