Posts by redeagle42

Thomas Price8 said:Look, I'm not claiming to be some genius here—far from it—but I'd love to hear one single logical reason why a joint venture would even make sense. Just curious!

If neither the Germans nor the Austrians are teaming up with the Turks, then I really don't see why we would bother doing it ourselves.
Think about it—just because modern RAM is faster than the old stuff doesn't mean countries start forming international corporations just to build servers. They just set configuration standards that everyone follows because it's better for the industry.

It's the exact same logic here. 🤷

Listen, if you and your buddies (let's say four of you) walk into a liquor store and each grab a bottle of whiskey... and you complain about paying more because of the packaging or whatever...
but then you see a "Buy 4, Get 2 Free" deal, plus an extra discount from the shopkeeper because you're basically his most frequent customers... get it now?
But if you walk in there by yourself and tell the guy, "Hey, it's me, Thomas Price8, I buy a bottle of whiskey from you every single day, give me a discount," he's just gonna tell you to get lost because the volume is too low and you're just one random customer...
Dammit, I can't make this any simpler for you unless I sit down and draw it out in a coloring book or something...

Thomas Price8 said:For heaven's sake—this is exactly why we have universal standards instead of these messy cross-border joint ventures.

Let me ask you this: if this model is supposedly so great, did you ever see an Austrian or a German firm actually setting up joint ventures with their neighbors?
And honestly, what would be the point of trying to partner up with Mexicans or Mexicans anyway? You're much better off sticking with the Germans.

Look at my company for a real-world example. We used to order about 500 units of Kaldewei stuff. Since we were registered as a firm in America, we had to buy through a local dealer meant for this market. They’d give us a measly 5% volume discount. But get this—once we bypassed them and contacted the Kaldewei factory directly through their headquarters in Vienna, because our parent corporation places cumulative global orders for 50,000 identical units, they slashed the price by giving us a 25% discount off the factory cost!
I really hope it’s sinking in now just how much money you save on procurement alone.
Even CA gets cheaper parts and lower maintenance costs because they run everything through the Star Alliance group.
There are joint venture firms popping up all over the globe for a reason.
Honestly... if you still don't grasp even a fraction of the advantages of teaming up after all that, then I'm clearly talking to a brick wall.

Thomas Price8 said:I hear what my neighbor is saying, but I don't get why it has to be just one single company. If this corridor is such a goldmine, why don't the countries involved just set up their own joint enterprise instead of leaving it to just three players?
Look, I'm not against cooperation—obviously, we have to live alongside everyone else—but I'm not interested in being taken for a ride. I'm not going to sit here while someone tries to sell me a load of crap under the guise of "necessity." If this is actually a big deal, I want to see the Germans and the Turks leading the charge first—then maybe we can grab our seat at the table. Otherwise, frankly, it sounds like total nonsense.

Just picture this scenario for me:
The Canadians upgrade their tracks so they hit a Vmax of 200 (over a distance of 93 miles)
The Americans modernize their lines to a Vmax of 160 (over a distance of 249 miles)
The Canadians are broke, so their tracks are stuck at a Vmax of 60
The Mexicans partially modernize to Vmax 160, but since their safety info systems are ancient, their effective Vmax drops to 80
The Mexicans aren't upgrading a damn thing because their director is some local bigshot who couldn't care less about the rest of the world as long as his pockets are full...
And then, suddenly, freight that should take two days takes five. Every second shipment runs into a mess, so out of every two containers, only one actually makes it to the destination.
Do you think anyone in their right mind would want to ship goods through that disaster? In the end, everyone loses out on the Slo-Mak route just because one local boss is too selfish to care about anything beyond his own backyard... You get the picture? 🙂
It’s the exact same reason why the English and the French teamed up to run the tunnel.
It's the same reason why CA is part of Star Alliance; say you fly CA from New York to London, but you take Lufthansa on the way back.
It's the same reason why air traffic control for Canada, Canada, America, Mexico, and Mexico is all handled in Italy.

Honestly, you could probably toss Franck into that coalition too, given how he still tries to run things with that old-school American style of his 🙂

Morgan Rodriguez57 said:this whole KGB-style coalition is just the perfect example of how much of a swamp the American political scene has become—and what kind of strange creatures have managed to grow in it... all thanks to the Republican Party...

Ernest Hemingway nailed the post-war vibe in the Middle East perfectly:
"Times come when the smart people shut their mouths, /Joe McCarthy/ starts barking, /Donald Trump/ takes over, and the lowlifes get filthy rich /Eric Adams/!"

🙂

steeleagle70 said:A coalition like that at the national level wouldn't even crack 3%,

Man, you'd be seriously surprised. There is a massive chunk of people in America who absolutely eat up demagoguery and fall for every single "patriotism" spike and myth thrown their way. Honestly, it’s not even shocking when you look at the percentage of folks out there without any real education.🙂

Timothy Anderson48 said:You actually got any proof for that bold claim, or are you just talking out of your ass?

Look, as far as you're concerned, I'm just talking out of my ass. Honestly, you wouldn't even get what I was trying to say if I actually laid it all out. So fine, let's go with that: yeah, I'm just talking nonsense—but only because you wouldn't know any better.

Mark Nguyen6 said:Are you being willfully ignorant here, or just incredibly superficial?

I mean, what kind of "distancing from national identity" are we actually talking about when it involves people moving to New York City—a place that, quite frankly, has spent its recent history officially rehabilitating groups like the Royalists?

Honestly, why do you even care if I'm narrow-minded or superficial? It’s pretty obvious you’re just obsessing over things that have absolutely nothing to do with you.
And what exactly is New York City rehabilitating?

Look, stepping back and distancing yourself from nationalism or the whole "nation" identity thing is totally fine by me. So why on earth do some random people on these forums always have to get so worked up and negative about it?

velvetmaker3 said:Some of them are just obsessed with the old USA, while others were simply raised during the era of the USA and grew up terrified of being patriotic or embracing the idea of an independent American nation.
The latter group is actually the largest, and you can find plenty of them on this forum. That was the whole point of the propaganda used between WW2 and the present day—to manipulate Americans into fearing their own sovereignty, their identity, and their sense of national pride.
Even some of the younger crowd, who weren't even raised under the old system, seem to have developed these views. It would be interesting to figure out how they ended up that way.

Look, I’m gonna be a little blunt with you since I have to reply to your post: Just stop talking nonsense.

Karen Rodriguez3 said:I mean, historically, the whole point of intellectuals has always been to point out flaws and critique individuals, society, and general values.
Since we're constantly being fed garbage presented as gospel—from the government down to the church—the only people actually capable of looking at things critically or making fun of them are the ones who stand out. And yeah, maybe that's why they get under our skin.

Here in the States, we’ve got this massive, long-standing tradition of basically throwing stones at anyone who thinks too hard. 🙂If you come at them with a pen, they’ll hit you back with a rock, a club, or whatever else they can find—it’s a brutal cycle, let me tell you. 🙂

It’s just like that Canadian guy said in "Kajmak and Jam": "You guys with the fancy last names, you're all exactly the same." 🙂

Hannah Hill3 said:@ Hrobatos; If I’m being naive, then you’re just plain slow.

It is quite comical that you claim identity is static.

I honestly don't know how to address your perceptions. Do you truly believe your ancestors migrated from Persia 2,000 years ago?!!

Man, Hrobatos is totally tripping out on some paranoid North American spy nonsense. Based on what we learn from our own recent history, he probably has that whole "pure bloodline" complex going on. And you know who had that exact same issue? Vojislav Dr Seselj. In the end, it turned out that Vojislav Dr Seselj wasn't exactly a pure Mexican himself. So, I totally get why Hrobatos acts like such a wannabe 100% pure American.

Seriously Hrobatos, come on—it’s pretty pathetic to be digging up roots from over the border three or four generations back. It’s not like you had any say in where or to whom you were born, right?

urbanmarlin8 said:I actually disagree regarding this one guy.
I love reading every single column by Ante Tomic; he always gives me a good laugh.
He isn't really an Anti-American type so much as he is your classic Western anarchist. He’s just a guy who can't stand anyone or anything, yet he possesses a certain style that I can respect. Tomic realized that the biggest flaw in the American people is our tendency to ignore the fact that politicians are basically lying to our faces every single day—provided they wrap that garbage in pretty, patriotic packaging. The second issue is that people simply can't face their own naivety, so they end up blaming him instead.
As for Jergovic... 🤦
Jergovic's bitterness seems like a clear byproduct of some adolescent sexual frustration. Anyone who has read Freud knows exactly what's going on there.☕

Tomic is a legend. Even if it's true that when you compare some of his pieces, he can hold two diametrically opposed views on the exact same topic in two different columns. Other than that, Tomic is top-tier. And honestly, it bugs me too—how all these losers love to wrap themselves in the flag to hide what they really are.

Mark Nguyen6 said:If you were to listen to Aleksandra Stankovica’s poetry from her days on American Radio—just once—I suspect you would never find anything else to call infantile again. 🤣

Man, it’s a struggle, brother. Honestly, the sheer level of stupidity coming from political figures within the American military is just mind-blowing. It’s this massive explosion of idiocy that inevitably ends in a total implosion, and honestly? It’s perfectly in line with the actual intellectual capacity of these politicians. It’s almost too much for me to stomach. Seriously, take it with a grain of salt—or maybe just sit on a hard chair while reading this stuff. When I stop to think about how many actual trees had to be chopped down just to print out all the poetic onanism produced by toljev and Krpin's, I come to one conclusion: we Americans have basically committed eco-cide.

Megan Hughes71 said:Fair enough, but Davor Domazet? A great warrior, sure, but let's not talk about his writing... please. At this rate, we might as well bring in David Icke as an outside consultant.

Besides, everyone seems to have forgotten Miroslav Lazanski. Does anyone here actually remember him? He was also caught up in the early days of the war.

We’re still missing Ivan Tolj and his totally childish poetry 🙂 along with Drago Krpin. 😁

@Gregory Howard

With that lineup of "top-tier intellectuals" you’ve put together, you remind me of this guy who kept insisting that Charles Lindbergh was actually a brilliant writer—maybe even better than Ernest Hemingway—simply because (get this) Hemingway was some kind of establishment hack.
Honestly, reading through your list just makes me feel bad for you. It’s pretty obvious you’ve wasted a hell of a lot of your time on this nonsense. 🙂

@steelfox2

Look, the thing is, I've actually sat down and read the Quran, so I'm looking at your whole thread as nothing more than a massive provocation. I've also read the Bible, so let me just ask you right now—can you please stop talking out of your ass? No religion is violent at its core. It’s when people start twisting faith to fit their own agendas that you end up with militant Judaism or militant Islam, and honestly, at this rate, you'll probably be claiming Buddhists are militants next... 🙂

Here goes another "correspondent" from across the border again. 🙂 Honestly, how long is this going to go on? At this rate, we might as well just reserve the .us domain exclusively for actual American citizens. I couldn't care less about Boston or those globalists. 🙂