Excuse Me...But Jacques Chirac (And All Other Euroweenies) Can Kiss My Yankee A$$...

[The Finman]

<h2><font color=#003399>Chirac to back "global </font><font color=red><u>tax</u></font>"<font color=#003399> talks</font></h2>
French President Jacques Chirac will urge world leaders to launch talks on a new international tax to fight world poverty, sources with him at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg say.

The sources said Chirac rejected the existing "Tobin Tax" proposal to raise levies purely on foreign exchange transactions but would call in a speech to the summit for discussion on a wider tax on wealth generated by globalisation.

"It could be a tax on airplane tickets, on carbon dioxide, on health products sold in industrialised countries, and indeed on international financial transactions," one source said.

The Tobin Tax, championed by non-governmental groups as a way both to raise funds and to deter financial speculation, attracted much interest particularly in Europe last year but since appears to have fallen out of favour.

The sources close to Chirac, who was due to speak in Johannesburg around midday local time (11 a.m. British time) on Monday, pointed to studies suggesting global development aid would have to be doubled to around $100 billion (64 billion pounds) to really fight poverty.

Full Story <font color="red"><u>Here</u></font>

[Radical Conservative]

YEAH!! what Fin said!

[Dutch]

Why is it okay for world leaders and the UN to deride America, bash our wealth, chide us for ALL the world’s ills and then inform us that we need to pay a tax in order to be fair?

They accuse America of being a greedy nation and then hold out their hand and demand payment in order for us to be looked upon more favorably. They are the greedy ones. Instead of criticizing America and then expecting a hand out, maybe they should try and emulate America, create their own wealth and then try smiling when an ingrate demands money from them for nothing.

They disgust me.

[Conrad]

Hear hear Dutch. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

I think people should be happy with the money we already distribute internationally through programs such as US AID. But then, I've never understood the reasoning (assuming there is any) behind taking money from those who earn it and giving it to those who don't.

[Gene Hovekamp]

Isn't it enough that we saved their sorry rear ends three times in last one hundred years? What about all the outstanding debt they amassed at our expense and have not even begun to pay off? If we wanted to press our case we would own them right now except they don't have a d____ thing we'd want anyway

[Conrad]

Isn't it enough that we saved their sorry rear ends three times in last one hundred years? What about all the outstanding debt they amassed at our expense and have not even begun to pay off?

It seems that Europe just can't learn its lesson. They defend or appease the bullying country until it turns on them, then they come screeching to the United States for help. There's an article out there written by a Canadian about that, but I couldn't find it. Anyone who knows which article I'm talking about and knows where to get it, feel free to post it!

[Gene Hovekamp]

[Gene Hovekamp]

The article you are looking for was written by a Canadian named Gordon Sinclair. I'm not sure at which website you can find it. I wouldn't be surprised if it's in Rush's 24/7 archives because that was where I first heard it. My own copy is from my hometown paper. It is an outstanding column.

[Belle]

The Americans
Gordon Sinclair

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the earth.

As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did.

They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Misssissippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help... Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped.

The Marshall Plan .. the Truman Policy .. all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans.

I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes.

Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or women on the moon?

You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times ... and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them ... unless they are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.

When the Americans get out of this bind ... as they will... who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the Israel bonds, Let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.

Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.

I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.

This year's disasters .. with the year less than half-over… has taken it all and nobody...but nobody... has helped.

[Belle]

I thought this was worth mentioning as well:

8 years after the first broadcast of THE AMERICANS, U.S. President Ronald Reagan made his first official visit to Canada. At the welcoming ceremonies on Parliament Hill, the new President praised "the Canadian journalist who wrote that (tribute)" to the United States when it needed a friend. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had Sinclair flown to Ottawa to be his guest at the reception that evening.

Sinc had a long and pleasant conversation with Mr. Reagan. The President told him that he had a copy of the record of THE AMERICANS at his California ranch home when he was governor of the state, and played it from time to time when things looked gloomy.

On the evening of May 15th, 1984, following a regular day's broadcasting, Gordon Sinclair suffered a heart attack. He died on May 17th. As the word of his illness spread throughout the United States, calls inquiring about his condition had been received from as far away as Texas. The editorial in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune of May 28th was typical of the reaction of the United States news media - A GOOD FRIEND PASSES ON.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan: "I know I speak for all Americans in saying the radio editorial Gordon wrote in 1973 praising the accomplishments of the United States was a wonderful inspiration. It was not only critics abroad who forgot this nation's many great achievements, but even critics here at home. Gordon Sinclair reminded us to take pride in our nation's fundamental values."