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On November 06 2010 04:50 Krigwin wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 04:38 plated.rawr wrote:
I love how this thread went from "How do foreigners view US politics?" to "Any negative viewpoint MUST BE SUPPRESSED, FOR AMERICA!". It's a bigger statement than anything any American in this thread has said. Just the very fact that you can't even have this thread without a bunch of Americans rushing in to rabidly defend everything America-related to the point of over half the posts being from Americans.
So I can bash your country in a thread, and you won't respond? Neat.
And for the guy who said that debt-ridden countries depend on the U.S., this is mostly true. Think of all the foreign aid we dish out and all the stuff we buy online/in stores. We have the largest consumer-driven economy in the world, and you can bet your asses most of the world depends on us.
America is the greatest country the world has ever seen, get over it. Unfortunately, our hand at European style Marxism/socialism won't serve us well and will be our undoing if we continue down that road. Its easy to demonize/hate the leader of the free world, it happens in every part of life. Jealous much??
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On November 06 2010 06:53 Scruffy wrote:
So I can bash your country in a thread, and you won't respond? Neat.
What country would that be, exactly? Let's test how good your short-term memory is.
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On November 06 2010 06:59 Krigwin wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 06:53 Scruffy wrote:
So I can bash your country in a thread, and you won't respond? Neat. What country would that be, exactly? Let's test how good your short-term memory is.
I don't know. I haven't read the whole thread. Honestly, I don't care. You are either a Michael Moore loving American or typical European. (obv)
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So I can bash your country in a thread, and you won't respond? Neat.
In a thread where I were asking about non-norwegians' opinions about norwegian politics, yes. It's kinda the entire point - getting the outside view and all, good and bad.
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On November 06 2010 07:04 plated.rawr wrote:In a thread where I were asking about non-norwegians' opinions about norwegian politics, yes. It's kinda the entire point - getting the outside view and all, good and bad.
Mainly bad though, right? Find me 10 positive things said about America from foreigners, and I will find you ten cookies.
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On November 06 2010 07:05 Scruffy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 07:04 plated.rawr wrote:So I can bash your country in a thread, and you won't respond? Neat. In a thread where I were asking about non-norwegians' opinions about norwegian politics, yes. It's kinda the entire point - getting the outside view and all, good and bad. Mainly bad though, right? Find me 10 positive things said about America from foreigners, and I will find you ten cookies.
If I find 10 positive things about America, will you stop posting for 10 days?
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On November 05 2010 10:16 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2010 09:03 Biff The Understudy wrote:
It seems to me that economy is not a science at all, and this is not a very original thought. First one to have proven it a very simple way was Karl Marx, and that's 150 years ago. The fact that economist disagree so much (there are left wing economist, right win economist, liberal, socialist, ultra liberal economists etc...) on very simple issues, negates the possibility of saying that a claim is scientifically true because it matches with economic hortodoxy. Marx was an economist. Though back then they called them political economists. He had an economic model just like Smith and Hume and Malthus. Yeah, economists disagree on a lot of things. But they also agree on a lot of things. You seem to reject even the things they agree on. Economists are a lot like evolutionary biologists, where because of the limitations of empirical studies (the inaccessibility of controlled studies on societies in economists' case; the inability for evolutionary biologists to test the progression of evolution), they are sometimes simply left with a model and theorizing. What simple issues do economists disagree on, anyway? Rejection of economics makes you sound like someone who believes in intelligent design. "Evolution's just a theory!" Show nested quote +England is doing better than France? Hum, no. That's just not true. England is doing absolutely horrible right now. Government has to cut the equivalment of 1 000 000 jobs, and between 10% and 40% in all its sectors. The country has a bigger debt than France and the social situation is much worst. England doesn't have to cut jobs, English bonds are at very low rates, so there's very little danger of them defaulting (French bond rates are higher), and the UK could continue to borrow if it had the political desire to do so. By the way, French unemployment is 10.1%, UK's is 8.3%. French GDP/capita is much lower than the UK's GDP/capita. French income is lower than the UK's income at all percentiles. English children have higher math scores than French children. I will admit that French food is superior to English food by far. Show nested quote +Scandinavian countries are the places were the healthcares, the state pensions, the social security and the taxation is the highest in the world. They also have some of the freest markets in the world, which is the very definition of ring-wing.
The fact that Marx was an economist like Adam Smith proves my point: that you can't use authority argument with the economic "science", because it is ideology-related. That's precisely why Marx called his discipline Political Economy: because economy for him was always subordinated to politics. I have the same opinion: this idea that economy is an objective science that politics should basically follow is a huge joke.
Now, I don't know if you are serious about scandinavia; I guess you are not. Socialism means high taxes, strong presence of the state, strong healthcare, strong public sector, public pensions, etc... If we agree on this definition, Scandinavian countries are the most socialist democracies today. Now if you want to say that the countries with the highest social protection and the highest fiscality are right wing, well, do so.
You clearly don't know the situation in UK right now. The state did cut more than 400 000 public jobs, which means that about a million jobs are disappearing in the next months / years. Public debt is one of the highest in Europe. Social sitaution is an absolute disaster.
I seriously don't know if you are trying to be right with a little bit of bad faith or if you don't know what you are talking about.
GDP per capita is great in England, because lot of people here are doing an absolute fucktone of money. To have lived in both countries, I can assure you that life is way harder in England than in France, for almost everybody, right now.
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Haven't read this whole thread but here in SA we don't really care. The whole Obama thing is a bit funny though. Since well we did kinda have suppression and since then got black presidents so were like "well so?". Although within the family do like to laugh at the voting structure.
Otherwise it's just the major things that effect the country.
EDIT: Oh forget about the naivety of it all but all humans are like that
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On November 06 2010 07:05 Scruffy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 07:04 plated.rawr wrote:So I can bash your country in a thread, and you won't respond? Neat. In a thread where I were asking about non-norwegians' opinions about norwegian politics, yes. It's kinda the entire point - getting the outside view and all, good and bad. Mainly bad though, right? Find me 10 positive things said about America from foreigners, and I will find you ten cookies.
If you've got mainly negative things to say, then say that. I'm not asking you to "balance" your view to give me equal parts of good and bad if your main impulse is negative.
Regard this thread as a proof of ideological trends in the world outside the States, not as a personal attack.
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On November 06 2010 06:00 Fwmeh wrote:
Honestly, Europeans are no more fond of having their prejudices shattered than anyone else. Part of the problem is also that many of the words used to describe policies are not sufficiently precise that we can use them without fear of misunderstanding.
Btw, I do not see how anyone can defend the treatment of Romani by (primarily, but not solely) Italy and France. And Berlusconi is IMHO worse than anything the Republicans have produced.
The EU has given hundreds of millions of euros to Romania and Bulgaria, in order to integrate the Romani and solve the problem. These countries kept the money but didn't use it as planned.
This is the reason why we have thousands of non-French robbers illegaly occupying private area. As our legilation allow us to deport them, we deported them.
In otherwords, France just has a very low tolerance level for stupid bullshit and uneducated self-righteous opinions. That's how I would defend my country.
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On November 06 2010 02:34 Iodem wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2010 03:48 simme123 wrote:We may have 40% taxes here in Sweden but at least we take care of the people I don't give a shit if my money goes to helping a non educated druggy they are still human and deserve a decent life. Bolded the main point I'm commenting I think it's interesting. Americans are already the most charitable people in the world, + Show Spoiler + but we stop at socialism because we don't like the idea of 'forced charitableness.' If the government were more efficient at actual aid than most private donations, I would bet people would be willing to offer more of their money to the government if it went to healthcare(or what not, using that as example) for the poor/uninsured, if most of it was guaranteed to reach the poor person rather than going through so much bureaucracy that only 5 cents on the dollar(random number) actually goes to his needs.
Yet you still have 40 m people living in poverty, with growing numbers...
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On November 06 2010 07:18 TymerA wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 02:34 Iodem wrote:On November 05 2010 03:48 simme123 wrote:We may have 40% taxes here in Sweden but at least we take care of the people I don't give a shit if my money goes to helping a non educated druggy they are still human and deserve a decent life. Bolded the main point I'm commenting I think it's interesting. Americans are already the most charitable people in the world, + Show Spoiler + but we stop at socialism because we don't like the idea of 'forced charitableness.' If the government were more efficient at actual aid than most private donations, I would bet people would be willing to offer more of their money to the government if it went to healthcare(or what not, using that as example) for the poor/uninsured, if most of it was guaranteed to reach the poor person rather than going through so much bureaucracy that only 5 cents on the dollar(random number) actually goes to his needs. Yet you still have 40 m people living in poverty, with growing numbers...
The poverty line is merely a cipher for income distribution. It does not relate to absolute poverty. A person below the poverty line in the US does not mean the equivalent degree of material privation as a person in Africa. It's merely the number of people deemed to be below a nationally acceptable line of wealth. The line is basically determined by the each nation independently, and has no value as a comparative statistic.
Yeah, economists disagree on a lot of things. But they also agree on a lot of things. You seem to reject even the things they agree on. Economists are a lot like evolutionary biologists, where because of the limitations of empirical studies (the inaccessibility of controlled studies on societies in economists' case; the inability for evolutionary biologists to test the progression of evolution), they are sometimes simply left with a model and theorizing.
If economics seem similar to natural sciences, it is because neither is really empirical. Modern science is inductive; it uses observation to approach speculation. Models are not the substitutions for missing observations, they are the products of observations in modern science. The only fraud is that these things should often be passed off as applied disciplines, where they are purely intellectual ones. Modern sciences do not convert ideas into being; they convert things into ideas.
That is why all modern sciences need laws. A purely empirical science needs no laws.
For a truly empirical science, see Goethe's theory of colours.
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On November 06 2010 06:53 Scruffy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 04:50 Krigwin wrote:On November 06 2010 04:38 plated.rawr wrote:
I love how this thread went from "How do foreigners view US politics?" to "Any negative viewpoint MUST BE SUPPRESSED, FOR AMERICA!". It's a bigger statement than anything any American in this thread has said. Just the very fact that you can't even have this thread without a bunch of Americans rushing in to rabidly defend everything America-related to the point of over half the posts being from Americans. So I can bash your country in a thread, and you won't respond? Neat. And for the guy who said that debt-ridden countries depend on the U.S., this is mostly true. Think of all the foreign aid we dish out and all the stuff we buy online/in stores. We have the largest consumer-driven economy in the world, and you can bet your asses most of the world depends on us. America is the greatest country the world has ever seen, get over it. Unfortunately, our hand at European style Marxism/socialism won't serve us well and will be our undoing if we continue down that road. Its easy to demonize/hate the leader of the free world, it happens in every part of life. Jealous much??
Lol get off the crack. America is a country where half the people are obese morons who believe in creationism. When fox news is the most watched news channel, speaks a lot about the collective intelligence of people in that country.
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On November 06 2010 07:05 Scruffy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 07:04 plated.rawr wrote:So I can bash your country in a thread, and you won't respond? Neat. In a thread where I were asking about non-norwegians' opinions about norwegian politics, yes. It's kinda the entire point - getting the outside view and all, good and bad. Mainly bad though, right? Find me 10 positive things said about America from foreigners, and I will find you ten cookies.
I love America, best country in the world! I could say 10 positive things about America, would that count? 
Many Europeans, especially teenagers, think that it's sort of "cool" to hate on America, it's trendy. They dont really know anything about the country, they havent even been there, they just hate it because they hear something on the news and want to fit in with all the other cool America hating kids.
America IS the greatest country in the world. Obviously you cant objectively measure how good a country is, but just in my opinion. Europeans are just jealous :D
And i'm European myself, not biased :D
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On November 06 2010 07:30 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 07:18 TymerA wrote:On November 06 2010 02:34 Iodem wrote:On November 05 2010 03:48 simme123 wrote:We may have 40% taxes here in Sweden but at least we take care of the people I don't give a shit if my money goes to helping a non educated druggy they are still human and deserve a decent life. Bolded the main point I'm commenting I think it's interesting. Americans are already the most charitable people in the world, + Show Spoiler + but we stop at socialism because we don't like the idea of 'forced charitableness.' If the government were more efficient at actual aid than most private donations, I would bet people would be willing to offer more of their money to the government if it went to healthcare(or what not, using that as example) for the poor/uninsured, if most of it was guaranteed to reach the poor person rather than going through so much bureaucracy that only 5 cents on the dollar(random number) actually goes to his needs. Yet you still have 40 m people living in poverty, with growing numbers... The poverty line is merely a cipher for income distribution. It does not relate to absolute poverty. A person below the poverty line in the US does not mean the equivalent degree of material privation as a person in Africa. It's merely the number of people deemed to be below a nationally acceptable line of wealth. The line is basically determined by the each nation independently, and has no value as a comparative statistic.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_charitable_countries, which pulls its figures from the GHA's (they seem to be an independent non-profit program) latest reports:
The GHA July 2010 report also lists countries ranked by generosity as donation per citizen from data collected in 2008.
* 1. Luxembourg - $114/citizen
* 2. Norway - $96/citizen
* 3. Sweden - $66/citizen
* 4. Ireland - $66/citizen
* 5. Kuwait - $33/citizen
* 6. Saudi Arabia - $29/citizen
* 7. United Arab Emirates - $25/citizen
* 8. United Kingdom - $17/citizen
* 9. United States - $14/citizen
* 10. Germany - $9/citizen
Kinda conflicts with what that picture says...
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On November 06 2010 07:46 Lancehead wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 07:30 MoltkeWarding wrote:On November 06 2010 07:18 TymerA wrote:On November 06 2010 02:34 Iodem wrote:On November 05 2010 03:48 simme123 wrote:We may have 40% taxes here in Sweden but at least we take care of the people I don't give a shit if my money goes to helping a non educated druggy they are still human and deserve a decent life. Bolded the main point I'm commenting I think it's interesting. Americans are already the most charitable people in the world, + Show Spoiler + but we stop at socialism because we don't like the idea of 'forced charitableness.' If the government were more efficient at actual aid than most private donations, I would bet people would be willing to offer more of their money to the government if it went to healthcare(or what not, using that as example) for the poor/uninsured, if most of it was guaranteed to reach the poor person rather than going through so much bureaucracy that only 5 cents on the dollar(random number) actually goes to his needs. Yet you still have 40 m people living in poverty, with growing numbers... The poverty line is merely a cipher for income distribution. It does not relate to absolute poverty. A person below the poverty line in the US does not mean the equivalent degree of material privation as a person in Africa. It's merely the number of people deemed to be below a nationally acceptable line of wealth. The line is basically determined by the each nation independently, and has no value as a comparative statistic. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_charitable_countries, which pulls its figures from the GHA's (they seem to be an independent non-profit program) latest reports: The GHA July 2010 report also lists countries ranked by generosity as donation per citizen from data collected in 2008. * 1. Luxembourg - $114/citizen * 2. Norway - $96/citizen * 3. Sweden - $66/citizen * 4. Ireland - $66/citizen * 5. Kuwait - $33/citizen * 6. Saudi Arabia - $29/citizen * 7. United Arab Emirates - $25/citizen * 8. United Kingdom - $17/citizen * 9. United States - $14/citizen * 10. Germany - $9/citizen Kinda conflicts with what that picture says...
Yeah, this is what I thought it was. It only shows donations made by GOVERNMENTS -- not by individuals. I don't know about you, but "donating" taxpayer money to other countries isn't exactly charitable. Go find a study showing per capita PRIVATE donations.
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On November 06 2010 07:46 Lancehead wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 07:30 MoltkeWarding wrote:On November 06 2010 07:18 TymerA wrote:On November 06 2010 02:34 Iodem wrote:On November 05 2010 03:48 simme123 wrote:We may have 40% taxes here in Sweden but at least we take care of the people I don't give a shit if my money goes to helping a non educated druggy they are still human and deserve a decent life. Bolded the main point I'm commenting I think it's interesting. Americans are already the most charitable people in the world, + Show Spoiler + but we stop at socialism because we don't like the idea of 'forced charitableness.' If the government were more efficient at actual aid than most private donations, I would bet people would be willing to offer more of their money to the government if it went to healthcare(or what not, using that as example) for the poor/uninsured, if most of it was guaranteed to reach the poor person rather than going through so much bureaucracy that only 5 cents on the dollar(random number) actually goes to his needs. Yet you still have 40 m people living in poverty, with growing numbers... The poverty line is merely a cipher for income distribution. It does not relate to absolute poverty. A person below the poverty line in the US does not mean the equivalent degree of material privation as a person in Africa. It's merely the number of people deemed to be below a nationally acceptable line of wealth. The line is basically determined by the each nation independently, and has no value as a comparative statistic. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_charitable_countries, which pulls its figures from the GHA's (they seem to be an independent non-profit program) latest reports: The GHA July 2010 report also lists countries ranked by generosity as donation per citizen from data collected in 2008. * 1. Luxembourg - $114/citizen * 2. Norway - $96/citizen * 3. Sweden - $66/citizen * 4. Ireland - $66/citizen * 5. Kuwait - $33/citizen * 6. Saudi Arabia - $29/citizen * 7. United Arab Emirates - $25/citizen * 8. United Kingdom - $17/citizen * 9. United States - $14/citizen * 10. Germany - $9/citizen Kinda conflicts with what that picture says...
Oh, when someone says that Americans are the most charitable people in the world, it's hyperbole. What they mean to say is: we Americans are pretty generous, come see for yourself and you'll get a better picture of how we treat our neighbour.
The one thing I despise about these internet debates is their baseness. The only thing worse than a wikipedia-induced stat-crunching (I'm pretty good with numbers, but I consider it a basic sign of maturity not to worship them) is taking them with minimal interpretive effort.
Look back on your source, check out what those numbers are actually reflecting, and what applicability they may or may not have on your argument.
Apply critical analysis like:
Noticing qualifiers like "These figures do not include humanitarian aid from within the donor country itself." Now think about why such figures would favour countries like Luxembourg and Norway over a country like the US.
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From a german perspective, the USA look incredibly right-wing and sometimes downright crazy. For example, we currently have a conservative government, and our chancellor is an atheist woman and our vice-chancellor is gay. Nobody cares, though. Also, in some urban areas (e.g. Stuttgart), the green party is starting to become the strongest political force. I think this would be impossible in the USA.
So I'd say most germans are quite happy not to live in the USA, especially considering you still dont have universal healthcare. The 'political average' over there just seems too far to the right.
Though back when you still had Bush, the majority of (young) people were literally hating the USA, this seems to have calmed down since Obama is president.
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On November 06 2010 07:05 Scruffy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 07:04 plated.rawr wrote:So I can bash your country in a thread, and you won't respond? Neat. In a thread where I were asking about non-norwegians' opinions about norwegian politics, yes. It's kinda the entire point - getting the outside view and all, good and bad. Mainly bad though, right? Find me 10 positive things said about America from foreigners, and I will find you ten cookies.
It's always bad group x tell us about group y. unless group y is a saint it's going to be inclined to only focus on the flaws.
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On November 06 2010 07:05 Scruffy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2010 07:04 plated.rawr wrote:So I can bash your country in a thread, and you won't respond? Neat. In a thread where I were asking about non-norwegians' opinions about norwegian politics, yes. It's kinda the entire point - getting the outside view and all, good and bad. Mainly bad though, right? Find me 10 positive things said about America from foreigners, and I will find you ten cookies.
so what if it's mainly bad? it's a reflection on foreigners view of america. where does it state we are constrained to a positive view about america?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/v4yUV.jpg)
