@Tolstoy: Debt is good. Very few people can afford a house upfront. Get the mortgage and pay interest on the debt.

Our interest rates are at an all time low and there is little chances we will see them rise in the near future. Now is a good time to go into debt.

Also the manufacturing industry in America is coming back, mostly in states with RTW legislation. Because of the high cost of transportation, and the sacrifice in the quality of the goods some manufacturers would prefer to manufacture in America then China.

Also I would like to remind people that wages in India and China are going up year after year as they become more developed due to the influx of money due to their massive amounts of exports. As a result the wage difference decreases slowly over time and the aforementioned bonuses of providing jobs in America become more and more ideal. In the long run it all works out.

@GunF it's a terrible thing to say but I find it hard to debate anything with you because you are genuinely stupid and ignorant. That doesn't mean you don't have the same right as everyone to contribute but you really tick that stereotypical box of thick arrogant Yank.
To counter that what do you know stuff about?
I'm sure you're brilliant at something

"Our interest rates are at an all time low and there is little chances we will see them rise in the near future. Now is a good time to go into debt."

Have you tried getting a loan lately? The banks aren't actually lending out any of that near-zero interest money unless it's at zero risk. The low interest rates are fantastic if you're fabulously wealthy and don't really need the money, but are looking to buy out your struggling competitors (a situation I've seen - and felt the ill effects of - with my own eyes and lack of paychecks). Not so great if you're trying to buy your first home or a car to get to work. And anyhoo, overleveraging on debt is how the 'global financial system' got into this mess in the first place. Now the same geniuses who thought free houses for all was a great idea think another hairbrained Keynesian loose-money solution is the answer. All the low interest rates are really doing is encouraging capital to flee to places it can get a better return (and incur lower taxes).

"Also I would like to remind people that wages in India and China are going up year after year as they become more developed due to the influx of money due to their massive amounts of exports. As a result the wage difference decreases slowly over time and the aforementioned bonuses of providing jobs in America become more and more ideal. In the long run it all works out."

This is all largely true - things will 'work themselves out'. But there's still a lot of balancing out that needs to be done. If you think the average American in 2035 is going to have the same standard of living (minus bigscreen TVs and cheap computers) and financial security as the average American of 1975, I've got some overvalued timeshares to sell you. The only thing preventing Chinese or Indian cars (which cost about 25% of American cars) and other products from breaking in and overwhelming the American consumer market are the insane environmental and safety regulations we have in this country.

Nobody is cheering for anyone. The fact that our military has kept wars off our soil for 150+ years should mean something to you.

Good point if people and govts had been paying back their debts in time of surplus now would be a great time to take on moredebt, but then if people had been more financially responsible with their money they had we wouldn''t have a financial crisis.

"Nobody is cheering for anyone."

Calling a brutal expansionist military-state "heaven" and its victims all sorts of dirty names sounds an awful lot like cheering to me.

"The fact that our military has kept wars off our soil for 150+ years should mean something to you."

Mostly it means that there are two big oceans which present insurmountable logistical challenges to anyone thinking of invading. Aside from, of course, Japanese submarines shelling the West Coast, German saboteurs landing on the East Coast, and Japanese balloon bombs igniting huge forest fires in the Pacific Northwest. And dozens of merchant ships on both coasts being sunk within site of American shores in 1941-42.

Oh my, a few dozen merchant ships. What hell we go through! That is not a war on our land. You have never seen the likes of war in the nation and I haven't either. The fact that WW2 didn't end up there is beyond extraordinary.

No, it's not extraordinary. Like I said, "Mostly it means that there are two big oceans which present insurmountable logistical challenges to anyone thinking of invading.".

Wikipedia puts the end of the American Indian Wars at 1924. It's true that after that there werent a lot of enemies left in the same landmass. But I'm not sure if that's something to be proud of.

Don't forget about the invasions of Attu and Kiska Islands up in Alaska during WWII. Technically American soil has not been occupied since 1943, not the War of 1812.

@ NigeeBaby

Whenever I turn on the TV, I hear about a bunch of Palestinian assholes lobbing rockets into Tel Aviv. The Israeli people want to stay out of the Mediterranean Sea. If they have to do things of questionable morality to keep it that way, I'm not going to be super critical, especially when the opposition has proven to be barbaric. They just opened a terrorist training academy for 7th-9th graders.

A few merchant ships is extraordinary yet thousands die yearly by gunfire and nonody gives a shit. Give me a guckin break.

"Apparently in bo_sox' heaven, there are race riots, ethnic cleansing is part of regular political discourse, discrimination and brutality against the aboriginal population is rampant, elevators don't work on Saturdays, the right to vote is entirely contingent on who your parents are and where you are born, and if you're not part of the right ethnic group armed thugs will steal your house at gunpoint in the middle of the night with impunity." - Tolstoy

Assuming all the things you gripe about are true - "Elevators don't work on Saturdays" - Seriously? You don't think that elevators are a trifling matter compared to race riots?

Israel is a country with a lot of problems (location arguably being chief among them). But it is, like many other countries, such as the USA, a troubled democracy. Part of the right to free speech is recognizing that A-holes have the right to free speech. And anyway, the most racist party ("עוצמה לישראל") did not pass the threshold, garnering some 1.7% of the vote.

the principle of non-intervention and inviolable sovereignty is as dead as the king of prussia dude. update your lifestyle

I'm not sure whether you can define location as their problem. If China came in and set up a city on Manhattan, would you say that location is an issue? Or would it have another term?

Location is a huge problem. They are a sitting duck inside the Arab world. It would be like swapping Iran with Kansas and Missouri. They would both end up so unreasonably out of place. How could loxation not be an issue?

Well, the Netherlands is a puny little sitting duck inside Europe. Maryland is a sitting duck inside the USA. Apparently location isnt the pivotal argument here. Having pissed neighbors around you is more relevant imho.

I think the main problem could be described as antagonism. Or enmity. Or colonialism. Take your pick among choices in the conflict spectrum. But saying location is the issue is like saying the location of somebody's eyeball is an issue, because now they're hurting your finger with it.

@ GunF
"Whenever I turn on the TV, I hear about a bunch of Palestinian assholes lobbing rockets into Tel Aviv."
You are priceless, never stop being you but try swapping channels from time-to-time. That Fox News can fry your brain

Do you know for certain that I watch Fox News? Assumptions are fun but they make for shitty points.

How is Maryland a sitting duck? It is part of a single union. How is the Netherlands a sitting duck? It is a sovereign nation whose neighbors are friendly toward it. Israel hasn't been able to get peace with its neighbors for 65 years. We can debate the reasons all we want; they don't matter. The facts here show that Israel is surrounded by nations that don't want it there. I don't know what the fuck Maryland has to do with that.

Hey, you know why so many Arabs hate Israel? Because their settling occupied Palestine and pretending they own it.

After the Netanyahu administration I have completely given up on the Israeli argument that they do what they do because the Palestinians are intransigent. It is clearly Israel that does not believe in the two-state solution.

So honestly at this point Israel has completely lost any semblance of moral credibility. It would be hard to pity them for being attacked if the victims weren't civilians.

However, if a settlement is attacked... honestly.. they should have known better than to steal land.

Netanyahu is a disgrace to Israel. What a fucking cynic. He's going to hell.

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/01/contraceptive-injections-ethiopian.html

"Israel admits giving contraceptive injections to Ethiopian immigrant women"

"The report, which aired Saturday night on Israeli Educational Television, charged that coercive contraception is behind a 50 percent decline in the Ethiopian birth rate in Israel over the last decade."

"A government official has for the first time acknowledged the practice of injecting women of Ethiopian origin with the long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera.

jeebus

@Tolstoy: Wow, that's incredible news. I wonder what the international coverage will be...

@Bo_sox: the difference between Maryland and Israel is not location, it is indeed that they have bad relationships with their neighbors, that in fact was my point. We agree. But by calling it 'location', we're actually avoiding the actual pertinent issue, which is: WHY do their neighbors hate them?

Regardless of your political views on the conflict, I'm certain that part of any truthful answer to that question does in fact involve the negative reaction people have when you're sitting on their land and claiming it as your own.

"How is the Netherlands a sitting duck? It is a sovereign nation whose neighbors are friendly toward it."

It certainly helps that the Netherlands hasn't gone on the rampage for the last sixty years, bombing and invading all its neighbors, occupying Belgium and declaring most of Belgium off-limits to Belgians.

Yeah, invading Egypt was such a bad move. You know, attacking a country when your intelligence organizations give you the news that they plan to attack you is so bad. Give me a nation that one of us discussing this live in that hasn't gone on some kind of territorial rampage at some point in its time. USA has, England has, France has, Germany has - Denmark hasn't. Oh, you got me.

@Minister... the difference between Maryland's situation and Israel's is that Maryland's neighbors had unreliable cannons and muskets. Israel's have SCUD missiles and are working on nuclear missiles. You tell me which should cause more tension for people surrounded by enemies.

@bo_sox48: Denmark has, too. :)

I consider Prussia the cause of those wars, but okay, sure, we can count it o_O

Bo Sox, which wars are you referring to? Maybe I missed something in this thread about Prussia or I have someone muted who is in here.