Well, as I said "one-sided criticism lacks is the ability to put things into perspective". That you think it would be better if Saddam Hussein could have kept Kuwait (than him being forced out of Kuwait by a large UN approved coalition) proves it well..

And with Ukraine, the West "was worse", evidently being the bigger culprit for the war....somehow.

That's a car I would imagine someone like Benkei would buy. Comfortable, well built, useful, not too expensive yet good quality. A car that someone writing in PF would buy.

Is it an automatic? I would guess it's an automatic, but not four-wheel drive.
(Of course I don't know much about Benkei, but guessing in fun sometimes)

Well, this is what I ended up buying... — Sam26

Cool car, Sam26.

I hate it when people buy a sportscar with awful colours, but that one looks good.

Just how do the West's action compare here with starting wars and annexing parts of other countries is indeed important. — ssu

The West's actions are worse. — René Descartes

Would the world be better with Saddam Hussein having Kuwait? — ssu

Yes — René Descartes

You perfectly prove my point! :rofl: :clap:

That a dictator, that ruined his country by first starting a disasterous war against it's neighbour, Iran, and then afterwards attacked it's ally and supporter, was is in your words a OK thing at it would be better if he would have gotten away with it.

Too bad that an UN backed operation with 32 countries with countries like Syria, Egypt, Saudi-Arabia, Morocco, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and oh, Sweden, fought against this annexation that is somehow seems justified by you. Because the fact is that in this World event you are utterly incapable of seeing anything else than your hated US with it's hegemonic aspirations. Everything goes around this, nothing else. And because the elder Bush administration as the US in general was so rotten, for you it would have been better if the World would have accepted Iraq can just annex it's wealthy neighbour.

Or in the case of the Ukrainian revolution and the annexation and war that followed it, which I was discussing, "the West's actions are worse".

Yep, this is exactly proves the point of how the totally ludicrous and utterly incoherent the average anti-West attitude is. Perhaps it's the moronic stupidity of the American right-wing discourse, which indeed is stupid and intended for ignorant morons, that creates this hatred, but why it then makes to loose all rational perspective that ends up with absolutely hilarious views like the above. Your a perfect case sample of this attitude were this attitude of being critical about the West then totally blurs all critical thinking of the opposite.

Oh yes, perhaps you will admit that Saddam Hussein or even Putin made some bad, but in the end they don't compare at all, actually, with the evil of the West which you so perfectly showed in your hilarious response.

And likely you won't at all understand my point about the total lack of objectivity and perspective. No, you will just assume that I'm a Fox News watching moron if I don't agree with you and that I'm totally non-critical about the US. That's the typical way people respond nowdays.

This is not the argument. One wrong does not justify another. The argument is that the US cannot play the moral judge who steps in to put things right and restore order when its own track record is as despicable if not worse. — CuddlyHedgehog

Perhaps it's not the moral judge it says it is, but still...

What Great Power wouldn't have it's burden of wrongdoings? Yet does that mean there aren't occasions where "putting things right" and "restoring order" have proved to be good and beneficial?

Would South Koreans be better off living in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea? Because the US has been so lousy in it's backyard to smaller countries? Where's the logic in that?

This comes to down to Bitter Cranks point of 'personalization of the behavior of nations', treating like humans. If you have a person that has committed a serious crime, you obviously don't give him or her the moral highground anymore and likely be very suspect of his or her judgement. But nations aren't similar. There's no similar "will" or "moral judgement" in a nation, just the sum of actions of various people. You can judge the people, not countries.

Tough luck for Ukraine. — Benkei

Ukrainians do truly regret giving away there own nuclear arsenal. Even if they had kept just a few missiles and maintained them in order, a small nuclear arsenal would very likely prevented the annexation.

And sometimes some people get it right beforehand like John Mearsheimer writing in 1993:

Most Western observers want Ukraine to rid itself of nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. In this view, articulated recently by President Bill Clinton, Europe would be more stable if Russia were to become "the only nuclear-armed successor state to the Soviet Union." The United States and its European allies have been pressing Ukraine to transfer all of the nuclear weapons on its territory to the Russians, who naturally think this is an excellent idea.

President Clinton is wrong. The conventional wisdom about Ukraine's nuclear weapons is wrong. In fact, as soon as it declared independence, Ukraine should have been quietly encouraged to fashion its own nuclear deterrent. Even now, pressing Ukraine to become a nonnuclear state is a mistake.

A nuclear Ukraine makes sense for two reasons. First, it is imperative to maintain peace between Russia and Ukraine. That means ensuring that the Russians, who have a history of bad relations with Ukraine, do not move to reconquer it. Ukraine cannot defend itself against a nuclear-armed Russia with conventional weapons, and no state, including the United States, is going to extend to it a meaningful security guarantee. Ukrainian nuclear weapons are the only reliable deterrent to Russian aggression. If the U.S. aim is to enhance stability in Europe, the case against a nuclear-armed Ukraine is unpersuasive.

See The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent


But on the other hand, we (especially us Finns) ought to be very thankfull that the Soviet politicians that handled the collapse of the Soviet Union were not similarly inept and of extremely dangerous type that Yugoslavia had. (As one Serb intellectual put it, worst thing to happen to Serbia was Milosevic.) The war between Ukraine and Russia clearly shows that the peacefull collapse of the Soviet Union wasn't at all such an obvious outcome. Perhaps only the utter disillusionment of the ruling class saved the people of the Soviet Union from true misery, but one should tip the hat for the last Soviets in power. If the Soviet Union would have collapsed into civil war like Yugoslavia did, the death toll likely would have been enormous. What we saw were just brief firefights and tanks rolling on the streets of Moscow, violence that was contained. The government here back then did make plans to make refugee camps for refugees fleeing a collapse of Russia, as typically collapses of the state in Russia have resulted in bloodshed and war. Luckily it never happened and Russia did bounce back. Ukraine never did recover economically.

But history doesn't know any alternative outcomes and hence every time a war has been prevented, it cannot be shown to be so.

This lacks credibility. "well-known fact", "textbook strategy of a terrorist cell (did you just make that up?)" are statements that prove nothing. — CuddlyHedgehog

Oh, you don't think terrorist groups think of themselves being the vanguard of a emerging resistance movement? Like the name Rote Armee Fraktion doesn't give it away? Lol.

Well, I could say that you partly have a point in that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed didn't anticipate the US invading Afghanistan, when interviewed later in custody. You might then argue then that Al Qaeda thought that the attacks would cow out the US away from the region. Because the US went away from Somalia after losing few casualties.

But anyway, in the bigger picture after the invasion of Iraq, the franchise got well underway. After all, the founder of ISIS had been earlier the commander of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

But then again, I assume that's just an opinion for you.

So you need references?

Just to look up a few...

Shahzad, who had been the Pakistan bureau chief for the Hong Kong- based Asia Times, had unique access to senior Al-Qaeda commanders and cadres, as well as those of the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban organizations.

His account of Al-Qaeda strategy is particularly valuable because of the overall ideological system and strategic thinking that emerged from many encounters Shahzad had with senior officials over several years.

Shahzad writes that Al-Qaeda strategists believed its terrorist attacks on 9/11 would lead to a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan which would in turn cause a worldwide “Muslim backlash.” That “backlash” was particularly important to what emerges in Shahzad’s account as the primary Al-Qaeda aim of stimulating revolts against regimes in Muslim countries.

Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 Strategy Explained

Or this one:

Al Qaeda knew its limited numbers precluded it from defeating these governments, so it sought to provoke the Muslim masses into overthrowing them. Al Qaeda also knew it lacked the strength to do this provoking by itself so it sought to trick someone more powerful into doing it. By al Qaeda's logic, an attack of sufficient force against the Americans would lure the United States to slam sideways into the Middle East on a mission of revenge, leading to direct and deep U.S. collaboration with those same secular, corrupt local governments. Al Qaeda's hope was that such collaboration with the Americans would lead to outrage — and outrage would lead to revolution. Note that the 9/11 attacks were not al Qaeda's first attempt to light this flame. The 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings and the 2000 USS Cole bombing were also the work of this same al Qaeda cell, but the attacks lacked the strength to trigger what al Qaeda thought of as a sufficient U.S. response.

The Many Faces of Al Qaeda

In their haste to condemn the US for being a military imperialist racist sexist regime, they overlook the horrors of what Syrians various factions are doing, and what the Assad regime is doing to Syrians. — Bitter Crank

Hear, hear.

The only reason I come up to this happening is the following: people think that if they admit that the Assad regime is behind horrors, means that US maybe correct in something this in turn casts doubt to their criticism of the US. Which in my view doesn't make sense (especially with the utterly flawed Syria policy, there's a lot to critisize). It's just such a stop gap reaction: "Country X has done this bad thing" - "Meh. The US is responsible for far worse!"

Being this way "critical" in this sense makes them quite open to believe the other sides information warfare. That propaganda typically doesn't care at all if the true comes up let say 6 months to years afterward, it only tries to dominate the present discourse.

I remember the times on the old PF when Bush was preparing for his Iraqi invasion, there were a lot of people believing the lies then and being very angry about it if you said something against them. That's the power of a good information campaign.

I still don't understand what you say lacks credibility. You should make the argument why it lacks credibility.

- That Al Qaeda's strategy with the 9/11 attacks were to get the US to invade Afghanistan is a well known fact. And It's basically a textbook strategy how a tiny terrorist cell making a terrorist strike thinks to get popularity: that the response of what is targeted (the government, or in this case a nation) will make people see that the cell has a justifiable cause. For example the German RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion) thought that with it's attacks the government response would open eyes of the (West) German people to see that their government was controlled by Nazis and then a true Red Army would emerge. Hence they called themselves only the fraction of this upcoming army. Similar thinking is evident in Al Qaeda's strategy, if naturally the objectives are totalal

- That Al Qaeda was basically defeated after especially with the "Sunni Awakening" and with the emergence of "Sons of Iraq" started to fight Al Qaeda. Unlike Afghanistan, the insurgency in Iraq had been contained only for the fruits of the counterinsurgency operation to be lost with basically by Nouri al-Maliki's sectarian policies. Thanks to al-Maliki, these then came the recruiting ground for IS. Add there the inability for the Shiite regime in Baghdad to control Iraq, and the sudden emergence of IS wasn't in the end so suprising.

I would say that we use models to understand reality usually for some purpose. And some models appear to be so obvious and are so useful that we define them as to be laws.

Of course these laws just abide to their context. Newtonian physics works just fine for nearly all questions, but not for everything, and hence we have to have things like relativity.

Now could our understanding change from the present? Of course! Some even more neat and useful theory could replace the existing ones, but it likely wouldn't be proving the earlier "laws" false or erroneous, but that the earlier theories said to be laws haven't covered everything and that there's simply a different point of view.

Diminishing a nation by characterizing it as an annoying person gives one simple objects to think about, but gets in the way of a complex nuanced view of reality. — Bitter Crank

You are correct that this characterization creates the flawed oversimplified perception: as if nations and their governments, even those run by despots, would have one specific agenda or idea what is best for the nation and hence somehow would behave in that manner as coherently as a person. Even a dictator cannot steer one countries actual policies and it's outcomes how he wants it. Every dictator has his powerbase that he has to keep "happy", which likely isn't agreeing in everything even if it's appearing to give thunderous applause to everything the dictator does. In every country there are competing factions with different agendas.

Russia with it's slavophiles and zapadniks is a good example of this.

And even if people take into account this, even then the cacophony of these different factions and the complexity is typically sidelined with a very simplistic narrative that looks for culprits for things we consider bad: it's the moneyed interests, the military-industrial establishment, or some other people we usually don't like (on the other side the right-wingers would talk about liberals and "cultural marxists" etc.) that are behind the bad things America does and that evil cabal somehow sets the agenda.

In some cases a small lobbying group or faction can indeed grab power and set a specific policy, best example that comes to my mind is the rise of the neocons and the continued influence even after Bush administration, yet many times things aren't so simple.

Interesting conspiracy theory but bears no more credibility than that of the Bush administration being behind the twin towers’s attack. — CuddlyHedgehog

Would be interested for your argument just where it lack's credibility.

Sure,

My own opinion is that the 9/11 attackers and Al-Qaeda itself ought to have been processed just like the Twin Tower bombing of 1993 as a terrorist attack that the police and the justice system takes care of. Just like in Germany or Italy or nearly anywhere else. Heck, the terrorist of that attack and the 9/11 attack were family! But no.

Perhaps not invading a country and not going to war would have been a far too lame response for an US President (as we know that even if it would have been Al Gore as President, the US very likely would have gone into Afghanistan).

After all, the whole idea of the terrorist attack was to piss off America to hopefully bomb Mecca and Medinah (or something as stupid). These muslim loonies couldn't before instill an islamic revolution themselves their countries, so they thought to use the US. Hence the terrorists indeed got what they wanted. With the invasion of Iraq it was even better.

Then afterwards when in Iraq, the US armed forces actually did destroy largely Al Qaeda with the Sunni Awakening (basically simply allying with part of those insurgents), which wasn't at all done by Washington's lead, but by the commanders on the field. Yet then America withdrew and the first thing the Iraqi President did was to jail his Sunni Vice President and undo everything the US armed forces had achieved with the relations to the Sunni minority.

And hence you were left with IS.

The world would be a better place without IS which was a result of the war in Iraq. — CuddlyHedgehog

Sorry, but you are referring to the wrong war.

I'm talking ABOUT the so-called Gulf War here (Desert Shield/Desert Storm). Not the American invasion of Iraq. That alliance didn't go into Iraq. The elder Bush listened to the voice of reason of the Saudis (that it would be a quagmire and no Arab nation would go along invading Baghdad...).

There is no other rational basis for a powerful country to act, really, except in its own best interest. Our best interest lay in organizing the world to suit our economic, military, and political needs. The foreign policy of a nation, or empire, may very well be immoral by individuals standards (there are numerous examples). But nations have interests, and that's what they pursue. — Bitter Crank

Bitter, your a reasonable person, so help me to understand this:

Why cannot people understand the above?

Because I find there to be this tendency to "be for and against" when looking at countries. So if your critical about the US, that means people aren't going to be critical about those countries opposing the US (or vice versa). Why is it so? As if somehow that would undermine your criticism of the US as obviously you would then agree on something that the US uses to push it's agenda. And this is somehow so bad, that people become apologists of the other.

Now I might understand it if one is a media professional, one won't bite the hand that feeds you, but ordinary people have nothing to gain by this.

(Where on Earth did my response go?)

Anyway, really Descartes?

The world would be a better Place if Saddam Hussein could have gotten Kuwait?

Your response just proves my point of lack of objectivity and perspective.

It's just you actually. You and your mates who can point the finger at Russia all they like and not look back at the West and say, "perhaps they have done something wrong as well".

I think all people who are critical of the U.S here are also critical of Russia. Of course Russia has done things wrong. Political assassinations, war on Georgia and Ukraine, etc. But we cannot just look at Russia without also addressing the U,S who s doing the blaming in the first place. — René Descartes

So you cannot talk about Russia without also addressing the US.

Can you talk about, let's say, Sweden without the US? Can Swedish foreign policy and the Swedish long term agenda be addressed without addressing the US and it's involvement with Sweden? Is it so that we cannot understand Swedish policies without taking into account the US? Oh I agree, Swedish-US relations are indeed important, but are they of such pivotal importance that you cannot understand Sweden without the US and the US has to included in the picture?

(Yes, Sweden!)


Just how do the West's action compare here with starting wars and annexing parts of other countries is indeed important. And is really every war the US has fought bad and unjustified? Sure, the "liberation" of Iraq is one thing. Yet would Koreans be better off with everyone of them being citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea? Would the world be better with Saddam Hussein having Kuwait? Oh yes, you'll find this and that error or wrongdoing that the US made, but does that really offset everything?


And I haven't said that the West doesn't have any faults here, but on has to put things into perspective.
First of all, there indeed was a narrow window of opportunity where indeed Russia could have joined NATO when Russians indeed were open to idea after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This of course would have needed truly larger than life politicians on both sides and not the average ones that we had as getting Russia into NATO and keeping it their would truly have been a political feat. Yet what prevailed wasn't a conspiracy against Russia, but the typical Western hubris that Russia was past thing and never would rise up again and hence totally unimportant on the global scene.

Yet does this then justify Putin's policies?

Trump isn't a morally perfect person, for example, I think in matters of sexuality he has some important shortcomings, but in terms of getting things done, useful policies (like the tax & bureaucracy reduction), it seems that he's been doing well. Also, he's a very good cheerleader for America. — Agustino

He seems doing well in terms of getting things done???

Ummm... one year and what has he done?

Nominated a judge to the Supreme Court and a tax cut that puts US deficits to the trillion level from here onward.

That's your definition of "doing well" when his goddam party has majority in both houses?


The most rational Pro-Trump reasoning ever that I've heard was a voter that said he wanted Trump because a) with Hillary the media would be a total lapdog and with Trump they would do their job and b) the less a President does, the better.

Now his dreams were fulfilled. Because Trump is so incompetent that not much has actually in the end happened.

It's so typical and obvious from this thread: somehow to be critical of the actions of the US seems to mean that one has to be a total apologist for other Great Powers like Russia. The inability for some people to be critical of both the US and Russia is evident. Why it is so I just wonder.

The problem is that the criticism, which itself is naturally good at a certain level, isn't here anymore objective: everything the US government does is bad, both for the countries involved and in the end to the US itself. It is similar to the self-flagellation that Germans do, which sometimes is healthy, but done allways at everything is silly and in the long run detrimental.

This one sided criticism leads to a bizarre view of the World. As if EVERYTHING countries like Russia do is just because of the evil rotten things the US has forced upon them. This is one of the most widespread ways Americans show their hubris unintentionally: as if everything orbits around them and everything happens because of the actions of the US. And hence everything is the fault of the US as all bad things happen because of US meddling. That Russia hasn't made any independent decisions itself, but has been pushed against a wall. Hence Russia is seen as a victim. It surely isn't one, but try telling that.

This America-centered view of the World blurs the reality that a) the US is only one actor among others and b) other countries are quite capable of making bad decisions themselves create tragedies even without the US. What also this one-sided criticism lacks is the ability to put things into perspective. As if countries like North Korea aren't so bad, they are just portrayed to be by the evil US media.

The total inability and lack of objectivity when it comes to other countries, be it Russia or China, transforms into hypocrisy. Also this criticism simply rules out the possibility of other people actually having a positive view of the US, even it's foreign policy and that it's defence pacts are made of countries where the people actually want to be allied with the US. The myth that other people hate Americans and/or the US government is widespread.

* * *

If this discussion would be held around totally ignorant people, it might be good to point out the obvious things criticisms against the US: that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and didn't have the WMD's or that since Operation Ajax there has been antipathy towards the US in Iran etc. Yet I think that on this forum people aren't uninformed at all.

A loss in accounting terms maybe. Based on money they could have gotten. No loss in real terms.Remember -> loss = final capital < inflation*initial capital (+ whatever small minute amount would go towards paying whatever employees were involved in the process). Those are the real terms - I'm not talking about "fictive" on-paper accounting losses relative to what they could have made. — Agustino

Ok, this is just humbug.

In real life banks can go insolvent through bad debt. I have no idea what you are talking about.

LOL! Banking in Third World countries is the problem, not the solution. They even take charges for taking money out of the ATM :lol: - in fact, the poorer the country is, the more these thieves will try to rob them. There will be a crisis in some 5-10 years in Eastern European countries - lots of young people are taking huge loans from banks to buy property, loans that they will never be able to pay back because rates will keep going up, while salaries are still very low. The bank will get the property and some of the interest too! I pity a lot of young people who have taken 30 year-long mortgages from the bank to buy property - they really have no clue what they're getting themselves into. — Agustino

Are you reading what I write?

I said that banking is exactly the problem because ordinary people cannot get a loan with a reasonable interest rate. That's the indicator when a banking sector is healthy: ordinary people with ordinary wage can get a long time loan for a decent house on a decent interest rate. In the Third World it isn't so. Nothing you say contradicts that.

And it's not so obvious that the bank getting the real estate will fix their problems. If a housing bubble bursts, the banks will make a loss with the housing when the debt is larger than the selling price of the house. Only when the housing market is going up bad loans aren't a problem: the person owning the house can simply sell the house for profit and pay the loan back.

There should be no competition - banking shouldn't be solely for profit. — Agustino

When there is no competition, there is also no incentive to give loans for new customers. The banker just give the loans his or her quota defines. I've seen it earlier in my country, works very lousily and keeps people living in far smaller apartments than today.

If you would look at ANY goddam market sector and take out the competition aspect: have just ONE supermarket chain, guess how much everything would cost and lousy the service would be? You can have a chain that "mimics" competition and looks after improve it's services, but still. Hence for there to be competition is crucial. The government has only to watch that no bank becomes too reckless.

And solely? Well, the reason for many services and production of goods to have profit is the objective. Of course a lot of people are genuinely happy when their customers are happy. That doesn't make the profit agenda any less important.

You get very reckless banks precisely because the social classes I was talking about have already formed. They insulate themselves from the risks, while accumulating more and more rewards. — Agustino

No,

People avoided jail (in the US) simply because of political connections and the unwillingness of the Bush and Obama governments to implement the existing laws. During the S & L crisis earlier in the US, a lot of bankers went to jail. During the last financial crisis, not anyone except a few people including a Ponzi-schemer that willingly gave himself up went to jail.

It's not anything about a class. That's just provoking hatred against "the rich". It's simply about the government doing it's job or not and having the balls to have very rich people loose their money. The US government didn't have the balls. When my country had it's housing bubble and banking crisis, the local government performed far better... even if not many people went to jail, the owners of the banks lost money and the banking sector was totally reformed (only a few smaller banks continued with the big banks being merged/broken up).

Banking is not productive - bankers don't produce anything or add any value. Ideally, banking should facilitate the development of industries by providing access to capital. — Agustino

And not only industries but ordinary people. Why people in the Third World countries remain poor is because they cannot get a loan to buy their own home and hence have to live on a rent. Hence they don't have the ability to gain wealth. Getting a loan for a home with low interest and for a longer time is something that a functioning banking sector can provide. Having real estate has been one of the most simple ways how people in the West have become more wealthier. With that wealth they then become consumers, which then creates a market and hence creates growth.

What a nationalized or government controlled banking sector does it that hinders the competition between banks and the end result is that less people can get loans. Simple as that.

Hence banking has a crucial role in the economy and that when it functions well people can get a loan with reasonable rates is something that obviously adds value.

Trump can't be responsible for the condition the US is in today — Agustino

But Trump is responsible for the actions he takes and those he doesn't (as not doing anything does have consequences too) when in charge.

What the Trump presidency seems to be is rampant cronyism that is only restrained by the absolute ineptness of the President to be a leader as he has no leadership skills. I've now seen twice when Trump sits down in a bipartisan meeting how totally clueless he is and literally goes along with the idea that the last person speaking says.

Banking should be one of those industries, since making profits out of banking is ridiculous - nothing gets produced by bankers. — Agustino

What is your reasoning?

Basic banking is a service just as anything: those who have savings will get an interest, the banker then chooses which people will he or she then lend money. And if those loans given out cannot be paid back by the people who took the loans, the banker ought to lose his job. Who the hell do I know to which barber or car mechanic can pay his loans or not?

Besides, when you nationalize banks, there is an evident temptation for the government to misuse the banks. Now if there is a banking crisis, for the government to step in is a good idea, but then the objective would be to get the sector healthy again.

The problem (which you likely know) is that that in the present systems the risks and rewards don't go hand in hand and hence you have had very reckless banks.

Banking should be nationalised, there should be no "for-profit" money changing. — Agustino

That simply doesn't work. It has been proven again and again. And it basically goes against the whole idea of entrepreneurship. If you take a risk, you should get also bigger profit for it (if things go well) than not taking the risk. Money has to have a price. Heck, if I lend to the bank my money, I ought to get an interest on it.

The most idiotic idea ever is to think that you can replace the market mechanism with a government bureacrat. Because that is what you are saying. (Just as, well, the central banks do now for the money markets).

What the government should do is simply to look that theft, various kinds of rackets, and price fixing by large corporations doesn't happen. Basically not to make the economic boom bust cycle worse. What this means is to oversee that things defined by law to be criminal don't happen. What is as detrimental to economy as nationalization or socialization of the economy is, is also to leave the markets to "self-regulate" themselves. You simply cannot leave foxes in charge of the henhouse as it will leave the door open for reckless rackets that in the end blow up.

What I'm sick and tired of is the ludicrous idea that either the economy should totally be EITHER under government control or that there ought to be no government involvement in the markets whatsoever. And if those would be the only options.

No, they don't. Entrepreneurs are finding it harder and harder to take decisions on their own, and more and more they have to be at the mercy of boards of directors, investors, politicians etc. It would be good if the entrepreneurs actually ran the economy. — Agustino

You don't understand my point. They do run the thing. It's they who create jobs, make new industries and are crucial to the health of the economy.

And entrepreneurs by definition are self employed, so they don't have board of directors above them. If you have perhaps something under 30 million entrepreneurs in the US, they surely would be heard and followed by any politician, if they could speak with one voice. But 30 million people don't speak with one voice, have similar ideas and views. You can gather around one table the ten biggest corporations in the country, but you cannot gather around in similar fashion 30 million people.

So the simple fact is that entrepreneurs cannot run the economy. The only way they have influence is that when enough people would be entrepreneurs, the politicians surely would listen to them. But they are a minority. There are for example in the US far more government employees and employees of large corporations or pensioners that don't have at all similar preferences as a self-employed or a small business owner would have.

The entrepreneurs, not the analysts and speculators, should run the economy. — Agustino

Well Agustino, entrepreneurs do run the economy.

But if companies are making fewer investments, people are spending less, that has an effect on what entrepreneurs do. The economic boom bust cycle still happens no matter what. Some actions what a President does can only influence the outcome a bit.

You can look for the culprits you want and accuse these or those people to be leeches or whatever and hate the monetary system we have, but that doesn't make it different. The economy is far more complex than those seeing one definite culprit (for all the negative aspects) think.

The fact is that protectionism can work... if the industry protected would use it to modernize itself to compete in the end at the World market. But except for perhaps Germany in the 19th Century, that doesn't typically happen. The industry typically just takes the tariffs/subsidies etc. as a given and doesn't do anything to improve it's situation. Why should it, if it's protected?

In the end, if you just want to pay more for having an uncompetitive industry that actually doesn't deliver, well, then why not.

A paradox for some: I'm Jewish, which according to some (racists), means my IQ must dwell within to the Empyrean. However, I don't think IQ is an expression of biological race. So, to some (racists), given my clearly superior Jewish IQ, they must accept that IQ is not an expression of biological race. — Maw

Why assume that racist would be logical?

Reelection move. It gives him a helluva talking point in the Rust Belt which he must win. — Cavacava

Oh I agree with this one. After all, he just focuses on his base as he (perhaps correctly) understands he has absolutely no way to get new supporters. And it's only about the perception what his actions give, not the actual outcome to the economy.

Yet the problem is that people will vote for Republicans or Democrats (and later for him) depending on how the economy goes. The signs aren't so good for that. A trade war is the last thing the global economy needs.

Wouldn't it be better to ask the other way around?

What do people think about science as a philosophy?

My answer is that people stating their philosophy is "science" or the "scientific method" simply have no understanding of the history of science or the philosophy of science.

Or to put it another way: People who argue they don't have any philosophy, but believe in the scientific method like have similar philosophical thoughts as some empiricist like John Locke, but simply have never heard of him.

I will flip that around and say that the West needs Putin to be an adversary. — René Descartes

Really?

I thought a couple of Muslim fanatics do the job quite well.

To say that the West is truly hostile towards Russia is nonsense. The West is surely is truly arrogant and ignorant when it comes to Russia, but it's not out to get Russia. Not a lot of people with similar ideas as Napoleon or Hitler in the West today.

Just look at the times how many times the American President has tried to "restart" the Russia-US relations. Clinton tried it. Bush tried it. Obama did it (much to annoyance of many NATO countries after the Russo-Georgian war). Germany built a gas pipeline from Russia. NATO above all, had to REINVENT itself into being an organization for international operations from a defence pact. For a long time it even didn't have ANY plans to defend the Baltic States and didn't excersize at all in the new member states. The idea of NATO existing as a defence pact against an outside state like Russia was a thing of the past.

And how about that NATO or EU enlargement? The obvious fact is that ALL ex-Warsaw Pact countries felt threatened of Russia and truly wanted themselves to join NATO. It's not like the US forced them into NATO. Heck, at first once the Baltic States got independence, the US and UK were asking if Sweden and Finland would take care of them. The two then non-aligned countries didn't think it was a great idea, hence the small states did get into NATO. And in hindsight, it's a totally reasonable action.

After all, the neocons opened US bases into many Central Asian countries after 9/11. Now, there is no US bases in Central Asia (except Afghanistan). The Central Asian states have remained under Russian dominance, so for Russia just to sit it out and move passively against it when American empire-builders are at the helm in the White House is a successfull strategy.

And lastly, what would have become IF Russia wouldn't have opted to annex Crimea? Stayed out, let Ukrainian politics alone to be the disaster it allways has been. It would have been a totally logical policy option.

Ukraine wouldn't have fixed it problems and after the latest upheavel surely wouldn't be now a NATO member. The US involvement in Ukrainian politics would, as usual, likely would have come up to nothing. Just like the US helped the opposition in the ouster of Milosevic, yet Serbia is now an ally of Russia, the US was as inept as usual.

For Russia to simply sit out and wait would have been the best policy. Of course getting Crimea sounds great for an imperialist, but the actual benefits are truly dubious.

All the Pro-Russia people would be there in Ukraine and there wouldn't be the animosity against Russia as now. There would be no sanctions and likely the Russia would continue to enjoy good relations with European countries and they would on the other hand continue to downgrade their militaries to small forces capable of only limited peacekeeping operations.

The fact is, that one can be critical of US actions in many places in the World. Yet one shouldn't think it's all the time doing the wrong things. Starting from the fact that the existence of South Korea indeed makes the world far better than having all Koreans living under a nasty dictatorship and we not having Samsung phones.

Moving back to Trump, what do people think of his tariffs on Steel and Aluminium Tariffs? — René Descartes

Trump is making his best effort to get the next economic slowdown to start.

Just in time for the 2018 elections.

After all, he's best at shooting himself in the foot and making things worse for him.

I reckon the West should just let it be. If it's fine for America it's fine for Russia. — René Descartes

The problem is that Putin needs the West to be an adversary, and after attacking two of it's neighbours, likely has succeeded in that. (Attacking one country didn't sour the relationship, before Crimea the relationship Russia was enjoying in the West was great)

After all, likely Putin is the richest man in the World, so in any democracy the brazen theft of public wealth would end the career of any leader.

Let's just remember that those economic sanctions were put into place because Russia attacked it's neighbour, annexed part of it and still is supporting an ongoing low-intensity conflict.

Putin and his siloviks (a Russian word for politicians from the security or military services) see the West as an existential threat which is intent on attacking and destroying Russia... and intent on taking them out of power. The logic behind this is that because of this imminent "threat" from the US and the West, they can reason their hold on power and the squashing of any opposition forces that may rise against them. This is clear even from the Russian official military doctrine: the threat to Russia no. 1 is the expansion of NATO, international (or domestic) terrorism are far later down the line on the threat list. And naturally it's actions in Georgia and Ukraine have indeed poisoned the relationship.

And what better defence is to go on the offence. Which explains Russia's meddling in the politics in the West.

When it comes to nuclear weapons, it is the most important part of the Russian deterrence and hence the nuclear forces were the only arm of the armed forces that were not left to decay after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Starting with Yeltsin's era, Putin has been all the time being updating and modernizing it's strategic rocket forces.

The US on the hand has basically forgotten it's strategic deterrence and now has a huge task of modernizing it's extremely old missile systems.

I'm wondering if Bitcoin was the canary in the coal mine. The indicator that the long bull run from the financial crisis of 2008 has finished.

Of course, with these things you can be wrong, but...

This issue isn't with self-reference but self-referential truth predication (without some further addition, like "this sentence is written in English and is true"). It's meaningless. — Michael

I think it's simply about negative self reference. The negative makes it problematical. Otherwise it would be just circular and then perhaps meaningless.

Note that not every time you get into a what Russell called a vicious circle with negative self reference. Just look at the incompleteness results of Gödel and Turing etc.

A car story:

The side blinker assembly popped out of my car. Maybe I ran up against something. I don't know. A few weeks later a kid ran into the side of my car where the blinker was popped out. So now his insurance will cover the entire repair.

When you're as good as me, you look forward to karmic paybacks. — Hanover

Another car story:

I was planning to sell my Alfa Romeo 159 and buy a new BMW.

The car dealership noticed that the old Alfa had many things to repair, but as I was selling it, it wouldn't be rational for me to do them (and pay a lot when the price of the car wasn't that high anymore). Well, driving back from the BMW dealer the Alfa finally quit working and I barely got it out of the motorway. As I was planning to call a tow truck, another Alfa 159 stopped next to my car and out came two guys asking if I needed help. I explained the situation that I was planning to sell the old car and then this happened. The driver thought a bit and then asked to buy the car. The guy turned out to be an Alfa collector. We agreed on the price (that was better for me than from the dealership when the car was running), went immediately to my home and did the paperwork and the payment on the computer and finally went with him to pick up the winter tires from the storage. All in less than 2 hours when the Alfa had quit working.

The Alfa community is definately very social. From the two Alfas that I have had, both have been sold to individuals that have taken the cars as a hobby.

Good god, I just wanted to talk sports cars. If you want to talk ethics, start up a thread on the ethics of sports cars. I was using this thread to escape some of the philosophy for a minute. — Sam26

Well, this is a philosophy forum...

Here's a discussion of "philosophy" that would fit you Sam now:

Perhaps not the best philosophy, but something for you...

Once I with two of my friends decided to buy one of our mutual friend a Porsche if he would graduate before the end of the Milennia. The friend in question had studied in a Tech University yet already had a job and hence his drive to finish his studies had evaporated. There were still few years to go (to 2000) and him graduating could have been possible, but unfortunately our friend didn't take it as a nice friendly gesture. Actually he got very angry about it. He still hasn't graduated, but we still are friends..

Yet from that we noticed how cheap Porsches are if you divide their price by three. The cheapest possible worn out Porsche would be chump change and a more expensive one wouldn't be that expensive.

One smart way to own a sports car is if you have the plan of owning it just for a while and sell it when it's still reasonably new. And doing it when your still young. Then you'll have that cool picture from your youth like "Yeah, I had one for a while".

IF women are as productive as men in a given job, everything else being equal (like time on the job) then they should be rewarded in the same way that men are. — Bitter Crank

But they aren't.

Starting from the obvious fact that people behave differently with men or women. Besides, it's unlikely that in any work organization someone does exactly the same work, so those in denial can allways talk about different career paths even if it's the same job. Things like job performance, getting promoted at work aren't as simply things people depict them to be.

Last year there was a telling example when two co-workers, man and woman, swapped their emails for two weeks. Now their job was basically interact by mail, so the swap was possible. The women absolutely loved it, the man hated it.

All those kind of little things do add up.