Gamester actually has a point to an extent. The US government likes to enact certain policies to show favoritism over one race, because for some reason it feels that it can make up for all those insane crap it pulled in the past. Oh yeah, sorry for murdering the hell out of you "injuns" and stealing your land, take these reservations and instant welfare. Sorry for making your ancestors slaves and crap, so here's affirmative action, black history month and we'll re-write history so that the Union we're the good guys and those crazy southerners (whom combined only possessed 7% of americas slave population) are evil and to blame.
The problem is crap like that happens. It sucks that it happens, but I didn't do it, why should I have to feel sorry. I'm a bad example, because my family came here during WWII, but even people who's ancestors originated here shouldn't feel sorry because they didn't have anything to do with it either.
It isn't the white people that keep other races down, it's the system that keeps poor people down. As Muz pointed out earlier, America has very little social mobility. Don't have a lot of money? Get a job. Can only get a nerve racking job that pays minimum wage? Go to college. Can't go to college because you don't have any money? Get money.
I was speaking with a friend from Ireland. I don't know which other countries do this, but if you're an Irish citizen, all of your Education is free, but if you flunk out of college, you have to pay for the rest of it. I can't see how it can be more fair than that, without getting the government out of eduction completely (which they're screwing up horribly in America).
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I wouldn't go taking tips out of the Irish way of running economies, especially with their "free" education... their country is going down the crapper. Well, if countries like the UK hadn't decided to bail them out, that is!
The economy is going down the crapper wherever you might be. That's the problem with anything government run, it always sucks. The point shouldn't be getting someone else to pay for it, the point should be getting the people to be able to pay for it themselves, and if you were able to bring the prices down, that would solve most problems. But no, everyone tries to encourage the government to pay for it, but the government doesn't have anything, so it has to take it from someone else. Then people try to encourage private loans and insurance, and that doesn't solve the problem, it just makes it harder for people. The system that most of the worlds developed countries go with is a debt based economy. In the US, for instance, the money is literally just paper. Not paper backed by anything (like before it was gold, you used to be able to trade your dollars in for gold) but backed by debt. Every dollar that comes out of the federal reserve is loaned out at interest. That's why the national debt is as high as it is. Even if everyone gave back every single dollar to the fed, we'd still owe them more. That doesn't sound like a bad deal to anyone?
All that's happening is more money keeps being printed, making the dollar less and less valuable (it's worth about 13 cents or so compared to what it was worth when the fed came into existence). Prices keep increasing for whatever reason, so something bad is bound to happen.
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I'm a firm believer in countries spending their way out of economic trouble. Inflation prices people out of spending, and this messes up economies in the long run, IMO
The thing is HG; in the olden olden days, people only ever get what they could afford. Welfare and benefit systems were brought in as a direct consequence. If you were poor, you stayed poor, you worked to survive and if their weren't any jobs you starved.
The problem, like you said, is that the whole world economy is run on a myth. The only benefactors from this are people with extraordinary amounts of money. There are whole countries endebted to financial corporations. Why does nobody see that trading money, paying interest etc etc will never create wealth, but just simply moves money to the top.
Eh, printing money is pretty much the only way for USA to dig themselves out of debt. The only other thing they could do is cut down their health care a lot. Either you have dead people, or your money isn't worth as much.
Free market just doesn't work with basic necessities. With something like electricity, water, health care, you can put a really high price on it and people will still pay. Would you rather have a big house or live without an arm? Free market says that people would rather pay for the arm than the house, so they can slap whatever price they want on it.
Why is America in debt? It's not because of the wars... they make enough money to attack everyone they don't like. It's because of the spiraling Medicare costs. And that's because doctors can charge people whatever they're willing to pay.
Originally Posted by Matt Boothman The thing is HG; in the olden olden days, people only ever get what they could afford. Welfare and benefit systems were brought in as a direct consequence. If you were poor, you stayed poor, you worked to survive and if their weren't any jobs you starved.
It's why I support socialism. It's a step up from capitalism. Too bad American culture is deeply embedded in capitalism, and phobic of socialism, thanks to the Cold War.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
This is a major issue. People are mistaking corporatism for capitalism. Everyone is quick to jump at capitalism because it's associated with rich jerks, greed, consumerism and all that junk which has nothing to do with capitalism. Socialism has it's issues with big government, after all, governments don't have anything of their own so they have to take it from someone. Most of the time, especially in America, when the government is in control of something, it dicks it up horribly, well, except anything that has to do with war, after all, that is America's main focus.
You are absolutely right though, Muz, the cost of war is outrageous, and only a handful of people profit from it. We could do without spending 80 billion dollars on a bomb.
I'm in favor of people fending for themselves and having ample opportunity to do so, which is what capitalism is about. America is not a capitalist country. America is about everyone fending for themselves with only the opportunity to work for someone else for minimum wage, while claiming to try to help those in need and doing a terrible job of it. Why would I want the government to take care of me? If they run my life like they do anything else, it's doomed to fail.
I will never support socialism because it gives government more power than they should have. It's forcing people to do the "right thing", but you can't just slap a universal term on there. You can make one person give half his money away, and if he can afford it great, but what about he millions of other people who can't? Why should you force someone who can't take care of himself to take care of someone else? Basically it is saying that no one on this planet is capable of helping out someone else without anyone else telling them to. Some asshole wants to horde his money? Great, no one will like him, and he might as well make himself a prime target for theives. But what about people like Joe Louis? This guy gave most of his boxing winnings to charity, only to have the IRS choke the life out of him, taking what little money he had left until he died.
But don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of coming up with an alternative to money, but should we really be forcing anyone to do anything?
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Well, you have countries like France, Denmark, and Australia run as socialist countries. Not sure about the UK. Democratic socialism is a great success. My fiancee grew up literally in the jungle, her father died when she was young, her mother is barely able to walk. The government gave her enough (taxpayer) money to complete her studies, she worked hard at it, and now she's an engineer with a good career. If the government didn't subsidize her education or her mother's health care, she'd be homeless now, probably illegally selling biscuits to make a living.
Fending for yourself and having opportunity to do so is what socialism is about. The government subsidizes things everyone needs to prove themselves like health care and education. Because more people can afford to go into universities, education is a lot more competitive, needs harder work, and the people who do it are the ones who are skilled and really want a career in it. Then once they make it, they get taxed more to help others. They are given the money only to get a start early in life. The hardworking will end up a higher social status than the lazy.
Tax vs charity? Well, I'm surprised that charity isn't tax deductible in the USA. Where I come from, if a corporation gives enough money to charity, they don't have to pay taxes. If an individual gives to notable charity organizations, that money is deducted from his taxes (up to a certain limit).
If left to their own devices, not many would help out others. I mean, if you had 3 million dollars, what would do with it? How many scholars would you sponsor? How many sick people would you treat? Some people would give to a favorite charity, religious authority, some "starving africans", some cancer patients. Nobody would feed their own starving people, not many would help the genius poor kids become engineers and doctors.
Charity is all well and good, but it doesn't help in providing equal opportunity and it doesn't help as much in running your own country. Allowing a democratic government to do it makes sure that the money is allocated fairly. If you can't trust your government to have power, then why would you have a government in the first place? If you don't believe the government is doing its job right, then vote for another party.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
But you have to remember, this is America we're talking about. You bring any concept that does well in another country here, we'll fuck it up. For instance, the cash for clunkers program. In other countries, they just gave you the money for the car. In America, in order to get the money, you had to spend it as a down payment on a new car. Yes, give them the car you already own to put yourself in debt on a car you can't afford.
It's the same thing with the American education system, there's a reason why it's so damn low, and most of it has to do with Americas backwards regulation.
Perhaps I'm a bit too harsh on socialism, it sounds great, although I usually am fairly skeptical about a lot of things. Getting stuck in this country also gives you a huge lack of perspective. Socialism might work, capitalism might work, but you can almost guarantee, America hasn't been doing anything right, and will continue to do as such unless there are some drastic changes.
But what your explaining is exactly my point, that kind of situation is available in a capitalist society as well, but of course as I explained, America isn't a capitalist society. It's spent so much time being in the "middle of the road" that nothing works the way it needs to in order for the currency to function. It doesn't allow businesses to run without regulation, and it plans virtually all important aspects of American life, while at the other side when you need to access a welfare program, you have to jump through so many hoops, often you won't "qualify" for it, and they regulate how all of the money they give you is spent. They're so caught up with making sure people don't cheat the system, the only people who it hurts are the people that need the system, and to top it off, the cost of people cheating the system is ridiculously lower than the cost of going to war, or the cost of running a campaign, or the cost of random bullshit agencies this country does not need (homeland security, the CIA, department of "insert name here").
But in either case, it doesn't make any sense for someone to be forced to pay their dues if they can't afford it. I doubt this is the best that this world has to offer.
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@Muz although what you describe education wise is a meritrocacy its not really happening in the UK.
More and more students are going to Uni but less are doing traditional subjects. In the UK you can degrees in golf-course management, Outdoor Adventure With Philosophy, Science: fiction and culture, Fashion buying and best of all Commercial Floral Design.
While the numbers of eningeers, phsyicists and mathematicians continues to drop.
HorrendousGames: Why do you class the US education system as bad? This idea is also common in the UK but I have never understood why (I have only met about two Americans in real life and both seemed ok engineers).
I hated the scrappage schemes, it was basically subsidising cheap foreign made cars which wont last 5 years (the little 6k pound car springs to mind but I can not think of its name) as with scrappage, you could get a new car for 3k!
I believe even greenpeace has admitted that keeping a car on the road as long as possible is also better for the environment due to the impact and energy of producing the car to start with.
@ hagar that's the exact same as America, although the major field here is Law. America does have some fantastic schools, like MIT, but only 5% of students at MIT are American. It all starts with the public education from preschool to high school, if those suck, which in America they do, then you'll end up with the countries with a better educated general population going to your countries top schools.
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America basically is a capitalist country; about as capitalist as a country gets. This isn't a criticism; it's just that very very few American companies, or producers, are owned by the government.
I'd argue with your point HG that capitalism is about people fending for and bettering themselves and being unhindered to do so, the classic free-market libertarian POV. This would work brilliantly if everyone were born equal, but unfortunately we are not (some are born more equal than others). Take two babies born in America today; one the son of a poor black single mother who works as a cleaner, the other the son of a rich white oil trader. Imagine they are both as clever, and as industrious, as each other - which one will 'get furthest'? It doesn't take much figuring out. If the poor black child realises this and says "no matter how hard I try, I will never be as much as the rich white guy", what motivation do they have? And so it compounds, and you get underclasses of lacklustre individuals unhappy with their lot. Show me a capitalist country in the world without this - and that includes Muz's list of so-called socialist countries.
Americans, in general, have this great fear of government, but how many realise that the natural conclusion of socialism leads to completely stateless society?
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Edited by GamesterXIII
