Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Well... It wasn't harmless in the security sense.

Also bullets have limited reach. That thing was at 60,000 + ft, that's U2 territory. What's the service ceiling of our fighters? They don't tell us that.
A military .50 cal round costs more than $1 but significantly less than a sidewinder.

Nah, they will just let us do it to ourselves.

Paged! But I like Proth's pic/

It was completely harmless. There was nothing that balloon could see that spy satellites haven't been looking at for decades. It's not like we leave our nukes out for public viewing. They don't open the silo doors to air out the missiles.

Max altitude for our older planes like the F-15 and F-18 is 65-70,000 feet for a short period of time. I assume the F-22 can get a little higher because it's newer and has supercruise. Ir probably just popped up to down the balloon before ducking back down to safer altitudes.

Which chance and how? Detail please.

I am also pretty sure a war at large scale hurts world economy more. The economy and inflation turns bad after the war, not before .

But both sides has to keep fighting for political reasons.


Who are "they"?

Isn't the not-so-humanitarian side being the one who starts war? So supporting people who fight the invaders is wrong? I am legit confused lol.

They, specifically, is Ratheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, military contractors, and those who are bribed by them.

Conflict is guaranteed profit. As long as it's anywhere but here. (here too, but that's a secret)

That $10 balloon will cause a 10 trillion dollar "Balloon Air Defense Contract" and whoever gets it their stock will double.

Inflation doesn't affect the people who cause it.

Does it matter if a new yacht costs 1.9 instead of 1.7 million. No.

I'd still sooner someone buy a yacht than not. At least then the money's moving around instead of someone just sitting on it like a dragon on its hoard.

I guess one sign (another one) that youre getting old is that old cliches arent as effective as they were before.

Actually, not just less effective but something entirely forced and lazy

A quick Google search shows that the entire oil industry is roughly 8% gdp in the US and 3% in the world. So the % is high but not dominating. And 4 oil companies made 1 trillion sales in 2022.

Also another quick Google search shows in 2022 stock market loss wipe out $9 trillion from America's wealth.

I can't see how "oil company is making money" leads the conclusion that they bribed their way into war considering the loss from every other industry seems greater than the gain from one industry.

I meant if oil companies can bribe this way why isn't every other industry suffering from the war and inflation doing the same to stop war for their own gain?

For the most part power struggles between superpower nations like Russia/China can't be affected by a few oil companies that easily. I don't see how.


I believe you get it backwards. Those companies are making profit because there is a demand first. Everyone is increasing their military budget so the US needs to increase it in order to maintain peace too. Then Lockheed Martin etc simply make money from those who needs, but they didn't create the demand in the first place.

Just FYI, in 2023 China and the first island chain countries increase their military budget greatly. China increased military budget by 7.1%, Japan 26.3%, Taiwan 13.9%. therefore of course the US needs to react accordingly(aka budget increase) to maintain peace.

If the US government doesn't act and doesn't care, China will definitely take Taiwan and eventually part of Japan which will probably damage the world economy and political order several times greater than Ukrainian war.

So It's not all Lockheed Martin's fault here. You guys are overestimating their influence in superpower nations politics.

It's a political act from both sides. They are both sending some kind of political message and the US's reaction toward it will determine China's next move.

Whether it's harmless or not is not the main point. Logically speaking of course it's likely harmless. It's a bait to begin with.

The demand is created. it's manufactured.

Poke the bear. Tell the bear that other bear is going to take your food. Poke the other bear. Tell that bear the other bear is going to take their cave.

Sell guns to both.

When they kill each other, tell their cubs it was a third bear.

Sell the cubs guns. Sell the third bear a bear defense system.

Fund the fourth bears coup to take over all three previous bears caves.

Get a guy in a bear suit to kill the fourth bear and run the area.

Fund rebel bears to overthrow your guy in a bear suit.

Start the process over.

Make a few billion dollars between every step. (record high sales, growth, incentives, bonuses, contracts)((including sounding area caves to insure the battle doesn't spill over to them))

All that to say "Manufacture a fix for a problem, create that problem, sell the solution"

There was a time early this century when the USA spent more on "defense" than the rest of the world combined. Today we outspend only the top 5 or 6 countries.

PARITY WITH THE WORLD MUST BE REATTAINED!!!

Oh come on. Listerine did that 100 years ago too.

Been doing it since the dawn of time and will continue to.

So the aftermath of the 3rd ice storm in 3 years here in Austin is not going well. The major cause of the power outages was tree branches iced over and fell onto power lines, knocking them out for three days. Who did the electric company decide to put the blame on for those tree branches? Homeowners. Who already pay huge property taxes for decades long road projects that may or may not get finished. Now we are supposed to pay to have our trees trimmed every year.

Oh and there is another major storm blowing in this week.

Wait, what? I USE LISTERINE! Should I not??

The idea is that Listerine doesn't really do anything. If you brush your teeth at least once a day and see a dentist for anything afoul like a rotten tooth, your breath isn't going to be any worse off.

But they ran an ad campaign insisting that everyone's breath is awful and that Listerine is the only cure. And everyone ate it up.

B-but it tastes like medicine!

I meant the demand is created by somebody of course, but it isn't Lockheed Martin and the likes.

In your overly simplified example it's more like a large group of bears(superpower nation) wants to expand their territories for more food to feed their kids so they take the land from a smaller group of bears(the victims) because they can. So the victims are forced to buy weapons from arm dealers and allow them to make money or else they'll be annihilated.

Not selling weapons to the victims won't stop war, they just all die sooner lol.


This isn't anywhere close to reality. You guys are acting as if human beings won't fight if nobody sell weapons which is obviously not true according to history.

It's more like people want to fight for self interest first then they seek weapons to win, by buying weapons or making weapons on their own. The arm dealers sell the solution but they aren't the source of the demand.

Your naiveté is showing.

I'd explain it, but you still wouldn't get it. I'm not doing that ***with you.