Cuban Solidarity

[C4Casey]

"Well it is quite easy for the largest economy on the planet to share resources."

And how did our economy get to where it is today? Capitalism.

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by C4Casey

"Well it is quite easy for the largest economy on the planet to share resources."

And how did our economy get to where it is today? Capitalism.

Imperialism.

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

Imperialism.

War doesn't create wealth. That's straight up Broken Window Fallacy. We have had a successful economy in SPITE of war, not because of it. The growing of our industrial machine through the early century and the move to more of a service economy later accounted for the growth, and left tons of room for it. We still have tons of room if the government would get out of the way.

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

War doesn't create wealth. That's straight up Broken Window Fallacy. We have had a successful economy in SPITE of war, not because of it. The growing of our industrial machine through the early century and the move to more of a service economy later accounted for the growth, and left tons of room for it. We still have tons of room if the government would get out of the way.

You can be imperialists without war. The US empire is a result of coups, propping up dictators and puppet presidents. It is a product of the IMF and WTO imposing free market economies on the third world so they can be pillaged by the MNC's who take their stolen wealth to the US.

[Stylerod]

If Cuba is so great I wonder why they lock everyone in

[Rouger2]

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

You can be imperialists without war. The US empire is a result of coups, propping up dictators and puppet presidents. It is a product of the IMF and WTO imposing free market economies on the third world so they can be pillaged by the MNC's who take their stolen wealth to the US.

Free market economics are not treating us so great. India, China, Japan, Suadi Arabia, etc are doing quite well with it. In fact there is a great transfer of wealth right now, with wealth from the U.S going to those countries and many more. They are eating our lunch. China has billions and billions of dollars that they are using to buy most of our debt, collecting interest, and trying to buy our country. They along with the rest of the countries we have huge trade deficits with.

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

You can be imperialists without war. The US empire is a result of coups, propping up dictators and puppet presidents. It is a product of the IMF and WTO imposing free market economies on the third world so they can be pillaged by the MNC's who take their stolen wealth to the US.

All that is acts of war. Whether we throw a few hundred million dollars toward the opposition of Milosevic or send in troops secretly in Panama, that is resources and money spent in the name of "protecting our freedoms" (or whatever bullshit excuse they use) that the citizens would be better off spending themselves.

All of that shit applies to the Broken Window Fallacy. It's NOT good for our economy.

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

All that is acts of war. Whether we throw a few hundred million dollars toward the opposition of Milosevic or send in troops secretly in Panama, that is resources and money spent in the name of "protecting our freedoms" (or whatever bullshit excuse they use) that the citizens would be better off spending themselves.

All of that shit applies to the Broken Window Fallacy. It's NOT good for our economy.

It is good when you put in little resources and get a huge gain. That is what usually happens.

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by Rouger2

Free market economics are not treating us so great. India, China, Japan, Suadi Arabia, etc are doing quite well with it. In fact there is a great transfer of wealth right now, with wealth from the U.S going to those countries and many more. They are eating our lunch. China has billions and billions of dollars that they are using to buy most of our debt, collecting interest, and trying to buy our country. They along with the rest of the countries we have huge trade deficits with.

It often doesnt treat you or the ordinary guy too great. It does treat the MNC's and the ruling class well though. The powers that be enjoy huge benefits from enforcing free market economics on the rest of the world.

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

It is good when you put in little resources and get a huge gain. That is what usually happens.

Except it never happens like that when gov't is involved. NEVER.

Let me reiterate: N-E-V-E-R

But, the best way for the government to take something over is to start fucking with the industry until it is completely fubar, then say "we could do this better!" and people believe them. That's the direction of American healthcare.

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

Except it never happens like that when gov't is involved. NEVER.

Let me reiterate: N-E-V-E-R

But, the best way for the government to take something over is to start fucking with the industry until it is completely fubar, then say "we could do this better!" and people believe them. That's the direction of American healthcare.

Yeah right. Chile never happened like that ? Indonesia never happened like that ? Guatemala never happened like that ?

[Rouger2]

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

It often doesnt treat you or the ordinary guy too great. It does treat the MNC's and the ruling class well though. The powers that be enjoy huge benefits from enforcing free market economics on the rest of the world.

It is not just the rich and powerful who are doing better in India, China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia,Japan. The average man also is doing much better. In China many are driving cars now. While here our standard of liveing is lowing and will lower until we are the same as the third world countries. There's goes up and ours goes down until we can compete with them. That is what free markets have gotten us.

[C4Casey]

Imperialism.

Bullshit. We had a strong and prosperous economy well before the age of imperialism, and America was a very late and minor player in the game. If imperialism really inflates a state's economy over the long term, then the economies of Europe today should be juggernauts. The main problem with blaming imperialism for the growth of the west is that in order to even be imperialistic in the first place, you have to have a strong, powerful, and professional military. Only states with large economies are able to afford and maintain expensive militaries necessary for imperialism. The Western world was able to afford these militaries because they had built up their economies through Capitalism.

And the reason America was able to so vastly expand its economy is that it had huge agricultural and natural resources. Because we had a capitalist and free-market system, we were able to exploit those resources both in the national and global market. The reason America is now so dependent on foriegn imports and investments is because our standard of living and the pace of our national growth out-stripped our own natural resources.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

Except it never happens like that when gov't is involved. NEVER.

Let me reiterate: N-E-V-E-R

But, the best way for the government to take something over is to start fucking with the industry until it is completely fubar, then say "we could do this better!" and people believe them. That's the direction of American healthcare.

Never, is pretty all inclusive. I think it happens a lot more than you're giving credit for. There have been many occasions where the US has ousted governments and instilled US friendly leaders which benefited us greatly. I understand you're Ron Paul-non-interventionist and all, but the facts and history are there. The US has come out on top on many of these incidents where the US military meddled in world affairs for economic gain.

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Never, is pretty all inclusive. I think it happens a lot more than you're giving credit for. There have been many occasions where the US has ousted governments and instilled US friendly leaders which benefited us greatly. I understand you're Ron Paul-non-interventionist and all, but the facts and history are there. The US has come out on top on many of these incidents where the US military meddled in world affairs for economic gain.

I'm sorry, but considering we have many enemies that affect our trade relations with countries that are direct results of us meddling in the affairs of other nations, I whole heartedly disagree.

Honestly I can forgive anything we do that prevents imperialism, because I think every nation in the world should be working together to prevent that, but outside of those VERY few incidents, the benefits of us toppling dictators are not worth the ramifications

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

I'm sorry, but considering we have many enemies that affect our trade relations with countries that are direct results of us meddling in the affairs of other nations, I whole heartedly disagree.

Honestly I can forgive anything we do that prevents imperialism, because I think every nation in the world should be working together to prevent that, but outside of those VERY few incidents, the benefits of us toppling dictators are not worth the ramifications

I think this is flatly false and relies on incorrect libertarian assumptions of non-intervnationalism. The US has repeatedly benefited through intervention. Sometimes as you pointed out it comes back to bite us in the ass, but not always and even when it does the negatives may not outweigh to positives we gained.

One example of US intervention that has assisted our nation and economy greatly is Panama.

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by JaJae

I think this is flatly false and relies on incorrect libertarian assumptions of non-intervnationalism. The US has repeatedly benefited through intervention. Sometimes as you pointed out it comes back to bite us in the ass, but not always and even when it does the negatives may not outweigh to positives we gained.

One example of US intervention that has assisted our nation and economy greatly is Panama.

Yes, thank God we don't have all those drugs anymore

That is, if you're talking about the 1989 invasion. If you're talking about the 1903 invasion, then I would say "Yes, we certainly have great relations with Columbia because of that! "

To stop with the sarcasm, we have a LONG history of fucking with Panama, and in doing so we have screwed relations with more than one Latin American country.

Non-interventionism is based on no assumptions, it's based on history. There have been no overall wins in interventionism, and even those that are only slight losses are completely overshadowed by the magnitude of the big losses. Panama overall is probably only a slight loss. We did put a stop to a lot of trafficking from Panama, but Columbia was more than happy to fill that power void created. Panama may have been able to assert its own independence afterward, and Noriega was most certainly a bad man, but the economic benefits the US gained after his arrest were largely tied to interventionist policy up to that point (we intervened, it bit us in the ass because of his power, removing him from power corrected the previous failures of intervening).

Anyhow, despite Panama being an example of intervention that generally doesn't garner a lot of outrage, it certainly doesn't warrant continued intervening. I reiterate from before, NEVER have we done this and everything was just hunky-dory afterward. Backlashes always occur. Sometimes it's soured relations with a nation only willing to attack us through supplying our own black market, sometimes it creates a dedicated group of individuals that flies aircraft into our buildings. Either way, it's bad practice.

[Rouger2]

You mean all the billions we have spent on those James Bond types, the types that star in almost every movie that comes out of hollywood now have never did us a dam bit of good only harm, well lets spend billions and billions more on them. We are always hearing we need to spend more on them especially since 9-11.

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by Rouger2

You mean all the billions we have spent on those James Bond types, the types that star in almost every movie that comes out of hollywood now have never did us a dam bit of good only harm, well lets spend billions and billions more on them. We are always hearing we need to spend more on them especially since 9-11.

Yeah, my thinking is obviously pre-9/11 thinking, eh?

[Joe Castro]

Originally Posted by Rouger2

It is not just the rich and powerful who are doing better in India, China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia,Japan. The average man also is doing much better. In China many are driving cars now. While here our standard of liveing is lowing and will lower until we are the same as the third world countries. There's goes up and ours goes down until we can compete with them. That is what free markets have gotten us.

Some of them may be driving cars, but all of them are paying for education. That is a reduction in living standards.