I think that was my point as well, although you said it more forcibly and directly, namely, that the applicability of international law first presupposes genuine international cooperation.Originally Posted by Pedal2Metal
I think that was my point as well, although you said it more forcibly and directly, namely, that the applicability of international law first presupposes genuine international cooperation.
Nah, that's just some gobblede☺☺☺☺ so the wsj would publish. The market has no principles. I would say it's this:
I think that's really true and every time what we get told is that if these big financial institutions were to fail, that would hurt the little guy. We certainly did see evidence of that in the 1929 crash, but that doesn't mean that's automatically what is going to happen. If you're going to throw billions of dollars or euros at a problem anyway, I would greatly prefer that the money be given directly to those who are really in need rather than those who caused the problems.
Bottom line, we keep rewarding failure. Why would they stop failing when the rewards are so great?
Obviously all of the above applies to the financial bailout in this country as well.
In other words: We need to restore the freedom to fail vs. perpetuating the freedom to bail.
So we're in violent agreement in principle.
If we don't take our medicine on the first screwup, we just end up getting something worse later as we've seen. I was so much against the bailout I can't talk about it w/o losing my cool. I find our leaders are complete fiscal idiots & most of the populace as well. Spend less than you earn! as CoolHandLuke said many months ago is all you have to do, it's not rocket science. I wish we'd just get back to basics. Like in anything, if you don't have a full comprehension of the basics, it's pointless to go further. Like when I played soccer people would spend all kinds of money on shoes but they couldn't trap, shoot, defend, or pass. Really? Or they go & get a $2000 bike but they can't ride for even 10 miles. Really? Same w/finances. If you can't pay your bills reliably, why the flock should you get a say in how a financial crisis is handled?
I've long advocated that we should have taken any taxpayer stimulus money & simply distributed it to the taxpayers & that would have had an equal or larger positive economic impact. I'll shut up now, I'm about to have an anuerism!
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
Yep, that sentence alone made the article worth reading!
Here's another different topic article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj
I wonder how much of our lives are controlled by subtle yet powerful phenomena that we are unaware of yet can have profound social impact? This is one example that could potentially put a whole new interpretive spin on social change across a wide variety of metrics over the last 40-50 years. I find it interesting anyhow.
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj
Who would have thought that a son of OBL would call his death illegal? Shockingly unthinkable! good grief... how pathetic...
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
the action wasn't authorized by pakistan. not that i really care but i'm pretty sure that makes it illegal from an official point of view. the US currently tries to argue that ten years ago they received pakistani authorization to kill or capture bin laden if they would find them on pakistani soil but everybody else denies that.
Middle ground - get a list of the companies that are "too big to fail" qualtify exactly what that means (so it isn't just a dumb political decision about saving politically influential jobs or whatever) and pass some special legislation about how you can wipe out both shareholders and others who give credit to these firms if they fail whilst still keeping the company afloat.I've long advocated that we should have taken any taxpayer stimulus money & simply distributed it to the taxpayers & that would have had an equal or larger positive economic impact. I'll shut up now, I'm about to have an anuerism!
The law would be basically about how to make large companies effectively pay an insurance (in higher cost of capital and lower share prices and even higer credit costs from suppliers) by preventing them from using the negitive externalities of their collapse to blackmail extra money from the taxpayer.
I also have an alternate and more standard method which you might find easier to understand would be to force such companies to pay "collapse insurance" to the state or to a collection of insurance companies (If you could get a group big enough to outbid the state with more or less the same rating).
Bailouts and the stimulus package are very different things. It makes sense to spend money on things you need anyway, like highways and bridges, in order to stimulate the economy. Of course what really hurts us is having so many people out of work. Cutting a check to somebody like me isn't going to have much of a stimulative effect on the economy. I might save the money. I might take a trip. Generally I'm already buying the things I need and giving me a little extra money isn't going to cause a reaction like OMGMONEYMONEYMONEYMONEYSPENDSPENDSPEND!!!!11 So I drop it in a bank account and wait for the economy to get better. That doesn't really help anyone.I've long advocated that we should have taken any taxpayer stimulus money & simply distributed it to the taxpayers & that would have had an equal or larger positive economic impact. I'll shut up now, I'm about to have an anuerism!
What are you babbling about? You clearly haven't read any differing analysis from legal experts. Have you used Google ever? There are several videos, articles, etc... by USA legal experts like former US Attorney Generals, etc... indicating they think it's legal based on international law & the rules governing war [this is a war btw]. Doubtful that OBL's son is any legal expert. It's quite irritating to have someone just say "I'm pretty sure" which is a euphemism for "I have no idea" & then bandy it about as certain fact. Good grief...
I disagree with your analysis. The amount of money that would have been given to each wage earner based on the total bailout money is over $10000. Given the average income of 52000/yr (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html), this is essentially a 20% annual income bonus. I doubt that most people would save ALL of that money. Basing your conclusion on your own income levels & patterns of spending (which we've already established are fiscally sound) is not a good indicator for the national populace which are more likely to spend some portion of an unexpected windfall. I strongly believe the majority (>50%) would spend some measurable portion of it. If even 150 million people spent $1000 (only 10% of the money) on average, it would still be 150 billion dollars injected into the economy. Given our savings rates (which are piss-poor) the probability that much more than 10% on average is spent is quite high. So my analysis is conservative by definition. Anyhow, that's real money being spent in a real way by real people vs. the funny money nonsense that the elite do. Much better & more effective imo.
& 1 more thing: Spending less than you earn isn't bad fiscal policy. It works quite well actually over the long-term. Otherwise, you wouldn't do it yourself!
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
I don't think I've ever disagreed with this though technically I have a very normal and ordinary kind of massive debt known as a mortgage so I've spent way more than I've earned and everybody tells me it was very fiscally sound to do so (especially at 4.5% APR).& 1 more thing: Spending less than you earn isn't bad fiscal policy. It works quite well actually over the long-term. Otherwise, you wouldn't do it yourself!
I still think spending the money building infrastructure we actually need is a good idea. I do prefer giving everybody a check to giving money to the banks. Or we could have set up some public lending fund to bridge the gap until new financial institutions arose, since supposedly the reason we had to save the banks is that small businesses would fail due to not being able to get loans. Giving everybody a check wouldn't really help there.
Of course to arrive at your $10,000 per wage-earner, you need to take all the money from TARP (bailout) along with the entire ARRA (stimulus). If you've ever driven on a road that didn't totally kill your suspension or crossed a river without a canoe or enjoyed a public park, then you've taken advantage of the kind of infrastructure that the ARRA is building right now. A project that was just kicked off involves high-speed rail in the populous northeast. I think these things are good investments, like my mortgage. Giving money to the banks, that's like "investing" heavily on hookers and blow only WAAAAY less fun.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_saudi_...RpcG9saWNlMw--
Let's talk some more about how bin Laden's defeat was meaningless and there was nothing to celebrate, shall we?
Houses are a non productive asset - they just reduce in value over time they displae rent costs but those are just house investments too. So if you make money out of investing in a house it is just because the economy is screwed up (vs making money out of investing in a business or whatever).
In NZ this has a lot to do wtih distortion in the system to favour houses as an investment. People with good intentions protect houses from things like bankruptcy or give house ownership incentives but in the end it flushes out as minimal effect because it just creates higher house prices and a disincentive to engage in productive investment.
but yes it could be a good decision for you or me based on the fact that others may be subsidising us in round about ways.
Not in my neighborhood. Property values just go up, up, up. The bubble burst and values still went up. Proximity to the Federal government does that.
well yes - but it can't happen forever. even if it does last for 100 or 200 years.... eventially.......
Ok, I'll sell in 199 years. Don't worry.
ROFL!!
Tears even!
Way to break it down in laymen's terms!!! hahaha
wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
i have just googled the matter and read the first three texts that came up. every one of them insisted on that we don't know all the facts yet, and might never do, and that it's therefore a blurry issue. 2 of them, though, tended to judge the action as legal assuming that all the current facts or the "official version" are true and one tended to judge it as illegal.
i agree that it's hard to judge based on what we know or think we know for now but one aspect seems pretty clear: pakistan didn't allow the operation. one article still argues whether they did or did not allow it, one other has accepted that they didn't allow it and makes some statements that i basically agree with:
"The murky legal framework of the war on terror complicates things somewhat. While the U.S. government would never condone the extrajudicial killing of a most-wanted fugitive like Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger, the United States maintains that senior members of al Qaeda are "enemy combatants" and therefore not subject to civilian due process. Some vehemently disagree with this interpretation, but if a CIA drone pilot had bin Laden in his sights, it's unlikely that his first call would be to a lawyer."
it comes down to this. the international laws aren't that powerful. who in america's position would have acted differently? especially on the individual level, how can we assume that we comply with the moral standard of obeying the law in the face of the perhaps nonrecurring chance of getting hold of bin laden? if america had acted 100% correct as to the law at all times, they would've probably never caught him. i feel that countries never fully obey international laws or other countries sovereignty.
two people here have called the US "the most charitable country" (or one of the most?) in the world. unless you're referring to absolute aid per country or to private aid per capita where the US, in fact, takes up a leading role it's not true. i just investigated this a little and found the same numbers everywhere. this site sums it up best in my opinion:
http://www.owen.org/musings/generosity
amongst the most developed nations, the US ranks rather poorly when it comes to total aid (both governmental and private) per capita.
this statistic is both about aid that goes to needy people in your own as well to those of other countries.
it's quite old but wikipedia has some fresh numbers on governmental aid only. they haven't changed much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...able_countries
There's really a world of coincidence here. I was just about to write an article about how the US economy is almost exactly like that of Luxembourg and on my way home I bumped into a 3rd world country that told me it's way better to get $201 million from Luxembourg than it is to get $22.5 billion from the US because that $201 million represents nearly a full percentage point of the GNI of Luxembourg and is therefore way more valuable. This is why 5-year-olds are sought after as bosses or small business owners in the professional world because while you might only get like a dollar a month from them, but that's probably like 20% of their allowance! WOWEE!
So right, thanks a bundle for these extremely relevant statistics that show how stingy the USA is. $22.5 billion? Bah. I wouldn't even bother to pick it up if I saw it on the sidewalk. And would you look at that darn Japan selfishly giving away only $9.2 billion? Sheesh, that's just two tenths of a percent of their GNI. They should be more like Ireland paying three times as much in percent of GNI (or less than 10% of the actual cash).
i think it was you who made a moral judgment some posts back about americans being very charitable directed at a comment of mine which you interpreted as stating that americans look the other way when it comes to disasters happening in poorer countries. now you suddenly act like the individual perspective doesn't matter, only the pragmatic. what a u-turn. what you say here is directly contrary to what you said before.
but even in total aid i find your statement about americans being the most charitable not very valid. if you add number 2, 3, 4, and 5 on the list of total aid you're getting a population about equal to the US spending about the same as the US. the statement really only works if you are referring to the total aid of countries alone (as opposed to total aid of equally large populations) or if you are referring to private charity. otherwise, it's simply a false statement and is essentially ruled out as a moral argument.
The cool thing there is that even though all the cities in a country might be terribly stingy they can collectively think of themselves as generous because the sum of their donations is a larger numberThats why the EU formed the EU, now they can consider themselves to be in the league of hte USA in terms of how generous they are.
It's good that you point out the full picture. I was going to mention something similar not too long ago, but I've been busy grading papers (90 papers/540 pages=very tedious and time-consuming work!).
It's often times surprising who is generous and who is not. I remember reading a few years ago, I think in the NYT, that people who donate tend to be more conservative than those who don't. Don't quote me on that, but it was something along those lines. That's kind of surprising since liberals are proponents of more wealth redistribution compared to conservatives. I'm pretty sure (again, don't quote me) that people who attend church (or some such religious organization) are more likely to contribute to charities than those who don't. Although I think some people counter that the kind of charity makes a difference in whether it should be counted (since donating to your church doesn't automatically translate into helping the poor).
Back to America: I agree with you that the numbers are more complex than what some people would imagine. We certainly do give quite a bit, more than anyone in fact, but we have to look at other factors which you mentioned (percentage of GDP, population, etc.). It's debatable at the very least.
After teaching Mill's On Liberty again I was reminded of the fact that each year less and less of my students believe in free speech in his classic sense. Mill argues not simply that we should be free of government tyranny, but his major beef is with social tyranny ("tyranny of the majority"). I'm always a little surprised by how few of my students agree with him. 90% of them usually say that, e.g., if someone says something controversial online, and they're fired for it, then that's a reasonable consequence. Business comes first, freedom of thought and speech second. I understand that view, but I disagree. If I do something perfectly legal on my own time, I really don't think it serves society's progressive interest to legally support a business in firing me for my remarks. How is it that I can be fired for doing something perfectly legal, such as exploring ideas, on my own time? Somehow my students reason that when we're online we of course represent our employers! Does that same principle apply if I'm part of a legal protest? I would think not. But more and more I think I'm in the minority on this one.
Another one of their rebuttals to me is that "You have the right to say what you want but you must face the consequences" such as getting fired. But that again misses Mill's major point which is that morally speaking we as a society benefit from a diversity of views, even when those views are unpopular. So if we exert social pressure (such as depriving people of their livelihood) on people to conform to mass thought and opinion, that's just as bad for us as a society as if we had exerted legal punishment. In either case we lose the chance to cultivate honest discussion and interesting individual perspectives.
Ah, but wasn't it you who said that sex with barnyard animals and huffing paint were two of the greatest accomplishments of humankind?
If you want to quote me, then quote me. You don't get to just vaguely remember something I might have said and then call me on the carpet for it. That's a bunch of crap. Show the post where I said Americans are more generous than Germans (or whatever it is you claim I said).
And you are inferring a heck of a lot from some very simple statistics. All you've shown is that one can ignorantly conclude anything he desires from statistics.
Finally, even though it's scarcely necessary to defend against your inept assault on something I may or may not have said, there is in fact more recent data available:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid
That data uses some of the same sources so if your data can be trusted, so can the above link. Notable figures:
2009 total foreign aid: $44.9 billion
2007 net private grants to developing countries: $12.2 billion
2004 private assistance: $24.2 billion
I wouldn't say that necessarily proves anything other than that making sweeping conclusions from your tiny slice of data is not going to bring you anywhere near the truth.
Now back down or I'll take off the kid gloves.
I think it's a generational thing brought about by MySpace and Facebook. People have lost all sense of privacy. A friend of mine used to run a smart kid camp for teens. She would always just look them up on MySpace (this was before the rise of Facebook) before the session started to find out who the troublemakers were because these stupid kids would post about how much they were getting drunk or stoned or whatever for anybody to see. And these are supposedly the smart kids!
if it wasn't you, just say it. i intentionally wrote "i think it was you" in order to maintain the possibility that i might have mixed something up in my head. as i remember it it was some subordinate clause of yours so you won't make me search for it. if you don't remember it yourself, you probably haven't wrote it. i was really sure that you said something like that as a response to the discussion we had about westerners/americans being hypocrites concerning the valuation of human life. but if i'm mistaken, i have to admit that i acted hastily when i said that your statements now contrast those from before.
i agree that statistics are hard to interpret but what i see when i google this are the same numbers over and over again. i'm not sure if i understand the link that you posted. it either means that the US in 2009 spend a lot more on aid than in the other years (note that my wikipedia article is from 2010 so it's the more updated one) or that this kind of aid is assessed differently, takes some other factors into account. on the wiki site "foreign policy of the united states" there's a small apron about foreign aid as well with an attached link to the full article about foreign aid which you posted. strangely, in this apron, they say,And you are inferring a heck of a lot from some very simple statistics. All you've shown is that one can ignorantly conclude anything he desires from statistics.
Finally, even though it's scarcely necessary to defend against your inept assault on something I may or may not have said, there is in fact more recent data available:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid
That data uses some of the same sources so if your data can be trusted, so can the above link. Notable figures:
2009 total foreign aid: $44.9 billion
2007 net private grants to developing countries: $12.2 billion
2004 private assistance: $24.2 billion
I wouldn't say that necessarily proves anything other than that making sweeping conclusions from your tiny slice of data is not going to bring you anywhere near the truth.
"In absolute dollar terms, the United States is the largest international aid donor ($22.7 billion in 2006), but as a percent of gross national income, its contribution is only 0.2%, proportionally much smaller than contributions of countries such as Sweden (1.04%) and the United Kingdom (0.52%)[citation needed]. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) manages the bulk of bilateral economic assistance; the Treasury Department handles most multilateral aid."
yea, and i just took another look at it, and they DO take other factors into account.
"Total economic and military assistance: $44.9 billion
Total military assistance: $11 billion
Total economic assistance: $33.9 billion
of which, USAID assistance: $11.7 billion."
only military and USAID assistance is usually taken into account but your article also refers to other economic assistance. basically it says the same as what my sources say.
and i'd like to encourage you to just google three other sites about this. they all have the same numbers, really. i didn't see anything deviating. and my point was the following:
that you cannot refer to america as "one of the most charitable countries" unless you are talking about total aid of countries or private donations per capita. as a percentage of GNI or as total aid per capita the statement is not valid.
don't ridicule yourself, internet hero. and PLEASE NO NITPICKING in your response. e.g., about the meaning of individual words or the semantic meaning of individual assertions outside of context.Now back down or I'll take off the kid gloves.
i feel you. i often thought about how teachers of various kinds can possibly go through all these texts if their profession is language, philosophy, or some other area where there is not necessarily one right answer. i imagine grading a text in philosophy must take a lot of passion if you want to do it correctly. but how is that possible in face of such a work load.
this reminds me a little about the conversation i had with pedal about charity. i'm not surprised at all. american conservatives tend to value personal charity over legislated "charity" which, as pedal also pointed out, isn't really charity. it's legislated allocation of resources which i would favor as well as i don't think charity is as effective as legislation when it comes to the amount of money transferred (which is supported by the links i have posted), concerning safety in terms of where the money goes to, if it's really helpful, etc., and because it seems that charity is more concentrated on the short-term than on the long-term as opposed to legislation. i think that's essentially where the division comes from. i don't know how much it has to do with religion, i'd guess this is a secondary effect. christianity seems to have a culture of personal charity in the US.It's often times surprising who is generous and who is not. I remember reading a few years ago, I think in the NYT, that people who donate tend to be more conservative than those who don't. Don't quote me on that, but it was something along those lines. That's kind of surprising since liberals are proponents of more wealth redistribution compared to conservatives. I'm pretty sure (again, don't quote me) that people who attend church (or some such religious organization) are more likely to contribute to charities than those who don't. Although I think some people counter that the kind of charity makes a difference in whether it should be counted (since donating to your church doesn't automatically translate into helping the poor).
Well, go find the quote. That's the point. I'm encouraging you to do your homework. I probably said that Americans are generous, but I don't think I compared American generosity to European or Japanese or whatever.
And why is percentage GNI a better way to determine how generous a nation is? Do you think GNI is some universal standard and that all economies around the world are exactly the same? GNI doesn't take into account costs of living, nor concentrations of wealth, nor other expenses or economic concerns. It's just the total money taken in divided by number of citizens (per capita). Monaco has the highest GNI in the world but they don't even chart on your generosity scale! What a bunch of stingy jerks!
Finally, can you really defend your sweeping generalization based on a tiny snippet of data? Rhetorical question. Of course you can't.
Sorry, but you don't get to make the rules. This is the Internet and nitpicking is the law of the land.
I can't let this one go by. McCain being that guy that you just have to admire sometimes:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...dsG_story.html
He's a guy who actually was tortured. You can get similar sentiments from actual military interrogators who say they get better information from informants who were not tortured. The majority of the Bush apologists (Mukasey, Cheney, etc) who keep insisting torture actually works have never put on a uniform and never conducted an interrogation.
i just looked for 5 minutes and didn't find it as expected. if i knew where it was i would've quoted you. i hoped you would just remember what you wrote and go with it or refer to the post yourself by quoting. also, my quote would've been totally out of context because you used that argument only as one tiny piece of a much larger picture as far as i remember.
i don't know why they use the GNI. wikipedia says, "The GNI per capita is the dollar value of a country’s final income in a year, divided by its population. It reflects the average income of a country’s citizens.And why is percentage GNI a better way to determine how generous a nation is? Do you think GNI is some universal standard and that all economies around the world are exactly the same? GNI doesn't take into account costs of living, nor concentrations of wealth, nor other expenses or economic concerns. It's just the total money taken in divided by number of citizens (per capita). Monaco has the highest GNI in the world but they don't even chart on your generosity scale! What a bunch of stingy jerks!
Knowing a country’s GNI per capita is a good first step toward understanding the country’s economic strengths and needs, as well as the general standard of living enjoyed by the average citizen." according to this, i'd say it makes sense to use the GNI.
costs of living? why does it matter? it's dependent on average income. i.e. in denmark the average income is probably greater than in the US (my guess) but danes still have less purchase power because it's so freaking expensive here. these two entities balance each other out, everything else being equal. germany, e.g., lies somewhere between the US and denmark here. and concentration of wealth? how could that affect the statistic? do you mean that many people, then, can't afford to pay because they're too poor? don't get it. i generally agree that it is impossible to take into account ALL factors with quantitative data but if it's only enough for you if we know all factors, then we can stop using such data completely.
there must be some reason behind the fact that everyone seems to choose the GNI for this since years and i assume some good one. i'd like to hear an expert's opinion on this. but here's a good question: if i cannot rely on these statistics, how could you make a judgment about americans' generosity (implying you did which you seem to indicate)? based on your personal experience? is that a better basis for judgment?
why tiny? do you mean i should also refer to statistics that use other means of measurement? or argue why this statistic is enough and why the GNI is an accurate measurement? don't expect too much of me, i only countered some statements that weren't accounted for with facts at all by using at least some facts.Finally, can you really defend your sweeping generalization based on a tiny snippet of data? Rhetorical question. Of course you can't.
i'm begging you, the ruler of land nitpicking, to show mercy.Sorry, but you don't get to make the rules. This is the Internet and nitpicking is the law of the land.
okay, i've seen this word two times on this forum now. do you guys over in america actually discuss whether it's okay to torture?
Exactly. The times are changing. When I was teaching at CWU I lived with a girl who had just graduated with some kind of holistic, alternative medical degree and was looking to hire an assistant at her newly opened up office. It came down to two girls, so she looked them both up on MySpace (which was popular then) and told me she decided against the conservative Christian in favor of the pot smoking hippy girl. When she told me she made her decision on the basis of those qualities, I was kind of surprised that she herself wasn't aware of what she had done, i.e., violate someone's equal employment opportunity rights! It honestly didn't occur to her. She's in the generation between me and my students, and I'm guessing it's just going downhill.
Well, I guess you've learned your lesson then. I probably did write something stupid to be preserved for all time on the Internet, but you are too lazy to find it and therefore I win by forfeit!
They use GNI and other tools because it's actually extremely difficult to compare the wealth of two people living on different continents. For example, an American might make more money than a German, but he has to pay for health insurance. He might have college debt. If he doesn't live in an urban center, odds are he has to drive a long distance to get to work (regrettably most Americans do) which of course is an additional expense. Who is wealthier?
And like I said, GNI makes no allowances for distribution of wealth which is why Monaco has the highest in the world. A nation of one billionaire and 99 slaves would have a GNI of $100 million per capita. Would you say the slaves are stingy because they aren't chipping in $800,000 in foreign aid apiece?
You don't understand why cost of living would be relevant and then go on to discuss how the high cost of living in Denmark leaves the Danes with less purchase power. Think about it. GNI does not take cost of living into account so it doesn't tell us the whole story in terms of how much people can afford to give.
Oh come now. A free thinker such as yourself accepting something because "they" say so? GNI is used as a measure of relative wealth because relative wealth is actually very difficult to measure. Nobody (except perhaps you?) believes it to be a perfect measure.
Your own raw numbers, if you'd bother to analyze them, tell this exact story.
Go back here: http://www.owen.org/musings/generosity
Let's look at the first table. The US gave $6.3 billion in private grants during the recorded period. Germany gave just over $1 billion. The US has roughly four times the population of Germany but gave more than six times as much. Compare to Japan which has more than 1/3 the population of the US yet had about 5% as much given in private grants. That seems to me like it's a lot of Americans writing checks they don't need to be writing.
You can point to Federal spending and try to construe something there, but surely you know that we have a representative democracy and that ordinary citizens have very little say in policy. We generally just have two choices when we vote.
You should use aggregate data over at least a decade if you want to show a trend. I showed that the US was giving more than twice in foreign aid just a few years later. If you pick and choose your data sets you can "prove" anything you like and it's meaningless. The owen.org site doesn't indicate what other factors in 2002-2003 might have affected how much various nations were giving in foreign aid. I expect Federal spending dipped during that period as we were busy planning to wreck our economy with a disastrous war. Also, we had deliberately reduced our own tax revenues by cutting taxes on the wealthy and on corporations (and a few bucks for the plebes). I think all of that speaks to very bad policy, but not a lack of generosity.
I don't personally know anyone who has advanced that opinion, however it regrettably has become a topic for national debate. Did you miss all the waterboarding controversy a few years ago? The Bush people decided to start torturing prisoners and did a bunch of stuff that violates the Geneva Conventions. They justified it saying they were getting good intel (though I don't think we ever saw evidence of that) and, you know, Muslims are scary and stuff. After bin Laden went down, they all came squirming out of the woodwork to say it was torture that lead us to him. But according to Leon Panetta (outgoing CIA director and incoming Defense Secretary), that just isn't true.
If you want to have a good laugh (and have a sarcastic sense of humor), take a look at this site and browse around a bit::
http://www.coalcares.org/
Click on the "clean energy" tab to see some hilarious explanations, such as "Coal power is, of course, solar power. That’s because millions of years ago, before coal began to form from decaying organic matter, the sun provided the energy that organic matter required to grow and spread."
They have already received legal threat from Peabody Energy in due course, to which they responded with gems like this:
http://theyesmen.org/peabody
"Thank you for your thoughtful letter demanding that we remove Peabody’s name from www.coalcares.org and cease falsely suggesting that Peabody cares about kids made sick by coal."
Is that site actually serious?
So-called “solar energy,” on the other hand, refers to the direct use of the violent fusion reactions occurring deep within our nearest star. As you might expect, this kind of “solar energy” naturally comes with a host of dangers that coal’s million-year buffering is designed to avoid. Some scientists refer to so-called “solar energy” as “mainlining the sun”—and it doesn’t take an Einstein to see an overdose looming.0_oViolently spinning turbine blades are a potential decapitation hazard for curious passers-by who climb up the ladders often installed on the shafts. Also, these high, easy-to-climb structures can be an irresistible temptation for depressives lost in the flatlands where turbines are usually sited, and seeking a means of suicide.
Can you think of a hot place in a coal power plant? I certainly can't....Sierra Sun Tower, produce 5 megawatts of energy—more than 3600 times the amount that will cause sunburn. CSTs could in fact instantly fry an entire extended family or even village to death, were it located at the point of focus of the solar energy beams.
Every science student has heard of the so-called “butterfly effect” from aptly-named “Chaos Theory”: namely, that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in the wilds of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, can set off a massive, community-shattering tornado in Bunker Hill Village, Texas. If, as scientists state, a mere butterfly can cause a tornado so many thousands of miles away, imagine what a hill-full of wind turbines can do.
Suppose a butterfly flapping its wings, producing about 12.5 W of energy, can unleash a tornado producing approximately 100MW of energy. By this measure, a large wind farm—producing 781.5 MW of energy, or the equivalent of approximately 63 million butterflies—could unleash the equivalent of 63 million tornados, or over 6 quadrillion watts of energy.
"The long-term solution is to promote a better ideology, which is freedom. Freedom is universal,"
"People who do not look like us want freedom just as much. The relatives of [former Secretary of State]Condoleezza Rice over 100 years ago wanted freedom. It is only when you do not have hope in a society that you join a suicide bomber team."
ShowTek, would you care to venture a guess who said these things before checking the web reference? Of course, my asking means you'll get it right even if you have no idea who it is.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/georg...ry?id=13592860
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
Can be shortened to "It's just going downhill."
best regards,
Pedal2Metal
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