You were Zeta. So I tried it too. <<<What a fun game that is - playing the victim.>>
Who's playing victim dare I ask? >
You were telling me how your pain and suffering are exclusive and foreigners don't have the cultural right to make jokes about AlQ et al, or the processes going on, because we aren't part of the WAT, WOT and whatnot.
<Which country has done the most to advance the world's knowledge of science, business and medicine? It's citizens pay for it and don't ask for royalty from their world neighbors who enjoy it's fruits?...I would hardly call us victims... >
Giggle. Zeta, come on! Of course it's true that in the past half century, the USA has been wayyyy ahead of other countries in those good things. Thanks to immigration of the best and brightest from around the world.
When you say its citizens pay for it, that's not strictly true. I have paid a lot for it. So have friends and family. So have swarms and millions of others. Surely you have read recently about who is funding the US debt. Of course Americans have funded a lot too [I suppose 80% of it], but their funding derives to some significant extent from cash flowing back from multinational USA companies [McDonalds, Mobil, Microsoft, Monsanto, etc] so it's one big happy family of funding with money rolling around the world in a huge integrated mechanism. No royalties? You should see the royalties QUALCOMM is pulling in!!! That's a 3 exclamation amount. Korean companies have whined like a fleet of 747s over CDMA royalties, but they haven't lately because they are giggling over the vast profits they are making from CDMA and it's hard to giggle and whine simultaneously.
Which has got nothing to do with what we were discussing, which was who is allowed to make jokes. But it was an interesting red herring you dragged.
I don't love to hate the USA. I do have high expectations of it because it has my investments and I therefore require my standards of ethics. It's also killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan on my behalf via the UN COW so I have a say on that.
I don't expect much from most other countries and I'm usually not disappointed. Criticism is not hate. Surely you have heard of the insult of low expectations. I have high expectations of me, my offspring and those with whom I associate, including the USA and companies in which I invest.
<how many other countries afford their immigrants those kinds of "licenses?" >
NZ does for a start. So does Canada. We were "landed immigrants" and could have done the same there. But you are away on a tangent about the glories of the USA.
You are quite right about "if not for the US $$ ... there'd be no UN, no WHO, ... etc". Well, they'd suffer large reductions, but I think they'd continue with our without the USA now. But what is important in your comment is that the US$ is far, far more than an economic lubricant for transactions in the USA. When people whine about Alan Green$pan, they ignore that he is running the global currency and has to have a far broader outlook than unemployment in Peoria and loss of jobs to Bangalore.
I know Americans think 1 American is worth 5 Indians, but 10 Indians can be hired for the price of one overpaid American. Greater human good is achieved by moving the jobs. It's a global world. Americans should take a Christian look at the world rather than a beggar thy neighbour "those are OUR jobs" approach [I'm not saying that you in particular don't].
Our great and wonderful idol [the one true one] Uncle Al KBE is doing a great job of keeping the US$ on the straight and narrow. The last step in the market clearing of the Biotelecosmictechdot.com irrational exuberance of the 1990s will be the raising of interest rates and the recognition by the world that the US$ and USA are NOT about to implode, though more sagging seems acceptable to the USA.
Mqurice |
