Trump and his cabinet/buffoonery- Get your bunkers ready!

[88Comrade2000]

4 hours ago, zoony said:

 

.  Who cares that the japanese put the us auto and electronics industry out of business with dumping and other illegal activity, right? 

I can't speak to the Electronics Industry but the Japanese put the American Auto Industry out of business?

 

The Japanese built better cars, which was why the Accord and Camry of the top selling passenger sedans.

[Burgold]

10 minutes ago, Rdskns2000 said:

I can't speak to the Electronics Industry but the Japanese put the American Auto Industry out of business?

 

The Japanese built better cars, which was why the Accord and Camry of the top selling passenger sedans.

Yeah. American car manufacturing became fat and lazy. They fell behind the times in quality and trends. Hubris did them in as much as anything. There was a time, '70's were Japanese cars were considered crap and a joke. Ten years later, they were consistently reviewed as the best made fleets with their American peers lagging far behind.

[zoony]

21 minutes ago, Rdskns2000 said:

I can't speak to the Electronics Industry but the Japanese put the American Auto Industry out of business?

 

The Japanese built better cars, which was why the Accord and Camry of the top selling passenger sedans.

 

Really nice catch.  I thought the american automobile industry was out of business.  Thanks for that.

 

 

9 minutes ago, Burgold said:

Yeah. American car manufacturing became fat and lazy. They fell behind the times in quality and trends. Hubris did them in as much as anything. There was a time, '70's were Japanese cars were considered crap and a joke. Ten years later, they were consistently reviewed as the best made fleets with their American peers lagging far behind.

 

Try buying an american car in Japan in the 1980s.  I can personally attest because i lived there for the majority of the decade

 

Everyone wants to talk about everything except whats at actual stake here.  Either you are going to argue that Japan DID NOT close their economy and illegaly dump on the US markets while our political leaders looked the other way, or you are going to argue that they did.

 

Either position you take, at least we will remain in our lane.

[zoony]

50 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

 

The act of journalism is a complete joke.  A get rich scheme stoking the fires of fear

 

Maybe start with applying basic editorial standards to reporters on twitter.  Would never happen because news organizations are looking to hire journalists with the largest social media footprint.  How do you get a large footprint?  Be provacative and fan the flames of fear and hysteria.

 

Thats just for starters.  But dont sling **** all day and then take offense when someone calls you a turd.

[The Evil Genius]

This will make a few of you happy. Yay us. #realmuricans

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

[tshile]

1 hour ago, The Evil Genius said:

This will make a few of you happy. Yay us. #realmuricans

 

Thats the white mans plan

 

get the rest into small geographical areas so they have no power. 

 

 

[visionary]

Not sure the logic follows. 

[Larry]

7 hours ago, tshile said:

 

And because they've waited, and never did anything, it played a small part in electing this idiot who is now doing something about it.

 

So here we are. Someone is finally doing something about it (well, maybe, let's not get ahead of ourselves, trump also has a habit of getting screwed on deals cause he's a moron)

 

Would have been better if Bush, or Clinton, or Obama did something about it instead. Something meaningful. But they didn't. So here we are.

 

The complaints are well founded. That's not the issue. The issue is should we care, and if we should then how do we fix it.

 

You obviously don't think we should care. Plenty of us do. Because everyone's done nothing, we get to roll with Trump's solution.

 

This isn't the only issue eveyrone else has kicked down the road only to have Trump come along and make a bad situation worse.

 

Maybe there's a lesson here in not shirking your responsibilities.

 

 

Unfortunately, this is yet another example in the long litany of "Yeah, Trump is making things vastly worse.  in this case, for the entire free world, not just the US.  But that's why I maintain that this is neither the fault of Trump nor the people who voted for him.  It's the fault of the people before him, who weren't disasters, but they did not achieve perfection, either."  

 

The fact that there's been a drippy faucet in the kitchen for the past several years does not make the people who didn't fix it responsible for the person who burned the place down.  

 

[Larry]

7 hours ago, Burgold said:

Well duh. Who didn’t know this. Even the Republicans who voted for this knew it as they voted for it. 

 

It was just a money grab at the expense of the country. It was a “Give me mine now and screw the rest of you” from the billionaire and lobby sect. 

 

Now, now.  It wasn't just that.  

 

There was also an element of "and it will explode the deficit, which we can then use as an excuse to gut the American safety net, thus further weakening American workers at the labor-capital negotiating table", too.  

 

[Burgold]

1 minute ago, Larry said:

 

Now, now.  It wasn't just that.  

 

There was also an element of "and it will explode the deficit, which we can then use as an excuse to gut the American safety net, thus further weakening American workers at the labor-capital negotiating table", too.  

 

blob:https://twitter.com/fc41e121-3070-48f4-bdf7-e2bae41addf1

[Larry]

7 hours ago, zoony said:

 

Is anyone paying attention anymore, or are we just at the chatty cathy doll pull your own string stage?

 

Trump is calling out Germny for their reliance on Russian energy and the construction of a pipeline that will make the problem worse.  Im not sure the puppet and  master relationship is quite working out here.

 

Oh, bull****.  

 

I absolutely guarantee you that Donald Trump is not criticizing anybody for giving money to the Russian government.  He's ticked that he can't get enough votes for us to be giving them more money, too.  

 

7 hours ago, zoony said:

 

Nothing to see here.  Just show up to NATO summit, glad hand everyone, look the other way.  

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/07/10/defense-expenditure-of-nato-members-visualized-infographic/#76b0781c14cf

 

 

 

My, what an interesting chart about how much the US spends on defense worldwide.  

 

How much of that is spent defending NATO?  You know, the question that's being discussed.  

 

[Larry]

7 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

They definitely get the direct benefit given their geographic proximity to Russia (the enemy).  

 

The US, being the world's dominant economy, gains the most benefit of global stability and relative peace.  

 

Oh, I certainly agree that the entire concept of NATO is that it directly gives much more benefit to small countries near Russia than it does to larger countries, further away.  

 

As to size, for example, having Luxembourg and England join an alliance makes Luxembourg a whole lot tougher for Russia to conquer, but doesn't really make England that much tougher.  And the Russian Army is a lot closer to Luxembourg.  Looked at that way, Luxembourg absolutely gets a whole lot more from the deal than England does.  

 

However, having said that, we also need to recognize that it is to the advantage of England and the US to have a policy that, if Russia (or somebody else) tries to conquer Europe again, then we will fight them when they try to invade Luxembourg, rather than sitting back and waiting until their army is across the English channel before resisting them.  

 

That's why I approved, for example, when we allowed all of those former Soviet states to join NATO.  If Russia decides to get back into the nation conquering business, I'd rather fight them before they're knocking on Germany's border.  If Russia decides to go on a wave of conquest, I want them to have to fight to get into the Ukraine.  It's to our advantage for Russia to not have that option.  (Or for it to be a lot more expensive.)  

 

[Destino]

18 minutes ago, Larry said:

My, what an interesting chart about how much the US spends on defense worldwide.  

 

How much of that is spent defending NATO?  You know, the question that's being discussed.  

I’m pretty sure defense spending as a percentage of GDP is exactly what is being discussed.   

[Larry]

7 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

Do you believe the GOP will ever decrease military spending?

 

Not on defense corporations, certainly.  

 

Although I will note that, if you'd asked three years ago whether the entire GOP would endorse abusing our NATO allies (and flat out threatening to withdraw completely), while formally recognizing Russia's military invasion and conquest of a Baltic country, simply because the Russian government chose to aid the GOP in winning an election, anybody who said "yes" would have been instantly labeled as in need of psychiatric commitment.  

 

[Destino]

2 hours ago, Burgold said:

Yeah. American car manufacturing became fat and lazy. They fell behind the times in quality and trends. Hubris did them in as much as anything. There was a time, '70's were Japanese cars were considered crap and a joke. Ten years later, they were consistently reviewed as the best made fleets with their American peers lagging far behind.

This isn’t a criticism on anything you wrote here Burgold, but I find how we discuss this trade situation curious.  If we’re going to talk trade shouldn’t the place we start the conversation be with information on which nations are hitting US goods with what tariffs and which tariffs the US is imposing?  Why is it that on this one issue everyone wants to get philosophical and vague?  I’ve read dozens of media stories on trade and everyone seems to want to dance around the specifics.  This isn’t how these discussions normally go, not when it should be possible to create side by side factual comparisons. 

[Larry]

6 minutes ago, Destino said:

I’m pretty sure defense spending as a percentage of GDP is exactly what is being discussed.   

 

Somehow I don't think we're threatening to withdraw from NATO because Germany isn't operating enough aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean.  The claim is that they aren't defending NATO as much as we think they should.  

 

 

[Llevron]

1 minute ago, Destino said:

Why is it that on this one issue everyone wants to get philosophical and vague?  

 

Speaking for myself, I'm vague because I dont know what the hell I'm talking about for real. So if yall can impart some knowledge on a brotha that would be helpful. 

 

I dont know how to have these conversations or where to start. But conversation is my thing so I stick around anyway. 

[Larry]

7 hours ago, Springfield said:

Trump is over here tearing up NATO and zoony is all like, “but Germany buys oil from Russia!”

 

Hey, at least it's not the guy who wants us to believe that his hero is Eisenhower.  

[RedskinsFan44]

11 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

Somehow I don't think we're threatening to withdraw from NATO because Germany isn't operating enough aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean.  The claim is that they aren't defending NATO as much as we think they should.  

 

 

I thought we were talking contribution to NATO defenses too until I was listening to NPR and an analyst made essentially your point, not all NATO members aspire to be worldwide superpowers.

[Larry]

7 hours ago, zoony said:

Reagan was notrious for allowing really bad trade deals in exchange for geopolitical support.  It worked out great for him hes still known as the president who took down russia.  Who cares that the japanese put the us auto and electronics industry out of business with dumping and other illegal activity, right?  Thats really been the policy ever since, with every administration since afraid to change things or ruffle feathers.  Russias annexation of crimea was, many argue, a direct consequence of natos continued political pressure and growth

 

Now, I will say that I think this country has been overly focused on "everything is about Russia" for far too long, and it's been hurting us in lots of ways.  (Makes it too easy for other countries to manipulate us.)  

 

And not just economically.  How much has our country's policy of "we will actually train the personnel of Satan himself in the techniques of how to terrorize and torture his own citizens, as long as he loudly announces that he's not a communist" (and the predictable consequence that, whenever the citizens of BFE get tired of being tortured, they are forced to go to Russia for help in getting rid of the US-supported dictator) cost us, the last 50 years?  

[PeterMP]

3 hours ago, zoony said:

 

Really nice catch.  I thought the american automobile industry was out of business.  Thanks for that.

 

 

 

Try buying an american car in Japan in the 1980s.  I can personally attest because i lived there for the majority of the decade

 

Everyone wants to talk about everything except whats at actual stake here.  Either you are going to argue that Japan DID NOT close their economy and illegaly dump on the US markets while our political leaders looked the other way, or you are going to argue that they did.

 

Either position you take, at least we will remain in our lane.

 

Did any American cars in the 1980s meet Japanese fuel efficiency requirements?

[Larry]

7 hours ago, zoony said:

 

Im too lazy to provide dozens and dozens of links from reputable sources, but here is one from the LA Times in 2014.  Germanys dependance on russian energy was all over the news when obama was trying to convince nato allies for multilateral sanctions against russia

 

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-us-ukraine-20140305-story.html

 

Oh, I agree with your history.  Germany in particular was one of the reason why Obama had to work so hard to get even sanctions against Russia after their invasion of the Ukraine.  (The US Congress was another.)  

 

Obama wanted our response to Russia to be a lot tougher.  The sanctions we wound up with were the toughest he could get.  

 

However, Trump is not attacking Germany because Trump wants us to be tougher on Russia, and Germany is blocking it.  Trump wants to get rid of the sanctions we've got.  Trump is attacking Germany because Trump is attacking NATO.  (Because Russia wants him to.)