On November 05 2010 23:12 Qzy wrote: My main problem with US (and most danish people i talk with) is the 2 party system. Most other countries has multiple parties since opinions aren't black or white.
And 1 more thing: While running for president you can receive very big support from organizations - how can this be allowed? Money shouldn't be a HUGE factor when running for anything. In Denmark (probably all EU countries?) it's not allowed to support with more than 20,000 dkr (4,000$). And EVERY single amount of money needs to be written down and accounted for. This helps to counter the possibility of firms supporting an elected president (we don't have a president, but say candidate for counselor, or whatever ours is called in English), with the INTENT to have the market changed in THEIR favor.
Meh, why am I even trying =) No one listens on a board anyhow.
Go starcraft!
2 party system? Same as in Denmark. There are different small parties, but they are all centered around either Social Democrats or Venstre, and they all have the same opinions anyways. In Denmark i cant vote for a liberal party, it's all socialists. In America you cant vote for Socialists either though, the countries could learn something from eachother.
Small report on Austrian Health Care System on CNN:
Here you will learn, that the Austrian system is indeed CHEAPER simply because the US system is so inefficient!
Don't wanna seem like a smug, but I've really been into insurance law and economics a lot, have studied both law with focus on law concerning "medicine" and economics with focus on microeconomics, moral hazard, adverse selection etc. - let me tell you this:
From an law and economics point of view there is NO answer to the problem of health care that does not heavily involve the state. It goes this way: Insurance companies set a certain price level for health insurance. For the healthiest people this price will be too high, they are "too healthy" to buy even standard-priced insurance. Therefore only those who are more "risky" to get sick buy insurance, which means insurance companies have to pay more often than they want to. This screws up their pricing scheme and the prices rise. Then the "next group" of people won't buy insurance, because they don't feel like affording the insurance because they are also "quite" healthy. This leads to even higher prices, and so on until only the "very sick" people buy insurance for an insanely high price - classic adverse selection. The outcome...and now please this is important....is not ECONOMICALLY OPTIMAL, this is one of the many examples, where it is scientifically proven that "free market" doesn't provide the result that is desired from a viewpoint of the whole society.
The best (and therefore: only) solution is to FORCE everybody to buy insurance, because only then the price can be kept on an optimal, desirable low level.
Many stubborn politicians in the US don't seem to understand even this simple scheme and try to argue against well-accepted economic reasoning, which is just plain stupid.
On November 05 2010 23:47 Promises wrote: I'm usually actually pretty surprised at how the more right-wing part seems to portray "Socialism" (the brackets are there because what they call Socialism a major part of the rest of the world just views as fairly normal society) as some kind of hellish, diabolical system and a pool of drugs, violence etc. The Democratic party in America is actually pretty right-wing in comparison to almost every party in the Netherlands, and it's not exactly as if our crimerates (or drug-abuse etc) are higher then those of America.
Apart from that the main thing that amazes me is the amount of shit-throwing and completely unfounded bashes the parties throw at eachother (from what I've seen more the Republicans then the Democrats but I might not know the full story), altho I do notice a trend in Dutch politics for this to happen aswell, altho unfounded dung-flinging is punished quite badly; making unfounded statements is a big loss in credibility.
There's one thing I hate about American politics and thats the influence of Religion. While there is an constitutional law that Religion and Government should be seperate, in I think 6 states you cant get into office if your not Christian? Still quabling about gay marriage and abortion? That sort of stuff belongs in another century, its amazing it's still holding on in the US.
America was founded on religious freedom, so religion is still somewhat important.
i'm not really sure what that sentence is supposed to mean. you here often that america was founded as christian, which actually is totally wrong. you guys were born as a completely secular country.
Jefferson himself was an atheist. at least tehre are plenty of quotes that leads one to believe he was.
for me us politics looks pretty broken.looks like it´s more about slogans and debating unimportand problems (i.e. gay marriage) than dealing with the really big issues (social gap, unemployment rates, DEBT, etc.). a senate that just blocks decisions for the sake of it, epic-long elections that swallow tons of dollars.a smart president with the right intentions unable to do anything because of a corrupt lobbyist system and getting a shitton of complaints eventhough others f**ked it up. politics for the industries, not the people. a big tv show where most guys just blame other guys with a diffrent opionion without ever thinking about the problem or a working solution.
On November 05 2010 23:47 Promises wrote: I'm usually actually pretty surprised at how the more right-wing part seems to portray "Socialism" (the brackets are there because what they call Socialism a major part of the rest of the world just views as fairly normal society) as some kind of hellish, diabolical system and a pool of drugs, violence etc. The Democratic party in America is actually pretty right-wing in comparison to almost every party in the Netherlands, and it's not exactly as if our crimerates (or drug-abuse etc) are higher then those of America.
Apart from that the main thing that amazes me is the amount of shit-throwing and completely unfounded bashes the parties throw at eachother (from what I've seen more the Republicans then the Democrats but I might not know the full story), altho I do notice a trend in Dutch politics for this to happen aswell, altho unfounded dung-flinging is punished quite badly; making unfounded statements is a big loss in credibility.
There's one thing I hate about American politics and thats the influence of Religion. While there is an constitutional law that Religion and Government should be seperate, in I think 6 states you cant get into office if your not Christian? Still quabling about gay marriage and abortion? That sort of stuff belongs in another century, its amazing it's still holding on in the US.
America was founded on religious freedom, so religion is still somewhat important.
i'm not really sure what that sentence is supposed to mean. you here often that america was founded as christian, which actually is totally wrong. you guys were born as a completely secular country.
Jefferson himself was an atheist. at least tehre are plenty of quotes that leads one to believe he was.
I think it's thought that Madison (the guy who drafted the Constitution) was an atheist as well.
Edit: I think what Scruffy was trying to say is that people originally came here for religious freedom, so it's kind of a big deal. Sorry if I was wrong, Scruffy D:
On November 05 2010 23:47 Promises wrote: I'm usually actually pretty surprised at how the more right-wing part seems to portray "Socialism" (the brackets are there because what they call Socialism a major part of the rest of the world just views as fairly normal society) as some kind of hellish, diabolical system and a pool of drugs, violence etc. The Democratic party in America is actually pretty right-wing in comparison to almost every party in the Netherlands, and it's not exactly as if our crimerates (or drug-abuse etc) are higher then those of America.
Apart from that the main thing that amazes me is the amount of shit-throwing and completely unfounded bashes the parties throw at eachother (from what I've seen more the Republicans then the Democrats but I might not know the full story), altho I do notice a trend in Dutch politics for this to happen aswell, altho unfounded dung-flinging is punished quite badly; making unfounded statements is a big loss in credibility.
There's one thing I hate about American politics and thats the influence of Religion. While there is an constitutional law that Religion and Government should be seperate, in I think 6 states you cant get into office if your not Christian? Still quabling about gay marriage and abortion? That sort of stuff belongs in another century, its amazing it's still holding on in the US.
You can get into office in every state, Christian or not. What you may have read is that its hard to get elected if you are athiest/agnostic/some other religion. America was founded on religious freedom, so religion is still somewhat important.
Ferrose, you are right about the corps having too much power. Both sides are guilty as well. Examples: Republicans - Halliburton; Democrats - General Electric
Ah ok my bad then, I was misinformed =) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzVBF8B4ius <-- source). Religious freedom isn't what miffs me, that's pretty common, but religious interference in political debates about issues that have pretty much no grounds for arguments in modern day society apart form some (and i'm going to be harsh) backward notions from ~2000 year old books is just baffling.
On November 05 2010 23:47 Promises wrote: I'm usually actually pretty surprised at how the more right-wing part seems to portray "Socialism" (the brackets are there because what they call Socialism a major part of the rest of the world just views as fairly normal society) as some kind of hellish, diabolical system and a pool of drugs, violence etc. The Democratic party in America is actually pretty right-wing in comparison to almost every party in the Netherlands, and it's not exactly as if our crimerates (or drug-abuse etc) are higher then those of America.
Apart from that the main thing that amazes me is the amount of shit-throwing and completely unfounded bashes the parties throw at eachother (from what I've seen more the Republicans then the Democrats but I might not know the full story), altho I do notice a trend in Dutch politics for this to happen aswell, altho unfounded dung-flinging is punished quite badly; making unfounded statements is a big loss in credibility.
There's one thing I hate about American politics and thats the influence of Religion. While there is an constitutional law that Religion and Government should be seperate, in I think 6 states you cant get into office if your not Christian? Still quabling about gay marriage and abortion? That sort of stuff belongs in another century, its amazing it's still holding on in the US.
America was founded on religious freedom, so religion is still somewhat important.
i'm not really sure what that sentence is supposed to mean. you here often that america was founded as christian, which actually is totally wrong. you guys were born as a completely secular country.
Jefferson himself was an atheist. at least tehre are plenty of quotes that leads one to believe he was.
I think it's thought that Madison (the guy who drafted the Constitution) was an atheist as well.
Edit: I think what Scruffy was trying to say is that people originally came here for religious freedom, so it's kind of a big deal. Sorry if I was wrong, Scruffy D:
You sir, are correct. I was referring to the original Puritans, breaking away from the Anglican Church. I know my American History, damnit Jefferson considered himself a deist, as did Ben Franklin and other important figures in the US founding. Deists (i think) believe that God is like a watchmaker. He set the earth and time in motion, and let everything work itself out. On Wikipedia, it says James Madison's religion is unknown, possible meaning he had no religion (or he didn't profess faith publicly).
On November 05 2010 23:12 Qzy wrote: My main problem with US (and most danish people i talk with) is the 2 party system. Most other countries has multiple parties since opinions aren't black or white.
And 1 more thing: While running for president you can receive very big support from organizations - how can this be allowed? Money shouldn't be a HUGE factor when running for anything. In Denmark (probably all EU countries?) it's not allowed to support with more than 20,000 dkr (4,000$). And EVERY single amount of money needs to be written down and accounted for. This helps to counter the possibility of firms supporting an elected president (we don't have a president, but say candidate for counselor, or whatever ours is called in English), with the INTENT to have the market changed in THEIR favor.
Meh, why am I even trying =) No one listens on a board anyhow.
Go starcraft!
But even if corporations don't influence candidates running for office, don't they send waves of lobbyists to the government in your country?
You need 30.000 signatures to even run (i believe that's the correct number).
On November 05 2010 23:12 Qzy wrote: My main problem with US (and most danish people i talk with) is the 2 party system. Most other countries has multiple parties since opinions aren't black or white.
And 1 more thing: While running for president you can receive very big support from organizations - how can this be allowed? Money shouldn't be a HUGE factor when running for anything. In Denmark (probably all EU countries?) it's not allowed to support with more than 20,000 dkr (4,000$). And EVERY single amount of money needs to be written down and accounted for. This helps to counter the possibility of firms supporting an elected president (we don't have a president, but say candidate for counselor, or whatever ours is called in English), with the INTENT to have the market changed in THEIR favor.
Meh, why am I even trying =) No one listens on a board anyhow.
Go starcraft!
2 party system? Same as in Denmark. There are different small parties, but they are all centered around either Social Democrats or Venstre, and they all have the same opinions anyways. In Denmark i cant vote for a liberal party, it's all socialists. In America you cant vote for Socialists either though, the countries could learn something from eachother.
But in Denmark you have the possibility to create a new party, as liberal or conservative as you want. You can't do that in the US.
Republicans are ridiculous, the tea party scares me, and FOX News horrifies the fuck out of me. Any country where political comments by people like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sarah Palin are taken anywhere near to seriously has some huge issues.
Also, how does America get away with blaming so much shit that Bush and the last government did on Obama? Is there some crazy brainwashing going on, or such a fear of and hatred for this supposedly elitist quality of 'intellect' that people dumb themselves down and believe whatever is thrown at them?
Oh and the stuff about Obama being a Muslim was really the low point. Colin Powell said it best (from around the time the GOP was trying to focus on that nonsense during the lead up to the election): "[Obama] is a Christian — he's always been a Christian... But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America."
Colin Powell gets it (though why it appears to be so hard to understand, I'll never know). He's the man.
I'm a Swede and out of all US politicians I know, the only one I respect is Dennis Kucinich. The fearmongers and liars at Fox, like Glenn Beck and O'Reily, I despise. The anti-science, anti-same-sex-love, anti-public-health-care movement, including the Tea Party, Christian conservatives and figures like Palin and O'Donnel make me sick. I find that there's little room for constructive political discussion in US-media, the polarization of POVs gives very little room for effective progress.
@MoltkeWarding: If you accept that the end of politics is not politics?..... We(Eu's at least)find it disgraceful,because the fact that someone takes it up the ass or has been divorced 7 times doesnt make him a bad economist/diplomat/whatever. It just distracts the people,and gets moron elected people *they want to have a beer with him*.
I think everyone knows why personalized politics is unpopular among people who think about politics on classical lines. Treating the state as the boundary of politics, wherein the sole qualification is specialized competence, is precisely the thing which has become impossible in modern society. America is only unique in the sense that she is leading the world in image politics. The custodial function of public affairs has become the lesser part, and propaganda the greater part of politics, because it is precisely what people think and believe which determines not only the subjective, but the objective health of society.
Thus the paradox: the public belief in politics amounts to their belief in social engineering, but when that has finally taken precedence in its most effective form, the public is slow to realize it.
I view it as insanely ignorant. The tea party members seem retarded and I personally blame the voters for the upcoming lack of progress. In the midterm elections, it seeems to be like a large majority voted republican because Obama hasn't fixed the economy completely in 2 years - and that's fucking stupid. It takes way longer. He did however, manage to give you universal healthcare, which is a GREAT thing - take it from a dane, where we have complete healthinsurance(except dentists, but thats a weird situation) paid through taxes.
I'm not saying Obama will be the savior of the country, but he sure is trying to fix alot of the major shortcomings of the US (in areas where Europe is far superior).. But I guess I would also oppose to higher taxes for increased welfare if I was on top of my game and had been used to low taxes.
Here you will learn, that the Austrian system is indeed CHEAPER simply because the US system is so inefficient!
Don't wanna seem like a smug, but I've really been into insurance law and economics a lot, have studied both law with focus on law concerning "medicine" and economics with focus on microeconomics, moral hazard, adverse selection etc. - let me tell you this:
From an law and economics point of view there is NO answer to the problem of health care that does not heavily involve the state. It goes this way: Insurance companies set a certain price level for health insurance. For the healthiest people this price will be too high, they are "too healthy" to buy even standard-priced insurance. Therefore only those who are more "risky" to get sick buy insurance, which means insurance companies have to pay more often than they want to. This screws up their pricing scheme and the prices rise. Then the "next group" of people won't buy insurance, because they don't feel like affording the insurance because they are also "quite" healthy. This leads to even higher prices, and so on until only the "very sick" people buy insurance for an insanely high price - classic adverse selection. The outcome...and now please this is important....is not ECONOMICALLY OPTIMAL, this is one of the many examples, where it is scientifically proven that "free market" doesn't provide the result that is desired from a viewpoint of the whole society.
The best (and therefore: only) solution is to FORCE everybody to buy insurance, because only then the price can be kept on an optimal, desirable low level.
Many stubborn politicians in the US don't seem to understand even this simple scheme and try to argue against well-accepted economic reasoning, which is just plain stupid.
You make excellent points sir! I can't believe so many people are afraid of health-care, thinking it doesn't make economic sense, cry death panel, or some other non-sense. On a side note.. every country with a free vote has the government it deserves, I think.
On November 06 2010 00:51 stafu wrote: Republicans are ridiculous, the tea party scares me, and FOX News horrifies the fuck out of me. Any country where political comments by people like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sarah Palin are taken anywhere near to seriously has some huge issues.
Also, how does America get away with blaming so much shit that Bush and the last government did on Obama? Is there some crazy brainwashing going on, or such a fear of and hatred for this supposedly elitist quality of 'intellect' that people dumb themselves down and believe whatever is thrown at them?
Oh and the stuff about Obama being a Muslim was really the low point. Colin Powell said it best (from around the time the GOP was trying to focus on that nonsense during the lead up to the election): "[Obama] is a Christian — he's always been a Christian... But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America."
Colin Powell gets it (though why it appears to be so hard to understand, I'll never know). He's the man.
So what's your problem with Beck, O'Reilly and Palin?
Obama supported every spending bill Bush proposed, so he is also responsible.
Hillary Clinton started the "Obama's a Muslim/born in Kenya" controversy when she faced him in the Democratic Primary. Most Conservatives don't actually believe it, and just use it as an inside joke that trolls the Democratic-leaning media.+ Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-37qUrgFXQ stupidity is bi-partisan.
On November 06 2010 01:03 bech wrote: He did however, manage to give you universal healthcare
The Healthcare Bill had no government option, so no, it's not universal healthcare. It mandated that you must buy private health insurance or be fined, and that you can't be refused insurance if you have a 'preexisting condition.'
On November 05 2010 23:12 Qzy wrote: My main problem with US (and most danish people i talk with) is the 2 party system. Most other countries has multiple parties since opinions aren't black or white.
And 1 more thing: While running for president you can receive very big support from organizations - how can this be allowed? Money shouldn't be a HUGE factor when running for anything. In Denmark (probably all EU countries?) it's not allowed to support with more than 20,000 dkr (4,000$). And EVERY single amount of money needs to be written down and accounted for. This helps to counter the possibility of firms supporting an elected president (we don't have a president, but say candidate for counselor, or whatever ours is called in English), with the INTENT to have the market changed in THEIR favor.
Meh, why am I even trying =) No one listens on a board anyhow.
Go starcraft!
But even if corporations don't influence candidates running for office, don't they send waves of lobbyists to the government in your country?
You need 30.000 signatures to even run (i believe that's the correct number).
On November 05 2010 23:12 Qzy wrote: My main problem with US (and most danish people i talk with) is the 2 party system. Most other countries has multiple parties since opinions aren't black or white.
And 1 more thing: While running for president you can receive very big support from organizations - how can this be allowed? Money shouldn't be a HUGE factor when running for anything. In Denmark (probably all EU countries?) it's not allowed to support with more than 20,000 dkr (4,000$). And EVERY single amount of money needs to be written down and accounted for. This helps to counter the possibility of firms supporting an elected president (we don't have a president, but say candidate for counselor, or whatever ours is called in English), with the INTENT to have the market changed in THEIR favor.
Meh, why am I even trying =) No one listens on a board anyhow.
Go starcraft!
2 party system? Same as in Denmark. There are different small parties, but they are all centered around either Social Democrats or Venstre, and they all have the same opinions anyways. In Denmark i cant vote for a liberal party, it's all socialists. In America you cant vote for Socialists either though, the countries could learn something from eachother.
But in Denmark you have the possibility to create a new party, as liberal or conservative as you want. You can't do that in the US.
You can create as many parties as you want. There are actually a lot of political parties other then democrats or republicans.
They are much much MUCH smaller and get less votes, so everyone says if you vote for them you are throwing your vote away so people don't vote for them, they get less votes, and the cycle continues.
On November 06 2010 01:03 bech wrote: I view it as insanely ignorant. The tea party members seem retarded and I personally blame the voters for the upcoming lack of progress. In the midterm elections, it seeems to be like a large majority voted republican because Obama hasn't fixed the economy completely in 2 years - and that's fucking stupid. It takes way longer. He did however, manage to give you universal healthcare, which is a GREAT thing - take it from a dane, where we have complete healthinsurance(except dentists, but thats a weird situation) paid through taxes.
I'm not saying Obama will be the savior of the country, but he sure is trying to fix alot of the major shortcomings of the US (in areas where Europe is far superior).. But I guess I would also oppose to higher taxes for increased welfare if I was on top of my game and had been used to low taxes.
Yeah...don't blame the government that makes ALL the decisions, blame the voters...that is really stupid.
Do danes also pay for half the world's military budget? No I didn't think so, so we'll have to do something about that little problem until universal healthcare is anything other than a money grubbing pyramid scheme. Whatever you think about Obama is also way off, if you think he is different from Bush in any meaningful good way, he's not.
So maybe instead of thinking of us as ignorant (though we are...but lets not get logical here and blame the government that has been running schools for the past 70 years), you should thankful that you were not born in the worlds largest empire nor were you born in one of their targeted countries making your life a living hell, IMO.
EPT
Jefferson considered himself a deist, as did Ben Franklin and other important figures in the US founding. Deists (i think) believe that God is like a watchmaker. He set the earth and time in motion, and let everything work itself out. On Wikipedia, it says James Madison's religion is unknown, possible meaning he had no religion (or he didn't profess faith publicly).
