Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 February 22

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February 22

Australians' high rate of travel

In a question above about how many Americans have traveled overseas, Maedin makes the comment that 60%-70% of Australians have passports, versus about 25% of Americans. Most Americans don't have passports because they don't have the time or money for overseas travel. Yet, according to official figures, Americans have a higher per-capita GDP than Australians. Despite this, Australians have a much higher rate of overseas travel. In my youth, when I was hitchhiking around Europe, I probably ran into more young Australian travelers than young Americans, even though Europe is further from Australia than the United States, and even though there were at the time about 20 times as many Americans as Australians in the world. I've always wanted to know how so many Australians, especially young Australians, come up with the time and money to do this. Most young Americans struggle to find a job, hold a low-wage job that would not pay for travel, or work hard just to cover their educational and living expenses. Most young Americans' parents cannot afford to pay for their child to travel through Europe. How do young Australians do it? Marco polo (talk) 02:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It may partially be that Americans travel inside their country when they do travel. The US is the 3rd largest country by area, as well as the 3rd largest country by population. It's possible for a US citizen to see all kinds of different cultures and climates without having to get a passport.

If you exclude Alaska, Australia is bigger than the continental US Alansplodge (talk) 09:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, Australia is situated near a lot of places that don't speak English, so I bet that Australian tourists tend to travel far. Paul Stansifer 03:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Plenty of Aussie travellers in Thailand and Indonesia I believe. Alansplodge (talk) 09:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps also the longer normal vacation time leaves Australians more able to travel. But personally I think the reason is more cultural. Americans tend to think that a lot of things worth seeing are in the US and that everywhere outside of it is kind of a dump, or super expensive, or otherwise not an optimal travel choice. I think there's also a "Middle Kingdom" type attitude to all of this, that America has the best of the world within its borders so there's no need to leave it. Australians, and Brits, on the other hand, do not have such opinions about their home countries. And there's kind of a point: if Americans want to go skiing, there are many great places in the US rocky mountains. If Australians or Brits want to, they pretty much have to look abroad, and Canada is a common choice (maybe the US is too, I don't know). There's a bit of a sense of adventure that may be left over from empire days, but I won't try and analyse that too much. Also, I think a much higher proportion of Australians are first or second generation with significant family ties to people in other parts of the world, which is less frequently the case with Americans. What did surprise me about America (well Texas at least) is the very high rate of internal migration. A large portion of the Americans I knew there had moved from another state, usually quite a distant state. Maybe that's more of a university thing, but I think it might be a more general pattern: while Americans shy away from international migration (and travel), people move around internally a great deal, perhaps more than Australians. TastyCakes (talk) 03:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(NNPOV) When Americans do travel overseas, many of them seem to treat the rest of the world like Disneyland: as a spectacle to gawp at rather than other cultures to respect and understand (which is why a lot of the world doesn't like American tourists!). BTW, we do have ski fields in Australia, and if we want more the best in the world are just over the way on the South Island of New Zealand... FiggyBee (talk) 03:57, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mean to slight New Zealand skiing, I was just looking for an explanation for the alarming numbers of Aussie lifties at Banff and Lake Louise ;) TastyCakes (talk) 06:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well for the really keen skiiers, you can get two ski seasons a year by hitting up the northern hemisphere, I suppose... :) FiggyBee (talk) 07:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Australian here who just got home from 3 months overseas yesterday. :) Many young Australians have links within a generation or two to another country (if you look at Immigration to Australia#Country of Birth of Australian Residents, you'll see that almost a quarter of Australians were not born here). This means many Australians can work to supplement their income while travelling, either because they have nationality rights or because of working holiday visa treaties. I have several friends who have done exactly that; travelled, spent a few months in one place working, then travelled some more. Australians who were born, or whose parents were born, overseas also probably have more desire to travel than Americans whose great-grandparents grew up just down the road. FiggyBee (talk) 03:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

OR here, but I think that when analyzing Americans' travel habits compared to those of residents of other countries, it's hard to overestimate the importance of Americans' crappily low amount of yearly vacation time. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Part of the reason is that, generally speaking, it's cheaper for us to travel overseas than to tour inside our own country. I know many Australians who've been to any o/s country you care to name, but have never visited other states of Australia or their own capital city Canberra. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Young Australians also don't have to worry about the cost of education, with the majority paying only a fraction of the actual cost of their tertiary education (the remainder is subsidised by government), and even that being paid via loan scheme with no upfront payments, and repayments being a scaled percentage of post-graduation income. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It's a cultural expectation for Antipodeans to travel extensively when young (WHAAOE, see Overseas experience). Access to money is irrelevant: what is important is access to working holiday visas. This means you can travel a bit, work a bit, travel a bit more. Also significant is a willingness to pick up any job going, doss with mates, and travel on the cheap. Amount of holiday allowance is also irrelevant: OEers give up their day job, and just head out into the big wide world. (Some professionals pick up city-type jobs, of course, and save the money for when they return home.) The British have a gap year which is similar, but tends to take place between school and university. Gwinva (talk) 23:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

In defense of the Americans' passport statistic, Americans are able to travel many places abroad without a passport book including Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, not to mention many exotic places within the United States itself (e.g. Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, New Jersey). I visited Mexico many times before I ever possessed a passport. —D. Monack ^talk 00:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

If you didn't have a passport, how would the border guards know if to let you back in to the US or not? 78.147.93.182 (talk) 20:55, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

A state-issued driver's license was sufficient, but most people returning from Mexico on foot were not stopped at all. I never was. I never understood why illegal immigrants hiked through the desert when they simply had to dress like college students and glom onto a crowd of drunk Americans returning from Mexican bars. Of course, being white probably had a lot to do with never being questioned by a border guard. My understanding is that the Canadian border was even more lax with many crossings not manned by guards at all. —D. Monack ^talk 23:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Not anymore. Now you need a passport or similar document to go to Mexico or Canada. Don't know about Bermuda or Bahamas but I'd guess they're in the same boat. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Those changes are relatively recent as the deadline for the passport requirement was frequently pushed back as the State Department was swamped by new passport applications due to the new rules. This suggests a few things: 1. large numbers of Americans were traveling abroad despite not having a passport, 2. the percentage of Americans with passports has increased significantly in recent years, 3. there's probably a good number of Americans who have traveled to Canada or Mexico but still don't have a passport.

This site claims 34% of Americans over 18 have a passport, not 25%. These survey results are from 2005 and the numbers have probably increased since for the reasons I've mentioned.

Another factor that hasn't been considered: the U.S. has a large number of immigrants, legal & illegal. By definition they've all been abroad but many don't own U.S. passports. Illegal immigrants obviously can't get a U.S. passport and legal immigrants are likely to hold a passport from their country of origin plus other documentation that lets them return to the U.S. Some naturalized citizens have never applied for a U.S. passport. In any event, the issue is more complicated than the 34% figure would suggest. —D. Monack ^talk 23:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Law Creating/Eliminating Postal Police

What law created or authorized Postal Police and what could eliminate them?Tarita60680 (talk) 02:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

What country are you referring to, please? And could you expand upon the reason you are interested in eliminating them? I mean, no matter where you live, I could answer "what could eliminate them" by saying, "A new law could be passed eliminating the postal police", but I don't think that's exactly the sort of answer you're looking for. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

At a guess, Anthony Comstock might have had something to do with it. See Comstock laws and United States Postal Inspection Service. Tevildo (talk) 22:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Is the level of inequality greater now than any time in history?

Is the level of inequality greater now than any time in history? How does the level of inequality between the richest and poorest in the world today compare to early industrial, feudal and ancient times? --Gary123 (talk) 04:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I think this may be a hard question to answer, because;

a) in pure mathematical terms, there are, and have always been, some people who have literally nothing, thus anyone who has anything is infinitely richer.

b) historically, there was often conflation of personal wealth and state wealth for rulers (the full resources of the kingdom were available to a mediaeval king or Roman governor).

c) measuring wealth over time is difficult, because technology means there's more you can do with your wealth today (is a private jet worth more or less than a mediaeval estate? It's simply not comparable).

I think the best measure of "inequality" is how well a society looks after its poor, and how much it holds its rich to account. In those terms, I think that the modern (social democratic) world is the least unequal today it has ever been. FiggyBee (talk) 04:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

If you're going to be poor, being poor in the U.S.A. is a far sight better than being poor in many other places. We do take care of our poor pretty well nowadays, compared with a hundred years ago when the attitude seemed to be "every man for himself". The safety net is much broader and deeper. And I'm reminded of something Will Rogers said: "We have our poor in America; but they're the richest poor in the world." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You're kidding, right? No health care, people sleeping in cars. Being poor in the US is like being in the third world compared to how they are treated in Europe. 78.147.93.182 (talk) 20:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

My (relatively informed) impression is that the general rich/poor difference hasn't changed much proportionally over time (though in absolute terms the poor are much wealthier than they used to be, and the rich are much, much wealthier). This has to do with the fact that wealth is largely a zero-sum game - the wealthiest 5% or 10% in a society are as wealthy as they are because they extract as much wealth as they can from the other members of society without driving them into desperate poverty (which would result in economic collapse or revolution). --Ludwigs2 08:06, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Which leads to the question to what area Ludwigs2 is referring by assuming "the poor" are wealthier than they used to be (timeframe?). Can't be global since as has been at all times, there are, as has been pointed out before, humans who have literally nothing. So where's the wealth? —Preceding unsigned comment added by G-41614 (talk • contribs) 08:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Inequality is more than just rich and poor. Anytime that slavery was a perfectly acceptable institution (i.e. everywhere and anywhere before a few hundred years ago), there would certainly be far more inequality than there is now. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Even in third world countries, the poor have access to better food, farming techniques, medicines, education, shelter and etc than they did 100 years ago. Very few people still exist in pastoral/tribal conditions. please note that even the destitute in western societies are mostly a function of modern advances: a person living a nomadic, homeless, hunter-gatherer existence in (say) 19th century South America or in the American west in the 18th century would not have been considered unusual or problematic. what do you think fur trappers were? It's a sign of our higher expectations that we find such people troubling. --Ludwigs2 17:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

While being poor in the USA is better than being poor in the 3rd world, my understanding is that western Europe treats its poor much better than the USA. --Tango (talk) 16:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It largely depends on who you talk to and how informed they are. For example, if you talk to a person who focuses solely on access to free marijuana as a consideration of "care for the poor" (yes, I'm referring to a person I know), you are going to get a very skewed point of view. -- kainaw™ 16:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

As others have hinted above, there are two main issues that make your question difficult to answer:

1. One needs to define what one means by inequality and what exact metric one uses to measure it. See Amartya Sen's On economic inequality and Inequality reexamined for two very accessible accounts of the issues involved and the solutions proposed.
2. Even if one decides on a metric to measure inequality, it is not easy to obtain reliable statistical data to evaluate this metric. This is especially true when we were interested in worldwide and/or historical estimates.

That said, while recognizing these difficulties, we don't need to simply throw up our hands and say, "it's all subjective"!
To address the first problem above: two commonly used metrics to measure income or wealth inequality are the Gini coefficient and Theil index, which you can read about on our wikipedia page. The second problem has been looked at by (among others) Branko Milanovic, an economist at the World Bank, and Angus Maddison, a British economist, who have several papers/books on estimating historical income and inequality levels across nations (these numbers need to be taken with a huge grain of salt though). For example, Milanovic has a recent paper on Global inequality and global inequality extraction ratio: The story of the last two centuries in which he concludes that the worldwide inequality levels did increase from the nineteenth century to mid-1950's and have essentially stabilized since (see Table 2-3 in the paper).
Again, I emphasize that one needs to treat these results with care and be aware of all the caveats before trying to use them as a soundbite or as a basis for normative judgments (do read Sen's books listed above!). But hopefully these links will provide you with a starting point for further research and thought. Abecedare (talk) 17:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC) PS: Another relevant paper: Inequality among World Citizens: 1820-1992, François Bourguignon; Christian Morrisson, The American Economic Review, Vol. 92, No. 4. (Sep., 2002), pp. 727-744. It essentially reaches the same conclusion as the Milanovic paper cited above. Abecedare (talk) 18:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

For the US, this article indicates that income inequality has been rising since the 1970s (before which it was declining), however all segments of society have been getting wealthier to some degree. I don't have all the numbers to prove it, but I think it is quite easy to find eras where inequalities were far greater than today. It was institutionalized in Europe under a system of aristocratic rule, and the Gilded Age in the US gave rise to some of the richest individuals in history on a relative scale. Vanderbilt, according to the article, was worth 1.15% of US GDP, which would be $141 billion today if we were to make a (somewhat over simplistic) comparison in today's terms. That said, some places, like Russia, have seen a more recent explosion of income inequality, (in Russia's case, largely seen as being due to the sketchy post-soviet privatisation of huge resource assets to insiders at prices that were a small fraction of their worth (see here). TastyCakes (talk) 17:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

One needs to be careful here: the wealth of the richest individual(s) is a red-herring as far as the computing the Gini coefficient is concerned; if that weren't the case, it would not be a very robust statistic. For example, it would not make an iota of a difference in the computed Gini index if instead of Vanderbilt having ~100 billion dollars, say 1000 different persons had 100 million dollars each (this is the case because binned data is use for computing the statistic, so all that matters is what the total wealth of individuals in, say, the top 5% bin, the 90-95% bin etc; for the US each bin contains a few million people). Also note that that the Gini indexes being cited here are for income inequality, which is distinct from wealth inequality. Abecedare (talk) 18:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That's true, and I don't have the numbers to demonstrate the point decisively. But I think the general perception (which I have no reason to disagree with) is that the US economy of the late 1800s and early 1900s was dominated by a few very rich men. Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Ford, Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan and so on, all from the same general time frame. Collectively, I think such men controlled a large amount of the US economy, much larger than any group of similar size today does (but again, I don't have the numbers). If that is the case, I don't think any measure of economic inequality would compute that there is more inequality today than there was at that time. TastyCakes (talk) 18:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was not clearer earlier: my objection above was solely directed at the methodology, and not your conclusion about inequality trends in US. In fact, the paper Three Centuries Of Inequality In Britain And America discusses the issue in some detail and supports your conclusion. In brief: wealth/income inequality in the US was at its highest in the 1860-1929 period, with temporary drops during the Civil war and WWI. The inequality declined during the 1929-54 period and then started rising again from mid-1970s; although it didn't get as high as the pre-Great Depression days. Hope that helps clarify the picture. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 19:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the OP is thinking of economic inequality, international inequality or social inequality, two examples of great inequality in ancient history jump immediately to mind: China and Egypt. And, in my (professionally informed) opinion, the 20th / 21st century is probably the time of least inequality of anytime in recent history. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Slang Words for A WW2 German Solider

I don't want to be offensive to anyone, but I need slang words of German Soldiers or German people during the WW2 era. I'm writing a story (sorry no autographs) and I just need some ideas. The definitions for the words too, would be appreciated. Thanks.

Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 04:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Slang words used by whom? If you want what other people called the Germans, we have an article on everything: List of terms used for Germans. FiggyBee (talk) 04:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That's a useful article. I didn't know the Germans themselves came up with "Huns". I wonder what's the German equivalent of "D'oh!" Meanwhile, the article assigns "Kraut" as post WWII. Far as I know, it's a lot older than that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

From what I recall from watching German-dubbed episodes of The Simpsons, Homer generally seems to just say "Nein!" for "D'oh!". It's not quite a literal translation but it seems to convey the same kind of sentiment. ~ mazca ^talk 11:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Bleah, forgot to mention that, Sorry been detracted by watching the British Academy Film Awards. The slang words to be used by Americans Soldiers, or just Americans. Hee hee. Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 04:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, the word needs to be a bit insulting but not disgusting, because just picture angry Americans calling the German Soldiers whatever the word is, you know? Haha, I do wonder what the German equivalent of "D'oh" is. Even a German word would be quite well to use, because the irony would just be delicious. Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 05:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Did you look at the article I linked? "Heinie" seems to be the American equivalent of the British "Jerry". FiggyBee (talk) 05:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I looked at it, so that means that the American's called the Germans that too, "Jerry"? I was using Google Translate and came up with a few things, "Stümper Ballermann." (Amateur Shooter) hee hee. Google helps a lot you know? Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 05:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

In Alan Brooke's "War Diaries". he refers to the Germans as "the Bosch". I suspect this can only have been used by the generation that served in both conflicts. My parent's generation (Dad was 21 in 1939) used "Jerry" - the connection with "jerry pots" was well known to them whatever the Wikipedea article says. Alansplodge (talk) 09:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure it's "the Bosch"? A common slang term for Germans in the WW2 are is "Boche", from the French, with somewhat unclear provenance. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There seems to have been two main spellings: the French "Boche" and the British "Bosch" (perhaps the spelling came from the German engineering firm[1]) . Here's a quote from a US nurse[2] (scroll down past the Red Cross letter) using one version and a British regimental history[3] using the other. Here's one with a third spelling from WWII[4] (no slang dictionaries in those days!). Alansplodge (talk) 11:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think American soldiers of WWII were using Google Translate to come up with insults. Perhaps you should do some OR; watch American war films, read contemporary accounts, etc? FiggyBee (talk) 10:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the most common nicknames used by US troops would be hynee and kraut.--92.251.223.13 (talk) 17:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, ha, I know they weren't using Google, but the American's I'm writing about know a just bit of German, so they can make up their own insults too, but I'm just curious on what Americans called them. *sigh* Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 19:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I’d put Jerry, Kraut, Fritz, Bo(s)ch(e) and Hans, in that order, as the most common terms for Americans to call Germans during periods when the two countries weren’t exactly best friends. Bosche (etc), to my ear, is a WWI term, whereas the others would have been common in WWII. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you DOR! that's what I needed! Thank you! thank you thank! That's all I needed. hee hee. Thank you to everyone.. Okay, RESOLVED. Thanks! Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 04:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

US illegal farm worker wages

Can anyone point me to a survey of wages for illegal farm workers in the US? Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Not knowing what you're reason for knowing is, I'm not sure if a little WP:OR will work or not. If I remember correctly what my wife has told me, the local illegals that work on dairy farms around me in VT make something like $8-10/hour. Dismas|^(talk) 05:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It would certainly vary in different markets (localities) due, e.g. to cost of living differences, etc. Perhaps you could take the wages for legal workers and subtract a certain amount, for an estimate. --Dpr (talk) 10:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Dismas. I'm actually interested in the constant that Dpr is referring to — one would assume that illegal workers are paid less than legal workers, and I'm interested in how much less. (If at all, in some places.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Be careful of your assumptions. An illegal (say) French language teacher might well be paid the same as anyone, but not have the proper work visa. Illegal household domestic helpers might be illegal just because their employers don't pay Social Security taxes, and illegal farm workers (which I only just realize is your question) might well be paid above the minimum wage simply because they supply a solution to a problem that isn't met by legal workers. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Conjoined Twins and Murder

If Abby of the Abigail and Brittany Hensel twins commits murder, how will the US gov't try and convict if Brittany is innocent? --Reticuli88 (talk) 14:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It's unclear how the law handles conjoined twins for the purpose of sentencing; it just hasn't really been resolved yet, and the total number of conjoined twins is quite low. So any judge involved in sentencing would have to probably write up their own opinion on it, and it would probably be an interesting case. See Slate's take on it, as well, with historical examples, and there are other takes too if you google "conjoined twins legal". The Slate article brings up that in many ways it is not too different than imprisoning a pregnant woman, which happens all the time. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It is highly unlikely that one conjoined twin could plan and commit a murder without the knowledge and assistance of the other, so I doubt such an issue will ever arise.--Ludwigs2 17:11, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

True, but I don't think the questioner for a minute believed that it is a likely occurance, sounds purely hypothetical to me. :) Aiyda 19:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a "bad conjoined twin" could be sentenced to probation under the supervision of the "good conjoined twin," who cold be hired as a parole officer. An electronic ankle bracelet could be used to monitor their movements. Edison (talk) 20:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

QI claimed that when one of the Bunkers assaulted a man while drunk, he was spared a prison sentence because his conjoined brother was innocent. Actually, his brother might have been the man he assaulted...I'm not sure. Been a while since I saw that episode. Vimescarrot (talk) 20:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Unless they were to kill a federal official, it's more likely they would be tried by their state. In any case, the possibility of one committing premeditated homicide (or any serious crime), without the other having had a clue about it and some degree of complicity, seems highly unlikely. Maybe a moment-of-passion type of crime would be possible, though. Fittingly, such a case would require a judge with the wisdom of Solomon. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• It occurs to me that this entire section could be a little touchy under wikipedia's BLP rules. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
• I don't think premeditated murder by one twin would be so impossible. Just imagine the twin that controls the right half of the body slipping a poison into someone's drink while the other half is flirting with the 3-breasted whore from Erorica-9 (or was that the 9-breasted whore from Erotica-3?). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It was the Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon Six. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I urgently need to brush up on essential culture, it seems.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

USA BOP deficit

Orange ~27% slice is "foreign and international".

What would happen if all the other countries demanded that the USA pay back the money it owes them? Would the USA go bankrupt?

The USA would just say "no". The bonds all have expiry dates and there is no reason for the US to pay them back early. What could happen is that they refuse to buy any more bonds once the current ones expire. That probably wouldn't be enough to bankrupt the US (most of the US public debt is held domestically) but it would push the interest rates up a lot. --Tango (talk) 17:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Tango is correct — the debt is in the form of bills and bonds that are not callable by the bond purchasers. (Puttable bond may be the article for that type of scheme.) By the way, as this graph from our United States public debt article illustrates, about 27% of the US debt is held by "foreign and international" entities. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with Tango that a foreign buyers' strike would not lead to de facto US bankruptcy. As he says, interest rates, not only on the US debt but on all forms of variable-rate debt in the US, would jump dramatically and would have to divert vast amounts of US capital from other investments, such as equities. Stock markets would plunge as a result, and the US budget deficit would balloon from the combined impact of 1) the loss of tax revenue due to the negative impact of higher interest rates on employment, retail sales, and capital gains; and 2) sharply increased debt-service costs. In order to cover that increased deficit, the US government would have to sharply increase its borrowing, further driving up interest rates, resulting in a vicious cycle that could really only result in default, hyperinflation, and/or a dramatic collapse in the value of the US dollar that would sharply reduce the real value of the US debt. The data in the pie graph above are questionable. The total or denominator used for the percentages in this graph includes nonmarketable Treasury debt, most of which is the government's debt to itself, which is reflected as a surplus or savings in another government account. The two amounts equal zero net debt for the government. If you take total foreign holdings of US treasury securities, or $3.6 trillion at the end of December 2009, as the numerator, and put this over total marketable publically held US Treasury securities outstanding at the same date, or $7.8 trillion, according to this source, you find that foreign entities owned 46% of the US government's external debt at the end of 2009. Marco polo (talk) 19:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Is all US federal government debt held as Treasury bonds? 71.70.143.134 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC).

Bankruptcy means your assets are seized to satisfy the demands of those to whom you owe money. Off the top of my head, my guess is that no other country is likely to be in a position to seize much in the way of US assets. However, on a more serious note, failure to honor repayment of federal debts (Treasury Bills and – 71.70.143.134, please note – agency paper, etc) would make it very difficult for various levels of government (federal, state, municipal) to raise new money, and dramatically raise the interest rate for those who do float new loans. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, technically speaking countries can't go bankrupt since there is no court that can declare them so. However, the phrase "bankrupt" is often used to describe a country that defaults on its debt (ie. unilaterally decides not to abide by their obligations). --Tango (talk) 17:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Obviously bankruptcy is being used here in the colloquial way. In a technical sense, Bankruptcy is a very limited procedure. Institutions people often think of going "bankrupt" (like banks) cannot. Instead, they go into receivership. Shadowjams (talk) 21:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It is customary to speak of the several bankruptcies of Philip II of Spain, for example; it is difficult (not impossible) to put a sovereign state into receivership, but the consequences of defaulting on its debts are often much the same. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:15, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Rasputin's effect on russia

How did rasputin the mad monk effect russian royal family and what effect did he had ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.201.69.27 (talk) 18:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Please read our article on Grigori Rasputin. — Sebastian 18:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Plato's epistemology: how is knowledge of others possible?

If Plato believes knowledge to be a recollection of a perfect idea encountered in the world of the forms, is knowldge of other people possible?

Help much appriciated!

Thanks,Aiyda 19:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

See Platonic epistemology, Theory of Forms and the Meno (among the other dialogues). The Platonic view is that the Forms are the only possible objects of "true knowledge" (episteme) - our "knowledge" of the material world (including other people) is at best "opinion" or "belief" (pistis). The material world is changeable, so a fact about the material world might be true at one time and false at another, whereas "true knowledge" must imply certainty and permanence - we can't be certain of the truth of any statement based on the material world, as the aspects of the material world that support the statement may change, and our perception of them may be inaccurate; we can never truly _know_ anything based on, or existing in, the material world. The view that our (true) knowledge of the Forms is based on recollection rather than reasoning (or direct perception of the Forms) is more of a metaphysical than an epistemological question. Tevildo (talk) 23:11, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

We hack and cough our way through even when our understanding of others is hampered by emotional paralysis. Vranak (talk) 19:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

This is not a chatroom. If your comment does not help answer the question asked, nor help build the encyclopedia, please strongly consider not making it. Nobody will think less of you if they see fewer comments from you; quite the opposite. 86.176.48.127 (talk) 02:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Learn some manners, sir. And if you are too obtuse to understand how my comment relates to the initial query, the fault is not mine. Vranak (talk) 04:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It is obviously relevant, but in no way answers the question asked, nor does it help the OP to answer it for themselves. Saying "I like Greek people. Understanding things is hard." would be similarly relevant. All you have given is your own opinion, when the OP is clearly and unambiguously asking for Plato's. The only possible benefit of your answer is that you get to air your personal view, as with many of your answers. There are thousands of places on the Internet where you can do that, surrounded by others doing likewise. Doing so as a reply to this question is rude and unhelpful. 86.177.121.239 (talk) 22:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Malines Belgium

I have been searching for information about an artist -

I think his name is as follow with variations

carl van legch, or gegch, or gegeh, or legeh, I have a signed watercolor by this artist that says Malines Belgium, of a stone arched bridge in town with medieval buildings in the back ground.

Any suggestions as to who this artist is or where I can look is much apreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.161.86.218 (talk) 20:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps Carl Van Gigel, little aside from that. meltBanana 20:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs, but Malines is the Walloon rendering of Mechelen, and a search on Google Images for "Malines bridge Belgium" may produce something. --TammyMoet (talk) 21:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks to me as though MeltBanana nailed the very print, possibly a color lithograph!--Wetman (talk) 06:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

How to refer to Dutch people in 18th century

Hello, dear refdeskers! I came across this wikipedia article, and here it states something about DUTCH being applied rather loosely to cover German. How would an Englishman, a French and/or Spaniard refer to a citizen or soldier of Dutch origins in approximately 1720? To clarify entirely, a citizen or soldier from Amsterdam (but hopefully the term regards his nationality). Thank you greatly in advance. 77.18.5.107 (talk) 22:28, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Dutch, or somtimes Hollander. Rmhermen (talk) 23:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Alright, cheers. 77.18.8.97 (talk) 08:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's what Rudyard Kipling thought[5]. Alansplodge (talk) 09:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Obviously Kipling would not have a purely 18th century viewpoint, being born in the mid 19th century. Googlemeister (talk) 16:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I have a vague memory of reading somewhere that they were popularly/derogatorily known in England as "Cheeseheads". The two countries were great rivals at sea at that point. --Dweller (talk) 16:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Cheesehead

Silly, the Cheeseheads live in Wisconsin. Nyttend (talk) 07:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably as Dutch, but quite possibly as a Low Dutchman or a Netherlander. The OED quotes The Netherlanders, and low Dutchmen bordering upon the Sea from an Elizabethan source, but The Duch nation aboue all other haue had the glorie and fame..for their valour in warre..fortunate battels both by land and sea is from a 1617 dictionary, and Each fierce Logician..dash'd thro' thin and thick/ On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck from Alexander Pope. In New Jersey and New York, they have always been Dutch; in 1720, English-speakers felt no need to distinguish among the Low Germans of Pennsylvania, the Dutch of New Amsterdam, and the Flemings.

French or Spanish are presumably different. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

ken Carey, author of the third milinium

Why is ken Carey omitted from the american spiritual writers list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Socrates111 (talk • contribs) 23:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Not only that, but he lacks his own article. I don't know anything about him, but it may be that he is not sufficiently notable per our WP:AUTHOR notability guidelines for authors. If he is, then be bold and create the article yourself, with references and inline citations. Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)