I don't think Socialist means what you think it means. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_countries]VaderMan92 said:Tax breaks in a socialist country? *manic laughter*
I don't think Socialist means what you think it means. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_countries]VaderMan92 said:Tax breaks in a socialist country? *manic laughter*
Excuse me, but you you think that the solution to resources going to the East can be found through... war? Sure, Iraq went rather well, didn't it?Therumancer said:One of the reasons why I'm a militant is because I think that while everyone hates war, violence solves problems. Understand that there are only so many resources in the world right now, and the problems afflicting the Western world come about at a time when your seeing a massive boom in the Eastern world. China isn't exactly engaging in fair business practices, and engaged in massive patent and copyright thefts. This costs a lot of big businesses a lot of money, and the guys on the top of the food chain certainly don't tighten their belts, they take it out on the workers by cutting hours, laying people off, reducing wages, and going to other nations where labour is cheaper. A lot of people don't like to contemplate what it means, but when you read articles about how the Chinese are driving more, and in the midst of an automobile boom, the resources for that like metal and fuel have to come from somewhere not to mention the money to support it, and that's coming out of our "share" of the resources. You can't produce resources with magic, the only way to get that supply back is pretty much to get it away from them, which of course causes shortages making them rather unhappy with you. Or simply put, it's an irreconcilable problem since it's 'our' economy or theirs, and that's why wars are fought. "we", both the US and Europe on the other hand prefer to look for magical solutions, rather than simply acknowleging that the East-West war people have been foretelling for decades is pretty much here and it's going to be terrible on the level that will make World War I and II look like elementary school plays about rainbows and sunshine.
Simply put China represents roughly 1/3rd of the human population on earth by some estimates. A population that I might add has been living in relative squalor until now (and still does). The great western civilizations came about because of the global resources largely going to the west instead of there. It's not nice, because a lot of people have been screaming about how we need to help those people for a long time, but on a pragmatic level raising their standard of living means a massive cut in ours accross the board. These things don't happen overnight, and these massive economic problems are the signs of that happening. Of course like most things I don't expect anyone to do anything, and instead we'll all be sitting here whining about how we should have done something when it's too late and clarity sets in with the mainstream.
I don't understand... why are you Brits adopting American-style policies?Wicky_42 said:Lol, I'd say the Tories are making a good stab at getting rid of any semblance of socialism over here - privatise the NHS, raise VAT, lower income tax on the top earners.... it's all a fucking joke.VaderMan92 said:Tax breaks in a socialist country? *manic laughter*
You think the UK is a socialist country? If the UK is socialist then America is communist.VaderMan92 said:Tax breaks in a socialist country? *manic laughter*
It's not us. It's the public school elite who have been gifted power. From April I can't even get a bus after nine o'clock, my tax has rocketed, I have to pay huge import duty on anything I want to buy from overseas, I'm blocked from watching certain videos, I have to prove my age to buy Christmas Crackers, Alcohol, our libraries are being closed, our hospitals have huge waits for basic treatment...and it's purely because a group of greedy bankers didn't do their jobs properly. And have now got paid for doing so. And bonuses.Raiyan 1.0 said:I don't understand... why are you Brits adopting American-style policies?
I dunno much about the UK political scene right now, but I've a fair understanding of your economic situation. And I've to tell you this: UK needs to do what France did - nationalize all the banks that screwed up. No more high-risk banking taking down the entire economy.The_root_of_all_evil said:It's not us. It's the public school elite who have been gifted power. From April I can't even get a bus after nine o'clock, my tax has rocketed, I have to pay huge import duty on anything I want to buy from overseas, I'm blocked from watching certain videos, I have to prove my age to buy Christmas Crackers, Alcohol, our libraries are being closed, our hospitals have huge waits for basic treatment...and it's purely because a group of greedy bankers didn't do their jobs properly. And have now got paid for doing so. And bonuses.Raiyan 1.0 said:I don't understand... why are you Brits adopting American-style policies?
Honestly, the Bookstart program, which gave free books to underpriviledged kids to help the start reading, was nearly cancelled while a few percent of the bonuses paid to banks would have kept it going.
And where's all the money we're donating going? Out of the country.
It's frankly terrifying what the ConDems are doing. We thought that it could only get better after Labour. It's got worse.
I know, right? What the fuck? Guess it's what happens when a bunch of elitist twats get elected on the back of a complacent bunch of warmongers running the economy sideways. Not that they were able to secure a solid majority or anything - they don't have a democratic mandate to do jack shit, really. All in all, our current gov is miserable and pathetic. I want to go move :/ To Canada?Raiyan 1.0 said:I don't understand... why are you Brits adopting American-style policies?Wicky_42 said:Lol, I'd say the Tories are making a good stab at getting rid of any semblance of socialism over here - privatise the NHS, raise VAT, lower income tax on the top earners.... it's all a fucking joke.VaderMan92 said:Tax breaks in a socialist country? *manic laughter*
Raiyan 1.0 said:Excuse me, but you you think that the solution to resources going to the East can be found through... war? Sure, Iraq went rather well, didn't it?Therumancer said:One of the reasons why I'm a militant is because I think that while everyone hates war, violence solves problems. Understand that there are only so many resources in the world right now, and the problems afflicting the Western world come about at a time when your seeing a massive boom in the Eastern world. China isn't exactly engaging in fair business practices, and engaged in massive patent and copyright thefts. This costs a lot of big businesses a lot of money, and the guys on the top of the food chain certainly don't tighten their belts, they take it out on the workers by cutting hours, laying people off, reducing wages, and going to other nations where labour is cheaper. A lot of people don't like to contemplate what it means, but when you read articles about how the Chinese are driving more, and in the midst of an automobile boom, the resources for that like metal and fuel have to come from somewhere not to mention the money to support it, and that's coming out of our "share" of the resources. You can't produce resources with magic, the only way to get that supply back is pretty much to get it away from them, which of course causes shortages making them rather unhappy with you. Or simply put, it's an irreconcilable problem since it's 'our' economy or theirs, and that's why wars are fought. "we", both the US and Europe on the other hand prefer to look for magical solutions, rather than simply acknowleging that the East-West war people have been foretelling for decades is pretty much here and it's going to be terrible on the level that will make World War I and II look like elementary school plays about rainbows and sunshine.
Simply put China represents roughly 1/3rd of the human population on earth by some estimates. A population that I might add has been living in relative squalor until now (and still does). The great western civilizations came about because of the global resources largely going to the west instead of there. It's not nice, because a lot of people have been screaming about how we need to help those people for a long time, but on a pragmatic level raising their standard of living means a massive cut in ours accross the board. These things don't happen overnight, and these massive economic problems are the signs of that happening. Of course like most things I don't expect anyone to do anything, and instead we'll all be sitting here whining about how we should have done something when it's too late and clarity sets in with the mainstream.
The part you're missing is the fact that China isn't diverting resources away from the West - the West is literally handing it to them. Look at your Chamber of Commerce - they're working for the corporates and shipping all the jobs overseas. The upper class, with all their lobbying in policy-making, is to blame entirely. They're not going to consider whether creating jobs in the US is going to keep unemployment low and the economy running - they're going to see where to gain the most profit by seeking lower wages with minimal or virtually no benefits. Over 30% of Apple products are manufactured in China - you think that came out of a competition between East and West? No, the competition actually lies among China, India and the South Americas. Want to fix your economy? Get rid of the corporate-fellating politicians and get your policies right. Remember, even in these tough economic times, the rich keeps getting fatter. The housing bubble bursting hurt you? Well, the high-risk bankers responsible walked away with seven figures.
China stealing your technology? Well, don't give them the chance. Look at the Russians - when they found out the Chinese were copying Sukhoi Su-27 variants, they simply kept the Chinese out of their 5th Generation development process, making India their new partner. What you shouldn't do is help China build the world's fastest supercomputer by exporting the Nvidia Tesla.
And you may want to cut down on military spending. You thought the $700 billion bailout was bad? The US on an average spends over $650 billion annually on military expeditions.
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Of course, they'll be replaced by a bunch of incompetent warmongers and the cycle starts again. Such is British politics.Wicky_42 said:I know, right? What the fuck? Guess it's what happens when a bunch of elitist twats get elected on the back of a complacent bunch of warmongers running the economy sideways. Not that they were able to secure a solid majority or anything - they don't have a democratic mandate to do jack shit, really. All in all, our current gov is miserable and pathetic. I want to go move :/ To Canada?Raiyan 1.0 said:I don't understand... why are you Brits adopting American-style policies?Wicky_42 said:Lol, I'd say the Tories are making a good stab at getting rid of any semblance of socialism over here - privatise the NHS, raise VAT, lower income tax on the top earners.... it's all a fucking joke.VaderMan92 said:Tax breaks in a socialist country? *manic laughter*
No, the problem with the Iraq War was not that you guys put ridiculous conditions for victory. Saddam's army was down the moment his air support was gone. Victory was achieved years ago. The problem was the goal itself - occupation and setting up a puppet regime. And how do you exactly plan to set up an occupation by carpet bombing? And Al Qaeda? Only about 5% of the forces the US was fighting was Al Qaeda - the rest were all nationalist movements. Hell, the Taliban wanted to hand over Bin Laden before the Afghan invasion, but Clinton's surplus was apparently just sitting around wanting to be wasted on pointless wars.Therumancer said:The only real problem with the US military as I was saying is that we don't use it effectively. Iraq and the entire "War On Terror" is a problem because we put ridiculous conditions for victory on ourselves, trying to "win the peace" instead of just going in, decimating the region, and going home. The reason of course being moral since we feel we can't kill civilians or break cultures. Short of someone trying to invade us outright, our military really isn't going to act effectively. After all our tools are designed to wipe out towns and cities with minimal effort, when we go in man to man, we lost a lot of that advantage. Weapons like Daisy Cutters and the like were not developed with modern morality in mind, yet they represent a backbone of our military force and the jutification for replacing manpower with technolgy which requires us to call out our reserves to deal with the current conflict. "Well, we don't need tons of infantry when we can carpet bomb" doesn't hold water when your not willing to actually carpet bomb.
As far as China goes, the big issue with them is not us giving them technology so much as they reverse engineering or counterfeiting products. One big issue was the drug Viagra, which they pretty much analyzed, and duplicated, and then started releasing for a fraction of the costs the guys who developed it want. In cases like drug companies, there is frequently a goverment stake in them and the goverment gets a share of their profits in exchange for money and resources it donates towards the development. Not to mention the taxes it loses out on from lost sales.
Other issues are things like knocking off clothing, China is infamous for doing things like duplicating the registered styles of a garmet producer like Calvin Klein and then selling the clothing for a fraction of the price, with a false label attached to it saying that's what it is. This costs the artists/fashion designers a lot of money, as well as again lost sales.
There are some technologies that could be more carefully regulated and controlled, there is some truth to that, but the problem is that anything availible on the consumer market can be reverse engineered and duplicated. What prevents this is patent laws and copyrights, which robber economies by definition do not follow by saying they are not binding under their internal laws. With the amounts of money to be made, and the markets for knockoffs throughout the second and third world, the only real viable option in such cases is to force them to stop. Of course given that this would require decimating a good portion of the world population, as well as putting our own lives at stake, nobody much cares to do so. Even when China is building up a substantial military, including a navy to move it's troops and a very scary submarine screening element (look up the Yuan class submarine), along with a lot of people down there talking about how they want to conquer other nations for living space when they are ready. It doesn't last in the media very long when it comes out, but every once in a while you get videos showing a peek behind the "Bamboo Curtain" and let's just say I think we're in denial, waiting for them to throw the first punch which is pretty stupid.
The problem with changing international business policies and outsourcing, which is actually a whole differant issue, is that it's difficult to put the genie back into the bottle so to speak. With the people already out there we have few options on the table that aren't extremely military since we can't really force businesses to do something against their own interests, and closing US markets in an attempt to force them back is the stupid move a lot of US competitors are praying for since that would mean those businesses would just transfer their business to the next most profitable market. Then we'll see a transfer of financial power from Wall Street to say the European Common Market. This is an entirely differant arguement though which I won't go into, and we're getting further and further off topic.
Raiyan 1.0 said:[q
No, the problem with the Iraq War was not that you guys put ridiculous conditions for victory. Saddam's army was down the moment his air support was gone. Victory was achieved years ago. The problem was the goal itself - occupation and setting up a puppet regime. And how do you exactly plan to set up an occupation by carpet bombing? And Al Qaeda? Only about 5% of the forces the US was fighting was Al Qaeda - the rest were all nationalist movements. Hell, the Taliban wanted to hand over Bin Laden before the Afghan invasion, but Clinton's surplus was apparently just sitting around wanting to be wasted on pointless wars.
Also, your readiness to go to war and 'decimate an entire region' as a solution is rather... disturbing.
As for your argument on knock-offs, I assure you: Chinese fake brands (especially clothes) sold in the third world countries are no sales lost for the original manufacturers. Those people wouldn't be able to afford the expensive products in the first place.
As for Chinese products sold in the US, remember this: the Chinese economy hinges on the US consumers (why do you think China rushed in to bail you guys out after the housing bubble burst?). The government can easily create a closed economy where knock-offs and reverse engineered products are banned in the country. And if the idea of a little socialism scares you, remember: nearly all off the economic superpowers e.g. China, India, Japan started off with a closed economy, and opened up to the free market only when the country was ready. And capitalism hasn't exactly served you guys very well lately.
Also, China is all about sabre-rattling. They'll never go to a war in the near future, considering how much their investments are tied up around the world. I doubt they would even make a move against Taiwan - that region is much more profitable to them right now than as a war-torn state. You'll only have have to worry if you plan to invade China. Then you're screwed. Especially with those piece-of-shit F-35s (only 2 A2A missiles? Really?).
Of course, with Faux News and Sarah Palin blaring incessantly, what I'm asking for is next to impossible. But it's a better alternative to a war economy. That only worked once, in WW2, but never again.
Look, I can understand which angle you're tackling this from, and I'm not going to childishly pass a judgement on you as a war monger. You simply see war as inevitable. But there is this one flaw in your argument.Therumancer said:snip
Raiyan 1.0 said:Look, I can understand which angle you're tackling this from, and I'm not going to childishly pass a judgement on you as a war monger. You simply see war as inevitable. But there is this one flaw in your argument.Therumancer said:snip
You see, it's not the merchant's view that makes me believe war isn't coming. It's WMDs that I've my faith in.
Let me clear up on this. I fuckin' love nukes. They have kept us safe through the Cold War. And I believe that they'll keep us safe in the future as well. Nukes just raise the stakes too high, which is why an analogy with a thousand-year-old war doesn't apply. Remember, the Soviet Union was crazy - by the time they were falling apart, they were spending 20% of their GDP on military spendings - and yet the Cold War managed to never turn hot. Comparatively, China is positively mild. They've recently reduced their military expenditure (around 2.0% of total GDP, compared to USA's 4.3%) and, if you've seen the recent WikiLeaks, Chinese policy-makers are trying to distance themselves from N Korea.
The fact is, China has her priorities straight. And the US needs to get her's as well. And while you see another bloody war in the horizon, I, at worst, see a second Cold War.
After checking your links to the Chinese anti-satellite measures (I was aware of the Chinese doing tests by taking down their own satellites), I was reminded of the Boeing X-37 [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1268138/X-37B-unmanned-space-shuttle-launched-tonight.html]. It was a NASA project that was handed over to the USAF and is shrouded in secrecy. Rumors are it will work as a satellite platform and will be able to evade anti-satellite missiles due to its high maneuverability. And if it has a weapons payload, can't see how the Chinese will save themselves from what is virtually a kinetic weapon.Therumancer said:snip
Raiyan 1.0 said:[
Also, like I've said again and again, China will not cause a war simply because they have the most to gain from the current status quo. If there is an aggressor, it'll be the US, as usual.
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