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Velr
Switzerland10921 Posts
It's nothing like that in most european countries and it has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of live in said countries. As for the whole quality of live stuff.. Maybe the USA is one oft he best or even the best country to life in if your income is high. But it seems to be an absolute shithole for poor people (by "western standards"). | ||
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Hider
Denmark9447 Posts
On November 10 2010 17:00 Velr wrote: Yes, the patriotism/nationalism/self love of americans seems rampant.... God bless america here, god bless america there, greatest nation in the world here, freest countrie in the world there... It's nothing like that in most european countries and it has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of live in said countries. As for the whole quality of live stuff.. Maybe the USA is one oft he best or even the best country to life in if your income is high. But it seems to be an absolute shithole for poor people (by "western standards"). Obv. is not optimal for people who dont wanna work to live in USA, while the scandinavian countries gives really good wages for people doing nada. | ||
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divinesage
Singapore649 Posts
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Velr
Switzerland10921 Posts
On November 11 2010 19:10 Hider wrote: Obv. is not optimal for people who dont wanna work to live in USA, while the scandinavian countries gives really good wages for people doing nada. Who said poor people didn't work? I'm not talking only about unemployed people and if im correct there are over 10% (up to 17% innoficially) of unemployed people... I highly doubt all of them "don't want to work" and therefore "deserve" to be poor. Btw: There is kinda like a middle ground between Scandinavia and the USA..... Like pretty much the rest of western Europe.... | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France8138 Posts
On November 09 2010 22:29 LittleeD wrote: We need some George Carlin up in here: Just to lighten up the mood  What's sad with Carlin is that most of the time he is absolutely true. I had a good laugh though. | ||
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Shakes
Australia557 Posts
Which pretty much sums up political debates on the internet too, come to think of it. | ||
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ey215
United States546 Posts
On November 10 2010 09:24 esperanto wrote: + Show Spoiler + Alot has been said in this thread, so i just wanna mention one thing that always disturbs me when I see it. Its the american patriotism. Maybe its because I am from germany, where patriotism or nationalism isnt that strong anymore, since germany history showed where it can lead. But every time I hear an american say "we are the greates country" or "we are the greatest nation under god" it scares me. I always have the feeling american politicians say this cause they wanna blind themselves and the ppl from problems they have or they want to justify horrible actions. So my question to the americans here: How do you feel about your patriotism? Do you need a strong national identity to feel responsible for your country and the ppl around you? + Show Spoiler + I sometimes wonder if 200 years from now, school kids read in their history books about this century and wester politics and one kid is asking his teacher. "How could these western countrys kill millions of ppl in wars so easily and hold up a capitalistic system that repressed over 70% of the worlds polupation and still think that they were the good ones?" I'll respond to this and leave the rest of the thread as is. I understand why many Europeans in this thread have expressed concern over our perceived zeal for nationalism. Based on Europe's not so long ago past showing us the dangers of nationalism, i would look at us and be concerned as well. I think part of the problem is one of not fully grasping what the U.S. is like. We are a nation born of immigrants that still identify with that. This is why you hear people in the U.S. identify themsleves not only by being American, but by where their ancestors came from, i.e. "Irish-American", "Italian-American", "African-American", etc. The patriotism that you see is part of what ties us together and has kept the country whole throughout the years. We have to believe that all of the subgroups can come together and be "American" or the system works even worse than it does now. To throw out a scenario to maybe help make sense of it, imagine that the E.U. was not just financial but controlled social and military policy as well and that you become the "United Countries of Europe". Essentially, the E.U. is our Federal Government and the individual countries are states. Now, what if the E.U. can overrule the individual countries on legal/social/military issues and you get something close to what the U.S. is. So this means that the Swedes would have to look at the Greeks and come to a compromise on taxes, health care, military service/spending, how laws are enforced, how much money goes to education, etc. (I picked the two countries at random). This is where our difficulty lies, what's right for California may not be what's right for Mississippi. They have different cultural backgrounds, different industry, different population make ups, etc. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9447 Posts
On November 11 2010 19:45 Velr wrote: Who said poor people didn't work? I'm not talking only about unemployed people and if im correct there are over 10% (up to 17% innoficially) of unemployed people... I highly doubt all of them "don't want to work" and therefore "deserve" to be poor. Btw: There is kinda like a middle ground between Scandinavia and the USA..... Like pretty much the rest of western Europe.... Unemployment is always voluntary. Sure you dont want to take any jobe, but that is because of personal preferences. But your preferences can be avoided, and if you had no other way of income than to take a bad job (even though you may be decent educated), then you would take it, untill you got osmething better. And therefore its voluntary. | ||
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Shakes
Australia557 Posts
On November 12 2010 07:48 Hider wrote: Unemployment is always voluntary. Sure you dont want to take any jobe, but that is because of personal preferences. But your preferences can be avoided, and if you had no other way of income than to take a bad job (even though you may be decent educated), then you would take it, untill you got osmething better. And therefore its voluntary. In the US (and many other countries) right now there are significantly fewer jobs than there are people of working age. I don't see how you can say unemployment is always voluntary. | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France8138 Posts
On November 12 2010 07:48 Hider wrote: Unemployment is always voluntary. Sure you dont want to take any jobe, but that is because of personal preferences. But your preferences can be avoided, and if you had no other way of income than to take a bad job (even though you may be decent educated), then you would take it, untill you got osmething better. And therefore its voluntary. You must be fucking kidding me. ANPE (national agency for employement) in France is besieged since years by hordes of people who would give their right hand to get any job they can basically do (yeah, some people just can't be a construction worker). As a musician I know countless people who are trying to find a job and struggle like hell. As I do by the way. Do you think the 30-40% youth unemployement in Europe is because young people don't want to work? lol. It always strikes me this kind of obscene right wing arguments about how homeless people "don't want to work" or unemployed people are "lazy". Nobody wants to live in the street, nobody wants to live with the 500€ a month that you get in "socialist" France. Unemployement is almost a structural necessity in our countries, what on earth does it have to do with lazyness? Gosh. | ||
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Blobskillz
Germany548 Posts
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Rflcrx
503 Posts
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xylos
Switzerland61 Posts
Generally I like the idea that everyone has the chance to become what he wants, if he's willing to work hard enough for it, if someone is so lazy that he doesn't want to work, I sea no reason why the government should pay for him. | ||
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Lukeeze[zR]
Switzerland6838 Posts
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kzn
United States1218 Posts
On November 12 2010 09:31 Biff The Understudy wrote: You must be fucking kidding me. ANPE (national agency for employement) in France is besieged since years by hordes of people who would give their right hand to get any job they can basically do (yeah, some people just can't be a construction worker). As a musician I know countless people who are trying to find a job and struggle like hell. As I do by the way. Do you think the 30-40% youth unemployement in Europe is because young people don't want to work? lol. It always strikes me this kind of obscene right wing arguments about how homeless people "don't want to work" or unemployed people are "lazy". Nobody wants to live in the street, nobody wants to live with the 500€ a month that you get in "socialist" France. Unemployement is almost a structural necessity in our countries, what on earth does it have to do with lazyness? Gosh. This is because France is fucking retarded about labor. Oh, hey, we're going to mandate that nobody works more than 35 hours a week unless they get paid exorbitant overtime rates, unionize everything (which runs counter to literally all of accepted economic theory), and have a minimum wage of twelve dollars an hour! UNEMPLOYMENT HAS BEEN SOLVED. If labor markets were allowed to operate, instead of being subject to thousands of retarded regulations that are essentially bribes to certain sections of the electorate, almost all unemployment would be voluntary (basically, unless you're disabled, it would be voluntary). But when you artificially restrict your economy so that every single job has to produce more than $12/hour in value added, you're lopping off a huge segment of entry-level jobs that companies flat out cannot afford to hire for anymore. When you throw unions at everything, you make it impossible for companies to fire workers, to hire better workers, or really to do anything that will help them with regards to labor. If you want to work so badly, why in gods name are your people unwilling to accept less than $12/hour? Your entire argument is a contradiction | ||
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hideo
Canada1641 Posts
Honestly, the only cases where I care about American politics usually have to do with bullshit technology-related policies because they inevitably end up diffusing across the border, which pisses me off to no end. I'm talking about stuff like copyright law, ISP pricing, etc. | ||
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hizBALLIN
United States163 Posts
On November 16 2010 07:27 kzn wrote: This is because France is fucking retarded about labor. Oh, hey, we're going to mandate that nobody works more than 35 hours a week unless they get paid exorbitant overtime rates, unionize everything (which runs counter to literally all of accepted economic theory), and have a minimum wage of twelve dollars an hour! UNEMPLOYMENT HAS BEEN SOLVED. If labor markets were allowed to operate, instead of being subject to thousands of retarded regulations that are essentially bribes to certain sections of the electorate, almost all unemployment would be voluntary (basically, unless you're disabled, it would be voluntary). But when you artificially restrict your economy so that every single job has to produce more than $12/hour in value added, you're lopping off a huge segment of entry-level jobs that companies flat out cannot afford to hire for anymore. When you throw unions at everything, you make it impossible for companies to fire workers, to hire better workers, or really to do anything that will help them with regards to labor. If you want to work so badly, why in gods name are your people unwilling to accept less than $12/hour? Your entire argument is a contradiction Spoken like a true Pinkerton. America has, on several occasions, let big business have free or fairly free range of operation. It always ended in financial disaster for our country. Every time. When wealthy Corporate America can make exorbitant amounts of money in a few years, there is no incentive to operate for the long haul. Instead, they strip mine our economy, looting people's savings for their own personal gain. They employed children in dangerous factories for almost no wages. They axed workers once they began to make a decent wage in favour of cheap labour, often times abroad. Let it be clear that the current unemployment problem is a symptom of the greater farce that is Reaganomics. Deregulated business never operates in the worker's best interest because the employers can pit those without power (poor workers) against themselves while reaping unreal gains. | ||
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domovoi
United States1478 Posts
On November 16 2010 07:55 hizBALLIN wrote: Spoken like a true Pinkerton. America has, on several occasions, let big business have free or fairly free range of operation. It always ended in financial disaster for our country. Every time. When wealthy Corporate America can make exorbitant amounts of money in a few years, there is no incentive to operate for the long haul. Instead, they strip mine our economy, looting people's savings for their own personal gain. They employed children in dangerous factories for almost no wages. They axed workers once they began to make a decent wage in favour of cheap labour, often times abroad. Let it be clear that the current unemployment problem is a symptom of the greater farce that is Reaganomics. Deregulated business never operates in the worker's best interest because the employers can pit those without power (poor workers) against themselves while reaping unreal gains. His post has nothing to do with America and he is essentially correct, though the minimum wage is the least of France's worries when it comes to rigid labor markets. (The biggest problem is the fact that it's essentially impossible to fire anybody.) Also, your characterization of the American economy is grossly inaccurate. I suggest you actually read some economic books about the Great Depression. As for the current recession, it has little to do with deregulation or "Reaganomics." The actual recession is a symptom of inadequate money supply. If you're talking about the financial mess*, that itself was caused by a number of factors and it would be too simplistic to say deregulation caused it. Especially since Canadian banks are less regulated than American ones, yet suffered no such malaise. The most important factors, in my opinion, are: the global savings glut, the lack of adequate oversight of the ratings agencies, inadequate reserve requirements, and the general opinion of Americans that owning a house should be encouraged (which is beyond stupid; having a majority of your wealth be tied up in a highly leveraged, illiquid investment is a very poor decision, ceteris paribus). * A crash/re-adjustment of which shouldn't necessarily create a recession that affects every industry, see Black Monday. | ||
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hizBALLIN
United States163 Posts
On November 16 2010 08:08 domovoi wrote: His post has nothing to do with America and he is essentially correct, though the minimum wage is the least of France's worries when it comes to rigid labor markets. (The biggest problem is the fact that it's essentially impossible to fire anybody.) Also, your characterization of the American economy is grossly inaccurate. I suggest you actually read some economic books about the Great Depression. As for the current recession, it has little to do with deregulation or "Reaganomics." The actual recession is a symptom of inadequate money supply. If you're talking about the financial mess*, that itself was caused by a number of factors and it would be too simplistic to say deregulation caused it. Especially since Canadian banks are less regulated than American ones, yet suffered no such malaise. The most important factors, in my opinion, are: the global savings glut, the lack of adequate oversight of the ratings agencies, inadequate reserve requirements, and the general opinion of Americans that owning a house should be encouraged (which is beyond stupid; having a majority of your wealth be tied up in a highly leveraged, illiquid investment is a very poor decision, ceteris paribus). * A crash/re-adjustment of which shouldn't necessarily create a recession that affects every industry, see Black Monday. Of the four things you cited as "The Most Important Factors" for America's current economic woes, half of those (inadequate oversight, inadequate reserve requirements) are in fact regulatory issues. Thank you for at least partially arguing my case. My statements about the exploitations of workers were not, in fact, with regards to the Great Depression era, but moreso to the early Industrial Age and the birth of big business. Very few credible individuals deny that 1880's onward to the birth of big labour was an environment that was very poor for the average laymen and almost had virtually no legislation to limit the powers of business. That said, I'm sure you'll try to argue that Black Tuesday was a symptom of the Great Depression, rather than the cause. I guess that's convenient because it allows you to ignore the flagrantly malicious speculation of the late Twenties. | ||
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domovoi
United States1478 Posts
Of the four things you cited as "The Most Important Factors" for America's current economic woes, half of those (inadequate oversight, inadequate reserve requirements) are in fact regulatory issues. Thank you for at least partially arguing my case. Yes, they are regulatory issues, but they are not associated with deregulation or "Reagonomics" (whatever the hell that means), especially the sort of deregulation people like you were trying to use to confirm their biases, i.e. Graham-Leech-Bliley. What they failed to realize is that our neighbor up north allows banking across state lines, allows consolidation of commercial banking and investment banking activities, and is pretty much dominated by 3-4 very large banks (rather than the thousands of small banks the US has). Yet, they've come out of the recession with perhaps the strongest financial sector in the world. What saved them? Not the lack of deregulation, but rather, simply better regulation than what the US had. My statements about the exploitations of workers were not, in fact, with regards to the Great Depression era, but moreso to the early Industrial Age and the birth of big business. Very few credible individuals deny that 1880's onward to the birth of big labour was an environment that was very poor for the average laymen and almost had virtually no legislation to limit the powers of business. My response was not directed at those statements, but rather, this line: "America has, on several occasions, let big business have free or fairly free range of operation. It always ended in financial disaster for our country." That said, I'm sure you'll try to argue that Black Tuesday was a symptom of the Great Depression, rather than the cause. I guess that's convenient because it allows you to ignore the flagrantly malicious speculation of the late Twenties. I don't know why you think I would say that. Black Tuesday was neither the symptom nor the cause of the GD. It indicated the start of the events that led to the GD, explained below, but things had not yet reached a disastrous level until 3-4 years later. Also, wtf does "malicious speculation" mean? The huge drop in the stock market was traders making money off of other traders; the average American was not affected, especially since most Americans had no equity investments. Again, a stock market crash does not necessarily lead to a demand-driven recession. The Great Depression was caused by an inadequate monetary base, because the gold standard did not give the Fed adequate flexibility. Yes, the bank crashes led to money hoarding, but again, financial collapses don't necessarily spread to collapse of the entire economy, unless the Fed fails to meet the sudden increase in demand for money (which happened in the '30s and happened in 2008). | ||
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