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[smjjames]

Did you intentionally screw up the dates in that quote pyramid LW? lol.

Global Warming is making it somewhat moot, but we could still end up in a situation where we find out we need them* and wonder why the hell we don't. Also, that one icebreaker is going to take what, five years to build.

I also read somewhere that Russia is naturally an Arctic power since so much of their coastline is that, while they aren't such a great open-ocean (Pacific and Atlantic) power while the US is the reverse. That's just what happens when specialization occurs.

*We could do what we did back in WWII to quickly produce ships, but still....

[Loud Whispers]

Did you intentionally screw up the dates in that quote pyramid LW? lol.

I just put random numbers in because I can't get the original quotes (old thread locked)

Global Warming is making it somewhat moot, but we could still end up in a situation where we find out we need them* and wonder why the hell we don't. Also, that one icebreaker is going to take what, five years to build.

If global warming reaches a point where the USA doesn't need icebreakers then we'll be beyond fucked. Like "we need to get off the planet now" levels of fucked

I also read somewhere that Russia is naturally an Arctic power since so much of their coastline is that, while they aren't such a great open-ocean (Pacific and Atlantic) power while the US is the reverse. That's just what happens when specialization occurs.

Geographical determinists pointlessly ignore how leaders, circumstance and national institutions dictate policy & capability, the US could be an arctic power but their leaders do not believe that the arctic is traversible, in spite of observable evidence to the contrary of Russians planting their flags in the ice and transporting cargo to and fro.

There is nothing natural about the USA being a blue water navy, any more than it is natural that Brazil is not. There is nothing natural about the UK being a blue water navy, "but muh islands, muh natural island sea powers," contrast with how Madagascar and New Zealand do not possess such navies whilst land powers like Imperial Germany could conjure up potent navies ex nihilo despite being land powers.

Specialization also does not pose a hard constraint for a country like the USA, which does not lack for countries which can train in areas of specialty the USA wishes to develop. There's an amusing anecdote of US marines training Japanese marines, losing their own marine capabilities to budget cuts, and then receiving training from Japanese marines after the US marines were expanded again. In the case of arctic specialization, you got Canada, UK, Norway (maybe Sweden depending on whether they're Finlandised yet) to pick from

*We could do what we did back in WWII to quickly produce ships, but still....

Trump declaring a state of emergency to build icebreakers instead of a wall would be a welcome diversion

[Starver]

I just put random numbers in because I can't get the original quotes (old thread locked)

https://www.unixtimestamp.com

(Haven't yet bothered to read the pyramid bit, itself, but if this helps you at all in your future re-splurges then you're welcome.)

[Loud Whispers]

https://www.unixtimestamp.com

(Haven't yet bothered to read the pyramid bit, itself, but if this helps you at all in your future re-splurges then you're welcome.)

TELL THE HAPSBURGS TO STAY INDOORS FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS

Does't let you get to the year 3000, which is a shame

[Starver]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

[MrRoboto75]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

Eh, humans will melt from climate destruction before then, wouldn't worry about it.

[Reelya]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

Thread relevant:

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ryan-debt-track-hit-800-percent-gdp-cbo-cant-conceive-any-way-economy-can-continue-past

I asked CBO to run the model going out and they told me that their computer simulation crashes in 2037 because CBO can’t conceive of any way in which the economy can continue past the year 2037 because of debt burdens

Sure, it's not directly attributed, but what's more likely: the computer did a "danger! danger! debt levels do not compute!" crash, or the CBO was using Unix timestamps in their code, and it failed because Ryan had asked them to run the model further than (presumably) the 25-year forecasts they'd normally do.

[smjjames]

I wonder what the track is now though....

[Reelya]

Whatever Paul Ryan was saying in 2011 was never the track. Maybe he asked the CBO to run their model with all the settings at the most pessimistic: a combination of assuming that recent (as of 2011) deficit rises continued to rise, the economy remained slumped and tax revenues never recovered. Plus, whatever other pessimistic settings you can tweak.

 That would be the only way to conclude that debt would be 8 times GDP within 25 years. Seriously, it's less than 1 times GDP right now. To have a debt 8 times GDP within 25 years, you'd need yearly deficits of almost 25% of GDP, or $5 trillion dollar deficits every year. The entire federal budget doesn't top $4 trillion.

[Kagus]

http://fortune.com/2019/02/14/amazon-doesnt-pay-federal-taxes-2019/

To top it off, Amazon actually reported a $129 million 2018 federal income tax rebate—making its tax rate -1%.

Now that's just funny.

[thompson]

http://fortune.com/2019/02/14/amazon-doesnt-pay-federal-taxes-2019/

To top it off, Amazon actually reported a $129 million 2018 federal income tax rebate—making its tax rate -1%.

Now that's just funny.

If you're a masochist.

[Dorsidwarf]

All aboard the executive power train!

This is terrifying.

Also - how TF can 55 miles of wall or whatever cost $1.375B?  That's $25M per mile!

I like how the bill also just gives all civilian federal govt workers a 1.9% raise and also buys the Coast Guard an ice breaker.

55 miles of new wall, if I'm not mistaken. The plan is to rip up and replace a lot of existing fencing.

[sluissa]

Re: Ice breakers.

I'm for more ice breakers personally, but the numerical comparison isn't as simple. About 1/3 of the Russian ice breakers are privately owned. Once you take those off the list, and then add together US and US Ally numbers of government owned ships, Russia still has more and heavier, but it's not nearly as dire looking a situation.

I mean, as long as we keep our allies our allies.

[Kagus]

I don't need to post the picture of the Norwegian ice breaker, do I?

[scriver]

"The Norwegian icebreaker" is when a bunch of Swedish strangers meet and somebody makes a Norway joke to start people talking.