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Iznogoud

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Everything posted by Iznogoud

  1. Forget it. I just dropped out of this forum. Believe it or not I was warned about not trimming my posts.. A forum that is that weak on bandwidth isn't worth attending.
  2. That is a pointless statistic. The USA is larger than most of those nations so even if its rail system is obsolete by modern standards it is going to have high mileage. The only nations similar in area are Australia (with a very low population) and Brazil and China, both of which are developing nations. A more meaningful stat is the amount of high speed rail each nation has and the US does not show well there. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/highspeedrail.html?tid=grpromo
  3. I think you are missing the point. One of the infrastructure problems listed was the lack of maintenance on bridges and highways. Apparently the level of spending is simply not enough to deal with all of the deterioration of the system. And transit in the US still lags behind of other industrialized nations, especially in high speed rail.
  4. Ahh, but does it spend enough? The US can easily outspend nations like Italy or Germany which are only a fraction of its size and population but still be lacking in many areas. From your graph it appears that infrastructure spending in the US peaked about 50 years ago. Given the fact that this infrastructure is now very old and outmoded why aren't there higher levels of spending? Mind you I will concede that a good deal of modern infrastructure spending in the US seems to be coming from the private sector, especially in the realm of green tech.
  5. The USSR was completely outgunned in the arms race. At one time it was spending over 20% of its GDP in an attempt to keep up with the US while the US never went higher than 6%. The nuclear arms race itself never did make much sense - it was purely a contest of terror. With tens of thousands of weapons on each side the overkill factor was ridiculous. By comparison Britain and France stopped at just a few hundred, believing that was a sufficient deterrent.
  6. I think that rather than attempting to get NATO allies to increase their spending to US levels I would be more in favour of gradually decreasing it to the NATO average. A great deal of US spending goes into maintaining a global presence; something that none of its rivals even attempt and its military R&D alone is almost greater than the entire military budget of nations like Russia and China.
  7. Even so, that 4% of GDP is almost 600 billion. A lot of bridges could be repaired with just half that money.
  8. Yes, I have noticed that classical liberalism, which actually resembles modern conservatism, is often confused with modern liberalism, which leans toward democratic socialism.
  9. It proves one of my my many points exactly, which thanks to overspending on defence and a lack of planning, the US is literally falling apart in many areas. Eventually something will have to be done about its decaying infrastructure, but having delayed so long in so many areas it is going to be much more expensive.
  10. Yes, its focus was entirely on the US-USSR arms race, but it had an interesting twist at the end with China's first nuclear test. Of course the French continued testing right into the 90s, much to the disgust of the rest of the world.
  11. Ever Watch "Trinity and Beyond?" It is an illuminating documentary on the nuclear arms race up to the 1960s. It is available on Youtube.
  12. Interesting these problems have been discussed, but nothing has been done about them. Sort of proves a couple of my points doesn't it?
  13. Typical stupid answer, but once again a complete failure to address the topic. But here, I'll give you a chance. Refute just one of these problems. https://www.businessinsider.com/asce-gives-us-infrastructure-a-d-2017-3#energy-d-5
  14. Sorry, but you failed to address a single point with that post. That is like claiming the Dominican Republic is perfect because Haitians try to sneak into the country. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/08/13/between-hope-hate-help-haitians-in-the-dominican-republic/
  15. Thanks - I fit into both categories. Too bad you don't.
  16. Except, rather sadly, you have yet to refute any of them. Post again if and when you can actually think of an intelligent comment.
  17. You seem to be a perfect example of another problem that afflicts the US; that of the smug attitude that is the US doesn't have it then it is not needed. The UK long held the same attitude as it slowly went down the drain. Enjoy watching the rest of the world pass you by.
  18. I am fully conversant with World War II. In fact I have lost track of the number of books I have read and the number of videos I have watched on the topic. A case could easily be made that if any nation deserved a couple of nuclear bombs it was Japan. Ironically, it is these nuclear attacks that seemed to force Japan out of the war, probably saving Japan from an even worse fate at the hands of conventional weapons.
  19. Tell me something else I knew more than 50 years ago.
  20. I have a full understanding of nuclear arsenals. My point is that despite the huge numbers of nuclear weapons not a single one has been used in any war since Nagasaki and due to the reasons I suggested in my post such use is unlikely. This is interesting given that pretty much every other weapon in existence has been used in the numerous conflicts since 1945. Fear of a nuclear attack appears to be something drummed up the the media on a slow news day.
  21. Sorry but none of those arguments in any way refuter my OP which simply stated that Brexit appears to be an utter failure. But that was to be expected given the pie in the sky promises made by those who promoted the leave side. The latest estimates regarding a "successful" Brexit is that the UK's GDP will drop by at least 3%. In a worst case scenario a 9% drop is predicted, and those are UK government estimates.
  22. Except that despite your trolling you have failed to refute a single point. All you have managed to do is note that some nations have similar problems, which disproves nothing in my OP. You appear like many Americans to be adopting a stick your head in the sand attitude.
  23. Nuclear weapons have to be one of the most useless weapons ever invented. They can only be used if the other side doesn't have any; and any such use would result in a massive worldwide backlash and probably complete rejection of any government that used them from its own population. As an example there are many who actually believe that Japan was the victimized nation in World War II despite immense evidence to the contrary. Not only that, but in an all out nuclear war both sides would be completely destroyed.
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