An Iran armed with ballistic missiles and atomic bombs didn’t bother anyone enough to block a recent international agreement. What could be more frightening than that? North American consumers paying market prices for trucks and cheese. From “Trans-Pacific Partnership Session Ends With Heels Dug In” (nytimes):
Tokyo was ready to extend major concessions on American truck tariffs but was blocked by Mexico, which wanted less competition for its own trucks in the United States market.
Canada held firm on protecting its politically sensitive dairy market ahead of elections in October, but for New Zealand, a tiny country with huge dairy exports, that was unacceptable.
“What’s more frightening than Iran armed with ballistic missiles and atomic bombs?”
Saudi Arabia with atomic bombs.
Afghanistan with nukes
Prison (for me)
A world without beer
@Fazal: Saudi Arabia is far more frightening then Iran as-is even without a bomb. Sure, they don’t burn US or Israel flags, and they don’t march with “Dead to America\, Dead to Israel”, but they are the root of instability in the Middle East and around the word with their extreme religious ideology that they are spreading for which they are not being opposed.
America’s simultaneous support of the Wahabi Kingdom of Saud and Zionest settlers.
All these politicians pushing the TPP seem like economically illiterate idiots, each scheming to gain an advantage over their dim-witted counterparts in the zero-sum game of trading commodities. They all want to look like a hero telling their constituents what how free-trade with poor nations will somehow make them richer, despite doing the exact opposite every single time (most recently Obama’s “free” trade deal with S. Korean expanded the trade deficit from 4:1 to 7:1).
And regarding the TPP, when is the last time you’ve actually heard anyone say “wouldn’t it be great to compete for manufacturing jobs with Vietnamese earing $0.80/hr?” or “I really wish we had more temporary workers from Peru working here” or “we have too much democracy, foreign corporations should override my vote on local environment and food safety standards”.
philg: Should the world care about your safety given what some noble politicians/generals did 70 years ago to Hiroshima? Wasn’t this precedent re-affirmed 70 years ago? The precedent was this: human lives do not matter — power, economics and efficiency matter.
The most effective antidote for hysteria is a quick look in the mirror. No?