Where is the US economy headed?

I know very little about the Fox affair, but if that's what was going on it's obviously unacceptable. What was their motive?

No, you are dead wrong. The Cold War was the inevitable consequence of the joint Western/Soviet war against Nazi Germany and its allies. The subsequent confrontation would have been more or less the same if the United States wasn't involved. However, in that case, the likelihood that Western European nations, including prominently Germany, France and Britain would have fallen under Soviet domination or even control would have been much greater. What fate Canada might have seen is something we can only guess. The ambition of Soviet Communisn for world domination, more or less as they incessantly described in their political theology, is incontrovertable. Subsequent history has revealed that they were more conscious of their own limitations and lack of economic power than were we at the time, but it is clear that they were just as aggressive and expansionist as they thought they could safely be. Neither we nor Canada nor the Western European nations had any option other than acquiescence or confrontation. I believe the West (and the United States) made the right choice.

Our foreign policy was centered on the problem of containing Soviet expansion and domination. There was indeed a serious challenge in the early post war years as Soviet led/financed/inspired revolutions (or, in many cases, coups) took over the nations of Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, and later extended their self-proclaimed "wars of national liberation" to Africa, South Asia and parts of the Americas. The actions we took or sponsored this were not always successful, but together they accomplished their objective as the Soviet system collapsed, exhausted by the struggle and its own internal contradictions. In many cases we behaved unwisely and attempted purely military solutions to more complex problems with very destructive results. Vietnam is a good example. Our motives were often distorted by desire for power or personel gain on the part of some actors in the drama. However this is always the case in human history, and I believe we stand up very well in comparison to other analogous dominant powers - notably including the former British Empire.

South Korea is an economically thriving democracy. So is Chile. I believe they look very good in comparison respectively to North Korea or, in the Americas, Cuba or Venezuela. It is easy to find fault with any actions by any actor if you are willing to ignore the consequences of no action at all.

Today, meanwhile, global stock markets soared by 3% or so on news of the EU's seeming agreement on the Greek debt restructuring plan. The Dow is on target to end the month with a 12% gain which would be the largest in history.
Some European bank stocks rose 20% today. Citibank, here in the U.S. soared by nearly 10%.
I am not convinced. I suspect that many investors ended up on the wrong side of short sales.
More importantly, what the EU did last night was the same thing that legislators do all the time, everywhere. Punt. The solutions agreed upon were proposals which will prove to be very difficult to implement.
I am sure that there are A2Ker's with far more knowledge than I have. I can not see the EU as surviving.

I'm not so sure about the EU's survival, but otherwise I agree with your scepticism. The measures agreed to were a compromise between the 60% "haircut" favored by Germany and the ECB, and the lesser one favored by France, whose banks had more exposure. Meanwhile the IMF and the ECB will continue to value greek bonds at 100%, even though the real prospect of repayment is dim at best. The reserve fund agreed to is enough to stave off private bank failures and probably further contaigon in the short term, but no action has yet been taken to correct the persistent problems associated with demographic changes ( fewer and fewer workers supporting more and more pensioners) and the high unemployment (especially among the young) resulting from uncompetitive and highly regulated labor markets. Redistributionist policies appear to work as long as you have some excesses to redistribute. When they're gone nothing works.

We have a somewhat analogous paralysis here, though the urgency of the problem is slightly less.

rjb, I agree with your conclusions; it's another punt down the road with no real solutions. China said they'll help the Euro with over $100 billion in loans, but that's based on "investment" more than trying to help the Euro countries. They might still get burned, and the likelihood seems like about 75/25 at this stage in the game.

Had the US come in at the beginning there would have been no Cold War. There might not even have been a war at all because Hitler's supporters would have pulled the rug from under him. The absence of the US in the fight for freedom gave him confidence.

As we came in from the beginning in Iraq. There was no "joint Western/Soviet war against Nazi Germany. We stood alone.

Germany declared war on the US.

The historical evidence is not with you. The various "generals plots" under then Chief of Staff Bloomberg were far too timid and easily dissuaded for that. Moreover Hitler's gratuitous unilateral declaration of war on us was ample evidence that he believed he could take Europe long before we could make any difference.

When resistence really mattered, both Britain and France were paralyzed by their equal fears for the USSR and a resurgent Germany. They had rights under the Versailles Treaty but took no action to enforce them. I'll grant you that Hitler's astounding duplicity in signing a non aggression treaty with the USSR was enough to confuse most of the players in the game.

Interesting though once again to see us criticized both for doing too little and too much in "the fight for freedom" by the same critics.

Not me George. I'm not criticising for you doing too much. You shouldn't build any arguments on my thinking that. You bottled it and again in '56.

But I salute your fallen heroes just the same.

OK: thank you for that.

We disagree about Suez. It was merely unfortunate that the Soviet invasion of Hungary was going on at the same time, and, as I have noted before, I believe Eisenhower was reacting to his perception of the mistake he made three years earlier with the Shah and Mossadeq.

I also have a hard time visualizing a better political trajectory for Egypt if Nassar had been defeated and the British/French/Israeli coalition had seized Suez and the canal. Nassar was then the anti-colonial hero of the Arab world. What was the alternative? I will agree that our earlier refusal to back up earlier implied promises about the Aswan dam was inconsistent with our 1956 actions, and that we too were guilty of some errors and stupidity.

The UK was with us in Iraq from the very beginning which is to it's credit as a faithful ally.

When, however, did the Special Relationship begin?

Prior to WWI, into what battle did England ride side by side with us; in what war did they come to our rescue?

This is not to suggest anything about the UK. I'm just trying to figure out what prescedent might have compelled America to come to England's side during WWII more quickly then it did.

Finn, If my memory serves, it took very long before the US got involved in Europe. I forgot the details.

I know, and I believe spendius resents that fact.

We didn't officially enter the war in Europe until Germany unilaterally declared war on us soon after the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. However our active involvement predated that event by almost three years. In mid 1939 (well before the "Phony war" ended with the attack on France in May 1940), we took over the active escort of convoys by the US Navy with destroyer squadrons based In Iceland (which the British occupied after the fall of Denmark), and shuttling between there and Argentia Newfoundland (the British took the leg from Iceland to Britain). The effort was called "The Neutrality Patrol" by Roosevelt who somehow maintained the fiction that he would keep us out of the war through the 1940 Presidential election ("I hate war. Eleanor hates war, my dog Falla hates war, I will keep us out of this war"). The sinking of a destroyer, the USS Reuben James, by a German submarine in 1939 strained the credibility of that claim.

In 1940 we passed the Lend Lease act under which we transferred huge quantities of weapons, ammunition, trucks, aircraft and other materials to Britain, in what was by contemporary standards a clear violation of neutrality and itself an act of war. We now know from Roosevelt's correspondence with Churchill that he had been conspiring to find a politically acceptable way to get us into the war for at least two & one half years before the Japanese attack in late 1941.

Soon after Pearl Harbor, even though the Japanese represented by far the greatest threat to us and our interests, Roosevelt agreed to Churchill's insistence that the European war should take priority in our efforts.

Public resistence to our entry in the war was based on widespread dissapointment with our participation in WWI - particularly the Anglo French exploitation of our committment of "desperately needed" troops to the Western Front by withdrawing a nearly equal number of theirs and transferring them to the Middle East, where they were busily dismembering the Ottoman Empire, and creating the mess we are dealing with today. The vengeful quality of the negotiations in Paris and Woodrow Wilson's foolhardy emphasis on the League of Nations didn't help either.

Thanks, georgeob. Some of your information tickled a little memory of what happened, but the background noise and support was not publicly known to most people, and probably ended up with about the same conclusion I had; that we really got involved with the European war a couple of years after 1940.

I sort of remember the German sub sinking and threatening our waterways to Europe.

There's a lot that's very murky, but there are a few facts that we're aware of. If you are to work for a high-level cabinet cabinet minister in an official capacity either as a 'neutral' civil servant or a political advisor you need to be vetted by the security services. Adam Werrity did not go through any sort of vetting, but hie passed himself off as Fox's personal advisor, had cards printed up saying the same, and jetted first class around the world to 40+ meetings with Fox and other foreign officials.

Fox lobbied people to pay Werrity's fees via 'The Atlantic Bridge,' it turns out a lot of these were defence lobbyists. The whole thing stinks, and it will be a long time before we get to the bottom of everything.

I don't think you would suggest anything, you wouldn't make snide comments because you're not an anglophobic bigot like Gob. After WW1 America became very isolationist, almost if it felt reluctant to take its place on the world stage. I don't think there was any precedent as such, other than Germany's huge surge in power and influence, and its hostility towards all democracy. Roosevelt helped the UK out with loans etc because it was in America's interests to do so.

I think George is such a bigoted anglophobic that it has twisted and warped his mind and I imagine that in moments of high emotional tension it twists and warps the very features of his fissog.

How many German people wailed at the skies "Where are the Americans to free us from this evil, fascist madman?"

You're quite right mate, I put him on ignore two weeks ago, and it's a decision I've never regretted. When you deal with people like that there's always a danger of sinking to their level, he can wallow in his own filth without any imput from me.

It is truly remarkable to observe how a relatively dispassionate recitation of well-known historical events could excite such visceral reactions among our habitual critics. Apart from my expressed opinion about the results of the Anglo French War on the Ottomans, there was nothing either speculative or argumentative in my posts above.

Also interesting to note that those who dish it out are often quite unable to take it themselves.

You declared that the British were "paralysed".



If that is a dig at me my A2K record shows that I can take anything anybody can dish out. You ducked the attacks on religion George.