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1500 questions
51
votes
13 answers
What are the downsides of being a debt-free country (no foreign national debt)?
I was only a child when the Romanian dictator, Ceaușescu announced that all of the country's foreign debt had been paid:
Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu announced this week that his
country, despite an economy that a recent U.S. congressional…
Alexei
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51
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5 answers
Has Trump's administration ever explained why they didn't "build the wall" before the midterms?
Title pretty much says it all. The Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate before the midterms, so why didn't they push through funding for the wall then? The Republicans had two years to do this, and the Democrats would've had a harder…
Allure
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51
votes
7 answers
What are the reasons for the rise in Euroscepticism over the last few years?
Eurosceptic political parties in Europe have been on the rise over the last few years. What are the reasons for this? What are the main arguments made by Eurosceptics against the EU?
user14856
51
votes
4 answers
Why has Venezuela's economy collapsed when Cuba's has not?
Cuba and Venezuela seem to share a lot in common. Both are effectively Socialist dictatorships. Cuba's government has been Communist for many years, while Venezuela has been socialist for much less.
I would like to know why Venezuela's socialist…
user8398
51
votes
6 answers
Why has Israel not expelled Russian diplomats in response to the Skripal poisoning?
The US and more than 20 other countries have expelled Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. As of this writing, Israel has not expelled any Russian diplomats in response to this particular incident.…
ebhh2001
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51
votes
1 answer
Will English be dropped as an official/working language of the EU after Brexit?
English is currently one of the 24 official languages of the European Union (EU), and one of the three “working” languages alongside French and German.
Will the United Kingdom leaving the EU (Brexit) mean English will be dropped as one of the…
Basil Bourque
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51
votes
9 answers
Why is economic growth considered so essential, even in rich countries?
Whenever economic growth as a percentage of GDP drops close to zero, economists speak of a recession or even a crisis. In political debate, the focus is quite often on economic growth; in most democracies, leading parties are more likely to win…
gerrit
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51
votes
10 answers
Why does the Black Lives Matter movement organize protests while the incident they're protesting is still under investigation?
Black Lives Matter is an American social justice movement which seeks to remedy the problem of extrajudicial killings of people of color by police officers among other issues. One aspect of this movement, that I found interesting was that they…
lazarusL
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51
votes
10 answers
Why was the Brexit referendum conducted as a simple majority vote?
For votes which can have extremely long-term consequences, (like changing the constitution) a simple majority vote is usually not enough. Such voting and referendums are not about electing a temporary leadership which can be easily changed in 4…
vsz
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50
votes
9 answers
Name for phenomenon in which attempting to solve a problem locally can seemingly fail because they absorb the problem from elsewhere?
Examples:
City has a homelessness problem. They increase services for the homeless, but because all the surrounding cities also have homelessness problems, homeless people from those cities move in until services are at or above capacity again.…
Noah Green
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50
votes
22 answers
Is there any other country in the world, besides the US, that erects monuments to those who took up arms against it and lost?
Richmond's mayor Levar Stoney was quoted as saying (in the context of the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee)
Mr Northam called the statue "a monument to the Confederate insurrection". [...]
"There's no other country in the world that erects…
the gods from engineering
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9 answers
Two Germanys and two Koreas but only one China. Why wasn't a compromise to internationally recognise both Chinas reached?
During the Cold War several former united states ended divided in two opposing polities, each one claiming to be the legitimate government of the whole former state. Although in the beginning most countries recognised just one of each pair of…
Pere
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50
votes
3 answers
Where and how does Hamas obtain the technology and raw material for rockets?
'Ayyash 250' rockets
1,000 rockets fired towards Israel
It must be almost impossible to obtain raw materials for building 1000 rockets given the situation Hamas lives in. I mean, continuous surveillance and blockades.
Where and how does Hamas…
user366312
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50
votes
4 answers
What percentage of mass shootings in the USA are actually stopped by ordinary gun-bearing Americans?
It has been hypothesized that the harms of mass shootings in the US could be mitigated or prevented by encouraging gun ownership and reducing legal obstacles to gun carrying.
With approximately 400,000,000 (that's 400 million) guns in the hands of…
End Anti-Semitic Hate
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Apparently many US voters think their candidate supports their politics even if they do not. Does this also apply to voters in other countries?
This surprising New York Times article says many US voters can't tell what political positions their candidate espouse, and in fact appear to simply attach their favored positions onto their candidate.
Strikingly, a majority (59%) of Trump voters…
Allure
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