Jerry LeRow

Ah, thanks. Quite a difference to the Census Bureau definition I used. So would you in general say that americans see this ( https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/maps/pdfs/reference/us_regdiv.pdf ) definitions as "outdated"? And back to the topic... would you share the sentiment that south (now by CB and thereby the NI article definition) is taking the lead?

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-economic-engine-america-isthe-south-11225 --> This article is about the south, especially Texas, and its increasing economic importance for the US. I personally have been taking closer looks on Texas for some while, and was more and more impressed by the numbers the Dallas Fed delivered (although as inhabitant of the EU you're already impressed by a GDP growth just above 1% ). I don't know much about the other southern states though, except for Florida which is said to have an outstanding education system and also very business friendly. Same counts for California, where former Governor Schwarzenegger pushed for a more business friendly climate: California Lieutenant Governor Newsom has some interesting points when he writes about how to increase said business climate --> http://www.ltg.ca.gov/docs/LGN_Econ_Agenda.pdf . Though I don't notice that much being realized... I don't wanna present numbers here, I mean come on, present me the right numbers in the right way and you could make the impression California was the best state for business But let me present 1 ranking by the Chief Executive magazine: http://chiefexecutive.net/best-worst-states-for-business-2014#ranking Texas: #1 California: #50 So I wanna hear your opinion: Is the Golden State's economic power vanishing? Is the south, especially Texas, a slowly awakening sleeping giant? Or will economic power go westwards again? EDIT: just read through my news and saw Perry is now in Japan, promoting "stronger economic ties between Japan and Texas". Last time I heard such a thing was Christie down in Mexico, and I can also remember Schwarzenegger in Asia and Perry in Davos. Some might think republican govs are more on the internatioal state...

alliance bank getting stolen... sounds familiar... better luck with the new one

What you ignore is that, generally viewed, the people now can buy more. So on the one side, the money flows out to the employees, on the other side back into the company via product sales. That again means the businesses will sell more products and can expand, as the people buy more because of the additional income. Also keep in mind there's a "learning curve", the additional units the businesses will produce can be installed easier, the employees already know how to handle the machines, the products etc and overall both businesses as well as the people will be better off. Sure, inflation will take place and money be devaluated, but surely not that fast. Not all military staff members have to be at the frontline, there are internal, more interesting jobs, especially in large armies like the american one, just as a side note. If someone chooses to drop out of school and he wants a low-skill job, allow him that. Guess what, our society is built upon the working man, and if you demand university diplomas for every job you're just inflating higher education, and just end up with lots of underqualified students trapped in their college debt and ending up as taxi drivers. That doesn't help society, especially if on the other side high-school dropouts become billionaires. After all, a working man should always be allowed to live a life in dignity. Sure, a high-school dropout at a burger bar will live in a small house, will have to tighten his belt, whereas a lawyer or doctor will have a more luxurious life. But like now, that the low-skilled workers are doomed to live in poverty, that must not happen.

same here. it's 14:28 here, i last spent my money on a cola power plant at about 12:30, then was in a meeting and now still have the same amount of money. please fix

2x the munitions... meh.. but perhaps more gasoline. As I see it, the world map works with a coordinate system. It'd be easy to calculate the distance between two nations and then say e.g. a ship uses 1 gasoline per 1,000 nautical miles...

An interesting article I found: http://www.sptimes.ru/story/40683?page=1#top

Looks familiar... you wanna fake Russia, huh? Nasty. well, some good ideas... what about false flag manoveurs? send them a message another nation spied on them, then wait until he attacks this nation and then attack him as he sends his military to another one

Nigeria

This is sexy. TAC, I mean, not Pub's pic

What would definetely help, and would strengthen the base sense of alliances (=protect their members) would be some central command within alliances (like the SACEUR in NATO). Set a "military tax rate" that determines a percentage of total alliance units can be commanded by 1 military leader....

We could... hypothetically... introduce currencies for each alliance, then create a forex market... with different courses... central banks... (*cough* perhaps a UN *cough*) I think good ideas, thereby you can provide liquidity to nations who lack money. Then again, if you buy those resources, you gotta use them again... either send them to other nations or sell them again, and that's where i believe a lot of the value can be erased. Plus... the power over more money (under the assumption that an alliance bank could have more money than 1 nation) could lead to market manipulations. You know, if some alliance blocs work together... What could prevent such things: 1) allow the officer a max limit, a higher one for the leader 2) log the transactions like now, but somehow keep an eye on transactions above, let's say, 1 mio

CEE states like ukraine, but also hungary, slovakia,..., will never have democracy that's comparable to germany, uk or america. But at least more than in the ussr... or? soviet (if i read that right, DEMON )

Or you become an important person, like Kofi Annan, or one of those politically nutheads refered to as "stars".

Looks like a lot of work put into it. Though I'm not sure whether it's meant to be 1 army suit and 1 white suit or if the golden thing is something else... 9/10

In NS i mean

Well, Ukraine is already in a NATO partnership and I hope they'll join them one day (although now, as they're semi-official in a war, they aren't allowed to join). Russia's imperialistic behaviour somehow always has the same pattern... infiltrate a region, spread rumours and criminals among it and after a while "liberate" it. Yes, the American Empire is also imperialistic, but it only builds military bases around the world and doesn't (anymore ) undermine democracies like the russians. But let's keep in mind the americans, especially the CIA, have a long history of destabilizing democracies and supporting autocrats, they're not a peace dove either... Russia is a dying power, slowly running out of money imo (i mean why did they have to do the undervalued gas deal with the chinese), low standards of living (it's still a 2nd-class country) and no prosperous outlook. Decades of stalinism and communism have left deep scars (and brain damages) and the "world power" is the only thing that russia had left. I also have to say putin is now in a gridlock... more or less. While so many countries ask for his retreat, don't you see that if he'd do it he'd be dumped as coward or !@#$ by his russian nationalists? Best way to end the conflict would be to simply give him something he can declare as success, perhaps a stronger federalization of ukraine or neutrality of ukraine. You gotta give him something that allows him to keep his face, otherwise he'll be too scared to retreat.

Not sure whether America even should inntervene militarily. Imo there are many arab countries (Egypt, UAE, Algeria, ...) who want to fight ISIS too. And let's face it: the problem with terrorists is that they're like weed... if you got weed in your garden and just run over it with a lawnmover, it will grow again. You gotta rip it out of the soil, that's the only sustainable way, but much harder one. America should, for sure (and because of the large military-industrial complex ) sell weapons to those arab countries who wanna fight ISIS. Atm, some of those would prefer to "rent" american military power and pay them for their operations... But that'd only make America look like a !@#$... an again, military power won't help much. Once you kill one terrorist, two others will show up. It'd requrie strategic, slow, hidden warfare to undermine ISIS and destroy it. Cut off their supplies (-> saudis), wreck their infrastructure and communication (--> EMP), cut off their water supply to turn the citizens against them (--> via Turkey (NATO)), infiltrate them with spies to e.g. split their leadership / separate the group into smaller, less powerful and less organized groups, and finally crate chaos witin their caliphate and let spies spread bad rumours among the citizens. This is a war you can barely win with conventional weapons. The more you kill, the more the hate will grow and the more newbies will follow their ideology.

Damn, you guys in RP forums? What are your names? Wanna start?

Nah, The Endless was Guardian's "successor" (no one thought Guardian would survive). Infinity has some former Guardian faces, in TAC I'm (to my knowledge) the only Guardian guy.

Well... The Endless is gone... Lacedaemon too.. and Guardian survived. Seems lie we misunderestimated you

Well, the NS I play is mostly RP... we could establish an Orbis gov in here But I may "advertise" for P&W a little bit

Anyone of you guys also playing NationStates?

Some might say TAC has the potential to rule Orbis...

Can I pay you in Paysafecard?