Margaret Thatcher is dead.

[Ben Kenobi]

The only major difference between the two parties in the approach to the Soviet Union came with Reagan's massive spending program. Personally, I think the SU would have eventually collapsed without such spending. It's an inherently flawed and unsustainable ideology. It was revolution without much thought to how to run a country.

But it sounds like you are saying Soviet-style Communism was a viable set of policies that would have succeeded if not for that pesky Reagan.

I'm saying that Carter would have done everything to Bend over for Brezhnev and sustain the regime rather than fighting it. 'Manage the decline' wasn't just on the other side of the Pond.

[Ben Kenobi]

Who was President in 1991? Hint: Not Reagan. Also, In the last 20 years there have been tones of analysis about the collapse of the Soviet Union and it was having internal economic difficulties since at least 1970. It would have collapsed all on its own and in fact did collapse all on its own. Trying to claim some foreign politician was responsible is dumb even for you, Ben.

Yeah, I also claim that it was a triumvirate. The Iron Lady, Reagan and the Pope, who just happened to come from a communist country on the other side of the wall. Also the wall fell in 1989.

[Dinner]

I agree. I think HC was just trolling Oerdin. I'd be concerned, but not surprised, if he wasn't.

The cold war was won by a succession of Democratic and Republican presidents. Only retards in the Republican base think otherwise.

I honestly think the boy is just that ignorant. He loves to read right wing media but doesn't have the knowledge or the intelligence to see through the bull**** & revisionism. Hell, Reagan spent most of his second term in the early stages of Alzheimer's and instead the cronies and the lobbyists they represented got to run hog wild without even Reagan's permissive hand to call them in once in a while on their worst excesses.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Regardless of your political stance, I think Margaret Thatcher deserves some respect as someone who really wasn't afraid to stand up for her ideals, and to stand up for her country. She's one of the last to really stand up for what she thinks is right, rather than taking sides like we do now.

Sorry- that simply doesn't square with the facts. When you stand up for a country, you stand up for the people in its society. I think the very stark differences of opinion you are seeing in this thread should give you a clue that, more than any other Prime Minister since Lord Salisbury, that really wasn't Thatcher.

[Berzerker]

Yes. I know what you are referring to. Bush didn't need Maggie to tell him anything. He's an oil man. Britain's history in the region is largely irrelevant with regards to American policy. Things might have unfolded differently otherwise... but it's not like America would have gone into an isolationist shell if Thatcher wasn't around.

Bush's initial reaction to Saddam taking Kuwait was treating it like a pay off for the war with Iran and leaving it up to the Arab nations, then Maggie got him by the ear and Saddam became Hitler revisited.

Carter couldn't even stand up to Iran let alone the Soviet Union.

We just got out of a bloody war we shouldn't have fought and Carter not only avoided getting us into more wars, he got the Russians to invade Afghanistan and started arming the resistance. Reagan followed Carter's lead and the Soviets collapsed within a decade due in large part to the Afghan war - Carter and Reagan were better at foreign policy than the 7 presidents before and after them. The last 2 decades have been a disaster and it began with Maggie and Bush. And the 2nd Bush was dumb enough to follow the Russians into Afghanistan.

[kentonio]

Sorry- that simply doesn't square with the facts. When you stand up for a country, you stand up for the people in its society. I think the very stark differences of opinion you are seeing in this thread should give you a clue that, more than any other Prime Minister since Lord Salisbury, that really wasn't Thatcher.

There wasn't a way to be that Prime Minister and correct the course Britain was on. You either stood up to the unions and pissed off millions of people or you bowed before the unions and continued to let them dictate the countries future.

[Dinner]

Germany isn't Britain, Oerdin. Britain doesn't have nearly the natural resources or convenient central location to play manufacturer. Britain should stick with what it's good at, rather than trying to be something it's not.

If we're talking coal and iron ore then, yes, Britain does have as much as Germany or at least so much as to make the difference trivial as both have "sufficient" quantities for the task at hand. As for ideal location, I'd say Britain's geography is much more suited for exports around the world than Germany's geography is though Germany is better specifically for land transport in the EU.

Also Britain has a fair amount of oil and natural gas both of which are rather scarce in Germany so the claim that Germany has some sort of mythic natural resource which Britain can't match is just that, a myth.

[Sava]

Sava, the problem is that the government isn't very good at running companies, and when it is running them it tends to do just as bad things as when they're public companies - but they also forbid competition. What's the difference between enriching Ma Bell's owners or keeping BTT's state appointed controllers in office? At least Ma Bell had to run an efficient company.

I agree. The government shouldn't run companies. It shouldn't try to. It should just provide essential services. When I read about these corrupt public officials... it usually involves numbers in the 6-figure range. If you factor in corruption along with their legitimate salaries, they still cost the organization 10-100 times less than the salaries of corporate executives. From that standpoint, the government does a lot better job of keeping such labor costs under control than private companies.

Private companies only do a better job at slashing workers salaries. Such workers aren't able to consume as much due to their lack of disposable income. Controlling labor costs in this manner is better if the goal is to make more money for the few at the top. It doesn't make the service inherently more efficient. If anything, the lack of well-compensated employees lowers the bar in terms of their skills. Not every employee needs to be a Rhodes scholar. But if we're talking about $10 an hour airport security officers versus government employees... I'd rather have the government employees. They at least have an incentive to work slightly better to keep their well-paying jobs.


As for Thatcher, she was an insufferable human being whose only real accomplishment was contributing to the disparity between rich and poor. There's not a single policy of hers that I would say is positive. I'm not going to dance on her grave. But I'm not going to give her brownie points for being an ideological toolbag.

As for unions... it seems to me the choice is between small fish and big fish... corrupt unions or corrupt corporations and super-rich. Smaller fish are a bit easier to deal with. They are the lesser of two evils. In order for them to exert influence in the political system, they need to be highly effective. Their power comes from their membership. In that sense, they are more efficient at "trickling down" their gains. The super-rich and corporations don't need to satisfy such people. Their money is their power. They are more harmful to society than unions. There's no questions about it.

[kentonio]

Extremes either way are completely destructive.

[Sava]

Saddam taking Kuwait

Bush wanted Saddam to take Kuwait. Saddam became too big for his britches. They wanted him gone. Administration officials gave assurances to Iraq that there wouldn't be such a large international response... knowing there would be. When he invaded, there was a massive outcry and large international response... an actual coalition of the willing. Bush got to play the victorious war president. He thought it would let him coast to a second term. But then came that "little troll" Ross Perot... and the saxophone playing Democrat won because it was the economy... "stupid".

[Sava]

Extremes either way are completely destructive.

I agree. It's unfortunate that so many seem to interpret my opposition to one as support for the other. But such is life on the internet.

[Dauphin]

Germany isn't Britain, Oerdin. Britain doesn't have nearly the natural resources or convenient central location to play manufacturer. Britain should stick with what it's good at, rather than trying to be something it's not.

What natural resources are you referring to, vis a vis the UK.

[Dinner]

Germany and the UK are very different.



The UK was completely broken, which is why we had been suffering through 3 day electricity supply, endless strikes paralyzing essential services and an economy in the toilet. We weren't described as the 'sick man of Europe' for nothing.

Hell, They were also talking about "the Dutch disease", asking if West Germany had lost it's mojo, and were talking about stagflation in the US. It was a global problem with inflation brought about by soaring oil prices as well as supply shocks all of which damaged industrial economies. THAT more than anything was the source of the problem.

[Berzerker]

Bush wanted Saddam to take Kuwait. Saddam became too big for his britches. They wanted him gone. Administration officials gave assurances to Iraq that there wouldn't be such a large international response... knowing there would be.

I dont know what Bush wanted, but if you were right they wouldn't have left Saddam in power and let him wipe out the resistance

Bush told them to rebel and turned his back on them when they did

[kentonio]

Hell, They were also talking about "the Dutch disease", asking if West Germany had lost it's mojo, and were talking about stagflation in the US. It was a global problem with inflation brought about by soaring oil prices as well as supply shocks all of which damaged industrial economies. THAT more than anything was the source of the problem.

No, it really wasn't. We had unions powerful enough to literally stop the country dead in its tracks in days, and they did it every damn time they didn't get their way. I support the existence of unions, but they were wildly out of control.