Miscellaneous News

horse said:

If my memory still works,

Clark is Clark Air Force Base, and Subic, is Subic Bay the naval port.

Both were very large US military bases in the Philippines.

If someone on this forum is not too clear about that, this is what happened.

Basically the Vietnam War happened, and the people in the neighbourhood was really scared about communism. When I say, really scared, I do mean, really scared. Like how I feel on most days while sitting in the basement, drinking too much.

So, because of communism, countries did not mind the Americans having large bases on their territory. Clark Air Force base, and Subic Bay, were very important American bases and probably used a lot during the Vietnam War.

So what happened next?

What happened next, was the Vietnam War ended, the bases at Clark Air Force base remained and Subic Bay remained. President Macros had no problem with that. Yes, that was Mr. Bong's dad, who was eventually cast aside by the CIA, and died.

There were calls in the Philippines to evict the Americans from Clark Air Force base and Subic Bay naval base. But that never really got any momentum until another important event.

The Berlin War fell and the Cold War was over. Only after that, was Clark Air force base, and Subic Bay naval base, two important bases for the US military, was finally closed by the Philippine people.

Then, very shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Marcos family had to run for their lives and people power swept in a revolution, the storming the presidential palace, and discovering Imelda's shoes.

Fast forward to today.

Here is Marcos' son, Mr. Bong.

Like, there is no freaking way in heaven or in hell, will Mr. Bong allow the Americans to reopen Clark Air Force base and Subic Bay naval for the Americans to use, the same Americans who propped up his dad, and once the Cold War was over, get rid of him just like that.

Any mention of reopening Clark Air Force base or Subic Bay naval base for the US military today, when Rodney KTV Duterte was prez, and now Marcos the son is prez, that is utterly freaking Orwellian double talk. That Orwellian double talk is not rooted in reality.

If Duterte was not singing in a KTV, he'll hunt down voices, and will have a cup of tea with them.

Happy Chinese New Year!

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horse said:

If my memory still works,

Clark is Clark Air Force Base, and Subic, is Subic Bay the naval port.

Both were very large US military bases in the Philippines.

If someone on this forum is not too clear about that, this is what happened.

Basically the Vietnam War happened, and the people in the neighbourhood was really scared about communism. When I say, really scared, I do mean, really scared. Like how I feel on most days while sitting in the basement, drinking too much.

So, because of communism, countries did not mind the Americans having large bases on their territory. Clark Air Force base, and Subic Bay, were very important American bases and probably used a lot during the Vietnam War.

So what happened next?

What happened next, was the Vietnam War ended, the bases at Clark Air Force base remained and Subic Bay remained. President Macros had no problem with that. Yes, that was Mr. Bong's dad, who was eventually cast aside by the CIA, and died.

There were calls in the Philippines to evict the Americans from Clark Air Force base and Subic Bay naval base. But that never really got any momentum until another important event.

The Berlin War fell and the Cold War was over. Only after that, was Clark Air force base, and Subic Bay naval base, two important bases for the US military, was finally closed by the Philippine people.

Then, very shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Marcos family had to run for their lives and people power swept in a revolution, the storming the presidential palace, and discovering Imelda's shoes.

Click to expand...

horse said:

Fast forward to today.

Here is Marcos' son, Mr. Bong.

Like, there is no freaking way in heaven or in hell, will Mr. Bong allow the Americans to reopen Clark Air Force base and Subic Bay naval for the Americans to use, the same Americans who propped up his dad, and once the Cold War was over, get rid of him just like that.

Any mention of reopening Clark Air Force base or Subic Bay naval base for the US military today, when Rodney KTV Duterte was prez, and now Marcos the son is prez, that is utterly freaking Orwellian double talk. That Orwellian double talk is not rooted in reality.

If Duterte was not singing in a KTV, he'll hunt down voices, and will have a cup of tea with them.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Click to expand...

Bellum_Romanum said:

Berlin wall fell in 1989, Subic and Clark bases closures were based on the Philippines nationalistic fervor of wanting to remove any trace of colonial vestige from America. There was a talk of referendum but then Pres. Aquino the widow scuttled that plan since the Filipinos were going to vote in favor of American exit, while it was her intense desire to keep the Americans firmly within the Philippines.

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Protesters in Stockholm who hung an effigy of Turkey's president from a lamppost were trying to sabotage Sweden's application to Nato, the Swedish prime minister has said.

Turkey still needs to approve Sweden's application - and has made that conditional on Stockholm cracking down on groups that Turkey describes as terrorists, including those it blamed for the effigy. A pro-Kurdish group claimed responsibility for the protest near Stockholm City Hall.

A Swedish minister branded the stunt as "deplorable", but Turkey said the condemnation was not enough.

Images of the hanged effigy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan near Stockholm City Hall were published on Wednesday by a pro-Kurdish group called the Swedish Solidarity Committee for Rojava.

The group implied it wanted to evoke the hanging of Italy's wartime fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini. It urged Mr Erdogan to "take the chance to step down now, so you don't end up upside-down in Taksim Square".

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu blamed the stunt on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia - both of which Ankara calls terror groups.

Sweden has vowed to distance itself from both groups in order to gain Turkish support for its Nato bid, which has faced months of delays.

Mr Cavusoglu told state media that Sweden had a choice: either "turn a blind eye to this and bow down to it" or keep its promises to take action against "terror groups".

Turkey has summoned the Swedish ambassador over the incident and cancelled a visit to Ankara by Sweden's parliamentary Speaker.
And prosecutors in the Turkish capital have launched an investigation, according to Anadolu news agency.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the protest was an act of sabotage against his country's Nato application, and dangerous for Sweden's national security.

He told TV4 it was "extremely serious" to put up "a kind of mock execution of a foreign democratically elected leader" in a country like Sweden, which has a history of high-profile political murders.

But a member of the pro-Kurdish group behind the stunt told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that the activists were trying to stand up for Swedish democracy - which was being "sabotaged" by Mr Kristersson.

The member of the group added that Turkey had not reacted in a way a democratic country should.

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plawolf said:

If some Turkish embassy guard gets mad enough and just shoots him through an embassy window, the man would instantly become an international hero across the whole Islamic world with countless babies named after him, and Erdogan would have no choice but to throw his and the Turkish government’s fully weight behind the guy.

If the racist idiot was trying to get shot, he would be hard pressed to set up a more tempting scenario.

I guess the main question would be, is he a fanatic seeking to martyr himself to incite Jihad against Muslims or just such a giant fucking entitled moron he doesn’t realise the risks he is taking with his idiotic stunts?

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ficker22 said:

One has to ask how stupid they can be? Like do they actually want Nazi membership or not?

Also look at that dudes face, like wtf is wrong with him burning books?

Edit: he is like, actually mentally disabled.

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• The U.S. hit its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
• The debt ceiling is the amount of money the U.S. is authorized to borrow to pay its bills.
• Since the cost of government operations generally exceeds federal tax revenues, the U.S. must raise money by selling Treasury bonds. The government can't do this after hitting the debt ceiling.

The U.S. hit its debt ceiling on Thursday, setting the stage for a congressional showdown that could end in financial pain for households and the economy.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had warned congressional leaders last week of the impending debt-ceiling deadline. Absent steps taken by Congress in coming months, the event may "cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability," Yellen wrote in the letter.

Here's what the debt ceiling is, and what makes it so important for consumers.

What is the debt ceiling?
The debt ceiling is the amount of money the U.S. Treasury is authorized to borrow to pay its bills.

Those obligations include Social Security and Medicare benefits, tax refunds, military salaries and interest payments on outstanding national debt.

The current ceiling is about $31.4 trillion. Now that the U.S. has hit that limit, it is unable to increase the amount of its outstanding debt — and paying its bills becomes trickier.

"Not unlike many households, the government is reliant on debt to fund its obligations," said Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate. "And like many households, it doesn't have sufficient income to fund its expenses."

The debt ceiling wouldn't be an issue if U.S. revenues — i.e., tax proceeds — exceeded its costs. But the U.S. hasn't run an annual surplus since 2001 — and has borrowed to fund government operations each year since then, according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Why is the debt ceiling an issue right now?
While the U.S. is expected to reach its $31.4 trillion borrowing cap on Thursday, this in and of itself isn't the major issue.
The Treasury has temporary options to pay bills: It can use cash on hand or spend any incoming revenues, such as those during tax season, which starts Jan. 23.

It can also use so-called "extraordinary measures," which free up money in the short term. The Treasury started using such measures Thursday, Yellen wrote in an updated letter to congressional leaders. Those include a suspension of new investments in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund until June 5, Yellen said. The funds would be made whole later.

These maneuvers are meant to prevent a potential calamity: a default.

A default would occur if the U.S. runs out of money to meet all its financial obligations on time — for instance, missing a payment to investors who hold U.S. Treasury bonds. The U.S. issues bonds to raise money to finance its operations.

The U.S. has defaulted on its debt just once before, in 1979. A technical bookkeeping glitch resulted in delayed bond payments, an error that was quickly rectified and only affected a small share of investors, the Treasury said.

However, the U.S. has never “intentionally” defaulted on its debt, CEA economists said. This outcome is the one Yellen warned would cause “irreparable harm.” The scope of negative shockwaves is unknown since it hasn’t happened before, economists said.

“The fallout is serious,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

“It would create chaos in financial markets and completely undermine the economy,” he added. “The economy would go into a severe recession.”

Fallout: Frozen benefits, a recession, pricier borrowing
An exact default date is difficult to pinpoint, due to the volatility of government payments and revenues. But it’s unlikely to happen before early June, Yellen said.

Congress can raise or temporarily suspend the debt ceiling in the interim to avert a debt-ceiling crisis — something lawmakers have done many times in the past. But political impasse calls their ability or willingness to do so into question this time around.

If the U.S. were to default, it would send several negative shock waves through the U.S. and global economies.

Here are some of the ways it could affect consumers and investors:

1. Frozen federal benefits​

Tens of millions of American households might not get certain federal benefits — such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and federal aid related to nutrition, veterans and housing — on time or at all, the CEA said. Government functions such as national defense may be affected, if the salaries of active-duty military personnel are frozen, for example.

2. A recession, with job cuts​

Affected households would have less cash on hand to pump into the U.S. economy — and a recession “would seem to be inevitable” under these circumstances, Hamrick said. Recession would be accompanied by thousands of lost jobs and higher unemployment.

3. Higher borrowing costs​

Investors generally view U.S. Treasury bonds and the U.S. dollar as safe havens. Bondholders are confident the U.S. will give their money back with interest on time.

“It’s sacrosanct in the U.S. financial system that U.S. Treasury debt is risk-free,” Zandi said.

If that’s no longer the case, ratings agencies would likely downgrade the U.S.′ sterling credit rating, and people will demand much higher interest rates on Treasury bonds to compensate for the additional risk, Zandi said.

Borrowing costs would rise for American consumers, since rates on mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and other types of consumer debt are linked to movements in the U.S. Treasury market. Businesses would also pay higher interest rates on their loans.

4. Extreme stock market volatility​

Of course, that’s assuming businesses and consumers could get credit. There might also be a “severe” financial crisis if the U.S. government is unable to issue additional Treasury bonds, which are an essential component of the financial system, Hamrick said.

“A default would send shock waves through global financial markets and would likely cause credit markets worldwide to freeze up and stock markets to plunge,” the CEA said.

Even the threat of a default during the 2011 debt ceiling "crisis" caused Standard & Poor's (now known as S&P Global Ratings) to downgrade the credit rating of U.S. and generated considerable market gyrations. Mortgage rates rose by 0.7 to 0.8 percentage points for two months, and fell slowly thereafter, the CEA said.

The S&P 500 fell nearly 17% between July 22 and Aug. 8 during the debt ceiling impasse in 2011, which was "perhaps the closest brush the United States has had" with default, according to a note published Thursday by Wells Fargo Economics.

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