Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

NoMansLand wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 11:35 am An interesting perspective on the current operations in Ukraine and possible plans to take advantage of the coming winter.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... me-changer

Given Putin's early brag about low casualties, I found this bit very interesting:
There were no Russian Armed Forces in those settlements: only Rosgvardia, and these are not trained to fight military forces. Kiev attacked with an advantage of around 5 to 1. The allied forces retreated to avoid encirclement. There are no Russian troop losses because there were no Russian troops in the region.

Escobar is a long time West hater. I have read him and and off since 2006 or so. He's full of it.

Bob Butler wrote: Wed Sep 14, 2022 7:47 am Rights cover the ability of individuals to do specific things, such as worship your own way, speak freely, or carry a weapon. Forget the will of the majority if such is involved. The word is used by some to indicate a feeling that they should always get their way. In discussing how the will of the majority is checked by the rights of the people, the understanding of what a right is is important. Cool Breeze seems to be claiming he should get his way when no traditional right is involved.

In looking at your posts, and trying to make sense of what your argument is, I am coming to the conclusion that you think anyone has the "right" to come to the USA (and receive money and other aide paid for by US taxpayers).

If so, this is tantamount to saying that someone has the right to enter your home and take your stuff, because they want it.

Just to be clear, no one has a "right" to come to the United States unless they are a citizen. We have the right as a nation to decide who gets to come and who doesn't. All nations do.

Personally, as I have stated before, I am fine with people coming here and making a life and living for themselves. But they have to do it, the old fashion way, ON THEIR OWN, just like my ancestors did. Aide societies that are funded by donations can be a big help to immigrants, and I don't have a problem with those either (in fact I donate to some of those), just so long as the government and tax dollars stay out of it.

The whole immigration thing has turned into a nightmare for the Western World because most of the masses that come, expect the government of the country they ultimately end up in to take care of them forever while they sit around doing nothing. Many refuse to learn the language, accept the cultural norms, and large numbers turn to crime.

Bob Butler wrote: Wed Sep 14, 2022 7:49 am

Tom Mazanec wrote: Wed Sep 14, 2022 7:26 am I thought the Great Depression was ended not by FDR nor bankruptcy and savings but by WWII.

I suspect what FDR tried to do helped, but was not enough. You are quite arguably correct.

The idea that FDR and then government spending for WWII is what ended the depression is actually a widely held simplistic falsehood.

The depression was caused by rampant speculation, especially on the part of the banking system.

The speculators, including over-leveraged banks, went bankrupt. This created a credit crisis as the debts had to be absorbed by the rest of the country. This could only be resolved by rebuilding a solid foundation of savings and non-speculative investment.

During the War, there were almost no consumer goods to buy. So people saved their money. They bought war bonds or put it into sound banks.
After the war, there was a huge pent-up demand for consumer goods. And every source of those goods outside of the USA had been destroyed during the war. So suddenly people had huge savings, the economy had the investment sources it needed to expand, and it was peace and prosperity.

You can read a great explanation of this in "The Great Deformation" which does a great job of explaining all the historical details in how the country got into the financial mess it is now in.

Xeraphim1 wrote: Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:08 am

Agreed that a replacement for Putin is a big unknown. What I do believe is that Russia will get a leader that will take off the gloves and "fix" the Ukraine situation. How this plays out is unknown. Could be mobilization and war declaration. Could be tactical nukes or nerve gas or other extremely dangerous measures of desperation.

The Russian leadership is not, IMHO, going to just throw in the towel.

The question is what would mobilization accomplish? Yes, more warm bodies but without equipment and supplies they're a net negative. Also consider that Putin has not called up reserves for a reason; there would be massive discontent in pulling people back into service, particularly in Moscow and St Petersburg. Annoying the people out in the sticks doesn't matter, but important people live in the big cities and their.. acquiescence... matters.

This is very recent, but they made a demand for $1.3 Trillion. Not exactly good timing right now.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/po ... 022-09-01/

It wasn't a formal demand. Individuals in PIS have been doing this since 2017. Until it's a formal demand it's just various politicians saying things.

Unfortunately, the possibility of AK starting a war to stay in power is a distinct possibility

The Turkish military has been neutered and I have doubts they have any interest in going on the war path. That would more likely lead to another coup than war.

Yes, the Italian "Fascists" are not Mussolini and the Black Shirts, but it could well mean an Italy that is non supportive of NATO should push come to shove.

Brothers of Italy is actually pro NATO and pro Ukraine. They are anti immigrant and lower tax.

The Sweden thing could mean drastic changes in immigration laws and handouts, which could lead to serious civil disorder in Sweden. It is just something that could weaken them when they need to have strength. But then they have had serious problems with their immigrant population for years now.

Swedish disorder would be be a queue of mildly disapproving people? If they tried to kick out the people already there, I could see problems in the immigrant heavy areas. I don't know that is being proposed. I haven't paid that much attention lately. But even "far right" in Sweden is sort of a squishy Republican in the US, not anything really extreme.

If shooting starts with China, it will probably initially be an air/sea type of thing. Let's even say that their invasion of Taiwan fails. Do you think that the CCP would just give up at that point? It won't. The war will change to the Chinese doing everything they can with the military power that they have, for years on end.

The example for this is Germany in WW1. After the failure of the Schlieffen Plan in September 1914, they had little to no hope of winning the war. But it went on anyway. Ultimately there were German troops in such unimaginable places as Serbia, Greece, Romania, Italy, and even Turkish Palestine. They did everything they could in any theater they could get to to try and beat the Entente/Allies. It took four years to end that nightmare.

The Chinese will do the same. The CCP doesn't care if that means death/starvation for the overwhelming majority of their population. They will fight against India, Vietnam, South Korea (alongside North Korea) and they will even provide troops and equipment to help out the Russians. It may not seem likely now, but a real war causes these "longshot" things to happen, like German troops in Serbia 1915 and Romania in 1916.

Before every big war, the "experts" all say that it won't last that long, maybe a couple of months at most. Then it lasts for years until the entire strength of nations are expended. This is what I expect from what is coming, and, unfortunately, that will be pretty bad.

This is why the ammunition thing is such a big deal. If a war goes on for more than a couple of weeks, the west will be out of Ammo, and has little capacity to make more. This is a major problem in a World War.

Still, I hope you are right, and it will all be a minor affair and we can just get on with our lives.

No one is proposing a US invasion of China, especially not the US military. Any war would be on the sea and in the air along with long range missile strikes. Tanks and artillery would not be of much use unless China, for some insane reason, decided to invade South Korea through North Korea. The only country that really needs to worry in that regard is India and even they aren't worried about a full scale invasion, especially since they have nuclear weapons as well.

As to helping Russia with troops, why would they? Supporting forces in European Russia would be next to impossible since China doesn't have the doctrine, training or equipment to do so. And a losing Russia would be ripe for snipping off various parts that China wants.

The West has a lot of capacity to produce more ammo, it just isn't placing the orders. Putting in a multiyear guaranteed order would see expansion to whatever capacity needed in short order. But then again, there isn't a big need for artillery shells except against Russia.

Rather than do all the tedious cutting and pasting required to keep quotes in sequence, I'll just write up my response point by point below.

Russian mobilization - Yes, there would be popular pushback against such a move. But they need to do it to have properly manned units. The Reservists have some training, as I mentioned, and would do much better than the Luhansk teenagers they are currently grabbing off of the streets. Maybe Putin is waiting for the population to feel threatened by the Ukrainians. Or maybe the Chinese have told him he can't mobilize, as they don't want the USA to ramp up militarily until the Chinese make their own move. But mass mobilization has been the only viable solution to the situation for Russia for quite some time now. As for the acquiescence of the population, that doesn't matter much in a dictatorship (unless they can pull of a revolt).

Poland's demands - It looks pretty "formal" to me. The point is that the Poles are poking at the Germans at the very time they should be working to improve relations, as they need to provide a unified front against Russian aggression.

Turkey - Yes, AK took out Generals who opposed him. What strong man wouldn't? The Turkish military is still rather strong and somewhat competent. Plus their foe would be the Greeks. So I do believe that a war among southern NATO members is a possibility. Heck, Bulgaria could even enter the fray for old time's sake.

Italy / Sweden - I guess my point is that there is a LOT of political turmoil in Europe right now. Western NATO has had almost uninterrupted rule by Socialist Democrats (and the CDU in Germany is not much different) for decades. The Right (the actual right) is now making serious strides in many of these countries, and it can lead to a lot of internal political turmoil that impacts external unity in the face of a serious external threat.

China - If China attacks Taiwan and fails, you think the CCP will just give up? They would then be facing an internal revolt. They will find ways to use whatever they have available to attack us and any of our allies. I do believe it will turn into a WW1 situation.

The idea that there would be some kind of post Taiwan failure negotiated settlement after a couple of months is dreaming in the face of so many historical precedents. Major powers do not come to negotiated settlements between each other once they have started shooting at each other. This would not be "war by proxy" like in Korea and Vietnam. It turns into total war. We can only hope that it doesn't go nuclear (and I think Putin and Xi both know that playing that card means the end for everyone).

I agree that invading China would be a nightmare. Frankly, the only way to defeat China is through starvation, which, BTW, is how Germany was defeated in WW1.

Ammunition - The West does not have the capacity to produce ammo quickly in quantity. The US has produces 3million rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition since 1999
"Quoted from the Bulgarian Military page, Thursday (1/9/2022), from 1999 to today, the US Army has purchased a total of 3,000,000 artillery shells, caliber 155mm. This means that during the 6 months of the war, nearly 27% of 155 mm caliber artillery shells have been delivered to Ukraine."
This is due to the revelation that the USA has sent 806,000 of these rounds to the Ukraine over the last 6 months.
https://www.international-military.com/ ... dy-to.html

3,000,000 production over 23 years amounts to production of a little more than 130,000 per year. So maybe we could quickly ramp up to 200 or 250K per year. PER YEAR. And Ukraine, just Ukraine, is using probably them at a rate of 2,000,000 per year. That means we could maybe produce 10% per year of what UKRAINE needs.

We have only a handful (maybe 10) ammunition plants, which were built in WW2, and most are in need of massive upgrades and modernization.

We have the capacity to produce about 2000 Javelin anti-tank rockets per year. Also at one plant in Alabama (which I am sure the Chinese know about too).

If there is a major war with China (or more likely China/mobilized Russia), the west will quickly run out of ammo. Ammunition is highly dependent on the manufacture of steel and the manufacture of nitrates (for explosives). The Chinese won't have the problems that we will have, as the world has moved the vast majority of steel and most of nitrate manufacture to China.

Guest wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 7:34 pm

NoMansLand wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 11:35 am An interesting perspective on the current operations in Ukraine and possible plans to take advantage of the coming winter.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... me-changer

Given Putin's early brag about low casualties, I found this bit very interesting:
There were no Russian Armed Forces in those settlements: only Rosgvardia, and these are not trained to fight military forces. Kiev attacked with an advantage of around 5 to 1. The allied forces retreated to avoid encirclement. There are no Russian troop losses because there were no Russian troops in the region.

Escobar is a long time West hater. I have read him and and off since 2006 or so. He's full of it.

The Ukrainians.captured more tanks, trucks, and ammo in 2 days than NATO has given them in 6 months. Are the Russians just pretending to have suffered a humiliating loss? The Russians suffered thousands of causalities and POWs. Thos article.is pure Russian propaganda.

Here is more on the disastrous state of ammunition supply capacity for the USA:
https://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/supp ... -military/

As a result of Iraq and the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the defense industrial base in general, and the munitions industrial base in particular, is being challenged to meet current and future requirements. Post-Cold War downsizing, consolidation and disinvestment has left the Department of Defense (DoD) in many instances hard-pressed to meet the logistics and supply demands of the GWOT. The period from the end of the Cold War to the present [2004] saw a 68 percent reduction in the overall capacity of the munitions industrial base. Today, the United States has but a single government-owned production facility for small caliber ammunition, a plant that was opened during World War II [and BTW, still uses WW2 age machinery]. Despite recent increases, funding levels still are not adequate to address the full range of demands confronting the munitions industrial base, including replenishing diminished stockpiles, modernizing production capabilities, and simultaneously, preparing for a future of advanced weapons and munitions.

It is difficult to overemphasize the need for additional resources to support modernization of facilities and manufacturing equipment. The entire ammunition production capability of the United States depends on the availability of nitrocellulose, which in turn depends upon the continuing operation of an aging and technologically antiquated acid production facility at Radford Army Ammunition Plant. Should this single acid production facility be shut down, it could have serious consequences for the production of ammunition and, hence, for U.S. military operations worldwide. This acid plant is but one example of numerous single points of potential failure that exist throughout the munitions industrial base. The loss of production from any of these single points could shut down the production of numerous munitions.

See also this more recent article that implies that nothing has really been done to alleviate the problems discussed by the Lexington Institute articles above:
https://www.army.mil/article/249276/ame ... the_future

Navigator wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 7:53 pm In looking at your posts, and trying to make sense of what your argument is, I am coming to the conclusion that you think anyone has the "right" to come to the USA (and receive money and other aide paid for by US taxpayers)...

I have just read the amendments of the US Constitution, including but not limited to the first ten which are famously rights heavy. I found no mention of immigration, let alone a declaration of a right to immigrate. Immigration along with the ability to help those in need is to my mind one of many issues which should be determined by legislatures as a proxy for the will of the majority. I don’t know why you think these rights exist or that I approve of it.

If you can’t accurately counter an argument, make up a straw man argument?

I understand your not wanting tax money spent to help immigrants, but this is not always the opinion of those that determine policy. While I see nothing in the constitution which mandates that immigrants must be helped, neither do I see it forbidden. That leaves it up to bunch of legislatures - local, state and federal - each hopefully reflecting the will of the majority.

Congratulations. You have the right to vote, regardless of race, regardless of gender, if you are 18 or older. That’s the federal XV, XIX and XXVI amendments. I found those rights. They exist. But you have the right to vote only once. Your opinion will not always triumph.

I am not entirely thrilled by representative democracy. It was the best we could do in the Industrial Age, in a time of no or limited computers. I have half in mind that in some later time we will go with direct computer networked democracy. You would not have the elites giving money to representatives. The people would get a direct say. You could set up a service where only if you want that service to exists do you have to pay for it. But, we don’t have the security for it yet, and most everybody gives it a resounding no accompanied by horror. In another four score and seven years, maybe. I just have a feeling that with each Age comes a drastic change in how government works, and we are not seeing such a change as acceptable yet. Perhaps next crisis.

***

Both parties try to amplify the good their better presidents did, and disparage the other’s. I’d rather not participate in that just now.

Bob Butler wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:50 pm

Navigator wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 7:53 pm In looking at your posts, and trying to make sense of what your argument is, I am coming to the conclusion that you think anyone has the "right" to come to the USA (and receive money and other aide paid for by US taxpayers)...

I have just read the amendments of the US Constitution, including but not limited to the first ten which are famously rights heavy. I found no mention of immigration, let alone a declaration of a right to immigrate. Immigration along with the ability to help those in need is to my mind one of many issues which should be determined by legislatures as a proxy for the will of the majority. I don’t know why you think these rights exist or that I approve of it.

If you can’t accurately counter an argument, make up a straw man argument?

I understand your not wanting tax money spent to help immigrants, but this is not always the opinion of those that determine policy. While I see nothing in the constitution which mandates that immigrants must be helped, neither do I see it forbidden. That leaves it up to bunch of legislatures - local, state and federal - each hopefully reflecting the will of the majority.

Congratulations. You have the right to vote, regardless of race, regardless of gender, if you are 18 or older. That’s the federal XV, XIX and XXVI amendments. I found those rights. They exist. But you have the right to vote only once. Your opinion will not always triumph.

I am not entirely thrilled by representative democracy. It was the best we could do in the Industrial Age, in a time of no or limited computers. I have half in mind that in some later time we will go with direct computer networked democracy. You would not have the elites giving money to representatives. The people would get a direct say. You could set up a service where only if you want that service to exists do you have to pay for it. But, we don’t have the security for it yet, and most everybody gives it a resounding no accompanied by horror. In another four score and seven years, maybe. I just have a feeling that with each Age comes a drastic change in how government works, and we are not seeing such a change as acceptable yet. Perhaps next crisis.

***

Both parties try to amplify the good their better presidents did, and disparage the other’s. I’d rather not participate in that just now.

So, in other words, Bob wants a dictatorship of the proletariat (most of them illegal migrants) to crush democracy so that he can get his way.

And he has not invited any illegal migrants (especially military age males) to share the wonderful lake house his parents gave him.

Guest wrote: Fri Sep 16, 2022 12:53 amSo, in other words, Bob wants a dictatorship of the proletariat (most of them illegal migrants) to crush democracy so that he can get his way.

I have summarized a much more complex constitution as the will of the people checked by the rights of the individual. I have tried to reinforce that the rights of the individual must actually be in the constitution. (Legislation from the bench is the dubious counterexample.) I have mentioned that only citizens may vote in state and federal elections, while others voting locally may only vote in a few cities. A few have treated this with distain and rejection.

What is the alternative? If the will of the people is regarded as a threat to democracy, what are you claiming is the more desirable alternative?

well, sweden is leading the way, italy is next, britain first is gaining popularity, I can't wait to see civilisation back on its feet.