Cabe Sullivan's Blog

Brits Sending More Troops to Afghanistan, Will the U.S. Follow?

cabesullivan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:28:24 +0000

This article is about Britain’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. The British Prime minister stated Wednesday that England is going to send 500 more troops to Afghanistan. People are speculating that England’s move to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan will make the US also find the need to send more troops. This is a current issue right now so this could affect something in Obama to increase our troops in Afghanistan. Obama has been undergoing strategical meetings on the war right now and his collaboration with Britain on this issue has not gone unnoticed. People think that since he has been collaborating with Britain that we will definitely send in more troops, as clearly stated by Britain’s Prime Minister. Spokesmen for the US government have fired back saying that Britain’s decision should not affect America’s decision. People have said that Obama has already made a decision, told Britain, and Britain increased the numbers based on our decision. Gibbs denied the idea that we have already made the decision to increase troops, but he also expressed our gratitude towards Britain for their efforts towards the war. This is a highly debated subject clearly portrayed by the numbers of meetings Obama has held concerning this issue.

I think Britain’s surge of more troops into Afghanistan will affect our choice on the issue. I think this will alter Obama’s decision a lot because if Britain will send more troops in, then of course we will. America is a militaristic power in the world and we do not want to back down, especially when Britain has not. I find it odd that America has to send in at least 80 times the amount of troops that Britain is though. I like the way it would show our dominance and capability, but i don’t find it beneficial in the long run if America has to send the majority of troops into war all the time. It costs us a tremendous amount of money and irreplaceable lives. The world is making us flex our muscles too much and soon we could run out of strength, and the world’s greatest power will have to take a lot of time for rebuilding. That would not be good for the world and maybe an unstable power could break free and the world would have no one to stop it. It is not an issue about land anymore that I am concerned about, but the idea that our technology as become so advance that humanity could be destroyed. Afghanistan is a dangerous and unstable place and for some reason America is the only country really concerned with it. Other countries need to step up and do their part in the world, the part that America has taken upon itself.

The Article

Health Care Reform Bill

cabesullivan — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:16:19 +0000

I read an article called Alarm Bell on Health Reform by Ruth Marcus, this article was clearly against the health care reform bill. A democratic senator Ron Wyden who has been one of the main advocates for the bill is even against it now. He says that this package being created by the Senate Finance Committee would cost lower-income families more than they can spend and give a lot of people not enough choices of health care plans. People will have to get health insurance but this is very hard for people who already are struggling to get by. People who do not have health insurance would be fined money unless the fine was 10% or more of their yearly income. The people think that they can get health care security from this but if this new proposal passes they will be suprised. They will be surprised because they will have to pay way too much money or get fined for not buying health care. 85%of americans will not even be able to decide to get public option health care and will have less choices then what they used to have. The proposal is estimated to cost one trillion dollars, while a better package for not much more and would help the public out a lot. What the government is trying to do could be good but this new proposal is no where close to it.

I agree with this article in many ways and think it was well worth the read. I believe also that it will not do nearly as well as promised. I also think that this new proposal is a terrible one in that it comes no where close to where it should be or promised to be. We cannot let the lower class american citizens get in even more economic distress from what they are already in because we are making them buy our health care, which is an unreasonable amount of money for them. I think that if you are going to spend this much money on something like this then you should at least make it work well and go over well with the general public. The government should not fool the public into passing this bill when it is should be a lot better and will just lead to revolts. I think that if the health care reform bill would at least meet the standards and promises that president Obama has set that this will be a great thing. On the other hand, if this is even just a little bit off of the standards and/or the promises that Obama has made, I think that this bill will be a waste of money. America is not in a position to waste money with our continuing growing debt to china that we cannot aford to hold off much longer. I think that we should put the extra money in to make this bill right and everyone will be happy and the bill will work well. I support the health care reform bill but only if it is near perfect.

Government Of Switzerland

cabesullivan — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:59:06 +0000

Swiss Flag

Switzerland’s government is called a confederation even though it resembles a federal republic. Switzerland’s government has 3 branches: an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. The executive branch consists of a president, a vice president, a chief of state, and a cabinet. The President is both the chief on state and the head of the government. The cabinet or Federal Council is elected by the Federal Assembly. Switzerland’s presidential elections are held every year and are elected by the Federal Assembly, the president cannot serve consecutive terms. This past election was won by Hans-Rudolf Merz. The legislative branch is made up of of the Federal Assembly and the National Council. The Federal Assembly is made up of 46 seats, two from each Canton and one from each half-canton, with 4 year long terms. While, the National Council is made up of 200 seats with terms of 4 years also, who are elected by popular vote. The judicial branch consists of a Federal Supreme Court whose judges are elected, by the Federal Assembly, for six year long terms. Switzerland has had it’s independence since 1291 but has only followed a constitution since 1874.

CIA World Factbook

India signs Social Security Pact with Switzerland

cabesullivan — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:24:58 +0000

India Signs Social Security Pact with Switzerland by Ishani Duttagupta is about how the Indians and the Swiss entered into a bilateral social security agreement to encourage professionals move between the two countries. Similar pacts have been entered into with Germany, Belgium and France. The pact simplifies the rules of taxation for Indians working in Switzerland and Swiss working in India. For example, these workers will no longer be subjected to paying social security in both countries during the first seventy-two months of employment. Previously, these workers were being double taxed.

I think that this pact is going to be a good thing overall for both countries. I think that people will be extremely happy for this because it saves them money. This helps India more then it does Switzerland because more workers from India are in Switzerland which makes more people of India happy. Switzerland will be losing some money for social security from the 11,000 or so Indian workers that don’t have to pay it any more, but this will make the people happy, which is very important. I also agree with the author that all of the benefits of this will come true. The benefits seem very logical and what the two countries mean to happen by making this pact.

The Article

Swiss Economy Slowly Recovering

cabesullivan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:10:53 +0000

Swiss Economy Slowly Recovering by Martin Gelnar is about how Switzerland is gradually coming out of it’s recession and hopes to return to growing again. This is their worst recession since World War 1 and have high contraction on goods which is not good. Switzerland has been getting good news from multiple sources, including their most trusted ones, about them retreating out of their recession. The Swiss banks still are keeping their record low intrest rates at .025 for at least the next few quarters. Switzerland is not going to come out of their recession quikley though, Switzerland’s labor market has taken a big hit, that the government has tried to help with short work programs to help the unemployed. This means Switzerland’s extremely low unemployed rates will increase from 3.7 % to 5% by 2010. They have also started currency interventions to increase their francs. Switzerland’s economy will hopefully regain it’s strength but it will take alot of work.

I think that this article is great news for Switzerland because of the shape they are in now. I agree with the writer of this article because he has many sources to back up his arguement. He gets many predictions from different companies to help him. He also gets important people from the specific places he’s talking about. I believe the writer because he has good support and reasons, and I too think that Switzerland will slowly get out of their recession.

Swiss Economy Slowly Recovering

Leaders of Switzerland

cabesullivan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:35:23 +0000

President: Hans-Rudolf Merz

Vice President: D. Leuthard

Federal Assembly: M. Leuenberger, P. Couchepin, M. Calmy-Rey, Hans-Rudolf Merz (pres.), D. Leuthard (vice pres.), E. Widmer-Schlumpf, and U. Maurer.

Federal Chancellor: C. Casanova

Hans-Rudolf Merz

Switzerland and The Image

Switzerland’s Economy

cabesullivan — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:50:23 +0000

Switzerland is known to have a stable market economy. They depend on the buying and selling of goods. Results from this include their extremely high per capita rate, and their very low unemployment rate. Their economy is also helped by their big service sector, like banking and high technology. Switzerland also supports their agricultural industry tremendously by setting high tariffs and giving bonuses to Swiss agriculture companies. Because of the support of the Swiss government 60% of their food is made in Switzerland. Switzerland is also famous for their banking which makes them somewhat dependent on foreign investments. Lots of foriegn investors put their money in Swiss banks because of their bank secrecy policies and Switzerland does not have strong reporting laws. All of this results in Switzerland being one of the most successful countries in private income. Even though Switzerland has a notoriously good economy even they were hit by the global economic deterioration. This made Switzerland go into a recession and their best bank was in need of a government bailout, along with other companies. This adequately instituted a zero-rate policy to help boost their economy.

CIA World Factbook and The Economy of Switzerland

Hello world!

cabesullivan — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:12:25 +0000

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