so selling to known terrorist groups is fine? even in the world of capitalism that is ill advised especially if you end up mopping up after inadvertedly

outsourcing still directs most of the profits back at USA, you do know that right?

so selling to known terrorist groups is fine? even in the world of capitalism that is ill advised especially if you end up mopping up after inadvertedly

US cars suck, europe has the good ones.

the filming of movies isnt that costly, the revenue made from box office tickets, dvd and merchandise is where it all counts. and that goes to USA.

either way, my point remains, you dont get to no. 1 relying purely on selling arms.

This is absolutely absurd lol

Now when it comes to arms exports, Sylis made me think of something which I believe is very important... It wasn't the USA who sold the arms... it was the arms companies. That is a very fine distinction, I believe. It is no better, but that shows that it really isn't the USA as a whole.

When it comes down to the real trickle down effect, it totally works. Don't believe me? Just wait for this multi-trillion dollar deficit to work its magic on the value of the US Dollar's rate of inflation.

I think it's annoying when some countries whine about United States doing too much to interfere in the affairs of others, but then later those same countries whine about us not doing enough.


Yay World!

Quote:
When it comes down to the real trickle down effect, it totally works. Don't believe me? Just wait for this multi-trillion dollar deficit to work its magic on the value of the US Dollar's rate of inflation.


Was that a joke?

1st off, if the topic says "USA, why is america bad" then it should be more than just foreign policy, or the topic name should be changed.

i dunno how to change topic name, and i gave a reason, a reason big enough to give USA the label of bad. it doesnt matter how free your country is, if its foreign policy is about screwing the rest of the world over as long as USA is on top, that is "bad"

As for if it stays on foreign policy, that isn't a debate, that is a rant (as has been admitted by both sides now) ... this is the debate section, thank you.

rant or not, sylis seems to be giving it a good shot. there will never be a 100% even debate, i choose ones where i have an advantage thank you very much :3

It wasn't the USA who sold the arms... it was the arms companies. That is a very fine distinction, I believe. It is no better, but that shows that it really isn't the USA as a whole.
So the problem there is in those specific businesses, not the country, or even the government.

are you purposely being stupid? the individual companies usually sell internally, the bigger ones are government financed and contracted.
The US government spends
For the 2009 fiscal year, the base budget rose to $515.4 billion. Adding emergency discretionary spending and supplemental spending brings the sum to $651.2 billion.[1] This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (about $9.3 billion, which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs (about $33.2 billion), interest on debt incurred in past wars, or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, about $170 billion in 2007). As of 2009, the United States government is spending about $1 trillion annually on defense-related purposes.
EVERY single munition factory, every guns store, is subject to comply with the US government, hence, many dont sell to warlords in africa. china does that. :/

US spends 45% of the worlds total money spent on military.
in short, those "individual companies" are merely extensions of the government based on how much their governmental contracts are worth.


But really ducky, your take on the costs and revenues of those products... that made me laugh real hard. It may not be the filming of movies, but the payment of actors is another deal. Oh, and all of the CGI that has popped up lately. Then there is the music score... That is a huge cost...

lets take the recent movie, transformers, revenge of something something. 200 mil budget. Gross revenue $827,844,579
.... while im not saying all movies are that successful, how much of that money went to say... egypt for the filming? (im talking about the 200 mil) how much of that 200 mil went to CGI? i understand there is a lot of money involved but rarely are movies that much of a blowout.

Ill refer you back to the failure that is the trickledown.

i am yet to understand your point? the trickle isnt leaving USA. the head honchos still keep their cash.



I already said, I don't think anything im saying is a good thing. However it what happens.

so you are willing to fully support a government that openly deals with terrorists?



Box office with a yearly average? 7.8 billion. DVD sales 24.3 billion. Merchandise sales? So insignificant I couldn't find a statistic. The weapon trade is a 50 billion dollar profit.

may i request source?
im lazy and wiki isnt always correct, but it stated a mere 30 bil international market. IN TOTAL. then goes to state that USA owns 36% of weapon sales, total roughly 10-12 bil tops.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry



Not saying we got to number 1 by relying on arms trade. We got here through our ample resources, our original American ingenuity, and cars.

1. The our once ample resources are depleting daily.

2. We used our ingenuity to corner the market on new products. Now often times people in India can do the same job we do, but better. We still give our students training in the liberal arts. Giving them a broad education in many field, (Its actually a requirement) When an Indian school will give its students specialization in one certain field. It only makes sense for Microsoft, Apple, et cetera to outsource when someone else can do the job better and for cheaper.

3. People used to love american cars, however now most of americans would rather a japanese, or european cars. Unfortunately rather than using supply and demand car companies use a different method. The demand will supplement the supply. Continue shipping out cars and people will buy them.


it isnt that USA isnt perfect, it is their actions which are harsher then the USSR's dominion over its iron curtain and yet they still feel they are the protector of peace and democracy.

have you even read my examples?

USA gets stingy
USA moves in covertly, often using CIA to fund various militia ranging from dictators to outright civil war.
USA cleans them up then ensures it goes quiet and no one is none the wiser.
it then takes 20 odd years for the country to overthrow the military dictatorship funded and put in place only because they were more allowing of USA sitting on their resources and economy.

so selling to known terrorist groups is fine? even in the world of capitalism that is ill advised especially if you end up mopping up after inadvertently

so you are willing to fully support a government that openly deals with terrorists?

I already said, I don't think anything im saying is a good thing. However it what happens.

Ducky, Look at the quote above yours. Do you see the resemblance? Ill refer you to what I've already posted.


We've always dealt with terrorists. Throughout our history. I assure you if we saw a benefit in dealing with the Taliban we would. However seeing how they want to kill us we wont.

I never said it was a good thing. However the word terrorist shouldn't be thought of as inherently evil. During the cold war when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, we supported resistance movements. In essence we supported terrorism. Covertly of course.

As I recall Osama was one of our trainees ^^

he actually was, that was USA funding and training the taliban, for the first time i think EVER. the taliban vs afghanistani army is two sides trained and armed by the same people.
then again, the afghanistan war was one of the major things that brought down the USSR. it cost them billions per year and it was meant to be a 6 week war. instead, the taliban made it unwinnable.

When terrorists were profitable we gave them weapons, money, and training. However once the commies were gone we lost interest. We couldn't banked on Afghanistan and created a satellite nation. However once the spread of communism was done we gave Afghanistan a pat on the back and a medal for awesomeness, when they needed money to rebuild themselves.

its all about scares, first there was black people, then it was people who wanted to help black people, then it was communists, now it is muslims. the media isnt exactly awesome. ie. they reported tonnes on the oaklahoma bombing (sorry, dunno spelling) they blamed it immediately on al qaeda, when it was revealed it was a christian fundamentalist group. SILENCE. understandable somewhat with 911 at the same time... but still... SILENCE... i love sounding like a crackpot conspiracy theorist, but all conspiracies have a grain of truth ^_^

Or go for when Eisenhower gave the CIA permission to assist and fund the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister and replace him with an absolute Monarchy? Wouldn't you call that terrorism. Or is that just plain douchebaggery?
im pretty sure there is no longer a debate now, just two people pointing out more arguments for the same side. i would just like to point out something about "terrorism"
http://terrorism.about.com/od/whatister ... rism_5.htm
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_terrorism
all actions of war count as terrorism, unless they are not politically motivated which usually means they are just ethnic cleansings. so i laugh everytime Bush says the word TOURISM (cause his accent is fun) "we must kill all tourists, tourists MUST be dealt with harshly." nuclear -> noocleer
so yeah, even by US law definition, attacking any country that terrorizes civilians or results in the death of civilians and is politically motivated constitutes as TERRORISM. imho, the word is useless, as useless as fascist. it has become a perjorative. a useless one at that.