hummingbird writes:

That is entirely untrue.

I've lived in both countries, and unfortunately it's true.

Remind me of how many of Bush's first cabinet
had direct links to big oil and/or the Jewish Lobby and/or Israel.

Only a small fraction of business in the U.S. as a whole. Europeans, on the
other hand, have their fingers in everything. No large business has much room
to make its own decisions.

I often wonder why the American people have handed over their govt
to Israel.

Because Zionists in the U.S. have spent decades presenting a one-sided,
extremely favorable view of Israel to the American people, and it has worked.

They haven't exactly handed the government over to Israel, but no one in the
United States government can take any public position unfavorable to Israel,
and no one can be elected unless he favors Israel unconditionally.

However, this is remarkable precisely because it is the _exception_ to the
rule.

But for sure, big money and govt are much closer in bed in the US
than in Europe or any other part of the world.

Big business and government are often at odds with each other in the U.S. The
opposite is true in Europe; indeed, it's hard to tell the difference between
European business and European government, outside of cottage industries.

American foreign policy is known to have a huge commercial element
behind it.

What other element should it have behind it?

Then of course
there's the Jewish Lobby...and MS's new found friendship with the
music/film industry reflected in Vista DRM controls.

I don't see what this has to do with the government.

That may be so. But it's been long alleged that the US fed govt
overpays Boeing for its military planes as an indirect subsidy to
Boeing's commercial plane business.

No, it just does what every government does, paying too much for military
contracts. It's hardly a subsidy. European governments pay too much for
their purchases of aircraft from European manufacturers too, but it's less
obvious because Europe simply doesn't have any manufacturers that amount to a
blip on the radar, except for Airbus, and we know how badly they are doing.

Long ago, it was the fed govt
who helped to kill off Concorde to protect US aircraft plane makers
using the lame excuse of noise etc.

If the Concorde were such a good idea, it would have been successful even if
nobody in the U.S. bought it.

As it is, BA and Air France were forced to buy them, just as they are forced
to buy Airbus planes.

The US fed govt also heavily subsidies American agricultural industry
despite its frequent claims to want free markets and free competiton.
Ask the rice farmers of Ghana.

Europeans heavily subsidize their farmers, too.

ISTR that Boeing's Execs have had their fair share of chaos and
corruption in recent times.

They've survived for decades, and they are doing better than Airbus now. And
the U.S. government isn't a shareholder.

Clearly there is a strong difference between Boeing and Airbus as to
how they see the plane market developing and I would expect the fed
govt to do whatever it can to support Boeing's direction.

I would expect Boeing to do whatever it can to follow the Fed's direction.

I don't think the A380 was intended for the US domestic market.

I don't think the A380 was intended for anything, except as another attempt to
try to measure up to Boeing.

Those two big economies in Asia are where the growing market is...

Until they start building their own.

ISTR that it was Boeing who used the fed's Echelon satellite spy
system to spy on Airbus contract negotiations some while ago.

Yes, that's how it found out that Airbus used bribes to win contracts, instead
of merit. The Europeans were furious about this being brought out into the
open.

Apart from that, industrial espionage goes on by all countries.

To a limited extent, but some Europeans make an institution of it. The really
amusing thing is that even after they spy on others, they still can't compete.

You have an unreal view of Europe.

I wish that were true. Where would Airbus be if it were truly a private
corporation free of government interference? Then again, it probably wouldn't
exist, as nobody would organize a company that way except for political
reasons.

Yes, it is becoming a totalitarian
nightmare of Orwellian proportions but the US is also not far behind.
American people have surrendered freedom in return for security -
but will get neither.

Whereas Europeans never had it and don't miss it in consequence.

I make these comments not because I am anti-American but because
America used to be the only place where freedom and liberty still
existed and there was still hope for mankind.....

Neither Europe nor the U.S. is that way any more. All democracies tend to
self-destruct in time.

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