Posted on 03/25/2014 3:10:40 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Obama Says Russia Is 'Regional Power,' Not America's Top Geopolitical Foe
ABC News By Jonathan Karl 3 hours ago
THE HAGUE, Netherlands - With Moscow showing no signs of backing down from the standoff over Ukraine, President Obama today took a swing at Russian President Putin's status on the global stage - describing Russia as simply a "regional power."
"America's got a whole lot of challenges. Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors - not out of strength, but out of weakness," Obama said at a joint press conference with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Asked by ABC News if he now agrees with former political rival Mitt Romney's assertion that Russia is America's top geopolitical foe, Obama pushed back, saying: "Russia's actions are a problem. They don't pose the number one national security to the United States. I continue to be much more concerned when it comes to our security with the prospect of nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan."
"Ukraine has been a country in which Russia had enormous influence for decades - since the breakup of the Soviet Union. And you know, we have considerable influence on our neighbors. We generally don't need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them. The fact that Russia felt compelled to go in militarily and lay bare these violations of international law indicates less influence, not more," he added.
With roughly 30,000 Russian troops amassed on the border with Ukraine, Obama said the U.S. is "concerned about further encroachment by Russia into Ukraine."
"We oppose what appears to be an effort of intimidation, but Russia has a right, legally, to have its troops on its own soil. I don't think it's a done deal.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Next headline: US pays ‘regional power’ 71 million dollars for a ride to the space station.
While I agree with you,you left out Israel and perhaps the CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC, where Christians are clobbering the muslims.
And once again, odumbo shows what a dumb ass he is.
Ol’ Obama had a pen, C-R-IM-E-A,
And with his pen he wrote red lines, S-Y-R-I-A,
With a red line here, and a red line there,
Here a line, there a line, everywhere a red line—
Ol’ Obama had a pen, G-A-ZEEE-A.
The loss of the textile and furniture industries was 100% about the reduction in tariffs and quotas. These industries employed millions of nonunion workers in the south. Environmental regulations and unions did not kill these factories, one sided free trade did.
The Chinese factories that picked up the production were subsidized heavily by the Chinese government who wanted to provide jobs for its people. Zero percent interest loans for constructing factories for the export market and 15% rebates on the value of goods exported were common. A standard workday was 10 hours and the daily wage was $1.00. Young female peasants streamed from the rural areas to live 8 to the room in the dormitories next to the factories and work in the factories.
Goldman Sachs and other NY banks lobbied hard for the end of textile tariffs and were highly involved working with textile and apparel companies to sell off the US assets and pump their stock prices for outsourcing. The US consumer did not get the benefit of significantly lower prices, the higher profits instead were spent on stock buybacks facilitated by the banks and ruinous acquisitions. Once great companies such as Burlington Industries, Pillowtex, West Point, Springs Industries, either no longer exist or are shells of their former glory having been stripped of cash and assets by bank financed corporate raiders such as Carl Ichan. The once thriving rural southern mill towns are characterized by high unemployment, declining standards of living, high rates of substance abuse, limited opportunity, and high rates of welfare dependency. Somehow the high paying service jobs the free traders promised never made it beyond the big cities.
Free traders will say it is the US worker’s fault he can’t compete with $1.00 a day labor. I suppose if the goal of free trade is to reduce the standard of living of US citizens to third world levels this perspective is correct.
Another option is to charge foreigners for access to our markets through tariffs as we did after the Civil War when we built the largest industrial economy on the planet and the first broad middle class. Personally I’d rather spend $2 more to buy a dress shirt made by middle class Americans, or a toaster assembled by my neighbor, than pay more than that in taxes to fund the social services supporting the chronically unemployed.
Bring back US manufacturing, both high skilled and low skilled. The decimation of manufacturing in the nonunion south proves it wasn’t all about unions.
There is a national security aspect to this as well. Go to war with China and the US no longer has the ability to provide clothing for its people, much less the troops. The supply chains no longer exist.
That is insanity. There will be a price to pay.
Of course there is a price to pay. They put a price on their goods, and we pay it.
Books always balance. Period.
He is stupid, petty, and childish.
CA....
If it were “just” $2 a shirt, I might agree, but it’s not.
There is a REASON the “USA” gloves sold as Winter Olympics Team fundraisers, made in China, sold for $14, while the US-Made ones cost $97.
There is much more than just wages at work here. That is just the shiny bauble.
Walter Williams says the same thing. Go argue with him.
whats the problem? Cuba’s in the region...
That is only one component of costs to consider when manufacturing. A big cost to consider where we are not competitive against other countries because of the environmentalist policies, is energy.
There is a huge cost to be compliant with all of the layers of US rules, regulations, laws, statutes, codes and yes, even conforming to political correctness (or fear being picketed/boycotted by gays, blacks, women, native Americans, etc.).
Then there is the insurance aspect of costs because here in the good ole USA, our judicial system awards millions of dollars to those that don't deserve it, and knowing this, companies usually settle (go away money) before trial costing billions of dollars every year.
Don't forget the shipping costs for exports (better to build a brewery abroad, then to have to ship cases and kegs of beer across the pond).
I won't even get into the past practices of certain unions and their work "demands".
And with all of the above, who in their right mind would want to put their capital at risk for the remote chance of (gasp) making a profit. It really isn't as simple as just saying "Bring back manufacturing"
America’s top Geopolitical foe is OBAMA!
Ding, Ding, Ding. We have a winner. We also need a better tax system for corporations to encourage making their profits here, and not abroad.
Russia is a “regional” power. In contrast, the country stupid enough to select Obama as its leader is globally powerless. I pray that we will survive this eight year disaster and recover from all the damage inflicted by the buffoon in our White House.
I realize there would be hurdles, and those need to be addressed. If the government can get off it’s posterior and create enterprise zones, it can get off it’ ass and eliminate a lot of redundancy in regulations.
As for the shipping of things out of our nation and those costs, I’m not convinced those sorts of things couldn’t be overcome as well. First of all, if a corporation is going to be selling product in Germany, then open a plant in Germany. I have no problem with that.
What bothers me is that we manufacture in China, and then ship it back here, costing us at every end of the operation.
We give away technology. We lose jobs. We lose federal, state, and local income streams. We can hack all we want at taxation, but it does cost to run our cities, our schools, and maintain infrastructure. We can’t just abandon the support for them.
This calls for reason all the way around. By reducing taxation on entities, the federal government insures there will be more entities to be taxed at reasoned rates.
I don’t know how you do it, but it’s time the Left be dumped out of our government jobs too. There’s no reason why all these agencies as well as our upper education system should be the sole property of the Left.
This nation needs to be revamped. The next time we have control, it’s time to use the battle axe to get the job done. No more standing in place until the Left gains control again and starts off where they left off.
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