Ugh. All true, and certainly not toe-tapping-yay-rah-rah points made Mike… but true none the less. I am an eternal optimist though, and know despite all these major events, there are still reasons to get up. Some of them for me? Getting married in November. New Books on Wednesday. My still-employed status. Leaving comments for you, Tatiana, and the MOTU… and of course… corned beef on a kaiser roll.

It may not be much, but it’s enough to put a smile on my face, no matter the times and hardships we’re soon to face.

Chin up Mike. The world may go to hell in a hand basket, but at least we’ve seen it through some good times as well.

“Thus begins World War III.”

The words that left my mouth upon the announcement of the invasion of Iraq.

Mike!!

Of course it’s going to be WW 3!!

We have a black president!! Don’t you watch movies? Every single movie where there was a black president the world was faced with impending doom!

I know what you all are thinking-you are thinking about that Chris Rock movie that came out a few years ago, You are thinking there was no impending doom.

Yes.Yes there was.

If you saw that movie you wold have FELT the impending doom!

I felt the impending doom when I accidently saw B.A.P.S.

I love the film Idiocracy!

Does that mean we can all procure Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jerry Stiller’s signature at the next meeting Mike?

Mike Gold wrote: “To grossly oversimplify, Japan didn’t invade the United States back in 1941 because they are evil people who loathed our way of life, they invaded because we cut them off from imports they considered vital.”

Well, most non-Japanese Asians, especially the Chinese, would argue vehemently with you that the Japanese Empire prior to Pearl Harbor was, indeed, populated by an evil people.

And I understand that you qualified your statement, but still… the brutality of the militaristic Japanese society during that era cannot be understated.

I cannot imagine, say, Australia or Brazil of 1941 reacting the way the Japanese did if we had embargoed THEIR oil.

When we cut off Japanese oil and rubber imports because of their appalling attacks on China and other Asian nations, we, in effect, poked a stick at a vicious wild animal. That it turned around and bit us should not have been a surprise to Roosevelt, our military, or anyone else.

Many Islamic people think the US is “populated by an evil people.” The brutality done to the ‘detainees’ at Guantanamo cannot be understated.

Alan, if you honestly believe the treatment received by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is comparable to the treatment non-Japanese Asian people received at the hands of the Japanese military during WW II, than you are are woefully uninformed.

There is no comparison between the two.

As a matter of fact, I think it’s perfectly accurate to say that in most Arab countries, the prisoners in normal jails are often far worse off than the prisoners in GITMO — which is one of the reasons there was such a bruhaha about renditions (which, by the way, Obama has OK’d the continuation of). Few Arabs in U.S. custody want to be spirited off to their home countries where they know there are no restrictions about treatment and no limits regarding techniques of persuasion.

Contrary to popular opinion, there is a difference between “nationalization” and “making the companies that accept government money have to accept some oversight from the government”. If you didn’t want the oversight, you should have tried a little harder to be profitable. I’ve said all along, getting the government involved in your industry is the LAST thing you want. Now you got it - congratulations.

Similarly, there is a difference between oversight and some of the good old class envy that some people are trying to force on the companies in question. Limiting the salaries of the CEOs and executives “feels” like a great idea. But the problem comes up when they’re trying to hire a new CEO, and nobody wants to do the job for what they’re allowed to pay. So they don’t get a guy who can fix things. So nothing gets fixed.

AFAIC, if your company is profitable, you can pay your people as much as you like and give them as many gifts as you like. If you’re suffering, not so much. But there’s still that balance that has to be reached where the salaries will attract the quality of people you need.

And don’t think that a lot of companies aren’t using the announced crisis as an excuse. Sirius/XM was almost looking forward to declaring bankruptcy so they could cancel the half a billion-dollar contract with Howard Stern, and get out of the short-sighted decision they made back when everyone was convinced that every single invention and trend would be a screaming hit.

We’re getting another one of those pendulum situations here - we went from so much deregulation that things got out of control to now we’ll soon have SO much regulation it’ll be very hard for a company to prosper and grow. We rarely, if ever, figure out the proper balance.

Government involvement in business should always be on the table as a threat, like nuclear weapons. To keep people in line, you rattle the chains a bit, hold the odd quorum and generally make sure the companies “feel” that they are being watched.

American industry stopped using American steel because other countries’ steel industries were able to come up with cheaper business models and deliver better prices. American steel companies couldn’t or wouldn’t respond. The result - Bethlehem, Pensylvania (from where I type this)’s primary manufacturing export went from the steel girder to the Marshmallow Peep. And the legendary Bethlehem Steel plant, which literally made the steel that built most of America is becoming a casino. You can project that same pattern on almost every industry. American car companies are DECADES behind their foreign campetitors in manufacturing, technology, and damn near everything else. All because they thought “Buy American” would be enough.

Right now we’re also seeing that pendulum swing in the Isolationist area as well. And that too will come back and bite us. If we stopped importing things tomorrow, we wouldn’t be able to ramp up our own manufacturing systems for a couple years. Many products would become outrageously expensive, if they were available at all. Again, the key is to find the balance - Some things need to ba made here, tings we can sell to other countries, so we can employ people, so they can have the money to buy the stuff we do import.

It sounds easy; I’m well aware it’s not. But I’m fairly certain the solution is not “give money to big companies”. The solution, to me, seems to be much more reliant on getting money into PEOPLE’S hands (or make it possible to keep the money they have) so they will SPEND the money, and THAT’S how it will end up in the big companies’ hands. Alas, the problem now is people have been properly educated by the media that we’ve *this close* to the brink that if they DID get money, they wouldn’t spend it, they’d hoard it for the proverbial rainy day. In short, people being responsible and frugal is the LAST thing we need right now.

Yes, you’re lucky to be living in the End Times…

“What’s amazing is how they thrived as a society after their defeat. There’s a lesson there. A couple of them.”

1) Japan is a far smaller nation than America. It’s not so heavy it can barely move.

2) Japan was not allowed to have a standing military after WWII, save only for a token force with largely useless weapons in case of giant monster attack. As a result, Japan was freed from devoting a major part of its economy to its military. This opened up massive funds for rebuilding and investment in technology.

3) Japan has a far more unified mindset than America, partially due to its culture and partly due to its size, as mentioned before. The “Gung-Ho” (actually an americanized Chinese phrase, but often attributed to japan) attitude allowed people to “work together” for the betterment of the country.

We once had that mindset, the idea that doing things for the good of the country was a positive thing. It’s the type of thinking that allowed us to wind WWII in the first place - the willingness to accept rationing, to enter military service, and generally work under the assumption that the goverment is trying to do the right thing for us. That mindset is beyond passe in this country, it’s positively mocked.

Japan, as a culture, is remarkably conservative. The mindset was “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down”. It’s only very recently have more liberal voices found a foothold there. And ironically, it’s as those dissenting voices are being heard that japan’s progress and success are suffering. Connection? Rush Limbaugh jokingly says that the best way to slow down competing nations was to export Liberals to them.

4) The Japanese government heavily subsidizes industry, allowing them to offer theit products at a massive loss to America, essentially buying out its competitors.

I’m not sure if those are the lessons you were referring to, but they’re interesting nevertheless.