Well... French intelligence spying on emails, phonecalls: newspaper Come on people, it's time to wake up! No matter what country you're in, no matter where you are, if you're using the internet then everything you do is being monitored and recorded. France, Russia, UK, US doesn't matter. Stop being so naive.
People tend to have a 'well, I've done nothing wrong, so I don't care' attitude.. but surely it won't be hard for them to fabricate evidence and bundle together seemingly insignificant things (like complaining about government/laws/law enforcement or any expression of mild dissent online), which, when looked at together and taken out of context, can form quite a strong case against you. In my humble opinion, this 'war on terror' is just an excuse to start big money-making wars. Firstly, the number of attacks and the death toll from terror attacks is pretty low. I get it, it's scary- but more people died of food poisoning last year than have EVER died from terror attacks; you are also 8x more likely to be killed by a police officer than a terrorist, and heart disease and cancer are still the major causes of deaths in the western world. I'm not the least bit surprised that our governments are monitoring us like this. They've had the technology for years.
I also hate this passive attitude of 'Oh, so what if the government knows I like fish every Wednesday, why should I bother?' Whoever thinks this has no idea what they could lose.
It's not that I don't care, it's that the problem is so overwhelming, what is it suggested people do? Yes, I could call my representatives and all those things. Not only do I doubt such calls or petition signing will have any effect, I much more disgusted with all the data mining marketers do. I don't want them to know how much beer or wine I buy, which movies I watch, books I read (kudos to the librarians' response to this in the US, BTW), web sites I view. Apparently because I researched new tires online I'm a guy looking for single women. No doubt some of you may have heard that Target Stores figured out some woman was pregnant before she told her parents and they found out when coupons for diapers and other things started showing up in ads she received. After that PR fiasco they now disguise the targeted ads by throwing in unrelated ads as flack. Who believes the lie this is all for better customer service?
Um... Double check your economics. Wars don't make money. Sure, some small sectors of the economy make money, but unless the war includes expanding the tax base and taking permanent ownership of the resources of a defeated territory (something America hasn't done since the death of Manifest Destiny), a war can only deplete government coffers and damage the economy via inflation.
Actually companies like Halliburton and United Defense make a lot of money by selling tanks and weapons in times of conflict. This money is often fed directly back into the government. What you said has certainly been true in the past, when economies were more collectivized, but now war is big, big business.
And big, big business spends big, big money lobbying the government, as well as opening quite a few of their revolving doors in the direction of Capitol Hill.
Again, overall, small sectors of the economy. Yes, the weapons manufacturers make money. No one else does. At all. The overall economic impact is massively negative. Economists outside of Keynesian fantasy have overwhelming evidence of the damage that deficit spending does to the economy. For every $1 that the government spends, it prevents as much as $4 in private sector growth. Some economists put the estimate as high as $20. Sure, the weapons industry made a billion dollars. It cost the rest of the economy $4 billion. Unless you have something to replace that money (which America's wars do not) the overall impact from America's wars is a massive negative. I've read more than one economist that estimates that America's economy is as much as $2 to $3 trillion smaller today than it would have been without Afghanistan, Iraq and various proxy conflicts. And those reports are several years old.
The French have been doing ridiculous things for years - spying on the public is certainly no surprise with 30% of the population 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation Muslim and before our Muslim friends get onto me, this is the stark truth. While the US may be called the most paranoid country, France in my opinion is the most racist and Marine Le Pen's National Front is testimony. Like the Brits building their empire, reap what you sew is the perfect example with France raping North Africa in a massive land grab after the war. When France granted Algeria independence, they also gave unlimited French passports and because the Algerians didn't have adequate papers, Tunisians, Libyans and Moroccans all chose to come to France on fake IDs, tut tut! Chickens and roost are words that spring to mind again. The funniest things we are reminded of here in France at the moment is the bugging of (American) business seats on Air France planes - industrial espionage at it's best. Like I've already mentioned, Monsieur Hollande has suspended EU/US trade talks until Obama promises to behave, within a heartbeat Hollande refuses Morales French airspace and this all spews out and now he's AWOL. The French govt are just amazing, George Dubya would be hailed a genius here!
Whilst probably true (I'm not particularly well read in economics, which is a bit of a shame), that doesn't change the fact that the ones who declared war were the ones who stood to gain the most money from it, namely via the sale of defense contracts. Colour me cynical, but I rather doubt that these people put the US economy above opportunities to make themselves a lot of money.
[MENTION=55095]jmhoffer[/MENTION] seriously dude - who are you to guess my IQ? Still waiting on your answer regarding Palestine in your newly drawn borders of the Middle East by the way. Maybe its a case of hit and run with regards your comments and err, your foretelling of the future...
I don't know how small the 'sectors' are you speak of, but you are denying the impact this sector has on government decisions. That impact on government decisions is the issue, not whether this time around the broader economy did or didn't experience the manufacturing boom that followed WWII. It's actually a serious problem, money spent on military hardware currently is very inefficient in stimulating the economy.
Hi Erebh, your 30% statistic is wrong. Nothing personal, but it's not true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_France
ok [MENTION=36860]matwoolf[/MENTION] Paris 17% Muslim from 12 million population Marseille 28% Muslim from 1.2million population (just as a by the way, the most dangerous city in Europe with more violent drug related deaths than New York.) Lyon 19% Muslim from 2.2 million population Toulouse 21% Muslim from 1.7million population (15% Jewish) That's a lot of Muslims whichever way you count them and these stats are from 'Le Nouvel Observateur', Left wing newspaper that counts illegal immigrants, unlike Wiki. And with regards the IQ of George Dubya - Just ask hi what's tribal sovereignty http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=438mgeDQo48
This is a common myth, but a myth none-the-less. The reason there was a manufacturing boom after WWII had nothing to do with military spending. It was because the 3rd world was not a manufacturer yet and Europe's entire manufacturing sector and been eliminated. American manufacturing literally had no competition! I don't understand where this myth comes from. It is pure propaganda that requires only a mild case of common sense to dismiss.
