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I'm not a Canadian, but afaik Canada just doesn't want the US?

Canada benefits from the existance of the U.S. because they know they can't be invaded. They enjoy all the benefits of our military with none of the cost, and then smugly make fun of our militarism and lack of health care.


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We just don't care though because they are just moose hunting, weed, and vancouver hookers and such frivolity to most United Statesians who bother to go there.

Guitardian wrote:Canada benefits from the existance of the U.S. because they know they can't be invaded. They enjoy all the benefits of our military with none of the cost, and then smugly make fun of our militarism and lack of health care.


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We just don't care though because they are just moose hunting, weed, and vancouver hookers and such frivolity to most United Statesians who bother to go there.

To be fair we are far more likely to make fun of the American preference for violence above sex. For religion above fun. And to be honest we wonder if the apparent nationwide celebration of military power isn't well, just compensating for, well you know, something (as stated earlier there really isn't more then one serious military threat to us and we just don't have the money to protect ourselves against the US)
Sale on for Vancouver hookers, buy one get two diseases for the price of one.

Guitardian wrote:Canada benefits from the existance of the U.S. because they know they can't be invaded. They enjoy all the benefits of our military with none of the cost, and then smugly make fun of our militarism and lack of health care.


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We just don't care though because they are just moose hunting, weed, and vancouver hookers and such frivolity to most United Statesians who bother to go there.

Yeah, I'd attribute Canada's safety from other nations to the United States... not like, y'know, geography or anything...

dogma wrote:

Tyras wrote:Don't get me started on NAFTA, what a boot to the junk that whole fiasco is.

So you want government control of trade? Shall we raise tariffs and whatnot?

I thought free trade was good. Let the market set prices I say!


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Tyras wrote:No I would not, first (and this is not to slight Canada or Mexico) the US would not gain all that much influence by incorporating the other North American Nations.

Incorporating both means reaching nearly a half-billion people. That's a lot of influence.

Tyras wrote:
I am much more of an advocate for fixing the problems in our Country that have made the cost of living so expensive, thus driving up wages and making companies look elsewhere due to the cost of doing business in the US. It was The United States industrial might that made us what we are today, and now most of that has been outsourced to various parts of the world.

Do you want to work on an assembly line?

To answer in order here,

I don't have a problem with tariffs. Our goods and services are taxed in other countries. China with the manipulation of their currency and tariffs has become an economic powerhouse.

The influence from a nation's populace was present in history because it could be directly linked to a given nations ability to use that population as an army. That influence declined as the technology of war advanced. Take note of China and India. Only after they changed their policies on how they dealt with the world's economic powers did they start seeing success.

You seem to look down on factory workers. Why? I lived next to a Ford factory for a while and those people that I knew who worked in the factory were happy, and proud of the work they did there. If I can maintain my standard of living (nothing extravagant), take care of my Daughter and have some left over for the saving account and some time to enjoy life I'm working for, then it doesn't really matter what job I have. So, I wouldn't mind working the line if it allowed me to to achieve the above.

How would I fix the problems? I don't have an answer at the ready for that. I just see problems in the theories presented here, the economic practices of the EU and the US and the crisis of debt happening in Greece, Spain and the policies of the past few administrations here in the US. I am sure people with much more education in economics could answer those questions. I would like my government to act more like citizens as individuals are expected to act. I don't have credit cards. Save for my car payment I am debt free. My monthly budget pays for everything and leaves money left over to go into savings for those things I can't afford in a given month. Simplistic, yes, but it's my opinion that the government has grown so large and convoluted that it's become little more than an engine for failure.

The difference between the Government or a business and a private individual is that the government or a business can use borrowed money to invest in productive "things" such as infrastructure, machinery, health, education, and so on.

There is very little a private individual can buy which actually helps them produce more and generate more income. Solar panels are one example.

Therefore borrowing does not make sense for private people but it can do for the government or business.

Tyras wrote:
To answer in order here,

I don't have a problem with tariffs. Our goods and services are taxed in other countries. China with the manipulation of their currency and tariffs has become an economic powerhouse.

The influence from a nation's populace was present in history because it could be directly linked to a given nations ability to use that population as an army. That influence declined as the technology of war advanced. Take note of China and India. Only after they changed their policies on how they dealt with the world's economic powers did they start seeing success.

Large populations are necessarily significant consumers. Look at the US when compared to Europe. The US has a far larger population than any European nation; leading directly to a more grossly powerful economy when considered in the context of nominal growth. This in turn allows the US to spend more, again in a gross sense, on military development than any other nation; which leads to major technical advantages. I don't think the influence of population has declined, merely changed.

Also, I think you're ignoring the extent to which governing a large number of people is essentially a license to influence those people. China would be considered influential no matter how successful they happened to be in international politics, because it would influence a billion people regardless.

Of course, there's also the issue of population size as a defense against invasion. One of the reasons Iran is so daunting is its sheer human mass.

Tyras wrote:
You seem to look down on factory workers. Why? I lived next to a Ford factory for a while and those people that I knew who worked in the factory were happy, and proud of the work they did there. If I can maintain my standard of living (nothing extravagant), take care of my Daughter and have some left over for the saving account and some time to enjoy life I'm working for, then it doesn't really matter what job I have. So, I wouldn't mind working the line if it allowed me to to achieve the above.

I don't look down on factory workers. The point I was trying to make is that the policies you advocate are those that, to my mind, most directly hinder our ability to produce industrial jobs by which individuals can support themselves. Tariffs drive up prices for everyone, and the people most hurt by that are those at the bottom of the earnings pyramid.

Its unfortunate that certain industries are dieing in the US, but the notion that we don't produce anything is false. We produce more goods for export than all but 2 nations (China and Germany).

Here's a lesson in economics: a bushell of carrots is worth a bushell of carrots no matter what country it comes from. Theoretically that cost could add the costs of transporting said bushell of carrots, at the cost of the actual shipping, and paying for the livelihood of the people who go to the time and trouble to make you able to buy one. Trade regulation just makes one countries carrots more valuable than the next.

Drugs are a commodity from Mexico and Canada because they are easily grown there because their governments just don't care that much. Yay... lets annex then for their drugs, since the carrots just aren't worth it.

Canada and the US are littermates, one just happens to be bigger (geographically). I think the US wouldn't really benefit from having Canada be in an economic pact like the EU.

Canada is a nice country, but it will always be an also ran to the US, not from lack of effort or incompetnence, I just don't see how they could squeeze any more blood from their economic stone. Mexico is a cluster feth of European empire meddling (Spain and France) and a lack of any kind of real goverment since the 1880's. It's all about who has the most politicians paid off, hired guns or Drugs. Not about the power of the people. They have a great amount of natural resources, but graft and instability keep Mexico from ascending anywhere.

The US is slowly dying from polices that have bled it dry since Teddy Roosevelt. (I could go into more detail but that is an entire thread for another time.) I really think the US is on a precipice, it could be restored with some semblance of economic sanity (and some serious governmental overhauls), or it could implode from runaway deficit spending. Most of what has been put into place by progressives over the last 110 years has doomed this country.

The Jobs report in may was a hollow one at best. Great, 331,000 temporary jobs that will last until August or September, then what? More people that need a job. The trickle of Private sector Jobs being created is at best a natural attrition rate (people retiring or getting fired), and is occuring in spite of anything the congress did. That "stimulus" is now a legal slush fund, not really aimed at anything specific and not accomplishing anything either. It's just a pile of money to throw at "problems", being thrown by people who think $100 million is a drop in the bucket.




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Henners91 wrote:I'm not a Canadian, but afaik Canada just doesn't want the US?

Do you like drawing ire or is it just natural to you?

Henners91 wrote:I'm not a Canadian, but afaik Canada just doesn't want the US?

Lol. true.. We are happy enough without guns in every house .

Stormrider wrote:Canada and the US are littermates, one just happens to be bigger (geographically). I think the US wouldn't really benefit from having Canada be in an economic pact like the EU.

NAFTA

Stormrider wrote:Mexico is a cluster feth of European empire meddling (Spain and France) and a lack of any kind of real goverment since the 1880's.

Remember the Alamo.

The Mexican-American War.

Stormrider wrote:

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Henners91 wrote:I'm not a Canadian, but afaik Canada just doesn't want the US?

Do you like drawing ire or is it just natural to you?

No he's just stating fact the same way you were.

Truth be told, most Canadians don't want the US. We don't want any sort of 'political union' that might require both nations to join together. There're a lot of different reasons for this, but the feeling itself is pretty mutual across the country.

Simply, No. I don't want mayo on my damn fries. Gross.

Pipboy101 wrote:Simply, No. I don't want mayo on my damn fries. Gross.

What the hell? Mayo on fries? I'm Canadian and I've never heard of this. It even sounds gross to me.

Unless you're thinking of Poutine, which isn't mayo, but rather mozarella cheese and gravy. Though your crap factory will still hate you for eating it.

You can wash it down with some bag-milk.

How is mayo and fries not delectable?! Belgian delicacy. Bag-milk we have over here, you can keep that.

sA

I kind of like mayo on fries for a change... but gravy on fries is even better, or steak sauce, or cheese fries, or curly fries.... America wins on the fries I think. They aren't 'french' anyway, they're from like, Idaho or somewhere like that. Damn french even trying to steal our fries! FREEEEDOM!

WHERE THE HELL DOES THE BAG MILK THING COME FROM!?

Seriously. I'm born, raised, and proudly Canadian, but I have -never once- seen milk in a bag. Powdered milk, yea, but that rubbish is in every grocer no matter what country you're from. Someone link me a picture of bagged milk so I can finally know what we're talking about

And Guitardian, 'french fries' refers to how they're cut - a technique called 'frenching'. Hence why you don't capitalize the 'f' in 'french'. Now then, where's one of those 'More You Know' stars...

Ding!

Supposedly, French fries were discovered when US troops entered Belgium in 1944.

Since the locals spoke French, the US troops assumed they were French, and called the new form of fried potatoes French fries.

That's one -assumed- story KK. Thing is, there were also places in the States that claimed to invent them prior to -and- after the end of WWI as well as post WWII. England and France have both claimed to have invented the french fry as well. Personally, I stick to the story of them being named such as that's the technique used to cut the potato when making fries from scratch due to the fact that the word 'french' in 'french fries' is (according to grammar nazis) not supposed to have a capital "f".

Bathroom Readers sure are full of useful facts

Well, the first chip-shop opened in the north of England in 1863...

Exactly. No one knows exactly what the origin of the french fry is. Hence why they're regarded as one of the world's 'mystery foods'. That' right. They have mystery. That alone makes them one of the coolest foods ever.

Are we talking about chips -- the fat British version of chipped potatoes -- or French fries, the very thin, crisp chips?

If it's chips, it is well known they were invented in WIltshire where they have the Devizes for Chippenham.

French fries are similar to traditional game chips eaten with partridge, etc.

Kilkrazy wrote:Are we talking about chips -- the fat British version of chipped potatoes -- or French fries, the very thin, crisp chips?

If it's chips, it is well known they were invented in WIltshire where they have the Devizes for Chippenham.

French fries are similar to traditional game chips eaten with partridge, etc.

I read that the first place to comercially sell them was a small shop in Oldham. Not sure when fries were first sold. That's how I'm measuring it - it seems easier than just trying to find out when people started making them at home, for obvious reasons. It's like trying to discover the first person to have a glass of water!


At least, it is to me. Chips are important. They are brain-food.

I thought it was burgers Canadians put mayo on... or did Bruce Willis lie to me?

Chips is a food which follows logically from previous culinary art.

Natto and cheese however are definitely foods which must have been discovered in circumstances of dire famine.

I can't imagine the discovery of cheese anything other than like this.

Pastoralist 1: I'm so hungry, I think I am going to faint.

Pastoralist 2: There's one jar of milk I have been saving but it could have gone off by now.

P1: Give it here.

SF: Pop.

P1: Eww! It's off. It's gone completely solid. Still, needs must when the devil drives, eh?

P2: Don't eat that, it's disgusting! You will be killed.

P1: I don't care, I would rather die quickly of poison than slowly of hunger.

SFX: Munch, munch, munch.

P1: This stuff is all right, actually! Give the port a fair breeze, there's a good chap.

The discovery of natto must have been the same, only in Japanese.

I think the Greeks invented cheese probably, all those mountains, all those goats, no farmland. Mmmmm feta...

The glass of water is most likely an Arabian invention, because they didn't allow beer like all the Euro countries.

Chips are, as far as I know of, any part of a potato that is chopped up and fried in grease. I would guess that would make them come from Greece too.


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I'm not sure if this is relevant... but it is funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_TfBbR6L0M&feature=related