Biggest blunder since WWII

Arguably, the two biggest political stories of the Postwar era have been the Cold War and the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

The Cold War is pretty much ancient history now, having been basically nothing more than a playground shoving match between the big boys with their toys, and as far as the Middle East is concerned I often wonder if anyone would really care if it wasn't for the oil. Maybe they would care, if only to ensure the survival of Israel, but it's obvious to me that there will never be a longstanding peace in the Middle East, oil or no oil, so maybe the thing to do is see if you can try and finagle their alliances to keep them fighting each other instead of the rest of the world. You gotta give the CIA something to do, right?

But anyway, hypotheticals aside, the fact is the West is petrified that the oil pipeline will dry up, either because the facilities are destroyed by war or because of some new extremist anti-American regime taking power. Of the two, loss of the facilities is more likely, because even extremist whackos like their fancy palaces and Rolls Royces and would be careful to keep at least enough oil flowing to pay for them.

But that brings me to my point. The West, in particular the United States, could have neutralized the OPEC stranglehold decades ago, and thereby prevented an awful lot of headaches (including the current economic ones) if they'd simply pressed the advantage they gained after the first Oil Embargo in 1973.

The response to the Embargo, after the shock wore off and the sputtering macho rhetoric died down, was to roll up our sleeves and get our act together toward energy independence. Dozens of programs were put into place to cut down our petroleum consumption, on the one hand, and find alternative energy sources, on the other.

It was working beautifully, too. The average gas mileage of new cars nearly doubled in a matter of four or five years. Solar and wind technology were moving full speed ahead. It was only a matter of time before we could have told OPEC to take their oil and shove it.

But then we blew it. We got complacent after OPEC backed off and there was a period of relative calm in the Middle East (although the term "relative calm" is ... ummm ... relative). We caved. The mileage requirements for new cars were rolled back. Tax credits for solar and other alternative energy sources were discontinued. Research grants stopped.

I could point out that it was the Reagan-Bush administrations who did this, but no matter ... the net result is that we are now worse off in terms of energy independence than we were before the Oil Embargo of 1973. All the advances we made in the late 1970's, we threw away. The fact is we're more at the mercy of OPEC now than we were then.

That was the biggest political blunder the United States has made since the end of WWII.

Those who claim that we should open up wilderness areas for drilling are spitting in the wind. We've been down this road before, and we had it right once. For pete's sake, we don't need more drilling, which would just delay the inevitable, we need to get away from non-renewable sources altogether. We were well on the way toward that goal 30 years ago, but because shortsighted political games were considered more important by our leaders, we threw it away.

No one can say for sure if the world would still have the terrorist cloud hanging over its head if it wasn't for the oil situation in the Middle East. Would the Soviets have still invaded Afghanistan without the goading and fomenting of the CIA, thereby setting into motion the formation of al Qaida? Who knows?

Maybe if they (the Soviets) had kept to themselves, we'd still be doing the Cold War, hunting commies behind every bush. That's doubtful, however, in my opinion ... the Soviet Union was going down the tubes anyway, and it was a heck of lot more than Afghanistan that took it down.

Be that as it may, I think it's safe to say that if we had pressed our energy advantage in the 1980's and 1990's, we wouldn't have had so much at stake in the Middle East in the first place. I could take that logic further and say that therefore we wouldn't have given a rat's ass about Afghanistan. And without Afghanistan, there's no al Qaida, no 9/11, no Iraq War, and therefore no worldwide economic depression. Pure speculation? Sure, but are you gonna argue otherwise?

That's why giving up on energy independence when we had the chance was the biggest blunder.

 

In broad-brush terms, I would say that America's biggest blunder has been the failure to avoid the mistakes of the USSR, following it down its road to ruin as closely as possible. The Soviet Union was the most powerful and populous world empire ever to collapse, and we seem to be doing our damnedest to duplicate their results. They imploded under gross internal mismanagement and military overextension in the Middle East, primarily.

The part that makes this crazy is the fact that Russia and the greater Soviet Union have always been net exporters of crude oil. Moscow had entirely different reasons for being deeply involved in the Middle East, but the drag on the country was the same. They were more concerned about border security and about majority-Muslim Soviet republics on their southern flank being unduly influenced and/or infiltrated by radical elements.

If we had achieved something close to energy independence a couple of decades ago, would we have been able to avoid war in the Persian Gulf? Only if Western Europe and Japan had achieved a similar degree of independence. As long as we lead the Western industrial world and it has need of imported oil, I can see no way out for us in terms of taking the lead in military operations of this kind.

Remember Osama Bin Laden's original justification for 9-11? It was the desecration of "holy" Saudi soil by the presence of our non-Muslim troops there before and during the original Gulf War. He cared little about Iraq. Any scenario that includes the Gulf War leads us back to where we are right now, roughly.

I mostly blame 9-11 for our current financial crisis, not the Iraq occupation. After 9-11, a greedy and unethical Wall Street was looking for any possible way to recoup sharp losses. Spoiled baby boomers, desperate to resume double-digit investment gains, poured cash into the housing bubble. Wall Street responded by leveraging the system to the point of no return. I see no role for the Iraq situation in this chain of events.

Financial policy decisions during this period were based on equity illusions because of excessive deregulation. We had a far-right Republican deregulation-driven administration in power because Al Gore was too closely linked to Bill Clinton, who outraged America by getting a blowjob in the Oval Office. Therefore, Monica Lewinsky (ironically, a descendant of Russian Jews) may have indirectly destroyed all of Western civilization by sucking Bill's dick, when it has all been played out. And there you have it, the biggest mistake since WWII. I even surprised myself with that conclusion. :conehead:

At this point, the parallel to the USSR partially breaks down. We are not going to fragment into separate countries. No matter what rhetoric you hear from Dixie, the South will never split off again. You can't have a functioning country without cities, and the current ultra-Republican anger does not extend deeply into major Southern cities such as Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, and New Orleans. Texas, I'm not sure about.

More likely is a long period of economic wasteland conditions for the whole country, much like Russia since 1989.

Let me take Monica off the hook and make it conceptual, not personal. The far right was unable to separate the policies and job performance of Bill Clinton from his personal life, because right-wing Christians are taught not to compartmentalize such things. It is not their nature to look beyond any flaw.

The fundamentalist voting block had no political power before Reagan, who got elected primarily because Jimmy Carter was seen as a nice man, but a weak and ineffectual leader. So everything is his fault.

No, Carter was only in office because he was in the opposite party from Richard Nixon, so Nixon is to blame for the whole mess.

Obviously, it is no one person or event that got us where we are today. American voters could have made better choices at any point along the way and derailed this train to chaos and ruin. That looks like a failure of the education system, since every infant is born knowing absolutely nothing. If a young person is taught only job skills, he or she will have little background knowledge for making wise decisions in the voting booth.

Final answer: education. We let it drift, and become mediocre. Democracy depends on people being able to think for themselves, and knowing how to use the freedom they have been given.

 

Wow, NotDead ... when you said "broad brush", you weren't kidding. I don't disagree with a lot of what you say, especially your conclusion about education. To put it cynically, the major drawback to a democratic system is that you get who you vote for. And it's true that for quite a while now, it seems like we've elected a President simply as a knee-jerk response to whoever was already in office at the time.

I blame that partly on television, and our shortened national attention span. Somebody like Harry Truman would never get elected today. He wouldn't even get the nomination. And I still say that we haven't had a "presidential" President since the first one of the television era, Kennedy. I'm hoping that has changed now, but I guess we'll see. It's my feeling that I almost don't care about a President's politics ... I want a statesman, a wise and true leader who can take the high road, and who can rally a country behind him (or her).

And save your breath about Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, etc, etc. I'm not saying Kennedy was a saint, he wasn't even that great a Senator, but the man was born to be President. He was "Presidential". And I believe that Bobby would have been even better ...

But anyway, in Clinton's case, Monica was just a way for the Republicans to get back at the Democrats for Watergate. What neither Nixon nor Clinton did was truly enough to be impeached ... their mistake was in thinking they could fly above the law, as previous Presidents had always been able to do. But they both underestimated the power of the news media. They also lacked Kennedy's personal charm, although charm without substance is a dangerous combination too. Just look at Reagan.

Remember Osama Bin Laden's original justification for 9-11? It was the desecration of "holy" Saudi soil by the presence of our non-Muslim troops there before and during the original Gulf War. He cared little about Iraq. Any scenario that includes the Gulf War leads us back to where we are right now, roughly.

That's true, but without Afghanistan and the CIA backing the mujahideen there's no al Qaida, or at least not much of one, and bin Laden is just another whacko bitching about Israel. The Saudis had already renounced him. Saddam was a much bigger problem, in my opinion, and he had to come down. But once he was out of the picture, that's when we should have stopped the military operation and focused on rebuilding Iraq. I mean, what the hell are they doing now? Does anyone know?

If we had achieved something close to energy independence a couple of decades ago, would we have been able to avoid war in the Persian Gulf?

Probably not, but at least it would have been all about Saddam and not about oil. And we would still be seen as heroes for rescuing Kuwait. Lots of "ifs" here, but I imagine Bush the First will go to his grave wishing he'd taken out Saddam when he had the chance.

Jimmy Carter was seen as a nice man, but a weak and ineffectual leader. So everything is his fault.

And I've always thought he got a bad rap with that. Carter was a much better president than he ever got credit for, mostly. He sure as hell was more of a "real" president than the B-movie actor who followed him. My rule of thumb is that if an administration can point to one solid accomplishment per year, they're doing well. Carter had several ... can you think of even one for Reagan? And yet, he still appears on lots of Lettermanian "Top 10" lists. Teflon, indeed.

However, back to Carter ... I do have to say that I was very disheartened when his involvement with Afghanistan was revealed, even if it was Brzinzki's idea (however you spell that). I don't recall that he mentioned it in his books, either, which is another black mark.

Afghanistan was just more CIA shenanigans, and for what? To drag the Russians into their own Vietnam. Pffft ... the CIA should have seen that the USSR was coming down anyway. The resulting power vacuum in Afghanistan made it virtually certain, in hindsight, that something like the Taliban would step in. Very ironic that a president known for his concern over human rights would indirectly be responsible for the emergence of a group so universally known for its appalling rights violations.

I still like Carter, just not as much as I used to. I'll also add that just because Carter started the Afghanistan rigamarole, doesn't mean that Reagan had to continue with it into the 1980's. It eventually backfired on him anyway, with the Iran-Contra thing.

Remind me sometime, NotDead, to have a discussion on the issue of former high-ranking military officers as Presidents. Which also reminds me ... which presidents were graduates of the service academies? In recent times, I can only think of Eisenhower and Carter, but there were probably others.

I mostly blame 9-11 for our current financial crisis, not the Iraq occupation.

Well, you can make a plausible case for that. But you could also argue that if we weren't blowing $100 billion/year on the war, this recession wouldn't be half as bad as it is. The economy always goes in cycles. There will always be recessions, and we were due. It just shouldn't have been this bad.

It's the movement of money that greases the skids, and the money has stopped moving ... primarily, I guess, because the credit markets got all gummed up and because the stock market lost its confidence. I don't claim to be an expert about this, but I do believe that the national and international psychology of buying and selling is more responsible for the performance of the markets than are the "fundamentals".

I mean, did American companies suddenly get stupid between last summer and now? Of course not ... they're no worse at running their businesses than they were a year ago, so it's not really anything tangible that causes recessions. It's because people become afraid. They no longer believe that stocks are good investments, so they sell them. The more they sell, the lower the prices go. The lower the prices go, the more they sell.

I don't know that there's anything you can do about that, except wait it out. Eventually, the prices will go low enough that the stocks will start looking good again. Money will start moving again, and the economy will start growing.

Exactly how low is "low enough"? I don't know, but it's obvious that it's mostly about attitude and perception. And that's where the President comes in, I think. If the President can convince people that it's low enough now, he can drag us out of this.

More likely is a long period of economic wasteland conditions for the whole country, much like Russia since 1989.

No way, NotDead. The Soviet Union was coming down anyway. It was just a matter of time. Unlike the US, the Soviet economy was fundamentally a mess. The only thing they could do well was build weapons. Gorbachev knew that, and he tried desperately to change it. Another irony of history ... the "best" leader the Soviets ever had was ultimately the one who presided over their collapse.

The US economy now is nothing like the Soviet economy prior to 1989. All the US needs is to get the money moving again and we'll be fine. I'm not smart enough to know exactly how to make that happen, but I'm betting that somebody in the Obama administration is.

 

One of the most positive signs I've seen in a long time for this country is that for the first time in my adult lifetime, we actually voted for a presidential candidate, instead of against the other one.

Television has both helped and hurt the electorate. It shortens attention spans in general, but cable news also provides in-depth coverage at a level not dreamed of when I was a kid. Couple that with the internet, and you can find out more about any major candidate than you will ever want to know.

I do care about policies and platform, mostly because of Supreme Court nominations. I think we have to care who makes those lifetime appointments.

I agree that Saddam was a bad person, but maybe that's what it takes to rule Iraq effectively. Violent, well-armed factions and democracy don't mix. After we have been gone for five years, they may have a worse dictator than ever. Remember when Iraq and Iran used to spend all their time and energy blasting the shit out of each other? Those were good times...

I like the comments that H.W. made several years ago about why he didn't take Saddam out. In a nutshell, he said before you conquer a country, you had better be sure that you want it.

Invasion can be a lot like a dog chasing a car. What is the plan? The dog can't eat the car, or bury it. I think H.W. was smart enough to see that a military occupation of that country would be...exactly what it turned out to be. A living nightmare. I suspect that W. wanted badly to go back to Iraq to prove his father wrong. He proved the opposite.

Reagan's accomplishments? I'll give you two. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" The other was the Star Wars delusion, essentially a basketball-style pump-fake, which fooled the Soviets into spending billions on a concept that was not feasible at that time, greatly accelerating their financial downfall. Cool move.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big Reagan fan. I can just see both sides. Just like with Nixon; I think he was a thoroughly fucked-up person on every level, but the groundbreaking visits to China and Russia were outstanding successes that changed history for the better. A broken clock is right twice a day.

I'm not sure that Iraq has had a notable impact on the recession, but I do believe it greatly hampered our efforts in New Orleans, both financially and in terms of National Guard capabilities. This is no ordinary recession, though. We are losing companies that survived the Great Depression. It is different because lax regulation allowed financial leveraging to increase nearly by an order of magnitude. This was brain-dead beyond belief.

When does a stock become a bargain? Without profits, never. All stock prices are wild guesses until we see stable, hard numbers pertaining to corporate profits. We may have to wait a while for that. And why would a bank want to loan money to a business right now? If you want to borrow in order to buy something to make your business more efficient and profitable, nobody has any idea whether it will work out or not.

If the President persuades you to buy stock in GE and they go Chapter 11 next quarter, who has he helped? Not GE, and certainly not you. We have business ethics problems, structural and regulatory problems, leverage and equity problems, trade imbalance problems, and an urgent desire by many to return to an economy that was built on top of a bubble. Improved investor confidence is not even a down payment on paying the piper for past sins. Not this time.

I would not have compared the US economy in any way to anything that the USSR has ever suffered through, until November. Am I willing to bet that Geitner and Summers have what it takes to fix it? I don't have a choice, and neither do you.

Am I depressed and upset about any of this? :willy_nilly: Hell no! I sold all my stock last year. I'm having a fine day, using my computer, watching the grass turn green out my window, and being happy to be alive. :cheers2: How about you?

 

In a nutshell, he said before you conquer a country, you had better be sure that you want it.

He didn't have any choice. Once you beat the crap out of a country, you've got it whether you want it or not. The worst thing you can do is to wipe your hands and ride off into the sunset looking smug. That's exactly the problem with Afghanistan now.

Remember The Mouse That Roared? The idea was for this little pipsqueak country to declare war on the United States. They figured that they'd lose this "war" in a day, and then they'd be eligible for all kinds of reparations. Of course, in the story it didn't work out quite that way, but the idea wasn't wrong.

Bush the First should have taken out Saddam then initiated a Marshall Plan for Iraq, and probably Afghanistan too. The Middle East would be a considerably different place right now if he had. It undoubtedly would have cost less in the long run, too.

Reagan's accomplishments? I'll give you two. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" The other was the Star Wars delusion, essentially a basketball-style pump-fake, which fooled the Soviets into spending billions on a concept that was not feasible

Oh pleeeeeeeeeze! The "tear down the wall" thing was just P.R. The wall was already coming down. Or more accurately, the thing was becoming irrelevant, anyway. And if I recall, basically nobody in this country believed Star Wars would ever work, either. Surely you can't believe the Soviets were fooled.

Just like with Nixon; I think he was a thoroughly fucked-up person on every level, but the groundbreaking visits to China and Russia were outstanding successes that changed history for the better.

I don't disagree. It's actually too bad that Nixon will mostly be remembered for Watergate. For a Republican, he wasn't that bad a president in lots of ways. I don't believe he deserved the fate he got, in any case. He was unfairly demonized by the Democrats in the same way that Clinton was unfairly demonized by the Republicans. And he was undoubtedly smarter than both Reagan and Bush the Second put together.

Nonetheless, I think the most interesting question to ask about Nixon is how in the hell did a man that weird ever get elected President?

When does a stock become a bargain? Without profits, never.

Baloney. A stock is a bargain if you can sell it for more than you paid for it. That may or may not have anything to do with the actual operation of the company. I hasten to add that I'm not saying that stocks are nothing but funny money. Presumably, the company takes that money and does something tangible with it to increase the company's value in the minds of future investors. But notice the key point there ... in the minds of future investors.

It's all psychology. If investors believe that the stock is worth more than its current price, they'll buy it. Why do foreign investors continue to buy US bonds and other securities even when the American economy is in the toilet? Because they believe those securities will continue to be valuable, in spite of current events.

The power of belief is astounding, NotDead.

If the President persuades you to buy stock in GE and they go Chapter 11 next quarter, who has he helped? Not GE, and certainly not you.

Oh, come on, NotDead. He doesn't persuade anyone to buy any particular stock. What he does is persuade you that you should invest in something. If he can accomplish that, if he can convince people that investing in general is a desirable and potentially profitable thing, then money will start moving and companies will have capital for business improvements and so on, which is what the stock market is for.

I'm having a fine day, using my computer, watching the grass turn green out my window, and being happy to be alive. How about you?

Yep, me too. It has the look of summer where I am ... the temp is heading into the mid-80's and there's not a cloud in the sky. Time for me to get outside for some solar therapy.

 

There were skeptics here, especially in regard to the timeframe, but the USSR could not afford to roll the dice. We had a track record of doing nearly impossible things with military technology. Particularly valuable was the falsified research and test data planted by the CIA for Soviet spies to find. The CIA botches a lot of operations, but this was not one of them. The Russians fell hard for this story. We have already agreed that the Russians had (and have) some issues.

Twenty years later, a lot of that technology works fairly well.

If a company goes into bankruptcy, its stock is worth exactly nothing. You can use your certificates to line your cat's litter box, and that's about it. Look for more big-name companies to go that way. If they emerge from Chapter 11 at some point, they will issue new stock and sell it like in an IPO. The former shareholders don't even get a 1% discount.

Only if the company is issuing new shares. Most of the time, traders are buying existing shares. The money goes to whoever sold them.

Don't confuse common stock with US Treasury notes and government bonds. Uncle Sam legally owns printing presses that make $20 bills. Nobody else does.

I picked a random example. Right now, nobody knows what iconic companies are going to be in reorganization six months from now. Buying stock right now is riskier than gambling in a casino. Normally, it is not.

Only when the companies issue additional shares. The greater and more immediate benefit of a rising DJIA is generating capital gains for the investor class, some of which is spent in the economy at large, boosting employment.

I wish! It has been raining here for three days. However, we do have some good indoor musical entertainment on tap for tonight, in the historic district downtown. See ya later. :seeya:

 

The biggest blunder was the formation of Israel in 1948.

Most of the strife in the Middle East can be traced back to the zionist agenda of expansion and murder of non Jewish populations.

Even the oil embargo can be traced back to them. The Arabs laid an embargo on us over our support of Israel.

Don't forget that part.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis


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The Palestinian homeland issue could have been addressed much more easily in 1948 than now, but the UN pretty much went along with exactly what the British wanted.

Speaking of British fuck-ups, they also came up with the idea for that Frankenstein's monster currently known as Iraq.

 

The biggest blunder was the formation of Israel in 1948.

Most of the strife in the Middle East can be traced back to the zionist agenda of expansion and murder of non Jewish populations.

Xenon, you've shown in your signature line and your posts elsewhere that you have a major axe to grind with this, which leads me to question your objectivity when discussing a "biggest blunder".

Besides, the United States didn't create Israel. I'm talking about blunders that the US has made.

Anyway, the Middle East cauldron was bubbling long before 1948. In fact, I challenge you to find a period in history when there wasn't something going on in the entire area bounded by the Red Sea and Pakistan.

The Arabs have been pissed off since the Israelites stormed into the "land of milk and honey" in Biblical times. I don't necessarily blame them for that, but all this didn't just start in 1948. Personally, I don't understand why the Israelis aren't more willing to compromise with the Palestinians, but then I don't understand why the Arabs are so fanatical about it, either.

Of course, I also didn't have 6 million of my people gassed. Nor have I been hounded and persecuted throughout the ages because of my heritage.

I'd be willing to bet my virtue on one thing, though ... the Middle East conflicts ain't going away anytime soon, certainly not in our lifetimes.

 

If I have any talent in life, it's my ability to see cause and effect on a wider scale than most people. Wider timeline.

People who have an allegiance to country or race or religion, will find me rather abrasive. I have no such ties. I can call things as I see them without having to brownnose in the process.

My concentration on Israel has nothing to do with racial or religious matters. It has to do with a criminal element that controls the country. It does so in conspiracy with the United States and certain European countries like England.

It is a fact to state that Israel is controlled more from London than it is from Tel Aviv. Israel is a colony. The United States, a farm. One that sustains and protects those who move world affairs like chess pieces, with no regard for human life.

We need to bust this little party up.



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As you see Jews as a "people", perhaps you'd like to answer to what I posed elsewhere on the forum?

There is no such thing as a non religious Jew. Anything to the contrary died off many years ago. Judaism is a religion, not an identity. But zionism has appropiated it nonetheless.

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?goto=lastpost&t=355078



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Well, thanks for hijacking the thread.

 

Apologies.

However, as time passes, people are moving more towards my view and less towards traditional views. Israel has shown it's cloven hoof. People are now beginning to see what I've been saying about Israel.

The people of the US have been lied to for 60 years.

I call that a matter of historical importance.

Another matter of historical importance is your claim of 6 million Jews gassed. Another zionist lie. In light of modern research, we can now count the numbers more accurately than they could back in 1945. The figure has be reduced down, but zionism still trumpets the 6 million figure depite facts to the contrary.

It's called the Holocaust industry. A propaganda machine.

This has all come into reality since WWII. Zionism now represents itself as the face of Judaism. It isn't. But most Americans can't tell the difference.

Don't be one of them.

But my original claim stands. The biggest blunder the US has committed since WWII is our part in the formation and sustainment of Israel.

Had THAT not happened, the Middle East certainly would look different than it does today.

So would we.





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Amen Xenon!

 

Well,thats all he talks about, saying the same thing over and over again,and he actually seems to think any reasonably intelligent person would actually believe or care about the pure nonsense he writes.Heck who even reads it.

 

You do. You even went out of your way to comment on it.

If what I talk about makes you uncomfortable, maybe it should. Sixty years of being lied to about Israel and zionism needs to end.

Those who are interested in the preservation of the status quo should avoid me.

My original charge stands. Israel was a mistake. The worst alliance the United States has ever had. They spy on us. They kill and imprison our citizens. They treat all non Jews as second class citizens. They commited war crimes in Gaza.

What are you attempting to defend here?



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his programming

 

It appears that another enemy of Israel has committed a hijacking.
Fortunatly, threads are easier to replace than planes.

 

Israel has enemies? Are you sure? Have you ever taken a moment to examine why?

You should. A few cents off every American paycheck goes to Israel's military. So they can fund their Jews only apartheid lovefest at the expence of the American taxpayer.

I say it needs to STOP. Right now.

I'm not going to bend a knee to this, and nodody else should either. Israel can either get reformed or get bent.

Israel , should have never happened. Israel is a fake. And it's time the rest of the world knew about it.




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I'm glad to see that we agree that Israel has enemies.