[quote=Sam StoneI think you simply don’t understand trade economics, and you’re parroting arguments that have been fed to you by vested interests.[/quote]
This little speculation reveals a lot about you, Sam. And not in a good way.
I understand things pretty well for a country boy. And I understand economics well enough to know that the amount of trade we do with Israel doesn’t begin to justify a $30 billion giveaway to her.
True. And Thomas Jefferson was quite explicit. He wanted to drive the Indians into debt. The he could use all those extra dollars you’re talking about to buy their land and retire the debt.
The bill on trade deficits does come due.
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It was perhaps a little harsh. My apologies. But the fact remains that whether or not you run a trade deficit is not a good or bad thing. It depends on why you’re running the deficit. And the issue has nothing to do with trade per se. If people are borrowing money like crazy to buy foreign goods, that might not be a good thing. On the other hand, if they are simply buying foreign goods rather than more expensive domestic goods, there’s nothing wrong with that, even if there’s a trade deficit.
A common reason for a trade deficit to exist is simply because one economy is growing faster than another, and therefore consuming goods faster than the other. So the other country will accumulate dollars while the U.S. accumulates goods. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. Those dollars are eventually coming back - either as capital investment in America, or to purchase American services, or brought back into the country with immigrants, or to purchase American real-estate.
This scare came up before with the Japanese. They were using their surplus Americna dollars to buy American companies and real-estate. You couldn’t go a day without hearing the latest scare story about how Japan was buying up America. And how did that turn out for the Japanese? Disastrously. Most of their investments collapsed, and when Japanese real-estate collapsed they were forced to sell their American property back to Americans at fire-sale prices.
My responses to you had nothing to do with Israel per-se, but simply with the notion that if one country buys more goods from the other it must somehow be damaged in the process. That claim is not true.
Well, Sam, there’s no point in us sidetracking this thread into a debate on trade policy. I don’t think our trade deficit with Israel is going to break us (even if I don’t think trade deficits are a good thing).
But even if you somehow consider the trade deficit with Israel a positive good (which I’m not saying you do), the dollar anounts involved in our trade with Israel do not justify the $30 billion handout.
Nothing I’ve seen in this thread justifies the handout. I can’t see any policy-based explanation for it that holds up to close scrutiny. The only conclusion I can draw is that it’s not a product of policy, but of lobbying.
Since you haven’t addressed any of the cogent arguments raised in this thread other than to deny 'em in a conclusory manner, the only conclusion I can draw is that you have ended the thread holding the exact same opinion you held when you started the thread, and nothing anyone could say would have had any other result.
This isn’t surprising, on this particular topic real debate is sadly rare. But it is a trifle disappointing.
I responded to every one of your arguments.
Your core argument was that we need to “preserve” Israel as a beacon of democracy. My response was that we don’t need to spend $30 billion to do that. Israel is fully capable of preserving itself. Israel is not poor, and can easily afford to pay for its own defense.
Then you made an argument based on the amount of trade we do with Israel. And I responded that the amount of trade we do with Israel doesn’t justify the payment. (Besides which, Israel benefits from that trade, too. Why don’t they pay us $30 billion?)
Which of your arguments do you think I have ignored? Because I still don’t see any that hold up.
Your own cite proves my point. Israel is the US’s 19th largest trade partner. In the grand scheme of things that is nothing. Losing Israeli trade would do almost nothing to the US economy. Especially when you consider the amount of money we are giving to Israel.
There really are very few similarities between post-war Germany and Israel.
Germany: Industry destroyed and population decimated because of WWII
Israel: Dominant economic power in the region
Germany: Military destroyed by WWII
Israel: Dominant Military in the region.
Germany: Facing an existential threat from the USSR. The USSR had the ability and (potentially) the desire to dominant Europe. They had done so to many of Germany’s Neighbors.
Israel: Does not face an existential threat from it’s neighbors. Hezbollah and Hamas sure would like to destroy Israel. However, they have no chance to do so because combined they have 0 tanks, 0 fighters, 0 pieces of artillery, and 0 ships.
In regards to America’s strategic interests:
Germany: Major trading partner
Israel: Minor trading partner
Germany: Bulwark against Soviet expansion in Europe
Israel: Isn’t a Bulwark against anything.
The point isn’t that the U.S. would be better off without Israel. The point is that the amount of aid given to Israel is disproportionate to the needs of Israel, and the strategic benefit to the United States. Excluding Iraq, the US gives more aid to Israel, by far, than any other country. Why, for example, do we give more aid to Israel than Afghanistan, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Indonesia, or Turkey when those countries much poorer and much larger?
A blanket dismissal isn’t a rebuttal. It is, rather, the debate equivant of sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears.
You simply assert as if they were facts that “we don’t need to spend $30 billion to do that”, and thus (presumably) the payment has no purpose other than a sort of extortion by lobbyist. How do you know? What are you basing that opinion on? Your “arguments” are not arguments, they are simply fact-free pronouncements. If you wish to make the “it’s too much” argument with any legitimacy, you must know what the military needs of Israel are, and how they may best be met.
Again, the argument based on the amount of trade was a mere example of one of the ways in which the existance of Israel, as a first-world-type democracy, benefits the US, as being part of a richer world for the US to inhabit. Your response? First some stuff about trade deficits, which any knowledge of international trade economics could have told you was misconceived - and then a second fact-free pronouncement that this amount was “not enough”. Followed by a rhetorical “why don’t they pay us”?
Well, the response to that is pretty simple: Israel is the flashpoint, the target for Islamicism, and thus it’s the place to fight them - you send military aid to them precisely because you don’t want others to have to send it to you. Israel is of course not alone in that - there is also Iraq and Afganistan as flashpoints; Bush chose Iraq (I think he was wrong to do so) and Afganistan chose itself. Canada is for example sending our army there, and lots of cash, for this same reason - rather fight 'em there.
I explained it in some detail long ago. I pointed out Israel’s healthy per capita GDP (comparable to that of France). I pointed out that Israel in fact doesn’t spend much more than the US on defense (as a share of GDP). What the hell else do I need to do to prove that Israel can afford to pay its own way?
But (damn it) ISRAEL DOESN’T NEED OUR MONEY. She can afford to defend herself (and surely will). Sending her $30 billion doesn’t buy us anything we don’t already have.
On the contrary. Your statement was :
The cite demonstrates that, to the contrary, the US has considerable trade with Israel - it is the 19th largest trade partner, and much of that trade is in key manufactures.
The 19th largest trade partner is “nothing”? :dubious:
Yet this is self-evidently untrue over the relevant timeperiod, as US aid (in terms of military bases etc.) continued under NATO auspices right through the Cold War - when Germany, far from being wiped out, came to be one of the economic powerhouses of the planet!
Are you seriously arguing that Germany isn’t economically significant - more so than Israel? You argue the reverse below!
Again, you are, like so many, given to underestimating the enemy. Hezbollah and its ilk are not toothless simply because they don’t feature a conventional “Westen” army. For one, they are acting as proxy for Iran, busily developing nuclear weapons.
I dislike Islamicists intensely, but I don’t make the mistake of thinking they are fools. They have adjusted their tactics to make maximum use of their strengths.
In hindsight, it is easy now to see that “conventional wisdom” concerning the threat posed by the Russians was wrong - the Russians were more intent on holding onto their empire than expanding it. The reverse is true of Islamicists.
I will grant you that Germany is much larger an economy than Israel (doesn’t that cut against your ‘Germany is ruined’ point?). I submit this is a difference in degree rather than kind.
I obviously disagree with your “bulwark” point.
Because logically the amount of military aid is based on military need and not size or poverty of population?
You seem to have “military aid” confused with “development aid”. I admit, Israel needs no development aid.
Sadly, I must go now - I’m going away for a few days on vacation. Have fun!
Enjoy your vacation, Malthus. This thread may still be percolating when you get back. 
Some knowledge of what Israel’s military needs were might be a good place to start.
Note that the US is currently engaged in a major anti-Islamicist war - or rather two: Afganistan and Iraq. Israel’s military needs require them to spend proportionally even more than the US engaged in two foreign wars simultaneously, but all the time.
Way I look at it, we are all comerades in arms: Canada should (IMO) do more than it does, but it does at least some of its bit by spending on Afganistan; the US, in part, by supporting Israel. I think that is good, and for what it is worth, it gets my applause from the sidelines as it were.
I guess the best I can hope for is not to convince you - I doubt I could. But you don’t need to be convinced I am right. My mere point is to show, in my own way, that not eveyone who supports Israel does so because they are afraid of being called a Jew-hater, or because they are dupes. There is a case to be made for doing so out of both principle and (I submit) self-interest, and reduced to its most basic it is this: we must all hang together and help each other out as best we can in the face of a common Islamicist menace - as Canada did all those years ago by hiding US diplomats in Iran.
That’s your opinion, one on which we disagree. However, making it in ALL CAPS doesn’t make it any more convincing.
And now I really must go.
Maybe I just don’t fear the “Islamist menace” as much as you.
It comes out to about 1% of total US exports and a little under 1% of imports. I consider that to be almost nothing. For a visual representation the red X is Israel’s portion of the trade:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
I stand by my statements. In the grand scheme of things Israeli trade is nothing.
Obviously there is a continuum of Germany’s power from 1945 to 1991, but my statements are still true. The USSR was the dominant economic and military power in the region. Even well into the 80s if the USSR had sent their army west they likely could have defeated Germany, even with our tank divisions there.
On the other hand, if Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas attacked Israel with all their forces Israel would whip their butts and barely break a sweat doing it. Even if Egypt and Jordan joined in, Israel still would likely prevail.
As for the economics, Germany was next door to a dominant super power. Israel is surrounded by a bunch of third world countries. Jordan’s GDP per capita is just behind Swaziland, Egypt’s and Syria’s is just ahead of Cuba’s.
I don’t really know how to explain the difference any clearer.
Toothless? No. Ability to threaten Israel’s existance? No.
Well let’s hear the arguments.
Aid should also be based on ability to pay. A rich man spends more on security to protect his house but he doesn’t get any welfare. You still haven’t answered the fundamental question of why American’s should be paying for Israel’s defense.
You also did not justify Israel’s much greater amount of military aid compared to other countries. Indonesia is a democracy that is under attack from Islamic terrorists. Why Israel get 2.6 billion dollars of aid while Indonesia only got 130 million in 2004? Why did Israel get almost a billion dollars more than Afghanistan? Can anyone justify this?
I am not confused about anything. You, perhaps, are just ignorant of the fact that we give Israel economic aid. In 2004 they got 477 million dollars of economic aid. That aid alone would put them as the 6th largest recipient of US aid, excluding Iraq. Besides, aid is aid no matter what source it comes from. If we give Israel 3 billion dollars of military aid, that’s 3 billion dollars freed up to spend in other areas.
You know I wouldn’t even mind giving Israel aid if it was conditioned on pulling the racist religious lunatics out of the West Bank settlements.
Another point to be made is that we’re not talking about conventional military threats. We’re talking about terrorism. There is no such thing as a “front” in this conflict. There being no “front,” and no threat of conventional invasion, there is also no such thing as a “bulwark.” It’s not like Israel is physically standing between us and the terrorist threat. Terrorists can strike from anywhere.
That’s the kind of thinking that earned Bush the Elder a smackdown from AIPAC. Israel will not accept behavioral conditions on aid.
The post in question doesn’t attribute the lie to you. It does however note how commonly it’s heard and why so.