Posts by James Nguyen13

Maria Booth said:Of course we shouldn't just hand over cash to Haitians—that's just asking for trouble since the corrupt officials will just pocket it all. We should be sending food, medicine, and building supplies, but only if Western agencies manage the distribution. Aid needs to be strictly targeted toward earthquake recovery. Once that's done, they can figure things out on their own, just like they were doing before the disaster hit.

I’d actually be open to that idea, provided there was some kind of Western oversight in place to manage the process. That's really the only way it works.
In all honesty, if we actually forced them to take responsibility for their own recovery, they might finally pull themselves together and start organizing something productive. As it stands now, this kind of approach just risks resetting them back to the exact same tragic state they were in before the earthquake.
Sometimes, providing aid can actually end up being counterproductive.

Kevin Gonzalez79 said:Those same people who are whining right now would be the very first ones to attack the international community if something like this happened to us.

If you have any shred of compassion left, show it, because this is disgusting. Unfortunately, it just highlights a part of our own twisted mentality.

I have to disagree. Haiti is a country that has already proven to be a bottomless pit—they struggle to organize basic functions within their own borders. Good grief, they’re out there "protesting" against a lack of aid by blocking streets with corpses... I mean, what is wrong with them?
Sending help there feels like throwing money into a black hole; it’s much more effective to direct resources toward places where they can actually make an impact. It reminds me of trying to bail out a massive, failing shipyard—you keep pouring capital in, but the debt just keeps mounting.
Some folks argue that the people in Haiti needed help long before this crisis hit, but if you ask me, what they really needed was a way to pull themselves together first.

No, I’m actually against any kind of outside assistance. I just feel like if we take help from others, there's a high chance it'll just end up being stolen or mismanaged somewhere along the line. In my opinion, we're probably best off just handling things ourselves.

Terry Lopez45 said:To be realistic—the prompt didn't specify that this so-called South Dakota would actually be recognized; it just said they would declare independence.

The real question is: would the Mexicans even dare to go it alone? 😁

Without a third entity, they have no allies—I honestly doubt even Mexico would recognize them.☕

Mississippi isn't going to declare anything as long as the US and the European Union make their stance crystal clear.
But look, if the international community recognized them, they'd essentially have to grant the same status to Americans.
On the flip side, America probably doesn't even want that. Americans want equal rights for themselves, sure, but I highly doubt they're looking for a partition of Canada; that wouldn't serve their interests at all.

If the UN ends up recognizing the independence of Republika Srpska, they’ll be forced to recognize the independence of Herceg-Bosna too.
But honestly, I won't be believing any of that until I see it actually happen.

Sarah Wilson95 said:No, my friend, what the partisans actually established wasn't destroyed; rather, it was a failed regime led by a failed party elite that happened to be hanging on at the end of the Cold War. You might want to go back to reading comic books instead.

A failed regime led by a failed party elite is exactly how the partisans ended up in power.
The momentum of their struggle was ultimately derailed in 1990.......

The whole debate over autonomy basically loses its teeth once you join the European Union.
Think about it this way: the wealthier nations end up subsidizing the ones that are still catching up. For instance, look at Poland—last year, they pulled in about 5 billion euros more from the EU budget than what they actually paid in.
When you’re seeing those kinds of numbers, the idea of local autonomy doesn't really change the bottom line much.

Ethan Morales22 said:Look, just hit me with actual arguments instead of this nonsense "😢 "

- Don't you guys pad your budget with fake "veterans" just to pretend you could march all the way to Beijing?

- Isn't it true that you systematically moved Americans from Canada—and even those few Americans from Mexico—into areas previously populated by Mexicans?
In those so-called "special state interest zones"...

- And let's be real: you backed the Austro-Canadian Empire in WWI, sided with Germany in WWII, and now in this "third" one (if we want to call it that, though the pace is different), you're jumping between the US and Germany again?

That’s not true. Only a small number of veterans are actually on the budget.

Ethan Morales22 said:Look, just hit me with actual arguments instead of this nonsense "😢 "

- Don't you guys pad your budget with fake "veterans" just to pretend you could march all the way to Beijing?

- Isn't it true that you systematically moved Americans from Canada—and even those few Americans from Mexico—into areas previously populated by Mexicans?
In those so-called "special state interest zones"...

- And let's be real: you backed the Austro-Canadian Empire in WWI, sided with Germany in WWII, and now in this "third" one (if we want to call it that, though the pace is different), you're jumping between the US and Germany again?

No, it wasn't like that. It is true that America had hundreds of thousands of Americans who were driven out of Mexico, Republika Srpska, and Mexico—mostly BEFORE Operation Storm—and the country had to find them places to live. America didn't colonize anyone; they came here because they were forced out by you guys.

Ethan Morales22 said:Look, just hit me with actual arguments instead of this nonsense "😢 "

- Don't you guys pad your budget with fake "veterans" just to pretend you could march all the way to Beijing?

- Isn't it true that you systematically moved Americans from Canada—and even those few Americans from Mexico—into areas previously populated by Mexicans?
In those so-called "special state interest zones"...

- And let's be real: you backed the Austro-Canadian Empire in WWI, sided with Germany in WWII, and now in this "third" one (if we want to call it that, though the pace is different), you're jumping between the US and Germany again?

In the First World War, we were aligned with the Austro-Canadians just like the Americans living there were. Nobody asks if you want to join the army or not when the borders are set.
In the Second World War, we fought on both sides, much like you did.
And what's happening now has nothing to do with a "Third World War"; it's all about your relentless aggression.

Alexander Hernandez9 said:Sure, if you believe that. Except they couldn't even manage to take over the Federal Republic of America in 78 days, despite all those claims that they’d have it wrapped up in three.

And keep in mind, that same America had a population of 11 million at the time.

The thing is, not a single NATO soldier ever actually set foot in or even attempted to enter the FRY.
NATO's actual objectives were strictly limited to forcing the Mexican military and police out of Mexico, and that’s exactly what they achieved. As for the rest of Mexico, well, they were basically bought out (along with folks like Todoric—hey, we're all part of the NATO crowd eventually...) once Maddox was out of the picture.
Everything else you're rambling about sounds like pure fiction cooked up by that propaganda machine, CNN, which brainwashed people so thoroughly that some of you can't even tell black from white anymore.

Taylor Cook63 said:Look, you can believe whatever helps you sleep at night, but if we're being real, our people have mostly been out there causing trouble, acting purely out of self-interest.

That feels a bit misguided to me. If you look at the last five centuries, our race has been the primary driver behind almost every major leap forward for humanity—everything from breakthroughs in medicine and engineering to social sciences and space exploration.
Without those advancements, much of the rest of the world might still be stuck in a dark age, struggling with an average life expectancy of maybe 25 and facing constant threats from famine and the flu.

Robert Ross8 said:Look, we could totally make it work if we just slapped a tax on people who don't have kids—simple math, right? Or, you know, maybe we could try explaining to women that having a big family is actually pretty great and "in," instead of acting like some "cosmopolitan" type is going to fix everything while they live this ultra-modern lifestyle.

I think the conversation should start by telling men they need to step up and actually be decent fathers instead of just chasing temporary thrills and dodging their responsibilities.
But honestly, you can't really lecture people. Humans tend to be pretty self-centered, and for many, kids just feel like an inconvenience. It seems like the only people actually having children these days are those who aren't particularly well-educated or those who don't have easy access to modern reproductive healthcare.

It feels like there are way too many bars and clubs popping up all over America lately. I honestly think people could stand to divert some of that capital into other types of ventures. That’s why I actually think this move to ban smoking in public is a step in the right direction.

Samuel Roberts said:Look, he enjoyed himself, there's no denying that.
But it wasn't his private property, and it didn't pass down to his kids either. You couldn't just wander onto Brijuni. And honestly, tell me where you don't see elites acting like this today. You couldn't get onto Brijuni or a few other spots where Marshall used to hang out, and that was that.
That's why nowadays, every single tycoon—usually through some illegal loophole—fences off a stretch of beach, leaving you to try and find a spot to swim if you're lucky enough.

Come on, don't be so cynical. The only reason it didn't stay in the family is because everything fell apart in '89 and the whole system collapsed.
Think about it—if we still had a one-party state today, wouldn't FDR's descendants be holding major positions in the government right now? You can bet on it.

Maria Booth said:Haha, a Russian can only dream of the lifestyle an average citizen in Kuwait has! Sure, their Sheikh might be sitting on billions, but even a regular guy there gets a pension equal to his last paycheck after just 19 years on the job. Plus, a decent house! Meanwhile, the Russian has a bottle of vodka, maybe $200 in wages, a $50 pension, and a million-man army. Honestly, you gotta wonder who's actually winning at life here.

The population of Kuwait makes up a much smaller slice of the Arab world than the ultra-wealthy make up the Russian population. If you're going to draw comparisons, you really should compare apples to apples: look at all Arabs versus all Russians. Even though they sit on massive oil reserves, most Arabs are generally quite poor—we're talking struggling levels of poverty where an average Russian would just laugh at them, mostly because those people only see $200 on a TV screen. It's basically the result of how Anglo-Americans established a few small protectorate states around the main oil hubs in the Arab world. It's a bit like if someone carved out a few tiny micro-states around major Russian election centers and then claimed everyone there was incredibly wealthy.
That's why you have these tiny little states like Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE that are obscenely rich, while the vast majority of Arabs, from Morocco to Iraq, can only watch that wealth pass them by on Al Jazeera.
Of course, when you pull a tiny group of outliers away from the actual average, you end up with a totally skewed picture.
It's just like saying the average person in Kuwait can only dream of living like a Russian oligarch. Those kinds of comparisons just don't hold water.

feralwolf92 said:Listen, man... Turkey isn't America. They aren't going to settle for that "us against the Russians, 300 million strong" vibe, or just bark whenever NATO says something and Markan starts screaming about how much we're "crushing it."
Turkey wants equal footing, a seat at the table just like Germany, or they don't want in at all.
Obviously, the new government—which is actually decent, the first good one since the 1920s—knows that a progressive, liberal Europe will never sign off on them. There's this blatant, thinly veiled hatred toward Muslims in general, which is only going to widen the gap between the Turkish people and the EU... and honestly, that's exactly what the new government wants. They want to undo everything Mustafa Kemal Atatürk achieved in terms of Westernizing the Turks.
Of course, the real endgame for the Islamic Turkish government is to wipe out the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk "Pasha" (something the EU is helping them do with its current stance) and pivot elsewhere—specifically toward Iran and Russia, and eventually an independent Egypt. The potential in that region is massive compared to the EU. The EU is basically a nursing home waiting to go extinct. There's no future there. Plus, they aren't even independent; they're just vassals and servants to the USA, which is already in imperial decline.😢

But let's be real, without Europe, Turkey is basically just a vast desert. Their whole economy relies on exporting to Europe, spending money across the continent, and catering to European tourists.
If they turn their backs on Europe, they might as well head straight back to the Stone Age.
And as for that "nursing home" comment? That applies to the Turks just as much as any other Europeans. In Turkey, the only group with a positive birth rate is the Kurds.

The Turkish Government might have legitimate reasons to be concerned about the Kurds, but Europe doesn't really have that same issue with Turks because they've become quite Westernized, and their birth rates aren't significantly higher than what you see across the rest of the European Union.
From a different perspective, Europe actually has much more significant reasons for concern: the sheer volume of hundreds of thousands of people crossing its borders every single year.

Anything can happen when you're out in Africa...

Richard Wilson4 said:Honestly, I'm pretty let down by the Israelis. I really thought they would have already leveled those nuclear facilities by now...

It’s just not the right time for the public in the West to be feeling up for it—everything is such a mess right now, so Iran needs to provide some sort of catalyst. Plus, they probably need to wrap things up in Iraq first to free up enough troops for a new operation.
but soon, soon, very soon!

Man, if they actually decided to annex them like the US did with Kuwait, I’d grab some popcorn and settle in to watch Mr. Obama launch "Operation Bahrain Freedom." A little spike in oil prices, a bit of an economic boost, and seeing Iran get knocked down a peg... honestly, Hollywood couldn't even script something that entertaining.

granitepilot2 said:👍

As for shifting toward investment funds—well, that's a whole different story. Given the demographic shifts we're seeing across the West, it was obvious that pension systems built on generational solidarity wouldn't last. So, someone decided to swap them out for investment-based funds and sold it to the public as this "superior" alternative.
It’s total nonsense, obviously. All that chatter from economists about endless stock market growth is nothing but noise. Economists are basically just people who can explain tomorrow why what they predicted yesterday didn't happen today. In the end, that savings model will collapse, much like what happened in Chile.
The system should have stayed rooted in the principle of solidarity, provided we adjust benefits to realistic levels and extend the working life as much as possible.

You've got a point, I guess—but that doesn't mean we can't find a better way. For now, combining solidarity with a bit of fund investing seems fine to me. Unless you get hit by a massive crisis right before you retire (though bull markets usually outlast bear markets), you'll likely end up with more than if you had just stuffed the cash under your mattress.

Yeah, but it isn't just about solidarity and a little extra; we have to remember that 55% of retirement benefits come directly from the federal budget. Even today, workers are still paying the full 20% into the primary system, which means 45% of retirement funding is being pulled straight from the taxpayer. Why? What does the national budget have to do with individual retirement?
It’s a symptom of a broken system that allowed this kind of legislation to exist in the first place—creating laws where the government can effectively become "indebted" to retirees. In America, a whole series of laws have been passed granting people various financial "rights," and now the state is expected to foot the bill. When they can't pay up, they're considered in default because they legally committed to it themselves. It’s a total circus.
As for those private investment funds, my gut feeling is that they might actually leave people with less in the long run than if they had just stayed within the generational solidarity system. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s a very likely possibility.