Anti-Americanism in France

[Rex Kickass]

It's funny cause its true.

 

Part of why I like Germany better, the soap.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

You know why France grew trees on the side of the roads?

 

To give advancing German soldiers shade the next time around.

LOL!

 

I read once where the governor of Colorado said that one during a speech to a big convention. He got quite a bit of heat in the press for it but it was still funny as hell.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

"I'd rather have 10,000 German soldiers in front of me than 1 French soldier behind me."----- George Patton

 

f*** France. I've boycotted those cocksuckers ever since 09/11 and knew they served no real purpose other than being a country on a map that myself, Maury, NUKE, and Guido could over take over if we ever pooled our money together to buy plane tickets for the 4 of us to go to the land of surrender and frog/snail consumption.

 

I hope Belgium or Denmark invade France sometime real soon.

Hey, just to make it fair we should get blasted on the flight over then have both arms tied behind our backs.

[YASNY]

American tourists are everywhere.

 

And this is an honest question--the people that dislike France so strongly now: would they have gone to France before 9/11? Somehow I doubt it.

 

And to be honest, with the Euro kicking as much ass as it is--I think the French aren't very concerned about the Almighty Dollar.

I'll answer your question. Not this guy. I've long felt that France has held the US and Americans generally in contempt. They have long resented the fact that the English speaking peoples of the world are the leaders of the free world. I've never had a desire to go to France since they've always looked down their collective noses at us as "ugly Americans". Germany, Italy, Ireland and England are all places I'd love to go, but again, f*** France.

 

That being said, I never considered boycotting their products before 9/11 and the UN Iraq BS. That, however, has changed.

[KipWellsFan]

I'll answer your question.  Not this guy.  I've long felt that France has held the US and Americans generally in contempt.  They have long resented the fact that the English speaking peoples of the world are the leaders of the free world.  I've never had a desire to go to France since they've always looked down their collective noses at us as "ugly Americans".  Germany, Italy, Ireland and England are all places I'd love to go, but again, f*** France. 

 

That being said, I never considered boycotting their products before 9/11 and the UN Iraq BS.  That, however, has changed.

Many of you come across as prejudice when you clump all of French speaking people into one category. Not all French think alike.

[southsider2k5]

Many of you come across as prejudice when you clump all of French speaking people into one category.  Not all French think alike.

So the French looking down their noses at American's is any different

[YASNY]

Many of you come across as prejudice when you clump all of French speaking people into one category.  Not all French think alike.

If it comes across as prejudiced, then so be it. As a rule, they have effectively spit on Americans. There are exceptions to the rule, of course. But, the next time some foreign army marches on Paris, they can kiss my American ass before one US serviceman sets foot on French soil.

[KipWellsFan]

So the French looking down their noses at American's is any different

Not sure what you mean southsider.

[southsider2k5]

Not sure what you mean southsider.

The article had a whole history of leading French pundits, politicians, and writers looking down on Americans as a whole. I don't see what YAS said as any different than what was written about.

[KipWellsFan]

If it comes across as prejudiced, then so be it.  As a rule, they have effectively spit on Americans.  There are exceptions to the rule, of course.  But, the next time some foreign army marches on Paris, they can kiss my American ass before one US serviceman sets foot on French soil.

Well I'm not an expert on France, so I really can't say whether or not 99% of French look down upon Americans.

 

---

 

And what world are you living in when you think France might be invaded again? Is Russia going to turn communist again and try to expand westward?

[KipWellsFan]

The article had a whole history of leading French pundits, politicians, and writers looking down on Americans as a whole.  I don't see what YAS said as any different than what was written about.

Still not quite sure what you're getting at. Maybe you mean the article just points out how both countries are prejudice towards each other, and if so then I agree.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

I saw this cartoon and laughed.

 

 

Kinda off topic but figure I'd share it in the thread since so many people are outraged at the corruption of Annan, but not the other corruption noted.

 

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=191c7b9599f51f92

Discusses the downfall of the dollar and how it is a danger to the US.

[Texsox]

I saw this cartoon and laughed.

 

 

Kinda off topic but figure I'd share it in the thread since so many people are outraged at the corruption of Annan, but not the other corruption noted.

 

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=191c7b9599f51f92

Discusses the downfall of the dollar and how it is a danger to the US.

As the contract was written, there wasn't another company in the world that could compete. Now if they split that bid package into specific areas, they could have found a group of companies to each compete in their specific areas.

 

I am not surprised that the White House favored Halliburton for this work. If they thought Haliburton sucked, then they are really stupid for picking the CEO for V.P. Therefor, if they respect the work he did as evident by Halliburton, they should have felt comfortable awarding them the contract.

 

Plus, they are a Texas company Haliburton and NASA; Bush, Chaney, and De Lay, getting it done for the Lone Star State And all this border security is awesome as well. Lots of spending on the Texas border.

[KipWellsFan]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=191c7b9599f51f92

Discusses the downfall of the dollar and how it is a danger to the US.

Thanks for the link. Interesting stuff.

[YASNY]

Well I'm not an expert on France, so I really can't say whether or not 99% of French look down upon Americans.

 

---

 

And what world are you living in when you think France might be invaded again?  Is Russia going to turn communist again and try to expand westward?

Considering it has happened numerous times throughout history, I don't consider it such a longshot. The French miltary does not exactly strike fear in the hearts of generals throughout the world.

 

The world I live in is one that you never know what tomorrow may bring. We may wake up to an invading army coming in from the Gulf coast, Mexico, whatever. The world you live in, where you think things are going to go along without abrupt changes and shocking events, well that should have become a thing of the past on September 11, 2001. But, apparently not.

[southsider2k5]

I saw this cartoon and laughed.

 

 

Kinda off topic but figure I'd share it in the thread since so many people are outraged at the corruption of Annan, but not the other corruption noted.

 

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=191c7b9599f51f92

Discusses the downfall of the dollar and how it is a danger to the US.

Interesting except it is complete garbage.

 

Why are economists avoiding the obvious? The US government wants a weaker dollar to save American jobs and exports. The US keeps getting unduely screwed by the WTO. The US isn't allowed to protect its markets from activities that would get US companies drug into antitrust courts. Forgien governments subsidize things like steel, which allows them to sell below cost, yet the WTO rules against the US for protecting their industries. The WTO keeps ruling against the US in these type of suits, which means the US has to protect its economy in another way. What they are doing now is devaluing the dollar in order to bring the unfair cost of exports into a reasonable level. How well is this strategy serving America? Right now many of our key industries are beginning to recover from their unfair attacks.

 

Once again using the example of steel, huge consolidation and many bankruptcies took place within this industry. Many people lost a lifetime worth of work and pensions, all because of these predatory practices. But the WTO deemed this as immaterial in reference to the protective tariffs that the US tried to use to save American jobs and industry. Now the US has moved the dollar in an amount relative to the tariffs that they wanted in the first place. Now all of the worlds imports an subject to what amounts to an artificial tariff on anything that they import to the US. They either have to drop their prices in their home currency to a respective level to match the fall in the dollar, guarenteeing a lose in revenue- or leave their prices the same, and have less people in the US buy their goods because they are now that much more expensive than their relative US competition.

 

The whole song and dance about savings rates, and debt spending is also misleading. If you look at exchange rates for a currency like the Yen that has been around, and also at debt levels in relation to GDP, and you will see that the mid 80's saw much higher debt%'s and much higher values in what the Yen was based at vs the dollar. The whole idea that we owe more money so the dollar is collapsing is ludacris. The writer seems to forget that the whole economy is much, much larger than it was at his reference points. If you have more money, you can spend more money, seems to be a basic lesson to me. Once again, the percentage of the debt vs GDP is lower now than in the mid 80's, yet the dollar held strong against the yen, which was then considered to be the dollars main rival. The dollar didn't devalue against the Yen until the late 80's, which happened debt/GDP% was crashing. Kinda puts someholes in the authors theory IMO.

 

The other thing that the author seems to forget was the ending of the gold standard in the 70's, and the oil shock that was going on. When the gold standard ended it meant that the dollar had no guaranteed value anymore. Prior to the 70's the dollar could be traded for a dollars worth of silver and gold, which was guaranteed to be on hand, by the US mint. When the gold standard ended, it was siezed upon by conspiritalists, who figured that this meant the dollar would collapse vs the rest of the world, because now its only value is what relative to what confidence people have in the dollar.

 

And as for the stagflation of the 70's people were also dumping the dollar because oil prices had just murdered the American economy. Fuel charges went up 10 fold at the pump over the course of of a few years. Prices exploded, while the economy tumbled. Stocks collapsed at the sametime. The American economy was way overvalued because of this stuff, and the dollar collapsed because of it. It had nothing to do with how many dollars were in circulation, that's just ridiculous.

 

And as for the Chinese, that is ridiculous as well. Long ago the Chinese pegged their Yuan to the value of the dollar, and took whatever artificial means it needed to support those levels. For a decade at least the Yuan has been extremely overvalued, that has been well reported. About a year ago, the US government asked the Chinese to remove the peg, and let the Yuan float, like all of the rest of the worlds major economics powers let their currencies float. The Chinese refused. Now that they American dollar has been artificially pushed down again, the Chinese are forced to take action in order to maintain the value of their own currency, because of its artificial valuations. The Chinese are subscribing to an opposite theory trying to maintain a strong Yuan, as they have been, as they have locked out forgein competition, so they have no consequenses for having an artificially strong Yuan.

 

This guy really needs to go back and review his history a little bit in relation to his macro classes.

[Texsox]

Just remember with tarrifs there are winners and losers. We may have saved a few steel producer jobs, but the companies that use the steel are screwed. Those companies all of a sudden saw huge increases in the cost of their raw materials and began losing finished good orders to overseas companies.

 

There are no easy solutions. There are consequences to our actions. Just slapping tarrifs on steal causes problems for other people.

[southsider2k5]

Just remember with tarrifs there are winners and losers. We may have saved a few steel producer jobs, but the companies that use the steel are screwed. Those companies all of a sudden saw huge increases in the cost of their raw materials and began losing finished good orders to overseas companies.

 

There are no easy solutions. There are consequences to our actions. Just slapping tarrifs on steal causes problems for other people.

No doubt. But the WTO allowed the governments of forgein industry to singlehandedly destroy and Amercian industry. That is supposed to be something that the WTO prevents. That is the whole reason for their exsistance.

 

Yet they refused to penalize governments for illegal subsidies, and refused to allow the American's to protect themselves from the undue competition. And that is the issue. Multiplier affects on other industries are immaterial to the WTO, and that was certianly proved by the WTO allowing these same governments to pick and choose the industries retributive tariffs were to be placed on, for strickly PR and punative reasons, in order to punish the US for protecting itself. They certianly didn't care about who lost their jobs then.

[Texsox]

No doubt.  But the WTO allowed the governments of forgein industry to singlehandedly destroy and Amercian industry.  That is supposed to be something that the WTO prevents.  That is the whole reason for their exsistance. 

 

Yet they refused to penalize governments for illegal subsidies, and refused to allow the American's to protect themselves from the undue competition.  And that is the issue.  Multiplier affects on other industries are immaterial to the WTO, and that was certianly proved by the WTO allowing these same governments to pick and choose the industries retributive tariffs were to be placed on, for strickly PR and punative reasons, in order to punish the US for protecting itself.  They certianly didn't care about who lost their jobs then.

Every world body wants a piece of the US. We're the rich guy on the block. And we're going into debt to help these people.

 

I was just pointing out that what is bad for one industry may be great for another. In this case there are more jobs using steel than producing it. We may save 100 steel producing jobs, but lose hundreds more in manufacturing products from the steel.

 

Take for instance electric motors. There is a lot of steel in electric motors. Using cheap steel, American motor manufacturers could compete with foreign made motors. With higher steel prices driving up the cost of their motors, they couldn't compete. So now you should tag a tariff on electric motors. Many industries use electric motors in their products. The white goods manufacturers especially use biggins in washing machines, refrigerators, etc. In fact it is a big part of the cost. To keep NAFTA countries competitive, you need to add a tariff on all finished goods where steel is a major component. Of course it is consumers who pay for all this in the end.

 

The whole point is that some government, to help their steel industry, unfairly subsidized steel prices. In effect they were paying for part of whatever American's bought that was made of steel. I consider that a thank you for us bailing the world out of every tragedy since WW2.

[southsider2k5]

Every world body wants a piece of the US. We're the rich guy on the block. And we're going into debt to help these people.

 

I was just pointing out that what is bad for one industry may be great for another. In this case there are more jobs using steel than producing it. We may save 100 steel producing jobs, but lose hundreds more in manufacturing products from the steel.

 

Take for instance electric motors. There is a lot of steel in electric motors. Using cheap steel, American motor manufacturers could compete with foreign made motors. With higher steel prices driving up the cost of their motors, they couldn't compete. So now you should tag a tariff on electric motors. Many industries use electric motors in their products. The white goods manufacturers especially use biggins in washing machines, refrigerators, etc. In fact it is a big part of the cost. To keep NAFTA countries competitive, you need to add a tariff on all finished goods where steel is a major component. Of course it is consumers who pay for all this in the end.

 

The whole point is that some government, to help their steel industry, unfairly subsidized steel prices. In effect they were paying for part of whatever American's bought that was made of steel. I consider that a thank you for us bailing the world out of every tragedy since WW2.

That is thanks? Putting the same American's out on the streets, who earlier fought in wars to protect their freedoms is thanks? I honestly believe Americans would rather pay a little higher prices for their Fords, vs working as a greeter at Wal-Mart and not being able to afford a new car at all.

 

I completely understand the costs of protectionism. But my point is, the WTO didn't seem to care about that when picking industries that would cause the most visable damage to American politicians and industries. Collateral damage had no influence when deciding what industries to subsidize for forgien governments. It was no part of the WTO decesion, or the ratialatory tariffs, so it is essentially irrelavent to the arguement here.

[KipWellsFan]

The world you live in, where you think things are going to go along without abrupt changes and shocking events, well that should have become a thing of the past on September 11, 2001.  But, apparently not.

Well I think you may have just discovered a fundamental difference in thinking between the two of us.

[Texsox]

That is thanks?  Putting the same American's out on the streets, who earlier fought in wars to protect their freedoms is thanks?  I honestly believe Americans would rather pay a little higher prices for their Fords, vs working as a greeter at Wal-Mart and not being able to afford a new car at all.

 

I completely understand the costs of protectionism.  But my point is, the WTO didn't seem to care about that when picking industries that would cause the most visable damage to American politicians and industries.  Collateral damage had no influence when deciding what industries to subsidize for forgien governments.  It was no part of the WTO decesion, or the ratialatory tariffs, so it is essentially irrelavent to the arguement here.

The thank you is paying for part of my washing machine, computer, car, stove, circuit breaker box, etc.

 

If you knew that raising steel prices would save 1,000 steel mill jobs but cost 4,000 secondary manufacturing jobs, would you add the tariff and save the steel mill jobs?

 

In my corner of the world, we have no steel mills but we have dozens and dozens of manufacturers who use steel. Rising steel prices are a major problem for people in my area. Many of these companies are on the edge of moving to China as it is. Rising steel prices cuts into the available labor dollars as well and could force these companies to look for cost savings. Guess what, China there they go.

 

I happen to agree with you on the end result, but a different course of action. The correct thing to do is eliminate all subsidies and let the market decide. We will probably lose some jobs overall, but if we are to trust in capitalism, it is the correct path. Sometimes there is a price to pay.

[Texsox]

The other thing that sucks in all this is the countries that are subsidizing the steel, if they fall on hard times, come running to the good ol USA for help. So their government stops the subsidies, their people lose jobs and are hungry, and we send them aid. :headshake

[YASNY]

Well I think you may have just discovered a fundamental difference in thinking between the two of us.

And as far as I'm concerned, we'll leave it at that.

[KipWellsFan]

Interesting except it is complete garbage.

 

Why are economists avoiding the obvious?  The US government wants a weaker dollar to save American jobs and exports.  The US keeps getting unduely screwed by the WTO.  The US isn't allowed to protect its markets from activities that would get US companies drug into antitrust courts.  Forgien governments subsidize things like steel, which allows them to sell below cost, yet the WTO rules against the US for protecting their industries.  The WTO keeps ruling against the US in these type of suits, which means the US has to protect its economy in another way.  What they are doing now is devaluing the dollar in order to bring the unfair cost of exports into a reasonable level.  How well is this strategy serving America?  Right now many of our key industries are beginning to recover from their unfair attacks. 

 

Once again using the example of steel, huge consolidation and many bankruptcies took place within this industry.  Many people lost a lifetime worth of work and pensions, all because of these predatory practices.  But the WTO deemed this as immaterial in reference to the protective tariffs that the US tried to use to save American jobs and industry.  Now the US has moved the dollar in an amount relative to the tariffs that they wanted in the first place.  Now all of the worlds imports an subject to what amounts to an artificial tariff on anything that they import to the US.  They either have to drop their prices in their home currency to a respective level to match the fall in the dollar, guarenteeing a lose in revenue- or leave their prices the same, and have less people in the US buy their goods because they are now that much more expensive than their relative US competition.

 

The whole song and dance about savings rates, and debt spending is also misleading.  If you look at exchange rates for a currency like the Yen that has been around, and also at debt levels in relation to GDP, and you will see that the mid 80's saw much higher debt%'s and much higher values in what the Yen was based at vs the dollar.  The whole idea that we owe more money so the dollar is collapsing is ludacris.  The writer seems to forget that the whole economy is much, much larger than it was at his reference points.  If you have more money, you can spend more money, seems to be a basic lesson to me.  Once again, the percentage of the debt vs GDP is lower now than in the mid 80's, yet the dollar held strong against the yen, which was then considered to be the dollars main rival.  The dollar didn't devalue against the Yen until the late 80's, which happened  debt/GDP% was crashing.  Kinda puts someholes in the authors theory IMO.

 

The other thing that the author seems to forget was the ending of the gold standard in the 70's, and the oil shock that was going on.  When the gold standard ended it meant that the dollar had no guaranteed value anymore.  Prior to the 70's the dollar could be traded for a dollars worth of silver and gold, which was guaranteed to be on hand, by the US mint.  When the gold standard ended, it was siezed upon by conspiritalists, who figured that this meant the dollar would collapse vs the rest of the world, because now its only value is what relative to what confidence people have in the dollar. 

 

And as for the stagflation of the 70's people were also dumping the dollar because oil prices had just murdered the American economy.  Fuel charges went up 10 fold at the pump over the course of of a few years.  Prices exploded, while the economy tumbled.  Stocks collapsed at the sametime.  The American economy was way overvalued because of this stuff, and the dollar collapsed because of it.  It had nothing to do with how many dollars were in circulation, that's just ridiculous.

 

And as for the Chinese, that is ridiculous as well.  Long ago the Chinese pegged their Yuan to the value of the dollar, and took whatever artificial means it needed to support those levels.  For a decade at least the Yuan has been extremely overvalued, that has been well reported.  About a year ago, the US government asked the Chinese to remove the peg, and let the Yuan float, like all of the rest of the worlds major economics powers let their currencies float.  The Chinese refused.  Now that they American dollar has been artificially pushed down again, the Chinese are forced to take action in order to maintain the value of their own currency, because of its artificial valuations.  The Chinese are subscribing to an opposite theory trying to maintain a strong Yuan, as they have been, as they have locked out forgein competition, so they have no consequenses for having an artificially strong Yuan.

 

This guy really needs to go back and review his history a little bit in relation to his macro classes.

Thanks for posting southsider, I wasn't really sure of the authenticity of that site. Then again I can't fully trust what you post either, its a lose lose situation.