While I find it entertaining and hilarious, this is simply horrible strawmanning. The US has one of the simplest systems of inclusion of any major nation. He either is not understanding, or he's simply being a demagogue about it.

It's really, really simple.

Want full rights? Then join permanently. Become a state. It's literally the exact same thing that Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii did.

Guam, the Marianas, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands have the EXACT SAME OPTIONS as those states listed above had when those states were territories.

Samoa is different because they don't meet the minimum population requirement (60K) to be bumped up to qualify for statehood.

They're pretty close tho.

But yeah... it has nothing to do with race or bigotry or anything like that. If John Oliver can't understand that simple system, then how does he explain the different rights of citizens in the British Overseas Territories vs the British Crown Dependencies, or how Wales and Scotland are sort of countries and sort of not countries.

I'm assuming he can understand the wonky UK system, and if that's so, he should easily understand the simple US system (want full rights, vote to join permanently).

Just last year, there was a movement in Guam to call for a vote of statehood. Basically a glorified (but meaningful) petition. They didn't get the required % of people wanting to vote, so, in essence, Guam doesn't even care enough to vote for statehood.

They have every right that every other territory has had in terms of what category they fall under.

Basically, just look at states as permanent (and thusly more rights as well as more responsibilities) and territories as temporary until they decide what they want to be. Or territories can stay in limbo forever.

Guam, PR, and the rest can go the route of Hawaii (okay, that was naked imperialism but whatever) or the route of Cuba and the Philippines... or just stay how they are.

@oritteropo

There is a long history of Latin American currency crises which I would refer you to as examples of disorderly collapse. That Tsipras would break most of his electoral promises in his recent 4 month extension agreement should tell you that he knows how catastrophic it would be. You can't quantitatively approximate these kinds of events but qualitatively* (TYPO) the following is likely to occur:

1) Bank run - You saw significant withdrawals even leading up to the meeting with the Troika because of the possibility funding will abruptly stop. A stop to euro lending will see mass outflows with the expectation of bank collapse which will itself likely lead to the collapse of multiple banking institutions.

2) Foreign flows of currencies will dry up - Greek bond yields will spike, in effect no one will lend to the Greek government from overseas. Since like any economy, Greece needs to pay its public sector workers and requires foreign capital for imports, to preserve what it has, it will rapidly convert back to using the Drachma which it can issue and print/create. It is likely the banks will follow in turn and convert deposits to Drachma (another reason why people will withdraw money from banks as soon as they think euro support is over).

3) Drachma collapse - The Drachma will then depreciate rapidly. Again, the expectation of depreciation pretty much causes the depreciation. If people expect their currency to be worth less in the future, they will sell it, causing it to be worth less. Any existing savings accounts remaining will be decimated in value. Wages will fall drastically for everyone. Suddenly the cost of anything that relies on imported products (hint, a lot in any economy, especially Greece) will rise several-fold. This will lead to further job cuts, collapse of industries, which will precipitate further job loss, unemployment, output loss etc etc etc.

The tl;dr version of this is that government funding crises whether caused by debt or currency collapse in the first instance are self reinforcing and the consequences of an unmanaged collapse are all but guaranteed to be much worse than austerity but order. There is some evidence that countries who have a massive collapse and see their currency depreciate are then about to recover faster afterwards (a cheap currency boost exports, tourism etc) but the human toll is much more sudden and much more severe.

As far as IMF estimates being unrealistic, sure. All I'm arguing about is what is likely to happen and which outcome Greeks should prefer.

Sure Syriza has talked about the good kind of reform, but he's also promised the rest of what I talked about. None of which the Troika will let him do if he wants retain their funding. Anyone following this should have known he would not be allowed any of these promises he made in his election. Surely Tsipras himself knew this. It was either posturing/bluster or pure politics. Now the stability of his government is going to depend on how he can manage down his unrealistic expectations.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/28/alexis-tsipras-athens-lightning-speed-anti-austerity-policies

All well and good, but the reason why all the oversight costs piles up is because this plane isn't a solution to a military problem, it's a solution to an economical problem.

It's government stimulus, pure and simple. Get a whole bunch of different contractors from different companies and hand them money to build parts for a warplane that covers roles that are already covered. Keep those guys ticking over to prevent a collapse of the arms industry (or to prevent them developing products for sale to buyers the US might not consider kosher).

And then, because you're dealing with different companies, you need to coordinate, ensure compatibility, oversea each company to make sure they are on time/program/budget etc etc.

You build a plane under one roof, the entire process is overseen by the company and the government get's to check up on them. Far simpler. One department doesn't deliver inside that company, their management has to fix the problem or default on the contract. One company holds up the whole plane, do the other companies get penalised? Of course not, their staff sit around drawing wages with their thumbs up their asses waiting. And the government keeps paying.

Additionally, the planes the F35 is supposed to replace are all better at their jobs because they are specialised. You put every topping ever conceived on that government pizza and no one will like it (apart from perhaps the homeless who would eat anything to stave off starvation). Build a new warthog, improve on the materials, give it better armaments etc and put the tried and true design back to work. That's the core of the super hornet program, right?

When you look at the state of the world, the only real threats currently to America are the bloody terrorists (which, as you note, isn't exactly an existential threat), and the flexing of military might in 2nd world countries not withstanding, there is very little need for a frankenplane that doesn't do anything particularly good.

China and Russia? Lol, the US has 75% more combat aircraft and 400% more combat helicopters. Factor in China's pretty sparse air assets, in an air war, including force multipliers such as electronic warfare/early warning/air co-ordination and carriers, the US would be able to show down both nations handily with it's existing fleet.

I really do appreciate the point you're making, but that just adds insult to injury. The awful waste built in to the program is even more appalling when you consider that the F35 is a plane no one really needs, or even wants.

"Adding that to the explicitly military and overseas contingency funding, the real dimensions of the US military-intelligence-police-prison complex begin to come into view: a staggering $830 billion, more than 80 cents out of every dollar in the funding bill, is devoted to killing, spying on, imprisoning or otherwise oppressing the people of the world, including the American people."

Not sure I'd put it that way, but still...

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/12/13/budg-d13.html

I think it's more like if they would stop redistributing the wealth to themselves from their workers.

If they would stop being greedy f'tards, then more people would have money to buy the things that move the economy and nobody would need government aid in the form of food stamps and welfare (save those who are honestly mentally or physically unable to work).If you want to build an economy the keyword is "build". You don't build a house by building the attic first magically floating there, then the foundation and walls to get up to it, you start with a foundation, then walls. If the people at the bottom have money to do more than barely survive, they buy things that actually move the economy, they buy things at retailers, who need to hire more people; those people buy things which results in transportation and warehouses hiring more people, those people buy things; manufacturing starts hiring (if the rich f'tard didn't send those jobs overseas, which the conservatives blame on the government rather than the rich guy who sent the job overseas for some reason, it's not like the price of that shirt went down when they sent it overseas, they just pocketed the extra wealth for themselves) and those people buy even more expensive things.

Our right wing economy favors investors and large business over the needs of the vast majority. It doesn't matter how much GM stock investors buy and trade, GM won't make more cars and hire more people until enough people can buy cars.

As we slide more and more money from the people who actually spend money in the economy and make it move, to people who just horde and invest, the economy will continue to spiral down. More and more people will require food stamps and welfare due to the actions of the rich, but the conservative right will blame the workers and former workers rather than pushing blame onto the people who are refusing to pay living wages, who push jobs overseas so they can personally pocket more wealth, and complain about the people they aren't giving living wages to and the people they laid off need government assistance, and the conservative voters go right along because the pulpit and Fox News has brainwashed them into believing that a party that disobey's everything their Jesus taught them is the Christian party.

The growing wealth and income gap is the biggest challenge facing our nation, and indeed much of the world. Of course most of the rest of the world does a better job of caring for the work force than the US does, paid maternity leave in all but 4 nations, paid vacation time in most of the world by law, paid sick time in most developed economies, minimum wages tied to inflation in much of those countries, a minimum level of health insurance for every man woman and child without having to buy from for-profit corporations (most actually use a single payer, which sort of ignores the fact that our individual mandate that we have now was invented by the Republican party, and is financed the same way they wanted to do it and the tax penalty for not participating is the same...the other nations that use individual mandates do so via not-for-profit insurance)... We do so much to protect the rich and investor class in this nation... sickening really.

I almost forgot about those. I've got to go pick up a prepaid Amex card, because my freaking bank won't let me make charges to overseas sites, even if I call them to pre-authorize it. It makes buying from GOG a pain...but it's still so worth it.

MUSKEGON COUNTY, Mich. — A Norton Shores man was arrested Sunday after leading police on a chase on his moped.

Norton Shores Police were dispatched to a home on Reneer Avenue west of Leon Street after Richard Shear, 28, allegedly threatened his mother and girlfriend with a sledgehammer and a knife and tried to set the house on fire.

Sources tell FOX 17 that the suspect’s mother called police after he threatened her with the weapons.

He`s accused of threatening his girlfriend too, but she told FOX 17 that never happened.

Sources also tell FOX 17 Shears attempted to light the house on fire by pouring gasoline on his landscaping then throwing a candle.

They say he also slashed an SUV’s tire before hopping on the moped and fleeing.

As FOX 17 took a closer look at the incident, we learned Shear has a history of drunk driving arrests, but we’re told he is also seeking help for mental health issues.

We’re told Shear, just like many other servicemen and women, suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a result of his time spent serving overseas in Iraq during his eight years in the Marines.

Those close to him tell us he has been struggling with PTSD, abusing alcohol to prevent dealing with the deep seeded issues and hitting rock bottom on Sunday.

Police say the chase ended back at Shear’s home when he tried running back inside but was arrested by police.

His bond has been set at $100,000.

http://fox17online.com/2014/10/27/man-on-moped-leads-muskegon-co-law-enforcement-on-low-speed-chase/

Is it not hilarious that he's OK with his entire network lambasting his idiotic idea, but when a comedian does it it's time to have a shit fit?!
To those who might think it sounds like a good idea to arm a private mercenary army with top notch military equipment and pay them to kill 'our enemies' with impunity, please remember that nearly every time this leads to our equipment in the hands of our enemies being used against us, often by the same people we gave it to in the first place, AND the creation of more enemies. Mercenaries only work for the highest bidder, the instant that's not you, it's not your army and may be your enemy (with your best equipment and knowledge of your systems).
Also, if we pay them to kill overseas, does anyone really think we are absolved of responsibility (especially in the minds of the locals) because they don't wear US military clothing? Just duh.

EDIT: Wait...did we misunderstand, and is Bill slyly suggesting we pay our bill to the UN and get some protection from their 'mercenary army'?!

Not really. @Xaielao is saying that the author of the poem is vastly overstating the extent of the problem.

Honestly, I've seen more videos complaining about this behaviour than I have actual evidence of this behaviour. I dunno, maybe it's a generational thing. My friends and I will occasionally use our phones while socialising, but generally it's along the lines of "what time is the movie we're going to see" or "what's the weather looking like for our road trip tomorrow", and very occasionally "did you see <friend who lives overseas> just had a baby?". I don't think we've ever sat around separately browsing.

Can people be rude and obnoxious with their phones or with social media? Of course, but the problem is not phones or social media, the problem is assholes. Take away phones and social media, and they will just find another way to be assholes.

Like right now, I'm going to be an asshole and explain to @Xaielao that when you're posting your opinions, you should use correct fucking grammar!

You may not like it, but it's not a strawman argument. If we were fracking in Uganda and shipping the gas here, no one would be complaining. Any serious environmentalist would rather we burn natural gas than coal or oil.

I'm not in a position to argue about why Americans use so much oil. But the fact is that they do, and if natural gas displaces that, then you calculate the net benefit. The only way oil comes out on top is Nimbyism and a disregard for the people we kill overseas.

nice strawman.

but the analogy I raised was not about trust or whether or not the person in question was innocent. The question was about constitutionality. We kill citizens all the time on domestic soil because they are perceived to be a direct threat to our safety and no one questions the constitutionality of it. What difference does overseas make? Its not a question of whether or not they ended up being innocent or not, which is quite separate.

so my analogy stands.

if you're going to go to the trouble of calling me out just to deride my comment. I would have hoped you would have provided a better example of why my analogy is so poor.

but you didn't.

Your video, Death by Metadata: NSA's Role in Assassinations Overseas, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

There's no such memo.

"He's talking about people with more money than they can possibly spend looking for more tax breaks so they can accumulate even more wealth that they're never going to spend."

This is just stupid. Sorry to say. People don't just hoard billions of dollars under the mattress.They spend it. They buy bonds, stocks, assets, goods, services, investments, start businesses or expand existing ones, advertise, do all sorts of things with it.

"unlike those billions sitting in off shore account."

In the case of money sitting in off shore accounts, first, it is being spent by the banks that are storing it. Second, it is also invested in overseas businesses, like Apple stores in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe or paying dividends. And third, it would not be there moving so slowly if not for government taxation which incentivizes a lack of flow. To the extent that it does not circulate (and I contend it flows much more than you allege), the stagnation is the result of yet more government-caused distortions.


What specific corporation or individual do you claim does not invest its surplus money? Name one.

For starters, corporations need to either invest their profits or pay dividends.
So, again, who are you referring to specifically?

Even if they have some money in the bank, the banks are investing that money, lending it out, etc. So again, who specifically are you referring to?

As I've said before, ignorance may be bliss, but thankfully, we don't all have to be as ignorant as the least informed among us.

I don't get the Right's logic on stuff like this... More and more wealth is moving to the top few percent, and more and more of the earnable wages are moving to the top few percent. Walmart for example could easily afford to pay every employee something like $2-3 more an hour, give benefits and hire more people so their stores are properly staffed and still make a profit. And they get upset at the people working there needing help... "oh it's the government's fault for giving them aid letting the company do that"... What?! The company made a choice, and they blame the government actions for it... it's like when they blame moving jobs overseas on the government instead of the rich guy who decided that it is in his own greedy personal self interest to send the jobs there rather than pay Americans. Or its like that cartoon where a rich man, a middle class man and a working class person are all at a table with 100 cookies and the rich guy takes 99 of them, the middle class guy gets 1 and the working class guy has crumbs, then the rich guy warns the middle class guy "better watch out, he wants your cookie" and they fall for it, they get mad at that guy rather than the guy who took 99 cookies for himself...

They get upset at wanting to keep minimum wage in pace with inflation, something that happens in most countries. They get upset at the idea of the cost to business to do so, but somehow businesses do it all around the world... heck, when we were thinking of moving to New Zealand and a few other places we discovered that most countries force employers to give paid vacation time, not just a bonus that some/most employers offer after 1 or 2 years of service if they want. Almost every country forces employers to offer paid maternity leave, and paid holidays... American businesses have it easy compared to most countries, one could possibly argue they have an unfair advantage compared to the rest of the world. And it's not like those businesses outside the US don't make a killing, as in those countries the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, so that isn't a unique US trait.

They claim that only like 4% of the workforce get paid minimum, but ignore the fact that figure doesn't account for the fact that if minimum kept pace with inflation, that is the actual cost of living, then it would be over $10 something right now, which means everyone making less than that is below minimum... that guy working at Walmart, Target, McDonalds or whatever for $9, yes, they may be "above minimum" but if you account for the actual cost of living they are below it...which means that person making $12, while they are well above minimum isn't that far above it. Stretching it further, if minimum kept pace with worker productivity, and nobody is suggesting it should, it would be over $17, so the companies are getting great value out of their workers, and still would be even if minimum wage kept pace with inflation. That doesn't even account for where it would be if it kept pace with CEO/Executive pay of over $22...

And yes, Walmart is near the bottom of the rung in jobs, no matter what the right may say about them having a choice... Nobody grows up wanting to work at Walmart, McDonalds and the like. Most people working at those sort of jobs work them because that was the best job they can get, and after a while, you gain "job security" as well as you can call it that, which makes it harder for them to move on, up and out, taking a risk that some rich guy might ship their jobs overseas so he can take more for himself while screwing over his workers and the American public. So they get stuck, because it's the best option that they have, especially in a country that is so far lopsided in favor of the business over the workers... in one of the few countries that doesn't guarantee health insurance for everyone, that took a Republican created plan that makes people buy health insurance from for profit insurance companies (which if I recall correctly was one of the top 3 most profitable businesses in the US per dollar earned, with banks at number one, and pharmasutcal companies), and made it the law of the land, while those same Republicans, many who co-sponsored the legislation when Republicans tried to pass it at the federal level, now oppose their own creation... because apparently the changes that the left made to the bill (not being able to deny people for pre-existing conditions and not being able to charge them extra, and moving to comprehensive coverage rather than just catastrophic coverage, so two things that mean insurance companies have to pay out more for) are bad.

You can print more money and hand it out to influence purchases also, but it is going to lead to dramatic inflation.

I had my wife watch this video, because she makes around 18 dollars an hour working in a skilled profession for a college. Her first comment was, "If they raise food workers to 15 dollars an hour, I'm going back to work at Dairy Queen because it was much easier than what I do now."

But that is where the slippery slope comes in, because the corporation is going to make that money back somewhere and it isn't going to be just 15 cents more per item. Why, you ask? Because the minimum wage rise means that skilled workers, like my wife, are going to expect a commensurate raise in their salary or they will look for easier jobs. You don't just raise the minimum wage without ALL wages eventually rising. But that's a good thing, you say, just like printing money and handing it out for free would be good.

It might take a year or two, but consumer costs will rise from inflation to make the new minimum wage just as low in buying power as it is now. Then we can repeat the entire process all over again in a couple of years. Corporations are designed to make the absolute maximum profit they can, so forcing them to pay more to employees is going to make them charge more for goods and services. As I said earlier, it will eat up the exact purpose of the raise, customer purchasing power.

Now, let's say that I am wrong completely. The one thing I DO know, having went through this before in 1996 when the minimum wage went up, is that companies will begin outsourcing even more. If you force them to pay wages above what they want to pay or what the market will bear, they will open factories and call centers overseas. I worked for Dell at the time and in 3 years, half of their support was outsourced to India. It wasn't just them, multiple companies did it, and the evidence points to rising costs due to government interference in the free market system.

I feel for the people who make minimum wage; I made it as well from the time I was 16 until I was 22. It sucked and I had a lot of debt, but after that time I no longer worked minimum wage. If you continue to work a minimum wage job into your 30's and up, there is something wrong with you.