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Agreed. But I believe that the power being concentrated to the hands of the government is an unstable system. You seem to believe that power is unstable in the hands of job creators.
Job creators have far less power than the government. The market controls companies. If they fail to provide benefits to employees that keep up with the current market then employees leave for something better. If they fail to provide a product or service that a consumer (us) is willing to pay for, then they close their doors. They can fail. As consumers we can choose not to support those companies and force them out of business. The government will not. It will take every last penny that it can from you in return for a false sense of security. We cannot fire the government as a whole.
Incentive plays a part in our daily lives and almost everything we do. Every choice we make is because there is some incentive behind it.
Why do we work? To have the house we want, the cars we want, provide for our children, prepare for their college, their future, etc... We have almost unlimited choices. We know the amount of money that is required to live the lifestyle that we choose and that makes us happy. That is incentive. We are working towards a goal.
In socialism, the goal posts are lowered so that the goal is the same for everyone. No matter how hard you work, you can only achieve so much. The next guy can achieve similar results as you by working half as hard. So in turn, everyone eventually does the bare minimum to get by because there is no incentive to do more. So in reality, those in socialism aren't living well... they're all just living. And since there is no incentives and no reason to reach a higher goal. There is not happiness in that. Maybe a false sense of perceived happiness when there is no concern with goals. There is complacency because everything "just is".
Communism did fail miserably. What you have seen is a mindset shift by many stuck in communist countries. They have learned just to live with it because they have no opportunities. When government owns your housing, your jobs, and your rights, they own you. You just exist the best that you can. If China turned into a free society where the government did not rule, people wouldn't know how to act. They wouldn't know how to think for themselves.
I agree with your last statement. However that is due to our polarized two party system.People refuse to work together because each have their own agenda. I don't think I would want to turn control over to the two parties throwing temper tantrums on a daily basis and have them manage my existence.
Without devolving into a discussion of libertarianism, perhaps the best way to view this is in terms of "security." And risk. My take is that there is a continuum of government - personal initiative with one's preference somewhere on that continuum. Where that falls may depend on several factors, one of which is tolerance for risk. How well a particular individual syncs with the society of their birth or relocation obviously can vary.
Most probably would find that either extreme is not optimal.
My only plea - as it appears would be yours - is that the discussions on a societal level be conducted with a little more ideological and (where possible) statistical HONESTY. That this is not happening probably is for a variety of reasons - that range from the personal failings of elected officials to the structural compounded by myriad opportunity for creative capitalistic working of the system (for lack of a better term!) with plenty of room for abuse all around.
Last edited by EveryLady; 09-26-2017 at 10:49 PM..
10.6K per person per year is the cost for health care in the USA. 42K per year for family of 4 - or about 3200/mon
You can slice and dice it up any way you want, but that is the cost. Most of it right now is paid by debt and deficit because people could not afford the real cost. So they pretend they do and throw it off to sometime in the far far future so that others will pay.
And, before anyone asks, it was 8.8K per person when GW left office and had increased more per year % wise under his "lack of doing anything" about it - the only "benefit" we got was Part D (which should stand for debt") and also companies were dropping and bankrupting people left and right.
In short, if a family of 4 is not paying at least 70K+ per year in taxes (health premiums, prop and fed taxes) they are not nearly paying for their own basic services. Think about that.
Well. This is clear. There's a reason why the Republicans went so bonkers over the ACA. And why Paul Ryan and the like are so anxious to gut Medicare. And not just because they are Republican meanies.
Historically, the US has grown or inflated its way out of the national debt. Those days are gone.
High growth rates are every bit as pie in the sky for Trump's budget (hoping for 4 percent, isn't he) as they are when a Paul Krugman argues a certain social welfare program is affordable. Ideology just doesn't matter here.
Defense remains a sacred cow. Easy enough to ask the Europeans to pay more but even if they did that piddling amount is beans.
Optimistic about the future? Not me.
It's too late for us to be Norway.
Sure, there's a lot of inherent strength remaining in the US so it'll be a rocky but slow ride down.
Any productive discussion of healthcare COSTS at last night's CNN healthcare debate? No.
So what's on the agenda for today? Oh yes, baiting North Korea.
How's THAT help balance a budget?
In the end, folks get the government they deserve.
And boy do the Norwegians keep a close eye on theirs.
Here? How can we now that most news is now labelled "fake."
Norway's pension fund now owns and average of 1.3% of all companies in the world. Norway's pension system is now so ludicrously wealthy that it'd equate to over $190,000 per person in the country. And here I thought countries with more socialized forms of health care, education, and taxation systems were doomed to utter failure?
Norway is one of the foremost countries in the world, ranking far ahead of the US when it comes to quality of life and standard of living. It would behoove the US to start emulating them.
Norway is one of the foremost countries in the world, ranking far ahead of the US when it comes to quality of life and standard of living. It would behoove the US to start emulating them.
That would require that we have 100 times the amount of oil we have, that we get rid of 98.6% of our population (especially the dark skins ones) and that we become a more lilly white society.
I think it's very racist to idolize this one white oil exporting country while not extolling the brown and black countries that are oil exporters like Saudi, Venezuela, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, etc.
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Originally Posted by Tall Traveler
That would require that we have 100 times the amount of oil we have, that we get rid of 98.6% of our population (especially the dark skins ones) and that we become a more lilly white society.
I think it's very racist to idolize this one white oil exporting country while not extolling the brown and black countries that are oil exporters like Saudi, Venezuela, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, etc.
Technically, in the UAE, citizens live really well as well. Key word citizens. They have so much oil money, that they import foreigners to do their work, and kick them out if they lose their jobs or get laid off.
But actual Emirates live very well and don't even have to work
Because it's a small homogeneous Nordic country where everyone looks, thinks and acts alike and trusts each other. Less people live in Norway than live in South Carolina. Norway has 5 million people, we have 350 million people.
This has been quoted many times in this thread, so I want to address this.
Because it is not true. If two White Americans can disagree on almost anything, so can two White Norwegians. Apart from the racial issues, there are as much disagreement among Norwegians as in the US. Liberals vs conservatives, left vs right, urban vs rural, baby-boomers vs millennials...
It's a completely false myth that the people in the Scandinavian societies would all think all the same. There maybe was a sense of working towards the common good in the aftermath of WWII, but that is long gone.
Secondly, Norway is not a completely homogeneous country. 17% of the populace are of immigrant background. The change has been rapid; in the early 90's only 4% were of immigrant background, so most of the non-ethnic population are quite recent arrivals. Half of the "non-ethnic" population are from Western countries, the other half is not, IE visible minorities, mostly from Turkey, Morocco, Iran, Pakistan, Somalia...
In the capital Oslo, already 30% of the population are immigrants, a larger proportion than in most US cities.
Technically, in the UAE, citizens live really well as well. Key word citizens. They have so much oil money, that they import foreigners to do their work, and kick them out if they lose their jobs or get laid off.
But actual Emirates live very well and don't even have to work
Yep, I work in Kuwait and often travel to UAE and I'm very familiar with their system.
This has been quoted many times in this thread, so I want to address this.
Because it is not true. If two White Americans can disagree on almost anything, so can two White Norwegians. Apart from the racial issues, there are as much disagreement among Norwegians as in the US. Liberals vs conservatives, left vs right, urban vs rural, baby-boomers vs millennials...
It's a completely false myth that the people in the Scandinavian societies would all think all the same. There maybe was a sense of working towards the common good in the aftermath of WWII, but that is long gone.
Secondly, Norway is not a completely homogeneous country. 17% of the populace are of immigrant background. The change has been rapid; in the early 90's only 4% were of immigrant background, so most of the non-ethnic population are quite recent arrivals. Half of the "non-ethnic" population are from Western countries, the other half is not, IE visible minorities, mostly from Turkey, Morocco, Iran, Pakistan, Somalia...
In the capital Oslo, already 30% of the population are immigrants, a larger proportion than in most US cities.
Over 86% of the population of Norway are ethnic white Norwegians and by far the largest number of immigrants are from Poland, second largest is Lithuanian and 4th largest or Swedes. To pretend that Norway is more racially diverse than the USA is absurdly ridiculous.
This is just one more thing which is hidden from us - because if you or anyone had to pay the REAL costs of things we would revolt and change the entire system of government (probably to Democratic Socialism like Denmark, etc.).
None of the Nordic countries are democratic socialist. Norway, Denmark and Finland are governed by centre-right coalitions.
Here's how big a share of the votes parties subscribing to democratic socialism got in the last parliamentary elections (all the countries have an unicameral parliament),
Because it's a small homogeneous Nordic country where everyone looks, thinks and acts alike and trusts each other. Less people live in Norway than live in South Carolina. Norway has 5 million people, we have 350 million people.
Which is why other countries of similar size should be taking notes. The US on the state level at the very least should be taking notes.
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to idolize this one white oil exporting country while not extolling the brown and black countries that are oil exporters like Saudi, Venezuela
, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, etc.