Republicans Discover Evidence of Jobs Crisis

The SPIDERLEGS Conundrum ^ | February 6, 2014 | Ezra Klein

[Praxeologue]

There are huge (eye popping) taxes from insurance companies to uncle sam

That's what I noticed as well. I had thought that the government was going to need to bail out the insurance companies. This is the first I have heard of the likelihood that the insurance companies will be paying significant amounts TO the government, if Klein is telling the truth, that is.

[Praxeologue]

Here's the sentence on the payments:

It (the CBO) found that the risk corridors designed to safeguard insurance companies from the effects of acquiring too many high-risk customers -- which Republicans have been calling an “insurer bailout” -- will actually yield $8 billion in net payments from insurers to the federal government.

[GeronL]

bad numbers in, bad numbers out

[jamaksin]

FYI - “Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels” from Beard (circa 1938) predicts such. [Very short text available online].

[jamaksin]

Perhaps a better question: Why did Japan and Germany act in that manner?

[kabar]

Perhaps a better question: Why did Japan and Germany act in that manner?

Are you suggesting that the US deserved to be attacked by Japan or that Germany was justified in declaring war against the US? This is the Howard Zinn version of history. America is always the villain.

[jjotto]

...Howard Zinn version of history...

And Pat Buchanan's and a few FReeper's.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

America needs American jobs.

Jobs.

We need jobs.

[jamaksin]

Do you recall, in each case, just what was happening months prior to the Pearl Harbor attack?

For example, was there an "undeclared war" in the Atlantic, being mindful that the US was a neutral country.

[kabar]

Do you recall, in each case, just what was happening months prior to the Pearl Harbor attack?

Let's try years before.

1928 August 27, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United States sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact: no aggressive war.

1930 May, Japanese Prime Minister Inukai is murdered by military officers.

1931 September, Japan's rapidly expanding industrial economy required vast imports of raw materials as well as large markets for its finished export goods. The most obvious source of imports and outlet for exports was neighboring China, the world's most populous country.

Japanese forces occupy Manchuria (a very rich piece of land from self-righteous China with pit-coal, iron, copper, lead and gold.) and called it Manchukuo as an independent state, with their President Poe Yi.

1931 September 18, Units of the Japanese Kwantung Army attack the Chinese 7th Brigade at its barracks near Mukden. Japan sought to justify its actions by claiming that a section of the South Manchurian Railway had been sabotaged by the Chinese. In fact, Japanese officials in Tokyo and Manchuria contrived the incident; their objective was to acquire the region's natural resources and obtain strategic position against the Soviet Union. In an effort to have plausible deniability, the Japanese government widely used the term "Kwantung Army" to refer to forces it claimed it couldn't control. In fact, the military's control was always firm.

1933, Japan leaves the League of Nations and moves against Manchuria.

1934 December, The Japanese stopped adhering to the Washington Naval Treaty.

1937 December, Japanese forces capture Nanking, China.

1938 June, Chinese forces breach the dikes along the Yellow River to slow the Japanese advancing forces. Over 1,000,000 Chinese peasants die in the floods and fighting.

1938 November, Japan proclaims a "New Order in East Asia", with Japan as the lead nation.

February 1939, Japanese troops occupy Hainan Island.

27 September 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact in Berlin. Aim is to discourage the United States for a more active involvement in the war.

13 April 1941, Japan and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact.

24 July, 1941 The Japanese occupy French Indo-China with the consent of the Vichy French Government.

26 July 1941, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders all Japanese assets frozen. He also orders the suspension of all trade with Japan and lays an embargo on oil.

1 August 1941, USA puts complete oil embargo on Japan.

6 August 1941, American and British governments warn Japan not to invade Siam (Thailand).

18 September 1941,Japanese Commander orders preparations for action in the Pacific.

18 November 1941, The Japanese submarine fleet becomes active, a force of eleven boats moving into the Hawaii and other Pacific areas.

7 December 1941, Japanese aircraft launch a surprise attack on American naval forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Imperial Government of Japan declares war on Britain, Canada, Australia and the United States. Losses - United States: 8 American battleships, 3 Cruisers and 3 Destroyers destroyed; 2344 killed, 876 wounded, 966 missing.

8 December 1941, The United States declares war on Japan, US finds itself at war with both Japan and Germany. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill informs the British parliament that Britain is at war with Japan.

8 December 1941, Japanese troops invade The Philippines and Malaya, attack Hong Kong, bomb Guam.

If you are under the belief that what happened a few months before December 7 is what triggered the Japanese attack against the US, you don't know history. Japan was an imperial power that wanted to control all of Asia. The invasion and occupation of Manchuria in 1931 set off a chain of events. The US was slow in responding to the threat.

For example, was there an "undeclared war" in the Atlantic, being mindful that the US was a neutral country.

There is no doubt the US was supporting the UK and its allies against the Nazis. There was a strong isolationist movement in the US that did not want to get involved in another European war. FDR provided assistance to the UK in various guises like the Lend Lease Act of 1941.

You cannot ignore what was happening in Europe prior to and after the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. On March 15, 1939, German troops occupied Czechoslovakia. In April 1939 the Italians invaded Albania.

On September 3, 1939, Great Britain and France, followed by India, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, declared war on Germany. The next two years saw the Germans invading countries in Europe and North Africa.

So what is your point? The US should not have helped the allies against Hitler? Why did the Germans wait until December 11, 1941 to declare war against the US? We should have gotten involved earlier or at least made preparations for war. On September 16, 1940 FDR did sign the first peacetime draft in our history.

Any suggestion that the US could have a avoided a war with Japan or Germany is nonsense. It would have happened eventually since our strategic national interests were at stake. Tojo and Hitler had their own world vision, which was at odds with ours and free people everywhere. The death and destruction meted out by the Japanese and Germans were obscene. The Rape of Nanking and the Nazi concentration camps were just examples of the kind of regimes we were dealing with.

[jamaksin]

So, by your lights the US just had to get into WWII - save the Brits (again) and humankind to boot. Where is that written? What mount did that decent from?

Means to meet those ends - we need jobs - jobs - jobs.

Oh, who are the allied?

Under, exactly, what treaty has this US obligation been established and ratified by the US Senate? Ain't none such - go fish!

[kabar]

So, by your lights the US just had to get into WWII - save the Brits (again) and humankind to boot. Where is that written? What mount did that decent from?

Are you nuts? Adolph Hitler was a threat to America. The Germans declared war on us. The Nazis were bent on world domination. I have visited the former concentration camp at Dachau. We were fighting for our own national survival.

Under, exactly, what treaty has this US obligation been established and ratified by the US Senate? Ain't none such - go fish!

Our obligation is to protect and defend our strategic national interests around the globe. It is one of the main functions of government under our Constitution.

[dfwgator]

Are you nuts? Adolph Hitler was a threat to America. The Germans declared war on us. The Nazis were bent on world domination.

Even if Germany didn't declare war on us, the fact that Japan also declared war on Britain, now allowed us without any restraint to aid Britain as they were also fighting the Japanese along with us.....So inevitably the Germans were going to attack our ships aiding Britain and that would have given us the Casus Belli to declare War on Germany......It was inevitable either way.

[jamaksin]

Where, specifically, was said threat to the US?

Was the dust up in the Atlantic, particularly the US Navy operations (aka acts of war), unconstitutional?

Where, exactly, in the Constitution of the United States of America, is the provision allowing the Nation to be the policeman "around the globe" as you have it?

You might want to check that.

[kabar]

Where, specifically, was said threat to the US?

Prior to declaring war on the US on December 11, 1941 the Nazis had taken over most of Europe and North Africa. Leaving aside the despicable conduct of the Nazis and the human toll of their war machine, we had strategic national interests in Europe related to trade and economic interests. Does anyone think that the Nazis would have stopped at Europe? Or that their ongoing work on nuclear weapons and rocket technology would not pose a threat to this country? And then there are the human concerns and our belief in freedom and liberty. The horrors of the Holocaust and the murdering of hundreds of thousands of innocents should not be tolerated or excused.

The Japanese expansion in Asia culminating in an attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the invasion of the Philippines, a US territory at the time, on December 8, 1941 ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, were clear dangers to US interests.

If you don't believe that Fascism and Japanese imperialism posed no threat to this country, then you have no understanding of history and what was at stake in WWII. I assume you would also not support the stationing of over 500,000 Americans in Europe after WWII to protect our interests there or the formation of NATO to counter the spread of communism. Did you support the containment of the Soviet Union, which eventually led to its fall?

Was the dust up in the Atlantic, particularly the US Navy operations (aka acts of war), unconstitutional?

Congress approved of these actions including Lend-Lease. It also approved of the first peacetime draft in our history in 1940. Only a fool couldn't see the coming of war.

Where, exactly, in the Constitution of the United States of America, is the provision allowing the Nation to be the policeman "around the globe" as you have it?

I call it protecting our national interests, which is in the Constitution. Policeman of the world is your characterization.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article I Section. 8.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

Article. II. Section. 2.

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

[jamaksin]

Europe is Europe. Their issues after Versaille were their problem, not that of the United States.

The Philippines were under consideration for statehood, planned for 1946. FDR tells Richardson that even if an attack there happens the US would not go to war.

National interests are enacted via treaties - find any yet.

Policeman of the war is Churchill - please give credit where is it due.

Do look into the timing of some things - what was Goddard doing and when? When was the pile built at the University of Chicago? ...

Also research at law "anticipatory breach of contract" as an analogue - and then suggest again - what threat - immediate or myth.

So, not even a pause about an unconstitutional war in the Atlantic - selective integrity? You might read the Germany Declaration of War for the reasons given.

[kabar]

Europe is Europe. Their issues after Versaille were their problem, not that of the United States.<

Europe taken together had the biggest economy in the world. It mattered. Their issues became our issues because we had to deal with the results. So did the rest of the globe.

The Philippines were under consideration for statehood, planned for 1946. FDR tells Richardson that even if an attack there happens the US would not go to war.

We went to war because we were attacked at Pearl Harbor ten hours before Japan invaded the Philippines. I guess that was just a coincidence.

National interests are enacted via treaties - find any yet.

LOL. I have no idea what you mean. To cite von Clausewitz, "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means." There were plenty of treaties in the 1920s and 1930s trying to avoid war, e.g., the Washington Naval Treaty, The Kellogg-Briand Pact, various non-aggression pacts, etc. The US passed Neutrality Acts in 1935,1937, and 1939 in a vain effort to stay out of war.

Policeman of the war is Churchill - please give credit where is it due.

In never heard that Churchill called the US the "Policeman of the war." "The Four Policemen" was a term coined by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to refer to four major Allies of World War II and founders of the United Nations (UN): the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China.

So, not even a pause about an unconstitutional war in the Atlantic - selective integrity? You might read the Germany Declaration of War for the reasons given.

I wonder what reasons were given for the German Declaration of War against Poland and the many other countries it invaded. How anyone can give credence to someone like Hitler is beyond me. Do you also agree with the Nazi rationale for the concentration camps?

[jamaksin]

Pity.

[kabar]

Get better informed.