http://www.zerohedge.com/article/mcdonalds-hires-62000-turns-away-over-938000-applicants-minimum-wage-part-time-jobs Yeah it's almost like not enough people are looking for work =p such audacity to say a part time minimum wage job that requires no previous skill/work in order to be hired turns away nearly a million people last year and then claim people are just lazy looking for handouts when the reality is most people want to work at some level but rather not live in a dumpster or work 2 3 jobs in order to live in the cheapest place around.
On November 08 2011 01:09 Ropid wrote: Well, that stuff Abramoff describes, I do not see how that can be fixed from within the system, with normal people only using their power to vote. For a change in the rules that would prevent this type of lobbying, which is really camouflaged bribery, politicians would have to fear there could be a revolution (the traditional variant with terror and guillotine).
Protests of a kind that would force a real change, not a fake one with back doors, would be a giant headache. The other way it may play out is, the number of people participating in protests will never be high enough, and politicians will be able to solve their problem by simply ignoring it. So, whatever happens, I guess it will be depressing.
A start would be punishing stuff for what it is. If a congressman is taking bribes then that's treason imo. It's of course murkier with all the legal gift giving, but in the cases where it's not...
The problem is determining what is legal and what isn't, and incorporating that into the system, and then simultaneously ensuring that the system into which it is incorporated is not only loophole-proof, but immune to creating future loopholes that would cause this type of bribery. I'm not sure if this is even possible, since it really all comes down to a problem with concentration of wealth and power.
An alternative is a complete restructuring of society, but this kind of requires value changes-- some people actually see being disproportionately wealthy as something to be desired rather than something obscene and embarassing. When you have this type of mentality present in a large proportion of society, it becomes very difficult to design a system that mitigates the abuses inherent in a society with a large disparity.
I agree, but at the same time Abramoff only got 6ish years for all that he did which is an insanely small punishment and hardly a deterrent for other people or anything like that.
Caradoc, I was merely suggesting that the debacles with EU has never been as bad as the article suggest. Thus, it has a very sensationalistic bias.
Your reasoning for bringing up the article still stands. The neoliberal government (libertarian to some extend) in Iceland was completely insane and irresponsible and it was pretty clear it was gonna crash from the perspective of Scandinavia. Under normal circumstances Iceland would have borrowed there, but US, UK and Netherlands jumped the gun and payed the price. The rest of Scandinavia borrowed a big chunk of money to Iceland after the crash though Iceland critizised it as being far too little. After a severe tax-hike Iceland is back at keeping a balanced budget and the failed investments have shown up to be not as bad as initially feared. That combined with the EU-membership application and the criminal charges against the bankers has all been a huge part of the recovery.
It is not only a socialistic government and peoples involvement that has "fished" Iceland back above water.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/mcdonalds-hires-62000-turns-away-over-938000-applicants-minimum-wage-part-time-jobs Yeah it's almost like not enough people are looking for work =p such audacity to say a part time minimum wage job that requires no previous skill/work in order to be hired turns away nearly a million people last year and then claim people are just lazy looking for handouts when the reality is most people want to work at some level but rather not live in a dumpster or work 2 3 jobs in order to live in the cheapest place around.
Yeah. It's that kind of crap that is going to turn combustible. Doesn't that article about Chicago remind you about cake? Specifically the part about letting people eat it? I wonder what happened to that someone.
On November 08 2011 03:46 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: From Veteranstoday.com showing proof that Occupy Oakland was a larger than 7k than what the mainstream media reported it as:
Mainstream media just seems to be getting worse and worse. After reading the Iceland article it really does seem that the media is controlling the information that gets out there, and skewing it one way or another. It is really sad that when most people's source of information and news can't be trusted.
i feel that the way people represent this situation ideologically is hampering the discussion. when you look at the situation as a "government vs market" dichotomy, it is easy to create strawman extremes of either rampant neoliberalism (which in practice is the absolute absolution of capital power from constraints) vs gulags.
in practice we have more complicated problems and also more options.
like with most political things, the way you ask the question matters a lot. do americans prefer "Capitalism" to omgcommunism? sure. but if you show them a distribution of wealth in america most would react with shock, since america #1 democracy can't possibly be less democratic than socialist europe.
this is a preference poll of respondents for wealth distribution in society, which is, if we are to be completely honest, the best and most important factor governing social equality as well.
relative preferences. i.e. 23% prefer the U.S. distribution vs the egalitarian distribution. 92% prefer sweden's distribution (however impractical it may be for u.s. society, it can be a sort of goal mebbe) to the u.s. distribution.
ah k thanks i never would have guess it was preference survey but that makes sense after reading the whole post again XD, the arrows are one vs another and the numbers above each circle is all 3 pitted against each other. And i assume this is a general survey of Americans.
More than three-quarters of Americans say the country’s economic structure is out of balance and “favors a very small proportion of the rich over the rest of the country,” taking up the calls of Occupy Wall Street protesters to reduce the power of major banks and end tax breaks for the affluent and for corporations, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows.
At the same time, 53% of adults believe – 33% strongly believe – the national debt and the size of government must be cut significantly, regulations on business should be pared back, and taxes should not be raised on anybody.
The findings create a split screen of American activism with more than half the country identifying either with Occupy Wall Street or the tea party movement – and a small group siding with both.
According to the poll, 60% of those surveyed strongly agreed with the statement, “The current economic structure of the country is out of balance and favors a very small proportion of the rich over the rest of the country. America needs to reduce the power of major banks and corporations and demand greater accountability and transparency. The government should not provide financial aid to corporations and should not provide tax breaks to the rich.” An additional 16% said they mildly agree with that statement.
Among white working class voters, who have been reluctant to back President Barack Obama, 84% agree with the statement. Nearly nine of 10 Democrats agreed, and so did 62% of Republicans. Even 53% of tea party supporters agreed.
On November 08 2011 08:43 oneofthem wrote: i feel that the way people represent this situation ideologically is hampering the discussion. when you look at the situation as a "government vs market" dichotomy, it is easy to create strawman extremes of either rampant neoliberalism (which in practice is the absolute absolution of capital power from constraints) vs gulags.
in practice we have more complicated problems and also more options.
like with most political things, the way you ask the question matters a lot. do americans prefer "Capitalism" to omgcommunism? sure. but if you show them a distribution of wealth in america most would react with shock, since america #1 democracy can't possibly be less democratic than socialist europe.
this is a preference poll of respondents for wealth distribution in society, which is, if we are to be completely honest, the best and most important factor governing social equality as well.
How am I supposed to read the graph? Lightest to darkest in terms of wealth quintile?
How can US be at 10% overall, if it already loses out to Sweden by 92% to 8%? 8% would be the upper bound. How does Sweden's distribution go 18-36-15-21-11? You couldn't get the 2nd quintile to ever be more wealth than the first, never mind twice as wealthy.
47%+43%+10%=100% 8% wouldn't be the max as you get 23% vs equals. ie a pool of 100 people 8 would prefer US over Swedish distribution 23 would prefer US over Equal distribution and only 10 would prefer US over Swedish and Equal distribution. ie 21 out of those 23 would prefer the Swedish distribution.
As far as how the charts go, darkest to lightest?, poor to wealthy as far as what it's 36 vs 18 I found where that is from http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=55202482 a 2005 paper i'll edit this once i'm done reading edit: herp radiatoren said it, it was based on income which on context of the paper isn't so bad as it's based on what people desire not to say that Swedish model is more desirable but rather those numbers are. As it points that people want some inequality ie the top % diverse some gains but people don't like stark difference.
The thing is that the pie-chart is tampered with and doesn't show Sweden correctly. The true distribution is:
The true distribution is still a far better distribution than the american, but admittedly not as impressive as the "sweden" shown in the piechart. The other representation has to do with income and the figure was for a psychology-report.
A far more convincing article about the history of inequality in the USA is here: History of Divergence (yes there are 10 entries you can cycle through. Good read!)
On November 08 2011 10:05 semantics wrote: 47%+43%+10%=100% 8% wouldn't be the max as you get 23% vs equals. ie a pool of 100 people 8 would prefer US over Swedish distribution 23 would prefer US over Equal distribution and only 10 would prefer US over Swedish and Equal distribution. ie 21 out of those 23 would prefer the Swedish distribution.
Really? 92 to 8, Sweden over US when given two choices. Then when given a 3rd choice of perfect equality, 2 MORE people decided US is better than the other two? WTF.
And thanks for Radio for a more accurate portrayal of Sweden.
On November 08 2011 10:05 semantics wrote: 47%+43%+10%=100% 8% wouldn't be the max as you get 23% vs equals. ie a pool of 100 people 8 would prefer US over Swedish distribution 23 would prefer US over Equal distribution and only 10 would prefer US over Swedish and Equal distribution. ie 21 out of those 23 would prefer the Swedish distribution.
Really? 92 to 8, Sweden over US when given two choices. Then when given a 3rd choice of perfect equality, 2 MORE people decided US is better than the other two? WTF.
And thanks for Radio for a more accurate portrayal of Sweden.
They were presented as unlabeled pie charts to the people doing the survey, the fact that one is US wealth and another is Swedish income isn't terribly important in context of the paper but is it misleading when used out of that context. As the paper was very much about what people felt things should be in the US. In other words it's fine to used to represent unhappiness with the current distribution of wealth in the US and that this unsatisfactory feeling is shared across the majority of Americans in multiple demographics, but it is ill to say well this is Swedish way and we should just copy that.
I do find it interesting that it's 23% when it's massive wealth inequality vs perfect equality but it's 8% when it's little inequality vs massive inequality. Is there something repulsive to the American psyche about a theoretical equality.
Although using the survey numbers it would be Out of 5522 participants of a diverse demographic that represents the US in ideology and income etc. So the numbers would be, clearly the numbers are rounded. USA vs Sweden (favor which chart) 441.76 vs 5080.24 USA vs Equal 1270.06 vs 4251.94 Sweden vs Equal 2816.22 vs 2705.78 USA vs Sweden vs Equal 552.2 vs 2595.34 vs 2374.46
On November 08 2011 08:43 oneofthem wrote: i feel that the way people represent this situation ideologically is hampering the discussion. when you look at the situation as a "government vs market" dichotomy, it is easy to create strawman extremes of either rampant neoliberalism (which in practice is the absolute absolution of capital power from constraints) vs gulags.
in practice we have more complicated problems and also more options.
like with most political things, the way you ask the question matters a lot. do americans prefer "Capitalism" to omgcommunism? sure. but if you show them a distribution of wealth in america most would react with shock, since america #1 democracy can't possibly be less democratic than socialist europe.
this is a preference poll of respondents for wealth distribution in society, which is, if we are to be completely honest, the best and most important factor governing social equality as well.
How am I supposed to read the graph? Lightest to darkest in terms of wealth quintile?
How can US be at 10% overall, if it already loses out to Sweden by 92% to 8%? 8% would be the upper bound. How does Sweden's distribution go 18-36-15-21-11? You couldn't get the 2nd quintile to ever be more wealth than the first, never mind twice as wealthy.
the 3 choice vs 2 choice numbers seem a bit screwy. i don't know how they got those numbers. but overall it isn't that much of a problem. it might be just an arrow's impossibility theorem scenario.
for the wealth metric itself it matters a lot what is actually counted as wealth and what isn't. i'd imagine that an accurate accounting of different soft goods like social capital etc enjoyed by people of different segments, we'd see a more realistic and relevant portrayal of the different societies.
On November 08 2011 02:04 radiatoren wrote: Caradoc, I was merely suggesting that the debacles with EU has never been as bad as the article suggest. Thus, it has a very sensationalistic bias.
Your reasoning for bringing up the article still stands. The neoliberal government (libertarian to some extend) in Iceland was completely insane and irresponsible and it was pretty clear it was gonna crash from the perspective of Scandinavia. Under normal circumstances Iceland would have borrowed there, but US, UK and Netherlands jumped the gun and payed the price. The rest of Scandinavia borrowed a big chunk of money to Iceland after the crash though Iceland critizised it as being far too little. After a severe tax-hike Iceland is back at keeping a balanced budget and the failed investments have shown up to be not as bad as initially feared. That combined with the EU-membership application and the criminal charges against the bankers has all been a huge part of the recovery.
It is not only a socialistic government and peoples involvement that has "fished" Iceland back above water.
On November 08 2011 10:38 radiatoren wrote: The thing is that the pie-chart is tampered with and doesn't show Sweden correctly. The true distribution is:
The true distribution is still a far better distribution than the american, but admittedly not as impressive as the "sweden" shown in the piechart. The other representation has to do with income and the figure was for a psychology-report.
A far more convincing article about the history of inequality in the USA is here: History of Divergence (yes there are 10 entries you can cycle through. Good read!)
Good read indeed. It's kinda interesting to see the chart that basically said that Republican administrations do worse on average in creating growth for 95% of the population, while still churning out growth larger than Democrats. That means, on average, Republicans only create growth for <5% of the population. I could be reading that wrong though...
EPT
![[image loading]](http://mosquitocloud.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Fig.png)
![[image loading]](http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/files/2011/03/sweden_wealth_charts.jpg)
