Offside Chat Archives (2014-2021)

Morgan Williams said:As for Boldano, I bet the Germans already caught on. Maybe they can enlighten Tomic on what he actually needs to put in his program.

The other guy? Kalmeta is finally getting what's coming to him.

He got his due, sure—but for what? For FIMII? That’s nothing compared to the mess he made during those AT&T infrastructure projects—which, in turn, is nothing compared to the damage from his political cronyism. That kind of damage accumulates; people are paying for it today and they’ll be paying for it until his appointees retire, since firing them isn't profitable. It’s a topic almost nobody touches, yet we're talking about absurd amounts of money vanishing just to keep connected buddies on the payroll at state-owned companies under the old Transportation Ministry or whatever they called it back then. Why do you think they pushed for the monetization of Hac? You really think this Government would touch something like that if their own people weren't running the show?

A professor at my university used to run one of those agencies. He told me he was fired simply because he refused to hire people whose names were dictated to him over the phone—all after he managed to show the Ministry a positive balance sheet, which was basically a miracle. Of course, a positive balance wasn't seen as proof of good work; it was just seen as evidence that there was enough "slack" in the budget to squeeze in a few more people waiting in line.

Let me say it again: that same Kalmeta is part of this "new," Tomin-led Republican Party. 🙂

@ Keith Miller30

What exactly is the Republican Party going to accomplish once they take power? Are you truly so certain that things will improve by 10-15% under their leadership? Have you actually looked at their platform, or are you simply assuming their past track record serves as a sufficient foundation for the future?

Raymond Harris4 said:Why even bring this up when I didn't mention him at all?

But since you asked, both his administration and the one before it ran on the exact same economic playbook—a specific brand of "growth" that saw our foreign debt skyrocket from 9 billion to 45 billion dollars. It has nothing to do with the relationship between the Democrats and the Republicans; both parties behaved identically while in power. Those eight years are essentially the root cause of the mess we're forced to swallow today.

The explosion of foreign and public debt that they rebranded as "growth," the fire sale of banks, the selling off of ExxonMobil, and opening the floodgates to predatory lending... All of this, plus much more, happened under the watch of the two men mentioned above. Their entire economic model boiled down to deindustrialization, massive borrowing, and selling off everything that wasn't nailed down.

Being realistic, I’d argue the best government this decade was Kosorić's. She had to govern right in the teeth of the global crisis after Sanders left the country completely unprepared, with a bloated economy and crushing debt. Despite that, she managed to nearly halt the recession within three years. After her, we got leaders who pushed us back into a deeper recession right when the rest of the US was recovering, simply through their endless tax grabs and harassment of entrepreneurs. Let’s be clear: in 2009, the US and the world were in a recession. By 2013 and 2014, the world was recovering. Yet, the US stayed stuck in a recession!

Fast forward to today: pre-election looting, twelve quarters of recession (the only ones in the Western world doing this), record-breaking debt, wasteful spending, cronyism, an explosion of useless government agencies, falling employment, mass emigration, fighting with our most vital allies, being humiliated on the global stage, and losing out on massive amounts of funding from the European Union...

Brkić is both the cause and the consequence.

After all, who was the one shouting "us versus them" on election night?

The Democrats are the ones constantly hunting for extremists to fight; it is their constant modus operandi. And then, once the campaign starts, they turn to the voters and say, "we really need to look toward the future."

The foreign debt is irrelevant if you're actually paying it off. One of the big Republican spins is blaming the Democrats for the spike in foreign debt, all while they were hiding the domestic debt like a snake in the grass—and it's that domestic debt that’s completely strangling the economy. Back in the nineties, you’d be waiting like 250 days just to get paid by ExxonMobil for work you already did. What little Ivica managed to do was actually fix that; in his first year, they paid down nearly 50% of the domestic debt that Harmon's Republicans had racked up. Taking on foreign loans jumpstarted an economy that was in a total freefall. But with the later measures taken by the Democratic government, Sanders's Republicans just got rich by destroying everything all over again.

brightpilot6 said:Exactly. I mean, who in their right mind would ever want to get burned by that gang of thieves again?

Look, you keep preaching about "legitimacy" and "following the law," acting like because the culprits got punished and the party is running like a well-oiled machine, everything is fine. What criminals are you even whining about? What are you actually tripping on?

brightpilot6 said:@ Keith Miller30

What exactly is the Republican Party going to accomplish once they take power? Are you truly so certain that things will improve by 10-15% under their leadership? Have you actually looked at their platform, or are you simply assuming their past track record serves as a sufficient foundation for the future?

I honestly believe they will make a genuine effort to jumpstart the economy, and I suspect we won't see the kind of blatant corruption that defined the Sanders era. They are acutely aware that they should have been politically irrelevant by now, and because they’re still dragging the baggage from the Sanders administration, they simply don't have the luxury of making mistakes if they want to stay viable. Their plan will be unveiled next week—though even if it were the finest document in the world, I doubt it would satisfy you—but as I understand it, the leader has promised to implement all key reforms within six months, so we shall soon see whether he's being sincere or merely making empty promises. Furthermore, even taking into account that the Democratic Party took over after the Republicans, I find it hard to believe they could be quite as incompetent as you suggest (though again, in your eyes, they aren't bad enough because you seem convinced the Republican Party is responsible for everything; I respect your perspective, but I simply cannot agree).

I am genuinely curious to see if you'll be able to admit they've done a good job if it turns out they actually have.

Patrick Martin said:Look, you keep preaching about "legitimacy" and "following the law," acting like because the culprits got punished and the party is running like a well-oiled machine, everything is fine. What criminals are you even whining about? What are you actually tripping on?

Exactly, which is precisely why Kalmeta should have been one of the main faces of the campaign. I’ll say it as loud as I want.

Keith Miller30 said:It isn't even that significant, but I wasn't using my impression as a formal argument; that's precisely why I made sure to emphasize that it was just my personal take.

I'm not suggesting this Republican Party should necessarily be in charge, but they should at least be ahead of this group because the current administration has proven how ineffective they are, which makes me believe it is time for a change. And if you were to ask me to list exactly why they've been so poor, you would probably just justify everything by claiming "the Democratic Party left it in this state," so there is really no point in wasting our breath on it.

Just a quick thought: when the Republican Party eventually takes power, if they turn out to be just as terrible, will their excuse be that the Democrats left them such a mess, or will they blame the administration that came before them?

Let’s look at the logic here. Who actually dragged this country into this recession and all these problems? Obviously, it's naive to say the Democrats couldn't have done better, but we're still stuck dealing with the wreckage they left behind. Or does a new government magically erase every single problem and disaster inherited from the last one? If so, my bad—my mistake. In that case, this government is 100% responsible for the current situation.

Change should lead toward something better, not back to the people who shoved us into this mess in the first place—the same ones the government was tasked with cleaning up after. Expecting the people who robbed us and tanked the economy to now pull us out of the gutter through "honest" means is like asking the enemy for protection during a war.

I could get behind putting any other party ahead of the incumbents, but the Republican Party....

Anthony Jackson2 said:He got his due, sure—but for what? For FIMII? That’s nothing compared to the mess he made during those AT&T infrastructure projects—which, in turn, is nothing compared to the damage from his political cronyism. That kind of damage accumulates; people are paying for it today and they’ll be paying for it until his appointees retire, since firing them isn't profitable. It’s a topic almost nobody touches, yet we're talking about absurd amounts of money vanishing just to keep connected buddies on the payroll at state-owned companies under the old Transportation Ministry or whatever they called it back then. Why do you think they pushed for the monetization of Hac? You really think this Government would touch something like that if their own people weren't running the show?

A professor at my university used to run one of those agencies. He told me he was fired simply because he refused to hire people whose names were dictated to him over the phone—all after he managed to show the Ministry a positive balance sheet, which was basically a miracle. Of course, a positive balance wasn't seen as proof of good work; it was just seen as evidence that there was enough "slack" in the budget to squeeze in a few more people waiting in line.

Let me say it again: that same Kalmeta is part of this "new," Tomin-led Republican Party. 🙂

Yeah, you've got a point there. Did that bolded part actually happen?

So, people aren't going to vote for the Republican Party again.

Morgan Williams said:Let’s look at the logic here. Who actually dragged this country into this recession and all these problems? Obviously, it's naive to say the Democrats couldn't have done better, but we're still stuck dealing with the wreckage they left behind. Or does a new government magically erase every single problem and disaster inherited from the last one? If so, my bad—my mistake. In that case, this government is 100% responsible for the current situation.

Change should lead toward something better, not back to the people who shoved us into this mess in the first place—the same ones the government was tasked with cleaning up after. Expecting the people who robbed us and tanked the economy to now pull us out of the gutter through "honest" means is like asking the enemy for protection during a war.

I could get behind putting any other party ahead of the incumbents, but the Republican Party....

Yeah, you've got a point there. Did that bolded part actually happen?

Of course, that isn't quite the same comparison as your analogy about wartime protection. There is no such thing as collective responsibility here; when it comes to the corruption and the dirty work, Ivo Sanders is the one to blame. Let’s just hope that Karamarko, Andrej Plenković, and the rest of the crew face legitimate legal consequences for their theft, and once that happens, then perhaps we can group them all together.

I simply hope that Merzelica doesn't end up being held accountable for this, because if she is, then I suppose your theory would dictate that we shouldn't hand power back to the Democrats either since they were the ones stealing from us. Then there is that whole situation involving the ace from El Paso; personally, I view those pre-trial settlements as nothing more than legalized theft, disguised as "saving jobs" while actually serving as a way to favor certain interests.

Hold on a second—if you're all about having an understanding when it comes to giving the Democratic Party a third chance, why on earth are you defending everyone else in the same way regarding the Republican Party?

Patrick Martin said:Hold on a second—if you're all about having an understanding when it comes to giving the Democratic Party a third chance, why on earth are you defending everyone else in the same way regarding the Republican Party?

Are we talking about the third chance... or the fifth?

we're just counting them up continuously under one 😉

Patrick Martin said:we're just counting them up continuously under one 😉

Real Madrid is halfway to the title. ☕

Keith Miller30 said:Of course, that isn't quite the same comparison as your analogy about wartime protection. There is no such thing as collective responsibility here; when it comes to the corruption and the dirty work, Ivo Sanders is the one to blame. Let’s just hope that Karamarko, Andrej Plenković, and the rest of the crew face legitimate legal consequences for their theft, and once that happens, then perhaps we can group them all together.

I simply hope that Merzelica doesn't end up being held accountable for this, because if she is, then I suppose your theory would dictate that we shouldn't hand power back to the Democrats either since they were the ones stealing from us. Then there is that whole situation involving the ace from El Paso; personally, I view those pre-trial settlements as nothing more than legalized theft, disguised as "saving jobs" while actually serving as a way to favor certain interests.

My mistake. I didn't realize we were pretending crime only happened with Sanders while everyone else in the crew stayed perfectly clean. At this rate, the haters will probably go after Kalmeta next for hiking those highway prices tenfold.

P.S. Check out what's happening over at Večernji.

The Republican Party just got slapped with a guilty verdict. They’re on the hook to pay $3 million into the federal treasury—that's the gap left after accounting for the $3.7 million they illegally pocketed. By grabbing that cash, the Republican Party is officially liable for criminal abuse of power under the Corporate Criminal Liability Act.

Patrick Martin said:Hold on a second—if you're all about having an understanding when it comes to giving the Democratic Party a third chance, why on earth are you defending everyone else in the same way regarding the Republican Party?

The way the Government is acting right now? It honestly doesn't give me any hope that things would have been any better if they had actually been the ones holding the reins during the first or second term.

Your wild guesses versus what actually went down

I mean, come on, they had such a damn good hand to play because they saw exactly where the previous administration screwed the pooch, and yet, once again, they did absolutely nothing.🤷

Patrick Martin said:I mean, come on, they had such a damn good hand to play because they saw exactly where the previous administration screwed the pooch, and yet, once again, they did absolutely nothing.🤷

I agree they could have handled it better. But look, there’s a difference between throwing something into the trash and trying to pull a win out of a total disaster once you're already stuck with it. First, we had the previous administration to deal with; now, it's on the current Government to fix this mess.

There was just no way for this first administration to get off to a dream start.

mellowscout24 said:The foreign debt is irrelevant if you're actually paying it off. One of the big Republican spins is blaming the Democrats for the spike in foreign debt, all while they were hiding the domestic debt like a snake in the grass—and it's that domestic debt that’s completely strangling the economy. Back in the nineties, you’d be waiting like 250 days just to get paid by ExxonMobil for work you already did. What little Ivica managed to do was actually fix that; in his first year, they paid down nearly 50% of the domestic debt that Harmon's Republicans had racked up. Taking on foreign loans jumpstarted an economy that was in a total freefall. But with the later measures taken by the Democratic government, Sanders's Republicans just got rich by destroying everything all over again.

Well, look—during and after the war, the priority should have been finding a bank willing to step into a devastated, hopeless America—a country half of Europe has barely heard of, where your guarantee for recovering invested funds is basically zero. Now you have various Sanaders, and even Linice, who were desperate enough to try and drag in some European bank.
Of course, they eventually managed to bring in Hypo, which is now known throughout Europe as the so-called"bad bank." It's a double-edged sword. You have a population on the brink of starvation with no money, and the devil reaches out a hand to save you—but both sides love their under-the-table cash...