America

[Scouse]

"The interest payments have now covered the debts many times over, and are crippling the countries. Does that sound fair to you?

Conversely, money lent could also have been turned into profits for the countries that lent the money, which would have been good for those countries.

Does it seem fair to you that the public has to stump up the cash?

We're paying more now than ever to 3rd world countries in an attempt to help allieviate a situation of their own creation. They continue to squabble and war over crap which isn't helping.

If they're not prepared to help themselves then why should we?


Also:

Kyoto delays global warming by a decade at the most, and then we have to pay for the consequences anyway, you may want to weight the human cost in "deaths" instead of dollars, but the clean water idea is still better.

If you had the slightest grasp of what Kyoto was about I'd take you seriously. But one point I'd like to make to you is that Kyoto was a FIRST STEP along a long road. But America land-mined it.

The cost of not reversing the global warming trend is a lot less than it would be to do nothing LONG-TERM.

 

[xane]

Kyoto imposes a huge economic cost on many countries, even Japan, where the protocol was signed, has placed its won emission reduction programme on permanent hold, and Australia are considering dumping it even though they are allowed to increase their emissions.

The fact is, instead of putting economic burden on richer countries, why not encourage them to spend money on worthwhile activities, like the ones I mentioned ?

Russia got let off by claiming its forests acted as a "carbon sink" which neatly brought its emissions down to zero, strangely this did not apply to North and South America who have the largest forests in the world.

Canada reduced its emissions by allowing ecological developments in other countries that it funded to be taken into consideration, America was not the only one who cooked the pollution books.

Yeah, yeah, Kyoto was "about" saving the planet and all that, but why save a planet ridden with corruption, disease and war ? At most any climate control will give us a brief "breathing space" (pun intended), no-one has any bright ideas what to do next, first step or not, you need to pick the right road first.

America still remained signed up to the Rio "Earth Summit" agreement, and have imposed lots of their own environmental controls in recent years, for a small recent example take the low power appliance certification in California (low power = less generated = less emissions).

You keep talking about "long term", but Kyoto was specifically not about long term, it was about what can be done now.

Kyoto's biggest failure was its dependence on computer models that have been since found to be flawed or inaccurate. None of them can explain climate change that has occurred back in time (when no man-made emissions occurred), putting your country's fragile economy on such flakey information is not a good idea. For Kyoto Mk II to succeed you need to have faith in its predictions.

Whilst I'd admit America et al have huge interests in not plunging into economic meltdown, the world does need financial stablity, otherwise when people start losing their luxuries they will start saying "f*ck the environment, I want my SUV", and that'll be a disaster.

This does not let America off the hook, already it has a knee-jerk reaction to the pending "oil crisis" caused by middle east tensions, and drilling in Alaska will eventually happen, that is not good.

 

[Will]

Originally posted by Scouse
Conversely, money lent could also have been turned into profits for the countries that lent the money, which would have been good for those countries.

Does it seem fair to you that the public has to stump up the cash?

We're paying more now than ever to 3rd world countries in an attempt to help allieviate a situation of their own creation. They continue to squabble and war over crap which isn't helping.

If they're not prepared to help themselves then why should we?

Where to begin...

A) No. As I said, we have received the money back many times over.

B) Well, since we paid it in tax, and the investment has been returned, I don't see why not.

C) The conlonial powers moved in, gave a tribal society guns, alcohol, and then left, saying "You must be democratic now". We owe a debt to look after the countries as far as we can.

D) You think they sit there starving waiting for money from us?

 

[Munkey-]

*hates these politics as nobody ever agree's on anything and its dull*

 

[mr.Blacky]

Originally posted by camazotz
Smallpox was proof it could be done, why stop there.

Actually if you defaulted on your mortgage and were able to prove you had no money to pay, the bank _would_ let you off and claim on the insurance (which you paid for as well). Same applies to third-world, they cannot pay and the banks have insurance anyway.

Besides, wiping out third world debt is a lot more than just writing off what is owed, a policy of getting countries into an economic situation where they can pay for example.

True all thats above is true....... There are only a few problems
other diseases are much harder to fight, even smallpox is rising again!!!
Morgage yes indeed but you would loose your house. What would these third-world countries loose??? their independence???

Wiping the slate clean is nice and looks good for moral but would it prevent those countries to waste the money AGAIN. Fact is that most of those governments dont care about tomorrow only about how rich can i get.

 

[Scouse]

why save a planet ridden with corruption, disease and war ?

Hmmmm.

Frankly - global warming's probably a good thing. It's the 3rd world countries that are going to suffer first - so when their populations all die off we're not going to be worried about all these debts/land mines/shortages of water 'n shite

 

[mr.Blacky]

why caus I am on this planet

 

[Munkey-]

Communism please

 

[mr.Blacky]

which communisme? last time I checked there were dozens of communisme theories

 

[xane]

even smallpox is rising again

Er, no, smallpox has been eradicated, it only exists in three known research labs in the world.

 

[Munkey-]

leninism

 

[mr.Blacky]

could be, though there was a disease that was vacinated and its on the rise again dont remember which one now though

 

[mr.Blacky]

oh me prefers Troskisme

 

[Will]

I know, that was my last point. Scouse and I obviously have points of view which will never agree, so enough is enough.

 

[xane]

Give me good old Marx and Engels any day, the original and best.

 

[Wij]

Hooray, bring back the farming collectives. It's not like I enjoy eating

Um, forests and Global Warming. Last time I heard Rainforests are actual net CO2 producers rather than oxygen producers. Lungs of the planet my arse. As for forests in Russia I dunno so maybe that's why South America couldn't get away with it. North America, who knows. Fact is most findings about the environment are based on computer models which are hideously wrong and will be changed in a few years time. It was a popular 'fact' about 10 years ago that 20 football fields a minute were being lost in the Amazon. Twaddle, it would be half gone by now. The Amazon is the best preserved rainforest in the world.

etc...

 

[Scouse]

Doesn't mean we should stop debating tho itchy

As far as your "debts have been paid many times over in interest" argument goes.

1) Have you any proof of this - or did you pick that out of thin air?

2) That money, which we've been earning 5% on, could have been invested by ourselves rather than loaned, and probably have produced 10 or 20 times more than it's worth than it has done by loaning it to these countries.

Is it fair that our money, that's been frittered away after our good intentions by bent dictators and the like, which could of made us LOADS better off be written off by the public?

Do you like paying more taxes?

Probably vote labour too don't ya?

Support taxing the rich at higher bandings aswell?? Even tho 20 percent means 20p out of every pound and is fair for everyone (you earn less you pay less).

We don't OWE them anything. They OWE us. Why get all namby-pamby about it?

 

[Penry]

smallpox - almost gone (except the military stores)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_351000/351955.stm

 

[Wij]

Originally posted by Scouse


Doesn't mean we should stop debating tho itchy

As far as your "debts have been paid many times over in interest" argument goes.

1) Have you any proof of this - or did you pick that out of thin air?

2) That money, which we've been earning 5% on, could have been invested by ourselves rather than loaned, and probably have produced 10 or 20 times more than it's worth than it has done by loaning it to these countries.

Is it fair that our money, that's been frittered away after our good intentions by bent dictators and the like, which could of made us LOADS better off be written off by the public?

Do you like paying more taxes?

Probably vote labour too don't ya?

Support taxing the rich at higher bandings aswell?? Even tho 20 percent means 20p out of every pound and is fair for everyone (you earn less you pay less).

We don't OWE them anything. They OWE us. Why get all namby-pamby about it?

Ooh, and I thought I was a bit anti-leftie

 

[Munkey-]

i dont like marxism. bit too difficult to work

 

[Wij]

Have you ever read any Marx ?

It is the most unmitigated verbal-tossery I have ever had the displeasure to read (well almost.)

 

[Munkey-]

commoner

 

[Wij]

proletariat u mean

 

[xane]

I think I'll try and work this thread back to the original subject, but getting from Marxism back to America is gonna take some debate.

 

[xane]

bloody peasant

 

[Munkey-]

mao. now theres a dirty git if ever i saw un

 

[Wij]

USA
===

The USA has been the most powerful country for pretty much all the last century. As such it has been asked to or felt obliged to become involved in a great deal of the most important event during that period. Some of this 'meddling' has been successful, some of it has not. It is an unfortunate trait of human nature that we remember resentment much longer than gratitude. Gratitude often means admitting that we could not have solved the situation without the other party's help. This is bad for our ego. Conversely resentment lets us project the faults we have in our life onto someone else, which we enjoy.

Therefore, a great deal of the world hates the USA.

US People
=======

Let's face it. There is a good proportion of idiots in every country. If the idiots in our country felt that they were living in the most powerful nation on Earth they would become cocky arrogent twats too. Human nature again.

End of...

 

[Will]

Actually, I'm a Lib-Dem - check the avatar.

I am using real figures, but I don't have them on me, I'm at work and got an hours sleep last night, so in no state to find them.

Try typing "Drop the Debt" into Google and see what you get. I know Greenpeace and Oxfam were involved in the campaign.

Basically, I think, from an ethical standpoint, we fucked them. So be nice about it, stand back, say "The debt is gone"

Hell, a large percentage of the money we send them goes straight back anyway via theses interest payments.

 

[old.Rostam]

what mood I'm in affects what angle I take in a discussion.

I seem to remember a few months ago this same topic was discussed about how much of present governments are responsible for past actions. Ultimately we stole a lot from most of these poor countries and didnt exactly help set things right when we moved out. we have also helped with the rise of various corrupt dictators so up to a point we have some responsibilities to shoulder its not entirely their fault.

How ever since I had nothing to do with it. You should all sort it out.

 

[old.Rostam]

Originally posted by Wij
USA
===

The USA has been the most powerful country for pretty much all the last century. As such it has been asked to or felt obliged to become involved in a great deal of the most important event during that period. Some of this 'meddling' has been successful, some of it has not. It is an unfortunate trait of human nature that we remember resentment much longer than gratitude. Gratitude often means admitting that we could not have solved the situation without the other party's help. This is bad for our ego. Conversely resentment lets us project the faults we have in our life onto someone else, which we enjoy.

Therefore, a great deal of the world hates the USA.
======


I'm sure USA has done somethings nice. But alot of its tampering has caused a lot more damage than good. Even though I agree they must have done somethings nice. I cant think of any.

Its not the resentment which lasts longer, its the effects of that fucked up meddling which still lingers.