Lil' Johnny Meets the President

[Sabastos]

Nov 1, 2012 0:31:13 GMT The Ruescher Empire said:

Amercians there is an unending amount of insults. Suffice to say no one really likes em But as far as I know we don't really have any exact term....at least not that I know...

You don't say! Americans being disliked? Well, I can't say I blame them. And the Mexicans don't much care for us either. We're surrounded by people who don't like us.

[The Ruescher Empire]

Well it's not that people don't like Mexicans (aside from the Texans) It's more they view them as lazy, or filthy, or something of the like. Personally I think they really need to work on raising standard of living.

As for Americans, I think South Park stated it best:
"Everyone in the world hates America because they don't realize that everyone hates them!"

[Imperator Rex]

I remember those sage words. Ahhh, South Park.

The scary part is that there is probably quite a bit of truth in those words. It happens to be part of playing the role of world policeman. We cannot discount the damage caused by supporting ruthless dictators and oppressive regimes to prevent the spread of Communism. That, of course, was done on twisted logic and misguided good intentions.

[The Ruescher Empire]

America floundered when it began supporting nations/rulers out of fear (i.e. the unknown) rather then principles (i.e. democracy).

[Teleskopia]

What does any of this have to do with Obama? I think our problem is like being an executive in a company. You gain a rep for being a heartless, uncaring jerk because of hard decisions you have to make and that's why people end up hating you.

[The Ruescher Empire]

Yes but Obama doesn't make hard decisions. He simply goes with what others bully him into. Lybia? Bullied into by the rest of NATO then backed out as soon as possible. Healthcare? Bullied into a compromise because he was not willing to draw the line in the sand. Iran? Same thing.

[Exarchos]

This is what Pres Obama and Pres George II have in common. They are told what to do by party big wigs and other influential billionaires and major corporations. Can you imagine George II making any kind of decision the idiot that we was? I don't even think he could decide whether to wipe or wash after taking a dump much less decide on whether Iraq had WMD's or not. Hmmm...makes you think, huh?

[The Ruescher Empire]

Well I have no love for George, but when he set out to do something, it didn't matter what he had to do, but by god he did it. Iraq? Couldn't find real proof, so he used the most hair brained scheme possible to do it! Congress pretty much did as he directed (I'm guessing because he directed so little, but still), and essentially he held a firm grip if nothing else.

[Letor]

This is very true. I believe that many members of the American Congress were accomplices with this. I also believe that the American military had its agenda with arms manufacturers too. This was one big deception to the American public supported by many people in the American Government. I will agree that they needed to remove Saddam Hussein because of the many atrocities he committed against his own people. It is most shameful.

[The Ruescher Empire]

To be honest I think the war in Iraq was a good thing. The way they went about it (occupation) wasn't the greatest, but I think missions like Iraq/Libya are a good thing overall. I think we should be repeating our actions in Libya with Syria right now Just don't try to say it's for WMDs or whatever, just say because it's the right thing to do.

[Xanxabara]

War, war, war. If we're not sending our forces one place, we're sending them somewhere else. I know we have good intentions supporting the oppressed masses in the case of Iraq and later on Libya. I agree Syria will be the next whistle stop in our "world policeman"grand tour. It has to end some time though. I was reading somewhere that in the past, wars were one of the few things that jump started a stagnant economy. WWI and WWII are good examples of this. If it weren't for WWII the Great Depression would have lasted a lot longer than it did. Of course that theory only works if you end up on the winning side of things. In the modern age, I think war does more to hurt the economy than help it. What do you think, TRE?

[The Ruescher Empire]

World policeman grand tour your say Well the US doesn't really like to take that position anymore Even Lybia was handled more by NATO and some Gulf States then the "world policeman" And why should the UN (assuming they can get a UN mandate again like they did in Libya) not police the world? That was its mandate. It was created so that states like the Third Reich didn't rise up again. The only reason we don't have more armed interventions is because the broken system known as the permanent security council veto. If that system didn't exist the UN would function far better and we wouldn't have civil wars where countries use cluster bombs against their own citizens that they are suppose to be representing.

Anyways onto the whole stagnant economy thing. The only reason the American economy is stagnant is due to the ineptitude of its leaders. And WWI the economy was not stagnant, the great powers of the world were in boom times (except Russia anyways, they were struggling terribly with the serfs). Most countries were building up their military for decades, nationalism was huge. WW2 was different of course, mind you the depression was over several years earlier in Germany thanks to Hitler. He did great things for the country before he went in the wrong direction

As for the idea of it happening now? Good luck with that. In WW2 when the massive spending occurred no nation had the severe debt levels they have now. Not only that but social spending before WW2 was at about 20%, where now it is roughly 34%. Not only that but in WW2 taxation of the people was significantly less, so when the war came extra taxes could be levied and spent on the war itself. Not only that but the US managed to raise something like $200 billion in victory bonds, which was about 3/4 of spending from 41-45 for the US. Good luck getting Americans to invest in that now

Finally keep in mind when WW2 started American's Debt to GDP was 45% or so. By the end it was roughly 120%. Now if America's ratio was that good now, there would be no issue. But America is already at 100% debt load without any sort of crisis. A sad state of affairs....

[Marzano]

I'm not an expert on anything in this area but maybe one of the differences between then (WWII) and now is there is no gold standard, even though it was suspended by most major countries in the early 1930"s. I think the problem now is there is no standard of value to base our money. It's too easy to build debt like what we've got now. This is what happened in Mexico in the 80's and 90's. They took out too many loans based on the high price of crude. When the prices dropped, so did the money Mexico needed to pay off its debts. I remember those big silver colored and gold colored 500 and 1000 peso coins and how they would buy only half as much one day then the day before. I could never understand as a kid why it took 1000's of pesos to get one dollar. That's what happed when they'd have a devaluation. It's crazy stuff!

[The Ruescher Empire]

Well the commodity standard which is used now is the only viable standard...the gold standard certainly doesn't work anymore...so we are kinda stuck with it...