US Median Income Lowest Since 1995

cpwill · Sep 17, 2012

actually you are underestimating some of those nations.

Australia, Canda, Switzerland, all three of them are more free-market oriented than the United States.

Cardinal Fang · Sep 17, 2012

Arbo said:
As usual, more statements of fantasy. 'Helped manufacture'... how nice of you to skip all those that came before him that helped drive us into the mess as well. But that's what partisan hacks such as yourself excel at...

Well, despite the desperate attempts of feckless fiction writers (e.g., Thomas DiLorenzo) at the Mises Institute and other sham outlets, the seeds of the credit crisis were planted, nurtured, watered, and fertilized between 2002 and 2006, coming to full flower in 2007 and then toppling over onto tne house in 2008, all because of a bunch of greedy cowboy capitalists and the inane fiscal, monetary, and regulatory policies of a bunch of laissez-faire Republicans.

cpwill · Sep 17, 2012

Cardinal Fang said:
Well, despite the desperate attempts of feckless fiction writers (e.g., Thomas DiLorenzo) at the Mises Institute and other sham outlets, the seeds of the credit crisis were planted, nurtured, watered, and fertilized between 2002 and 2006, coming to full flower in 2007 and then toppling over onto tne house in 2008, all because of a bunch of greedy cowboy capitalists and the inane fiscal, monetary, and regulatory policies of a bunch of laissez-faire Republicans.

Fascinating. I never knew Bill Clinton was a laissez-faire Republican. How very bipartisan of the Democrats to let him speak at their convention.

Cardinal Fang · Sep 18, 2012

cpwill said:
Fascinating. I never knew Bill Clinton was a laissez-faire Republican. How very bipartisan of the Democrats to let him speak at their convention.

Bill Clinton was a neocon/neolib who didn't desert the Democratic Party simply because the radical left of the 60's and 70's would not be silenced. More spine than that. He has also been a lifelong defender of the middle class -- you know, the group of people that Republicans are trying to wipe out? That's why he spoke at the convention.

His eventual signature on the long-time Republican wet-dreams of GLB and CFMA were mistakes of course, regardless of the concessions he was able to extract in exchange for letting them pass. These bills could fairly easily be connected for instance to the wave of rigged IPO's that followed almost immediately and bilked ordinary investors out of billions, and also the wave of Enron-style (remember good old Kenny-Boy?) accounting scandals that swept through the economy and created the necessity for things like Sarbanes-Oxley to come into being.

Despite the wanton lies of various Mises Institute types however, nothing that Clinton did contributed to the genesis of the credit crisis and eventual Great Bush Recession that it finally bled out into. Unless of course you want to stoop to the level of arguing that paving downtown streets makes bank robberies more likely by smoothing the path for potential getaway vehicles.

All this carnage that you still see around you was actually caused by the unrestrained greed of cowboy capitalists and the god-awful fiscal, monetary, and regulatory policies of a hapless bunch of laissez-faire, free-market Republicans. No Carter, no Clinton, no CRA, no Dodd, no Frank, no Pelosi. Just cowboy capitalists and a hapless bunch of laissez-faire, free-market Republicans. That's all it took.

cpwill · Sep 18, 2012

Cardinal Fang said:
Bill Clinton was a neocon/neolib who didn't desert the Democratic Party simply because the radical left of the 60's and 70's would not be silenced. More spine than that. He has also been a lifelong defender of the middle class -- you know, the group of people that Republicans are trying to wipe out?

:lamo

I forget every once in a while you pull out a line that makes you sound like Debbie Wasserman Schultz :lol:

Cardinal Fang · Sep 20, 2012

cpwill said:
Stupid Keynesian Stimulus. Stupid Bailouts. Stupid Deficit spending.

Very poor comparison. Your problem here lies in the fact that while all of these things did in fact occur, none of them was stupid. In fact, each of them was a key contributor to assuring that the complete financial fiasco created by BushCo did not morph into something far worse than what it actually did. That was quite an accomplishmnt -- something more than what even optimists of the day had dared to hope for.

What meanwhile did the stupid tax cuts, the stupid wars, and the stupid policies leading to a stupid recession accomplish? All of those actually led or helped lead to disastrous crash-and-burn outcomes and scenarios. Way to go, George!

Cardinal Fang · Sep 20, 2012

Rainman05 said:
It will be hard to separate the 2, but lemme give it a try.

That's great! We get lament after right-wing lament over the horrors of euro-socialism, and then it turns out that all these countries are actually beacons of free-market driven entrepreneurship. How many faces do you all have, anyway? It's plainly at least two.

Here is a perhaps more enlightening measure of who is a socialist and who isn't. The data are from 2007, as everything that's been published since has been scrambled to bits by the effects of and reaction to the Great Bush Recession...

In these countries, federal spending is at least 50% of GDP:
France, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Malta, Qatar, Kuwait, Belgium, Norway, Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Finland, Portugal, United Kingdom.

In these countries, federal spending is 40-50% of GDP:
Germany, Canada, Spain, New Zealand, Israel, Australia, Ireland, Saudi Arabia.

In these countries, federal spending is 30-40% of GDP:
Switzerland, Luxembourg, South Africa, Japan, United Arab Emirates

In these countries, federal spending is 20-30% of GDP:
India, Russia, China, Poland

In this country, federal spending is less than 20% of GDP:
United States of America

Rainman05 said:
Overall, socialism is a failure...

Overall, right-wingers have no consistent or coherent idea of what socilaism even is. But what many of them like to call socialism -- any sort of action or intervention by the state on behalf of citizens -- has been a smashing success adopted by the vast majority of the world's governments of every stripe. By the way, the people promoting lousy health care and reduced pensions in this country are all Republicans, not socialists.

Cardinal Fang · Sep 20, 2012

cpwill said:
actually you are underestimating some of those nations. Australia, Canda, Switzerland, all three of them are more free-market oriented than the United States.

According to the propaganda of the Heritage Foundation/WSJ, whose listing boils down to countries that sort of do things the way we'd like to see things done, even though actually doing things that way has always led to disaster.

Cardinal Fang · Sep 20, 2012

cpwill said:
I forget every once in a while you pull out a line that makes you sound like Debbie Wasserman Schultz :lol:

THAT'S your response? All that fact to deal with, and all you can come up with is some out-of-the-blue attack on a breast cancer surviving Jewish-American Congresswoman? What a freaking piece of work!

Rainman05 · Sep 20, 2012

Cardinal Fang said:
That's great! We get lament after right-wing lament over the horrors of euro-socialism, and then it turns out that all these countries are actually beacons of free-market driven entrepreneurship. How many faces do you all have, anyway? It's plainly at least two.

Here is a perhaps more enlightening measure of who is a socialist and who isn't. The data are from 2007, as everything that's been published since has been scrambled to bits by the effects of and reaction to the Great Bush Recession...

In these countries, federal spending is at least 50% of GDP:
France, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Malta, Qatar, Kuwait, Belgium, Norway, Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Finland, Portugal, United Kingdom.

In these countries, federal spending is 40-50% of GDP:
Germany, Canada, Spain, New Zealand, Israel, Australia, Ireland, Saudi Arabia.

In these countries, federal spending is 30-40% of GDP:
Switzerland, Luxembourg, South Africa, Japan, United Arab Emirates

In these countries, federal spending is 20-30% of GDP:
India, Russia, China, Poland

In this country, federal spending is less than 20% of GDP:
United States of America

I'm sorry, what? First off,

France, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Malta, Qatar, Kuwait, Belgium, Norway, Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Finland, Portugal, United Kingdom.
With the exception of Austria... neither of these countries are federations. I can see how you may confuse UK with a federation, but it ins't.

Secondly:
Germany, Canada, Spain, New Zealand, Israel, Australia, Ireland, Saudi Arabia.

Germany is indeed a federation, you nailed this one. Spain isn't. Spain is a constitutional Monarchy like the UK.

Then:
Switzerland, Luxembourg, South Africa, Japan, United Arab Emirates
With the exception of Switzerland... none others are federations.

So whatever argument you had... based on what... i don't know. I will just satisfy myself with bringing these notions to a clarification until you re-write your arguments.

Cardinal Fang said:
Overall, right-wingers have no consistent or coherent idea of what socilaism even is. But what many of them like to call socialism -- any sort of action or intervention by the state on behalf of citizens -- has been a smashing success adopted by the vast majority of the world's governments of every stripe. By the way, the people promoting lousy health care and reduced pensions in this country are all Republicans, not socialists.

I happen to live in Europe you know... the EU none the less. Trust me, I know what socialism is.

It is as I said. Countries with a powerful capitalist mentality and a good capitalist system can afford proper socialist measures, like universal healthcare. Countries like former communist countries, cannot... because the capitalist mentality isn't there. There is no such engine. and there is no money to provide a lot of the socialist measures left behind by the commies and to which the population grew dependent on. So now you have populations dependent on a poor government, filled with corruption and incompetence... who have to pay a lot for all sort of socialist measures and therefore cannot afford to put money into the budget for improvement of the infrastructure, the schools and as such... it cripples itself. even if the political class would want to make things good in most eastern european countries, which frankly, they don't... but even if they did want to develop them, they wouldn't have the money to do it.

Capitalism (not pure capitalism mind you, but the ideology) leads to success and prosperity. So much so that it can sustain socialism. Socialism in itself, is a failure economically and, ironically, socially. Why can't you see that socialism cannot exist outside of capitalism. It must leech on something to survive.

danarhea · Sep 20, 2012

Cardinal Fang said:
Whereas the "It's not all Bush's fault" people have been slow all along. Bush is already ranked as among the worst Presidents in US history, and as time passes, that rating will only worsen. Eight years of miserable disgrace and failure. An indefensible record of utter malfeasance that will haunt us for decades.

Well, here's the deal. It takes two to tango in Washington, and the Democrats and Republicans are perfect dance partners, who together brought on this perfect storm. It began with the gutting of the Glass-Steagal Act, through the Gramm-Bliley Act, which was created by Republicans, overwhelmingly supported by both Republicans and Democrats, and signed into law by Bill Clinton.

Cardinal Fang · Sep 20, 2012

Rainman05 said:
I'm sorry, what? First off,

No, first off...

federation [ˌfɛdəˈreɪʃən]
n
1. the act of federating
2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) the union of several provinces, states, etc., to form a federal union
3. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a political unit formed in such a way
4. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) any league, alliance, or confederacy
5. a union of several parties, groups, etc.
6. any association or union for common action

So with pointless and poorly established semantics out of the way...

Rainman05 said:
I happen to live in Europe you know... the EU none the less.

Which has implications for what, exactly? Do you expect that the data posted above will change now?

Rainman05 said:
Trust me, I know what socialism is.

Why would I trust understanding of the complex term "socialism" to someone who can't get past the word "federation"?

Rainman05 said:
It is as I said. Countries with a powerful capitalist mentality and a good capitalist system can afford proper socialist measures, like universal healthcare. Countries like former communist countries, cannot... because the capitalist mentality isn't there. There is no such engine. and there is no money to provide a lot of the socialist measures left behind by the commies and to which the population grew dependent on. So now you have populations dependent on a poor government, filled with corruption and incompetence... who have to pay a lot for all sort of socialist measures and therefore cannot afford to put money into the budget for improvement of the infrastructure, the schools and as such... it cripples itself. even if the political class would want to make things good in most eastern european countries, which frankly, they don't... but even if they did want to develop them, they wouldn't have the money to do it. Capitalism (not pure capitalism mind you, but the ideology) leads to success and prosperity. So much so that it can sustain socialism. Socialism in itself, is a failure economically and, ironically, socially. Why can't you see that socialism cannot exist outside of capitalism. It must leech on something to survive.

LOL! That sure takes care of any doubts I had.

Rainman05 · Sep 20, 2012

Cardinal Fang said:
No, first off...

federation [ˌfɛdəˈreɪʃən]
n
1. the act of federating
2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) the union of several provinces, states, etc., to form a federal union
3. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a political unit formed in such a way
4. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) any league, alliance, or confederacy
5. a union of several parties, groups, etc.
6. any association or union for common action

So with pointless and poorly established semantics out of the way...

Which has implications for what, exactly? Do you expect that the data posted above will change now?

Why would I trust understanding of the complex term "socialism" to someone who can't get past the word "federation"?

LOL! That sure takes care of any doubts I had.

Ok, which of the 6 definitions for the word federation did you wish to use? Because these 3, which are the ones we should use if we talk about politics and political matters:
2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) the union of several provinces, states, etc., to form a federal union
3. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a political unit formed in such a way
4. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) any league, alliance, or confederacy

make your statement seem wrong. Most european states are unitary states. They aren't federations, with the exceptions of those I pointed out.

Second of all.... yes, you should trust me in terms of understanding socialism. it's not that bloody hard a concept and the vision it brings with it. I am not getting past the term federation because that is not the proper way to use the term in this context and I have expressed so just above.

Thirdly. Your doubts are your own and it will take willpower and open-mindedness to get you past the doubts. Socialism is a leeching system. It is not very dissimilar to parasites, only in that it provides something in return to the host for all the leeching it takes. In this case, the host is a good capitalism... and the parasite is socialism.

Do not get me wrong, I am not completely against socialism.. I just against most of socialism. I don't support complete capitalism either. None in the purest form is a humane way to govern a country... but the ratio needs to be less in the socialist part and more in the capitalist part. Why? because I cannot emphasize this enough... socialism cannot survive without a lot of MONEY. It is however a system that cannot produce said amount of MONEY and therefore must leech off other systems that do produce the money.

Cardinal Fang · Sep 20, 2012

danarhea said:
Well, here's the deal. It takes two to tango in Washington...

It used to. Then Republicans turned into the not nearly as funny equivalent of terrorists at the wheel of the DTX Deathmobile. Started when the renegade neocons threw all the paleos out of the party, then shacked up with Jerry Falwell. Went into high gear with Newt and the Arkansas Project. Went into overdrive in the post-Mark Foley era of sheer Republican outlandishness.

danarhea said:
...and the Democrats and Republicans are perfect dance partners, who together brought on this perfect storm.

Not a perfect storm at all, but a simple trainwreck of greedy cowboy capitalism egged on by the unbelievably ignorant fiscal, monetary, and regulatory policy of a bunch of laissez-faire, free-market Republicans.

danarhea said:
It began with the gutting of the Glass-Steagal Act, through the Gramm-Bliley Act, which was created by Republicans, overwhelmingly supported by both Republicans and Democrats, and signed into law by Bill Clinton.

That would be Gramm-LEACH-Bliley, and it was opposed by Democrats until Clinton extracted the concessions he wanted in exchange for passing it and then gave it the green light. As for contributing to the later credit crisis and Great Bush Recession, that's a tough argument to make unless you are comfortable claiming that paving downtown streets makes bank robberies more likely by smoothing the path of potentail getaway vehicles. In fact, the once strict separation of commercial and investment banking had been gradually softened over the years, and by the time GLB passed, many banks were already involved in such practices and in such bookkeeping. A strict prohibition against banks owning insurance companies was still in place and removed by GLB, but few actual such moves resulted.

The actual crisis meanwhile grew up between 2002 and 2006. All Republicans, all the time. Not a Democrat you could name had his hands on a lever of power during that time.

LiberalAvenger · Sep 20, 2012

The Prof said:
US median income lowest since 1995 - FT.com

mere confirmation of our own experience, what americans are living

what can we expect when so many more of our neighbors, friends and family members are filing for disability and food stamps than are actually gaining employment Republican obstructionist ftactics are endangering our homeland security by inciting the middle class towards anarchy and chaos.

what's new when four times as many of our associates and relations drop out of the work force than find a job

when 58% of the frighteningly few of our friends who do hook up end up pulling down between $10 and $12 per hour

CNN: Low-wage jobs explosion - Aug. 31, 2012

when real middle class incomes are down TWICE as fast AFTER the recession officially ended than they declined DURING the deepest, darkest days of depression

Household income fell 4.8% during economic recovery - latimes.com

food stamps at a record hi, poverty at a record hi

if the workforce were the same size today, even disallowing for natural population growth, as it was on jan 20, 2009, bls' unemployment # would be 11.2

we can never hit bottom til housing, which brung us here, finds its basement

Time: How ‘Shadow Inventory’ Is Killing the U.S. Housing Market

3 to 10 million homes haunt the shadow inventory

who's lying to you, time, cnn or ft?

maybe it's sigtarp you shouldn't believe

Bloomberg: Obama Loan-Modification Effort 'Failed Miserably'

Why do you sound like you are outraged? The Republican obstructionism against the United States' President is wporking out just as you had hoped for. The Republican obstructionists are destroying our country from within creating a class war against the weak, the sick, the poor, and the LIBERALS!

Hatuey · Sep 20, 2012

Oh no! We're now only as rich as we were in the most prosperous decade this country has ever had!

Cardinal Fang · Sep 20, 2012

Rainman05 said:
Ok, which of the 6 definitions for the word federation did you wish to use?

LOL! I don't have to pick one. If there is one among this or any other list that applies, then your silly attempt at semantics-playing is revealed as the deflective stunt and sham that it was from the outset.

Rainman05 said:
Second of all.... yes, you should trust me in terms of understanding socialism.

You are still well short of convincing me. You haven't so far in fact typed a single word actually relevant to socialism or your supposed understanding of it.

Rainman05 said:
Thirdly. Your doubts are your own and it will take willpower and open-mindedness to get you past the doubts.

I'm opening as many doors and window here as I possibly can in order to let the light of your undeetanding shine in, yet all remains strangely unilluminated.

Rainman05 said:
Socialism is a leeching system. It is not very dissimilar to parasites, only in that it provides something in return to the host for all the leeching it takes. In this case, the host is a good capitalism... and the parasite is socialism.

LOL! If that's the light that you bring, let me assure you that it will be perfectly alright to hide it under a bushel basket.

Rainman05 said:
Do not get me wrong, I am not completely against socialism.. I just against most of socialism. I don't support complete capitalism either. None in the purest form is a humane way to govern a country... but the ratio needs to be less in the socialist part and more in the capitalist part. Why? because I cannot emphasize this enough... socialism cannot survive without a lot of MONEY. It is however a system that cannot produce said amount of MONEY and therefore must leech off other systems that do produce the money.

Money is simply an ambassador for value, typically the value embodied in the real goods and services produced within an economy. You seem to be suggesting that there is a sort of internal speed limit associated with the production function in economies that rely perhaps on distributive ideals and practices borrowed from socialism that does not apply within the production function in economies where such ideals and practices are not borrowed from socialism. Can you explain in more detail what that speed limit is, how it works, and how it knows whether to switch itself on or not?

Peter Grimm · Sep 20, 2012

Under Obama's watch...

The Prof said:
US median income lowest since 1995 - FT.com

mere confirmation of our own experience, what americans are living

what can we expect when so many more of our neighbors, friends and family members are filing for disability and food stamps than are actually gaining employment

what's new when four times as many of our associates and relations drop out of the work force than find a job

when 58% of the frighteningly few of our friends who do hook up end up pulling down between $10 and $12 per hour

CNN: Low-wage jobs explosion - Aug. 31, 2012

when real middle class incomes are down TWICE as fast AFTER the recession officially ended than they declined DURING the deepest, darkest days of depression

Household income fell 4.8% during economic recovery - latimes.com

food stamps at a record hi, poverty at a record hi

if the workforce were the same size today, even disallowing for natural population growth, as it was on jan 20, 2009, bls' unemployment # would be 11.2

we can never hit bottom til housing, which brung us here, finds its basement

Time: How ‘Shadow Inventory’ Is Killing the U.S. Housing Market

3 to 10 million homes haunt the shadow inventory

who's lying to you, time, cnn or ft?

maybe it's sigtarp you shouldn't believe

Bloomberg: Obama Loan-Modification Effort 'Failed Miserably'

Rainman05 · Sep 21, 2012

Cardinal Fang said:
LOL! I don't have to pick one. If there is one among this or any other list that applies, then your silly attempt at semantics-playing is revealed as the deflective stunt and sham that it was from the outset.

You are still well short of convincing me. You haven't so far in fact typed a single word actually relevant to socialism or your supposed understanding of it.

I'm opening as many doors and window here as I possibly can in order to let the light of your undeetanding shine in, yet all remains strangely unilluminated.

LOL! If that's the light that you bring, let me assure you that it will be perfectly alright to hide it under a bushel basket.

Money is simply an ambassador for value, typically the value embodied in the real goods and services produced within an economy. You seem to be suggesting that there is a sort of internal speed limit associated with the production function in economies that rely perhaps on distributive ideals and practices borrowed from socialism that does not apply within the production function in economies where such ideals and practices are not borrowed from socialism. Can you explain in more detail what that speed limit is, how it works, and how it knows whether to switch itself on or not?

I am starting to think you have an idealized form of socialism in your mind and will not accept anything else. Any statements I make, although proven by the very reality of socialism throughout Europe, will not be in accordance to your own idealistic view and thus, will reject it.

If you want us to get somewhere, you may want to stop just playing the smart-ass card and trying to question me, but instead, steer the direction in a course where it will get somewhere. I am willing to talk to you about socialism on any level because it effects the country on many level. from political programs, to social programs to economic programs. There are different impacts made by different branches of the ideological socialist system.

At the core, what i have said prior stands, regardless of whether you accept it or not. It is not a matter of debate because it is a reality. Socialism needs a lot of money to live. It cannot survive without a LOT of money, and it is poorly equipped to make the amount of money without a huge government intrusion into private life and private business. Ironically... it is the intrusion in private life that will also cost a lot of money.

But I digress... I propose we discuss specifics instead of generalization because we would get nowhere. Propose a topic about socialism and which of the main branches you wish us to discuss about. And within that branch, we can discuss the social policies, economic policies, political policies or whatever you want.

cpwill · Sep 21, 2012

Cardinal Fang said:
According to the propaganda of the Heritage Foundation/WSJ, whose listing boils down to countries that sort of do things the way we'd like to see things done, even though actually doing things that way has always led to disaster.

triteness is all you have to offer?

cpwill · Sep 21, 2012

Cardinal Fang said:
That's great! We get lament after right-wing lament over the horrors of euro-socialism, and then it turns out that all these countries are actually beacons of free-market driven entrepreneurship. How many faces do you all have, anyway? It's plainly at least two.

Here is a perhaps more enlightening measure of who is a socialist and who isn't. The data are from 2007, as everything that's been published since has been scrambled to bits by the effects of and reaction to the Great Bush Recession...

In these countries, federal spending is at least 50% of GDP:
France, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Malta, Qatar, Kuwait, Belgium, Norway, Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Finland, Portugal, United Kingdom.

In these countries, federal spending is 40-50% of GDP:
Germany, Canada, Spain, New Zealand, Israel, Australia, Ireland, Saudi Arabia.

In these countries, federal spending is 30-40% of GDP:
Switzerland, Luxembourg, South Africa, Japan, United Arab Emirates

In these countries, federal spending is 20-30% of GDP:
India, Russia, China, Poland

In this country, federal spending is less than 20% of GDP:
United States of America

nice apples to oranges.

I like how you ignore the fact that in a federalist system such as our own the states take on a much larger portion of governing functions than in other nations. government spending in the United States has been above 30% of GDP since 1970, and has recently broken 40%

Cardinal Fang · Sep 21, 2012

Rainman05 said:
I am starting to think you have an idealized form of socialism in your mind and will not accept anything else.

More pedantics? You could have taken a shot at answering some of the questions concerning this mechanism you seem to imply, but you didn't go there. Just as you didn't go anywhere near the implications of who's a socialist and who's not, but instead chose a romp in the weeds over your idealized version of "federal". If you want to be taken seriously, you need to start acting like it. You wasted an initial presumption on jerk-like posting and now need to make a comeback. We'll see if you are up to that.

Rainman05 said:
Any statements I make, although proven by the very reality of socialism throughout Europe, will not be in accordance to your own idealistic view and thus, will reject it.

Let me point out ways in which you will need to do better than this. You have not become an authority on socialism by virtue of current residence in Europe. Trying to claim status as an expert on such a basis is dishonest. You are complaining that things accepted as proven in your own mind may not be in mine. That's for sure. Your job would be to show why the conclusions you've reached are well-based and rational in their derivation. Maurice Sendak-style images of leeches are not going to get the job done. Got anything else?

Rainman05 said:
I am willing to talk to you about socialism on any level because it effects the country on many level. from political programs, to social programs to economic programs.

You've already walked away from two opportunities to do just that. Wllingness not noted.

Rainman05 said:
At the core, what i have said prior stands, regardless of whether you accept it or not. It is not a matter of debate because it is a reality.

This sort of thing is why I do not hold out much hope for you at the present time. Argument by proclamation? That's simply laughable.

Rainman05 said:
Socialism needs a lot of money to live. It cannot survive without a LOT of money, and it is poorly equipped to make the amount of money without a huge government intrusion into private life and private business. Ironically... it is the intrusion in private life that will also cost a lot of money.

It doesn't sound to me like you understand very well what money is either. On this level, capitalism needs a lot of money -- money which it must extract from welfare uses to devote to the formation of ever more capital. Capital in capitalism is a bit like the church during the Dark Ages, sucking up ever more wealth that would have been used for necessities by serfs and devoting it instead to the construction of ever more grand but utility-lacking cathedrals and of course, comfy lifestyles for the priestly class. What I suppose you would call "socialist intrusions" are necessary on this level to prevent such "malinvestment" in the modern world.

In perhaps more elegant terms, there is nothing at all within free-market economics that assures socially desirable or even socially acceptable outcomes. Markets are by definition amoral. They do not care what damage they might do so long as they can find or remain in what they experience as an equilibrium. "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." That's Adam Smith with a warning that free markets are ever targets for manipulation and exploitation by the actors within them, all of course to their own benefit and the detriment of all others. Even he called for micro-level "intrusion" on such and other accounts.

Then there is the longstanding historical example of laissez-faire macro practice having resulted in nothing but one long series of collapses, panics, scares, and depressions. All that has ever succeeded in calming the waters and introducing even remotely durable periods of macro-level consistency has been managed capitalism -- what latter-day right-wingers want to call socialism.

Your desire to run away from the "who's a socialist" data is meanwhile understandable as the distribution is rather shocking in its clarity. People nearly everywhere have made decisions in the matter of whether to rely on the public or private sector for the provision of goods and services that are very different from the ones we have made here. The data strongly suggest that the US has in fact undervalued the marginal utility of public sector production. Recent debates of the cost and effect of national health care systems should have highlighted that problem. Our profit-driven, private-sector dominated systems deliver at least nearly the worst levels of overall health care and do so at the highest levels of cost. Everywhere else relies more on "intrusions" into health care-related markets, and they get better and cheaper heath care for their trouble. The point seems to be lost on assorted free-market ideologues, however.

So, I will see your supercilious "leeches" ramblings and put a few actual theses on the table for you. First, it is capitalism, not socialism, that drains wealth away and devotes it to non-welfare purposes. Second, free-market micro-level notions come out of the box offering no protection against amoral markets or against deliberate market-rigging by unscrupulous profiteers. Third, laissez-faire approaches have never known macro-level success and have been easily overshadowed by more "intrusionary" approaches. Fourth, utility evaluations in the US are so out of line with those of the rest of the economically successful world as to suggest that we have indeed missed something. Feel free to deal with one or more of those if you can.

Cardinal Fang · Sep 21, 2012

cpwill said:
triteness is all you have to offer?

The Heritage Foundation is a propaganda mill. The so-called Index of Economic Freedom is a fraud. If that is trite, it is only because so many, many people have said so before me.

Cardinal Fang · Sep 21, 2012

cpwill said:
I like how you ignore the fact that in a federalist system such as our own the states take on a much larger portion of governing functions than in other nations.

The point is well ebough taken in a technical sense, but does not in fact have meaningful affect on the distribution. The data of course are not mine but were produced from those collected by the OECD and UN. These do not include sufficient detail for sub-national levels of government in the majority of countries to make consistent presentation on such a basis possible. It is meanwhile the case that US subnational levels of government account for a greater share of total public sector spending than in most other countries, but nearly every other country does in fact have a state, province, region, municipal, and similar structure of partially autonomous subnational governmental units that do in fact raise and spend money. Inclusion of US state and local spending would push us past the 30% mark alright, but past few if any of the other names on the list. You are by the way yet to address any of the implications in the original data. Seeking refuge in a demand for unavailable data will not save your day on that score.

cpwill said:
government spending in the United States has been above 30% of GDP since 1970, and has recently broken 40%

Your source does a fine job of illustrating the point that everything since 2007 has been scrambled to bits by the effects of and reaction to the Great Bush Recession. It's sometimes amazing how little concern for data quality right-wingers actually have.

TurtleDude · Sep 21, 2012

Cardinal Fang said:
As usual, not a fact in sight. Bush ACTUALLLY DID all the things that he gets blamed for. Stupid tax cuts. Stupid war. Stupid recession that his own stupid policies helped manufacture. He doesn't get to skate on those matters now or ever. History books will be maligning the Bush-43 presidency for as long as there are history books. Better get used to it -- you are backing one of history's great losers.

Stupid tax cuts-now that is some brilliant debate. THe tax cuts for the top were brilliant. For those who were dropped off the rolls-perhaps they were stupid. GEnerally, less money for a bloated government is a good idea. it gives the power hungry collectivist clowns less stuff to waste

US Median Income Lowest Since 1995

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