Bonus Screwy Scrabble points for me! That's where you get a really great word but have to mis-spell it. I love that game!
Yeah, if history has taught us anything it's that the mighty <b><i>NEVER</i></b> fall! Didn't you learn that "always" and "never" answers are the one's to steer clear of on multiple choice tests? "I remember something my father used to say to me. He's say, 'Always...' no 'Never...'" - Steve Martin
Lol. Yeah, I'm sure the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, etc. were all thinking the same thing. No civilization is permanent. America is no exception. Hubris kills. Thanks Ozymandias.
I hate cliches. Anyways, please, soothsayers, tell me your forecasts on how the US will fall, other then "oh it will cause I say so." lol
First off, what cliche? Second, it seems that no one is making predictions except for you. All I was suggesting is that history tells us that things always change but I have no idea what will happen. However, you are predicting we will always be successful, will always be "winners" and dominate the planet. Please, oh great prognosticator, tell us how exactly YOU know this.
Sure your making a indirect predicition. "History always repeats itself????" If your not rebutting my statement, then what in the hell are you doing other then giving that tired old cliche "never say never." Okay big boy, if you never say never, then tell me why other than your generic manufactored one-liners and put some actual thought into how and why the US will fall to another country. But thats right, you just left that into the hands of "history always repeats itself." Well I can't beat that. To hell with the infrastructure, and the economic vialbilty of this country. Who cares if the rest of the world is the at least 10 years behind us. We are powerless to the inevibitalble. Just tell me what country, so i can hurry up and buy some land now lol So many chicken littles
my nose is full of boogers, so i have to breathe through my mouth. i always get breath and beathe mixed up.
No one is suggesting that day after tomorrow the US is going to be invaded and taken over by Grenada or the Lesser Antillies. What I personally am saying is none of us can predict the future, BUT, we have some pretty good models from the past to give us clues as to how things HAVE happened. You realize that not every civilization that ever existed was invaded and taken over. Some were destroyed by natural disasters. Others were killed off by disease. Some merged with others to create whole new civiliations. For all we know, the super volcano under Yosemite could erupt and destroy the western half of the US tomorrow OR we could end up dominating the rest of the world and colonizing to the point that we become the United STATE of the World. The point is that neither you nor I can KNOW one way or the other. At least I admitted it.
It might not be a country, but by any chance have you ever heard of the European Union? If fully implemented it will have more people and more economic clout than the US. As far as being 10 years ahead of the rest of the world, in what terms are you talking about? How many countries have you lived in? I lived in England for ten years and travelled regularly to Japan and Hong Kong. If you are talking about technololgy, banking, health then i'm sorry to tell you but the US is far behind several countries. Perhaps you have never heard of the Roman and British empires.
Oh really. And where do you keep your funds? Got many Eros stocked away so you can take advantage of our fragile currency, trading them in when the old US currency weakens? BTW, who insures the backing up those Euros you have tied up in your overseas accounts?? Last time I checked, we have FDIC. Man, please don't even bring Japans banking and financial infastructure into this topis. Talk about a country endring really bad times. Its laughable you even bring them up. Japans credit rating has dipped belows the Bahamas lol lol. Their own idex the Nikkei has dipped below the NASDQ, and continues a downward spiral, something once thought that would never happen. For all purposes, consider Japans banking system bankrupt. Research the healthcare, your wrong there if your speaking of facilties and research. if your looking at illness per captal, then maybe you can swing the Sweds as the healthiest country. But this whole health talk is nothing more than you griping for your own insecurity. but what the heck, wanna debate, lets go. So who goes into the emerging markets, or into the disaster areas to correct poor economic countries. Certainly not the best right? Just our scrubby old specialists. BTW exactly how do you expect this expanding EU to take over, when the population of several leading countries are projected to actually decrease in population over the next 50 years? Yeah, the argument that the EU will form, take over the world, and Blair is actually the beast and has 666 stamped over his forehead has been beaten into the ground. You wanna start a legitimate threat to the US, bring up China adopting western capitalist models, then you will get me shaking. But unless you didn't know, unless you have an extremely high profit margin loced into your goods, its not worth the investment to set-up shop in China without the right connections. Just another country with tons of potential, and little growth thanks to their leadership. And technology we are far behind???? Surely you are joking? The US IS the most technological avanced country in the world. Please list these other "superior countries." But lets talk about military power. Who is even close to the US in military training, equipment, and fire power? Its shameful almost that just one stealth bomber had 1/20th of Afgans GDP. Now lets see if you can type a follow up and not use the phrase " have you ever heard." Oh yeah, to answer your question, I HAVE LIVED outside in the US. If you get me responding to why Rome and the Bristish fell from power, i'll piss off the liberals on this board, so please allow me an exception to responding to that statement.
Oh, I can't resist a response to the woe-is-me American foreign policy song catalogue! Tongue is in cheek, folks.. I must say that I cannot keep up with Surfguy's lyrical ambition...this is like "Blonde on Blonde" length! I think this song is by the artist formerly known as The Rest of the World. This is called... "Stop Whining Like a Baby and Be a Real Superpower" Another knee-jerk response From "the strong and the brave" Tell us again what is right And how we should now behave We follow your path Your technological trail If it leads to McDonalds, Baghdad or pearly Bill Gates "Just shut up, get on board, and don't be late!" Imagine a world, though it seems like disgrace Where all opinions matter As much as the smile on Uncle Sam's worldly face Doing what is right by the banker's race Heads and wallets growing fatter Can you keep pace? Your piece of mind, a tidy little treasure Precious jewel, so hard for us to polish Who would your leisure, dare to disturb Lightning bolts of Third World invective! Care like the axe needs another Turkey The Axis craves some evil And George loves Iraquis All we can see is some chimp smirking If the Eagle has landed does the world stop turning? God's freedom may in your pocket reside But even Jesus couldn't get to heaven for free Wish away the angry..it won't get you relief Like Elvis the King at the end of his show God left the Middle East a long, long time ago So, grow up, take care and realize for a moment Like towers of babel, finance and Roman What goes up surely must tumble
I was actually talking about Japans technology not it's banking. Believe it or not in some aspects the US is behind other industrially advanced countries. On the other hand, you are right "Far behind" is probably overstating it. From the Texas Institute of Society and Health The U.S. has the most technologically advanced healthcare system in the world and spends more on medical care per capita than any other industrialized nation. Yet, among 21 industrially advanced (OECD) countries, American men rank twentieth from the top in terms of average life expectancy, and American women rank eighteenth. Furthermore, the U.S. lags behind other industrially advanced countries on many other indicators of population health, such as infant mortality rates and Disability Adjusted Life Expectancy--the number of years we can expect to live in "full health http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~txinsh/concept.html As for the Euro, it is a new currency, the whole EU is in it's infancy. I did not say this would happen tomorrow. It probably won't even happen in your lifetime but it is virtually guaranteed that the EU will become a superpower if it continues on the same path http://www.pacificnews.org/content/pns/2002/jan/0102euro.html Your statement, "we will always be winners and will dominate this planet..." is just plain ridiculous. Things change "always" and "never" are very strong words. I'm not saying it will happen tomorrow so please stop comparing the current EU in its infancy to the US. I think we all agree the US is currently more dominant, however like it or not that may not "always" be so.
Damn those backward Middle Eastern folks that duped the most technologically advanced military, surveillance systems, and prosperous country in the world. They just rode their camels across the Pacific and shot spitwads at the Twin Towers. And quite tragic that "the most advanced healthcare system on the planet" couldn't do squat to save those poor people in the Twin Towers. Isn't it also kind of ironic that the Pentagon gets hit in all that? Isn't that the headquarters of the greatest military in the world? Damn, you'd think they'd know what was up. Maybe that surveillance satellite "made in China" was defective. Damn Chinese. Or maybe the circuitry "made in Japan" was defective. No doubt the emergency vehicles were probably made by Toyota. Arrggg... NCSTATEFAN, you seem to think it takes huge armies or great technologies to topple great nations. It took about 18 terrorists and no bullets to bring the US to the realization that "we are not invincible" and that "we can be hit and hit hard". It's even more ironic that things like the Internet, planes, wireless, possibly steganography, etc. were used to coordinate those attacks. Why, those are some of the very technological advancements you tout as making America the great and invincible power that it is. You act as if no one outside this country has seen electricity. lol. It's arrogance like yours that leads to downfall. I bet there was an "EgyptStateFan" in Ancient Egypt posting similarly on the Internet right before those pesky Hittites came storming in. They probably didn't care about those Hittites, either. So tell me. What was going through your mind on 9/11? Was it "Oh my God!" or "God damn we're the greatest!". Check your ego at the door. There are people in this country that respect other nations instead of saying "screw them". You don't gain friends and allies by ignoring them and treating them as insignificant and as crap. You don't gain peace by dismissing other nations. Just ask the British about America. If there's one thing you should learn from 9/11 it's that technology and wealth don't guarantee you dominance - especially when hateful idiots can get ahold of that technology and use it against you. All this whining about "but, but, but... no matter what they do, they hate us". As if there's some collective effort to hate the US. I don't know about you, but I'm happy living in the greatest country on the planet - but I'm just gonna keep that to myself instead of pissing people off.
Okay boys, todays homework is to read this sentence in its entirety. Again, we will always be winners and will dominate this planet, either by wealth, or by the rest of the planet adopting western economic and political model. Now, lets really focus on the end of that statement either by wealth, or by the rest of the planet adopting western economic and political model. Now, erase all that garble and come back at me with with legimate arguments on how that statement can be false. Remember boy and girls..... selective reading only hurts you, not me. So before I trounce on the statements recently posted, im giving you a chance to change this argument to fully represent the content of that statement. If I have to come back and spell it out for you, im going to be pissed. So try hard there guys, i know you can do it
If your banking systems and technology are so "far ahead" of everyone else's, why did I have the equivalent of a "cheque card" ten years before anyone here had ever heard of one?
NCSTATEFAN - I agree with you that the US is the most technologically developed country in the world. I agree with you that we are an economic powerhouse the likes of which the world has never known...quite honestly, you do business with the US or you're a Third World Nation...and when those Third Worlders want to be more than that, they begin a relationship with the US. As for 9/11 -- nothing shows the resiliency of the US economy more than the recovery from that day. the recovery since then has been remarkable. if you'll remember, there was very much a "sky is falling" mentality that morning. The real concern is that vital information from transfer agents for brokerage houses had permanently lost information detailing who lost what...talk about losing faith in the system....our very government and economy were under attack that day. and in 6 months or less, we're pretty much right back where we were on 9/10 from an economic viewpoint. The recovery was quite speedy. Again..the American economy is just flat-out amazing...and that's not a credit to any politicians...that's a credit to the American people!!! But...I think you have to consider the possibility that SOMETHING could happen that could shake the nation. Pat Buchannan (know i'm not spelling that right! am i??) has an interesting version of the possibility. There is no way I can think of all the possible scenarios by which that could come about...but 100 years is a LONG time...who knows what will happen in that time period...natural disasters compounded with more frequent terrorism, etc. could place us in a bad situation. From my personal perspective, if God wants the US to fail, it will fail. Just my two cents. Please don't rail back on me the way you did Jeff, though!! thanks!!
NCSTATEFAN: So, in essence, you are saying... "And we all lived happily ever after." Sounds reasonable. By the way, that condescending "listen up boys" crap gets you nowhere. Your opinion goes alot better when you don't sound like an ass trying to prove everyone else is an idiot rather than trying to pursuade us into a different way of thinking. Oh, and telling us you'll get pissed if we don't provide a good enough argument is really, REALLY scary.
Hmm...not in all aspects...at least as far as Internet penetration is concerned, Denmark/Sweden and Korea are, as far as I know, even more advanced than the US...but I think I know how you mean it and you might be right.
