US Politics

[TheMightyEthan]

You're not even arguing against Yante, he never said socialism was the reason for the Great Recession. In fact, he said nearly the opposite (that the government didn't step in when it should have).

[deanb]

You're not even arguing against Yante, he never said socialism was the reason for the Great Recession. In fact, he said nearly the opposite (that the government didn't step in when it should have).

 

It's a slow and steady change over to socialism and it doesn't mean America will be instantly turned into a rotting cess pool. It means that the standard of living will continue to decrease for every American much like the trend we are seeing in the EU right now. They sky isn't falling with Obama and socialism. It's just making life a little less comfortable one day at a time until eventually our economy implodes.

 

He pretty clearly states here socialism = economy implode.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yes, but he also clearly stated that was not the cause of this economic implosion:

 

Can I just say for the 800th time that I'm not against regulation? The aforementioned housing bubble was an example where the government should have stepped in and shut down the selling of bad mortgage backed securities and there are plenty of records showing that they knew it was a problem way ahead of time.

[Yantelope V2]

Greece's problem is that it has racked up huge debts based on their socialistic entitlement programs that it can't pay for and it can't service the debt. The citizens of Greece refuse to cut the entitlements and they can't service their debt to Germany and the EU so they're pretty much pissed off and about to face some hard reality. It's nothing to do with bad money. It's all about piss poor leftist ideals.

 

For reference: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122290574391296381.html

Edited May 15, 2012 by Yantelope V2

[deanb]

Yeah, in response to Johnny sarcastically saying:

Quite, the economic problems we're seeing worldwide has everything to do with a too controlled economy and nothing to do with capitalism run wild.

 

edit: See! It's all socialisms fault.

[TheMightyEthan]

My plan: invent replicators + infinite free energy (screw the laws of thermodynamics, what do they know?). Economy becomes obsolete, everyone's happy.

[Yantelope V2]

Greece's current financial woes are unrelated to the housing crisis or are you saying they're the same thing?

[Yantelope V2]

My plan: invent replicators + infinite free energy (screw the laws of thermodynamics, what do they know?). Economy becomes obsolete, everyone's happy.

 

I don't think that's true though. I think that's a fundamental difference between left and right wing politicis. I think even if world hunger were a think of the past and we all had shelter and medical care there would still be war for numerous reasons. We covet what others have, women, friends, power. Power itself is something people will fight over.

[deanb]

Greece's current financial woes are unrelated to the housing crisis or are you saying they're the same thing?

Of course Greece's current economic troubles are unrelated to the late-2000 recession. They're in a bubble unaffected by the rest of the world and their issues that closely resemble the recession that hit the rest of the world at the same time is in fact purely the cause of having socialism.

[TheMightyEthan]

Oh, I didn't mean world peace would ensue, I just meant that material wealth would be irrelevant because it would be infinite for everyone. People will always find something to fight about, I have no illusions about that.

[Yantelope V2]

@Dean, Well, this is a global economy so bad economic news in America affects the rest of the world. The housing bubble and the general banking crisis that resulted clearly affected the rest of the world but I do believe the EU crisis is more related to the poor bailouts and the refusal of EU creditors to realize that Greece is unwilling and unable to repay their debts. They keep trying new "bailout" packages with more debt but there's not really any way for Greece to repay it so sooner or later the loans will stop coming in, Greece will run out of money and it's not going to be pretty.

[deanb]

Oh sure Greece isn't going to be pretty in the coming years, but it's silly to blame their situation on socialism. Take for example Sweden, a country that's pretty well known for having socialised services out the wazoo. Now if it was socialism that was the root of the ails in Greece then surely Sweden would be fucked atm? In fact they're doing pretty a-okay. They're also not on the Euro too, running on Swedish Krona for their currency instead. Socialism is fine as long as it's handled correctly. i.e not trying to wedge it in the space left behind after funding one of the largest armies in the world.

[TheMightyEthan]

funding one of the largest armies in the world.

 

One of the largest? One of? How dare you, sir. I'll have you know that we spend 5 times as much as the next highest, being China, and that we alone account for 41% of global military spending. "One of" indeed.

[deanb]

Largest, not most expensive.

http://en.wikipedia....umber_of_troops

 

We know your'e pretty inefficient with the whole spending side of things. You guys spend more of your budget on healthcare than we do and yours isn't universal.

[TheMightyEthan]

Nah, we're extra efficient, which is why we don't need as many dudes.

 

Besides, even by that measure we're still second in active military.

[deanb]

Which would make you "one of". You're like 10th in overall military and 30 something in per capita. I'm sure if you put prisoners into the military you could reduce spending and increase your ranking on global leaderboards and also reduce your "per 100,000" ranking with "how much of the population is in jail"

[TheMightyEthan]

Well whatever, we def have the most powerful military in the world.

 

I don't even know why I'm arguing this, my original comment was entirely tongue-in-cheek...

[Mr. GOH!]

Yant, socialism is a specific set of methods of economic control, not the idea of the welfare state. Those policies you point out are progressive/liberal/leftist, sure, but not socialist per se. In a socialist country there is universal healthcare provided by state institutions, not the requirement that folks buy private healthcare. The method distinguishes the centrist individual mandate from socialist state-provided healthcare. Redistribution via taxes is also not inherently socialist; the justification for progressive taxation is liberal/leftist, but not specifically socialist. The belief that it's all a slippery slope to socialism and, ultimately, the communal farms of communism is just not warranted. The Democrats, and Obama, LOVE market capitalism. They're just interventionists with a very minor, in the context of history and other nations' policies, side of redistribution.

 

Liberalism/progressivism and socialism are two separate species within the order of Left politics, much like how fascism (in the Peronist/Francoist sense) and Libertarianism are different species in Right politics.

[Yantelope V2]

Well, perhaps I need to expand my vocabulary a bit. I'll use the terms as guys defined them here though. Progressive/liberal/leftist policies like redistribution, universal healthcare, etc. are leading to economic collapse and are unsustainable without direct impact on the standard of living.

 

@Dean and TME, I think I've already agreed that there is a ton of waste in the military that we could probably cut.

 

As far as Sweden goes I honestly don't know much about the country. I'll try to do a little digging and find out a bit more on their policies and such. Maybe Johnny has some of that info. I wonder what the median take home income in Sweden is. I'd also like to know what their highest tax bracket is.

[deanb]

iirc it's around 50% tax rate, so I can tell you off the bat you're not going to be keen on their system.

[Johnny]

Dean is correct. I am honestly not quite sure on the specifics because I've not been in a position where it has mattered to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden

[Yantelope V2]

I mean, isn't this chart pretty telling?

 

 

Their government consumes roughly 2x of their GDP compared to the US. Now that's big government.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Yantelope V2

[Johnny]

And yet we have a very high standard of living, including the poor. Isn't that pretty telling?

[Yantelope V2]

Standard of living is kind of a subjective measure depending upon who's defining it.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Standard of living is kind of a subjective measure depending upon who's defining it.

 

Yeah, I'm sure living in Sweden is just terrible. Also, standard of living isn't that subjective.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living

 

"The standard of living includes factors such as income, quality and availability of employment, class disparity, poverty rate, quality and affordability of housing, hours of work required to purchase necessities, gross domestic product, inflation rate, number of vacation days per year, affordable (or free) access to quality healthcare, quality and availability of education, life expectancy, incidence of disease, cost of goods and services, infrastructure, national economic growth, economic and political stability, political and religious freedom, environmental quality, climate and safety."