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Forums - The lounge
Subject: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
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Original Message Date: 11-Aug-02 @ 12:49 PM - [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
earliest possible opportunity. They threaten the US's
control of this vital oil producing region. If the US has no
access to this oil, the economy will crumble and people
will starve. let's keep the starving where they belong. In
the thrid world!
What's the point of being the world's greatest power if
you can't excercise that power in your own interests?
The whinging liberals can leave the country as far as I
am concerned. The US should use its military, political
and economic power to assure it's safe future. Any
other course of action is mere self delusion. Do you
think that another country with the same power as the
US would act any differently?
Anyone, like bin laden, or arafat, who dares to attack
the US or its interests must be first humiliated and then
destroyed. This may cause resentment in other nations,
but what the hell are they going to do about it? Invade
America?
Anyone who threatens the viability of US corporates
must be taught a lesson. The US controls the IMF, the
World Bank, etc etc. The US should NOT be afraid to
use this leverage to further its own ends.
The time has come for the world to realise that we are
not beholden to any organisation, legal body or treaty,
whether or not we signed it sometime in the past.
Times, as they say, change.
Message 101/168 16-Aug-02 @ 03:16 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2197367.stm
Message 102/168 16-Aug-02 @ 03:22 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
Message 103/168 16-Aug-02 @ 06:23 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
tortoise
Posts: 107
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No matter what type of economic system you have (from capitalism to communism) or the level of socialism you have (from circa 1800 USA to modern Sweden), the same wealth distribution function appears in all human populations. In economics, it is known as the Pareto Function or Pareto Distribution.
The reason the Pareto distribution always exists is esoteric (so I won't go there), but the curve depth can be shaped by the economics and government to a great extent. Ideally, you want a population with as shallow a curve as possible, where wealth smoothly flows through the entire range of the population, as opposed to deep curves where almost all the wealth is concentrated in the hands of very few people.
A number of good studies have been done on policies that optimize the Pareto distribution for a population. Those studies developed very good models for how to distribute wealth as evenly as possible in a population so that concentration is minimized, while maximizing the aggregate wealth of the total population. The resulting models strongly suggest very limited taxes (5% +/- a few percent max, in aggregate), limited and general regulation of business (i.e. safety regulations, not regulations about the size of the holes in Swiss Cheese), and very limited government function with strong and equitable legal systems, will generate a distribution that is close to optimum in a given population.
No country has ever actually met that list of criteria. The times when the US looked like this economically and in terms of government function, we had funky legal and legislative stuff that did not meet the criteria and deepened the curve. There were a couple times in 19th century Britain that came close as well, but my history of other countries is too fuzzy to say whether they ever really came close to this in modern history (most didn't).
So that gives you an idea of the parameters you can tune for tweaking wealth distribution in a population. The more the parameters to the Pareto function deviate from the above, the deeper the curve becomes and the more wealth will concentrate in the hands of the wealthy. This is one of those cases where a little is good for you, but any more than that is toxic. Some things that actually serve to concentrate wealth, such as progressive income taxes (or income taxes of any type, for that matter) may seem counter-intuitive at first, but are pretty simple to explain (e.g. income taxes of all types hinder the average person from accumulating wealth at a rate that is always higher than an already wealthy person on average, no matter how "progressive" the income tax is).
Cheers!
Message 104/168 17-Aug-02 @ 10:46 AM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 105/168 21-Aug-02 @ 06:05 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
As a child you are not self-aware, you are still with God. You are one with the universe. Then people start yammering at you wanting to know what you want to be when you grow up and you proceed to spend the rest of your life under the illusion that you are separate from God, you go to gurus to try to find your way back...
Adam and Eve got subverted by religious powerjunkies to serve their agenda...that we were "good" until the woman (can you say "patriarchy"?) ed up and now we're all "bad". I see it as really almost a funny story. "He told you not to eat the apple! What were you thinking?! We were sittin pretty! Now we gotta get jobs...what a nightmare!"
Message 106/168 21-Aug-02 @ 06:14 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
Zazza
Posts: 1502
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Message 107/168 21-Aug-02 @ 09:02 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
that becoming aware of your self is kind of a step backward or a veil over the underlying reality of our connectedness with the infinite, which we can't understand because our bodies are finite...
Message 108/168 21-Aug-02 @ 10:06 PM - RE: [ot] Should the US invade Iraq?
Zazza
Posts: 1502
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But it definitely is a double-edged sword ...
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