Who should America attack?

[Ozz]

Attack the countries that have names that are hard to
say or spell.

1. Any country with a "slovia"
2. Any African country with a "Z"
3. Saskatchewan

[Dis]

The problem is how do you eliminate poverty from the poor?

I have my doubts that can work and successfully increase wealth for everyone.

A socialist system would work of course. You could artificially raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour.

But that would not work. Companies only have a finite amount of resources. They would be forced to lay off more workers.

Now if we had infinite amount of resources and wealth- then sure we could give it to everyone.

Look at Kuwait. They have enourmous amounts of resources compared to their small population. They can spread the wealth quite well.

The U.S. doesn't have nearly the amount of resources relative to its population.

[Plan Austral]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Come on - attack Australia. We have thousands of miles of beautiful sandy beaches. That's got to be worth something.

Thousands of miles of beautiful sandy beaches infested with sharks.

[Nubclear]

Who should America attack?

Russia, China, France, Germany, Japan, India, South Korea, North Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Kabulistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Canada, Mexico......the list is HUGE.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Dissident
The problem is how do you eliminate poverty from the poor?

The free market is extremly exploitive. Left to itself it will continually crash do to increasing productivity and falling demand for products and services. So now we have learned that if we want capitalism to continue the exploitive nature of capitalism has to be tempered with government intervention in the economy that will bring things back into balance.

You are absolutely right about the resources. The reason that poverty can not be eliminated in a market system is because resource allocation is determined by the price mechanism. This prevents resources from being used in a way that would eliminate poverty.

If resources could be significantly diverted into eliminating poverty the result would be great and profits would increase greatly. This isn't possible though, because of the price mechansim. The price mechanism must be completely eliminated. Instead what we have is a system that will go on exploiting the poor and crashing whenever we have conservatives in power who brutally stifle demand. Even the Liberals can't prevent it from failing because the Conservatives are able to convince the voters that its the governments fault for spending money.

[DuncanK]

dp

[Az]

Actually, the most ethical war is with Sudan, followed closely by the war with Iraq ( because they'll succumb pretty fast ).

[Sandman]

Sudan, if only because the only place you can go after wasting the cradle of civilization is the cradle of humanity.

[badman]

I'm surprised to hear such capitalism-criticizing voices from Americans.
I don't agree though.
There is no alternative to a price system and I don't see why we need one.
The theory that capitalism will eventually crash because of increasing productivity comes from Karl Marx and has been proven wrong since.
We have poverty in the world just because of the protectionism of the rich countries and the dictatorships of the poor countries.
The rich countires have to give the poor countries the same chances and the poor countries have to reform and stabilize their countries.
Industrialization of a country is a long-lasting process and you cannot make a country rich in one day. But it is possible for everyone to reach at least a certain level of wealth.
Of course it's impossible to make everyone as rich as everyone else because life as well as capitalism is competition and in a competition there have to be losers.
The problem is not that their are not enough resources because progress and increasing productivity make sure that everyone eventually can get enough resources.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by badman
There is no alternative to a price system and I don't see why we need one.

It's the distribution of resources that is preventing the elimination of poverty and it's the price mechanism that determines that allocation. You don't see that we need an alternative?

Originally posted by badman
The theory that capitalism will eventually crash because of increasing productivity comes from Karl Marx and has been proven wrong since.

No, the currents slowdown is caused by a decrease in business spending. The Great Depression was caused by the same thing.

Originally posted by badman
We have poverty in the world just because of the protectionism of the rich countries and the dictatorships of the poor countries.

Ok, well protectionism and dictatorships are a reality of capitalism. However, they aren't the only cause of poverty. The main cause to poverty is the price mechanism which diverts resources away from the production of goods and services for basic needs.

Originally posted by badman
The rich countires have to give the poor countries the same chances and the poor countries have to reform and stabilize their countries.
Industrialization of a country is a long-lasting process and you cannot make a country rich in one day. But it is possible for everyone to reach at least a certain level of wealth.
Of course it's impossible to make everyone as rich as everyone else because life as well as capitalism is competition and in a competition there have to be losers.

The rich countries can barely stablize their economies while exploiting the third world. How the hell would they be able to do it without exploiting them?

Originally posted by badman
The problem is not that their are not enough resources because progress and increasing productivity make sure that everyone eventually can get enough resources.

First, no the problem is not that their aren't enough resources. It's that the allocation of the resources is all fvcked up. Second, productivity doesn't eliminate poverty. That's an objective fact. Again, the resource allocation is all fvcked up.

[Az]

Sudan, if only because the only place you can go after wasting the cradle of civilization is the cradle of humanity.

blah blah blah. Do you actually know what's going on in Sudan?

[badman]

The price system is the only thing taking care of the resource allocation.
Forced distribution of goods to everyone doesn't work, the Soviets have proved that.
Why should I work if I don't get paid for it?

Dictatorships are the reality of the world but they don't necissarily come with capitalism, why should they?

The reality of capitalism is that there are always ups and downs but in long-terms the economy is always growing.

I know that the rich countries have to change parts of their policy and it is even possible that they won't be able to sustain the growth they had in the previous centuries but under the right conditions any country can become a tiger state. It will be a long process and there will always be poorer and richer countries but every country can reach a certain level of wealth under the right conditions.
This is not possible under communism.

I also know that productivity doesn't eliminate poverty but it gives everyone the chance to eliminate his own poverty because there will be enough resources.

I don't say that everyone will be rich in the future but we can reach a level of wealth for anyone so that nobody has to be hungry.

[Velociryx]

I'm with whoever made the "Blood for Babes" comment....Brazil!

One at a time guys....one at a time....

-=Vel=-

[General Ludd]

I'm appalled that so many want to wage war against the sick and poor.

[badman]

That's easier than attacking the stronger ones, isn't it?