Freebase Dali

Well, you guys are like the 3rd or 4th largest exporters of oil, am I right? For a long time now too. Not that it has everything to do with it, but it certainly helps. Heh.. us folk in the U.S. aren't even in the top 10. Not to mention the bass ackward government spending we're up to our necks in... Especially with programs that have thus far only proven to expand our deficit and provide absolutely no debt benefit in this current administration, which is really the first thing that needs to be taken care of if we even want to have the ability to fund universal health care without jacking taxation up with no reciprocal benefit to the other areas of life where we must pay out the money we earn.

Anyway, just a curious question here... But how do you feel about your taxation? And do you feel it's justified by the benefits you receive? And finally, do you feel that there is any danger of [physically] able workers placing exceedingly less emphasis on having jobs when government support will virtually guarantee their stay?

ProggyMan

Ah, I see what you were saying, you just put in a strange way.

Inuzuka Skysword

You aren't criticizing capitalism. You are criticizing a type of bank system.

What I meant is this:

Correlation: Giving particular phenomena as the basis of your argument.
Causation: Giving reasons as the basis of your argument

You gave certain countries (phenomena) as examples of how socialism works, but what is more important is why (reasons) socialism is "working" in those countries.
If you are going to mention that it is flawed here in America, then you side with just about every person on the globe except the neocons. What is the problem, though? America is in a lot of debt, not because of capitalism, but because of useless wars and various welfare problems. The government costs a lot of money to run, and the government isn't getting it through taxation. You might say, "Well if we strayed from capitalism and taxed more, then the government would get some money back." You'd be correct, but you could also go more capitalist and say that we should slowly take away the useless parts of government and welfare programs. It isn't a problem with capitalism, here in America, because we are far from capitalism. It is mixed economy.

All I am saying is that if you are going to criticize capitalism, at least criticize capitalism for what it is, instead of just using strawmen to put forth your argument.

Guybrush

Yes, I'm definetly happy and I've been very much on the recieving end of government funding my whole life. Much of my free education has been government sponsored beyond the fact it's free for example by including cruises up in the arctic to the north pole ice for a value of hundreds of thousands of NOKs - a lot of money. When I was a teenager, I worked and helped run a cafè which was basically run by teenagers and young adults in a government building, the old post office in the town I'm from. We didn't pay rent for it, it was borrowed to us for free and the office of culture actually gave us money, a rough equivalent to 2000 USD one year to spend on arranging concerts. The idea from their point of view was of course to get more gigs for local bands.

Next year, I might study pedagogy for a year so I can get work as a teacher as something to fall back on if I can't get work as a biologist. The government wants more teachers, so if I pass all my exams that year, that means I'll get taxfree about 15000 USD to see me through that year. Since me and my GF are already living in student housing, rent is relatively cheap compared to living elsewhere, so that means I can get by on government funding without having to get a job .. which is basically what I'm doing now as well.

I've also recieved a lot of free health care which includes simple surgery and a number of other little things. When I was a kid, my mother got paid time off work to take care of us for example.

To americans, I bet I sound like quite the freeloader The way I feel is that the taxes I'll be paying when I'm hopefully working as a biologist will give back what the government has already given me. Once I've payed back what I owe society, and that might take a while, I'll gladly pay my taxes so that my kids and other people as well can live in the kind of society I grew up in. My father who's been working most his life and has paid back many times over in taxes what the government has spent on him feels the same way.

In a functioning socialist country, the government is a benefactor. Here, it helps people get the education they want, give them free medical care under pregnancy, lots of time off to young parents to take care of kids, make sure there are activities to partake in. Basically, it nurtures the people in the society. I think in return, people want to nurture society too. People here seldom complain about the high taxes.

You'd think we got a lot of freeloaders, but the relative unemployment rate in the US is actually 3 times higher than in Norway, from a little over 3% here to just under 10% in the US this year. This is not the source for that statement, but it shows a simple map which shows unemployment in countries. We're doing rather well in comparison to a lot of countries it seems.


I think to americans, socialism and it's benefits are not really appearant. I believe most don't really know what they are. If you read my post, you might read about something which seems unfamiliar. You've never really had socialism. Your government hasn't been a benefactor who gives you a top education for free or free health care. If it was possible to make a sudden shift to socialism, that would make some people net losers because they would not have recieved much in the past and are suddenly forced to give. Years after the shift, ideally, everyone would be benefactors.

Norway is a good country for socialism because we have money, but a lot of those oil cash are actually tucked away for the rainy days when our oil is gone and we may not have other natural resources to sell. People were happy before we got this wealthy and I think it's possible for the US as well. It's just that it requires a total change in perception of what the government is and should be, something that would probably take a while.

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Something Completely Different

Janszoon

I'm in no way trying to knock Norway, because your system seems to work really well, but there are a number of differences between the US and Norway which make me wonder how well that system would translate. The biggest one is population: the US is roughly 64 times the size of Norway. I wonder if it would even be possible to make the Norwegian model work in a country that is such a different size. Another possible issue is that the US is a far less culturally and ethnically homogenous place than Norway and as a result I feel like there's less of a sense of "we're all in this together" here than there is in Norway.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

storymilo

Ha.

Ha ha.

hahahahahahahahahahahaah

Guybrush

Definetly, I very much agree with you there. I wouldn't suggest the US does things exactly like we do and I think the cultural richness and population size are excellent examples of differences which would complicate.

I still get the impression a lot of people don't know what socialism is or how it really works - or think that it's just a fantasy. I hope my last post helps illustrate how it is possible and what some of the possible benefits are.

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Something Completely Different

music_phantom13

Wow. First of all, if you haven't heard much about the President around where you live, that's your own fault. So you probably shouldn't even have an opinion on him if you don't know what he's been doing. You're on the internet right now, you have the power to learn every single thing he's done since being in office, but you obviously don't care. Secondly, people voted him into office because they wanted health care reform and all of the other promises they made (I specify that because it was a huge one). Yes, there were people out there that voted him into office because of race. But I have a hard time believing that that's really the majority of America. Here's another interesting fact about politics that you haven't realized yet: The north/south thing? The south always tends to vote for the Republican candidate more often because the South has always been more conservative and the north has always been more liberal. That's the way it is in the U.S. Feel free to go to the link below if you'd like to see how when Bush was first elected into office Gore won the entire Northeast, and Bush took most of the South:

2000 election results

Lastly, you say politicians are all liars and don't do what they promise. If you actually bothered to pay any attention to politics, you'd realize that whether you share similar political views or not, Obama's doing a damn good job of working his ass off to do everything he promised. I have tons of respect for the man for that, that's something you rarely ever see in a politician.

duga

You know, I've noticed people on this site love to use the term strawmen. I'm not sure you really know its proper use. If you use a little intuitive logic, you will see my posts are pretty sound.

Again...I will stress this one more time...I am specifically talking about capitalism in AMERICA. I know capitalism is run differently in other countries, just like other forms of government are run in various ways all over the world. The other countries I mentioned I used strictly to show that, given the proper circumstances, a form of government CAN or CAN NOT work.

Now...the specific example I gave was mentioning the banking system. Sure, the banking system is not capitalism, but here in America, the banking system is pretty integral part of capitalism. The way we spend our money, earn money, and gain a foothold in the country based on capitalism is directly related to the way the bank is run. With the fractional reserve system combined with the free market, it is a recipe for disaster. Now, if you don't know how the fractional reserve system works I will be happy to explain it to you.

If you can point out the strawman in this argument, by all means do it.

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Confusion will be my epitaph...

Yukon Cornelius

Slowley but surely, rich or poor, unless your are important your freedom is going to sink. The idea of reform is to lump us and ration to us all together... I buying a space shuttle.

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Attempting to find a cure for Stupid...