Is the Bush Administration incompetent in international affairs? - Page 3

Alexander's Horse · February 17, 2003, 07:45

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Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

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In the last 100 years they have mostly tolerated your money. Care to bet how long it can go on for?

We have the largest economy in the world by a large margin. I'm confident that this will be the case for quite some time.

Its really this kind of arrogance that is bringing America down. And for what?

Drake Tungsten · February 17, 2003, 07:53

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Its really this kind of arrogance that is bringing America down. And for what?

How is stating a fact about America's economic position vis-a-vis the rest of the world "arrogance"? You're going to have to do better than that to get me to bite, AH...

Alexander's Horse · February 17, 2003, 07:59

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Originally posted by CerberusIV

The average "man in the street" in England in the 1860's thought much the same. I expect to see the US cease to be a dominant global superpower in my lifetime, Bush is just accelerating the process.

The parallels with Britain are very strong.

Berzerker · February 17, 2003, 08:04

Agathon -

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Not you again, you lunatic. I thought you would have been locked up by now.

Your minions got the wrong address.

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If you bothered reading the first post you would have noticed that all the criticisms are about Bush's handling of events, not about the justice of his aims or the moral right of the US to do these things.

I did read it and quoted the part showing why your stated request for a non-partisan discussion is bogus.

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Even a chimp could understand the difference.

Then take some lessons from your chimp, because you can't tell the difference.

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Let me be very clear, I am not a person who sympathises with Republicans or conservatives of any brand. I think they are in most cases slightly mad and in many clearly deranged.

Because that is not a non-partisan statement.

Sava - who said Agathon was a Democrat? Not me, but if you can read what Agathon said and conclude he is non-partisan, better ask if his chimp will tutor you as well.

Spiffor · February 17, 2003, 09:37

Drake :
It is arrogant in the meaning that you're convinced of the natural superiority of America, and do not question it. For example, do you know that EU is economically on par with the US now, and is as strong as the US in commercial negociations ? The only economic superiority the US still has over the EU is a much bigger high-tech sector.
"We have the largest economy in the world by a large margin." is now a false argument (the margin is small or tiny), but you still brag about it, and don't question it.
Maybe it is not really arrogance per se, but sure it is blindness.

February 17, 2003, 10:03

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Originally posted by Spiffor
Drake :
It is arrogant in the meaning that you're convinced of the natural superiority of America, and do not question it. For example, do you know that EU is economically on par with the US now, and is as strong as the US in commercial negociations ? The only economic superiority the US still has over the EU is a much bigger high-tech sector.
"We have the largest economy in the world by a large margin." is now a false argument (the margin is small or tiny), but you still brag about it, and don't question it.
Maybe it is not really arrogance per se, but sure it is blindness.

EU GDP - 6.5 Trillion
USA GDP - 8.3 Trillion

Not exactly similar!

Furthermore, the EU always has the French in there backstabbing the rest.

Chemical Ollie · February 17, 2003, 10:05

The way Bush is handling the economy will make US bankrupt if it goes on for another term.

KrazyHorse · February 17, 2003, 10:11

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Originally posted by CICSMaster

EU GDP - 6.5 Trillion
USA GDP - 8.3 Trillion

Not exactly similar!

Furthermore, the EU always has the French in there backstabbing the rest.

Neither of those figures seem right.

KrazyHorse · February 17, 2003, 10:12

And I wonder if that's PPP or not.

THe last time I saw an estimate it put them within a half trillion or so IIRC...

Sava · February 17, 2003, 10:30

Berserker, my chimp tells me that if you mock Agathon for being "non-partisan" it would only be logical if you explain which party he is speaking for. But you're obviously more concerned with trolling and insulting people.

GePap · February 17, 2003, 10:41

After some addition, using the CIA:

For 2001, GNP in US$, using PPP:

The US: 10 trillion
the EU: 8.8 Trillion
China: 5.56 trillion
Japan: 3.45 trillion

Now, as far as I am concerned, any system which puts the Chinese economy 2 trillion above Japan's seems awefuly strange to me.

TheStinger · February 17, 2003, 10:44

PPP is incredibly flawed, it as an almost PC way of making developing econimies look like they are doing better than they are.

GePap · February 17, 2003, 10:52

NOw, if I understand the workings of PPP correctly, then the very high cost of living in Europe (Europe is expensive) is what brings the EU down, specially the UK, which comes out behind france and only 70 billion ahead of Italy according to PPP. Ditto for Japan, while China's very low cost is what so greatly inflates its economy.

KrazyHorse · February 17, 2003, 11:00

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Originally posted by TheStinger
PPP is incredibly flawed, it as an almost PC way of making developing econimies look like they are doing better than they are.

Not at all. It simply takes into account the fact that the nominal exchange rate on currencies often does not reflect the actual relative values of these currencies in their home countries.

If it costs 6$ US for a hamburger and some fries in the US, but you could buy 10 hamburgers for the same price in Nigeria then why should both 6$ of output be measured equally?

TheStinger · February 17, 2003, 11:09

But the problem is it doesn't take into account that the Nigerian currency can't buy didly squat internationaly.If you make loads of widgets you get a high value economy, compared to a country which makes 1 or 2 mainframe supercomputers

KrazyHorse · February 17, 2003, 11:19

It doesn't matter, because Nigerians aren't going to be buying high-priced stuff internationally anyway, given that their income is so low (by any measure).

It gives a pretty good approximation of what the country's production means to people living in the country, as opposed to the striaght GDP numbers which often don't mean anything. Even first world currencies often go up or down 10 or 15% in a year without a significant effect on inflation in that country. That means that the country's GDP will spike or dip by that much without any real consequences on the populace, which makes GDP a rather haphazard way of judging the country's production.

GePap · February 17, 2003, 11:48

I must agree with TheStinger about PPP:

Lets take China: Could China actually purchase 5 trillion dollars worth of goods on the world market? Does China even create enough goods worth 5 trillion?

If how one lives in their contry is a valid part of how one measures wealth, then what about less tangible things? What's the economic worth, to an individual, of the many weeks of vacation Europeans have? Or what about the fact that many of them don't have to buy cars (a huge part of the Us economy) sinc ethings are either close enough, or connected by a transportation net that makes owning a car irrelevant to some extent? And don't savings and more rigid types of wealth matter? Why not add up all the value of real estate and add that to the mix, and then add savings as well.Would that not gie us an even better means of judging were the world's wealth resides?

Olod fashioned GDP might not be the best way to guage people's lives, but it is free of the subjectiveness that other means have, and that by itself makes it a better means of comparison.

Drake Tungsten · February 17, 2003, 12:01

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"We have the largest economy in the world by a large margin." is now a false argument (the margin is small or tiny), but you still brag about it, and don't question it.

First of all, I wasn't bragging. Someone asked how long I thought America would be looked to for money and said that I thought it would last for some time. You might have noticed that if you hadn't been so busy thinking of ways to tag me with the "arrogant American" stereotype. If you look for the bad in them, you shall surely find it...

Second, comparing the GDP of the EU and the US is stupid. The EU is far from being a united entity, so it is pointless to compare its GDP to the United States. The US is able to use its economic might in ways that a still-divided EU can't.

Not to mention that others have shown you that the gap between the EU and US is still pretty large...

darcy · February 17, 2003, 12:37

Agathon, excellent post.

I'm confident that under Clinton, the US could be where they are now (i.e. on Iraq's doorstep) without being regarded the bad guy by everyone.

Too many people here reduce international relations to power play, ignoring both public relations and international law. Contrary to the US, Europe still believes that international law is possible and must be strengthened.

It's often forgotten that not Schröder but Bush started the premature declarations. The first thing his administration declared was that Saddam must be killed. Of course nobody believes him anymore when he now comes with innumberable ulterior motives like weapons or al-Qaeda or other stuff. If he had hidden his true motives, as a smart diplomat would have, the majority of the international community could now support him in "disarming Iraq". Instead they are now forced to defend international law against the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strikes if they don't want to lose their faces.

It was incredibly foolish to use adjectives like "evil" to characterize nations. Such kindergarden rhetorics achieve nothing but offending the people in the adressed countries and make listeners wonder how simplistic Bush's moral categories must be.

Putting Iran in the same category as North Korea was also very ignorant. How damn arrogant must he be to judge from thousand miles away whether Khatami has a chance to reform the country? He's the first president with real support from this people. Women were slowly starting to show more hair. And Bush ruins everything by spitting out his "evil" accusations.

Yes, he is as incompetent diplomatically as everybody expected an oil trader to be. Clinton was a lawyer, and it showed.

DanS · February 17, 2003, 12:39

Once you add all of the candidate countries, the EU and US economies are roughly on par. But as Drake says, the EU can't bring that economy to bear in some areas, because some functoins aren't unified.

I didn't notice a hint of arrogance in Drake's post. You guys are stretching.

Imran Siddiqui · February 17, 2003, 12:43

Don't they always?

Spiffor · February 17, 2003, 12:51

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Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
First of all, I wasn't bragging. Someone asked how long I thought America would be looked to for money and said that I thought it would last for some time. You might have noticed that if you hadn't been so busy thinking of ways to tag me with the "arrogant American" stereotype. If you look for the bad in them, you shall surely find it...

Fair enough, I mistook this for bragging. The US will undoubtedly remain an economic powerhouse for a long time, and you're right it will be looked to for money, like the EU or Japan will still be looked to for money.

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Second, comparing the GDP of the EU and the US is stupid. The EU is far from being a united entity, so it is pointless to compare its GDP to the United States. The US is able to use its economic might in ways that a still-divided EU can't.

I didn't only compared the EU's GNP, but the strength of the EU in economic negociations. EU and US are of similar power in this arena, since the EU now speaks with one voice on all things commercial (there is no more national sovereignity on these matters, everything gets decided in Brussels).

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Not to mention that others have shown you that the gap between the EU and US is still pretty large...

There is still a gap, and the US economy remains slightly superior to EU's, but the US is not dominating the capitalist economy without rivalry anymore.

Btw, different ways to calculate GNP can do wonders : check this table (OECD), and one of the calculations actually places EU's GNP higher than the US', and Japan has only twice has less GNP than the 2 bigs. I'm not saying is table is more true or false than the other figures.

GePap · February 17, 2003, 13:02

There are some obviously huge differences:

The US goes from 10 trillion to 9.9 trillion. Very much the same.

Germany from 2.2 trillion to 2.8 trillion
France from 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion
Japan from 3.45 trillion to 5.5 trillion
The UK from 1.47 trillion to 1.3 trillion
Italy from 1.4 trillion to 1.2 trillion

Can one of the econ guys, whomever, give the class an explination of how Japan gets back 2 trillion, Germany 600 billion, the French 300 billion, but the Brits lose 200 billion and so do the Italians?

Spiffor · February 17, 2003, 13:24

My guess would be a very low inflation rate in France and Germany since 1995 (because of ECB's fundamentalistic policy), while Brit's and US' central Banks have been slightly more tolerant.

Agathon · February 17, 2003, 14:16

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Their motto seems to be if you see a bridge burn it.

How true. I can't think of any American president who has been humiliated at the UN like Bush was on Friday. He and his mob are now an international laughingstock.

I loved the way De Villepin (the representative of "Old Europe") undercut Powell in such a witty and urbane fashion. There's the difference for you - one side has as its representatives cultured and intelligent individuals, the other has Neanderthal cowboys and assorted barbarians.

Drake - the US are screwed economically if the EU becomes more integrated. It is more populous, more respected, has a better educated population and a more desirable social model. The US is to a large part a third world nation.

DinoDoc · February 17, 2003, 14:18

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Originally posted by Agathon
The US is to a large part a third world nation.

Yeah. This thread is turning out about as well as I expected.

PS New Zealand is a nations of sheep ****gers.

Gatekeeper · February 17, 2003, 14:51

The US is largely a third world nation, eh? I guess that means the EU is nothing more than a bunch of lazy, welfare-dependent suckups who go on strike if they don't get two months vacation every year.

Yeah, this thread is de-evolving.

Gatekeeper

Agathon · February 17, 2003, 15:10

The people of my country would be ashamed if we had the rate of poverty that the US has. We spend our money on people, not bombs.

Anyway, still haven't disproved my first post.

DinoDoc · February 17, 2003, 15:22

Since you've ignored the questions I asked, I don't feel the need to put any effort into it.

Oerdin · February 17, 2003, 15:32

This thread has begun its spiral of death.