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You would be right if you said these in 1950s.... A noble usually isn't considered as a poor person. But regarding to the nobles who I mentioned in the first post, since they owed too much to others and couldn't repay their debts, they were really poor people even if they still lived in their old extravagant lifestyle. When a boy or a girl has graduated from high school and has fully control of his or her life at age of 18, he or she may feel that there are great many things awaiting him or her to do. He or she may want to enroll an university or a college, or buy a farm becoming a farmer like his or her father, or enroll army to win the unwinnable wars, or get married and buy a house, or buy a shiny brand new car or a boat, or just a video game console or a guitar... But if he isn't the son or daughter of a billionaire and his or her money is limited, he or she should plan carefully to decide which things should do first and which should do later. If he or she put the priority on the wrong things and wastes his or her limited money and time, a few decades later his or her life may end up like this way...

Sometimes a person and a nation do can survive in such way without producing enough goods and creating enough wealth....for the time being.... In Europe many centuries ago: At a certain beginning point when the nobility still had their credit, people were willingly to lent money to them. Then they spent too much than they could earn, people still had no problem to lent money to them due to some inertial thinking effect. Even if when it was obviously that the nobility could not pay back their debts, they still could borrow money from lower classes. Then, just as you had pointed out, such thing could not last forever, so the balloon eventually blew up. All creditors wanted their money back and the nobles just couldn't repay them. Then there were riots and rebellion. And the kings and nobility even hadn't enough money to pay the soldiers to crack down the rioters... At the moment of their downfall, the kings and nobles were still more advance on many aspects like culture, education, knowledge....than the rioters and mobs, but these advantages could not save them from downfall or even save their necks. China or other nations will not surrender because there is no way to surrender. It is nothing about trade deficit and tariff. Just imagine, if Louis XVI offer lower classes "surrender to your King, I'll spare you as my royal factories's cheap slave labors who must earn minimal wages, buy debts from king and should never want to get the money back...", would lower classes accept this offer? The current relationship between US and its trade partners include EU, Canada, Japan, China, India....just like the crew of Apollo 13...LOL...just like Hitler and his Nazi partners in the last days in that bunker---everyone knew that Fuhrer's days were numbered, but everyone didn't want to risk the Fuhrer's anger alone so he could buy himself some time to figure out an escape route to survive from imminent down fall. So everyone began to kid the Fuhrer by saying "you are absolutely right, my Fuhrer!", "I'll execute your order right away, my Fuhrer!", "Rossevelt and Stalin will surrender soon since they fear each other more than fear you as you has anticipated, my Fuhrer!"...until the last moment the Fuhrer found that everyone had betrayed him secretly.....

The question is----when will the balloon blow up? MAGA--President Trump is playing the globe in his hands Presidential Candidate Trump made great many promise to his voters. President Trump hasn't achieved anything real to keep his promise but using his conman skills to fool his brainless hard-core supporters: Presidential Candidate Trump promise to build a border wall paid by foreign countries. President Trump does begin to build the wall at the expense of American taxpayer's money... Presidential Candidate Trump promise to destroy Obamacare. President Trump gives Americans an Obamacare-without-Obama.... Presidential Candidate Trump promise to come out a new strategy to win unwinnable wars. President Trump reveals that his new strategy is just to make peace with Russia---It would be a brilliant idea if US could afford to pay what Putin asked for... ..... But all these can't blow the balloon in President Trump's hands up because his hardcore supporters are too dimwitted to see his failure. The only thing which can blow up the balloon which is inflated by Trump's conman skills is the economy. At this point, I guess my American friend BC2004-----I had to say, when I used word "dimwitted" on Trump supporters, I almost forgot there were some Americans like BC2004 were also Trump supporters, for the time being of course-----would say: "President Trump has been doing great on economy. Stock market is soaring, trade deals are making, China is surrendering..." But there is one thing which a conman can not do. Just like a magician can make a girl in a sealed box on stage disappearing from audience's eyes but he can not make the girl disappearing from the real world. I guess the balloon will blow up at the time when the long term economy data comes out. His supporter will see that the trade deficit will still widen, American debt will still increase, China will still be there neither surrendering nor collapsing, all new trade deals will essentially be no different from Obama's versions.....and no jobs will come back America unless American workers would accept the salary of their third-world counterparts....

not always.... When an idiot is doing a job which he is paid to do... Both Trump and Obama do the presidential jobs they are paid to do. Both of them have got many haters among US citizens. And the haters of both presidents think it would be better if the president whom they hate did nothing than doing what he has done.

It looks like the generals of the Pentagon are definitely not sleeping while future threat to their millions $ paid positions in American weapon companies after their retirement from military looms....

It isn't only about Trudeau... In the temple of a mysterious cult Kanada, this is the daily morning ritual of the PM (Priest Master) and the elites priests of the cult: ........ The day before yesterday: PM Harper: Mirror, mirror on the wall---who is your closest pal of all? God Bush appeared in the mirror and replied dully: The Priest Master of Kanada. Yesterday: PM Trudeau: Mirror, mirror on the wall---who is your closest pal of all? God Obama appeared in the mirror and replied dully: The Priest Master of Kanada. Today: PM Trudeau: Mirror, mirror on the wall---who is your closest pal of all? Angel BC2004 appeared in the mirror and replied frankly: Not you! But her voice was so low that neither Trudeau nor the other elite members of the cult had heard her. So the PM asked again and this time: God Trump appeared in the mirror and yelled: F**k off!

so, how much difference is there between TASS's fake news vs CNN's fake news If you pay attention to the posts of right wingers's here, you will find out a lot of complains on "liberal media tyranny" and they are not referring foreign autocratic governments like Russian or Chinese. And I have to agree with them, partially. I remember years ago, there were comment sections under the news pages of most media websites. Now most of them have gone because right wingers used to use this function ranting their hatred towards liberals, fake news of media, system...etc.

Yes, Americans do care more about King Jong-un than who becomes Canadian PM. I think Americans should be grateful for Canada always has such unproblematic leaders.

America would go on because there weren't Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping out there waiting to strike at American weakest moments.....lol....but yes, the major great powers then were busy to compete dominance in Europe, and America then was not as important as today to draw their attention.

I think the another variant name of creative destruction is shock therapy. Though the method reportedly has got success in some small countries like Poland, with American help of course, it failed in Post-Soviet because no one outside could help to save the day for a country with such size and population. Anyway, the success of the method is depend on whether you have a way to create a better one. The key and the goal of the method is to create. Destruction is just the approach to achieve the goal. President Trump's problem is he only destructs things, and have no idea how to create.

If you merely wanted to break things, you wouldn't need a 70 years old man. A kid younger than 7/2=3.5 years old will do better on the job. Breaking things is easy. To reshape what you have broken to a better one is hard.

If Xi couldn't sell any goods to US, maybe he would sell some American debt instead? Trump may be right on many things, but he doesn't have a viable strategy to achieve his goal. This is why I think he will fail his voters. Now he has fired everyone who would come out a viable strategy for him. I think he will disappoint you.

Indeed... I think Canadian liberals also haven't learned the lesson correctly from this Trump phenomenon. When the wind slightly blows to the right side, they rush to extreme left to balance it like what a sailor would do to his/her sailboat. These Canadian politicians are supposed to know better that when you drive a car on icy road, if the car is skidding to right, it will be better that you don't turn the steering wheel to left immediately. You should let go the wheel and let the vehicle to weaken the trend and regain its balance first...then you can consider which direction you want to go---beware, still don't turn the wheel to left too hard unless you want to lose control again...

A country isn't a board of directors, so financial status or tax isn't the problem. For example: Slaves neither pay tax nor financial independent, but we can not justify slavery for that. I guess in old time, a king didn't need to pay tax because his people paid tax to him, but which doesn't mean he wasn't qualified as a king---the most politically powerful person in a nation.

It's very true.....and if a person haven't certain level of life experience，he or she will be easily mind-manipulated and mind-controlled by an experienced one whom he or she occupationally trusts, like...a teacher of students or superior officer of soldiers, then the result of vote will be greatly distorted by a small group of people who have access to exert great influence on teenager voters. I think this is why in some democratic countries soldiers are not allowed to vote even if the soldiers are adults.

If I was you I would advise Canadian Liberal PM Justin Trudeau sending liberal Canadians to Mali and any place like that instead of peacekeepers, armed forces, nuke launchers... The benefits: 2. The liberals can try to lecture their political-correct doctrines to ISIS to covert them to Canadianized moderate ISIS 1. There will be no liberal Canadian existing on the planet earth soon, so the war loving conservative dudes will dominate Canada and do whatever they want---which means---no limits on defense spending...

Trade war is also a war....how about this one?

No. I only use Google Translate to find what Tolstoï means in English since I can't read French.

"People" have never had and will never have the right to choose to fight in some wars until their asses are blasted and exerted with enough pain by their enemies. I'm afraid this is true human nature. You kept asking me what was the meaning of the video. Now I can give you one: In my video, at 2:40, did the people who cheered when President Trump announced America had sent fleet to defend Binomo aware that Putin would nuke their asses and end their happiness once and for all? Obviously they didn't. They just thought Putin would turn back before American naval forces since Russia had nothing to match it in the sea, so Americans would feel their nation great again like what they felt in Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. In most cases, people go into a war without knowing that they are going into a war, or what kind war they are going into. Its kinda like the video below----people think they have ordered snack but get a snake instead... Did the lady choose the soup which she ordered at 1:28 in the video?

I think there wasn't any "Canadian soldier" in the Seven Years War unless you were referring aboriginal. In North America, English, French or Spanish soldiers fought for Britain, France or Spain respectively then. Since there wasn't enough population in North America then, it was impossible to draw soldiers to reinforce Europe. Exactly both Britain and France had to send reinforcement to North America from Europe. After French navy was defeated by British Navy, it was impossible for France to send reinforcement to its North American colony, then France lost its New France to Britain.

Thank you for the recommendation. I'll read it if I find the book. I think a serious history book is quite different from a historical novel, even if the novel was written by Tolstoy. If you read a novel, regardless it is a historical novel or a Sic-Fi, usually you will find a "Dark Lord" or something like that in the book to play bad guy. Then you will find a hero, or a good side to fight this dark side. And you usually have 90% chance to have a "justice will prevail" ending to satisfy reader's psychological needs---This is the way the writers to sell their books. But if you read some serious history books, you will find that the historians used to be prudent to judge which side is good or evil because in the real world the causes of a war and the motives of people into a war are always complex. If you compare the size and population of Axis countries to the size and population of Allies countries, you could hardly conclude that the Allies's victory is because Allies had better soldiers. If you put aside political correctness aka prejudice, you have to admit that the individual soldiers of Axis were the better one in terms of combat technique or even on bravery and sprite, because in most cases they had to fight the enemies which outnumbered and outgunned them.

Those German and Japanese soldiers probably died because they didn't have money to hire a good doctor to treat their bone spurs in their heels.... As for Canadian soldiers, maybe those you knew did join in the war for king and country, but I guess lots of others were just in for not having money to hire a good doctor either. This is why Canada need to introduce conscription in 1944. Besides, Canada only sent a few divisions into the war, so it was easy to find some fan boys to volunteer. If Canada needed hundreds of divisions and millions would die in the war like Germany and Japan, you would find that Canada would even have fewer volunteers than German and Japanese.

I think the sense of humor depends more on an individual itself than which cultural the individual belongs. If you watch this video and read the comments under the video on YouTube, you will find that the Canadian PM may think he is fanny and cool, but obviously most of his countrymen do not share the same feeling with him. And if you try to find some Indians who applause to the Canadian PM on internet, you will be disappointed. I think most Indians share the same feeling with most Canadian---they don't think a PM acting like a jester or clown fanny, though their culture is quite different with Canadian.

Great! U.S. Navy has joined the fake news party. SOUTH CHINA SEA (Feb. 10, 2018) Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer Beside the photo, the website noted: The only problem is, the ship in the photo isn't an Arleigh Burke-Class destroyer. It is a PLA Navy type 052D destroyer So, it seems like an U.S. navy officer could not distinguish an U.S. Navy destroyer with a Chinese one. But as a fan of photography, I think his photo is qualified to be a work of art, so I put it here.

My post in on the section of this forum which is entitled "Arts and Culture". As for arts, it is nothing wrong if you create something which is inscrutable for someone or everyone, like this: "Inscrutable" also means everyone can interpret a work of art by his or her won way, no need to care about the creator's original meaning or purpose. So you do can say anything in this "thread" and the "" means there wasn't a certain "thread" or purpose in my mind when I post the video. For example: If our war loving fan Conservative Dude's twin sister Liberal Girl came in and asked me what was the video for, I would tell her it was a fake news making tutorial to help her making a journalism career...