The Goat Pen

so we have Al-Qaeda, Isis and now Khorasan

Isis is worse than Al-Qaeda and Khorasan is worse than Isis.

but nobody in the general public heard of Khorasan until yesterday.

A year ago we had Senators and military leaders pushing to arm the "rebels" fighting the Assad regime, turns out we're aiding the Assad regime by attacking the "rebels" who are against him

Now we've clarified it that we want to train the "moderate" rebels who fight against Assad but love America as opposed to the "radical" rebels who fight against Assad but hate America so they can fight Isis, except, why would they fight Isis when Isis is fighting Assad?

I assume there is a written test they take to pledge their allegiance so we can tell the difference.

Those are high risk people. Many of whom cannot get a traditional account at a bank, or the bank charges $20-$30 a month PLUS NSF fees. So, many of these people go to the back-alley check cashing places that charge as much as a 30% fee off the value of the check to cash it.

WalMart, once again, bring a good corporate citizen.

Yeah I don't understand why we keep arming rebels. Hasn't really worked over the past 50 years. Just put some boots on the ground, shoot any motherfucker that moves, build some McDonalds, Popeye's, and a few strip clubs and problem solved.

"so we have Al-Qaeda, Isis and now Khorasan

Isis is worse than Al-Qaeda and Khorasan is worse than Isis."

Those are high risk people. Many of whom cannot get a traditional account at a bank, or the bank charges $20-$30 a month PLUS NSF fees.

Cogent...

Heh. Yes, lack of bank access turned ISIS into rebels. Could see that coming a mile away.

Just like the Nazis became bad when Nehi stopped shipping grape soda to Germany.

AlabamAlum wrote:Those are high risk people. Many of whom cannot get a traditional account at a bank, or the bank charges $20-$30 a month PLUS NSF fees. So, many of these people go to the back-alley check cashing places that charge as much as a 30% fee off the value of the check to cash it.

WalMart, once again, bring a good corporate citizen.

how long can Wal-Mart and this dot head banking cater to folks who are unable to maintain the basics of what is necessary for a checking account?

I'm sure they've worked out the angles but I don't see how they are going to keep it going.

BigRedMan wrote:Yeah I don't understand why we keep arming rebels. Hasn't really worked over the past 50 years. Just put some boots on the ground, shoot any motherfucker that moves, build some McDonalds, Popeye's, and a few strip clubs and problem solved.

And none of this would have happened had we just left these penny-anti dictactors in charge.

Yea, they treated their people like shit, but guess what, the people that replaced them treat the people worse.

Saddam for all his faults kept terrorism in check in his country and the terrorist hated him for it.

eCat wrote:

AlabamAlum wrote:Those are high risk people. Many of whom cannot get a traditional account at a bank, or the bank charges $20-$30 a month PLUS NSF fees. So, many of these people go to the back-alley check cashing places that charge as much as a 30% fee off the value of the check to cash it.

WalMart, once again, bring a good corporate citizen.

how long can Wal-Mart and this dot head banking cater to folks who are unable to maintain the basics of what is necessary for a checking account?

I'm sure they've worked out the angles but I don't see how they are going to keep it going.

I'm sure they know going in, that they will be doing good to break even.

eCat wrote:

BigRedMan wrote:Yeah I don't understand why we keep arming rebels. Hasn't really worked over the past 50 years. Just put some boots on the ground, shoot any motherfucker that moves, build some McDonalds, Popeye's, and a few strip clubs and problem solved.

And none of this would have happened had we just left these penny-anti dictactors in charge.

Yea, they treated their people like shit, but guess what, the people that replaced them treat the people worse.

Saddam for all his faults kept terrorism in check in his country and the terrorist hated him for it.

Saddam would still be in power if he hadn't gone Hitler-crazy by trying to annex Kuwait.

AlabamAlum wrote:

eCat wrote:

BigRedMan wrote:Yeah I don't understand why we keep arming rebels. Hasn't really worked over the past 50 years. Just put some boots on the ground, shoot any motherfucker that moves, build some McDonalds, Popeye's, and a few strip clubs and problem solved.

And none of this would have happened had we just left these penny-anti dictactors in charge.

Yea, they treated their people like shit, but guess what, the people that replaced them treat the people worse.

Saddam for all his faults kept terrorism in check in his country and the terrorist hated him for it.

Saddam would still be in power if he hadn't gone Hitler-crazy by trying to annex Kuwait.

True, but I don't give a fug about Kuwait. I doubt 70% of Americans could find it on a map. Plus, its not like we booted him immediately after Kuwait.

AlabamAlum wrote:

eCat wrote:

AlabamAlum wrote:Those are high risk people. Many of whom cannot get a traditional account at a bank, or the bank charges $20-$30 a month PLUS NSF fees. So, many of these people go to the back-alley check cashing places that charge as much as a 30% fee off the value of the check to cash it.

WalMart, once again, bring a good corporate citizen.

how long can Wal-Mart and this dot head banking cater to folks who are unable to maintain the basics of what is necessary for a checking account?

I'm sure they've worked out the angles but I don't see how they are going to keep it going.

I'm sure they know going in, that they will be doing good to break even.

I suspect in the big picture they aren't just targeting these folks but can't go "full bank" mode due to regulations. Establishing yourself with the people the other banks don't want is your foot in the door..

Yeah but Saddam had those bad weapon thingys

eCat wrote:

True, but I don't give a fug about Kuwait. I doubt 70% of Americans could find it on a map. Plus, its not like we booted him immediately after Kuwait.

No doubt. We don't care about Kuwait except for their oil. It was felt that it was not in US interests to have war in the M.E. Anything that disrupts that, like Iraq annexing Kuwait, and Syria and whatever else, was bad.

The reason we delayed going in probably depends on your political slant: either to manufacture a reason, or we attempted to exert political and diplomatic pressure.

The reason we went in is because Wolfowitz sold baby Bush on the idea of the domino theory in the middle east, something that was so far fetched to Daddy Bush that he threw them out of his office and they essentially had to shelve their idea during the Clinton era.

To some extent I guess the domino theory is true, except that social media drove it during the arab spring, not American intervention to treat these countries as banana republics selling oil.

Lets be real. Kuwait is Iraq except the asshole British and their propensity to draw a bunch of bullshit lines that fuck up everything in those regions for decades (centuries?) right before they say, "Its been fun mates, we'll see you at the next commonwealth games (not you middle east)!

Saddam only invaded Kuwait because he thought (or we actually did, I'm not 100% sure, either way) the US gave him the signal that we did not care if he did.

Speaking of European line drawers. If the UN's original plan was accepted, Israel would have been near Nigeria (IIRC). I wonder how that would have impacted geopolitics over the last 65 years.

With Walmart it is about getting traffic through their stores. They are also opening primary care centers. It makes sense for them as long as they keep costs under control. If any of you have tried to help a person get back on his financial feet you know that banks are horrible for them. If they put $1,000 in an account it gets chewed up in fees and it is tough for them to save anything..

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/ ... e-clinics/

Also been grumblings of Saddam and others in the Middle East wanted to go back to using GOLD for oil and the US was like, ummm, hell no we don't have enough gold to cover this shit. You assholes were suppose to be using American Dollars to purchase the oil. Would explain the rise on the price of gold over the past 10 years along with all the scrap for gold places opening up.

I know Saddam was trading some oil in Euros as a hedge to the American dollar

never mind he had cargo containers full of American cash stashed around his palaces.

Rex Chapman actually tweeted that Saddam was leaving to take over Kuwait.