What do you say about European Socialism?

[NeverEndingMe]

Yeah, firing them wasn't a good option. Unfortunately that's another place where small government failed us. Any company that has grown so large that they can walk into Congress basically threaten to crash the economy and not get laughed out of the building are officially too large. Don't care how you break them up into more managable parts but that shit is crazy.

yes, it would have been a good thing to fire many of them...a company has to remove the dead weight.

GM had a lot of it

 

[Sean Renaud]

yes, it would have been a good thing to fire many of them...a company has to remove the dead weight.

GM had a lot of it

You have no way of knowing that. It's simply your assumption that they had a lot of dead weight. However even if they did the economy was in free fall, letting the the three major car companies fail along with the banks could easily have turned the Great Recession into a second Depression.

Now would be a damn good time to start breaking them up, but unfortunately the moment has passed and most people's emotions aren't riding quite so high right now that they would consider doing anything that sounded remotely socialist no matter how much of a better position it would put us in down the road.

 

[BotanyBoy]

oh the derp factor!

for the love of Derp!

That's what I thought B)

 

[PoppingTom]

wtf. thanks for the laugh. tell me again, how government is fueling the tech revolution? and what has Al Gore done for the internet lately?

You don't know that the internet was started as a military solution, done by the government?

That before Apple, 80% of companies in the Silicon Valley got the military as main customer?

Pathetic, as expected.

 

[demos]

Meanwhile, back in Greece...

I believe that the only future in sight is to lurch from one debt repayment deadline to the next.
Best to grasp the nettle sooner rather than later: default now and get out of the unbalanced euro currency system.

It will be painful, but it is inevitable. A currency union based on wishful thinking and denying economic reality must eventually confront its inherent problems.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

Meanwhile, back in Greece...

I believe that the only future in sight is to lurch from one debt repayment deadline to the next.
Best to grasp the nettle sooner rather than later: default now and get out of the unbalanced euro currency system.

It will be painful, but it is inevitable. A currency union based on wishful thinking and denying economic reality must eventually confront its inherent problems.

yep, these obama slaves do not want to hear the truth nor do they want to live in reality

 

[Sean Renaud]

Meanwhile, back in Greece...

I believe that the only future in sight is to lurch from one debt repayment deadline to the next.
Best to grasp the nettle sooner rather than later: default now and get out of the unbalanced euro currency system.

It will be painful, but it is inevitable. A currency union based on wishful thinking and denying economic reality must eventually confront its inherent problems.

They probably should never have been allowed in to begin with, that said you're being a little melodramatic. Greece getting out now would hurt the Euro in the short term and probably put them back in a shitty spot as well. The only upside is the remaining players would be stronger assuming everybody didn't bail.

yep, these obama slaves do not want to hear the truth nor do they want to live in reality

that's the only place we exist is reality with the truth and data. We keep asking you to point us to a single country in all of history that has bought into your theory of government is never the answer and survived. And you can't because a country cannot operate like that. You can attempt to argue the US has too much government and it's too intrusive and in some ways you'd be correct but you cannot claim that government is never the answer when it so clearly solves many problems that individual companies either could not, or would not solve.

You cannot deny that UHC is cheaper than what we have now and there is no reason why UHC cannot survive along side private health care. It does in many, many other cases. USPS not only has not prevented FedEx and UPS from thriving if you actually go to their webpages they have helped them thrive. Not only do they let them use their planes but they often deliver packages the final leg out to rural areas that the private carriers refuse to go. Even the police have not prevented private security companies from forming, hell the goddamn greatest military in the world manages to survive right along side Black Water. There are still private schools (out of the reach economically of most. According to your theory they should be competing for people and putting shitty public schools out) but that isn't happening either. So your theory fails on two counts, first government being able to operate at a loss will not by definition drive private industry out. It probably would in some areas where the product was identical or nearly identical but generally private does it better if more expensively (to the user, we're not about to debate taxes right now) nor is government by definition more expensive.

Obama slaves. Slaves work hard for no money. Obama slaves make other people work hard for lots of money if we are to believe your crap. So basically the exact opposite of a slave.

 

[PoppingTom]

Meanwhile, back in Greece...

I believe that the only future in sight is to lurch from one debt repayment deadline to the next.
Best to grasp the nettle sooner rather than later: default now and get out of the unbalanced euro currency system.

It will be painful, but it is inevitable. A currency union based on wishful thinking and denying economic reality must eventually confront its inherent problems.

The euro currency system is balanced, though not every member of the Euro zone is.

And the biggest problem for Greece and the Euro zone isn't lack of money. It's lack of confidence, and a Grexit won't change anything about it.

 

[BotanyBoy]

that's the only place we exist is reality with the truth and data. We keep asking you to point us to a single country in all of history that has bought into your theory of government is never the answer and survived. And you can't because a country cannot operate like that. You can attempt to argue the US has too much government and it's too intrusive and in some ways you'd be correct but you cannot claim that government is never the answer when it so clearly solves many problems that individual companies either could not, or would not solve.

You cannot deny that UHC is cheaper than what we have now and there is no reason why UHC cannot survive along side private health care. It does in many, many other cases. USPS not only has not prevented FedEx and UPS from thriving if you actually go to their webpages they have helped them thrive. Not only do they let them use their planes but they often deliver packages the final leg out to rural areas that the private carriers refuse to go. Even the police have not prevented private security companies from forming, hell the goddamn greatest military in the world manages to survive right along side Black Water. There are still private schools (out of the reach economically of most. According to your theory they should be competing for people and putting shitty public schools out) but that isn't happening either. So your theory fails on two counts, first government being able to operate at a loss will not by definition drive private industry out. It probably would in some areas where the product was identical or nearly identical but generally private does it better if more expensively (to the user, we're not about to debate taxes right now) nor is government by definition more expensive.

Obama slaves. Slaves work hard for no money. Obama slaves make other people work hard for lots of money if we are to believe your crap. So basically the exact opposite of a slave.

How I imagined you typed this out....
http://media.giphy.com/media/uy0YdwEZK2na8/giphy.gif

 

[Sean Renaud]

Considering for Jen this was an incredibly high level conversation I still feel like my friend Lord Frieza got this one right.

http://new1.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/4327140+_d9895b4f4d72aea93296d33a97c21269.gif​

 

[NeverEndingMe]

socialism is like aids ....


hence, the monkey zoo here

 

[NeverEndingMe]

you, are a little bitch slave. you take what they give you, smile, and hold your hand out. like a bitch

own it, as you are it

They probably should never have been allowed in to begin with, that said you're being a little melodramatic. Greece getting out now would hurt the Euro in the short term and probably put them back in a shitty spot as well. The only upside is the remaining players would be stronger assuming everybody didn't bail.



that's the only place we exist is reality with the truth and data. We keep asking you to point us to a single country in all of history that has bought into your theory of government is never the answer and survived. And you can't because a country cannot operate like that. You can attempt to argue the US has too much government and it's too intrusive and in some ways you'd be correct but you cannot claim that government is never the answer when it so clearly solves many problems that individual companies either could not, or would not solve.

You cannot deny that UHC is cheaper than what we have now and there is no reason why UHC cannot survive along side private health care. It does in many, many other cases. USPS not only has not prevented FedEx and UPS from thriving if you actually go to their webpages they have helped them thrive. Not only do they let them use their planes but they often deliver packages the final leg out to rural areas that the private carriers refuse to go. Even the police have not prevented private security companies from forming, hell the goddamn greatest military in the world manages to survive right along side Black Water. There are still private schools (out of the reach economically of most. According to your theory they should be competing for people and putting shitty public schools out) but that isn't happening either. So your theory fails on two counts, first government being able to operate at a loss will not by definition drive private industry out. It probably would in some areas where the product was identical or nearly identical but generally private does it better if more expensively (to the user, we're not about to debate taxes right now) nor is government by definition more expensive.

Obama slaves. Slaves work hard for no money. Obama slaves make other people work hard for lots of money if we are to believe your crap. So basically the exact opposite of a slave.

 

[Sean Renaud]

you, are a little bitch slave. you take what they give you, smile, and hold your hand out. like a bitch

own it, as you are it

Yep I'm a bitch. A proud bitch and I would never be anything else. I do take what they give me and I smile and hold my hand out. That is true of nearly everybody who served the military. Tell me again how much you hate the military as the largest socialist organism in history.

 

[KUJACK]

Humans

Due to our dual nature, both good and bad, Socialsim plays to the bad, encourages sloth and lack of ambition, Why try if someone who does nothing gets the same as the hard worker. Socialism works if you can leave, like the Israeli Kabutz. Socialsm fails because it encourages sloth and discourages excellence.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Due to our dual nature, both good and bad, Socialsim plays to the bad, encourages sloth and lack of ambition, Why try if someone who does nothing gets the same as the hard worker. Socialism works if you can leave, like the Israeli Kabutz. Socialsm fails because it encourages sloth and discourages excellence.

But this is bases on a fantasy. Nobody thinks what you say.

Also what you say is kinda stupid.

 

[oggbashan]

Due to our dual nature, both good and bad, Socialsim plays to the bad, encourages sloth and lack of ambition, Why try if someone who does nothing gets the same as the hard worker. Socialism works if you can leave, like the Israeli Kabutz. Socialsm fails because it encourages sloth and discourages excellence.

You definition of 'socialism' doesn't match the definition used by European politicians who consider themselves 'socialist'.

Your definition is that given by the right wing of American politics.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KUJACK

Due to our dual nature, both good and bad, Socialsim plays to the bad, encourages sloth and lack of ambition, Why try if someone who does nothing gets the same as the hard worker. Socialism works if you can leave, like the Israeli Kabutz. Socialsm fails because it encourages sloth and discourages excellence.

You definition of 'socialism' doesn't match the definition used by European politicians who consider themselves 'socialist'.

Your definition is that given by the right wing of American politics.

This is a rather simplistic description of Socialism, but it is close to how I define it - as an economic system in which the government provides for the basic needs of the citizens and collects high taxes to enable it to do so. For marginal type jobs, there is no reason to excel. For example: I can work hard and scrub this floor in two hours and do a good job of it in two hours, or I can do a shitty job of it and take all day. Either was, I get paid the same. So, why bother working hard. As for improving oneself, there is also little benefit to that. I can go to college or trade school, at considerable expense of my time and my money and learn a profession or skilled trade. But why should I? I'll make more money and do some good, but derive very little benefit personally, because the government will take a big chunk of the additional earnings. So, why bother? [/I}

So, what is your definition?

 

[oggbashan]

This is a rather simplistic description of Socialism, but it is close to how I define it - as an economic system in which the government provides for the basic needs of the citizens and collects high taxes to enable it to do so. For marginal type jobs, there is no reason to excel. For example: I can work hard and scrub this floor in two hours and do a good job of it in two hours, or I can do a shitty job of it and take all day. Either was, I get paid the same. So, why bother working hard. As for improving oneself, there is also little benefit to that. I can go to college or trade school, at considerable expense of my time and my money and learn a profession or skilled trade. But why should I? I'll make more money and do some good, but derive very little benefit personally, because the government will take a big chunk of the additional earnings. So, why bother?

So, what is your definition?

Your definition is that of Communism as practised by the USSR and the East Bloc countries before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In most European 'Socialist' countries anyone working as you describe would be fired and become unemployed. But in a 'European Socialist' country that person would receive some unemployment benefit, not as much as might be earned when employed, but without the expenses e.g. travel, tools, clothing needed while employed.

The problem of the 'European Socialist' system is not poorly working employees but long term unemployed (and sometimes unemployable). In some countries e.g. Greece, Spain a well-qualified person could remain unemployed because there just isn't any work.

In the UK, Germany and Scandinavian countries there are some people who are unemployable because of physical or mental incapacity, or because of addiction to alcohol or drugs. There are programmes to tackle the employment prospects of the 'unemployable' but they are expensive and the results are poor. That category of unemployed are a small minority of the total unemployed at any one time.

What causes anger in the public and politicians are the wilfully unemployed - those who play the system to live off the state. They are more common on 'reality' TV than in real life.

I have worked with local long term unemployed people for years. Most would do anything they could to get a reasonable job but their capacities are limited. A few are obviously hopeless. Their health, lack of intelligence or addictions make them unemployable except in a sheltered, subsidised environment. They are life's rejects but they still get a basic allowance from the government, yes, paid for by the rest of us.

'European Socialism' only goes so far. It SHOULD help those who are incapable of helping themselves. It shouldn't help the workshy, the shirkers, the cheats but sometimes it does.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Results define socialism. Socialist systems, industries, and institutions are controlled by government agencies NOT entrepreneurs.

Theres a story told of Stalin's farm problems caused by paint industry. Farms had too few tractors tho factories made enough tractors. Nut there wasn't enough red paint for all the tractors, and Stalin forbade any color but red. So the unpainted tractors stayed in storage, and too little food was produced to feed the nation.

 

[oggbashan]

Results define socialism. Socialist systems, industries, and institutions are controlled by government agencies NOT entrepreneurs.

Theres a story told of Stalin's farm problems caused by paint industry. Farms had too few tractors tho factories made enough tractors. Nut there wasn't enough red paint for all the tractors, and Stalin forbade any color but red. So the unpainted tractors stayed in storage, and too little food was produced to feed the nation.

No European country practises Socialism as defined in your first two sentences. They all have a mixed economy in which capitalism and entrepreneurs can operate alongside some state-run industries.

Your story about Stalin is NOT European Socialism. That is Communism as practised in the USSR which was nothing like the theoretical Communism proposed by Marx and Engels - not that the theoretical Communism would have worked either.

 

[AllyRose]

Talking with NEM and JBJ also doesn't work.

It's like what Red told Andy back in Shawshank: "[They] have to be human first, and they don't qualify."

 

[oggbashan]

But I can add a story about Communist Tractors:

When I had my secondhand bookshop I had one (of several) unsaleable books.

It was an official Moscow printed Russian language manual on how to use a tractor on a collective farm. It was late 1920s and endorsed by the Russian Communist Party.

One of my customers was a post graduate student of Russian literature. She tried reading it and found it incomprehensible. When I closed my shop it was one of many thousand books I gave to a National Trust site to sell on their bookstall to raise money for maintenance. I pointed it out to the volunteer who ensured that the bookstall was stocked.

A few months later he told me that he had sold the Tractor manual. A Russian and his wife had found it, picked it up because it was the only book in Russian, and started reading extracts to each other. They paid five pounds for it (it was marked at ten pence) and over lunch they were laughing hysterically. They explained to the volunteer that the manual had been written in correct political terminology for the time, but that the author had never seen a tractor, had probably had one described to him, and had got the description wrong - for 300 pages! Yet it was an official Communist party publication. Obviously no one else in Moscow knew what a tractor looked like or what it did.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

You have no way of knowing that. It's simply your assumption that they had a lot of dead weight. However even if they did the economy was in free fall, letting the the three major car companies fail along with the banks could easily have turned the Great Recession into a second Depression.

Now would be a damn good time to start breaking them up, but unfortunately the moment has passed and most people's emotions aren't riding quite so high right now that they would consider doing anything that sounded remotely socialist no matter how much of a better position it would put us in down the road.

dude, I get it. you have ZERO business experience

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No European country practises Socialism as defined in your first two sentences. They all have a mixed economy in which capitalism and entrepreneurs can operate alongside some state-run industries.

Your story about Stalin is NOT European Socialism. That is Communism as practised in the USSR which was nothing like the theoretical Communism proposed by Marx and Engels - not that the theoretical Communism would have worked either.

Stalin allowed entrepreneurs and small-time capitalism because socialism works best with large industries and institutions NOT ice cream carts.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Talking with NEM and JBJ also doesn't work.

It's like what Red told Andy back in Shawshank: "[They] have to be human first, and they don't qualify."

And I'm half god like Achilles.