North Korea

[ncboman]

On one hand, I think the country has the right to do anything any other country does.

On the other hand, these people are up to no good.

Wonder how China feels about it?

ncboman

[Altjaeger]

Always fear an enemy who has little or nothing t lose. North Korea matches that description. Sanctions don't mean much when you don't have much to be taken.

I think for China they are like owning a valuable, but unmanagable and untrustworthy bull.

[Herne]

Rather agree. Trouble is there is not much actually you can do to them.

[GF.]

I'd think China would see NK as that crazy uncle that nobody likes to talk about.... You're not really responsible for him, but he's close enough to the rest of the family that everybody suffers when he goes off the reservation...

[Twanger]

North Korea's over-the-top threats are almost comical.

They have to know that if they ever dropped the big one on China or a US ally they would be vaporized faster than you can say Pyongyang.

[Smokey]

North Korea answers to China and the press for the most part ignores that fact. They [North Korea] are very much allied with Iran, Bolivia, Venezeuela, and Syria. During many of these tests reps from these countries are observing.

A fair amount of their [North Korea] income comes from the sale of military weapons and technology. Currently there is increasing tensions from South Korea and the North. If you notice Obrama is being tested from many sides.

I think his plan will be to talk everyone into being friends. That is why he decided to cut the defense budget.

[Herne]

For shame Twanger, and you a physicist and all.

Dropping a bomb on someone is OK. Thats the easy bit. The harder bit is not letting the fall out spill over the places you don't want it to - and even the so called clean bombs are not that clean. Dust in the air, plutonium radiation pollution. All bad news.

I think also that perhaps people get fooled by the idea of the military following up behind tac nukes, as in the cold war. But even protected the approach areas allowed for figures due to radiation sickness of between 25-50%.

Trouble is he is the nightmare scenario - a bloody idiot with a dangerous toy.

I think you have to talk to him, get unification, dismantle the arsenal.

As for cutting the Defence Budget - I'm not sure thats the reason. Basically you have been living on credit - you ain't got the tin you thought you had. Like us. Its that simple.

[TinStar]

Yep; cutting the defense budget sure is smart. Especially with a war on terror. The cut included the F-22. Not too smart considerinfg its capabilities. Also cutting the def. budget means loss of more jobs. But hey; His Arrogance is smarter than everybody else. Just throw billions of taxpayer dollars at GM and Chrysler and have them tank anyway. That money would have been better used on the F-22 and prevented job loss for sure. Now we have a double-whammie. Yeh; he's real smart alright. Nothing more than union payoff for support. Same thing with "green" enrgy. The CEO of GE was named an "economic" advisor and his company stands to make billions over this from wind turbines. And funny how GE's owned media; NBC, was in the tank for Obama? Hisory(if we are still around then) will prove this adminstration and liberal Dems. to be the worst and most corrupt in our history. And we are not even six months in. Sooner or later they will slip up big time and the party will be over. For them and a good share of the media that backed them. Or...we will be communist and anyone speaking out will be "re-educated". Would not be one bit surpised to see martial law imposed over a "percieved" crisis before his term is up. That's how much I trust the radical left Dems.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[Herne]

Yes but Tin. With what were you going to pay for all this defence budget. Higher taxes?

Coz you can't borrow. We all run out of credit as countries. That's the problem.

[TinStar]

My point was all the PORK in the so-called "stimulus" bill. That's what would have paid the defense budget. Do you have ANY idea what is in that bill that will NOT stimulate the economy? Our reps didn't even know! They voted for it without even reading it because it was rammed down their throats by this administration. And what about the wasted money on the so called bail-outs? Since when does government prop up business in a free market system? And why are some bailed and others not? Why? To grow government that's why! The libs in our land think government is the answer for all our problems. Our founding fathers saw government as the potential problem and that is coming true before our eyes. Just like thier energy plan. They have many folks convinced that green will solve our problem when they won't even debate in the public forum. Far too many experts say that ALL avenues need to be taken but this pres. could care less about coal, nuclear, natural gas, and off-shore drilling. Why? Because many of his supporters are going to get rich off "green" and he has to appease the enviormentalists that helped in the election. We've been through this same scenario with Jimmy Carter and the country didn't learn. It took eight years of Reagan to straighten that out. Then this president calls for "trabsparency" and tightening the belt among the cabinets members; all the while he spends money like a drunken sailor on shore leave? You really have to live here to see what the liberals have done to this country and the power they have thanks in large part to a mainly gutless media that won't even do its job because they are far-left themselves. It's like a foreign ruler has taken over without firing a shot; just like Khushchev said he would. Anyone who thinks communists haven't been deeply embedded in our country for decades has to be naive. And they did with of the law that the lefties used for thier own purpose. Activist judges are the best example of that.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[TinStar]

I'm sorry I forgot to address credit from your post. This president has pushed his debt onto future generations and printed money to do it. Here comes inflation. The cost of the defense budget is a drop in the bucket compared to what he is doing. He and his fellows will turn this land into a nanny state. Look at what has happened to your country and tell me truthfully that it has been for the good. From what I heard you folks even have to be careful about your speech for fear of offending someone.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[Herne]

Tin - I'm not disagreeing particularly.

The whole misgovernance of the past 10 years by both our governments is just astonishing. To build a credit bubble and an economy on the security of what amounts to be simply bad or toxic debt. We the ordinary citizen have to trust our governments to that degree. and they failed us.

One can argue that its not the affair of Govt to regulate private banks. But since the consequences of imprudent and high risk banking affects the economy radically, and the economy most certainly is a govt matter, to ignore that fact and allow that sort of banking is just stupid - and poor Government.

The US is in a worse state than we are (but not by much).

So the spending is over, not least because the mechanism by which Governemnts borrow is by selling $/£ bonds. And no-one is buying them, or if they are taking them (say to accept payment of imports), they are buying at a massive discount = falling US$ and falling £sterling = inflation because you pay more for the same.)

So the Govt (yours and ours) can't borrow, tax revenues are falling, they cannot spend and the only way they can get things sorted is to cut expenditure or raise taxes, and spread the same pot of jam different ways.

But different ways doesn't alter the fact that the pot being spread is much smaller.

I hope we all enjoyed the good times, because now we have to pay for them.

[Bill Gunn]

So the Govt (yours and ours) can't borrow, tax revenues are falling, they cannot spend and the only way they can get things sorted is to cut expenditure or raise taxes, and spread the same pot of jam different ways.

But different ways doesn't alter the fact that the pot being spread is much smaller.

I hope we all enjoyed the good times, because now we have to pay for them.

THAT'S one of our biggest problems, they don't bother to borrow. They just print & spend the worthless stuff, consequences be damned.
The idiots are ruining this country. China will own us, they won't have to fight us.

[DancesWithKnives]

One of the guys in a club I belong to is a well-known world traveller. Been to way over 200 countries and island groups. He was one of the first ones in when Albania initially opened up. He went to NK a couple years ago and said it was the strangest experience of his life. "Like landing on Mars and finding humans there". Totally surreal. I greatly enjoyed his presentation on the country---really fascinating.

His conclusion was that the level of indoctrination and fanaticism is such that they'll never back off until THEY decide to. You either live with them or try to exterminate them----nothing in between is likely to work. Not sure I agree with him but it was interesting to hear the thoughts of someone who actually visited the country.

DancesWithKnives

[Herne]

Don't know about China owning you - looks like it might be Canada?

General motors cant raise credit to fund its operations so its selling off its European division (Vauxhall and Opel) to raise cash. If they can't its going to affect a city like Detroit a bit. Especially as Ford is not in much better shape.

Your Federal reserve can't print money Bill- they have no one to sell it to, since you will not cut your imports. Its not the banks which are selling you to China, its the individual who buys a Samsung TV or a Toyota pick up, or some car maker with a Chinese built alternator etc etc.

If the government will not control regulations which up costs, and individuals will not accept pay packets that keep costs down, and then those individuals go and buy imports, what is actually happening? Basically you are selling dollars and buying yuans or whatever.

The problem is that many of the $ are not real dollars- they were credit $ guaranteed by toxic debt.

It works like this. I am Amex, and I have 100 people paying me back money I have lent them. I'm OK, because most of the time i can lend ot 120 people, because htere is a delay between sale and payment during which time enough people will pay enough for me to keep lending. So now say lots of people want to borrow money - I need to raise cash, so I buy in debt. In this case sub - prime mortgages because they are cheap. All of a sudden I have thousands of mortgagees paying in and I can lend money again - or give my punters a credit limit. Thats no problem because my mortgagees are paying and I use that money to pay the shops where my punters spent the money. (the punters take longer to pay, but they pay more than they spent, so I am ahead) Until sub prime comes to mean sub prime and they stop paying. All of a sudden the shops have given punters the goods, the manufacturers and wholesalers have paid for them, but I don't have to money to honour my debts to the stores because I have lent on the basis of the sub primers paying, and they are not. So I have to try to find credit elsewhere - and oh how it costs.

So the factories cannot buy in more raw materials, but since they haven't been paid, they need credit, which everyone is after.....they don't pay there staff who can't go shopping etc etc.

simplified, but thats the nub of it. And if Bush was smart enough to see this coming 5 years ago, because some were predicting it certainly 2 or so years ago, what the hell did he do about it?

[RMP]

Herne,

I think you pretty much nailed it.

I'd like to add that in our country I place quite a bit of blame on the Federal Reserve.

Without the easy money they provided it would not have been possible for the bubble to reach the size it attained before it burst.

As Peter Schiff said the "whole country was on a drunken binge, but the Federal Reserve provided the alcohol."

And now our foolish government, in cahoots with the banksters, is trying to induce more borrowing and spending. But this time around it won't work, and I believe we are entering a new era.

[Herne]

I think the UK Treasury/US Fed Res were happy to get the tax $./ The bankers didn't look too carefully at the risk (some did and said so but most didn't want to) and they were making huge profits and bonuses - very often you do on high risk strategies, but its in the nature of high risk that it goes tits up in the end.

It seems that there are a couple of points.

1. Now were are getting back on track (slowly) we are looking at basing lending on real credit: proper sensible risk and a reasonable assurance of being able to pay back, sao the bubble cannt be so big.

2. I have a few shares in a Spanish bank (Stantander), and they were never de-regulated to the same degree as the UK/US banks, nor permitted the same level of exposure as say Iceland. They are in pretty good shape, and the Spaniards have not been affected nearly so badly.

Which says something about what we did.

[TinStar]

Herne,

Think it's a little unfair to point out that it's "our" fault for buying Chink. Wanna come over and try to find something made in the US anymore? You can even buy an "American" car and find out different. Much of the blame falls into two places. First greedy corps. that got to the place they are by US hard work and ingenuity. Then they turned their backs on us and moved overseas to save on labor, taxes, and regulations. Secondly the unions; and especially the leaders for being too greedy also. And likely other reasons as well. However to say it's us when there isn't much choice is a little off. Try buying a US made tv. All this started way back in the sixties when Japan entered the US auto and electronics markets. It hasn't stopped since. And if we keep selling and developing our farmland we will have to import most if not all of our food too. Globalism sucks.

PS I forgot to add number three to that. The stupid government we have.

TinStar
Soli Deo Gloria!

[Herne]

Tin, I agree. Try buying a car that is all Brit made, ot a TV. Indeed our last TV plant closed recently - you can't buy a Tv that was even assembled in Britain at all.

The point though is that the shift in economies from being manufacturing based to service/financial based (worse in the UK ) really hits you when that financial service side gets hit.

But if we, as buyers, keep trawling the internet to save every 10cents 10pence on every deal, won't cut our oil usage etc, in the end the countries with least regulation/wage bills/production costs will score. That's what's been happening. We have been exporting jobs and selling £/$ to buy yuans or yings or yangs or whatever they use - they have the strong economies and we don't.

Nor even is it a 5 minute thing. Bush and Blair presided over a large chunk of it.