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Old 2011-04-21, 20:29   Link #13201
ganbaru
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
It's just than Sarkozy seem to be more desperate about the next election.
Who know, the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen might win...
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Old 2011-04-21, 22:22   Link #13202
SaintessHeart
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Another bit of good news :

Carriers in scrum over iPhone

Deconsolidation is always a good thing for the market. It cuts up the market, so if we don't like the part we eat, we can always go elsewhere.

Too bad for the executives. Perhaps they will think more about marketing than acquisitions from now onwards.
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Old 2011-04-22, 04:39   Link #13203
ganbaru
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Thai soldiers killed in border clash with Cambodia
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73L09420110422
It seem than the Thailand-Cambodia border is a bit dangerous; 2 incident in less than 3 months.
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Old 2011-04-22, 04:47   Link #13204
don_Durandal
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ganbaru View Post
It's just than Sarkozy seem to be more desperate about the next election.
Who know, the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen might win...
Won't happen. In the French election system the President can be elected in the first vote only if he gets more than 50% of the votes. Considering the plethora of candidates and political parties this is pretty much impossible. What happens is that there's a second round that pits the two candidates who got the most votes in the first.
What Sarkozy fears is a remake of the 2002 presidential election, when Le Pen came second in the first round with 17% of the votes. The Front National gets most of it from "protest votes" (i.e. people who don't actually support the FN but want to make a case) so it has no chance of winning the second round. However with Sarkozy's current unpopularity, he might not even make it to the second round himself.
Not to mention there are some other candidates in the right and left who are popular enough to pose a challenge.
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Old 2011-04-22, 04:56   Link #13205
Anh_Minh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xellos-_^ View Post
someone form France want to explain this?
What's to explain? Well, to give a bit of context:
- one of the things that make the proles rage the most is that shareholders gorge themselves on profit, dividends and so on, while the workers get their salaries frozen, or they get outright fired for "economic reasons"... "Negotiations" (with or without strikes) never seem to work out somehow. IIRC, forcing companies to share profits equally between dividends, investments, and employees was one of his campaign promises. (Which makes me kinda surprised he's even trying...)
- it's not done. It wouldn't be the first time he backs off, and even if it does pass... it concerns a vanishingly small amount of employees.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ganbaru View Post
It's just than Sarkozy seem to be more desperate about the next election.
Who know, the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen might win...
Impossible. She may well get into the second round, but she'll still lose.
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Old 2011-04-22, 12:27   Link #13206
GundamFan0083
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Racism cames in all shapes, sizes, and colors.
It doesn't matter if it's White on Black or Black on White, it's still wrong.

Violence in another Mc Donalds almost kills customer


http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ec0_1303444048

The idiot with the camera ought to be charged as an accessory to attempted murder for not helping the victim, laughing about her seizure, and encouraging the assailants.
That guy was really pissing me off with his comments.
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Old 2011-04-22, 14:11   Link #13207
flying ^
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when you're all alone and you see these scantily clad black girls with their fake-ass hair extensions (weavers) gather in establishments... time to slooowly GTFO cause something big is gonna down hard



oh... that clip above... is just baaad.



when properly executed it can turn out looking very hilarious... like the one from Florida and Nyew York

Last edited by flying ^; 2011-04-22 at 14:23.
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Old 2011-04-22, 15:51   Link #13208
bladeofdarkness
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At Least 75 Killed in Deadliest Day of Syrian Uprising
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/04...#ixzz1KHsLKRDd
I should probably emphasize that were not talking "total" since the riots started.
we're talking only about TODAY.

Do you think the UN might do something about this ... like "express concern" over it ?
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Old 2011-04-22, 15:56   Link #13209
Xellos-_^
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bladeofdarkness View Post
At Least 75 Killed in Deadliest Day of Syrian Uprising
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/04...#ixzz1KHsLKRDd
I should probably emphasize that were not talking "total" since the riots started.
we're talking only about TODAY.

Do you think the UN might do something about this ... like "express concern" over it ?
Does Syria have oil?
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Old 2011-04-22, 15:58   Link #13210
bladeofdarkness
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xellos-_^ View Post
Does Syria have oil?
some, but not much.
and its declining already, so its only going to last for about a decade or so more.
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Old 2011-04-22, 16:35   Link #13211
ganbaru
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bladeofdarkness View Post
At Least 75 Killed in Deadliest Day of Syrian Uprising
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/04...#ixzz1KHsLKRDd
I should probably emphasize that were not talking "total" since the riots started.
we're talking only about TODAY.

Do you think the UN might do something about this ... like "express concern" over it ?
I can't say if the fact than they are using only small firearm (for now ) is encouraging or not...
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Old 2011-04-22, 16:39   Link #13212
bladeofdarkness
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ganbaru View Post
I can't say if the fact than they are using only small firearm (for now ) is encouraging or not...
Considering what they used the LAST time there was a popular uprising in Syria, this is an improvement.
I'll give you a hint at what they used last time.
it rimes with heavy Gartillery .
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Last edited by bladeofdarkness; 2011-04-22 at 16:50.
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Old 2011-04-22, 18:12   Link #13213
DonQuigleone
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
Intervention only occured in Libya after the government started using Planes and artillery, and even then only after it descended into Civil War and the army was at the gates of the rebel stronghold.

The question is how the Syrian government will behave. On the one hand, Libya will probably embolden the authorities, on the other hand they might want to avert the out and out civil war that's afflicted Libya, particularly because they're much more vulnerable to several hostile neighbours (Israel in particular).
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Old 2011-04-22, 19:30   Link #13214
AnimeFan188
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George Takei to Hollywood: “Quit Whitewashing Anime”

"Actor George Takei (aka “the guy who played Sulu from Star Trek”) has spoken
critically of Hollywood’s penchant for taking Asian film, manga and anime and recasting
everyone with white actors, citing the upcoming and thoroughly purified Akira as a
particularly egregious example."

See:

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2011/0...washing-anime/
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Old 2011-04-22, 20:28   Link #13215
SaintessHeart
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Here is a nightmare for our American members on this forum. Enjoy. *sarcastic*

ANALYSIS: China – how its low-tax economy will doom globalism

Quote:
The Chinese population stands at just over 1.3 billion people, but only 26 million pay any income tax. So although the income tax cut approved by by the country’s legislature yesterday should become law this year, its effect – despite a hike from £225 a month to just over £300 tax-free allowance – will be near homaeopathic economically. The Beijing Government almost certainly did this to increase its popularity rather than calm wage inflation….although it is worried about inflation, most of that is coming from food price rises – and a worrying degree of runaway speculation. (Hence the recent edict about bank lending on property…which was swiftly circumvented by developers borrowing more from abroad).

In percentage terms, China is thus by far the biggest low-tax economy on the planet: even the rates themselves start as low as 5%, and hardly anyone pays the top rate of 45%. But that doesn’t mean what it usually does: chiefly, it reflects the fact that 98% of Chinese are living at or slightly above what we in the West would regard as abject poverty.

This represents both weakness and strength for the Beijing regime. Wages are low and therefore exports are cheap – but the real home consumption market is very limited indeed, and the G20 is getting tougher by the month about floating the Yuan properly to increase China’s export prices. Finally, the 98% at the bottom of the heap are showing increasing signs of truculence about not being part of the 2% further up.

Above all, however, the situation hands the Politburo a unique strength in global economics: it is almost entirely free of dependence upon taxing its citizens.

Think about this a little: the ramifications could be very far-reaching indeed.

———————————-

First and foremost, it means the old guys in Beijing can be as autocratic as they like without having any real effect on public unrest. As the Slog has asserted previously, only dictatorships doing badly fail: the Chinese leaders could make all salaries below £500 a month tax free, and it wouldn’t so much as bruise their Treasury. And nor would it produce anything but a tiny rise in inflation. So anyone optimistically expecting China to enter the democratic libertarian fold some time soon is living on cloud cuckoo. (Don’t forget too that the Chinese are intensely patriotic: dissidents are a tiny proportion of the total population).

Second, the war-chest available for overseas exploitation – and any military confrontation that came with it – is of almost unimaginable size. In terms of armed forces killed and injured, or strains on the fiscal situation and tax rises at home, the CPR could lose a dozen Vietnams, and 90% of citizens wouldn’t feel a thing. (They wouldn’t lose, of course: the Chinese play to win – as their accelerating influence in Black Africa demonstrates frighteningly well).

I mention these first, because popularity at home and military expansion abroad have been the basis of every successful Empire in history. But the end goal – ever since the Roman concept of Elysian Fields glory went out of fashion – has always been mercantilist: more trade with, and exploitation of, the territories annexed, controlled or influenced. The possibilities here should make every Western business quake with fear: if that is the Chinese goal. But I don’t think it is.

There is a third freedom offered to China by its huge surplus wealth. The total wealth of the country (gdp + private wealth + natural resources) is estimated to be $44 trillion. The two key things to remember here are (a) US natural resources are largely known, but new natural resources are being found in China every week – gold and new-age metals are now increasingly mined at home; and (b) while still enjoying a vastly smaller wealth total than the US, it doesn’t have America’s costs….or a debt currently at $13 trillion and rising. Whereas China has a near zero dependence on domestic tax receipts, interest rates normalising at around 3-4% by mid 2012 would gobble up one US tax Dollar in three.

That normalisation of rates wouldn’t worry the Chinese overmuch: they’d be glad of the slowing effect on domestic inflation. As the Western banks and sovereigns reel this way and that in the face of such a thing, China will be almost immune to it.

But potential wealth delivers more than just protection from ill winds. It also means, in time, a vastly reduced dependence on exports. This is, for me, the big insight that most Western observers have missed to date.

———————————–

China may exist in what is a globalist world, but engaging in it is a means to an end. China is protectionist: globalist free trade is anathema to Beijing.

More than two years ago, the American Chamber of Commerce stated that ‘China’s national innovation program has led to protectionist telecoms and IT policies’. Last year, Ron Kirk, the US trade representative at the US-China strategic and economic dialogue in Beijing, frankly observed that “Myriad internal regulations discriminating against foreign companies do more to increase the US-China trade imbalances than yuan reforms…it’s really about our underlying ability to come in and fairly compete in this market.” Rupert Murdoch is known to be voluble in private about Chinese double-dealing against Newscorp set-ups in China. And only yesterday, the Daily Telegraph reported the oft-heard complaints from UK and EU companies trading in the CPR: ‘Chief among the concerns was that Chinese companies very often received early warning of upcoming contracts, giving them an unfairly long time to prepare their bids….Another protectionist measure, often used by local governments and big state-owned companies, is to invent impossible standards for basic items that effectively exclude foreign companies…’

Google ‘Chinese protectionism’, and 839,000 results will come up. There is thus little further need to establish that protectionist mentality as a fact.

————————————–

Chinese thinking – especially at governmental level – is infinitely longer-term than the Bourse/shareholder short-termism so ubiquitous in the West these days. For me – and I’ve had a long time to observe, measure and think about this – China’s rulers do not have an aim of global economic dominance via globalism: their mission is to achieve complete self-sufficiency by exploiting the madness of globalism.

Britain’s greatest mistake in the first half of the Twentieth Century was to export its technical know-how. Its grave error in the last quarter was to export its financial expertise. Anything that can be learned can be copied, adapted – and then shunned. For a huge nation where the military retain serious political influence, the long-term goal is always going to be exporting the trivial and generic, while hanging on to the advanced: the cyber element in war kills few people, but it can neuter even the biggest nations.

Translate that into a consumer context, and you have a Chinese citizenry quickly realising that it has higher technology than the fangwois. The bottom line would be a delighted population with justified feelings of superiority (something that is central to the Chinese psyche) and a government/military complex in Beijing smiling quietly as the rest of the world remains in debt….and falling further and further behind technologically.

————————————–

In summary, my contention is this. The cost overheads of physical imperialism did for the Roman, Spanish and British empires. And the post-imperial cost of competing with expertise they gave away wound up ruining them. For the US – a virtual empire based solely on multinational sales influence and access to energy – this syndrome has been far more marked over a much shorter time period.

The West has imported cheap Asian goods to keep its populations happy with a low cost of living; but the State losses in terms of output costs and imports have been ruinous. More dependent than ever on electorates to bail them out – a crisis made deeper by reckless banking behaviour – the income from such taxation is dwindling. They must export or die by debasing their currencies….but one country above all will not want their exports.

The Chinese have observed history and developed a different model. This is one in which they create an enormous internal market self-sufficient in raw materials and energy, and with an all-important technological lead. As long as Beijing needs to exploit Africa and gouge minerals out of Australian soil, it will do so. But once internal material exploitation and technical energy advance have rendered such tactics irrelevant, they will rapidly be dropped.

It is nothing more or less than an extension of their cultural Xenophobia. And this isn’t racism on my part: I admire the Chinese for thinking it through so thoroughly.

But it does add to the case I have been trying to build for several years here at The Slog: that globalism is doomed, and nations must look far, far beyond mercantilism……….towards a similar goal of minimal dependence on others.
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When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.
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Old 2011-04-22, 21:14   Link #13216
Kamui4356
Aria Company
 
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SaintessHeart View Post
Here is a nightmare for our American members on this forum. Enjoy. *sarcastic*

ANALYSIS: China – how its low-tax economy will doom globalism
So he's claiming China will eventually turn inwards again and this will be a good thing for them that will continue innovation? This has never worked out well for China before, why should this time be any different? Sure, China can be self sufficient, but they can't ignore the rest of the world or they'll end up getting left behind by it, again, with predicable results. Of course the rest of the world may be too heavily invested in China to allow that to happen.
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Old 2011-04-22, 21:24   Link #13217
Vexx
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
My world history professor in university waaaay back in 1976 had essentially this same opinion of China ... its like its own planet. It literally doesn't *need* the world though it certainly knows how to siphon off good ideas when it needs them. It has closed the doors before and its leadership I imagine still thinks that is always an option. As for the corporations "invested" in China... I keep waiting for the other half of that "you'll sell us the shovels we'll bury you with".
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Last edited by Vexx; 2011-04-22 at 21:36.
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Old 2011-04-23, 02:46   Link #13218
Anh_Minh
I disagree with you all.
 
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamui4356 View Post
Of course the rest of the world may be too heavily invested in China to allow that to happen.
... Allow? What do you think they'll do about it?
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Old 2011-04-23, 04:19   Link #13219
ganbaru
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
Speaking of China...
China bans foreigners from restive Tibetan areas
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73L1E020110422
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Old 2011-04-23, 06:08   Link #13220
Decagon
This was meaningless
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Age: 36
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamui4356 View Post
So he's claiming China will eventually turn inwards again and this will be a good thing for them that will continue innovation? This has never worked out well for China before, why should this time be any different? Sure, China can be self sufficient, but they can't ignore the rest of the world or they'll end up getting left behind by it, again, with predicable results. Of course the rest of the world may be too heavily invested in China to allow that to happen.
With new technology and China, you see foreign companies trying to form long term contracts with state owned entities to guarantee a slice of the market there for 20-30 years and ease losses associated with tech theft and such. There's a bit of pensiveness I noticed from some execs that China will natively develop alternative technologies to what they (non-Chinese firms) can sell or that something will be reverse engineered if they just stay out of China anyway. Firms just want to establish themselves as the market leader of their particular sector in China to beat any chance of their competitors doing the same. As long as China doesn't close its doors, they'll keep coming...
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