Some of that still around in the 21st century.
I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but I appreciate your libertarian philosophy and you argue it well. I am increasingly thinking in my old age that sensible people are more important than the parties they belong to.
Joined Sep 2006
3K Posts | 4+
Leading
I am a libertarian given the budgetary status quo, but I could just as easily extoll the virtues of socialism. Unfortunately, socialism is not practiced by anyone in this day and age as we have politicians who know that our current socialist models inevitably lead to painful bouts of austerity, sharp tax increases, and sudden de/regulation. How can such arrangements be referred to as socialism?
Socialism can be likened to the car industry. The traditional European model of socialism is the economy car. Everything else is taxed out of existence, and you are left with a vehicle that gets increasingly smaller but must carry more passengers. It's cramped. The American model of socialism is the Hummer. We build a globe-destroying behemoth, and then we drive a couple of people around b/c 'we don't want to create a universal welfare state'. We teach half of the country to vote for a bigger Hummer as if making the vehicle less efficient is somehow going to improve the experience for passengers and taxpayers.
Pardon me if I'm incorrect, but we actually have existing technology to make vehicles more efficient and more powerful. Social economics is no different.
Really, that's why this situation with Obama is so vexing. Hope and Change is essentially putting 300M Americans into the Hummer and then drilling for oil (literally) so we can afford to drive everyone around. We already had 300M Americans paying for the Hummer, and it wasn't affordable. Piling everyone into the vehicle is not a solution to the cost problems. Raising taxes does not repair the global economy or repair the damage caused by the US mortgage crisis.
Buckle up. Economic development is unpredictable so we might boom out of this mess (like the late 90s), but don't be surprised if we hit something hard.
Joined Oct 2012
3K Posts | 725+
Crab Key
You worked that out by my asking whether you are aroused by Alisa?
The Rand is strong in this one.
A = A
But Hume thinks otherwise.
I said quite clearly that I don't base my personal conduct upon capitalistic virtue, nor would I. Furthermore, if you click around a bit, you'll see that I generally support an individual's desire to posit the God-hypothesis, which is in direct conflict with Rand's atheistic values. If you understood moral objectivity, you wouldn't have asked an irrelevant question.
Joined Oct 2012
3K Posts | 725+
Crab Key
You actually think it strange that Rand-lovin' accusations would be thrown at someone using terms like "moral objectivity" and "capitalistic virtue"?
You actually think that my Alisa question was meant to be relevant? For all I know, through intellectual and physical attraction, it's Hayek that gets you off.
You actually think that my Alisa question was meant to be relevant? For all I know, through intellectual and physical attraction, it's Hayek that gets you off.
I actually just expect you to understand enough about philosophical academics to successfully zing someone.
Some of the scandinavian nations seemed to achieve a reasonable balance between winner takes all and "socialism" where despite high taxes by some standards things seem to work reasonably well for the common good. Germany perhaps also before they decided to absorb east germany and take on the debt burden of the whole EU, although those better informed tell me the eu works or did work for them economically by providing them with markets and effectively devaluing their currency in comparison with them retaining the mark.
Both sides of politics in australia and from what I can tell in the usa seem determined to make decisions on the basis of ideology rather than pragmatism at the moment. Greece seems to be an example of the adverse consequences of welfare states, but also of no-one paying tax.
Joined Oct 2012
3K Posts | 725+
Crab Key
Scandanavia is an interesting case, particularly Sweden, though they are having quite a few issues with their automobile industry. Sweden appears to be a social democracy that functions via political consensus and homogenous population. I've never studied Sweden in depth so I can't really give any frame of reference, but that is the general explanation given by many economists.
I don't prefer European socialism b/c it is a bit fatalistic for the American palate, and traditional socialism can be quite difficult to administer in a diverse democracy like the US. However, I do believe that universal medicine and universal education could bring incremental improvements to our beleaguered systems. I hate to shoot that low, but it could be a suitable stop-gap on the way to something better.
Sweden's automobile industry problems are a direct result of their purchase by dysfunctional US automobile companies. GM and Ford ...... both Saab and Volvo then GM successfully blocked any attempt by the liquidators to sell Saab to a motivated buyer - because they were in China.
Hopefully both end up like Jaguar did after Fords abortive management - bigger, stronger, faster.
Hopefully both end up like Jaguar did after Fords abortive management - bigger, stronger, faster.
Joined Sep 2006
3K Posts | 4+
Leading
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
Yes..... because austerity is working so well in Europe.
The problem is not money spent on pension plans etc. The problem is greed, the pork barrel and the out of balance with nature fashion that power-mad individuals gather around them more of the earth's resources than they can possibly take advantage of - and their lack of responsibility towards the less fortunate due to their general lack of empathy or humanity. .... Scrooge McDuck. Yes - life is unfair - but there's no underlying reason why fellow humans should fail to strive toward equity and charity.
Socialized medicine is like giving a naked person ill-fitting clothes. 'Genuinely civilized'? No. Less bad than having naked people freezing in the streets? Yes.
The US has been uncomfortable with providing such a low standard of government and private service. However, we've spent several decades stimulating demand for healthcare and education, rendering both unaffordable. We've also made education and healthcare dependent upon employers and debt-financing. I can see that universal socialism could be less bad than what we have now.
Yes..... because austerity is working so well in Europe.
The problem is not money spent on pension plans etc.
That is precisely the problem. Older generations of Americans never funded their retirement pensions, and with each passing election cycle they continued to raise the benefits. Then they pretend that Congress was to blame for spending the Social Security surplus. The social security surplus was about 2 years of benefits, and it was never enough to balance the future deficits. Furthermore, running big government surpluses causes currency fluctuations.
Slowly but surely, the US Federal Government has cut income taxes on the middle and upper middle class and offset those tax cuts with FICA tax increases including uncapping Medicare tax completely. FICA taxes are regressive, they make American labor uncompetitive in the global marketplace, and they transfer about $1T from the productive young to the unproductive old. Redistributing wealth from young productive to old unproductive might be acceptable if Social Security and Medicare had cost-containment, but they don't. Following the liberal tenants of class and race warfare, someone could make the argument that FICA is also racist as these IOUs will eventually be payed by a booming minority population.
Austerity does work, but it takes a while for the economy to reach efficiency again. Austerity was necessary b/c we were supposed to be out of this mess in 24-36 months. Obama threw himself a victory party that prolonged the recovery. He lost Congress in a landslide. Then he started whining that he couldn't accomplish his agenda. Maybe if he had started with the recovery, instead of ramming through Obamacare, our country and the global economy wouldn't still be in this mess. Now he's going to spend his entire second term, trying to convince commerce and industry that he isn't the ..... he appeared to be in his first term.
Joined Sep 2006
3K Posts | 4+
Leading
How about ditching the labels & just helping those in need? Would that be less bad enough for you?
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
Historically - I am not aware of any time austerity has been the underpinning of any economic recovery in the USA.
Many politicians fought the president's plan for recover during the great depression - but eventually he prevailed
and it worked and gave the US a fantastic infrastructure that hadn't existed previously. Over the years that infrastucture
has been decaying due to the way politicians run around blindly with their heads buried in the pockets of special interest
groups, and pissing away the budgetary surplus of the ....... years by throwing money at pork barrel projects owned and operated by cronies and family members.
You speak of American businesses that cannot compete in the global market - but fail to mention how much the economy has suffered due to export of jobs to China, India etc. Those lost jobs that should be here in America would be paying salaries to American workers who in turn would be spending said salaries in American stores increasing faith in the American economy and supporting small businesses here in the USA. You always talk of efficiency - by which you mean keeping down the minimum wage - another thing that cripples the economy because people can't spend what they don't earn. Same for the trend of corporations that fire workers to keep them from collecting pensions and then re-hire them as temps, another "efficiency" trend that undercuts confidence in the economy. All of this is directly related to out-of-balance nature of the Big-Money people who sit on their giant piles of cash and fail to re-invest the money in any socially meaningful way. The ever widening gap between the very rich and the poor and failure to grow the middle-class is incredibly short-sighted and if not reversed, will turn America into another third world county. The blindered Plutocratic arrogance of the 1% is incredible. That Sun King wannabees can have multiple million dollar homes all over the planet and eat off of gold flatware and have elevators for their five Caddilacs all paid for by robber baron tactics, Wall Street swindiling and selling goods at their K Marts and Walmarts manufactured in Chinese prisons and virtual slave-labor conditions and feel that the money from these endeavors is rightfully and honestly earned is bad enough; especially coupled with the tactics of keeping their earnings in off-shore shore accounts to avoid paying their fair share of taxes on the earnings - but when I hear these pin-heads use the word "entitlement' like it's a curse word I have to think that this is perhaps one of the greatest of all ironies. A second place to that would be your use of the phrase cost containment - whilst right-wing pundits rave on about death panels.
BTW - I think you keep typing tenants when you mean tenets.
I would prefer not to assume away the economic complexities. When public officials assume away complexity they end up with an explanation deficit and they are forced to communicate with their populace using propaganda. Characterizing socialized medicine as 'genuinely civilized' is the work of state propagandists. In reality, socialized medicine or socialized health insurance simply has a different set of economic and social challenges. One of those challenges is social consensus, hence the need for propaganda and the societal mandate that complex economic systems should be simplified for public discourse. Do you think your public officials say 'genuinely civilized' to the national budget and then all the numbers magically balance?
I'm interested in performance. The aesthetic labels, like 'genuinely civilized' and the moral appeals, like 'helping people in need', are of no interest to me unless the underlying system achieves something.
