EU, US, China, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

For any and all other discussion, i.e., not relating to Star Wars or Star Trek or standards of evidence. A reminder: Don't spam, don't flame, and stay reasonable.

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:28 am

Picard wrote:I agree that Eu vs US is unlikely. But EU & US vs someone else is quite likely. And while US is currently only superpower in world, Russia, China, India and Brasil have potential to become that in next century, and EU is hoping for that too.

As for US and China, I'm a bit confused - US is pressing China to spend more and more money on weapons, and China is doing same to US. Who do you think is in better position? (China might be in better position since US is basically state made from corporations - government is not able to do anything without private companies, and companies use government as their private SOS bank - when company screws up, state fixes it. When company does not screw up, it takes all profit for itself. And situation is similar over most of Western world, including my own country. I'm not sure how it functions in Scandinavia, thought. On the other hand, China has crapload of its own problems, most of which it created itself - water poisoning, population literally poisoned by smog, coal dust and similar, air pollution that is on increase - China will probably overtake US as biggest air polluter in world, if it did not do so already - and so on - and will probably have to devote lots of money to solve them in near future).

Just look at this:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02 ... lution.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/12 ... _cost2.php
http://env-ngo.wikispaces.com/Photospsp1
http://morrisonworldnews.com/?p=36717
China doesn't have much on the technological front atm. Their logistics also are limited, which also brings their cannon fodder advantage to a moot status.
What I'm still having trouble to sort out is why some people behind the curtain really hate China (I'm talking about Big Z who's behind Obama and even more aggressive, but not so frontally), while China and US are so interlinked in terms of economy and that China essentially is capitalism without an ounce of morals, which is exactly where so many large holdings are headed at when there's an obvious gain in cheap labour.
While big money dictated the rules, super companies don't care where they operate from as long as they make money. What China did was smart: it attracted foreign groups into specific economical regions which worked under certain rules which, on the long term, would allow the Chinese to place a lot of their own people into said companies and drain the technological knowledge.

China is probably not giving a damn about democracy because it knows that:

1. it will slow them down and they have a lot to catch up if they want to be able to compete.

2. democracy is just a way to let certain groups influence your politics against national interests.

Therefore, China becomes a fertile testing ground, a giant lab full of guinea pigs upon which any unrestrained capital methodology can be applied without having to deal with the feeble yet annoying rules of the US and the EU, despite how infested by private lobbies those powers are.

And as baffling as it may seem, apparently some economists still believed that they could have a model where the EU and the US would be the brains while China would be the arms.
That's so retarded, but I've seen two different economists pull that crap on TV last year. Now, it was hard to say if they were honest and appealing to pity, or if they were just lying and knew that the welfare of people was not an objective and all that mattered was the gain of companies with no attachments to any country in particular. I tend to go with the second option. It's so obvious.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Aug 01, 2011 8:38 am

Admiral Breetai wrote:Picard is so amusingly anti corporation it's funny its a good thing we're on the same forum and thus can balance each other out *is in favor of an eventual global corporate republic*

that being said it's specifically because of private companies..and the lucky tech edge we have on them for the time being that will give the US good lead on that I mean the USSR had all their resources given over the government and while A bombs aside they did breach space first..they fell by the way side compared to Japan and America of the eighties I think the US and the EU (though the UK and France and iirc Germany too)are gonna maintain a clear edge with the US leading it militarily globally at least for the foreseeable future
The fall of the USSR is much more complicated and obscure than a mere division between private and national business. State owned industries are just as efficient, easily motivated by propaganda and don't care about added value, which helps to dramatically lower costs.
If anything, the huge corruption, the warped sense of reality and parasiting of satellite states really hurt the USSR (plus the destruction of regional cultures and historical traditions). Add a couple fuckheads like Lenin and Stalin, and their surrounding grovelling minions (top-class mass killers in the later case), and you're done.

Marxism is also a good tool of criticism and analysis of the abuse of private practices.
Communism was just allowing a bunch of leeches to reap the products of a large and poor population base making through partially or completely state owned production. The welfare of its people was the least of its concern. The type of caste at the top of this system was in fact hardly that different from the people who run big conglomerates.

Admiral Breetai
Starship Captain
Posts: 1813
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:28 pm

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Admiral Breetai » Mon Aug 01, 2011 1:33 pm

Picard wrote:Main problem with private corporations is that you MUST keep tabs on them or they'll go AWOL at first opportunity they get. And US is no longer doing it, while Europe seems to be going that way.
no they wont, and competition self regulates to a degree any company who moves to hard into the "douchebag eighties sci fi mega corp" territory tends to get slapped down by it's competitors and at times investors

I mean the British East India company and Standard oil were the exception not the rule...
Picard wrote:
You capitalist?
that hard to tell?
Picard wrote:It did exist. Google "New Deal" for its beginnings.
that's not socialist and it was also a pretty fucked up move on Roosvelts part no less

Picard wrote: US government no longer exists except in name. They do what corporations say they have to do.
despite the fact that the US has put CEO's of health insurance companies large ones no less on trial..and in two cases prison..one case I know of on death row no less for doing the whole "abandon ye poor patients" spiel..that Moore and all the other loud mouthed paper lefties claim? that CEO's have been taken to the chopping block as many times as politicians have?


Picard wrote:There are no rules, that is problem... rebellion in Iraq has to do with private corporations taking over parts of US military as much as it has to do with occupation itself... face it, military has morale. Corporations have none. They are only interested in money...


that's why you create some kind of regulation designed specifically to keep the military from going over board..I'm not against that what I am against is saying only a private army is capable of this, this is not only patently false but historically wrong..government funded armies have committed just as many horrific atrocities as private ones and in many cases more so
Picard wrote:and as long as situation with corporations remains as it is, there will be NO peace in Middle East.
No, there will never be peace in the middle east so long as the fanatics are allowed to control those nations..radical Islam is the enemy will always be the enemy has always been the enemy

Picard wrote: And therein lies a problem. Commanders should not be given position based on popularity, but rather based on competence.
yes they should whether it's a pure democracy or a corporatetocracy the people should determine whats what period. Now you can argue that only competent people should present themselves for public office or military positions but then that entirely depends on your definition of "competent"

I myself for politicians for example prefer self made people who earned their way to the top..preferably with out any college degree at all and more life experience then anything else- I'd much rather a general be some one who specializes in how to wipe an enemy off the face of the planet..not anything else

Picard wrote: Friedmanites had as much to do with economic fall of Eastern Europe as much as communism, if not more. And when your neighbor is in trouble,
it's nice to be able to revise history...and all
Picard wrote: you help him, else you'll find yourself in the same situation.
no you don't you let your neighbor stand on their own..if you live in a damn mansion command vast respect and wield influence and you have friggen earned it (US,UK,France) and your neighbor (some random eastern European nation or Greece ) wants the same you tell them to go friggen get it.

you don't subsidize nations that's bullshit no country should be doing it, it's abysmally morally devoid to essentially rip the volition and will power out of a country and create a state of people who think their entitled to what the other guy has..with out doing anything remotely close to what they have for it.

all that breeds is resentment and fosters a philosophy that has historically done more evil then good.
Picard wrote: Only reason it is still powerful (against underequipped Middle East militaries, that is - all big wars it fought were BEFORE wild privatization, and therefore cannot be used as measure of current US military) is beacouse it uses up 50% of total world military expenditure, while being 2nd or 3rd largest by manpower. But in terms of efficiency, WW2 US military probably outstripped current one by big margin, when you account for technological progress etc.
next world war..which will probably happen in the next few decades we'll revisit this chat

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Aug 01, 2011 2:07 pm

Admiral Breetai wrote:
Picard wrote:Main problem with private corporations is that you MUST keep tabs on them or they'll go AWOL at first opportunity they get. And US is no longer doing it, while Europe seems to be going that way.
no they wont, and competition self regulates to a degree any company who moves to hard into the "douchebag eighties sci fi mega corp" territory tends to get slapped down by it's competitors and at times investors
That is essentially a complete myth.
Investors care about money, and a monopoly is the best way to make money. Competition is the thing they hate with a passion.
There's little to no regulation in the interest of the people, and prices generally are way above what they should be (as a matter of fact, anything that has gone private in the EU has resulted into a massive rise of prices). The only time they go down is when there's an arrival of a new company, and not only this hardly lasts long, but it's more of an exception than anything.
Generally competitors don't gain a larger portion of an older market because of their daring price schemes, but because of a particular product or idea. If anything, the small price companies will be swallowed by big groups to cover the low class consumer range. That is, crap stuff at low prices. Not medium stuff at low prices.
At worst, big competitors try to eat the others, and several of them will often settle on prices although we know it's frowned upon, if not totally illegal in most occidental countries.

There could only be a fair form of competition if there were a strong regulation forcing competing companies to do so. Nothing as such exists. Even antitrust laws are completely circumvented, and it didn't take long for this to happen following the weeks they were passed.
When people think of competition, they take what they know at the street level, with small shops or medium companies, and think they can paste that model onto the big business. Bollocks.

sonofccn
Starship Captain
Posts: 1657
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:23 pm
Location: Sol system, Earth,USA

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by sonofccn » Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:25 pm

@Admiral Breetai: I don't know about a privitized army. To me at least the whole purpose of the armed forces is to build and maintain weapons you'll never use. Think about how many Patton tanks we built which never fired upon a Soviet war machine, the ICMBs which, thankfully, have sat sullenly in silos instead of being used. A company on the other hand is supposed to be about selling products or services not hoarde a stockpile the existence of which helps ensure they'd never be used, I'm not sure a company would have the same incentive to "push the envelope" so to speak.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:That is essentially a complete myth.
Color me unconvinced. :)
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Investors care about money, and a monopoly is the best way to make money. Competition is the thing they hate with a passion.
The problem is in a free market economy to obtain and hold a monopoly is a lot harder than it is in the boardgame. You have to keep prices under an invisible threshold that people will pay for your services, you have to compete with the endless spawn of local peddlers of the same wares who don't have the same overhead as you. Things add up, it isn't as easy as a bunch of guys in some smoky back lit room deciding to become a monopoly.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:There's little to no regulation in the interest of the people, and prices generally are way above what they should be
Prices are what the market will afford and how the people value it. In a free market, ignoring goverment for the time being, prices can not be way above what they should be because people would not pay it. And knowing the EU they likely artifically lowered the prices of comodities to try and control costs.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:There could only be a fair form of competition if there were a strong regulation forcing competing companies to do so.
Nah, regulation ensures only the big boys stay big. They are a better positioned to cushion, offset, handle or frankly bribe their way through the mess that a smaller company just can't.

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Aug 01, 2011 7:02 pm

The problem is in a free market economy to obtain and hold a monopoly is a lot harder than it is in the boardgame. You have to keep prices under an invisible threshold that people will pay for your services, you have to compete with the endless spawn of local peddlers of the same wares who don't have the same overhead as you. Things add up, it isn't as easy as a bunch of guys in some smoky back lit room deciding to become a monopoly.
As I said, monopoly is largely won by providing a new idea, service or product, and preferably growing a multi-million business with investements from multi-billionaires, not with competitive prices. Competitive prices are only a temporary hiccup in all things. Since when did you see any competitive price that really lasted and brought anything worthwhile to people?
There's zip, the long term of anything about economy proves it.
Did Microsoft won the monopoly with their prices? Did Adobe won the monopoly with their prices? Exxon? Apple? Google? Facebook?
That's just for some companies which are quite easy to identify. I won't even get deeper into the super branching groups, such as those hold by the media moguls.
I tell you, the legend of competing prices needs to die. It's pure bullshit.
There's no free market because it is not allowed to be so. Already centuries ago, when attempts were made in Europe to introduce freer markets for prime commodities, if to allow some goods to be transferred from one place to another with more ease, rampant speculation from merchants was already making the reforms fail. It's quite fantastic how nothing has changed.
And why would a free market prevent something? Why would a free market enforce regulations against speculation? Wouldn't that be un-free ??
See? It's an antithesis. You can't really claim free market, free whatever you want, and then hope that the masses will dictate their will to super powers. It's so delusional it hurts. Because when everything is free, the masses simply don't have what it takes to win anything worthwhile.
Prices are what the market will afford and how the people value it.
Right with the first, wrong with the second. You can, in theory, "afford" a lot of stuff (especially crap stuff that's made in China). However, not only you can always get poorer than you think you are when you belong to the middle class, which is the one that always gets screwed hard, but most occidental societies strive on complete usury. Without this massive input of liquidity, there's nothing.
Of course, all this input of money also feeds inflation, and a way to keep the inflation rate is unemployment. The next effect of this means all economies get worse and people require more and more lending to be able to keep going on with their compulsive and glutton way of life.
In a free market, ignoring goverment for the time being, prices can not be way above what they should be because people would not pay it.
Aside from the fact that people will rush to the bank to get some money, I disagree: take a look at cellphones and dare say that subscriptions are not overpriced yet now essential.
Actually, the price of all true essential goods has kept rising and while people bitch and moan, they keep paying. They just love to be milked.
Nah, regulation ensures only the big boys stay big. They are a better positioned to cushion, offset, handle or frankly bribe their way through the mess that a smaller company just can't.
That's biased regulation, not the one I'm talking of.

sonofccn
Starship Captain
Posts: 1657
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:23 pm
Location: Sol system, Earth,USA

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by sonofccn » Mon Aug 01, 2011 11:16 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:As I said, monopoly is largely won by providing a new idea, service or product, and preferably growing a multi-million business with investments from multi-billionaires
Which I find a very odd notion because some of the most famous monopolies were such things as steel and oil. Nor were such people the "inventors" of such products merely the ones who did their job the best.
Since when did you see any competitive price that really lasted and brought anything worthwhile to people?
Modern life? Everything you are using was brought to you by competition, by people trying to build the best product and sell it for the lowest cost to get your money. But if you want a particular example how about cell phones? They started really expensive without any features and now you can buy a phone which makes those old dinosaur models look like a toaster oven.
Did Microsoft won the monopoly with their prices? Did Adobe won the monopoly with their prices? Exxon? Apple? Google? Facebook?
And do these companies spend their time sitting on golden thrones counting their pieces of eight as the peasants toil in the fields to purchase the merest scrap of the companies products? No, no they don't. Each offers a service at a price the user deems reasonable and should they ever flip their ever loving minds and jack up the price there is a cut off point in which people will throw their hands up in the air and turn to someone else to provide their service. I mean seriously you don't think Microsoft could charge a thousand dollars per product and expect to remain in business do you?
I tell you, the legend of competing prices needs to die. It's pure bullshit.
Repetition does not make what you say true. :) Now frankly I don't really care if you believe in free market or not. Its a free country and it takes all kind. I personally just don't like you trying to label the underpinnings of the other side as per lunacy. You certainly have not proved anything or otherwise earned the right to make such a declaration.
There's no free market because it is not allowed to be so. Already centuries ago, when attempts were made in Europe to introduce freer markets for prime commodities, if to allow some goods to be transferred from one place to another with more ease, rampant speculation from merchants was already making the reforms fail. It's quite fantastic how nothing has changed.
Indulge me how does speculation alter anything?
See? It's an antithesis. You can't really claim free market, free whatever you want, and then hope that the masses will dictate their will to super powers. It's so delusional it hurts. Because when everything is free, the masses simply don't have what it takes to win anything worthwhile.
???? I am really not sure I understand what you are trying to say beyond what sounds like scorn for the citizenry. I don't quite understand what super powers have to do with anything here, we are talking about economics not nation-states.
Right with the first, wrong with the second.
Impossible. Value determines how much you will pay for an object and, taken collective from the populace at large, determines what the market will bear.
However, not only you can always get poorer than you think you are when you belong to the middle class, which is the one that always gets screwed hard,
Seriously this sounds like the screed from a tin-plated Marxist. Okay it is not your call to say someone is becoming "poorer" because he's buying products you think are "shoddy". In life there are always trade offs and he made the choices he made to make his ledger balance as he sees it. The money he saved buying a knock off can then be put aside for some other use while otherwise he might have only been able to afford one or the other.
but most occidental societies strive on complete usury. Without this massive input of liquidity, there's nothing.
There is nothing inherently wrong with lending, the issue is living within ones means. The issue is culturally we've raised generations of people who believe there is a free lunch and that people owe them. Child-adults who think every whim needs to be sated and get upset when you tell them they have to put their house in order before they go splurge. As much as I agree this is a problem it isn't a problem with free markets nor are governments any better at staying on budget.
The next effect of this means all economies get worse and people require more and more lending to be able to keep going on with their compulsive and glutton way of life.
Then they deserve to put in debters prison, or shipped to colonize Mars or something. :)
Aside from the fact that people will rush to the bank to get some money, I disagree: take a look at cell phones and dare say that subscriptions are not overpriced yet now essential.
Well Version looks like they charge seventy bucks per month for unlimited talking. Dividing by thirty days that comes out to two dollars and thirty odd cents a day. Less than an hour on minimum wage. Now me, considering how useful I find the darn thing being able to talk to people away from a land line, I think it would be a boon at twice the price and since cell phones more or less sell like hotcakes I think the public agrees. As to being essentail I wouldn't go that far. They are a great and useful tool but we survived without them in the past and if everyone went crazy and started charging a hundred dollars a minute we'd learn to do so again.
Actually, the price of all true essential goods has kept rising and while people bitch and moan, they keep paying. They just love to be milked.
You can thank government for that, rising fuel prices and turning corn into a worthless fuel will do that to food prices.
That's biased regulation, not the one I'm talking of.
1. Why should your regulation be unique in human history?

2. You haven't actually proposed regulation you merely spouted some pie in the sky fantasy. I am not even sure what such a competitive regulation would entail but looking at goverment track record I'd guess such things as mandating a minimum price, to keep those underhanded guys from winning a monopoly of course, to keep things "competitive" read frozen in place.

3. Actually only the last point required corruption. Everything else is merely is is easier to jump through governments hoops when your established, when you are too big to fail, than a start up. Big buisness can pass the cost of making everything up to code by increasing cost of their product by a fraction making everything back on volume. A smaller company simply can't do that.

Admiral Breetai
Starship Captain
Posts: 1813
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:28 pm

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Admiral Breetai » Tue Aug 02, 2011 3:27 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:[

That is essentially a complete myth.
Investors care about money, and a monopoly is the best way to make money. Competition is the thing they hate with a passion.
who makes more money off monopoly? even John D Rockefeller ended up making even more when they broke his monopoly the BEIC collapsed due specifically to it's monopoly the corruption that came with it and how furious every one shareholders included got at it.

the only institution that truly resembles a monopoly and does well for it is a state
Mr. Oragahn wrote:[
When people think of competition, they take what they know at the street level, with small shops or medium companies, and think they can paste that model onto the big business. Bollocks.
tell that to all the new billion plus dollar companies that arise in the same fields like social networking etc etc
sonofccn wrote:@Admiral Breetai: I don't know about a privitized army. To me at least the whole purpose of the armed forces is to build and maintain weapons you'll never use. Think about how many Patton tanks we built which never fired upon a Soviet war machine, the ICMBs which, thankfully, have sat sullenly in silos instead of being used. A company on the other hand is supposed to be about selling products or services not hoarde a stockpile the existence of which helps ensure they'd never be used, I'm not sure a company would have the same incentive to "push the envelope" so to speak.
if they're being paid to do so and to embezzle would mean death or your "army" being replaced by a new one..I don't see why they wouldn't push the envelope as you say they'd have just as much incentive

Picard
Starship Captain
Posts: 1433
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:28 pm

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Picard » Tue Aug 02, 2011 7:15 am

Admiral Breetai wrote: no they wont, and competition self regulates to a degree any company who moves to hard into the "douchebag eighties sci fi mega corp" territory tends to get slapped down by it's competitors and at times investors

I mean the British East India company and Standard oil were the exception not the rule...
There is no "self-regulation" in capitalism... companies care about profit, and profit only. Only kind of regulation comes from outside - be it state, human rights groups, ecological groups or disillusioned populace...
that hard to tell?
It is. You can be only pro-capitalism (pro-imperialism) for some reason (if someone in your family is capitalist, for example), or you can be capitalist yourself (own factory etc.).
that's not socialist and it was also a pretty fucked up move on Roosvelts part no less
It was socialist capitalism, and it saved US economy from collapse.
despite the fact that the US has put CEO's of health insurance companies large ones no less on trial..and in two cases prison..one case I know of on death row no less for doing the whole "abandon ye poor patients" spiel..that Moore and all the other loud mouthed paper lefties claim? that CEO's have been taken to the chopping block as many times as politicians have?
Have they put CEO of, say, Lockheed Martin or Blackwater on trial? They have as much reason to put them on trial as to put CEO's of Health Insurance companies on trial. Except that these are way more powerful than "healthers".
that's why you create some kind of regulation designed specifically to keep the military from going over board..I'm not against that what I am against is saying only a private army is capable of this, this is not only patently false but historically wrong..government funded armies have committed just as many horrific atrocities as private ones and in many cases more so
Such as? Soldiers are people, it is quite easy to explain that they will go AWOL after long war and commit atrocities, but they will not stab you in the back without good reason and they will generally fight for their country. Mercenaries, on the other hand...
No, there will never be peace in the middle east so long as the fanatics are allowed to control those nations..radical Islam is the enemy will always be the enemy has always been the enemy
Radical Islam came into being as answer to first USSR's and then US's imperialistic tendencies in Middle East. It is effect of a cause, not cause of an effect.
yes they should whether it's a pure democracy or a corporatetocracy the people should determine whats what period. Now you can argue that only competent people should present themselves for public office or military positions but then that entirely depends on your definition of "competent"

I myself for politicians for example prefer self made people who earned their way to the top..preferably with out any college degree at all and more life experience then anything else- I'd much rather a general be some one who specializes in how to wipe an enemy off the face of the planet..not anything else
"Backed by corporations and with powerful cousins" is definetly NOT definition of "competent". "Competent" is one who can do the job with least amount of loss, and keep going.
it's nice to be able to revise history...and all
Proof? Or you just read corporatistic history too much? Everything is questionable, meaning that one has to think and conclude what fits big picture. So far, all I can see from you is spouting corporatistic propaganda. I live in country that is wrecked by privatization, I should know what I'm talking about...
no you don't you let your neighbor stand on their own..if you live in a damn mansion command vast respect and wield influence and you have friggen earned it (US,UK,France) and your neighbor (some random eastern European nation or Greece ) wants the same you tell them to go friggen get it.

you don't subsidize nations that's bullshit no country should be doing it, it's abysmally morally devoid to essentially rip the volition and will power out of a country and create a state of people who think their entitled to what the other guy has..with out doing anything remotely close to what they have for it.

all that breeds is resentment and fosters a philosophy that has historically done more evil then good.
So, when your neighbour's house is on fire, you give sell him intestine for few times higher cost than you bought it for?
next world war..which will probably happen in the next few decades we'll revisit this chat
I am not saying it is not powerful... but it uses up 50% of total military expenditure of the world... and I doubt it can take even one half or one third of remaining world on its own...
the only institution that truly resembles a monopoly and does well for it is a state
And corporations are doing their best to destroy it and get a free reign which will result in God knows how many casualties...

Admiral Breetai
Starship Captain
Posts: 1813
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:28 pm

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Admiral Breetai » Wed Aug 03, 2011 12:42 am

Picard wrote:There is no "self-regulation" in capitalism... companies care about profit, and profit only. Only kind of regulation comes from outside - be it state, human rights groups, ecological groups or disillusioned populace...
nonsense any mega corp that's so stupid as to reduce it's clients to peasantry have historically failed so hard it's not even funny and never by federal means..always due to it's share holders
Picard wrote:It is. You can be only pro-capitalism (pro-imperialism) for some reason (if someone in your family is capitalist, for example), or you can be capitalist yourself (own factory etc.).
that's crap there are hundreds of millions of people who adhere to this philosophy and don't fit your criteria
Picard wrote: It was socialist capitalism, and it saved US economy from collapse.
no the huge middle class and the sheer amount of money it circulated into the economy and all the new businesses and success stories that came about after the war as a direct result of it...are to be thanked
Picard wrote:
Have they put CEO of, say, Lockheed Martin or Blackwater on trial? They have as much reason to put them on trial as to put CEO's of Health Insurance companies on trial. Except that these are way more powerful than "healthers".
blackwater got fucked hard for its sins..and to my knowledge Lockheed martin has not committed negligence on a scale that's killed hundreds of people

but let's talk about your benevolent states! I mean it's not like the state didn't say completely shut down nearly all mental asylums due to one or two extremely horrific cases in the nineteen eighties which directly resulted in nearly twelve million crazy people being turned out on the streets

go governments!! yayyyy

any CEO worth his salt wouldn't do that because the back lash would be so massive it would make doing business impossible a government on the other hand? heh heh just try and take us to task for this assholes! I'M IN UR ASYLUMS FREEN UR CURAZY PEOPLE TY 4 VOTING 4 ME GAIZ!!

Picard wrote: Such as? Soldiers are people, it is quite easy to explain that they will go AWOL after long war and commit atrocities, but they will not stab you in the back without good reason and they will generally fight for their country. Mercenaries, on the other hand...
they'd be fighting for their country only this time directly hired by their people through their investing in the company he works for. in an era where the Internet allows for even people making minimum wage to buy and participate in the stock market..the ability to do what ever you want as a CEO is slowly dying..the working man who invests in your company has far more to loose and will not put up with your shirt


[
Picard wrote: Radical Islam came into being as answer to first USSR's and then US's imperialistic tendencies in Middle East. It is effect of a cause, not cause of an effect.
so we're pretending the slaughter and rape of former Roman assets never happened? the invasion of the Iberian peninsula? So we're pretending the radical brutality that's been going on in India and parts of Asia since the era of the Mongol empire never happened?

Radical Islam has been around for as well over a thousand years
Picard wrote: "Backed by corporations and with powerful cousins" is definetly NOT definition of "competent". "Competent" is one who can do the job with least amount of loss, and keep going.
again in the 21 first century it's not fat bastards in top hats smoking Cuban Cigars and drinking brandy...it's every one you literally have to answer to..every one no matter their class what invests in your company..

Picard wrote: Proof? Or you just read corporatistic history too much? Everything is questionable, meaning that one has to think and conclude what fits big picture. So far, all I can see from you is spouting corporatistic propaganda. I live in country that is wrecked by privatization, I should know what I'm talking about...
and congratulations with bolded you have resorted to using SWST's debate style and in doing so completely and utterly torpedoed your credibility with me let's see if we can't repair it Picard you're better then that.

as for my experience? I immigrated from a nation that was ruined by the state saved by radical privatization then completely destroyed by the state again! I'm an immigrant who became a citizen of a nation that is the most powerful nation in history and probably one of the most influential civilizations..I'm proud to say I'm self made and no corporate big guy ever kept my down...the government did though lord knows it tried..the socialist and left leaning people in power..certainly monkey wrenched me and my boss for the first year or so of our venture it was hell on earth but all the same. Now I'm not living in a mansion flying private jets and drinking thousand dollar bottles of wine. But I am lucky enough to have my house..and be able to maintain my mom who's not been able to work since I was six..take my family on vacations visit the home land every now and then and feed myself really that's all I need I'd like more but I'm okay with just this especially because I never took a government check never got any subsidies never took some one else's money that I didn't repay and using the capitalist system..earned my place

my mother who happens to be an Irish American her father and Grandfather immigrated from a nation that was shit on and mercilessly exploited by the British state for generations...he was a ww2 vet came back..worked his ass off and made a not so shabby life to himself..no company ever exploited him or kept him down at all.

my ol'man and brother both work for a private university and do okay for themselves no ones oppressing them

So yeah I read what you post and come to two conclusions A: I'm either insanely lucky and hey maybe that's true I could be for all I know or B: based on my own life experiences and the life experiences of millions of people like me all over the world it isn't nearly as clear cut as you are making it out to be by any stretch of the imagination.


Picard wrote: So, when your neighbour's house is on fire, you give sell him intestine for few times higher cost than you bought it for?
I trust that my neighbor was smart enough to put a fire detector in his house to warn him and a phone to call 911 beyond that? yeah I'll call the firefighters but I'm not doing anything else...and when the dust settles and he's received that external help I trust that he had the financial foresight to secure good insurance..have some savings in the bank and was responsible enough with his credit (and this is why things are so bad in the west) to..take of himself after receiving a little nudge

I don't owe him anything else I certainly shouldn't have to buy him a new house.

I'm not sure how the buying and selling of intestines came into your analogy I'll pass it up to you getting heated and rappid fire posting.
Picard wrote:
I am not saying it is not powerful... but it uses up 50% of total military expenditure of the world... and I doubt it can take even one half or one third of remaining world on its own...
considering how crummy most of the worlds militaries are I'm pretty sure even the EU could manage this. if you mean fight another major power? I don't see why not
Picard wrote:
And corporations are doing their best to destroy it and get a free reign which will result in God knows how many casualties...
them destroying it can't happen soon enough as for the casualties? both sides will pay for that

Cocytus
Jedi Knight
Posts: 435
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 6:04 am

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Cocytus » Wed Aug 03, 2011 2:42 am

Admiral Breetai wrote:the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula
What are the criteria you are using to define invasion? Does the displacement of Native Americans in this country count as such? What about the Christian Reconquista?

I'm curious.

Admiral Breetai
Starship Captain
Posts: 1813
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:28 pm

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Admiral Breetai » Wed Aug 03, 2011 5:28 am

Cocytus wrote:
What are the criteria you are using to define invasion? Does the displacement of Native Americans in this country count as such? What about the Christian Reconquista?

I'm curious.
I'm not especially certain why you feel the need to bring any of the fucked up shit Christianity has done over the years as though it has anything to do with either Picards statement and my subsequent reply but if you mean to imply that I somehow think that Islam was the sole aggressor your massively incorrect and such a reply was uncalled for: I'm well aware of the evils the other side perpetrated and had he raised that point I'd of admitted to it as far as I'm concerned both religions have blood on their hands and are equally guilty of having dangerous fanatics. But as said it has nothing to do with the argument at hand and I felt no need to waste texts pace doing a PC "both parties suck" rant when the point was "no fanatic elements of the Islamic religion who would use their religion as an excuse to oppress people were not created by the USSR and America..they've existed as long as the faith has.." I saw no need to go "oh but same for Christianity!!"

Cocytus
Jedi Knight
Posts: 435
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 6:04 am

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Cocytus » Wed Aug 03, 2011 8:48 pm

I raised the point, and you have admitted to it. Thank you.

However, you brought up the history of Iberia yourself, and I responded to it. It was not uncalled for or inappropriate at all. It is in fact something I've devoted considerable study to. Had you simply said what you just said in the first place, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to say what I said in response, ergo the "PC waste of text space" wouldn't have been a waste.

As for Picard's statement, it is indeed factually inaccurate. The Taliban arose in response to the Soviet Union's presence in Afghanistan (and was of course armed by us) but radical Islam has existed as long as the religion, and is just as concerned with killing fellow Muslims as it is with infidels. The irony of Al-Andalus is that its downfall owes as much to Muslim infighting as it does to the Reconquista. The Caliphate of Cordoba was fractured into a number of smaller kingdoms called taifas in 1031, which were militarily and politically much weaker than the unified kingdom they replaced, and thus much more susceptible to the Reconquista. Yet more ironic, when the taifas requested assistance from the north African Maghreb, the Almoravids and Almohades who crossed Gibraltar into Iberia were far more fundamentalist than the rulers of the taifas and deposed them. Under their rule, Christians and Jews were largely driven out of Al-Andalus, which by that point extended only about halfway up the peninsula, as Toledo had been captured in 1085. The Almoravids and Almohades were successful in repelling the Christian advance for a while (notably with major victories at Sagrajas under the Almoravids and Alarcos in 1195 under the Almohades) but it was short-lived. The Reconquista scored a tremendous victory at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, sealing the eventual fate of Al-Andalus. When Granada falls in 1492, one of the first thing Los Reyes Catolicos do is issue the infamous Alhambra Decree, expelling all remaining Jews from Spain.

As for the discussion of capitalist morality, the history of manufacturing and industry in this country, particularly New York in the 19th century, offers some damning indictments of unregulated capitalism. The conditions endured by immigrant workers were appaling. Sweatshops and child labor were common. We today might be inclined to think of such things as hallmarks of repressive Communist countries, but no. They happened right here. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 was the watershed moment in the fight for social welfare and labor reform legislation. Think of a burning skyscraper, people leaping to their deaths from the top, smoke billowing out the windows, etc. Sound familiar? The labor reforms which took place in the wake of Triangle were spearheaded by a man named Alfred E. Smith, protege of Tammany Boss Charlie Murphy (yes, THAT Tammany, although by that point Boss Tweed was dead 30 years, and Charlie Murphy was trying to distance Tammany from his legacy). Predictably, business interests were outraged. A man named George Olvany decried the legislation, writing that "to own a factory in New York is now a calamity."

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-fr ... 5B848DF1D3

His article sounds a warning against oppressive legislation from government, but given the circumstances which gave rise to said legislation, I find it really hard to feel any sympathy for his position. Nowadays, we might be tempted to say "oh, well, such things don't happen anymore." Really? The Massey Mine Explosion? Deepwater Horizon? The Bhopal Disaster? They certainly do still happen.

To say that capitalism either universally does or doesn't self-regulate is fallacious. It is certainly capable of self-regulation. Capitalism is inherently amoral, which does not make it inherently immoral. Its morality arises from the morality of businesses and individuals which practice it. Likewise, to posit that government regulation is either universally bad or good is also fallacious. Oppressive and insufficient government regulations have both caused calamities. Too much frightens business into not creating, not inventing and not investing. Too little invites the exploitation and indifference that cause disasters.

Admiral Breetai
Starship Captain
Posts: 1813
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:28 pm

Re: EU, US, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon and anti-stealth

Post by Admiral Breetai » Wed Aug 03, 2011 10:58 pm

Cocytus wrote:I raised the point, and you have admitted to it. Thank you.
there was no need too at all
Cocytus wrote:However, you brought up the history of Iberia yourself, and I responded to it. It was not uncalled for or inappropriate at all. It is in fact something I've devoted considerable study to. Had you simply said what you just said in the first place, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to say what I said in response, ergo the "PC waste of text space" wouldn't have been a waste.
I shouldn't have had to say it at all it can't be that it's impossible to levy criticism to one side with out an obligatory save face 'but. but Christians were jerks too!! pls dun think me bigoted gaiz" type addition
Cocytus wrote:When Granada falls in 1492, one of the first thing Los Reyes Catolicos do is issue the infamous Alhambra Decree, expelling all remaining Jews from Spain.
leading to the inquisition..yes, yes and to the rest of your post yup just like radical Christians radical Muslims turned on their own people as well- I still see absolutely no point in continuing this at all other then I'm glad theres another history buff on this forum
Cocytus wrote:As for the discussion of capitalist morality, the history of manufacturing and industry in this country, particularly New York in the 19th century, offers some damning indictments of unregulated capitalism. The conditions endured by immigrant workers were appaling. Sweatshops and child labor were common. We today might be inclined to think of such things as hallmarks of repressive Communist countries, but no. They happened right here. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 was the watershed moment in the fight for social welfare and labor reform legislation. Think of a burning skyscraper, people leaping to their deaths from the top, smoke billowing out the windows, etc. Sound familiar? The labor reforms which took place in the wake of Triangle were spearheaded by a man named Alfred E. Smith, protege of Tammany Boss Charlie Murphy (yes, THAT Tammany, although by that point Boss Tweed was dead 30 years, and Charlie Murphy was trying to distance Tammany from his legacy). Predictably, business interests were outraged.
to be fair this occurred in an era when people put African and native people in 'human zoos' and looked for proof of Dwarins theory in comparing various tribes all over the world to missing links..the womens rights movement was going on and segregation was rampant

culturally we where a very backwards people from a moral stand point I don't think its fair to look at the brutality practiced by business men in new York or in London (where it was totally legal to just grab kids off the streets sell them to a factory and put them to work) at the turn of the last century and go 'oh but this is why no regulation is needed!" I would hope to god if there is even one..that we as a people are a bit more civilized and moral now and wouldn't do that

Post Reply