Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Just curious is Australia a socialist country...If so, do you think the USA should embrace socialism. Like to hear the pros and cons..
from a fellow american, what is everybodys facination about the word socialism now? Is it because republican talking heads have been calling B. Obama's plans for america "socialism"?
do you even know what real socialism is? Do you consider Euro countries like France, Germany, Sweden socialistic countires? America will never embrace with the 'socialism' tag becuase about half the population has been told by the republicans that the federal gov't is always bad, can never do anything cost effective or efficient, and that every tax you ever pay is bad and isn't the cost of living in a society. They'll never tell you the Medicares admin. cost is 4% while the hundreds of private for profit insurance companies in america have admin costs of 20-50%.
BO is a corporate, bought and paid for centrist Democrat that will not bring socialism to america. America has a long way to go before becoming a "socialist" country - even if you measure 'socialism' as being like western Euro countries.
For America to be a or even start to become like a "socialist" country things really have to change. Workers would not be able to be fired "just becuase", ie. at will employment,
we'd all have 4-6 weeks of vacation no matter what job we do, no matter how long we've been there, we'd all work about 35 hours a week and retiring in our mid to late 50's would be common,
we'd all have a minimum guaranteed health insurance with the ability to buy a private policy (just like in German et all, did you know that?), nobody would declare bankrupcy because of medical bills, I know Canadians never do.
we'd have 9months to a year paid maternity leave,
there would be many meds that are currently 30-60% cheaper in Canada suddenly available in the US at those prices, there'd be versions of generic meds currently available in Canada and elsewhere suddenly available in the US. instead of having to wait 3-5more years,
a university education would take about 3 years to complete and be free to all,
the train system would be well developed and subsidised as much as the gov't subsidises the auto and road system and we wouldn't have to listen to people complain about trains being subsidised but not hear a whimper about cars and roads being subsidised by the federal gov't in a hypocritical way,
we'd have a national news and programming channel that would give us near commercial free Olympic broadcasts and a press that would actually spend more than 45 seconds on each 'news' story, instead spending 4 or 5 mins on in depth reporting, including of course far more international news so as to not highlight our insular tendencies.
'socialism', if that's what you want to call it , isn't coming to america anytime soon and a corporate, paid for centrist democrat isn't going to help it along too fast.
i'm sorry, i haven't really answered your question but this whole socialism thing that people are spitting back out here in the US is rediculous. I apologise to the Aussies having to read this rant.
PS: I didn't even vote for Obama but calling him and his ideas "socialist" is ignorant.
from a fellow american, what is everybodys facination about the word socialism now? Is it because republican talking heads have been calling B. Obama's plans for america "socialism"?
do you even know what real socialism is? Do you consider Euro countries like France, Germany, Sweden socialistic countires? America will never embrace with the 'socialism' tag becuase about half the population has been told by the republicans that the federal gov't is always bad, can never do anything cost effective or efficient, and that every tax you ever pay is bad and isn't the cost of living in a society. They'll never tell you the Medicares admin. cost is 4% while the hundreds of private for profit insurance companies in america have admin costs of 20-50%.
BO is a corporate, bought and paid for centrist Democrat that will not bring socialism to america. America has a long way to go before becoming a "socialist" country - even if you measure 'socialism' as being like western Euro countries.
For America to be a or even start to become like a "socialist" country things really have to change. Workers would not be able to be fired "just becuase", ie. at will employment,
we'd all have 4-6 weeks of vacation no matter what job we do, no matter how long we've been there, we'd all work about 35 hours a week and retiring in our mid to late 50's would be common,
we'd all have a minimum guaranteed health insurance with the ability to buy a private policy (just like in German et all, did you know that?), nobody would declare bankrupcy because of medical bills, I know Canadians never do.
we'd have 9months to a year paid maternity leave,
there would be many meds that are currently 30-60% cheaper in Canada suddenly available in the US at those prices, there'd be versions of generic meds currently available in Canada and elsewhere suddenly available in the US. instead of having to wait 3-5more years,
a university education would take about 3 years to complete and be free to all,
the train system would be well developed and subsidised as much as the gov't subsidises the auto and road system and we wouldn't have to listen to people complain about trains being subsidised but not hear a whimper about cars and roads being subsidised by the federal gov't in a hypocritical way,
we'd have a national news and programming channel that would give us near commercial free Olympic broadcasts and a press that would actually spend more than 45 seconds on each 'news' story, instead spending 4 or 5 mins on in depth reporting, including of course far more international news so as to not highlight our insular tendencies.
'socialism', if that's what you want to call it , isn't coming to america anytime soon and a corporate, paid for centrist democrat isn't going to help it along too fast.
i'm sorry, i haven't really answered your question but this whole socialism thing that people are spitting back out here in the US is rediculous. I apologise to the Aussies having to read this rant.
PS: I didn't even vote for Obama but calling him and his ideas "socialist" is ignorant.
According to that, Canada isn't either.
Canada ONLY has public health care.
If you don't want to wait 3-11 months for a medical procedure and you are willing to pay for private health care,
you have to leave the country and find treatment somewhere else, like the U.S.A.
*Our federal government has vilified the idea of having a "two-tier" health system,
ranting that it will somehow compromise our public system and destroy the fundementals of our nation.
(I noticed Australia has both public and private health care )
Canada post-secondary education is not free to anyone, unless they recieve a scholarship or grant of some kind.
Furthermore, in Ontario you are not eligible for a "student loan" until/unless you have a nearly-empty bank account;
you're not eligible if your net worth is more than a year's tuition and books.
Our country is fairly socialist compared to the U.S., but our standard vacation time is still 2 weeks.
Once you've been with a company long enough (6 months probation?) you can't get fired quickly... it becomes a somewhat drawn out process.
To support your medication statement, I'm a certified pharm tech and worked at a pharmacy at a hospital and was disgusted at how medications are marked up as much as 2000%, sometimes higher, above costs. This was a nonprofit hospital that ran a for-profit retail pharmacy, which made them quite a bit of money. It was unbelievable to me that the doctors in the hospital would prescribe these outrageously priced drugs to patients and then when we'd see them come in and not be able to afford them, it was heartbreaking. Some of the medication that was prescribed was overpriced Advil (literally) and was much cheaper to buy the OTC brands than to get the prescriptions filled. Makes me wonder how many of these prescriptions they are giving out are really necessary...
Our friends in the UK and France get the kind of holiday and maternity leave you are referring to. In fact, one of them is on that 9 month maternity leave right now.
I enjoyed that badger, don't apologise, there are only a couple of things that I disagree with though..."paid maternity leave"...nup, either one works or one stays home and looks after the kids giving another young person a chance to enter the workforce. I have a daughter who has been employed in several positions over several years under a '6 month' or '12 month' contract etc etc, stuff that, she is trying to get a permanent job and as long as those sheila's continue to get a belly full of arms and legs and take time off, and then return to their jobs *at will*, my daughter will be stuffed around endlessly, how the hell can she plan a future. If one decides to have kids...then one should stay home and look after them, after that, then maybe they can try to re-enter the workforce if they wish...and compete with everyone else who is looking for work instead of riding the 'gravy train'!
This currant economic crisis is the best thing that could happen, I have been waiting several years for the bubble to burst, and it's all the result of *greed*, money, money, money!! How much money does one person, company, corporation, or whatever, need to sustain a comfortable lifestyle or stay in business, corporations needed to be brought down to their knees to get things back on some sort of 'even keel'. It's time to re-assess capitalism and change the way it works, it can work, but not under the currant ideology...start from the top of the food chain, and work down.
Equitable distribution of wealth, tax everyone, and I mean *everyone*, 20 cents in the dollar, that way *anyone* can go after as much money as they want, retaining the capitalist ideal, but 20 cents of every dollar they make will be retained for putting to better use in the general society infrastructure and help improve the 'lot' for everyone. Business rabbits on about losing 40 million dollars in the last year etc etc, but, 'hello?', that's just a loss in the *profits* they made in that year, a loss to me is when one goes into the 'red' not just smaller figures in the 'black'. No-one should lose their jobs as long as the business is still in the 'black'! This is an excuse now for corporations to move their operations over to China...while blaming the economic crisis for doing so...and it was these same businesses that created the problem in the first place!!
"University education"...stop the government subsidised fee scheme and reduce the number of people entering uni who should never be there anyway! If one is academically bright...then go to uni, otherwise get a job like everyone else. When most of these students leave uni there are not enough jobs around so governments think up new ways of imposing rules and regulations, occupational health and safety brainwaves that restrict how we work and do our jobs more and more blah, blah, etc etc, which creates employment for these students. For every person who actually is in productive employment there are 15 others shining the seats of their strides, or dresses, sitting on their a r s e s doing nothing but think up knew ways of making my job, and my life in general, harder and harder.
The communist party, apparently, is gaining more membership here, and is it any wonder? People are getting sick and tired of being screwed over all the time. It won't work of course, but this is the time for some radical changes to be made in how we do things. Opportunity is knocking on the door!! I wonder who will have the g u t s to open it??
Slow down technology, stop a new car from rolling off the assembly line every 14 days, stop new tv's from appearing on the shelf every 28 days, and so on. Stuff the mega-million dollar oil producing countries and turn to the sun, stop the electricity companies and turn to the sun or wind. It can be done but one can see how many feathers will be ruffled when choking the exchange of the almighty *dollar*.
But alas, no-one will have the b a l l s to grab the bull by the horns and try to introduce change so after all this has blown over, it will cycle all over again.
The system is so rotten, so corrupt, so full of rabbit warrens and everything is so intertwined with business and politicians being in each others back pockets that the animal will be hard to bring down. It's on it's knees at the moment, strike the final blow I reckon, then we can move forward and improve the 'lot' for each and everyone of us.
What do people think is going to happen when China reaches the same level of industry etc as the rest of the world, let's see how cheap commodities will be then.
Money, money, money...it's worshipped, and looked up to more than god, for those who have one!
Let's all get on our knees and pray and give 'thanks' to that little piece of 'green stuff'!!
Yeah, I probably haven't answered the question either, but damn it felt good writing this!
For every person who actually is in productive employment there are 15 others shining the seats of their strides, or dresses, sitting on their a r s e s doing nothing but think up knew ways of making my job, and my life in general, harder and harder.
I've been in the workforce since 1980, and my!, how has the corporate world degenerated in that time! Because of exactly what you mentioned above. Seat shiners with BS titles like Manager of Business Engagement. Meanwhile, the shop floor doesn't have enough trained, skilled staff to get the work done, but the managers with the BS titles are constantly telling you about synergies and leveraging, and matrices, and blah blah blah.
They're constantly coming up with "initiatives" which basically waste your time taking you away from doing your real job. The customers complain we're too slow, yet the BS titled types seem to think we need more "synergies" and "engagement", accomplished by "team-building" sessions which are full of this Corporate BS speak. It's in their KPIs, which affect their bonuses. These bonuses are massive, for accomplishing basically nothing of real value. And our own miniscule bonuses depend on jumping through these idiotic hoops like circus poodles, while we get even more stressed out trying to just get the job done on time.
I'd say 50% of most corporations' top end could be wiped out and nobody would notice. In fact, we'd probably be more productive. And happier.
There's a great book which outlines all this crapola that's infested the corporate and academic world - The Triump of the Airheads. It's spot on.
No, Australia isn't a socialist state, if you take the traditional definition of socialist i.e. Marxist-Leninist, communist etc. Your question is difficult to answer given the various different interpretations of socialist ideology.
That said, I do believe you are referring to what I would think of as a social democratic 'outlook' taken by a government, say those of Western Europe such as France, Sweden etc. Australia's government displays a few tenets of this outlook, such as the provision of universal primary health care and a fairly comprehensive social welfare system, but could in no way be considered socialist.
I'm not sure the second part of the question of whether the US should embrace socialism is relevant to this forum, but the US govt. is about as far from socialism as you can get. The US is well and truly a meritocratic capitalist economy.
Some ex U.S. soldier types (Nam era) I know went over there to do some I.T. work. They came back and were saying Australia is a "Nanny State". Not quite sure what they meant, but near as I could tell they seemed to think it was to regulated toward letting laborer types get away with "murder". Something about "you can't even work in your own house", etc.
Anyone know what these guys were talking about? Have to admit, I didn't get along too well with either of them for a number of reasons.
Some ex U.S. soldier types (Nam era) I know went over there to do some I.T. work. They came back and were saying Australia is a "Nanny State". Not quite sure what they meant, but near as I could tell they seemed to think it was to regulated toward letting laborer types get away with "murder". Something about "you can't even work in your own house", etc.
Anyone know what these guys were talking about? Have to admit, I didn't get along too well with either of them for a number of reasons.
A "Nanny State", Is were a government is seen as being overly interested in?, Controlling? or protective? of the welfare of it's citizens (Abit like a Nanny would! ). Through the implementation of health and safety regulations, An obliging welfare system, Or just extensive "Red Tape" that makes it difficult to do anything at all.
Last edited by Kangaroofarmer; 03-07-2009 at 12:46 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This is how Canada stacks up
)
). Through the implementation of health and safety regulations, An obliging welfare system, Or just extensive "Red Tape" that makes it difficult to do anything at all.
