Posting Towards Gomorrah

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
If you walked around France in 1940, you'd probably run into people wishing that the people who'd run the country from 1919-34 were still in charge, rather than the clowns who screwed things up for the past six years.

Funny, that.

Why again am I in France? Visiting the Coneheads?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Why again am I in France? Visiting the Coneheads?

It was Spanky's hypothetical -- ask him. Maybe you want a good pinot noir and Prohibition just wiped out the wine industry in the United States.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
the people who were in charge of France from 1919-34? The ones who let hitler build up his machine without any interference?

Quick question -- in what year did Hitler become Chancellor of Germany?

S_A_M

[edited to fix his title]

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Quick question -- in what year did Hitler become Prime Minister of Germany?

S_A_M

If you mean when did Hitler take over on paper? 34. If you mean when did it become clear something really bad was brewing in Germany? 26.

Al queda never actually "took over" Afghanistan. Is that your point?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
If you mean when did Hitler take over on paper? 34. If you mean when did it become clear something really bad was brewing in Germany? 26.

Al queda never actually "took over" Afghanistan. Is that your point?

I'm pretty sure that there's a law on the interwebs that says that if you're having a debate about the rise of the Nazi party, and you bring up Osama bin Laden, you lose.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
It was Spanky's hypothetical -- ask him. Maybe you want a good pinot noir and Prohibition just wiped out the wine industry in the United States.

I had a wonderful '86 Bordeaux and a steak at Harris's last night. Good times.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
If you mean when did Hitler take over on paper? 34. If you mean when did it become clear something really bad was brewing in Germany? 26.

Al queda never actually "took over" Afghanistan. Is that your point?

What happened in 1926?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
What happened in 1926?

nothing as bad as letting 20000 terrorists get trained, but still enough that someone should have taken action.

[Spanky]

Prosperity amid the gloom

By George Will

Recently Bill Clinton, at the British Labor Party's annual conference, delivered what the Times of London described as a "relaxed, almost rambling" and "easy anecdotal" speech to an enthralled audience of leftists eager for evidence of American disappointments. Never a connoisseur of understatement, Clinton said America is "now outsourcing college-education jobs to India."


But Clinton-as-Cassandra should not persuade college students to abandon their quest for diplomas: The unemployment rate among college graduates is 2 percent .


Clinton is always a leading indicator of "progressive" fashions in rhetoric. And every election year — meaning every other year — brings an epidemic of dubious economic analysis, as members of the party out of power discern lead linings on silver clouds.


"Worst economy since Herbert Hoover," John Kerry said in 2004, while that year's growth (3.9 percent) was adding to America's gross domestic product the equivalent of the GDP of Taiwan (the 19th-largest economy). Nancy Pelosi vows that if Democrats capture Congress they will "jump-start our economy." A "jump-start " is administered to a stalled vehicle. But since the Bush tax cuts went into effect in 2003, the economy's growth rate (3.5 percent) has been better than the average for the 1980s (3.1) and 1990s (3.3). Today's unemployment rate (4.6 percent) is lower than the average for the 1990s (5.8) — lower, in fact, than the average for the past 40 years (6.0). Some stall.


Economic hypochondria, a derangement associated with affluence, is a byproduct of the welfare state: An entitlement mentality gives Americans a low pain threshold — witness their recurring hysteria about nominal rather than real gasoline prices — and a sense of being entitled to economic dynamism without the frictions and "creative destruction" that must accompany dynamism. Economic hypochondria is also bred by news media that consider the phrase "good news" an oxymoron, even as the U.S. economy, which has performed better than any other major industrial economy since 2001, drives the Dow to record highs.


The Jack No. 2 well, in deep water 170 miles southwest of New Orleans, recently discovered a field with perhaps 15 billion barrels of oil — a 50 percent increase in proven U.S. reserves. This news triggered a gusher of journalistic gloom: More oil means more woe — a reprieve for that enemy of humanity, the internal combustion engine, and more global warming, more air pollution, more highway fatalities, more suburban sprawl.

The recent 20 percent decline of the cost of a barrel of oil, from a nominal record of $78.40 (which, adjusting for inflation, was well below the 1980 peak of $92 in 2006 dollars), has produced an 81-cent decline in the average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline in 70 days. For consumers, that is akin to a tax cut of more than $81 billion.


President Bush's tax cuts were supposed to cause a cataract of red ink. In fiscal 2006, however, federal revenue as a share of GDP was 18.4 percent, slightly above the post-1962 average of 18.2. And the federal budget deficit was $247.7 billion, just 1.9 percent of the $13.1 trillion GDP. That is below the average for the 1970s (2.1), 1980s (3.0) and 1990s (2.2).


It is said that employee compensation has been stagnant. But to tickle that bad news from the statistics you must treat "compensation" as a synonym for wages and then ignore the effect of taxation on individuals' well-being.


Kevin Hassett and Aparna Mathur of the American Enterprise Institute, writing in National Review, say annual wage growth since 2000 has been 0.6 percent, but the annual increase in real hourly compensation, including benefits — and if you do not include them, why are they called benefits ? — has been 1.3 percent. And taxes — particularly those paid by middle-class families with children — have declined substantially.


Furthermore, as Hassett and Mathur write, consumers, by modifying their behavior, protect or enhance their well-being in ways not captured in economic statistics. For example, an American who, prompted by higher energy prices, traded in a Hummer for a Prius has served his or her standard of living. "If I ate 80 apples last year, and the price of apples increased this year to a million dollars, my welfare would not go way down; I would just switch to oranges," the authors write.


Finally, today's widening income disparities will be partly self-correcting. Granted, income statistics show the increasing disadvantages of persons with education deficits. But that is the market saying — shouting, really — "Stay in school!" Over time the voice of the market is rational, credible and therefore a potent instrument for changing behavior.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
nothing as bad as letting 20000 terrorists get trained, but still enough that someone should have taken action.

What happened in 1926 that warranted taking action?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
What happened in 1926 that warranted taking action?

25- SS formed. 26- Hitler youth formed. 27- Nuremberg 1.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

For the history buffs:

• Throughout the 1920’s, Germany had been technically keeping to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles but in reality she had been bending the rules regarding training. Versialles had not stated that Germany could not train submarine crews abroad or that pilots for the banned German Air Force could train on civilian planes. Therefore, on paper Hitler inherited a weak military but this was not in reality the case. However, Hitler knew that publicly Nazi Germany was still seen within Europe as being held to the terms of Versailles and he was determined to openly break these terms and re-assert Germany’s right to control its own military.
  
  In 1933, Hitler ordered his army generals to prepare to treble the size of the army to 300,000 men. He ordered the Air Ministry to plan to build 1,000 war planes. Military buildings such as barracks were built. He withdrew from the Geneva Disarmament Conference when the French refused to accept his plan that the French should disarm to the level of the Germans or that the Germans should re-arm to the level of the French. Either way, the two main powers of Europe would be balanced. Hitler knew that the French would not accept his plan and therefore when he withdrew from the conference, he was seen by some as the politician who had a more realistic approach to foreign policy and the French were seen as the nation that had caused Nazi Germany to withdraw.
  
  For two years, the German military expanded in secret. By March 1935, Hitler felt strong enough to go public on Nazi Germany's military expansion - which broke the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Europe learned that the Nazis had 2,500 war planes in its Luftwaffe and an army of 300,000 men in its Wehrmacht. Hitler felt confident enough to publicly announce that there would be compulsory military conscription in Nazi Germany and that the army would be increased to 550,000 men.

linky

Don't know the site but have no reason to distrust it on such stuff.

[SlaveNoMore]

Shape Shifter
What happened in 1926?

Marilyn Monroe was born.

What do I win?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
25- SS formed. 26- Hitler youth formed. 27- Nuremberg 1.

Why wasn't anything done in 1889?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Why wasn't anything done in 1889?

Bismarck had WMD, you fool!

And it was all Clinton's fault.

S_A_M