@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:Your example at the beginning of the thread is hopelessly naive because it ignores political and economic realities.
My example at the beginning of the thread merely illustrates the overwhelming military superiority we continue to waste resources on. You can't demonstrate how that is "naive" except to make an
ipse dixit proclamation to that effect and continue the straw man about aid to Haiti that I've already explicitly said I did not argue for.
Quote:More than that, behind an American military shield, western Europe and Japan developed the same kind of consumer economy which makes the United States rich, and needing few to no aircraft carriers, they spent their revenues of health care systems, agricultural subsidies, education systems and a host of other things which we automatically associate with industrialized societies.
The narrative of America saving the world with their military "shield" is such delusional
nonsense. America's arms race with the world forces nations to pick a side or to try to engage in the same arms race. It's not a service to the world, it's a service to American industry and sold to the American people through soldier worship and a hero narrative about history.
Quote:But your thesis is even more naive because of what it ignores about where wealth comes from, how we get wealthy.
It does absolutely nothing of the sort.
Quote:There is not some finite pool of "wealth" out there from which the United States unfairly takes a lion's share.
Are you a customer of the same straw man factory? I've said time and time again that
I do not blame America for the poor of the world. It's already been said here that economics is not a zero-sum game.
You are arguing against straw men of your own creation.
Quote:You either ignore, are unaware of or have forgotten how the United States and the European nations, as well as Japan and recently China became wealthy.
You can't demonstrate how, but you can certainly apply strength of conviction to the claim.
For example, your history transcription about natural resources, maritime expertise and all simply says nothing at all to address any of my arguments (is par for the course with your history transcriptions, which are often just wedged onto a thread whose connection with it is tenuous).
I made no claim about why these nations are poor, and you make no argument about why my proposals would not improve their lot in life, you just transcribe history, you make no relevant arguments.
Quote:The United States was not the first, nor usually even the greatest of the industrial powers.
See? Nobody here is making any such claim, and this kind of thing does nothing to address the economic theories you indict, it just knocks down a historical straw man of your own creation.
Quote:The United States was first and foremost an agricultural and raw material supplier, and continues to exploit such resources to this day. But the other significant thing which the United States and the rest of the industrial world have in common is being huge consumer societies. All of these nations (whether or not they are resource rich) take raw materials, add to their value from a light or heavy industrial process, and then quickly sell them to consumers eager for the goods, and possessing the wherewithal to purchase them.
And this indicts my economic theory how? Seriously, transcribing history isn't an argument against my proposed economic policies, it's a stretch to even consider this related in any way to what I'm saying (it does have the country I am talking about, though, which is about all in its favor).
Quote:Henry Ford had huge parking lots paved near his factories because he intended to and did sell his automobiles to his own workers, who could not have afforded to buy those cars if they hadn't been decently paid.
Two can play this game.
Thierry Henry is a French footballer and Napole0n was from France, born on the 15th of August in 1769 in Corsica he rose to prominence under the First French Republic and eventually staged a coup to install himself as First Consul. He later went on to proclaim himself emperor and engaged in a series of military conflicts historians refer to as the Napoleonic Wars.
Quote:Even in the unlikely event that you could convince the American people to feed Haiti rather build another carrier, you'd have solved nothing.
I have screamed from the rooftops in this thread that
I do not suggest we give up a carrier to feed Haiti. I have repeatedly said that I made the comparison to show the scale of the resources we spend on military superiority and never once suggested that we give the money instead to Haiti as foreign aid.
But hey, you really did a number on that straw man! Maybe you could treat it as a warm up to address something I actually
did say.
Quote:This is really a hopelessly naive diatribe on your part. It deals in no reality.
Perhaps, but you do nothing to demonstrate as much. Your diatribe simply doesn't deal in my diatribe at all. It deals in a series of straw men and historical
non sequitur.
"Non sequitur" is Latin...
Latin (lingua latīna, IPA: /laˈtiːna/) is an Italic language[3] originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. With the Roman conquest, Latin was spread to countries around the Mediterranean, including a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Aragonese, Corsican, Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Sardinian, Spanish and others, are descended from Latin,[4] while many others, especially European languages, have inherited and acquired much of their vocabulary from it. Latin was the international language of science and scholarship in central and western Europe until the 17th century, when it was gradually replaced with vernacular languages.
