Comments by carefully chosen name

Since Mexicans have the probem too, but Europeans and Japanese much less so, I doubt that affluence is the cause.

The real reason is that the shareholders have lost control of the management. "Corporate democracy" failed decades ago, as Alan Greenspan likes to point out.

Private capital comes from somewhere. It doesn't just fall out of the sky. I suspect that the disappearance of public companies has less to do with government regulation than with the ability of smaller numbers of investors to make better business decisions.

LOL Netanyahu means "gift of god".

The god who is often referred to as Yahweh or Jehovah was really called Yahu. (The other two names are medieval inventions). The taboo against correct pronunciation does not apply when the name appears as part of another word.

Same is true for Elijah (Eliyahu) etc.

Vowels were not added to the Hebrew alphabet (and hence to the Old Testament) until after the fall of Rome. That's when all the fun and games with calling god "g-d" started. You couldn't do it before because the alphabet didn't have vowels!

It doesn't matter whether Netanyahu is a nice person. It is in his interest to stomp the smaller coalition parties, so he will try. If he succeeds,it will change things, not because any individual wants change, but because the political dynamic will change.

Everyone in the thread seems to be 100% sure that their personal prejudices about the region apply, and that nothing will ever change. How many of you prophets and wise men predicted the Arab Spring? None! That includes me BTW.

Three cheers to TE for pointing out the significance of the 2% parties in the Knesset. If this coalition really does get rid of them, it will change everything.

But don't listen to me, carry on with your rants.

No, I was commenting on the tone of victimization i the parent post. Blaming the UAW for the decline of the city is a proxy for blaming them for the decline of the industry.

And no, Daimler is not going to flee Stuttgart, or BMW München, or VW Wolfsburg, or Fiat Turin, or Toyota Toyota City, despite local expectations of support for the community. You are flat-out wrong about that. In fact, local patriotism is the secret to their success.

As someone who was on the front line of the gutting of the American computer business and its wholesale transfer to China, I can assure you that maintaining a community of suppliers is much more important than pleasing Wall Street next quarter.

If companies can't do anything, and it's always someone else that'S at fault, why should they get any profits? Makes no sense.

By willfully destroying the city of Detroit, America's car companies are sawing on the branch they are sitting on. You can't have an industry without a supply chain, and you can't have a supply chain without a community.

Daimler would never let this happen to Stuttgart.

Human rights and civil rights are not the same thing. For example, I have a right to a fair trial in a foreign country, but no right to vote.

I would also argue that Republicans are showing less discipline than the Democrats did in 2008, letting internal competition push them into rhetoric much farther from the center than was the case for the Democrats in 2008.

You raise an interesting point: Opposition to gay marriage may be the only thing Republicans have to offer minorities.

I presume "valuable" in this context means "something I'm working on"?

This is mostly just name calling. And his main promise was health insurance reform. Are you claiming he didn't do that?

Also please decide if he is making a lot of ideologically motivated decisions or not making any decision.

I totally disagree. One of the reasons for the revolution was to get rid of titles.

And it is the sister language of English.

Scream?

What about independent central banks? How are they more democratic than this?

The Economist is confusing nationalism with democracy. It's not the same thing.

Good question. An even better question is why we are there at all. There seem to be a lot of conflicting opinions.

The affair surrounding Stanley McChrystal's resignation suggests to me that the main reason we are there is to provide jobs for bored military officers.

I don't think the war in Afghanistan has anything to do with the Palestine issue.

I also doubt that the Taliban are part of some jihadist international, even if they do get help from internationalists. I think the war is best seen as a national issue and that ethnic rivalries are the real issue.

Afghanistan isn't in the Middle East.