JamesHackerMP

As far back as I can remember, it's been pretty 50-50 with me. But since I buy stuff on amazon.com a lot, and other online websites, my use of cash has been very low. It's almost like money is worthless these days unless it is digital.

So there's no way you can send people into orbit without popping their eyeballs out on a really rough ride?

No. You've still got that confused. I can understand why you'd think that, being from a country where the military has intervened in politics. The military follows orders, but they also follow PROPER orders, not just orders issued from twitter. And what does this have to do with cash vs. digital currency?

Hey, speaking of cash: do they still make Kruggerrands?

You've got that completely backwards. The Pentagon in this situation was distancing itself from White House politics, not making policy.

Not necessarily. Things are always more complicated than the media will portray.

Altai, I don't know what you read in the media where you are, but some of your information is quite inaccurate. [sorry to get a little off topic, however.] The military despises Donald Trump. One of them was recently quoted as saying, in reference to the president's recent actions, "we don't take orders from Twitter." The US military--contrary to what you hear in the Middle East about America and its military--don't like wars. The civilians backing them do. People who have to go fight wars personally don't tend to relish in starting them all too often. Many have complained about Donald's most recent comments about North Korea. Take note that Donald is a civilian, who has never done military service a day in his life. The US military does NOT intervene in politics. Coming from Turkey I can see how you would automatically assume that it does. They [the US military] do what they're told by their civilian masters, however much they may hate what they're told to do; their function is to follow orders from the civilian leadership even if they roll their eyes at it. The US military has no desire to intervene in global economics. By the way, it's called Beijing not Pekin.

Back tot he subject of cash, I read that in the Netherlands, cash is not widely accepted; it's all debit cards. apparently, banks charge for storage of cash so merchants charge extra when you pay with cash. In Germany the situation is apparently different. In Macro econ, we learned that physical money (coins and notes) are only 2% of the entire money supply.

screwed? I've heard a Canadian refer to CBC as "Al Jazeera-Canada" lol

I figured this thread would fit better under Travel/Leisure/Sports even though I got the idea from a business/economy topic about why we're still using physical money. Personally I hope we keep using it because I collect it. "Real" money is neat. I have a large paper money collection I refer to as my "Dictator's Hall of Fame". Not too much American money, though; but I do have a $1 and $5 silver certificates from the 1930's. The most rare thing I had was a 1919 10,000 rouble note with little hammers and sickles all over it and "Worker's of the World Unite!" around the edges in different languages. My biggest mistake was selling it when I was hard up for real money. I have a few coins, but nothing near what I have in paper. Mostly Kennedy half dollars. I also have some unissued stock and bond certificates that look great. Anyone else into money-collecting?

Yeah but it benefits the cotton farmers of Georgia and South Carolina, for example, to have that paper money. In fact, they're the reason we don't use dollar coins.

No. Not even Fox news is on his side anymore, really. Funny how people from outside the US watch Fox News and think they have seen all they need to see about the American media.

I collect money, so it would be a shame to me if they stopped making paper and coin money. What's weird is how our government never withdrew the $1 note from circulation like you guys did. As a result, no one wants to use the "presidential" and "sacajawea" dollars. Billions of dollars of them are sitting in vaults costing the government storage on them. The mints stopped producing them for general circulation after a while, only for sale as mint and proof sets. Americans tend to dislike change. We only have 1c, 5c, 10c, 25c coins. Everything else, $1 to $100, is paper. The UK and the Euro have eight different circulating denominations, from .01 to 2.00.

The term "American" was applied to us by the British during/before the Revolutionary War. It was actually kind of an intended insult. Residents of the 13 British colonies in North America called themselves "Britons" and raised a glass "to His Majesty the King" at dinner (even some revolutionary war generals on the US side in 1775-6 believe it or not). Even before 1775 they felt the "colonials" weren't good enough to be called Britons so they applied the term to us. As was pointed out above, "United Stateser" just sounds silly. [Off topic, slightly: hould the "War of Secession" have been successful (for the C.S.A.), one wonders what demonym would have been invented to describe the citizens of the 11 Confederate States of America. They considered themselves "Americans", too; in fact, more American than Americans themselves.] [Slightly more off topic, one of Clive Cussler's "Dirk Pitt" adventures, Night Probe, involved the annexation of Canada by the United States. Flashback to 1914. The UK needs a bigger war chest for the coming war with Germany et. al., so Wilson and H.H. Asquith hammer out The North America Treaty, selling Canada to the United States for one billion dollars. Alas, the only two copies of the treaty were destroyed before Wilson's signature could be affixed to the one copy, and King George's to the other. Wilson writes Asquith to say "f**** it" since the negotiations were a politically complicated affair, and all mentions of the negotiations are erased from history. Flash forward to 1990. A historian doing research finds the only remaining references in Wilson's papers, and informs some friends at the White House. There is a fuel crisis in both countries, as the middle eastern oil fields are scraping bottom. There is also a KGB-backed (the book was written in 1984 if I remember correctly) secession movement in Quebec. The President eventually makes an address encouraging Union between the remaining 9 provinces and the United States, saying we're not just Americans or Canadians or Mexicans, or [etc.] we're all North Americans. HEA. (For some people, at any rate. Certainly not all those MPs and senators in Ottawa. Let it cheer your hearts to know, however, they called the resulting union, the United States of CANADA.] Back on topic: sometimes such titles are politically-motivated. Therefore, it is more applicable to the situation to refer to South America as beginning with the Panama Canal, and anything north of that and south of the Rio Grande as Central America (offshore real estate included). And more collectively, everything from the Rio Grande to the Tierra del Fuego as Latin America. Politics will affect terminology; that's why archaeologists refer to the lands between Egypt and Afghanistan as the Near East and world leaders and the media refer to them as the Middle East.

true. But my question is, will the US end up like the Galactic Republic?

This is pretty funny:

I'm something of a Star Wars fan. Not enough to get a Boba Fett tattoo like a marine I know, but I think it's a good bunch of movies (most of them). the prequels were of course dominated by the great "decline and fall of the galactic republic" story. I strongly suspect that the whole thing was a commentary on the state of affairs in the US by George Lucas. If you watch the deleted scenes of ep. III, it tells a lot of important stuff about the rebellion; stuff Lucas probably should not have cut out of the movie. Question is, will the US go the way of the Galactic Republic? Why? And how?

Perhaps one day Canada will be referred to as Canada-Quebec?

Doesn't the keystone pipeline come from Canada? Or am I thinking of something else?

I read the first few chapter of another book by Kissinger called Diplomacy. I got as far as when he was talking about the "revolutionary" Otto von Bismark. It seems that Austria-Hungary was something of an anomaly compared to the rest of the European nation-states; in that it wasn't really one at all. The peace of Westphalia shaped the European nation-state system but the Holy Roman Empire (later Germany and Austria) were left behind. Germany eventually had its nationalist revolution that formed what "Germany" is today but Austria didn't partake of it. Personally, I don't see how they could have. They were part of the German confederation, but the "boundary" of the confederation only included German Austria (kind of weird really). WWI was also the last phase in the nation-building of Europe. Compare it to a garden. Europeans needed rose bushes to grow there but before they could be planted the last few weeds had to be removed to give the new rose bushes room to grow and flower.

And yet again hot enough has to derail a conversation and take us off an a totally useless tangent with some sort of irrelevant, ad hominem "argument". I thought this was an adult forum. I don't care that you don't like Kissinger, or what your political leanings are, or what you think of the US. What does concern me, on the other hand, is that I think we were talking about the Austro-Hungarian Empire and why it went kaput. If you want to talk about what a dick you think Henry Kissinger was, isn't that the subject for another thread, perhaps? P.S., have you yourself even read anything by Henry Kissinger? P.P.S., can we please continue the discussion on Austria-Hungary?

About how many "authors" do scholars think the bible had anyway? There's always going to be some inconsistencies when something is written by committee, no matter who the "chairman" is. Also, there was some difference between one part of the Torah and another, cited by King Henry VIII as his excuse for divorcing Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. I think in Exodus it says you should marry your deceased brother's widow (an act of compassion at a time when women were barred from working outside the home) and in Leviticus that if you do that "you shall be childless". sorry if I don't remember exactly where that was, though.

Interesting quote from General Mattis.

Not sure why you mention "American" brainwashing. I don't think religion is a form of brainwashing. Obviously Betsy has a more conservative view than myself about the possible interpretation of the Bible. But I don't think people who have religious beliefs are necessarily "brainwashed". There have been incidents of it, yes. (Jim Jones, etc.) But that doesn't mean every preacher, minister, priest, pope, imam, etc., is brainwashing their respective flocks.

Like in the song "Blame Canada!" from the South Park movie, one line is "they're not even a real country anyway!" Some idiots in my country took that to mean Canada is a "territory" of some sort of British "Empire" still... I talked to someone from Ireland who truly believed that most Americans walk around armed; and a young lady from Sweden who thought we only had private schools in the US. A Canadian I talked to seemed to think we still have a spoils system in our civil service. So they don't really teach anything about the US Govt in Canada? You only know what you get from the news and popular culture? I wouldn't expect any other countries' citizens to be forced to learn my country's history. I'm not so nationalistic as to expect that. But considering that a huge chunk of the international current events have to do with the USA, and the fact that it's Canada's immediate neighbor, it would probably not be a waste of time to teach at least one course about it. It would certainly dispel some of the myths.