B
Brandon Sommerville
Guest
On Thu, 04 Dec 2003 15:49:21 GMT, "David J. Allen"
<dallen03NO_SPAM@sanNO_SPAM.rr.com> wrote:
>
>"Brandon Sommerville" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 18:17:50 GMT, "David J. Allen"
>> <dallen03NO_SPAM@sanNO_SPAM.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>> >The Europeans and Canadians choose to tax themsleves to provide cradle to
>> >grave care for health care. It's a choice they make. Good for them.
>> >There's a price they pay for that. There's far less innovation and change
>> >in Europe than there is in the US. They tend to stick with the status quo.
>> >In the US, the competitive juices among companies are often too much for
>> >European companies. Airbus was subsidized for years to support foreign
>> >sales. Another example is telecommunications. Nokia has struggled with
>> >CDMA technology in the US because of the constant change and forward
>> >movement in technology here. Europe would be happy to stay with GSM as a
>> >universal standard while US companies are pushing the technological
>> >envelope. Is the most efficient? Maybe not, but it's the price we pay for
>> >innovation and new technologies. High energy competition is dollar driven
>> >(oh, how evil.... the greed!). The European model severely dampens that
>> >energy.
>>
>> Enron was dollar driven as well.
>
>Your point? Maybe that the profit motive is akin to corruption? If you
>want to go there, be prepared to point the finger at more than corporate
>corruption.
No, that dollar driven isn't by definition a good thing. I'm not
saying that it's a bad thing, but you appear to be saying that it
simply makes it better by being that way. If you really want the
latest in techno gadgets you have to look at the Japanese market, not
the American.
>> >You can see the desparation to bring in outside money in Europe;
>> >like government subsidies, their selling of weapons systems (France,
>> >Germany) to ANYONE (read Saddam Hussein), willingness to accept despotism in
>> >exchange for lucrative trade deals (do you really think France opposed the
>> >war on "moral" grounds?).
>>
>> Give me a break. American companies were perfectly happy to sell to
>> Saddam as well and as far as "accepting despotism" who do you think
>> put him there in the first place and kept him there for years?
>
>Saddam's ledger is a long list of German, French and Russian companies.
>France's reputation for selling to anyone for the right price is decades
>old.
And American companies didn't sell to him at all, right? You don't
seriously believe that, do you?
>The US did tolerate despotism in some countries, but not for money. You
>just had to be anti-communist (or in Iraq's case a counterweight to Iran).
>It was cold war politics and it was a calculated risk. Were they mistakes?
>Probably. You can focus on the consequences of supporting a despot to run a
>country, but don't forget to wonder how things would had gone had Communism
>not been contained.
The US has demonstrated that it's willing to support a friendly
dictator to a democracy that doesn't agree with them many times over,
regardless of the cost to the people involved. Claiming that they
were going to go communist is a good way of justifying the actions,
but that's all it is.
--
Brandon Sommerville
remove ".gov" to e-mail
Definition of "Lottery":
Millions of stupid people contributing
to make one stupid person look smart.
<dallen03NO_SPAM@sanNO_SPAM.rr.com> wrote:
>
>"Brandon Sommerville" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 18:17:50 GMT, "David J. Allen"
>> <dallen03NO_SPAM@sanNO_SPAM.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>> >The Europeans and Canadians choose to tax themsleves to provide cradle to
>> >grave care for health care. It's a choice they make. Good for them.
>> >There's a price they pay for that. There's far less innovation and change
>> >in Europe than there is in the US. They tend to stick with the status quo.
>> >In the US, the competitive juices among companies are often too much for
>> >European companies. Airbus was subsidized for years to support foreign
>> >sales. Another example is telecommunications. Nokia has struggled with
>> >CDMA technology in the US because of the constant change and forward
>> >movement in technology here. Europe would be happy to stay with GSM as a
>> >universal standard while US companies are pushing the technological
>> >envelope. Is the most efficient? Maybe not, but it's the price we pay for
>> >innovation and new technologies. High energy competition is dollar driven
>> >(oh, how evil.... the greed!). The European model severely dampens that
>> >energy.
>>
>> Enron was dollar driven as well.
>
>Your point? Maybe that the profit motive is akin to corruption? If you
>want to go there, be prepared to point the finger at more than corporate
>corruption.
No, that dollar driven isn't by definition a good thing. I'm not
saying that it's a bad thing, but you appear to be saying that it
simply makes it better by being that way. If you really want the
latest in techno gadgets you have to look at the Japanese market, not
the American.
>> >You can see the desparation to bring in outside money in Europe;
>> >like government subsidies, their selling of weapons systems (France,
>> >Germany) to ANYONE (read Saddam Hussein), willingness to accept despotism in
>> >exchange for lucrative trade deals (do you really think France opposed the
>> >war on "moral" grounds?).
>>
>> Give me a break. American companies were perfectly happy to sell to
>> Saddam as well and as far as "accepting despotism" who do you think
>> put him there in the first place and kept him there for years?
>
>Saddam's ledger is a long list of German, French and Russian companies.
>France's reputation for selling to anyone for the right price is decades
>old.
And American companies didn't sell to him at all, right? You don't
seriously believe that, do you?
>The US did tolerate despotism in some countries, but not for money. You
>just had to be anti-communist (or in Iraq's case a counterweight to Iran).
>It was cold war politics and it was a calculated risk. Were they mistakes?
>Probably. You can focus on the consequences of supporting a despot to run a
>country, but don't forget to wonder how things would had gone had Communism
>not been contained.
The US has demonstrated that it's willing to support a friendly
dictator to a democracy that doesn't agree with them many times over,
regardless of the cost to the people involved. Claiming that they
were going to go communist is a good way of justifying the actions,
but that's all it is.
--
Brandon Sommerville
remove ".gov" to e-mail
Definition of "Lottery":
Millions of stupid people contributing
to make one stupid person look smart.