⌛ "The Earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens"

Following my emigration I will say the same. The United States of America I believed in as a child no longer exists (assuming it ever did) but I would not like to this thread be "American-centric" either.

Reality bites but we can still find meaning and purpose in our lives.
It's unlikely our dreams of a world where people can get along without the "power-mongers" interfering will actually become reality. At best we could hope for a more equal distribution of nationalistic powers that would, theoretically, prevent large-scale clashes.
Individually we can make our opinions known and live our lives as we believe is best for the global society. Hopefully others will see our example and follow along. To me this is a much better philosophy than using guns to change things.

 

Open to any and all intellectual discourse.

I really don’t feel this thread is just for American interests. It is open to any and all intellectual discourse. However with the current world tribulations it really is focused on America’s issues due to the fact that it concerns most of the world what America does at this point. If you have a topic I will always be interested conversation. On a personal note timn8ter I wish I could convey in words the way you do. Your writing invokes deep emotions that I shall never be able to communicate as profoundly as you do.

 

Thank you for your kind and gracious words.

 

At this time, regardless of the "Main Street/Wall Street" rhetoric coming from the presidential candidates, most Americans are fine and will benefit from a period of price adjustments. As noted earlier, these periods can be exacerbated and extended through the inept interference of big government.

This is a classic example of the argument for the concept of deficit spending Keynesian economics versus "pay as you go" free market Austrian economics. Not many people have taken the time to do an actual comparison of the two theories.

Why Do We Have a Central Banking System?

Following the fight for independence the new confederation of independent states was saddled with a large war debt. One of the founders of the Bank of New York, Alexander Hamilton, proposed a Bank of the United States just like the European central banks following the ratification of the new Constitution of the United States of America. This bank would give the new nation the ability to “borrow from itself” to help offset the debt. Thomas Jefferson called the idea “an infinity of successive felonious larcenies”. That was because Hamilton’s proposal included the issuance of paper money based on little more than faith in the government rather than a hard currency standard.
The history of paper money in Western nations is based on a concept practiced centuries before when goldsmiths were asked to store gold for people in their vaults. The owners of the gold were issued warehouse receipts. The holders began to negotiate commerce on the promise that the gold was in the vault and could be retrieved at any time. It didn’t take long for the goldsmiths to figure out they could issue more receipts than there was gold to back them up. This gave them the ability to “borrow” some of the gold to negotiate commerce for themselves. This concept is, of course, “larcenous” as Jefferson said of Hamilton’s similar idea.
The balance to this larcenous behavior was the possibility that the holders of the paper could at any time show up to collect their gold. There are instances where several paper holders got together, suspecting the gold was not actually in the vault, and demanded their money effectively shutting down the fraudulent business.
Hamilton countered Jefferson’s protest with a 15,000-word opinion written to President Washington arguing the constitutionality of a central bank based on the loose standard that the Constitution must confer implied powers along with those actually enumerated. This is in opposition to the 10th amendment, which states:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Unfortunately, President Washington did not have the 10th amendment to rely on, as it would not be ratified, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, until 8 months later.

 

I didn't mean to include that in my previous post and would like to comment separately. I agree with you and am glad you brought it up. I think most Americans find the term "empire" contrary to their concept of the United States but it doesn't take to much time spent in a history book to realize it most certainly is an empire not unlike the previous ones.
We'll get through this "crisis" but we're just postponing the inevitable.

 

Socialist U.S., capitalist China

The world is changing in unbelievable ways. America is becoming increasingly socialist while China is now unabashedly capitalist. Are we living in the real world?
So much so that Wall Street investment banks and insurance companies now look like China’s state-owned enterprises (SOE). Wall Street today is unlike what it used to be when it provided America’s economy with trillions of dollars of capital from savvy and shrewd financial wizards. Now the fat cats of Wall Street are broke and begging for succor from the government, after making colossal losses from reckless gambling on the financial markets.
Now we are witnessing a beleaguered Bush pleading to Congress for approval of a US$700 billion bailout plan, the largest in history, drafted by Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke. Paulson and Bernanke were trying hard to get unlimited authority to use the money in whatever way they deem appropriate to rescue troubled financial institutions.
Paulson, a former Wall Street executive, warned Congress that if the proposal was not approved immediately, the consequences would be disastrous, evoking the specter of a financial meltdown like the Great Depression in the 1920s.
Was this scare mongering? Certainly it sounded familiar. President Bush used the same fear to sell Congress and the American people his war on Iraq, claiming Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use them. Now, the war is costing American taxpayers US$1 billion per day. The country’s national debt soared to US$9.6 trillion as a result. The financial burden is a contributing factor to America’s financial disaster of 9/11 proportions.
Few would deny the urgency of the crisis. But America is the fortress of capitalism that prizes the market economy. Capitalists made their fortunes and live like kings. That’s OK and that’s the beauty of capitalism. But capitalists are not supposed to seek government help when their companies go broke. Wall Street companies, after all, are not like China’s SOEs which can always get money from the bank when they operate at a loss. Besides, China’s “iron bowl” CEOs don’t get eight-digit pay packages, either.
That’s why Paulson’s proposal has raised so many eyebrows. If you play by the rule of capitalism, businesses don’t get government subsidies for their losses. If you play by the rules of socialism, loss-making executives don’t get paid US$17,000 per hour (as in the case of Richard Fuld, CEO of the dying Lehman Brothers) for their ability to make bad decisions.
“If Wall Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of the American people — all sugar for the villain, lasting pain and damage for the victim — William Greider, a former banker, wrote recently.
Unfairness and irony notwithstanding, American taxpayers would have to bite the bullet, as a harried Bush warned the nation on live TV Wednesday night of the dire consequences if the bailout plan was not approved at once. Was he crying wolf again?
In the end, American taxpayers will have to pay the bill, willy-nilly, out of fear. But then, American capitalism will not be the same, just like Chinese socialism is no longer true to the meaning of the word. China’s rapacious capitalists are making money at all costs — just look at the deaths at unsafe coal mines and sickened infants fed with tainted milk.
“Taiwan’s Pizza Hut yesterday became a victim of the food scare as it recalled packs of cheese powder found to be tainted with melamine.”

 

China more like Nazis with each passing day

The tainted milk scandal is far from the only thing dimming the glow of China’s Olympic glory. Preceding the Olympics the brutal suppression of protests by Tibetan nationals, the death of thousands of children in poorly constructed schools during the Sichuan earthquake, increased arrests of activists and continued suppression of basic human rights in the run up to the games, and the farce of the “protest zones” during the games themselves, all demonstrate that the political regime in China is not the least bit interested in following internationally recognized norms on human rights and dignity. And today news of a new Chinese venture in space, including a “space walk.” This is a government that looks more like Nazi Germany everyday.

 

That’s an interesting comparison. Also interesting is how the world is responding, or not responding, to the repressive Chinese Central Committee.
Prior to World War II (which was merely WWI continued) the Germans got a pretty raw deal in the form of the Treaty of Versailles. Even after WWI ended the Brits continued starving the German people. I guess it’s pretty easy to abuse a defeated people compared to a global power with nuclear weapons. The ill-advised and ignorant actions of the Western nations towards Germany virtually guaranteed they would lash out simply to survive and set the stage for Hitler’s power grab.
The rhetoric directed towards China’s human rights abuses seems to be fading. Perhaps the media is distracted by America’s troubles or perhaps people are ignoring them because they enjoy their cheap plasma TVs too much. Here in the US most of the population suffers from short-attention-span so they tend to forget the previous story when the new one comes along.
My hope is that we can appeal to the general population of China with ideas instead of sanctions or the threat of force. How likely would you be to subscribe to the lofty ideals of someone that is making sure you can’t get food?
It’s generally accepted that as the citizens of a repressive nation become more affluent they are able to exercise more influence over the political power structure. I think we have seen some concessions by the Central Committee but we should never forget what happened to the Tiananmen Square protestors in 1989 either.
It’s obvious what the Central Committee most fears are ideas. That’s why they attempt to control information coming in and going out of China. We should continue pointing out the human rights violations and environmental damage caused by the Central Committee. Let’s also make it a goal to get as much information as possible into the hands of the Chinese people themselves. In that way it should only be a matter of time before they themselves make the changes that need to occur.

 

there interesting ideas! but even without me investigating it any further, i'd say your opinion on the reasons for germany's start of the second world war, needs a tad moe thought!!
it's a fact that millions of troops died in the first world war, and it was actually france that wanted more blood than others from germany, interesting how close the 2 are nowadays!!

the second world war was caused by super inflation in germany and no unity in the country, the right situtation for a gobby little sod with world domination on his mind, and needing sumwhere to start an army in. we went to war to stop him and the evil acts he was already getting away with.
no matter what was done to the aggressor of WW1 justified Hitlers actions.

the reason for the short term memory of the americans and also Britain, i might add, is because the news stations seldomly show any NEWS! as i don't class sports results and weather forecasts news worthy, especially when we have so many sports channels for results and other chanels for weather, the amount of times i've seen polititions stopped in there tracks while explaining a point, just to go to the weather is unbelieveable!

 

Yes, but what led to the super inflation? The Treaty of Versailles laid the blame for World War I squarely on the Germans despite the fact there was plenty of blame to go around. The German economy was devastated and yet they were forced to pay huge reparations to France and Great Britain at the same time they were forced to give up 13% of their land. They were also burdened with excessive tariffs by foreign nations.
The financial ignorance of Germany's leaders led them to believe they could spend themselves out of poverty. Social spending was increased by a factor of 5 at the same time revenues were plummeting. The end result was an exchange rate that went from 8 marks per dollar to 4.2 trillion marks per dollar.
Don't assume I'm defending Hitler or the Nazis but in every conflict the causes are not so apparent as we're told.