Americas OOC

Does anybody speak Portuguese? I'd love to have a full, good looking budget up, but at THIS rate..

Generally when you use google, right below the URL it'll say "translate this page" and you can have them translate everything that is on that URL. It may not all be 100% accurate, but it gives you a general idea of what the page says.

Kartozeichner: If you would like, you can check out this blog one of my classes called Modern Brazil is working on. It's got some fair stuff in there. Also, if you happen to have questions, I could ask my professor who is a Brazil nut (she practically grew up there).

http://oubrasil.wordpress.com/

Can't use those translators for a PDF, far as I know.

I'll look into that, Bugs. Dankeschoen.

Damn. If only Daffy was still here. He was Brazilian.

Just read: are there Economic moderators who already have this information? Or am I just silly?

Antler, that second-to-last post should probably go in the Pilothouse, being that it's an internal conflict RP. Generally, news posts are considered open information and media.

Okay, I'll move it.

Working on El Salvador Legislative and Mayoral Election Results, to be posted as soon as possible.

Fish, I have to ask. That last newspost. Is it related to today's date in anyway?

No, I didn't think of doing anything for that though, I didn't actually post it until Sunday Night my time and having spent most of the day either doing bits for this or studying I barely realised it was the first.

Fish, seriously. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief that Paul got elected, but I can only do so if you manage to not turn America into a libertarian's wet dream. Opposition to damn near everything Paul's done thus far IG would be extreme and it would be bipartisan.

The problem with Paul as POTUS is that he doesn't have a broad support base that agrees with him on any more than a handful of issues. His is the type of presidency that is likely to be paralyzed by Congressional opposition. Honestly, man, who the hell would vote to stop funding the IRS? Nobody. Congress will impeach Paul before they agree to that.

Also, the US Supreme Court has ruled numerous times that the Federal Government's power to tax in a virtually unlimited fashion is constitutional, so I don't know what you're referring to when you have Paul say that the current system was unconstitutional. Unfair, ineffective, cumbersome; maybe, but not unconstitutional.

And there's definitely got to be more internal RPing here. The number of US politicians that support anything having to do with Ron Paul's economic policy (never mind his tax policy) can be counted on two hands with fingers to spare. That such an abolition of the IRS would pass in the House is grossly unrealistic. No seismic shift has occurred IG over the last year.

Otherwise, we're going to have to hand an event to you that's not going to be pretty. But I didn't think it would be fair to do so without giving you OOC feedback first.

I know I am a bit behind on some of the stuff I was going to do with Johnson in regards to the reforms which I will hopefully get in over the next week or so. This will probably be followed by some delays with the disbandment/replacement of the IRS due to issues with repealling the 16th Ammendment which could delay the introduction of a FairTax system.

I'm not going to accept "I'm behind." This is a big fucking deal, Fish. You're not just making an order for a capital warship you plan to justify in the coming weeks. You're destroying the entire American system.

I'm not going to make this a big post. I'm just going to say this: suspending the "normal operations" of the IRS is fucking insane. The IRS collected $2.3 trillion in 2011. Its regular operations include collecting, verifying, and tallying that information. You simply cannot, under any circumstances, suddenly deprive the entire federal government of its revenue without so much as advance notice. That is utterly insane.

Let me put it this way: your credit rating will tank, the value of the dollar will halve, huge portions of the government will need to simply stop functioning due to a lack of available funds (and that means up to two million people will be suddenly unemployed), investors will completely lose faith in America under Paul, and suddenly you have an economic downturn that makes the "Great Recession" look like a stroll in the park. Simply put, Fish, you'll destroy the entire American state.

Additionally, Paul cannot possibly unify hundreds of Representatives/Senators on this matter. Dax mentions the House but, quite frankly, the Senate is going to be your problem. Senators are generally reactionary. Ron Paul will probably get five votes out of the Senate. Including his own son. There's just no appeal here. The risk is enormous and the reward is virtually non-existent. And I'm not even going to get started on how fast his own party would betray him on this.

I see one of two excellent ways to resolve this:

#1 - Switch Ron Paul's name to Mobutu

#2 - Switch our DR Congo and US players

And that doesn't even begin to cover the effects on the rest of the entire world which, I'm not sure if you're aware, depends on the American economy functioning. Simply put, this has implications not just for some Tea Party militants or 16th Amendment protesters (the arguments of which have, time and time again, been declared legally frivolous in virtually all manner of modern jurisprudence), but for the entire world, game, and board. It cannot happen. Period. There's a monumental leap between reforming the tax code and tanking the American system that I think you're failing to appreciate.

And this is probably the biggest unrealism of the whole thing. I have no doubt that Ron Paul would lust after this kind of policy, but you'd be hard pressed to find a handful of politicians that think that this is even in the realm of sanity. For God's sake you have Mitt Romney as your VP! Any politician that has any interests tied up in government bods, corporate interest, business interests, foreign trade, monetary investments, or stock investments would probably exercise their Second Amendment right. (And last time I checked, that would describe every politician.) Ron Paul would immediately lose the support of every single entity that benefits from: tax breaks, tax hikes, corporate welfare, public assistance, government operations, infrastructure maintenance, or a healthy economy. According to the 2012 Census, that's 99.9999999% of the population. Forget impeached, Congress is likely to have Paul institutionalized.

Needless to say, I think you fail to appreciate the political, nevermind economic and social, implications of such a move.

I understand completely where you Schwer and the others are coming from, I dedicated the entire afternoon reading up on what I was actually talking about and several aspects that were brought up in your posts and realise completely that my ‘blind-shot’ attempt at a quick news post was far, far of the mark and thus I have strikethroughed it and will attempt to catch up on a more foreseeable program – can you check through my internal meeting post as well if you have time please to see if I have gone awol there as well.

Realistically I get that my interpretation of American economics and this whole Austrian System was quite off reality and I am now trying to balance out my plans to account for it.

In general terms regarding the political aspects of this I am going to try and push Mitt through more in the future, I know I have not really done anything with him as much, using him in his real field with the business legislation. In terms of political support I am lagging behind with Paul as I was intending to use Cuba as a ‘big victory’ sort of thing to prove all the I-like-Paul-except-on-foreign-affairs people that he is capable of preserving America’s security however that has yet to start as I am still awaiting Surfin’s reply which holds up Georgia and Russia as well, not that I am trying to pass the blame at all. Things like this are a regular part of online activities and that is why I was trying to bypass things hence the rather impromptu news post that really I half arsed in five minutes with nil substantial research.

I wonder why the prospect of America tanking is so unthinkable

In reality it is nigh unto the end of the world as we know it if the US economy totally collapses in terms of the world economy.

In game it forces everyone into an unholy depression that will not be broken out of during the purview of this round...

The official British response is no response

That's good, if it was bad he would have got the old. "One is not amused" from HM.

The 2012 - 2013 El Salvador Mayoral and Legislative Elections:

Delayed by personal time, official mess results, computer and internet tech problems. I hate to make up numbers out of thin air. At least I accomplished my main goal, to post the 2012 - 2013 election results thread, before it changes to 2014. Will post the Legislative election results as soon as possible with details on the parties ideological perspectives and coalitions. I need my Beauty Sleep, I mean my Beauty Rest.

La Habana.

Alberto.

This isn't constitutional. Its a good idea, but not a legal one. The Provincial Governments have control over education under Section 93 of the 1867 act.

This is for a couple key reasons, largely in order to guarantee French and Catholic rights (which have at various times been hot button in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec in particular). The system isn't effective, but the change needs to happen at a provincial level (and in some places, probably wouldn't). In recent elections even in Ontario there has been some education-rights debate.

Personally, I feel education resources are being badly mismanaged and have created a two-tier system (in Ontario Catholic schools are often better funded and have a student body which isn't even 50% Catholic. At our town Catholic school I know more Greek Orthodox than Catholic!). You're on the right track, though.