History and the stimulus package.

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Originally Posted by JMS

This is why our friends to the north are coming over in droves for our medical care in the states I bet. I understand that there is an 18 month waiting list to get an MRI or a catscan done.

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I've heard this through the years as well and don't know where this comes from. Minnesota, being a border state with Canada, you'd think we'd be hearing this all the time, but I really don't.

One of my wife's best friends, an expat, has lived in Canada for 10+ years and says she thinks the Canadian healthcare system is great. I'll have my wife email her and ask specifically what she feels the advantages or disadvantages are as she sees them. Are Canadians coming to the U.S. primarily for ELECTIVE procedures?:shrug:

Chris L

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Originally Posted by Chris L

I've heard this through the years as well and don't know where this comes from. Minnesota, being a border state with Canada, you'd think we'd be hearing this all the time, but I really don't.

One of my wife's best friends, an expat, has lived in Canada for 10+ years and says she thinks the Canadian healthcare system is great. I'll have my wife email her and ask specifically what she feels the advantages or disadvantages are as she sees them. Are Canadians coming to the U.S. primarily for ELECTIVE procedures?:shrug:

Chris L

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Thanks! That would be great. I am hoping wildtim posts as his wife has done studies in this area!

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Originally Posted by JMS

there was a Samurai who once wrote that if you can fight one man succesfully then you can fight 2 and then 4 and 8 and so on and that is because the priciples remain the same!

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:OT

This is something that Miyamoto Musashi could have said, though I don't know if it is him.

I am not a master like Glen, but I did martial arts for 4 years. The above is only true when fighting against people who don't know how to fight., or if there is a significant difference in skill levels.

If all parties are about equally skilled, then the person fighting 4 others will lose bad, always. His only chance is prevent being surrounded and run away.

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Originally Posted by JMS

Hell yeah the Republicans hold some of the responsibility for being to weak to stick to their principles but they were the only ones trying to stop the run away freight train, and now they receive all the blame while the democrats are using the crisis to ram their pet projects down our collective throats.

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I know a latin american hardcore communist who is totaly convinced that the drug problem in their country is caused by the north americans, tempting the farmers with hard currency to produce coca for dollars instead of crop for whatever pittance they would otherwise earn.
He still thinks communism would be successful, if only there would be some way to prevent it from having to compete with any other system, and if only all people would be selfless.

Don't take this the wrong way, but in a way you are exactly like this hard core communist.
No matter what arguments are made, you will not be able to put the blame with the republicans.
The international banking crisis is directly caused by the US deregulation of the banks, who were able to run the system into the ground (earning personal money all the way down) before anything was done.

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Originally Posted by Bruno

I know a latin american hardcore communist who is totaly convinced that the drug problem in their country is caused by the north americans, tempting the farmers with hard currency to produce coca for dollars instead of crop for whatever pittance they would otherwise earn.
He still thinks communism would be successful, if only there would be some way to prevent it from having to compete with any other system, and if only all people would be selfless.

Don't take this the wrong way, but in a way you are exactly like this hard core communist.
No matter what arguments are made, you will not be able to put the blame with the republicans.
The international banking crisis is directly caused by the US deregulation of the banks, who were able to run the system into the ground (earning personal money all the way down) before anything was done.

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I don't take it the wrong way my friend. I also believe that if all were selfless, Socialism and Communism would work well, but we were not all made that way, now were we!
It is for this very fact that a free market system will always work better than the afore mentioned systems!

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Originally Posted by Bruno

:OT

This is something that Miyamoto Musashi could have said, though I don't know if it is him.

I am not a master like Glen, but I did martial arts for 4 years. The above is only true when fighting against people who don't know how to fight., or if there is a significant difference in skill levels.

If all parties are about equally skilled, then the person fighting 4 others will lose bad, always. His only chance is prevent being surrounded and run away.

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Don't be such a defeatist Bruno!;)

...And yes, it is him!

Maybe more on topic, if we look back on history and the great depression - what similarities are there to President Hoover's and Roosevelt's interventionist policies (Emergency Relief and Construction Act/ New Deal), and Obama's current stimulus deal?


Scott

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Originally Posted by Bruno

:OT

This is something that Miyamoto Musashi could have said, though I don't know if it is him.

I am not a master like Glen, but I did martial arts for 4 years. The above is only true when fighting against people who don't know how to fight., or if there is a significant difference in skill levels.

If all parties are about equally skilled, then the person fighting 4 others will lose bad, always. His only chance is prevent being surrounded and run away.

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It was musashi. In the book of five ring, book of ground iirc. His strategy was to run into an alley and use the "pinch" to fight them one at a time like the battle of Thermopylae. It is very much possible to fight many at once this way. It's called tactics and it's how small armies beat bigger ones.

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Originally Posted by honedright

Maybe more on topic, if we look back on history and the great depression - what similarities are there to President Hoover's and Roosevelt's interventionist policies (Emergency Relief and Construction Act/ New Deal), and Obama's current stimulus deal?


Scott

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It's really hard to make a comparison. Even if you put aside the vast differences between the underpinnings of the U.S. economy in 1930 and 2009 (we were still largely an agrarian nation), there were also enormous differences in government's ability to respond.

By the time Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, the country had lost over $140 billion (in 1933 dollars) in bank failures alone -- something that no longer happens because of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Say what you like about Roosevelt, and admitting that he did make some mistakes, some of the safeguards (FDIC and Glass-Steagal come to mind) he managed to institute have made our economy more secure.

I think one can even understand the mistakes. We know so much more about the mechanisms of the economy today than he did. They didn't even have a way of determining the GDP (then, the GNP) until 1939, and then it took them years to understand what it actually meant. They were groping their way and still managed to recover.

Until Roosevelt's reforms, this country was prey to financial panics on an average of every 20 to 30 years (1819, 1837, 1857). The Panic of 1873 was in many ways more severe than the Great Depression -- and it was followed by another one almost as bad in 1893 (with a smaller one in 1890). He deserves at least some credit for the 70 years of relative stability we've enjoyed-- especially when you realize that our current crisis was brought on by a foolish dismantling of some of Roosevelt's reforms.

j

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Originally Posted by jockeys

It was musashi. In the book of five ring, book of ground iirc. His strategy was to run into an alley and use the "pinch" to fight them one at a time like the battle of Thermopylae. It is very much possible to fight many at once this way. It's called tactics and it's how small armies beat bigger ones.

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I didn't say it was impossible for small armies to win against a big army.
It depends on the quality of the fighter and the skill of the commander.
But if the commander of the big army had used the right tactics for fighting, based on the lay of the land and the outlay of the city, then he would have won. It is the failure of the commander that he lost the battle of thermopylae. It is his mistakes that allowed the other party to win.

But I meant the context of my remark as applied to hand to hand combat. 1 guy can beat 4 other guys if he is smarter and / or much better. But if those 4 are equally smart and equally skilled, and refuse to let the single fighter dicate the fight, then the 4 will win.

Take MMA (UFC) for example. An UFC fight is often 2 very skilled fighters going at each other, trying to get the other to make a mistake. Many UFC fights take several minutes, so there is an equilibrium between the fighters. Mentally add a third fighter, and any team of 2 will beat the single fighter, on the assumption that there would have been an equilibrium between any 2 of them.

It is for this reason that krav maga experts teach to react and run in real life scenarios.