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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Rez]

Nothing like making light of depression and suicide in both sexes.

Anyone got a good 'men blow their brains out of the skulls and women eat entire bottles of sleeping pills and cut their wrists in the bathtub' joke?

[smeeprocket]

Seriously though, suicide is bad.

Also, one of the transgender women I follow has a friend that regularly calls suicide hotlines because she is having a rough time, and she has had people try to gaslight her, tell her to get over it, tell her she's making it up. These are the people that are on the last line to try and talk people out of killing themselves.

That's some messed up shit right there.

[mainiac]

That is some messed up shit.

[Rez]

Other messed up shit:  Congress passed something called "Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2015" (HR 4681) that had some messed up surveillance shit in it.

Like statutes granting the Executive Branch the authority to conduct extra-judicial surveillance on citizens.

So, just the legalization of the status quo.

[smeeprocket]

I feel like I have so little power over the process these days that I hear these things and it's overwhelming. How are we supposed to change this or reign it in?

[Phmcw]

...

Sorry for my late answer, I only saw your post now. You'll find Nixon's order (the one that matter) here.

First, let me add that this plan isn't especially complicated or clever : the USSR was the number one oil producer at the time, and it was producing so much to pay its bills. Both fact were not hard to find, and it's rather logical that cutting its revenue would cause a lot of trouble.

This unsettles me as OPEC, which Saudi Arabia was a part of, actually increased prices for some time, which makes me question how much control the US had over them

My hypotethis doesn't require a lot of control. None in fact : the communists were threathening the very fundation of the Saudi, Quatari... power, and I cannot imagine that they (the Saudi) took the fall of the Sha of Iran lightly. They needed an answer and they needed it quickly.

That's more then you cite, because you don't cite.

I don't cite because I have nothing to cite. I noticed that the USSR felt mostly because of the fall of crude oil price, and most importantly now that we need Russia weakened again, the oil prices fall again. I dug a bit, saw that it was mostly the US allie's doing and that they were supported and protected no matter what ever since. I then came to the conclusion that it was probably deliberate, since it was easy to plan and easy to implement.

I can easilly imagine any think thank coming up with that plan. It may have been an accident, but I don't think so.

[mainiac]

Oil was the tipping point, not the only cause.  Canada and Norway are relatively richer in energy then Russia but neither would collapse if the price of energy went all the way to zero.  Energy prices are volatile and dont follow typical economic expansion paths.  They're also aren't based on human capital and are relatively cheap in the physical capital sense.  So it's not that oil caused that collapse of the USSR as much that oil delayed the collapse by a year or two.

[Phmcw]

Oil was the tipping point, not the only cause.  Canada and Norway are relatively richer in energy then Russia but neither would collapse if the price of energy went all the way to zero.  Energy prices are volatile and dont follow typical economic expansion paths.  They're also aren't based on human capital and are relatively cheap in the physical capital sense.  So it's not that oil caused that collapse of the USSR as much that oil delayed the collapse by a year or two.

USSR was obviously vulnerable to an oil price crash, it made up the majority of their exportation, and most importantly the majority of their export to the rich western countries. Beside, they couldn't borrow money because no financial institution would loan it (their external public debt was 55 billion $ in 1989 while their GDP was about 2.6 trillions).

Norway and Canada can borrow, the USSR could not. Beside they don't have to keep up militarily with the US and to support proxy war and friendly nations. IF the USSR could have kept the oil price high, they would have been able to import what they need untill they ran out of oil, which would be a while.

[mainiac]

I'm trying to say that the problem wasn't that oil fell, the problem is that USSR was vulnerable to oil in the first place.  The USSR had a lot of energy production in the 1950s but a decline in oil prices back then wouldn't have caused a collapse.

[Phmcw]

I'm trying to say that the problem wasn't that oil fell, the problem is that USSR was vulnerable to oil in the first place.  The USSR had a lot of energy production in the 1950s but a decline in oil prices back then wouldn't have caused a collapse.

I agree with that, but I'm familliar enough with ex ussr republic to know that they weren't on a death timer no matter what like you said (and like the Americans are led to believe). It was one of the few thing that could have killed the USSR, and a rather nice move : they were too reliant on oil, and couldn't borrow like the west did.

[Angle]

In terms of the USSR, I've heard that they collapsed in large part because they went and privatized most of their oil.

[smeeprocket]

going from one extreme economic model to the opposite is always a bad idea.

[mainiac]

I agree with that, but I'm familliar enough with ex ussr republic to know that they weren't on a death timer no matter what like you said (and like the Americans are led to believe). It was one of the few thing that could have killed the USSR, and a rather nice move : they were too reliant on oil, and couldn't borrow like the west did.

The point is that saying the Russian economy was fine unless the price of Brent Crude in Europe falls below $20 USD(2007 index) is like saying French agriculture will be in great shape unless the temperature in Paris falls below -5 Celcius.  Sooner or later the incredibly volatile factor is going to swing low.  The problem is not that the price declined, the problem is that they were reliant on something that was virtually inevitable never happening.  We shouldn't ask why the price fell, we should ask why were they vulnerable to what happened when the price inevitably fell.

[Rez]

[IF the USSR could have kept the oil price high, they would have been able to import what they need untill they ran out of oil, which would be a while.

What does this even mean?  Import what who needed?  Who ran out of oil?  To what end does the USSR continue with it's manipulated energy markets and improbable loans from bourgeois western banks?  Was the USSR such a good servant of the people that it's continuation was a good for them or would the continuation of the USSR be good for geo-political stability or what? 

I guess I just don't see the USSR's collapse as a net loss for the world or the subject peoples.  How would the Russian state being the USSR under Putin be different from it being the Russian Federation?

In terms of the USSR, I've heard that they collapsed in large part because they went and privatized most of their oil.

Well, removing the profitable things about your organization has a way of hurting your bottom line.  The point is that if your economy is so narrow in scope that a single industry determines whether your whole government collapses, perhaps there are larger economic and social problems than just fluctuating energy costs.

[smeeprocket]

Part of the problem with Russia and diversifying is that a nice big chunk of the world wouldn't do any business with them. No country is an island. The climate was so oppressive that they weren't going to be able to produce or create the kind of things more democratic societies could. If you live in fear, your inventiveness is all focused on not being killed or sent to a gulag.