Oxymandias wrote:Can we continue our discussion on what would be your ideal fascist state if you were the ruler of it? I would like it if we could start over.
I'm fine with it, but a lot of the moderators are not. Probably the #1 news story in the US is still Trump battling the establishment, and the moderators here would rather we not talk about that. They are still interested in how a socialist state might be built in spite of a history of essentially complete failure.
A country like Venezuela might be better suited to fascism. The brand of socialism that Hugo Chavez and his successors tried is an economic non-starter. First, they have to fire all the political hacks from the PDVSA in order to make it economically viable again. Then, they need to expand on petroleum-based products like plastics, etc. States like Singapore and South Korea were successful in extending vertical integration. Even Japan was successful initially that way.
It's a shame that people still think you can lower marginal price by fiat below marginal cost and not get a collapse of production, but that's how modern socialists operate.
starman2003 wrote:That didn't happen until after the US and the coalition had launched the war. If Iraq had serious designs on Saudi oil it's big chance was in August 1990, right after taking Kuwait and before Desert shield began.
The US ground campaign didn't start in 1990. The air war started on 17 January 1991. It was hardly a wise choice of Saddam to invade Saudi Arabia at that point.
starman2003 wrote:I'm aware of that but Algeria has long been a gas producer, Egypt has also found offshore gas, and the arabs/Iran remain vastly more important as energy suppliers.
EU sentiments toward Israel btw are based on more than just energy. There's also the Palestinians.
Yes, but the likelihood of getting pipelines built from Israel, Egypt and Cypress are better than getting them from Qatar or Iran. So while the long-term still favors the gulf states, the near term practical ramifications would do a lot to make Europe more independent of Russia. The economics also now favor a two-state solution with some of that gas being Palestinian.
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