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We (The USA) are the death merchants of the world.

Discussion in 'Coffee Break and Community Discussion Forum' started by Sidney Vianna, Mar 29, 2016.

  1. Sidney Vianna

    Sidney Vianna Well-Known Member

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  2. MarkMeer

    MarkMeer Well-Known Member

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    Ahhh, Sidney... once again baiting me into political discussion... ;)

    I've got mixed feelings on this one.

    What has to be recognized is that modern weaponry is a reality, and we can't put the genie back in the bottle. There is strong demand for weaponry, and good incentive for private industry to innovate in these fields. So what should we do? Ban it? ...These companies will just move elsewhere. Impose super tight restrictions? ...again, these companies will just take their money/jobs etc. and leave.

    It's a conundrum to be sure. ...but just pointing to it, condemning it, and collectively blaming America is going to do NOTHING.

    So what are the practical policy solutions?
     
  3. Sidney Vianna

    Sidney Vianna Well-Known Member

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    Policy solutions? How about stopping the practice of inciting war and conflicts just so our economy benefits from it? Artificially created and/or promoted wars to create demand for weaponry.
     
    Ronen E likes this.
  4. MarkMeer

    MarkMeer Well-Known Member

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    While I agree there is an unholy alliance between government and private arms companies, I think that stating "our economy" is the primary reason motivating conflicts is a bit hyperbolic.

    If this were the case, then we wouldn't actually involve ourselves in said conflicts. Spending trillions participating in foreign conflicts is hardly beneficial to the economy...
     
  5. Candi1024

    Candi1024 Well-Known Member

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    Many do believe that wars spur the economy. It creates jobs and spending. And if you get the public riled up enough, you can really dig in and spend a lot. The actuality doesn't quite line up to this way of thinking, but it's a common thought. Politicians also play the game to stay on the good side of public view. Remember when Bush announced the end of the war? He couldn't have celebrated the end if it didn't start to begin with. And our red blooded society wanted someone to pay.

    So what should we do about it? Vote for Bernie? ;)
     
  6. Sidney Vianna

    Sidney Vianna Well-Known Member

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    Channeling trillions of dollars of tax payer money to purchase weapons systems certainly improves the pockets of the whole military industrial complex supply chain, doesn't it?
     
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  7. BradM

    BradM Moderator Staff Member

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    Good morning everybody!

    As the Quality Forum is still fairly new and growing, there are some areas that have not been addressed yet. As we saw a topic that would fit the "controversial" topic arena, the moderators began discussion. After all, this is primarily a quality/business-related forum.

    So if there are such discussions to exist, there should be some agreed-upon ground rules. Let's face it... political and/ or religious discussions can get heated fairly quickly. So the sticky thread was created so that everyone is aware to always be nice in these threads (don't make posts personal), and not start flame wars. Rather... please use the report button if you think things are getting out of hand. Many of the points in the forum guidelines post may seen intuitive/obvious; but it's still a good idea to have things spelled.

    Please take the time to familiarize yourself with the new forum guidelines. Contact a moderator should you have any questions.

    Coffee Break and Community Discussion Forum-Guidelines

    This current thread has not broken any rules, per se. But we did want to get ground rules in place before things could potentially get out of hand.

    That said, feel free to continue discussion on the subject. :)
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2016
    drgnrider, RoxaneB, Nikki and 2 others like this.
  8. rlewing

    rlewing Member

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    The weapon mfgs are not the only ones getting benefits from conflicts. It is a long known fact that rulers of countries who have problems managing domestic issues have created and continue to create foreign threats to channel the unrest of people. Many such ongoing in the world even now. (In order to respect BradM's guidance I don't name any.)
     
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  9. MarkMeer

    MarkMeer Well-Known Member

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    I think we're in agreement regarding inciting foreign conflicts. I'm simply contesting your statement that it benefits the economy. While it may benefit a specific section (companies manufacturing & selling arms), overall it is a net loss to the economy. Nothing of value is created (technological innovations notwithstanding), and is hugely over budgeted, resulting in the need to deficit spend, print money, or raise taxes.

    The proposed solution of simply "stopping the practice of inciting war and conflicts" is not really addressing the root-cause of government-corporation collusion. How do you propose to stop this incitement? Through voting? In my opinion, as long as the military-industrial complex has the means to influence government foreign policy, electing a new government on a platform of "we're going to stop inciting foreign conflict" is futile, as none of the means or incentives for collusion have been addressed.

    Thanks BradM. I appreciate your concerns from a moderator's perspective. To clarify my position, I find such topics relevant, as they deal with broader concepts of economics, incentives, and supply & demand. While these may not be related to quality directly, they are certainly indirectly relevant to business in general.

    There is tremendous value (IMHO) to discussing economics, the role of government, and government-corporation relationships, as these are topics that affect us all. These are the concepts from which the regulatory systems that we deal with are born from, and I think it's important to have a frank and open discussion of such topics.
     
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  10. Ronen E

    Ronen E Well-Known Member

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    For a very interesting view about the true nature of war I recommend reading 1984 by George Orwell.
     
  11. MarkMeer

    MarkMeer Well-Known Member

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    I think this is the second time in these forums we've brought up 1984. ...Orwell never ceases to be relevant! ;)

    Curious though: To what extent do you think such machinations are conscious and intentional? In other words, do you think people consciously conspire to create perpetual war as a means of control and political leverage? ...or are people's actions more reflective of an underlying flawed system with misplaced incentives - allowing politicians to make poor decisions whilst actually having good intentions?
     
  12. Ronen E

    Ronen E Well-Known Member

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    I think today nobody gets real power unless they ultimately seek power. The days of getting by on good intentions and competence are gone.
     
  13. BradM

    BradM Moderator Staff Member

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    I certainly can't speak for all the moderators. But I personally appreciate your understanding. There were a few moderators that expressed concern when this thread appeared, and I volunteered to write something up. ;)

    The concern was not that any rules were being broken per se, but it was that.. no one could say rules were broken because there were no rules. Anyone who's discussed controversial topics on Facebook and Twitter, quickly come to realize that such discussions can bring out the nastiness in some people; and they can get personally offensive. Again, I'm not saying anyone was doing that, but we felt we needed to get something in place where when something/ someone was moderated, they didn't feel they were being picked on.

    I don't know that there is disagreement with your thought here, and for the interim, Atul (the site owner) will allow such threads; as long as they don't get out of hand.

    So as long as everyone doesn't engaged in personal attacks and keeps it reasonably civil, there shouldn't be an issue with proposing such topics.
     
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  14. MarkMeer

    MarkMeer Well-Known Member

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    :D Nobody said anything about competence...that ship has certainly sailed!

    As a matter of fact, I think it is the combination of good-intentions and INcompetence that maintains status quo, and is ultimately problematic.

    There are probably a small minority of sociopaths in power, who act purely for personal gain whilst having full knowledge of how detrimental their policies are...but I'm inherently skeptical of the claim that such people are the primary driving force behind perpetual bad policy. In my view, the influence of such people is dwarfed by simple inertia, and preponderance of incompetent/dogmatic (but well-intentioned) decision makers.
     
  15. Ronen E

    Ronen E Well-Known Member

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    Everybody is entitled to their own opinions...

    Today even good intentions AND incompetence are not enough for getting to the top.