by Chicken_Little » Thu 02 Nov 2006, 19:46:21
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JPL', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', '
')Well, here's the problem with taking posession of euros. Where can you spend them?
Why, here in Europe of course - where we have a sound fiscal policy ;o)
Just bear in mind that
The Old European Way of Life is Not Negotiable...
;o) ;o) ;o)
JPL
You're so right.
We were around 2,000 years ago in the same towns and cities as we are now.
We will still be around 1,000 years in the future in the same places, mostly.
America? Don't make me laugh. The place is a joke. No history, no culture, no future.
An absolute craphole, to be frank.
by pup55 » Thu 02 Nov 2006, 21:09:03
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'p')roduce things for the next wave of cosumers
The world's premier supplier of explosives, armaments, fast jets and cruise missiles remains ready to supply its customers with the finest in military gear at bargain prices.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')ingapore as having a better standard of living
I've been to Singapore and I agree that it is quite nice. Weather good, people friendly, food pretty good. Lot of people crammed on to one little island, though. Problem:, it's situated in one of those places in the world that invariably catch a lot of crap when there is any sort of international conflict. In this case, at the foot of the Straits of Malaka, the main oil transit pinch point between Arabia and Japan/the US West Coast. The Japanese well knew this and it was the focus of a lot of attention in December 1941.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'a')bsolute craphole
Tsk Tsk. Like all nations, there are some good places, and some bad. Many places of incomparable beauty, incredible optimism, with a strong, innovative population, who if they would just unplug CNN (the "fear" channel) would be fully capable of overcoming this kind of challenge.
Then again, there's Alabama.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 't')aking posession of euros
by Revi » Sat 04 Nov 2006, 00:16:45
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Chicken_Little', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JPL', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', '
')Well, here's the problem with taking posession of euros. Where can you spend them?
Why, here in Europe of course - where we have a sound fiscal policy ;o)
Just bear in mind that
The Old European Way of Life is Not Negotiable...
;o) ;o) ;o)
JPL
You're so right.
We were around 2,000 years ago in the same towns and cities as we are now.
We will still be around 1,000 years in the future in the same places, mostly.
America? Don't make me laugh. The place is a joke. No history, no culture, no future.
An absolute craphole, to be frank.
I wouldn't be so smug if I was you. We have our own culture here in America like anywhere else in the world. I don't think any place is going to be a picnic in the near future. When our economy goes down it may take a lot of the world with it. Europe is littered with the remains of empires that rose and fell. You have cities that have been pulverized and rebuilt countless times. You know what it's like. It's not going to be fun anywhere.
by pup55 » Sat 04 Nov 2006, 08:12:05
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'w')e have it pretty good here in the US
.
In the grand scheme of things, it is still pretty good most places. Lotta people swimming the Rio Grande every day to get in here.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e were around 2,000 years ago in the same towns and cities as we are now.
There are some parts of this 2000 years that I would not care to repeat. In fact, I would say the last 50 years, after the Europeans got rid of their tyrants and dynasties (and started to imitate America) have been among the most prosperous and peaceful (except for places like Croatia, who were late in getting rid of the tyrants). Anyway, the key to survival for most of those years was being born to the right family.
Mid-14th CenturyHere's another example that comes to mind. The period right after this, the Renaissance, might have made it worth it.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e have our own culture here in America
I have a theory on this. You take your typical European village of the 1830-1860 era. Not enough room for the young people to have a place of their own, people starving (potato famine circa 1830), also the social order really restrictive (unlike the Europe of today). No way to buy a farm, no way to get beyond being an apprentice, if your father was a street sweeper, you will be a street sweeper. If you are lucky enough to be born to an upper crust family, you have it pretty good. Other than that,you were doomed to a boring life, or serving in one of the many armies that was marching through Europe at a given time. Feel free to re-read Dickens this Christmas season, for a refresher on what this era was like.
The most industrious young people get fed up with all of this crap and decide to take off for North America. Also, the lazy slackers, shysters, criminals, and everyone else that refuses to toe the line from a social order standpoint. A lot of people who, by their very nature, do not like being told what to do.
You dump them all onto the east coast. The toughest do not want any part of the cities anyway, and head west. The tougher and/or more eccentric they are, the farther west they get. The slackers and shysters and merchant class stay where they are, reproducing and populating the US northeast. The people that need their space head to Texas and Montana. Then, there's the whole thing in the US southeast: plantations, slavery, etc. and Kinda like Europe, in a way. You better be born to the right family (and with the right skin color). This comes to a screeching halt in 1865. The toughest of those people, also criminals and ex-confederates, head west too. A lot of these guys are responsible for some of the gunfights, etc. that this era was famous for. Some manage to rebuild where they are, and try to maintain the old social order. This lasts overtly until about 1950 when the race riots start (but covertly remains today).
Also, this era was famous for the genocide of the indigenous people, and we feel so bad about this that we now let the survivors run casinos to compensate.
There are periodic influxes of new immigrants. Each bring their special culture and benefits to the parts of the country in which they settle: Irish (political corruption and violence Boston and NY) Italians (mafia, NY and Chicago) Scandinavians (quirky sense of humor and efficient farming techniques, Northern Plains) Germans (incredibly unhealthy food, midwest and central great plains).
Some Blacks flee the south, and settle in the inner cities of the Northern US, and basically have it no better. Others stay where they are. They never get over the civil war/slavery thing. (sorry, no one wants to talk about this but it's true).
And that's pretty much where we are. There has been some mixing since about 1960, the dawn of the Air Conditioning age, which has led the way for suburban redevelopment in the southeast, Florida and Texas. The car culture expands like its cancerous self in California, and elsewhere in the West, where there are plenty of eccentric people to make it thrive. The new wave of immigrants is bringing their own special culture and talents throughout the country (smuggling, drug gangs, violence) as have the generations before it.
So what you have is a big, disorganized country, full of competing forces, tied together by the common bond that we hate to be told what to do. Also, we will not hesitate to resort to various forms of violence if we do not like what we see. These traits have helped us survive and thrive up until now. Whether this lack of social order eventually is our downfall remains to be seen, but it's not in our national character to have one central governing body, and have everybody cooperate cheerfully (like the Swedes), unless it's a real emergency (I am thinking 1941-1945 was the last such test of this, where there was 90% participation in a common effort).
Whether we still have this kind of effort in us is still in question. We had a brief flash of this immediately after 9-11, when 90% of the country was, for an instant, all on the same side. Unfortunately, our "leadership" told us to go shopping, rather than make the changes and sacrifices we are going to have to make to keep the whole thing going as a more or less "unit". At this point, we cannot even muster enough common effort to rebuild one of our largest cities, or two of our three tallest buildings. We will not be able to do this under the current political climate, under which every two years, we are treated to a multi-billion dollar bombardment of negative advertising, telling us that the "other side" is evil, somehow, thus making it impossible for either side to govern once they get elected.
We do not know for sure what is going to happen. The PO community can clearly see the level of seriousness of this threat. One plausible scenario is that we will be shocked into some sort of temporary national unity, like 1941, and accomodate the change that we will have to make to get over the problem. I am thinking if we were Swedes, or Finns, or Danes, this might be more likely to happen. Another is that we will break up into parts, and solve the problem on a regional basis (a reasonable scenario). A third is that a lot of blood will be shed, and we will descend into the chaos that is right below the surface anyway. Frankly, I do not think this to be particularly likely. If the problem is big enough, I think we will be reasonable enough to come together at some level to make the changes we will need to fix it. This may be a lot of really local, small solutions, adding up to the whole.
None of this is an assurance that the country (or countries) that emerge on the other side of this will have any resemblance to the one that goes in. But, our adaptability is one of our strengths.
We will see.
by oilluber » Sat 04 Nov 2006, 19:16:28
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AirlinePilot', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oilluber', 'T')he average american lives like a dog compared to
the avg citizen in an industrialized world like Western
Europe.
Of course, for the rich, America is as beautiful as it appears on
TV to the rest of the world.
That is just probably one of the most ignorant things I have ever seen on here. The average poor person in the US has a higher standard of living than most of the rest of the world save for Europe and a few places like Australia, Japan, and a few of the wealthy Asian nations. Dont kid yourself, there are horible conditions everywhere, but the reality is that even some convicts here live better than free people in many other countries.
.
Hey pilot, did you or can you read what I said ??
Can you read what you said ??
I think you have a problem reading english.
Don't quote me and then say something that is not
in my quote.
I lived in america, and I am talking about the slums in the hillsides and the ghettos. Now go to Germany or Finland or England,,,,,,
now tell me the avg US citizen is better off ??
Hint: they are still in the wild, not being touched by human hands for, in some instances, over a hundred years.
