Kindof an interesting thought - might have some merit to it

SI

It's a hell of a lot more than semantics. Providing a relatively small amount of supplies is a far cry from complete military engagement. It's a fascinating alternative history exercise to imagine what would have happened if the Japanese and Germans never declared war on the U.S.

Vietnam is literally half a planet away from us. It could have domino'd that whole region, and it is very questionable if that would have affected us or any of our allies.

The domino theory also relies on a monolithic view of communism. Both the Soviets and Chinese discovered the Vietnamese weren't interested in being a communist client state. Vietnam was much more of an anti-colonial revolution.

Allies that participated includes New Zealand, Australia, Korea, Thailand and Phillippines. If it domino'd it certainly would have impacted them.

I can just see Hillary's face - WTF? and then start laughing.

Afghanistan to back Pakistan if wars with U.S.: Karzai - World news - South and Central Asia - Afghanistan - msnbc.com

No offense to Groundhog or Neon Chaos, but all of those nations could have fallen and it would not have mattered.

Australia and New Zealand are Island nations that are at least 3000 and 6000 miles away from Vietnam. Manilla is a thousand miles. South Korea more than 2200. Geographically alone, the domino theory is a load of shit.

Yeah, I mean it's not as though any of those countries were ever threatened by an enemy based in Asia or anything.

I prefer the Iraq over Libya. In Iraq we've given the government time to get on their feet. Also, Iraq over the ages has been fairly moderate, compared to say Iran (Shi'a vs. Sunni, etc.).

My only issue with Libya, is that too often we see some dictator get offed, and then the "next verse, same as the first," phenomena.

We were already in an undeclared war with Germany at sea in Spring/Summer '41.

Only in a very limited way. The vast majority of our naval resources were not engaged. It's no secret that FDR, rightly IMO, considered Germany such a threat that the U.S. should get involved, but it took Hitler's declaration of war to create the political environment where it could happen. If Hitler hadn't declared war it would have been extremely difficult for FDR to provide the materiel and manpower needed turn the tide on the Western front.

In the case of any type of exploration, death is a potential consequence. Look at how many people died settling the West Coast of our country. Was that worth the cost?

Also, I would wager that if you told many astronauts that they had a 25% chance of not coming back (and we're no where near that number), they'd still take that bet.

I'm not sure I'd say limited (sure we weren't sending in the carriers or battleships), but we had standing orders to shoot U-boats on sight. I also think we were flying ASW patrols as well.

I'm not saying I disagree with his actions either. Had anyone taken the same actions against Hitler in 1938, WWII would never have happened.

Until you consider the proximities to other nations trying to export their revolutions. Korea was/is very close to China who borders Vietnam. China supported N. Korea during the Korean War.

The Philippines have always been somewhat in a state of turmoil. That has included religious and political dissidents. Its not far fetched to think at the time that the Philippines would have been next on the list.

Hitler was ready for war in 1938. Sure he wasn't as strong, but neither were the Allies. All standing up to Hitler would have done is start the war a year sooner.

Yeah, I agree but was speaking more to any given mission. People always want to say "well, it isn't worth the human/financial toll" when things don't go the way you expect, or there is some sort of f-up that occurs. So you might expect casualties over 10 missions but you don't expect casualties (else you wouldn't do it) on the 10th mission even if 9 missions have been free of casualties.

But where I was going is you don't go & scrap the idea nor do the reasons for doing it become less worthwhile. Doing anything which puts people in harm's way is only not worthwhile if you don't believe it possible to do....if it is worth trying in the first place. And even then...you'll find some things worth trying even when not believed to be possible or probable (i.e. Normandy).

Shocked that no one has posted this information yet. Fantastic news for people who are looking to refinance with an underwater mortgage. This problem was discussed previously in this thread. Looks like they're finally taking the cap off the refinance rules, which should allow a lot more people to reduce their monthly payments without giving away taxpayer money.

Obama to detail new housing rules in Nevada speech - 44 - The Washington Post

This. Vietnam really wanted little to do with being beholden to the Russians or Chinese. In fact, Ho Chi Minh first came to, wait for it... Woodrow Wilson for support in getting independence (considering Wilson was talking about self-determination... but he only meant it for white people).

And, of course, the Chinese and Russians despised each other. The Chinese hated the Russians more than the they hated the US - which is why Nixon was able to exploit that.

I like this idea but it seems so cold war like.

NYT: US plans Gulf buildup after Iraq exit - World news - The New York Times - msnbc.com

Nov 23 is the day. I bet these guys are getting ulcers. I think its a good sign that there is no public finger pointing at this time.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...eadline-nears/

It does seem that Syria is the next logical step to confront within the broader picture of limiting and isolating Iran more. It'll be a tough one, Assad has lessons learn now and suspect he will be as aggressive as possible to hold on to power.

BBC News - Syria's Assad warns of 'earthquake' if West intervenes

Not really a surprise I guess, but a disappointment:

Fucking Geithner. DIAF.

A Foreclosure Settlement That Wouldn't Sting - NYTimes.com

T - 20.

I guess we can officially start the countdown clock for the Super Committee.

• Nov 23 - super committee agrees to proposal to submit
• Dec 23 - straight up or down vote

'Devastating' cuts if super committee fails - Nov. 4, 2011

Oh please (not you, the article). I guess we could spend double or triple what we are and have even less crime and even safer food. The spending is out of control they need to find somewhere to cut it from or raise taxes or shut the fuck up. But since they want to be re-elected they will choose to do none of the three. Oveerseas adventures would be my choice but these is why these guys were elected to Congress and chosen for the super committee. Suck it up and make a hard decision for once. (I am not a big fan of more taxes but at least that is an attempt at doing something)

I don't know if it would pass the full Congress, but the Dems made a plan worth @4 trillion in cuts and tax increases. The GOP won't agree to any tax increases so the committee can't get anywhere.

Congress will never again produce meaningful legislation that is for the good of the country. I don't know why any of us hold out any hope that we will see a change in this. A second civil war seems far more likely to happen.

You assumed that they had (in the past 11 years) produced legislation that was good for the country?? Most of them (the big tickets ones) were stuff that looked better on paper but failed miserably in reality (as in far too great of cost for such little benefits). It's is much better they don't pass anything than to pass something (except for a major tax code overhaul).

Yeah, wow. I don't see how the country can survive cuts of that magnitude. I better stock up on guns and ammo.

It's all about where you spend it. You know that a majority of those bars are from structural entitlements and defense. If you make most of your cuts to non-discretion spending, you will be cutting some of that to the bone while not touching the actual problem.

SI

They're not "entitlement" programs. That right-wing lexicon (which has distressingly been adopted by the mainstream Democratic Party) is an insidious way of pre-framiing the issue.

That's ok- it gets more amusing when you frame it to the average voter, too.

"Do you think we spend too much on Social Security/Medicare?" - The answer is invariably "yes" because the cost is so high.

"So, are you willing to move Social Security and Medicares ages to 70 to make the programs much more solvent and to make up for longer life spans" - HELL NO! KEEP YOU GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE!

SI

Just need to do health, military and safety net programs a lot smarter and effectively instead of building onto the piles of junk that has been accumulating for decades. But for most, it's about the status quo and the power and perks that derive of bring in legislative and executive branches.

Social security is the most interesting to me. If we raised the age by just 5 years to compensate for people living longer, problem solved. But when you hit anyone from across the entire political spectrum who is over 30 and even some under 30 to say "hey, you're going to have to wait until 70 instead of 65 to start collecting social security because your life expectancy is longer", it's like you just screamed bloody murder.

Health care and military spending- well, those are tougher nuts to crack. We have to burst the medical care bubble that we've been building. And with military spending, you have to fight against the brilliant planning that made sure there is money spent in pretty much every congressional district which makes it very difficult politically to pull that back across the political spectrum.

All you have to do is solve those and all of our spending problems are solved! :D

But back to the point that spawned all of this- if you're going to cut $100B in discretionary spending, that is going to cut very close to the bone. Non-defense/TSA discretionary spending was about $600B last year. A 16% change is going to make some really drastic cuts and you know it's not going to be the politically protected plans that need a haircut that take it but some of the most necessary ones we have.

As an aside, I work for a large muti-national corporation and it's run just as inefficiently as the federal government. Go look at the waste at the "best run" and most profitable companies. Do you think Google doesn't waste a ton of money? Wal Mart? Toyota? No- but they can cover it up because of their size and that's just what happens at the federal government level. It's not easy to break into the oligopoly but once you do, it's pretty easy to maintain it. Airline industry too competitive with 7 or 8 companies? Just merge into 4. Southwest starting to lose some market share as the "cheap" airline to Airtran? Just buy them up. It's the size and lack of competition that makes it inefficient, not that it's the government or a corporation.

One answer can be to make it smaller. But if you do that with the government, I need to see that happen with companies too, otherwise you have what we're working on right now which are companies governing by default. Who writes pollution laws in this country? Big Oil and power companies. Who writes financial laws in this country? Goldman Sachs. And we wonder why things are effed up. If you hate big government, I want to see you in line to also take a hatchet to large companies, too.

SI

Perfectly said.

SI, I think the fundamental difference is that a company is product/consumer-driven. If they have no customers (because of the high-cost of waste that drove up prices of the products/services, for example), then they will cease to exist. What's the consequences of waste/inneficiency/bureaucracy/politicizing/grafts/extortions in the federal government where they can force "consumers" to pay revenues at the point of a gun? Now, where it gets muddy is the federal govt propping up consumer/service-centric businesses through bailouts, subsidies and corporate welfare. I don't necessarily agree with any of those approaches.

I think the simplistic version of the view is that there's an easy dichotomy between politics and business: if you don't like the company/government then just don't spend/vote the person you dislike out. But I realize that is too simplistic of a view.

I think those who argue that "you can just boycot a company you don't like" are just as naive/disingenuous as those of us who say "you can just vote out who you don't like". My retort to your "who are you going to elect? that guy on the other side of the aisle who is identical" is "who are you going to get your goods from". There is some truth to the statement- don't mistake my claiming these beliefs are somewhat naive and disingenuous for the sentiment that they are completely so.

Isn't it a joke that if I'm lucky, I have a telecom choice of a handful of small local companies with slow internet and expensive phone service, one satellite option, a large telephone conglomerate, and a large cable conglomerate with nearly identical pricing? And that's if you're in a city with some "vague" competition. If I want to get from Los Angeles to New York for business, as of next year, I'll be stuck with 1 of 4 major airlines instead of the 7 there used to be. And even now before US Air, Continental, and Airtran have merged- they have nearly identical (artificially controlled) prices. And those prices will skyrocket- how is that good for anyone but shareholders? Less people employed, higher prices to the consumer- there's no tangible public benefit.

Due to specialization and size, the entry barriers of cracking into an established industry are immense. If I wanted to start up a new telecom business or airline to compete, I would need literally billions of venture capital, which just isn't going to happen. But once I was there, I could have extreme waste and never really go out of business. Yeah, you can overleverage like Worldcom did in the late 90s. But, really, anyone excited about the service or prices of Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Cox, et al? Would you leave if there was a better alternative? How about Delta, American, Continental/United, or Southwest/Airtran?

I use cable and air travel, but you can do this with practically every industry: consumer electronics, household goods, electricity, entertainment, etc. Even if you have a more elastic market with robust choices like clothing where there are lots of manufacturers and a range of pricing, they are subject to the whims of the few retailers that carry their items ("sorry, we can't stock your cheap clothes because no one would buy our expensive clothes"). But that's a smaller and smaller number of markets. The majority are still controlled by gigantic businesses who don't really bring anything to the market except for their sheer size and the ability to put quasi-monopolistic pricing in place.

SI

I can't think of anything good to come out of congress in much of my lifetime. It seems every year more money gets concentrated in fewer pockets (By that I mean the top of the top - The .1% if you will) - And their lobbying power and overall funding capabilities buy more and more loopholes and favorable legislation each year, allowing them to cut jobs here and send them overseas, dodge taxes, and find other ways to make even more money. By now, the government is second in command to the true powers that be and it just spirals further and further out of control every election year. Meanwhile we have congress voting on things that dont matter, like whether to re-affirm "In God We Trust" as the national slogan rather than spending their time trying to find solutions. I assume that is because they're either scared of what will happen to them if they cut out loopholes and stop bailing out these huge companies, or they're afraid they'll lose the support of the public through all the misinformation and bullshit that is passed around as news these days, since the huge corporations own the media as well.

The "job creators" obviously make enough money to create more jobs, but they continue to claim they are struggling in this economy as a reason to not do so. Instead they are cutting jobs and rerouting the money saved into bigger bonuses and higher severance packages for their brass. They may realize that fewer people working means fewer people with the finances to continue purchasing their products, but at this point I just don't think they care. They figure by now that they might as well take all they can and when the time runs out they'll be ok. The ones that will suffer will be the people who worked for/invested in them and the people who don't have a hand in that honey pot. But what do they matter, really?

The $100B isn't coming all from non-defense spending. Half of it is coming from discretionary defense spending. That's why the military has been all up in arms about the sequestration. Some of it is also from Medicare. The CBO estimates that cuts to non-defense discretionary spending will be about $36B a year.

In addition, those aren't real cuts. They are only reductions from currently planned spending increases. Non-defense discretionary spending was $581B in 2009. In 2010 it rose to $682B. Without cuts it will drop to $640B in 2014 before rising to $705B in 2020. With the cuts, it will drop to $600B in 2014 before rising to $673B in 2020. So from 2009-2020 it will have risen from $581B to $673B. That's about a 1.4% increase annually, which means it probably keeps steady with inflation. That's not a lot, but it's not cutting to the bone.

I'd go along with what both SI and Julio said.

Well said.

I think you are getting right to the crux of our structural problems regarding jobs (and subsequent demand driven by people who have jobs) but I'd add that much of it starts with a large centralized government authority...followed by larger conglomerates in order to more effectively influence (read: lobby) such large, centralized authority. After all, if you want to influence, having 20M subscribers gets yuou a LOT more face time with members of Congress than having 20k (not to even mention money).

I'll take one of your examples you used since I happen to know a shit-ton about it...the cable/telecom companies. One of the key things that has happened was the overreach (my word) of the federal government to enable bypassing local franchise laws so that Verizon, AT&T, and the other telcos at the time could "more efficiently" negotiate their franchises at the state level to offer video services (or "cable TV"). Oh this was great...it would create "competition" of course but the real result is that the telcos bought up some of their smaller telco brethren in order to maximize their ability to centralize & offer a competitive product. Well...they are doing that to improve those systems, right? What's to hate about that after all?

I'll tell you what there is to hate. They sparked an "arms" race where "he with the lowest overhead & greatest influence in Congress/Senate wins". That means Time Warner, Comcast, Cox...ALL of the big Cable companies felt the pressure to compete with this new "streamlined" competitive product. So, not only did they already have a competitor in Dish & DirecTV which fell outside of the normal franchises (who have their own unique challenges in fairness) but now they have companies built right on top of them with an easy button to gain access to the franchises without the franchise having to agree to it...and by companies that are MUCH larger companies to begin with. No, not a waiver for small business competition such as we saw with CLECs on the telco side...a waiver for mega-corps because everybody wanted competition on the video side.

So, what do the cable ops do to stay competitive? The same thing, of course. Buy up small cable companies with some value, cut excess workers & redundant job functions, consolidate facilities, centralize operations, add a larger lobby influence in Washington, and overall...employ less people because the market bears what it will bear. Sure, everybody has to continue adding features & capabilities to improve their product offering...but I'm telling you it would have been less impacting to the common worker in this industry (and residual impact to other industries) had it been allowed to take shape organically over time by not stepping in & enabling fasttrack competition for the sake of it. It was a shock to the industry & and as with any shockwave, you leave the unimportant (workers) & cling to the important (profitability) until the dust settles.

So don't misunderstand my intention...competition is good for both consumers & workers in a healthy environment (at least for the ones that are still working). Its just that once again, the federal government steps in under the guise of helping the "consumer" only to be the root cause of having less "consumers" because they're put out of work. Now, you can blame all of these companies for being "scumbags"...but I'm telling you those decisions aren't all made by 1% people...they are made by the "monster" that is corporate America (or the top 20% if you will). They have no viable choices...if you are faced with a new & massive competitor, you simply have to do what is necessary to stay relevant. It is your job & obligation to your shareholders, fellow workers (that remain), and certainly your family to do what is needed to remain solvent. Whether that's as CEO, or what have you.

But what Congress/Senate don't get is that they are enabling the "monster" that is corporate America consolidation & downsizing when they stick their noses into things that they don't understand and can be handled at a local level. And the unintended consequences of their ignorance litters the unemployment lines.

I can only imagine how many other industries have had much worse impact because the federal government needed to step in under the guise of the "consumer". I guess in a way, they truly are helping the "consumers"...the problem is that we have less & less of them as a result.

So, we've now spawned some pretty long posts and we're all mostly in agreement about the core problem.

Dumb question: anyone know how we solve this? Or are we all just destined to be Cassandra- being able to foresee the great catastrophe and powerless to do anything about it? Well, at least until we have another Great Depression (and I think odds on that in the next 50 years are pretty darn good)- then when the torches and pitchforks come out, who knows.

SI

I agree but only to a point.

I strongly disagree with your assertion that a large centralized government causes all of this. It's a chicken and egg problem- if you had small state-level governments, don't TW, Cox, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, etc still all buy up smaller competitors with or without government intervention? And if you have large companies, don't they just try to create a larger more powerful government to help unlevel the playing field for them? Again, so long as there are larger entities, there will be a power arms race.

Secondly- 20% make that decision? Not in the least. I work for corporate America- I even supervise roughly 20 people. Myself and none of those below me and even none at my level or the next two to four levels up have any sort of real influence towards that. You're talking about a handful of folks, probably 100 or so- certainly less than 1000, in a 300K worker company with any real influence over that process. That's well under 1%.

At some point, our generation is going to realize the con that is the stock market. Baby boomers will start cashing out and there will be less and less worth in it. We'll reach some tipping point where a significant portion of our generation just is through with it and pull out and the rest of the market just craters without that tent pole. At the end of the day, you can't fucking justify taking away people's livelihood "because of an obligation to the shareholders". People try to moralize it now and it's partially creepy but mostly met with indifference because we all have some skin in the game and that retirement money is greater than our odds of losing our job. But when we're staring a depression in the face with 30% unemployment- no one is going to care about silly rationalizations and mindless corporate worship. Because not having food has an emperor's new clothes effect on "because it's the way it's always been done".

SI

Didn't say that I agreed with all of it but they presented a reasonable point of view.

I can't imagine any greater justification than that. Those are the only people who are owed anything in the entire equation, they own the company.

There is no divine right to a job under any circumstance.

Which is a good idea in a micro sense. But for society as a whole, it's just not practical

SI

There's no "divine right" to having a corporation either. If the government is going to intervene in the "free market" by allowing the creation of limited liability companies, it's not at all unreasonable to ask for those that receive that benefit to exercise some social responsibility. At their core, corporations are rather extraordinary distortions of the free market--prices within firms are set by centralized decisionmaking as opposed to the market--that could not exist in the absence of the government granting corporate personhood (giving the you the ability to sign contracts) and limited liability.

So a company should not exist to make profits for their investors but instead become a charitable organization funded by the government for the common good? Where's the personal incentive in that when the basic human nature is selfishness and the freedom for one to get ahead? Institutions (from pensions funds, financial, and other entities) need to make money for the society as a whole, so it can provide credit, benefits and jobs for all. That's the practicality of investing for the society on a generalistic macro level. Or something like that.

T - 18.

What do you guys think? Will the super committee succeed in agreeing on something to propose? There is not alot of noise which I think is a good sign ... but I really have no idea.

C'mon Bucc, this isn't a binary equation. A company doesn't exist in a vacuum to solely provide profits to their shareholders, any more than an alternative would be a completely charitable organization funded by the government. That is lazy thinking.

Yes, institutions need to make money, but for capitalism to truly function there needs to be churning of the capital that rises to the top. If it just rises to the top and sits there, then that is analogous to an aquarium where there is no circulation and the lower levels die off.