haha
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Is that a fact? Or just a wish.
I guess we will find out.
Is that a fact? Or just a wish.
Beautiful. It seems to me that perhaps more than half of the posting members here are to the left of the midline, if libertarianism is the right pole, and a thoroughgoing capitalist/welfare society like Sweden is the left pole.
I don't really understand this. Like you say, allowing non-producers to live off producers always fails in the long term. But then, for a US Congressman, or even president, the long term is really not a concern. And people are good at justifying what either helps them materially, or gives them psychic income. At the government level, there is way more intellectual cleverness deployed on manipulating, justifying and selling redistribution schemes, than on understanding how to produce more.
Society is cyclical, and I believe that the old idea of societies having a vigorous youth, a comfortable maturity, and then a decline into a corrupt and senescent final stage is correct.
I would say it's 3 to 1 against us having the intellectual insight, political means, and drive to turn around the ship now heading for the rocks.
Ha
The bipartisan fiscal commission appointed by President Obama and due to report its recommendations on Dec. 1 is working toward a much more modest goal of cutting the projected deficit for 2015 by one-third, not eliminating it, as Mr. Cameron seeks to do.
The slower approach is possible in part because the United States starts off in a stronger position. Federal government spending in the United States is a smaller percentage of gross domestic product than it is in Britain — in part because individual states are responsible for much of their own budgets and they have already made significant cuts. Britain also already taxes its citizens more heavily.
“If anybody thinks it’s impossible to do that kind of thing here, you have got 50 governors that have gone through a Cameron-style exercise,” said an official close to the White House. “And they had to do it in two years, not five.”
You may be correct. However, my Swedish friend says that they now have a more or less permanent class with very low levels of employment, very high levels of social services, crime etc. I don't read Swedish, so I can't really go look for myself. More than a few of these are imports.I think that comparing your socialist component with Sweden for the non producers vs producers is not a good analysis IMO... from everything that I have seen, read etc. about Sweden is that everybody shares the production and non production... IOW, at some point and time you produce, at another, you do not...
This is compared to what I think you wanted to point out where there are permanent producers and permanent non producers like we have.... completely different view IMO...
If we accept (as I do) that we do, indeed, need to have a social safety net, and that we have a duty to provide for those incapable or unlucky enough to be unable to do so for themselves, we need to set some level at which such help is offered. The standard of living of the poor in a redistributionist paradise like Finland (or Sweden) seems a fair enough number to use and the USA provides exactly that. Good, the problem's solved. We've provided -- both through the structure of the economy and the various forms of taxation and benefits precisely what we should be -- an acceptable baseline income for the poor. No further redistribution is necessary and we can carry on with the current tax rates and policies which seem, as this report shows, to be increasing US incomes faster than those in other countries and boosting productivity faster as well.
America: More Like Sweden Than You Thought - TCS Daily
IfThe standard of living of the poor in a redistributionist paradise like Finland (or Sweden) seems a fair enough number to use and the USA provides exactly that. Good, the problem's solved. We've provided -- both through the structure of the economy and the various forms of taxation and benefits precisely what we should be -- an acceptable baseline income for the poor. No further redistribution is necessary and we can carry on with the current tax rates and policies which seem, as this report shows, to be increasing US incomes faster than those in other countries and boosting productivity faster as well.
America: More Like Sweden Than You Thought - TCS Daily
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before,but had recently failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before,but had recently failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
This was one of the silliest things I've ever read here. It's clear to me that whoever came up with this:
a) is ignorant of Obama's actual political beliefs
b) doesn't have the slightest clue what socialism is
That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
You may be correct. However, my Swedish friend says that they now have a more or less permanent class with very low levels of employment, very high levels of social services, crime etc. I don't read Swedish, so I can't really go look for myself. More than a few of these are imports.
She also says the producers are getting quite put out with this situation, which is bothersome for them as they have for a long time had this fairly happy acceptance of a highly redistributive government, as they tended to see it as having shifting roles, as as you say was more used by people at dependent life stages or down on their luck.
Ha
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before,but had recently failed an entire class.
snopes.com: Socialism Grade Averaging
An old story according to the above.
I do think over time the results would be as you outline.
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before,but had recently failed an entire class...
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before,but had recently failed an entire class...
Yes, this "parable" has been around for a while. I'm actually surprised some teacher somewhere hasn't tried it just to see how students would respond.
Yes, this "parable" has been around for a while. I'm actually surprised some teacher somewhere hasn't tried it just to see how students would respond.
+1. It's pretty funny to see Americans decrying what they see as "socialism" or "excessive government spending" when by almost any measure, federal and state government spending on almost everything other than defence is way lower than in Europe. And in most European countries, there's no great mood to slash spending - even the UK's current measures will only reduce government spending to 2003 levels.Relative to the US, Britain has a much more generous social safety net and much higher taxes to support it. While the cuts are significant, the NHS and even the child tax credit won't be impacted and I don't know that tax rates are being cut.
Child tax credit: The benefits available for British families - Telegraph
There are two ways to do that. One is to accept that welfare can do it, despite being expensive and inefficient, and creating a whole class of people for whom there is little incentive to work. The other is to move to a nicer neighbourhood. Broadly speaking, the first is the European model (and yes, there are people sleeping under bridges in France, but at least they can get health care), the second is the American one. Most (Western) Europeans can only dream of paying the amount of taxes that Americans do, but after a couple of weeks in the US outside Disney World, most of them return home glad that they don't have to look at so much poverty.hobo said:I don't want to see the walking, half-dead on my streets.
Here is how I did it.
We did engineering team projects. The students organized themselves into 2-5 person teams. I gave each team the choice of either all getting the same grade for the project , or keeping notes and submitting them to me on their individual contributions, which I would use in connection with my subjective evaluation of each person's effort. If students chose their own teams and there were 2 or 3 on a team they went for the same grade. More than three they went for the individual evaluations. If I chose the teams they always went for the same grade.
Now these are all students in the same department and not strangers to one another. So YMMV
The problem with the urban legend fable is the projection of the junior high academic claim of "I did it all by myself" to the real world outside where we all stand on the shoulders of giants. Some admit it and some don't but the real world is a team sport
+1. It's pretty funny to see Americans decrying what they see as "socialism" or "excessive government spending" when by almost any measure, federal and state government spending on almost everything other than defence is way lower than in Europe. And in most European countries, there's no great mood to slash spending - even the UK's current measures will only reduce government spending to 2003 levels.
There are two ways to do that. One is to accept that welfare can do it, despite being expensive and inefficient, and creating a whole class of people for whom there is little incentive to work. The other is to move to a nicer neighbourhood. Broadly speaking, the first is the European model (and yes, there are people sleeping under bridges in France, but at least they can get health care), the second is the American one. Most (Western) Europeans can only dream of paying the amount of taxes that Americans do, but after a couple of weeks in the US outside Disney World, most of them return home glad that they don't have to look at so much poverty.
Ummm, yeah. London is a buge capital city. The kinds of people who will end up homeless, end up there. My assertion was not that every city in the US has more homeless people than every city in Europe.I saw more homeless people in London than I see here... sure, there are a lot here, but not many in the area I live...
I was with you right up to "mental problems". After that, you seemed to be implying that people with mental problems end up with drink and drug problems out of some kind of thought-out choice process, and my brain exploded.Also, most of the ones 'under bridges' have mental problems and do not want to live somewhere where they can not get drunk or take drugs etc. etc.. there are programs to help them out, but it would put a crimp in the lifestylet they want....
Ummm, yeah. London is a buge capital city. The kinds of people who will end up homeless, end up there. My assertion was not that every city in the US has more homeless people than every city in Europe.
I was with you right up to "mental problems". After that, you seemed to be implying that people with mental problems end up with drink and drug problems out of some kind of thought-out choice process, and my brain exploded.