Elerond
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Posts posted by Elerond
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8 hours ago, Chilloutman said:
i bet there was kids starving to death in UK when India was colonized by them. Its always so hard to argue here, people just try to dodge all the arguments and find smallest nitpicks to degrade any argument of opposition.
You are of course entitled to your opinion. I gave up long time ago to change any ones mind. Reality is just that, India is doing much better than 90% of Africa. Both were colonies of European powers. You can believe its because of some magical favourable trade agreements if you want to - I don't.
China economics is not only at cost of some personal freedoms, Its fueled by deaths of millions of people
So cost of personal freedoms and deaths of millions is good in India, but bad in China?
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1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:
The best way for wages to go up as for there to be more jobs available. When there is a competition for the services of the workforce the members of the workforce are able to demand higher wages. Once again just basic economics. So to get more jobs you need to make it more attractive to do business inside the United States. Well, countries like China has for all practical purposes a pool of slave labor for companies to take advantage of. You cannot do that here obviously. So you need to benefit the companies who might employ Americans in other ways. Once again the only power the government has the power to tax and regulate. So you have to ease off the taxes and ease off the regulations if they do their business inside the United States. You cannot change what China does to its people. Or any other country. All we can control is what we do here.
1. That don't seem to work very well. Like for example USA's unemployment rate is much lower than Finland's and there are more fast food restaurants per capita but median salary of Finnish fast food worker is almost 30% higher than in USA.
2. Then on IT sector Finland has more software engineer positions per capita than USA and almost every company is need of competent programmers and yet programmers median salary is almost 10% higher
Main contributing reason for 1. point is Finland's higher social benefits, which forces companies pay higher salaries for unskilled labor. Main contributing factor for second is cost of living in cities that held most of the software engineers, which leads software engineers asks lower salaries.
As government also can use those taxes regulations to they collect and impose to skew economy in different directions, like paying "high" welfare in order to prevent people needing to work jobs that don't pay living wages and cutting cost of living by regulating cost of apartments, supporting people buying their own homes, with tax breaks and partial loan securities. Using those taxes to keep cost of education and health care low even for people in high end of middle class.
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8 hours ago, Chilloutman said:
well how are employment rates doing?
Soviet Union had 100% employment rate, its economy was also "booming" until it collapsed (meaning Soviet Union)
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12 hours ago, Chilloutman said:
Well your economy is booming, .
Is economy booming when budget runs trillion dollars in deficit per year. You can buy lots of things with loaned money, but that doesn't mean that you are economically speaking in good place.
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Greta is brilliant business woman, at age 16 she is world famous millionaire just by telling that people should read IPCC's reports and studies.
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8 hours ago, ComradeMaster said:
*rollseyes*
Never change, liberals.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will applaud Stalin and Russians for their performance in WW2 despite being dealt an initial bad hand and playing it the best they could. Not a fan of dictatorships or One Party states but credit and respect can go where they're due.
It is good that you applaud for USSR invading it neighbouring countries without provocation and killing hundreds of thousands people. It is just so sad that USSR had to invade for example Finland in order to ensure that their initial bad hand don't cause them too much problems
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I find it bit funny how much more people bring up how Hunter Biden got high paying job in private company, without any other clear merit but, his father being vice president of US, considering current president's daughter and son of law work as high paying advisers in White House without any merit that show that they are qualified to work in such position.
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3 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:
not sure, this is NK, this is almost neighbor of Israel we are talking about. I am sure when there is a chance they can fire nuke they get peppered so hard it would be second Australia in seconds. Not to mention Saudies...
Like South Korea and Japan aren't North Korea's neighbors
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Second there is confirmation they're close it is too late. We need only to look cases of North Korea, Pakistan and India to see how fast the final mile in nuclear weapon development is. It is why there has been efforts to stop Iran's uranium enrichment programs. But currently Iran is enriching uranium faster than never before. Current prediction is that they will have nuclear weapons in 2021 if they want them. So now is time to invade if you want to stop their nuclear weapon program.
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Accidental downing of flight 752 reminded all sides of consequences of cold war where one side has already is backed to corner and paranoia and they still own air defence which range covers big sunk of Middle East. Meaning that Iran that constantly fears attacks from USA will shot more passenger planes all around Middle East regardless do they intend to do so or not.
Also this situation gives Iran opportunity to continue their nuclear program with speed that they have in past avoided in fear of consequences, now they already face those consequences regardless. So as Trump strated his fight with Iran because of he hated Obama's nuclear deal, current situation in that light is lose for Trump and efforts to prevent Iran develop nuclear weapons.
So overall it has been lose for everyone, except for those who want to see nuclear apocalypse.
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2 hours ago, Skarpen said:
It seems very plausible that Iran sent their most ferocious rabid dog to deliver peace and mediation. Who believes in such nonsense?
He was head of Iran's secret service / CIA / military intelligence who only answered Iran's supreme leader. So he was one of the Iranians who actually had power to negotiate any sort cease fires and other forms of de-escalation.
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According to Iraq's prime minister Suleimani was in Iraq because he was delivering Iran's response to Saudi Arabia as part of mediation efforts by Iraq. And Iraq started mediation in direct request from Donald Trump. So it seems that USA orchestrated trap for Suleimani in disguise of peace/de-escalation talks.
I am sure that this will make peace talks in Middle East so much easier, especially if USA is involved
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6 hours ago, Hurlshot said:
The Obama Muslim stuff always cracks me up. I mean, it really does explain just how willing people are to believe that the other party is filled with monsters and super villains. People believed he was Muslim and then had to deal with him as President for 8 long years! How did this country even survive?
Way they quote Regan, sounds more like people quoting biblical saint, than a president, which probably explains lot about american evangelicals view of the world.
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3 hours ago, ShadySands said:
Plaid Cymru?
The Party of Wales in English . Welsh looks and sounds like a pseudo fantasy language.
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57 minutes ago, ComradeMaster said:
Mass Effect is Canadian. However yes I think someone mentioned that having only two parties leads to a case of seeing an election outcome as good or evil winning.
On the flip side:
That's the German Bundestag.
Perhaps a bit overkill. eh?
I think that German party split looks typical for European parliament
like for example
Finnish Parliament
Swedish Parliament
Danish Parliament
Norwegian Parliament
Icelandic Parliament
Estonian Parliament
Dutch Parliament
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33 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:
Lack of formal censorship makes lying worse, not better, since you're lying out of self interest, stupidity, cupidity or base greed rather than because you'd literally be thrown in jail or killed for telling the truth.
And in completely unrelated news, amazingly after 9 years or whatever the rape case against Julian Assange is now considered too weak to proceed with. Which coincidentally clears the way for an extradition to the US. Nobody, certainly no credible journalist or media organisation, could have forseen this completely normal and unpredicted procedure (apart from Assange and his tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorising supporters, of course, who'd predicted exactly that for... 9 years).
It is considered weak because it is based on testimony of witness who has started to lose key details after 9 years. So by hiding for 9 years from accusations against him, Assange most likely succeed to guarantee his extradition to US and will even more likely get sent to prison for several years. Where in case that he would had just went to face accusations in Sweden, he would even case that he would had found guilty only faced probation and had been much better protected against extradition to US.
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14 hours ago, Skarpen said:
And which one of Scandinavian countries have government owning the means of production and central planning economy?
In Finland, Sweden and Norway government owns quite lot of the means of production and have centralish planning economy
QuoteGreed drives you to get things you want and don't have (or have enough of). Envy drives you to want what someone else has. If you want to take things from someone else it's not greed that drives you, it's envy. Without envy socialism is DOA. Greed might lead you to disregard your fellow humans but envy leads to antipathy for them because your wants are satisfied at their expense.
Greed also drives you to want what someone else has, because greedy enough people want to own what other owns. And envy also can drive people try to make better of themselves so that they can feel that they are better than people around them.
QuoteDisagree completely. Capitalism is "I want more". Socialism is "I want them to have less". Sanders and Warren are not talking about making the middle class rich. They are talking about making the rich middle class. It's not about building anyone up. Only tearing some people down.
You could say that capitalism is "I first then others" and socialism is "community first then me". So I would say that "I want them to have less" is quite misleading when it comes to socialism, because it also is based to idea that people should have more, difference is more in who should be primary gainer of the wealth in the system.
But as we know either of these ideologies don't matter when this is the reality
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4 hours ago, Chilloutman said:
does it? Are not my tax money spend on someone else mass transit? Again don't take it as I am complaining about mass transit but I don't see reason why I could not expect tax money to be spend on infrastructure for cars same way its spend on mass transit. Its not like there is some kind of tax on gas for example...
Money spent on mass transit is money spend on infrastructure for cars. As roads already exists and are needed for logistical reasons as currently there is no other as effective way to pickup and deliver goods and raw materials for first mile and last mile cases. And our economies depend on that movement of goods and raw materials, which also means that there is constant economical need to invest in said infrastructure for cars, which is expensive and demands lots of land and space. Which is where mass transit comes in to help as it helps to lessen number of economically ineffective vehicles in transit, which frees roads for more important transit of goods and raw materials and same time it gives new opportunities for transiting goods and raw materials in non-first and last mile cases. So in short, by investing in mass transit country gets more from its existing infrastructure and leaves more room to build more goods and raw material production facilities (and possible more housing but that is usually after thought)
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9 hours ago, BruceVC said:
I would argue Germany wasnt bombed to end the war, yes Dresden occurred but it was considered a legitimate target in the German war machine
That is bit questionable, considering that allied didn't actually bomb strategic bridges, factories, or even military base just outside of Dresden, instead allies focused on bombing most heavily populated parts of the city.
Also reasoning that Dresden was bombed in order to save US/British soldiers is bit weak as it locates in eastern Germany near current German-Poland border and US and British never had any plans to go there with their ground forces as Soviet Union's forces where already approaching the city and city was full of refugees that had fled Soviet's forces.
Something about questionable nature of bombing of Dresden says this UK's national archive's piece
In February 1945, the last year of World War 2, Britain sent 300 Lancaster bombers to attack the crowded German city of Dresden. This attack was not the precision bombing of specific military targets. It was deliberate bombing of a whole area. The bombs destroyed city buildings and started tremendous fires.
Before long, eleven square miles of Dresden were consumed by a firestorm. The vacuum caused by the rapid rise of hot air created tornadoes that tossed furniture, trees and debris into the air. People were caught in fires as hot as 1000 °C. The city was devastated. No one knows how many thousands died.
The German armies were in retreat at this time and the war was nearly over. Some historians have argued that this attack was not justifiable on military grounds, that it was nothing more than a slaughter of civilians. But others say it helped to shorten the war in Europe.
Ultimate responsibility for this attack lay with the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. Was the bombing of Dresden a justifiable act during wartime? How closely was Winston Churchill involved in the decision to attack the city? Does this cast a shadow upon Churchill's reputation as the heroic icon of twentieth century British history?
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/heroesvillains/g1/
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6 hours ago, pmp10 said:
Because their deaths saved lives of people far more innocent then themselves.
I haven't heard how much invading and occupying Finland has done before being Soviets attacked but it seems to me a bit different situation.
I would argue that bombing civilians after winning the war didn't save any lives, it was done in order to force Germany and Japan to surrender without conditions.
You know that USA, UK, France, Soviet Union and etc countries found that it was Finland fault that Soviets invaded it and Finland had to pay massive war reparations for Soviet Union, give up quite large areas of land to Soviet Union, including one of Finland's oldest cities. Also Finland war time president was convicted for crimes against Soviet Union and put to prison.
But anyway purposefully bombing civilian targets in order to cause terror is considered to be a war crime although in reality it is always overlooked by tribunals.
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9 hours ago, BruceVC said:
These bombings really shouldnt been seen as war crimes, there are several fundamental reasons for this
Elerond if you truly want to understand parts of history then you have to try to adopt the same mindset as the people who lived in that era and understand what were there considerations, fears and goals ....and most importantly you will see there reality. Then you will have a more favorable or rather a more balanced view of certain events like the bombings in Japan.
If the USA had invaded mainland Japan to finally get Japan to surrender it was predicted they would lose 1 million soldiers fighting the fanatical Japanese loyalists
Why should the US lose that many men when the war was basically over, Japan wasnt a threat at this stage to anyone as most of there army had been destroyed but they still had the Emperor and the general ideology of Totalitarianism which the army still followed. This ideology could only be eradicated will with Japan surrendering and admitting defeat
So the cities had to be bombed to ensure this and to prevent the inevitable lose of hundreds of thousands of US soldiers, the Pacific campaign was a brutal and merciless series of battles and after Okinawa and Iwo Jima and the horrendous loss of life no one in the US wanted another ground invasion to conquer the final bastion of the Japanese . I would strongly recommend anyone interested in how terrible this campaign was to read the book below,its evocative and brilliant. Its called Goodbye Darkness
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19801.Goodbye_Darkness
So in other words "Because Japanese were bad people."
My grandparents served in WWII, during time when Soviet air forces fire bombed Finland's cities freely and then they lived the time when Finland had to pay Soviet Union compensation of cost of those bombs that destroyed cities where they lived. So I have some knowledge of mindset of people who lived in that era.
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Because Japanese were bad people. It is same why bombing of Dresden is not considered as war crime.
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GOP in 2016: GOP Final Benghazi Report: P. 360 (https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/114th-congress/house-report/848/1)
GOP in 2019
GOP lawmakers storm closed-door impeachment session
Politics, local-national-global-galactic
in Way Off-Topic
Posted
Those, plus India's actions in Kashmir,
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/INDIA935.PDF
https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/sca/154480.htm
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/For-the-first-time-securitymen-kill-more-civilians-than-terrorists-in-JK/articleshow/6508298.cms?referral=PM
https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/INDIA-2018.pdf
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/17/india-failing-kashmiri-human-rights
And how nice India's current prime minister has been in past
https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/modi-us-relations-on-track-but-frosty/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/06/06/from-pariah-to-capitol-hill-narendra-modis-extraordinary-rise/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/aatish-taseer-modi-oci-time-magazine-article-father-pakistan-india-a9194771.html
And India's nice informal justice system that is still in power in many parts
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/24/india-village-gang-rape-violence-poverty-illiteracy-west-bengal
And other things