Shipbucket

That's not a good move. It was our freakin govt that was pressuring banks to loan money to folks who couldn't pay back and some folks I know in banking are telling me that they are doing it again. They crap will hit the fan again and drag the Canadian banks down with them.

Unfortunately, the real reasons which are causing such massive debts here are things which will not be easily solved, particularly because the vast majority of those in the position to make policy at the moment (and for much of the last century, really) have no interest in fixing these problems.

imo the best way to fix the US economy would be to do two things

1. Stimulus. Not for the banks, GM, etc, but give money to citizens. Then people have money to spend, and it restarts circulation.

2. Cut defense spending. Honestly, does America need 12 carriers when the rest of the world combined doesn't have that many? (correct me if I'm wrong here, and although there may be more then 12 non-american carriers in operation perhaps one or two are supercarriers of Nimitz proportions). Same goes for all other branches, with the Airforce's B-52s/F-22s/B-2s, and the Army's sheer size.

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Probably posting from and iPhone and naval terms befuddle it. If I say a ships' hill, you know what I meant.

The US navy has 11 carriers at the moment, and the whole navy is going to shrink as the procurement budget stays flat. If we had a full 12 carrier force, we could keep 4 carriers on station around the world constantly. With 10-11 we can keep 3 deployed constantly, with a single carrier that can be surged out in the time of crisis. That's a single carrier in the Pacific, one in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and one in the Indian / Persian Gulf. These carriers, and the rest of the navy help secure the world's sea lanes, and therefore benefit all of mankind. They give the United States and unparalled power project capability, and serve as wonderful tools of American diplomacy. The carrier force is one of the last things that should be cut from the US Navy. In fact, I'd cut the SSBN force in half before I'd cut the carrier force in half.

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𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐄𝐓- 𝑻𝒐 𝑪𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆

I know, it was more an example of how hilariously huge the American military is in all aspects.

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Probably posting from and iPhone and naval terms befuddle it. If I say a ships' hill, you know what I meant.

If you look at the missions the US takes on, it isn't so large. If anything for the missions asked of it, the US military should be larger, as should the military spending of most other nations. European Nato has militaries of the correct size, but they need more spending on higher technology equipment (such as PGMs, cruise missiles, ect.) if they want to meet the missions given them by their political leaders.

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𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐄𝐓- 𝑻𝒐 𝑪𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆

But the question then becomes one of what missions it should take on. Should the "World Police" really be led by America, or should it be more equally distributed?

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Probably posting from and iPhone and naval terms befuddle it. If I say a ships' hill, you know what I meant.

Who would you distribute it to?

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

The US is the only nation with the ability to be 'the World Police' right now, and I assure you, as far as 'world police' go, we're very very lax, and we're more interested in making money than controlling the world.

Russia is broke, China and India are trying to modernize as fast as they can, and while both have intentions to become the next major world power neither are there yet. Europe being a power with power projection abilities is a joke (see Libya), so there is literally no one else who can take over the roll these days.

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𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐄𝐓- 𝑻𝒐 𝑪𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆

Ok and after Johnny takes that govt check and pisses it away on an Xbox, tattoo, a couple of cases of beer and a penis piercing then what? Have the govt seize more of Bill Gates' money until he's a broke mofo like the rest? How about just print another gazillion bucks to give Johnny more beer money? Hey let's just pay everybody with the game Monopoly and use the money in that because that's how worthless the money is going to be. Oh yeah Johnny's penis piercing has become infected but he has no money anymore so I guess we had better give him free medical care because after all JOHNNYS GOTTA HAVE HIS FUCKIN BEER MONEY.

Besides we are doing that right now, hell we have been doing since the 60's. You have tons of inner city single mom's who get a govt check for every kid they have. Look up The Great Society passed by the democrats in Congress and LBJ signed off on it.

Also if I see another "the US needs to cut defense spending because the defense budget takes up 4,000,000,000,000% of the total US govt budget" I'm gonna puke my guts out! The defense budget isn't even 10% of the federal budget. The waste and corruption is ACROSS THE BOARD in the US govt. I read there are like 80 different federal govt job retraining programs with huge staffs and bloated budgets. You think maybe we should cut a few of those first? FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, NRO, DEA, ATF, INS all various law enforcement, intell agencies that have overlapping ops. Ever since the Dept of Education was created in the 70's under Carter the kids are coming out of public schools dumber and dumber every year and every year there budget goes up and yet schools beg parents for their kids to buy pencils and paper because for some reason the schools can't afford to supply paper and pencils.

Now if there are folks out there who don't like the fact we have so many supercarriers let me tell you some folks who are. The people who surivied the Indonesian quake and tsunami. The US CBG that deployed there was the only fully functioning hospital, the only source of fresh water, the only source of power and the only operational airport in the area to airlift supplies to survivors. We also deployed a CBG to Japan after their quake and tsunami. Meanwhile we had a CBG in the Persian Gulf doing its thing and CBG's ready to keep an eye on China or to go to another crisis and still have carriers in dock so the crews could be with their families and still have carrier in a 2 to 3 year overhaul.

Don't blame the US for our large military when NATO, South Korea, Japan and Australia/New Zealand USED THE US TO BE THEIR ARMED FORCES. While all these regions spend all their money on social programs like healthcare and unlimited unemployment benefits and gutted their own armed forces.

I get the feeling that folks really don't know how big a trillion dollars is so here's an example. NBA Miami Heat player LeBron James gets paid about 40 million dollars a year. Now in order for him to make a trillion dollars on that salary he would have to pay basketball for 25,000 years. Yes 25,000 years, and the US govt is 14 trillion in the hole.

Yeah Dreadnaught's pissed and delivered a full broadside but I'm fed up with this hippy "let's just steal all the money from the rich and everything will be alright" BS.