Destruction of Saudi Oil Leaves USA in Charge

[saxitoxin]

Once they don't have us European freethinkers with our quaint ideas about social justice poisoning their people's minds, they can set about building their Utopia.

We've been doing that since 1630.

"Hold thy peace, Roger Williams!" answered Endicott, imperiously. "My spirit is wiser than thine for the business now in hand. I tell ye, fellow-exiles, that Charles of England, and Laud, our bitterest persecutor, arch-priest of Canterbury, are resolute to pursue us even hither. They are taking counsel, saith this letter, to send over a governor-general, in whose breast shall be deposited all the law and equity of the land. They are minded, also, to establish the idolatrous forms of English Episcopacy; so that, when Laud shall kiss the Pope's toe, as cardinal of Rome, he may deliver New England, bound hand and foot, into the power of Satan, his master.

Endicott gazed round at the excited countenances of the people, now full of his own spirit, and then turned suddenly to the standard-bearer, who stood close behind him.

"Officer, lower your banner!" said he.

The officer obeyed; and, brandishing his sword, Endicott thrust it through the cloth, and, with his left hand, rent the Red Cross completely out of the banner. He then waved the tattered ensign above his head.

"Treason, treason!" roared the royalist in the stocks. "He hath defaced the King's banner!"

"Before God and man, I will avouch the deed," answered Endicott. "Beat a flourish, drummer!--shout, soldiers and people!--in honor of the ensign of New England. Neither Pope nor Tyrant hath part in it now!"

We shall be a City Upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world!

[mrswdk]

If anybody can do it, the U.S. can do it. It's self-sufficient in almost everything. Grows more than enough food, has more than enough room, more than enough water, more than enough oil and gas and coal. Self-sufficient in almost all metal and minerals. There's only a few metals they import but with improved recycling they could probably end their dependence on those, or at least cut it down to a trickle.

That's not actually true. The US is completely dependent on Chinese rare earths, which are needed for (among other things) most of their military equipment, computers, cell phones and a whole bunch of other electronics. It buys Chinese imports because doing so is way cheaper than trying to mine its own.

Of course, the US could spend hundreds of billions of dollars tapping into its own rare earth supplies, but I don't know where it would get those hundreds of billions from once it has completely halted selling anything to anyone abroad. Maybe it could raise those billions by letting China and other foreign governments buy more US debt, although the US would have no way to repay those new loans without a source of income.

Plus, what would happen once America stops importing any low-cost clothing, electronics, utensils, medicines and other things currently manufactured abroad? Is it going to bring production of all those things back to America, inflating the costs of all those items enormously? What will the tens of millions of Americans who wallow in poverty do once they become unable to afford pretty much all the things they can currently only afford because they get cheap developing world imports? What happens to all the American companies who now can't sell anything because they're all too expensive for their own people? And in any case, given America's unemployment rate is less than 4%, where would it even find the people to produce all the things that are currently made abroad once production is brought back onshore?

Oh well. Guess America can't be an island after all.

[mrswdk]

European freethinkers? lol that's a riot. Europe has hardly rid themselves of the scourge of religion. They've just replaced the christian god with social cohesion and suppresion of individualism (really nothing changed they just removed the ritual).

Christ, whoever would have thought that someone could think 'social cohesion' was a dirty word.

'Those Europeans, with their police and their balanced diets.'

[saxitoxin]

China's rare earths are only rare because they have cheap labor to dig them up and zero environmental legislation. Australia has 20% of the world's rare earth metals but can't pay anyone to do mining work.

In an emergency, we could send Salvadoran guest laborers to Australia to work the mines. We could even bring Salvadoran guest laborers to the US to work the mines, we also have 20% of rare earth; as long as China keeps selling there's no reason to do that. But in an emergency it's very doable. We imported Mexicans during WW2 to fill agricultural jobs. If an absolute calamity we could even impose conscription to fill labor battalions, or use prison labor as we have ample prisoners as well.

We even have an entire rare earth mine on standby in the event of a disruption in Mountain Pass, California. It is ready to start producing tomorrow, the only thing it needs is bodies. It makes no sense to activate it as long as China is selling, though. But in a crisis we can ring it with inwards-facing machine gun nests and put prisoners, conscripts, or Salvadorans to work there in under a week.

[TA1LGUNN3R]

If anybody can do it, the U.S. can do it. It's self-sufficient in almost everything. Grows more than enough food, has more than enough room, more than enough water, more than enough oil and gas and coal. Self-sufficient in almost all metal and minerals. There's only a few metals they import but with improved recycling they could probably end their dependence on those, or at least cut it down to a trickle.

That's not actually true. The US is completely dependent on Chinese rare earths, which are needed for (among other things) most of their military equipment, computers, cell phones and a whole bunch of other electronics. It buys Chinese imports because doing so is way cheaper than trying to mine its own.

Of course, the US could spend hundreds of billions of dollars tapping into its own rare earth supplies, but I don't know where it would get those hundreds of billions from once it has completely halted selling anything to anyone abroad. Maybe it could raise those billions by letting China and other foreign governments buy more US debt, although the US would have no way to repay those new loans without a source of income.

Plus, what would happen once America stops importing any low-cost clothing, electronics, utensils, medicines and other things currently manufactured abroad? Is it going to bring production of all those things back to America, inflating the costs of all those items enormously? What will the tens of millions of Americans who wallow in poverty do once they become unable to afford pretty much all the things they can currently only afford because they get cheap developing world imports? What happens to all the American companies who now can't sell anything because they're all too expensive for their own people? And in any case, given America's unemployment rate is less than 4%, where would it even find the people to produce all the things that are currently made abroad once production is brought back onshore?

Oh well. Guess America can't be an island after all.

The fear-mongering of globalists is just that... nothing but fear-mongering. People will find a way to prosper and economics will shift accordingly after a little bit of discomfort, because that's the ultimate impetus of all, avoidance of discomfort. Like, is your opinion of Americans so low you think we can't manufacture tee shirts if we really wanted (or rather, had) to? I'm sure in that 96% employed there's an appreciable chunk of useless fatass cubicle rats whose only production is scrolling through facebook.

European freethinkers? lol that's a riot. Europe has hardly rid themselves of the scourge of religion. They've just replaced the christian god with social cohesion and suppresion of individualism (really nothing changed they just removed the ritual).

Christ, whoever would have thought that someone could think 'social cohesion' was a dirty word.

'Those Europeans, with their police and their balanced diets.'

I imagine the alleged witches of the Salem trials do, or the people burned at the stake by the Spanish inquisition, or the millions starved to death in communist China, or Russia, or a million other examples. There's nothing wrong with the social cohesion which might arise organically and voluntarily in, say, a tight-knit community, but there is a lot wrong with any of your social justice movements qua carrots by which governments distract you with.

[Dukasaur]

If anybody can do it, the U.S. can do it. It's self-sufficient in almost everything. Grows more than enough food, has more than enough room, more than enough water, more than enough oil and gas and coal. Self-sufficient in almost all metal and minerals. There's only a few metals they import but with improved recycling they could probably end their dependence on those, or at least cut it down to a trickle.

That's not actually true. The US is completely dependent on Chinese rare earths,

Famous last words.

When the Great War began, the Allies thought that by blockading Germany's imports of nitrates from Chile, they would end Germany's ability to wage war. (At the time, natural nitrates from Chile were the only large source of nitrates for making explosives.) Very quickly the Germans started using the Haber process to convert atmospheric nitrogen into artificial nitrates.

Contrary to popular belief, the Haber process wasn't actually invented during the war; Haber actually developed it in 1905. But from 1905 to 1914 it was just a curiosity, interesting to chemists and nobody else. With the supply shock of the Allied blockade, though, it didn't take long for the Germans to turn this chemical curiosity into a going concern. It proceeded so quickly that there was never really a shortage of high explosive shells in the German army.

Rare earths are chemical elements. Extracting them from waste electronics and recycling into new isn't rocket science. I mean that, literally -- there's no going into unknown territory here, it's just the application of known chemical reactions. A high school student probably could recycle your phone. He just couldn't do it economically. Americans throw out electronics and sell them to Vietnam to be recycled because they have a throwaway-based economy. But if there was some kind of supply shock, something like a Chinese embargo, it wouldn't take much to take these chemical processes, scale them up to the point that they become economically viable, and recover the elements needed.

which are needed for (among other things) most of their military equipment, computers, cell phones and a whole bunch of other electronics. It buys Chinese imports because doing so is way cheaper than trying to mine its own.

Of course, the US could spend hundreds of billions of dollars tapping into its own rare earth supplies, but I don't know where it would get those hundreds of billions from once it has completely halted selling anything to anyone abroad. Maybe it could raise those billions by letting China and other foreign governments buy more US debt, although the US would have no way to repay those new loans without a source of income.

Plus, what would happen once America stops importing any low-cost clothing, electronics, utensils, medicines and other things currently manufactured abroad? Is it going to bring production of all those things back to America, inflating the costs of all those items enormously? What will the tens of millions of Americans who wallow in poverty do once they become unable to afford pretty much all the things they can currently only afford because they get cheap developing world imports? What happens to all the American companies who now can't sell anything because they're all too expensive for their own people? And in any case, given America's unemployment rate is less than 4%, where would it even find the people to produce all the things that are currently made abroad once production is brought back onshore?

There's a huge difference between how things are done currently, and how they could be done if the need arose.

Yeah, the economy would take a hit. But the people that make the decisions wouldn't be skipping any meals. All the pain would be passed down, as it always is, to the working class.

And even the working class might not complain all that much, if the whole thing can be turned into a war, which a Chinese embargo essentially would be. Unfortunately, Homo sapiens is a tribal species. Nothing easier than starting a war and trusting in patriotic fervour to get the people to voluntarily lower their own living standards in the service of their masters. Crushingly sad, but true.

Oh well. Guess America can't be an island after all.

1914.

[Dukasaur]

European freethinkers? lol that's a riot. Europe has hardly rid themselves of the scourge of religion. They've just replaced the christian god with social cohesion and suppresion of individualism (really nothing changed they just removed the ritual).

Christ, whoever would have thought that someone could think 'social cohesion' was a dirty word.

'Those Europeans, with their police and their balanced diets.'

I imagine the alleged witches of the Salem trials do, or the people burned at the stake by the Spanish inquisition, or the millions starved to death in communist China, or Russia, or a million other examples. There's nothing wrong with the social cohesion which might arise organically and voluntarily in, say, a tight-knit community, but there is a lot wrong with any of your social justice movements qua carrots by which governments distract you with.

None of these buggaboos that you drag out are examples of social cohesion. The Salem witch trials occurred precisely because the Puritans who controlled the government were at odds with the people, who were learning dangerous concepts like singing and dancing from their black slaves. The millions were starved to death by communist China because the (urban) communists who controlled the government were at odds with the people of the rural townships, who just wanted to live their life the way they always had but had no voice in the government. People were burned at the stake because the Catholics who controlled the government were at odds with the people, many of whom (in the Spanish instance) were Jews and (in various other places) Protestants, Muslims, or Pagans. You could bring out, as you say, "a million other examples" and I'll bet the entire million would be more of the same -- the ruling class enforcing its power over people who have none.

None of that is in any way similar to the social democratic ideal, where the rules of the society are designed so that everyone has a decent life.

You live in a society where almost a third of the country barely scrapes by on minimum wage jobs, has essentially no disposable income, and can be destroyed with a single unforeseen medical bill, and you don't see anything wrong with that.

[saxitoxin]

The Salem witch trials occurred precisely because the Puritans who controlled the government were at odds with the people, who were learning dangerous concepts like singing and dancing from their black slaves.

#FakeNews

Between 1675 and 1705 there were between 200 to 500 slaves in Massachusetts, almost all of whom were domestic servants in Boston. The population of Massachusetts in 1690 was about 50,000 (https://web.viu.ca/davies/h320/population.colonies.htm). In other words, less than 1% of the population were slaves and it's unlikely there were more than single digits (and potentially that single digit is zero) of slaves in a rural community like Salem.

The notion that the Salem Witch Trials occurred because slaves were secretly organizing celebrity dance contests seems ... far-fetched.

Puritanism, and its rejection of hive-mind Papacy (Roman Catholic Church) and hive-mind Crypto-Papacy (Church of England), is what grew the United States into the richest country in the world. As early as 1659, in his book The Christian Commonwealth, John Eliot called for the destruction of the British monarchy and its replacement with a global American hegemony. The era we are living in is simply the midpoint of a plan 400 years in the making. If you don't like this era, and would prefer the Old Order, you should get a distracting hobby because there's centuries more to come of the New Order. Just like it says on the dollar, God favors our plan for the world (Annuit Coeptis). For two thousand years nations have tried, and failed, to destroy Rome. We are living in an historic time in which we may just live to see St. Peter's burning.

You live in a society where almost a third of the country barely scrapes by on minimum wage jobs

#FakeNews

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2.1% of hourly workers are paid at or below the minimum wage (https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimu ... f/home.pdf). The BLS also reports 60% of the workforce are hourly workers. In other words, 1.25% of the country has minimum wage jobs, which is rather different from 33%.

Further, 17 American states (https://www.thebalancecareers.com/2018- ... es-2061043) have a higher minimum wage than that of Germany ($9.30/hour) and all 50 states have a minimum wage equal or more than that of Italy.

[mookiemcgee]

You live in a society where almost a third of the country barely scrapes by on minimum wage jobs

#FakeNews

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2.1% of hourly workers are paid at or below the minimum wage (https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimu ... f/home.pdf). The BLS also reports 60% of the workforce are hourly workers. In other words, 1.25% of the country has minimum wage jobs, which is rather different from 33%.

Further, 17 American states (https://www.thebalancecareers.com/2018- ... es-2061043) have a higher minimum wage than that of Germany ($9.30/hour) and all 50 states have a minimum wage equal or more than that of Italy.

Your link just states that 2.1% of workers are paid below the FEDERAL minimum wage. If you consider that 29 states have their own minimum wage that is higher that $7.25/hour (the fed min which hasn't changed in a decade) the picture changes significantly.

[saxitoxin]

You live in a society where almost a third of the country barely scrapes by on minimum wage jobs

#FakeNews

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2.1% of hourly workers are paid at or below the minimum wage (https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimu ... f/home.pdf). The BLS also reports 60% of the workforce are hourly workers. In other words, 1.25% of the country has minimum wage jobs, which is rather different from 33%.

Further, 17 American states (https://www.thebalancecareers.com/2018- ... es-2061043) have a higher minimum wage than that of Germany ($9.30/hour) and all 50 states have a minimum wage equal or more than that of Italy.

Your link just states that 2.1% of workers are paid below the FEDERAL minimum wage. If you consider that 29 states have their own minimum wage that is higher that $7.25/hour (the fed min which hasn't changed in a decade) the picture changes significantly.

That's fine. The average of all state minimum wages is less than $10.10 per hour. There are 13 million Americans between ages 20 and 64 who earn $10.10 /hour or less (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wh ... imum-wage/). There are 201,205,121 Americans between 20 and 64. That's 6.5% which is still vastly less than 33%!

As we can see, Democrats hate America and spread #FakeNews to attack and diminish it and to curry favor with its foreign enemies. They must be stopped in their tracks. President Trump is the last president we need; there is no reason for us to continue searching every four years.

[TA1LGUNN3R]

European freethinkers? lol that's a riot. Europe has hardly rid themselves of the scourge of religion. They've just replaced the christian god with social cohesion and suppresion of individualism (really nothing changed they just removed the ritual).

Christ, whoever would have thought that someone could think 'social cohesion' was a dirty word.

'Those Europeans, with their police and their balanced diets.'

I imagine the alleged witches of the Salem trials do, or the people burned at the stake by the Spanish inquisition, or the millions starved to death in communist China, or Russia, or a million other examples. There's nothing wrong with the social cohesion which might arise organically and voluntarily in, say, a tight-knit community, but there is a lot wrong with any of your social justice movements qua carrots by which governments distract you with.

None of these buggaboos that you drag out are examples of social cohesion. The Salem witch trials occurred precisely because the Puritans who controlled the government were at odds with the people, who were learning dangerous concepts like singing and dancing from their black slaves. The millions were starved to death by communist China because the (urban) communists who controlled the government were at odds with the people of the rural townships, who just wanted to live their life the way they always had but had no voice in the government. People were burned at the stake because the Catholics who controlled the government were at odds with the people, many of whom (in the Spanish instance) were Jews and (in various other places) Protestants, Muslims, or Pagans. You could bring out, as you say, "a million other examples" and I'll bet the entire million would be more of the same -- the ruling class enforcing its power over people who have none.

None of that is in any way similar to the social democratic ideal, where the rules of the society are designed so that everyone has a decent life.

You are saying what i stated, you just don't realize it because you're being combative, probably due to the zeal of social democracy. You just now in the post before this lamented that humans were too tribal-- what do you think those examples are and what i said in the first place? The witches and jews dared to upset the larger community as a whole by not observing the rituals of that society, where those rituals were put in place for the betterment of society as a whole in the prevailing mores of their eras, and because they didn't have the inalienable rights of freedom of belief, found themselves on the wrong side of zealotry. For the greater good of god!

The starved Chinese were victims of China's more direct "betterment" of the people, put in place by mao and the communists, and because they believed the individual means nothing, only the collective is important and people don't have rights. For the greater good!

There are any number of excuses those in power will trot out to justify how the individual has to make sacrifices for his society.

You live in a society where almost a third of the country barely scrapes by on minimum wage jobs, has essentially no disposable income, and can be destroyed with a single unforeseen medical bill, and you don't see anything wrong with that.

I could trip outside and bang my head on a rock and die tomorrow, too. The unforeseen happens. I don't go out, commit bad and immoral behavior, and try to justify it by pointing out the possible good it does. If the only way social democracies can achieve these utopias is by suppressing the rights of individuals, it's not worth it. For the most part i don't believe the ends justify the means.

Before this devolves into a quibble about the merits of whatever progressive bullshit passes for enlightenment these days, I'll point out that my response to you was over the smarmy, smug comment that we Americans are so backwards because we're zealots who disdain justice and outside influence. You're right, but Europeans aren't any better, as I've shown historically. And they still aren't any better.

See the lady fined for the Muhammed comment. That just screams ideal society, doesn't it? Where the government can control what you say. Or the burkha bans across Europe? So progressive, isn't it, to criminalize non-violent religious observances. What's next, ban the yarmulke? It's very socially conscious.

The less reliant America is on the outside world, the less shit we have to deal with. For example, we should have told those Saudi fucks to kick rocks years ago, but we can't because we depend on their oil. That was my main point.

[mrswdk]

We even have an entire rare earth mine on standby in the event of a disruption in Mountain Pass, California.

You mean, the one that went bankrupt and got bought out by a Chinese company?

Like, is your opinion of Americans so low you think we can't manufacture tee shirts if we really wanted (or rather, had) to? I'm sure in that 96% employed there's an appreciable chunk of useless fatass cubicle rats whose only production is scrolling through facebook.

So in summary, you would be prepared to work extra long shifts in a dog food factory on top of your current job in order to service the glory of the mother land? And you are assuming tens of millions of other Americans* would also be prepared to return to Industrial Revolution era working patterns as the USG closed up sweat shops abroad and demanded that already-employed Americans took on those jobs?

*the richer ones, not the poor ones who are already working three jobs

I imagine the alleged witches of the Salem trials do, or the people burned at the stake by the Spanish inquisition, or the millions starved to death in communist China, or Russia, or a million other examples. There's nothing wrong with the social cohesion which might arise organically and voluntarily in, say, a tight-knit community, but there is a lot wrong with any of your social justice movements qua carrots by which governments distract you with.

'Europe got rid of religion, and replaced it with social justice warriors doing things like the Salem witch trials (America) and Chairman Mao (China)'

You're ranting, dude.

[Dukasaur]

The Salem witch trials occurred precisely because the Puritans who controlled the government were at odds with the people, who were learning dangerous concepts like singing and dancing from their black slaves.

#FakeNews

Between 1675 and 1705 there were between 200 to 500 slaves in Massachusetts, almost all of whom were domestic servants in Boston. The population of Massachusetts in 1690 was about 50,000 (https://web.viu.ca/davies/h320/population.colonies.htm). In other words, less than 1% of the population were slaves and it's unlikely there were more than single digits (and potentially that single digit is zero) of slaves in a rural community like Salem.

Single digits are all that was needed.

The first three people arrested for witchcraft were Sarah Good (a vagrant, then as now a prime target for any random false charge), Sarah Osborne (married to a former slave) and Tituba (a slave). Tituba was tortured into a confession and the other two were basically convicted because they had been seen with Tituba. They had their own weak points but Tituba's confession was the key. After that the train rolled on an many others were arrested, but successfully getting those first three convictions was essential to Parris.

John Indian was also a slave, and used by the prosecution as a material witness. So, yeah, single digits were all that was needed.

I'll grant you one small point. When I read that Sarah Osborne was married to a former slave, I assumed he was black, and that's not true. Turns out he was Irish, which I suppose in Massachusetts society of the time was pretty much the same thing.

You live in a society where almost a third of the country barely scrapes by on minimum wage jobs

#FakeNews

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2.1% of hourly workers are paid at or below the minimum wage (https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimu ... f/home.pdf). The BLS also reports 60% of the workforce are hourly workers. In other words, 1.25% of the country has minimum wage jobs, which is rather different from 33%.

Your playing of numbers games is pretty boring and predictable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#cite_note-4

One organization estimated that in 2015, 13.5% of Americans (43.1 million) lived in poverty.[3] Yet other scholars underscore the number of people in the United States living in "near-poverty," putting the number at around 100 million, or nearly a third of the U.S. population.[4] Starting in the 1930s, relative poverty rates have consistently exceeded those of other wealthy nations.

Whether those people in "near-poverty" actually make the official minimum wage, or whether they make 12 cents more than the minimum so that you can loophole them out of your count is pretty irrelevant. What is relevant is that they work, often at multiple jobs, and yet don't earn enough to produce a decent standard of living.

Further, 17 American states (https://www.thebalancecareers.com/2018- ... es-2061043) have a higher minimum wage than that of Germany ($9.30/hour) and all 50 states have a minimum wage equal or more than that of Italy.

The guy working for the minimum wage in Germany will still be able to send his kids to university. (Public university has free tuition. Private universities max out around $24,000/year). The guy working for minimum wage in the U.S. will not. (Average tuition even at bottom-tier state universities is $11,000. Average at private universities is $36,000, and the upper limit can approach six digits.)

When the guy working for the minimum wage in Germany gets sick, he is guaranteed six weeks of sick leave at full pay. The guy working for minimum wage in the U.S. is guaranteed nothing.

When he does need medical attention, the guy working for the minimum wage knows that all of his care is covered by the state insurance. The guy working for the minimum wage in the U.S. will find that although he has been paying for insurance and thinks he's covered, a lot of the procedures he needs will in fact not be covered and at his income level will almost certainly be crushingly burdensome.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/surprise-medical-bills-rise-study/story?id=64974332

Dr. Eric Sun, lead author of the study and assistant professor of anesthesiology, pain medicine and health research and policy at Stanford University, and his colleagues used a national database to look at surprise billing from 2010 to 2016, all from one large commercial insurer.

"We looked at situations where people were admitted to an emergency room – where people have less choice of health care provider," Dr. Sun told ABC News. "We also looked at care within in-network hospitals – where receiving a bill would be a surprise because it should be covered by insurance."

If you visited the emergency department in 2010, there was a 32% likelihood you would receive a surprise medical bill. But in 2016, Sun and his team found it rose to just under 43%.

But it's not only that they are becoming more common -- they're becoming more expensive, too. The average cost rose from $220 to $628, the study found.

The situation is just as bad for inpatients. Twenty-six percent received a surprise medical bill in 2010, but 42% received one in 2016. The cost situation was even worse, rising from $804 to $2,040.

These surprise bills come from a variety of sources, but primarily it has to do with insurance coverage, according to the researchers.

"Whenever you get hospital care, the decision to participate in insurance is made independently by every doctor you see," Sun told ABC News.

"If you see an in-network doctor, they agree to an amount that the insurance company pays, but an out-of-network doctor doesn't like that agreement and so they bill more," he said. "That comes as a surprise medical bill, and [it] can even happen at in-network hospitals."

The guy working for the minimum wage in Germany has access to an advanced public transit network and doesn't need a car. His counterpart in the U.S., unless he lives someplace like New York City or San Francisco, almost certainly lives in a place where public transit ranges somewhere between "atrociously bad" and "nonexistent", and needs to maintain a car to get to work. (Average cost over $9,000/year) That's another massive drag on his ability to actually have any disposable income.

[saxitoxin]

I'll grant you one small point. When I read that Sarah Osborne was married to a former slave, I assumed he was black, and that's not true. Turns out he was Irish, which I suppose in Massachusetts society of the time was pretty much the same thing.

Yes, our last big mistake with immigration; letting the Irish in. Massachusetts had 200 years of proud history as a cornerstone of anti-Papism. Now it's crawling with the descendants of Irish; America's Roma. Its fundamental character was changed in the mid 19th century.

One organization estimated that in 2015, 13.5% of Americans (43.1 million) lived in poverty.[3] Yet other scholars underscore the number of people in the United States living in "near-poverty," putting the number at around 100 million, or nearly a third of the U.S. population.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#cite_note-4

Great, they can go to live in the Britain you love so much.

It has been found by the Poverty and Social Exclusion project at Bristol University in 2014,[4] that the proportion of households lacking three items or activities deemed necessary for life in the UK at that time (as defined by a survey of the wider population) has increased from 14% in 1983 to 33% in 2012.[5][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_i ... ed_Kingdom

The guy working for the minimum wage in Germany will still be able to send his kids to university.

Saying "Germans can go to a German university" is like saying "someone working at McDonald's can eat as many Big Macs as they want, while someone working at the Ritz only gets three complimentary filet mignon per day." Of the world's Top 50 universities, 50% are American though the U.S. only has 5% of the world's population. Zero percent (0%) are German (https://www.topuniversities.com/univers ... kings/2019). Congrats to the Germans for being able to attend free diploma mills.

The rest is just, bleh ... the same, ridiculous, tired old Anti-American rants from those nostalgic for a civilization we have utterly ground into dust through sheer force of will. No rebuttal needed.

[mrswdk]

The Chinese university that is in the world's top 20 (and the other one that is in the world's top 30) are also vastly more affordable than any American university.

And if you're a foreign student, the government will not only subsidize the already-minimal tuition fees for you but also pay for your accommodation and offer you a living stipend while you're there. Brains of the world should head to China immediately \(^0^)/

[saxitoxin]

The Chinese university that is in the world's top 20 (and the other one that is in the world's top 30) are also vastly more affordable than any American university.

And if you're a foreign student, the government will not only subsidize the already-minimal tuition fees for you but also pay for your accommodation and offer you a living stipend while you're there. Brains of the world should head to China immediately \(^0^)/

The rate card tuition doesn't usually correspond with reality.

Harvard: Families whose incomes total less than $65,000 are exempt from tuition fees—"Our generous financial aid program—bolstered by the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, which seeks to increase low- and middle-income students' awareness of Harvard's affordability—aims to make Harvard accessible to any student who is admitted."

Yale: The New Haven university bills itself as "one of the most affordable colleges in the country for families making less than $200,000 in annual income" and promises that families whose income fall below $65,000 annually will be tuition-and-fees-exempt—"100% of the student's total cost of attendance will be financed with a Yale Financial Aid Award."

Princeton: While Princeton doesn't have formal income parameters for determining financial aid, the average aid packages for the class of 2018 shows that families whose incomes fall below $60,000 were given financial-aid packages that covered full tuition and fees.

https://www.glamour.com/story/10-top-tu ... colleges-a

This is all possible only because of the capitalist system Duk hates that has provided these universities larger endowments than the treasury of many nations and the anti-Catholic Puritans who founded these universities in the 17th century. In Duk's ideal world, Harvard would still be free - just like now - it would just be as shitty as the University of Münster. Everyone would be equally dumb, but they would be equal and that's apparently all that matters.

[NomadPatriot]

let's blame White Europeans for doing what the Asians / Mongolians did a few hundred years earlier..... --> Colonizing the America's...

[Dukasaur]

the capitalist system Duk hates

That's a blatant lie and you know it. I love capitalism; it's a powerful force for generating wealth. It just needs to be tempered with a bit of conscience to see that the wealth benefits everyone involved.

Europe proves that it's possible to preserve a vibrant capitalist economy whilst still treating workers like human beings.


Ditto this:

tired old Anti-American rants

It's not anti-American to defend the American worker, while you and your elitist buddies long for the return of slavery and begrudge the worker every paycheque.

[saxitoxin]

Europe proves that it's possible to preserve a vibrant capitalist economy whilst still treating workers like human beings.

In my opinion, when you mix and match you get the worst of all worlds, not the best.

-Germany gives everyone free university and, as a consequence, their universities are all underfunded and suck. The shitty German universities, consequently, do fractionally less to provide medical or technological advances that make life better for all humans.

-The United States gives no one free university (though the most academically talented get it free anyway) and has half of the greatest universities in the world despite having just 5% of the population. The ivory towers of American academia have the capacity to make advances like developing anasthesia, cardiac surgery, organ transplants, and limb reattachment which, ultimately, benefit the poor Germans wallowing in their mud fields of ignorance.

The superiority of the American system subsidizes all the ongoing, failed social experiments Europe tries. Without the American system, Germans would all have free healthcare that involved whiskey and a bite stick during surgery. There has to be at least one country in the world that is the responsible adult to give all the little irrelevant countries the freedom to chase castles in the sky. America is the adult.

[GoranZ]

Europe proves that it's possible to preserve a vibrant capitalist economy whilst still treating workers like human beings.

In my opinion, when you mix and match you get the worst of all worlds, not the best.

-Germany gives everyone free university and, as a consequence, their universities are all underfunded and suck. The shitty German universities, consequently, do fractionally less to provide medical or technological advances that make life better for all humans.

-The United States gives no one free university (though the most academically talented get it free anyway) and has half of the greatest universities in the world despite having just 5% of the population. The ivory towers of American academia have the capacity to make advances like developing anasthesia, cardiac surgery, organ transplants, and limb reattachment which, ultimately, benefit the poor Germans wallowing in their mud fields of ignorance.

The superiority of the American system subsidizes all the ongoing, failed social experiments Europe tries. Without the American system, Germans would all have free healthcare that involved whiskey and a bite stick during surgery. There has to be at least one country in the world that is the responsible adult to give all the little irrelevant countries the freedom to chase castles in the sky. America is the adult.

Germany is not far behind US by GDP per capita although they had a baggage to rebuild East Germany.
And before the new crisis Germany is fixing its debt to gdp percentage. They are at 60% now while US is around 106%.

[saxitoxin]

Germany is not far behind US by GDP per capita although they had a baggage to rebuild East Germany.

That's nothing. We had to rebuild all this -



We rebuilt Florida from looking like this:



To looking like this:



So suck it, Germany.

[GoranZ]

Germany is not far behind US by GDP per capita although they had a baggage to rebuild East Germany.

That's nothing. We had to rebuild all this -



We rebuilt Florida from looking like this:



To looking like this:



So suck it, Germany.

There one huge difference... What US rebuilding was in 1865, Germans did it 4 times in the same period, and last being in 1990.

Anyway back on subject.

Saudi Military: Attack on Saudi Aramco Facilities Were "Unquestionably Sponsored by Iran"
Lets say the Saudis are correct and the attack was carried out by Iranian puppets. Then there is only one question a person can ask him self.
If Iranian puppets can take out half of Saudi oil production, how much can Iranians themselves take out? All of it is the only logical answer.
I also dont think that US can have some impact on the answer. After all Saudis are bombing Iranian puppets with sophisticated US weapons since 2015 without significant success.

So why are we talking about the destruction of Saudi Oil installations and USA's response and we are not talking about peace in Yemen?

[mrswdk]

So why are we talking about the destruction of Saudi Oil installations and USA's response and we are not talking about peace in Yemen?

Amen. f*ck Saudi Arabia.

[armati]

Trump offers to pimp out our military to his Saudi masters; Tulsi Gabbard

https://youtu.be/9Jo8QU2s_5I

[saxitoxin]

Trump offers to pimp out our military to his Saudi masters; Tulsi Gabbard

https://youtu.be/9Jo8QU2s_5I

Gabbard is a class act in the video: "Mr. President, as you know, I have never engaged in hateful rhetoric against you and I never will."

The Democrat hatemongers should learn from her how to show proper respect to the President.

Go Tulsi!