to be honest with you. When it comes to economics i prefer the Government to just leave it alone and not get involved. The laissez-faire approach works best in my opinion (i do agree that sometimes artificial power have to come in from time to time), just let the invisible free hand correct the market and allow it to grow.
Although communism failed, and I seriously cant see it work either since it's very sensitive for corruption, so does capitalism aka the completely free market not work either as you can see now. However, this isnt the first time, such stuff happens every x decade anyway. Still it means it's not working.
I did not read
all the pages from last week till now (been on holiday) but the problem with free markets is that on a certain moment we live in a dream where everything is possible. But it's not.
Only look at Bush's speech at I think the Commerce House or something. He actually wanted the economy to come back so American people could lend money again to go on holiday, to buy a car and what not. I said this in the early pages of this thread, if you dont have the money, then save for it instead of lending it. In the end quite a part of the current crisis is to blaim on this, stupidity of people for loaning so much money but also the profit raging banks to get more and more people wanting to loan money.
It goes like this;
Economy 'works' good, everyone is happy;
People can loan money and can pay-off monthly easily without being short on money;
Banks notice this and start a competition on this to get more and more customers;
More customers loan at an almost impossible low interest rate;
Banks need to loan from each other to get their customers money;
Banks cant loan anymore money;
Have to increase interest rates to actually pay-off their own loans;
Customers cant pay-off their loans anymore;
Bank dies;
People have no money anymore.
And this of course comes with mortgages but other things as well, and the big mix of this results in the crap we're in right now. Not only customers and banks though, it comes from multiple fronts. What Im trying to say at some point the economy does a routine job, everything works, everything is possible while it's a dream turning into a nightmare over a period of time.
And this is why basicly captialism is just as stupid as communism, it's both an extreme form of liberalism and socialism. Also both socialism and liberalism aren't perfect, but if that collapses the 'destruction' is a lot less worse. It's nice current governments dumps a lot of money into the system right now, but if there would be at least a control (in the means of check ups and regulations) from the governments there's more than enough room to play for the free market but when shit hts the fan the results wont have to cost multi-billion operations anymore.
. God forbid he would go out of his way to catch Bin Laden. But on the flipside, i dont think Bin Laden is special - we kill him, and 5 more of him are going to come out of the woodwork.
Exactly. Look at the current support for the Taliban. People are still being reqruited. The huge race against terrorists, but also so-called terrorists, makes people who live in certain areas with no bad ideas in their minds become more extreme. Look at nazi's, there's still support for that although Ive to confess there's a significant group among nazi's who actually have no idea wtf they're talking about but are just trying to be part of something.
I wouldn't be so certain. I won't go into details because it is a complex subject but all these popular tyrannical leaders share many common characteristics that are unique to the leadership. If the leader is captured, the followers try their best to free them. If the leader is killed, a power vacuum forms and self destructs. The only way those scenarios do not play out if another leader (usually with their own agenda) fills the vacuum before it implodes.
Yes and no. Often in little groups like a politic party this happens when a leader dies/leaves. If the leaders leaves and forms up his own party this new party often doesnt hold out very long unless this leader featured a good balance of ideas.
A short example, we've the VVD in here, a liberal party. Geert Wilders was a member of it and the ideas from him were very good. Geert Wilders left and formed up PVV, nationalistic right wing party, where at once only his ideas, and not the balance of the VVD and his ideas, came up. VVD is still alive but a bit less popular, but the PVV is now mainly crap because his ideas are all about kicking against specialized points like immigration and 'green projects' instead of a complete ability to lead a country.
There is no evidence that it doesn't work. Hussein and Hitler are examples that it does work. Hell, the entire Operation Iraqi Freedom proved it works. When you cut off communication to the leadership, it's like a body flailing about without a head (because it is). If a group is without a leader, they go into panic mode which makes them easy to spot and easy to destroy. You don't have to hit many before the white flags start going up.
A big group like nazi's but as well as Taliban and maybe (probably) Hussein are not lead by just someone who got a few people who listen to him. It's almost an ideology like any other what will live on for at least decades. In that time there will be always someone able to pretty much copy the ideas of the original leader, eventually being shown the way by other important people who supported the original leader.
And to be honest, Hussein is caught Ive yet to see happyness in Iraq really. Certain groups Hussein put terror against are happy now, but Hussein's followers are not stopped now by killing those targets anyway. Lots of people where from day one against western involvement, and those are really not going to sit down now and watch it all as it is now, be it political or physical. Nor would Iraq turn into a nice western country now, depending on the evolvement of surrounding countries Iraq might as well turn back into its original state, be it peacefully or not, they might turn anti-west just as easy.
Most people are smart enough to realize that if someone can kill the best among you, you are just as easy of a target. Most people would rather live than fight a war that lost its cause.
That's not true really. If people stand by there ideology/religion they're willing to do anything to at least pull out a lot of damage, no matter if they would lose or not. Look at both suicide bombers but as well as the original reason for the war against Iraq, or actually the west fighting the Taliban. Especially the latter one is one epic lost war. Sitting down and doing nothing might not be very correct although Im really wondering how bad it would be. There would be suppresion among civilians by the Taliban although it might as well stay by that. By fighting them you gain about nothing and win a huge chance on another 9/11 sooner or later.
You can blame most of it on Rumsfield, but who put Rumsfield in power? 
), you are right of course, to sustain an occupation, then much more would have been required but I dont think sustainability was ever paramount in Schwarzkopf's mind, he was much more for simple deposing Saddam, eradicating ANY Iraqi Forces then popping off home, you were very right in your comment that that would not have worked though.
