I think the same notions apply to USA and Hungary, I
wonder, if someone has the figures.
For more Hungarian connection look at the name of the author...


>
> THE DEFICIT IS NOT MAKING THEM DO IT!
> by Judi Varga Toth
>
> Deficit hysteria is reaching outrageous proportions in Canada.
> Every day we are bombarded by horror stories of the size of our
> deficit.  Paul Martin Minister of Finance tells us that while the
> economy is growing it is NOT ENOUGH  and he still has to slash and
> burn.
>
> Then we get a commentary from Thomas d'Aquino of the Business
> Council on National Issues.  BCNI consists of 150 CEO's from the
> largest corporations.  Mr. A'quino applauds Martin for starting to
> move in the right direction but it is  NOT ENOUGH!  He must cut
> more, much more, much sooner to get our house in order.
>
> Never is there a mention of the other side of the coin.  When
> finances are unbalanced you look at both expenses and revenue, it
> seems to me though I am just an average citizen.
>
> In an attempt to get a little perspective on this deficit I did a
> little research.  I have some serious questions for the government
> and business leaders.
>
> WHERE DID THIS DEFICIT COME FROM?
> It certainly did not come from spending on social programs.
> Actual facts show that social spending has moderated since 1975,
> the exact period in which the deficit has multiplied!  In fact the
> current ratio of debt to GNP is about 37%, the same as in the
> early 1960s.
>
> So where did it come from?  A 1991 study by Statistic Canada
> showed the extent to which tax breaks to corporations and wealthy
> individuals contributed to the debt.  It found that 44% of the
> deficit is due to these tax breaks.  50% is due to compounding
> interest,  and just 6% is due to government spending, all
> government spending.
>
> Social programs make up less than 3% of the total.  So why on
> Earth does Minister Martin think he can cut the debt by slashing
> less than 3% of the problem, while ignoring the other 97% ?
>
> WHY DO WE HEAR ONLY OF CUTS?  WHAT HAPPENED TO SHARING THE
> BURDEN?
> What happened to  real solutions?  It seems obvious to me, an
> average citizen, that to solve our debt crisis we must look to
> more than just cutting some of the 3% of expenditure on social
> programs.  Even if Mr. Martin cut all social programs it would
> hardly make a difference.  He needs to address the issue of
> government revenue.
>
> If the source of 44% of the deficit is tax breaks and loopholes to
> corporations and the wealthy, then the solution must lie in
> collecting all those back taxes that ARE OWED to the government.
>
> WHY SHOULD POOR AND AVERAGE CITIZENS PAY FOR A BURDEN THAT
> HAS BEEN IMPOSED ON US BY THE WEALTHY AND CORPORATIONS?
> As of 1992  $40 billion was owed to the government from deferred
> taxes of corporations.
>  In 1992, corporations such as Alcan, Chrysler, IBM and GM each
> owed well over $100 million in deferred taxes.  Alcan alone owed
> $955 million!
>
> Yet we never hear these figures nor is there an attempt to collect
> these taxes.  No doubt members of the BCNI, whose collective debt
> to Canada is huge,  would not appreciate such action.  If the
> government were to collect just 5% of this corporate debt every
> year and charge interest on the rest,  there would be an annual
> revenue increase of $6 billion.
>
> If the government closed some tax loopholes then even more would
> be generated.  I am more than willing to pay my share, as an
> average Canadian, but NOT UNTIL THE
> CORPORATIONS PAY AT LEAST WHAT THEY ALREADY OWE!
>
> WHAT ABOUT SOCIAL PROGRAMS FOR THE WEALTHY?
> Not a word about all the loopholes, tax shelters and benefits that
> go to these people.  If Mr.  Martin is prepared to attack the
> poorest of the poor in Canada then he should be ready to ask
> wealthy Canadians to contribute their share also.
>
> Since the early 1980s Canada has created 8 new billionaire
> families.  _Forbes_ magazine noted that Canada has more
> billionaires per capita than the USA, Germany or Japan.  Canada is
> one of only two countries in the world (Australia is the other)
> that does not have a wealth tax.
>
> Since 1984 tax reform in Canada has widened the inequality of the
> system.  Now a poor family of 4 with an income of $24,000 pays 40%
> more in taxes while a wealthy family pays 6% less.
>
> RRSP's are another example of tax shelter that benefits those with
> high incomes.  The higher your income the more you benefit from
> this shelter.  Why is it that very well-to-do Canadians get
> assistance in the form of tax concessions to secure their
> retirement years, YET the government is ready to cut old age
> pensions to those who depend on it entirely for survival.
>
> It is not acceptable that someone earning $55,000 pays the same
> rate of tax as someone earning $500,000.  In Canada the top
> federal tax rate is 29% (over $55,000).  That is only 3% higher
> than the rate for those earning $27,500.  What ever happened to
> the idea of fair taxes?
>
> I could go on and on with examples of tax shelters to the rich,
> things like capital gains exemptions,  dividend credits,
> entertainment deductions, lobby expense deductions and more.  This
> is not to mention the lack of a wealth tax, an inheritance tax or
> tax on gifts, which would only affect the very wealthy.
>
> Mr. Martin and the government keeps asking us if we are willing to
> pay more.  My answer is yes BUT ONLY IF THE WEALTHY AND
> CORPORATIONS PAY THEIR SHARE
> AS WELL.
> -----from the Radical Chameleom, paper of OPIRG Ottawa U.
>

From:  (Emmanuel Baechler)

>   - how good/bad plane is the Mig 29 compared to other
>   similar planes *and* especially to the F18 ?
>   (electronics, navigation, flight parameters, fights)
>
>   - if the Mig's electronic/navigation system is up-
>   dated to the level of nowdays technology (wich all
>   our countries try to do) how good plane becomes from
>   the Mig ?

This upgrade has already been done, it's called the Mig 29-M.  The
russian did unhappily chose an upgraded Sukhoi, so there is only six
preproduction models. The 29M is at least as good as any F/A-18
currently being produced.

The older Mig-92 is less sophisticated, more specialized and imposes a
high workload to its pilots, so it has to be reserved to the guys with
the highest skills.

On another hand, the main need of most european countries, is an
interceptor for peace time "air police" duties. There's no doubt that
the Mig 92 is good enough to do the job.

Somosvari Bela wrote:

: >      | "A Radical is a man with both feet
: >      |  firmly planted--in the air."
: >      |
: >      |              -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
:
: Just a question. As I remember I've read yours quotation above with
: Liberal not Radical. Am I right?

He may have said both, but Roosevelt definitely said `radical' in a broadcast
address to Forum on Current Problems, 26 Oct. 1939 per Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations.

He did have this to say about liberals:

        Say that civilization is a tree which, as it grows, continually
        produces rot and dead wood.  The radical says: "Cut it down."
        The conservative says: "Don't touch it."  The liberal compromises:
        "Let's prune, so that we lose neither the old trunk nor the new
        branches."

quoted in _A People & A Nation_, Norton, Katzman


--Greg

On Mar 23,  3:13pm,  wrote:
>
> As I know, president Wilson did not agree with the peace treaties after
> WWI. He may have agreed with dividing Hungary, but not with the current
> process of drawing the new borders. He wanted to deciede on the borders
> by polling the inhabitants of the given area. Only one such a poll was
> held. As a result of that poll the town of Sopron and some villages around
> it now belong to Hungary and not to Austria.
> Am I wrong if I think that the USA was not present and signed the the Paris
> (and Trianon) peace treaties? I am really not sure.
>
> Andras Nemeth

Actually, the U.S. did sign the Versailles treaty, and I'm pretty sure all
the other Paris treaties as well. The U.S. Senate, however, refused to ratify
them, mostly over the League of Nations, but also out of disillusionment at
the outcome.

In article >, Greg Grose
> writes:
>  wrote:
>
> : MIG is a hopelessly obsolete equipment and is a good buy only when the
> : expected enemy will come with MIGs, too;-)
>
> And what type of fighter aircraft do Hungary's `expected enemies' have?
>
> --Greg

Yes, so this was exactly my point...

Roman Kanala

Jan George Frajkor wrote:
>   As for why Czechoslovakia refused to seriously disucss returning
> Magyar-inhabited areas it received under Trianon, that is perhaps
> because Hungary refused to seriously discuss giving up those Slovak
> and ruthene-inhabited areas...

        The Ruthenians did not want to be in a Czecho-Slovak state.

> ...of Lower Slovakia (the northeastern part of Hungary today) which it
> was allowed to keep by Trianon.

        I know we've been over this quite often, but the appearance of
this marvelous piece of rubbish always begs the asking of these two
questions:  Just when was the territory referred to as "Lower Slovakia" a
part of Slovakia?  And, when was "Lower Slovakia" (_today_ the
northeastern part of Hungary) not a part of Hungary?

        Ha professzor (vagy Phd-es) letemre en ilyen ocsmanyul tudnam a
tortenelmet, vagy annyira radikalis lennek, hogy nem tudnam a nacionalista
(vagy eppen Marxista....) hazugsagokat kiszurni, szegyelnem a "tudasomat"
nyiltan hangoztatni, nemhogy kihirdetni a poziciomat/vegzettsegemet.


        Norb

        P. S.  I didn't match the quote with this message (I have about
10 rotating automatically), but it is quite apt....


Norbert Ja'nos Udvardy Walter      | "Repetition does not transform a lie
Fort Worth, Texas, USA             |  into a truth."
Internet:          |
FidoNet:   1:130/911.6212          |             -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

In article >, George Antony
> writes:
> Roman Kanala wrote:
>
>> A MIG has no chance in a combat with a Western aircraft because it has
>> no electronics that would keep pace with. That means a MIG will be shot
>> long before the pilot gets aware what's gonna happen to him.
>>
>> That's the reason Finland bought F-18 and Switzerland bought F-18
>> Hornets, too: they are heavy, bulky, expensive, but there is nothing
>> better on the market these days. We are living in an electronics world
>> where the better software wins.
>>
>> MIG is a hopelessly obsolete equipment and is a good buy only when the
>> expected enemy will come with MIGs, too;-)
>
> Except that one can put a different avionics system into the same airframe.
>
> The F-111s have been updated with a new-generation system already, and the
> Australian Airforce intends to put yet another into them before they are
> thrown out sometime in the next century.  The same happened with the B-52.
>
> There are many competing packages for updating MIG-21s, e.g., one Czech, one
> Israeli (!), with modern avionics, turbine and armaments.  What I read
> suggests that these turn the tired old thing into a wasp with quite a bite.
>
> There is no reason why one could not do that with the MIG-29.  Given that
> the airframe of this plane is quite up to scratch, modern avionics and
> better armaments would transform the MIG-29 into something quite
> respectable.

Sounds reasonably. Of course it will change the acquisitions costs,
but in many cases this is only a small increment comapred to the global
payoff. I think to remember haveing heard an unofficial opinion (back in these
good old days when no official opinion could be issued on such a topics)
that it was the same Hungarians did with Paks electronics - they just
threw it away and replaced the circuits by Hungarian provenience hardware.

Roman Kanala

On 23 Mar 95 12:42:39 GMT+0200, Eva Durant >
wrote:

>Is it only me with the obvious-looking question -
>do any country really need this expensive killing
>technology? Who benefits, besides those who selling them?
>Wouldn't money be better spent raising living standards?
>If there is enough for everybody, there is less quarrel...

To start, let's have a look at the first two dimensions
of the question: do any country need killing technology and
has it be expensive.

With the emergence of the State, it is no more necessary to live
in castles by dozens, together with all the family and the whole
clan to ensure enough labour workforce, hands in the kitchen and
arms to hold in case of an enemy attack. The first purpose of the
State as it got profiled through the conturies is to be a huge
insurance company that takes tasks that no private company would
be able to assure, like social insurance and country security.
The reason is simply the amount of capital necessary.

An army with no killing technology would have no other reason to
exist than to be a holiday club to a bunch of boyscouts. Until
the first discordance would appear with a country that maintained
a performant army. Unfortunately it's so that from the dark ages
of the humanity, one of invariants is the need to possess and
dominate and the tool is crude force.

Sophisticated killing technology has to be expensive in order to
give a culturally/technologically more advanced tribe that can
afford it the necessary advantage to get victorious in a conflict.
Remark that I am placing axiomatically and for simplicity the
technological progress parallel to the cultural one. Means a
more advanced tribe will give up an aggression against a neighbour
just for the simple reason it's stronger.

The more a tribe is rich, the more sophisticated and efficient
(and expensive) killing technology can it afford. Even if never used,
such a technology will serve to win a battle without ever engaging
it, simply by dissuasion. That's the best win one can get.

Problems arise when someone is buying expensive toys that are beyond
his techological level and beyond his budget - it's then obvious he
will be tempted to try them out. If not, they will become obsolete
within a short time and he spent the resources for nothing. Indeed,
recently we saw massive capital transfer from petrol producers, who
did not have an infrastructure able to absorb such a huge amounts in
useful investments, to banking sector in the developed countries,
who has put them in form of loans to poor countries, that bought
arms. It's a hyper-oversimplified reasoning but explains many
unfortunate phenomenons we saw recently. It also makes unnecessary
to develop on the latter two aspects of the question, that resources
saved on arms would assure a general wealth that would make wars
unnecessary: it's neglecting the dark side of the human nature...

Roman Kanala

In article >, Tamas Kocsis
> writes:
>
>>A MIG has no chance in a combat with a Western aircraft because it has
>>no electronics that would keep pace with. That means a MIG will be shot
>>long before the pilot gets aware what's gonna happen to him.
>
> You are bluffing. I strongly recommend you to check out this just-
> running thread in sci.military: "Mig-29 vs. F-14, long distance ex-
> change". I only copy to here one remark:
>

[...deleted...]

>
>>That's the reason Finland bought F-18 and Switzerland bought F-18
>>Hornets, too: they are heavy, bulky, expensive, but there is nothing
>>better on the market these days.
>
> You definitely picked the wrong explanation. They want to be compatible
> to NATO *and* they are in the financial position to buy expensiver
> hardware.

In Switzerland, as in a direct democracy, even such issues as the choice
of a military aircraft are being publicly discussed. It's on my vague
souvenirs of argumentation read through the newpapers I am basing my
opinion and remember the dimensions and weight were arguments against
FA-18. Competitors were Mirage, Saab and... MIG ! The latter has been
mentioned just to be there in order someone not to bring later an
allusion an alternative has been neglected - but of course this one
is my private opinion only.

Mirage had an advantage in manoeuvrability and ability to fly very slow
(you may find expert opinion in sci.military) which is not bad in a
topology where one traverses the whole country in a few minutes. It is
also NATO-compatible. If F-18 has been kept, it seems to be for one
strong reason that no competitor was able to beat: compensation in form
of contracts to the Swiss industry that will generate jobs in high-tech
domain, stimulate applied research in private firms and offer a breath
to the economy. In such conditions, the fact it's expensive and even
more expenses will have to be engaged to adapt the ground hardware
is outweighted by benefits of competitive advantage to the industry.
That budget would have be spent anyway.

The sentence might sound better if formulated as follows: there is
nothing better on the market if taking into account that contracts
with Russian industry are close to worthlessness (?) Anyway, this
seems to be the true reason.

One more remark: if my souvenirs are correct, it was expected to
replace the electronics immediately by Swiss made devices.

>
>>MIG is a hopelessly obsolete equipment and is a good buy only when the
>>expected enemy will come with MIGs, too;-)
>
> I haven't flown neither Mig's nor F18's so I have to believe your edu-
> cated opinion.. :) :)
>
> I think the discussion went beyond our capability to run it. I am going
> to  start a thread in sci.military, check it out later on next week.

As I mentioned, airplanes are neither my hobby nor subject of my research
and I admitted my deductions may be wrong. Thank you for remarking that.

Roman Kanala

Somosvari Bela wrote:
> > Norbert Ja'nos Udvardy Walter | "A Radical is a man with both feet
> > Fort Worth, Texas, USA        | firmly planted--in the air."
> > Internet:     |
> > FidoNet:  1:130/911.6212      | -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

> Just a question.  As I remember I've read yours quotation above with
> Liberal not Radical.  Am I right?

        Nope; it's always been Radical. 8-)

        Norb

Norbert Ja'nos Udvardy Walter      | "True individual freedom cannot exist
Fort Worth, Texas, USA             |  without economc security and indepen-
Internet:         |  dence."
FidoNet:   1:130/911.6212          |               -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

>         Norb
>
>
> Norbert Ja'nos Udvardy Walter      | "A Radical is a man with both feet
> Fort Worth, Texas, USA             |  firmly planted--in the air."
> Internet:          |
> FidoNet:   1:130/911.6212          |              -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
>
Just a question. As I remember I've read yours quotation above with
Liberal not Radical. Am I right?
S.B.