Having been inspired by the economics discussion within the "Blizzard Losing Steam" thread on the D3 board, I have decided to go and make a thread where we can all discuss our quarrels with several economic / political theories.
This is a place for active debate; flaming will not be allowed.
I will start:
1. I wholeheartedly believe that Capitalism, in and of itself, is a policy that naturally creates a ever-widening wealth gap. This has been proven time and time again in history; the 1930's and the Great Depression within America, present day America, and in many other countries around the world. This system can have a negative influence upon economics and, due to the still persisting Communist fear within America today, will take time to regulate itself due to constant cries and accusations of "Socialism."
2. Speaking of Socialism, I think that a good balance of Socialism and Capitalism is preferable in highly developed countries. If an unregulated market is allowed to grow largely enough and quickly enough, it will almost always bounce back at the same rate in which it grew, creating a deadly bear market. A regulated market can help insure that growth can persist and, given the scenario that a bubble does burst somewhere within the market, the economic effect will be lessened. My major gripe with Capitalism is that it encourages a bull market, market speculation (remember home derivative trading?), and a profit based economy, whereas I believe that an economy should be based on efficiency and sustainability.
3. I believe that a form of progressive taxation could further the benefits of a mixed-Capitalist system. Example:
Let's say that there are 4 classes within a society: A lower class, a middle class, an upper-middle class, and an elite class.
Lower class pays %10 on all taxes (this is of course excluding sales tax)
Middle class pays %20 on all taxes
Upper-middle class pays %40 on all taxes
Elite class pays %70 on all taxes
Lower class makes an average of $2,750 a month. $275 of that goes towards federal revenue, which leaves $2,475 for necessities, mortgage, and indulgences within that family unit. The rest of the classes follow suit with graduating levels of income with the middle class making a monthly income somewhere in the $4,000+ range.
So, hypothetically:
$3300 annually from each lower class unit
$9,600 annually from each middle class unit
$36,000 annually from each upper-middle class unit (based on a monthly income of $7,500+)
And, assuming the elite class is making $1 million + monthly, they give up $700,000 of their income annually
I like this system because I think that it doesn't allow anyone to live beyond their means, but it still doesn't discourage people to aspire to achieve rank success. If the taxes on the elite were too high, then Person A may not want to be an elite at all because they'd be giving too much of their money away. But, Person A also sees that, although the average upper-middle class unit gives away $36,000 of their annual earnings, they get to keep $54,000 of their annual earnings (which is a pretty good sum of money), so they aspire to rise up to that rank. It encourages progression, which is the essence of Capitalism. Now, a large amount of the tax money goes to funding public programs such as education and healthcare (much like we see today, but at a much lesser margin). A small amount of the tax money goes towards a defense budget, and the rest is spent on welfare programs. In my opinion, those are the three essentials within any government and as long as they are funded, then I don't see why there would be any problems. A regulated market helps protect the consumer from fraud within the financial system, helps sustain economic progress.
I believe in a self-efficient society (trickle up). If we can build upon a base and abandon the belief that we can sustain ourselves on pillars of salt, then I can see some real progress made in the world as far as self-serving society goes. It would be even better if our society could run on completely renewable energy so oil ties, which are hindering Democracies around the world, are dissolved. It also helps create a Green industry that, given proper investment, could revolutionize the way we obtain and distribute power.
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I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
Well I'm from Holland, which actually is a socialist country.
Now all American alarms go off, "oh no, communism!" but this is due to a misconception concerning socialism. You see, every form of economy that taxes high incomes more than low incomes is socialist, though it can be in varying degrees.
Your idea of making the different classes pay different taxes has been incorporated in our tax system, in an adapted form. You see, if you decide someones class based on their income, and then decide how much taxes they should pay, this leads to a problem. Say, for arguments sake, that the lower class makes upto 20k a year. 20k-40k can then be considered middle class.
So, if you make 19.999 dollar a year, you have to pay 10%, equalling ~2k, giving you a net income of ~18k.
But, if you make 21.000 dollar a year, you have to pay 20%, equalling ~4k, giving you a net income of 17k.
This actually means that going forward in life is being punished. This is very detrimental to economic growth and a reason not to seek progress.
Our system?
Say the classes are divided like this;
Lower: 0-20k
Middle:20-40k
Upper middle: 40-60k
Elite: 60k+
Now lets say we got someone with a before taxes income of 80k a year. This person would then have to pay 10% taxes over the first 20k, 20% over the second 20k, 30% over the third 20k, and 50% over anything above that. In this case that would be 2k + 4k + 6k + 10k = 22k.
This way it is never detrimental to your net income to make more money. This is glorious you say? Why doesn't the entire world quickly adapt this wonderfull system? Well here's why...
On paper, it sounds great. The people who have the most, contribute the most. But things that sound great on paper don't always work out as well.
Why do people spend years in college learning tremendously difficult things, and busting their brains, living on a diet of coffee? Because the reward is big. What happens when you cut down the reward? People's aspirations go down. This is the same problem communism had, though to a much higher degree.
Second is a very practical problem. Poor people may rejoice at this system, rich people are surprisingly un-fond of it, especially in a country like the USA, where anything resembling socialism is nearly equalled to satanism. A result is that big companies will move their business to other countries, that aren't as social in their tax policies.
I wholely agree that a socialist structure would be an ideal. Problem is, how do you sell it to the people who have to make it happen?
Well you not trusting the american gouvernment I can understand. With so many organisations that operate completely in the dark, combined with your system of election is just begging for corruption.
Other than that, I'd like to postulate that Americans are stupid... x) *hides*
Americans have democrats and republicans... Only one thing they both agree on, and thats that the system of gouvernment is deeply, deeply flawed. Yet nobody does anything but bitch and moan about it =P
If you don't trust your gouvernment, get a new one! Even Egypt can do that
I know little about this, it just confuses me more than anything, but I just wanted to say: Where I live, middle class pays the most, something like 45% of our pay. Knowing that, I frankly would not give a **** if the rich would pay 70%. A good system is one that puts everybody on a fair level. No one should ever be considered "higher" than another, and none should ever seek to be higher than others. This is an ever-flawed way of thinking to me.
You can just not mind my post, I'm not really here to take part in this debate, I can't hold my own when it comes to economic discussions.
I know little about this, it just confuses me more than anything, but I just wanted to say: Where I live, middle class pays the most, something like 45% of our pay. Knowing that, I frankly would not give a **** if the rich would pay 70%. A good system is one that puts everybody on a fair level. No one should ever be considered "higher" than another, and none should ever seek to be higher than others. This is an ever-flawed way of thinking to me.
You can just not mind my post, I'm not really here to take part in this debate, I can't hold my own when it comes to economic discussions.
Yet any comment deserves a reply
You described communism =P And it's been proven to not work. =) No offense
Lies =P There was violence long before any form of government was formed. Governments just organise said violence =P
As to keeping governments on a tight leash, that I agree with, but that doesn't mean governments can't have a lot of responsibilities, it just means everything must be made transparent. Ironically nobody says governments should have less power when they're calling the police, firebrigade, ambulances, or even send their kids to school. =) There is a reason we put up with its downsides, which is why I've always thought the libertarian view is a bit naive.
On another note though, Don
Everything tends to accumulate. This is only a half-serious analogy, but everything in the universe clumps up unevenly. Sub-atomic particles clump up to create atoms. Atoms clump up to create molecules. Molecules clump up to create bigger structures of matter. Those bigger structures clump up until you have asteroids, planets, suns, galaxies, and the entire universe.
All this analogy was there to say that growth in general is exponential. And anyone familiar with how exponents work will know how the most minute differences create huge gaps.
I am a fan of analogies, but this one doesn't quite make sense. Growth is by no means always exponential :3 (I see a whole different discussion coming xD)
Back on topic!
My major gripe with Capitalism is that it encourages a bull market, market speculation (remember home derivative trading?), and a profit based economy, whereas I believe that an economy should be based on efficiency and sustainability.
This sounds really nice and logical, but it wouldn't actually make a difference. Poverty will always exist, no matter what you do. Why? Because the more resources we get, the bigger we allow our world population to get. Say we solve world hunger today by doubling the amount of food available in the world. More food makes for a healthier population, and healthy populations reproduce faster than deprived populations. This will inevitably keep up untill the population is deprived once again, stabilizing the growth rate. Difference is, there would be more people, but relative to the entire world population, there would be the same amount of hunger.
Progressive taxes as steep as you propose have a problem. As tax rate nears 100%, the incentives to work and earn are lower.
If the tax rate was 100%, then corporations would just leave the country.
I think that, as long as the next bracket of wealth makes more than the previous, then progressive taxation would work due to the very fact that human greed will always drive man to pursue extraneous wealth. Why keep $6,000 a month when you could keep $300,000? Why settle for a used 1985 Ford truck when you can get a Mercedes or a Lincoln?
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I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
2. Speaking of Socialism, I think that a good balance of Socialism and Capitalism is preferable in highly developed countries. If an unregulated market is allowed to grow largely enough and quickly enough, it will almost always bounce back at the same rate in which it grew, creating a deadly bear market. A regulated market can help insure that growth can persist and, given the scenario that a bubble does burst somewhere within the market, the economic effect will be lessened. My major gripe with Capitalism is that it encourages a bull market, market speculation (remember home derivative trading?), and a profit based economy, whereas I believe that an economy should be based on efficiency and sustainability.
I think the U.S. could afford to be just a bit more socialistic and many European countries could afford to be just a bit less. But don't fool yourself. The United States is actually more socialistic than people think. Lately though some of our hidden socialistic policies are misguided than a general approach to socialism itself. What I mean is, we may believe in free market capitalism, but we're also confounded on this principle when some of our biggest banks are on the brink of failures. And so back around 2006 when the government was bailing out all those banking an investment firms, that action was completely counter-intuitive to a free market but the majority of Congress allowed it to happen anyway.
The U.S. is perfectly willing to sacrifice free market ideals, however, over a continuing notion in our society of "too big to fail". That is, so much investment and currency was tied up in these organizations that the government felt if they were to fail, so to could the entire economy. So, so far we have politicians preaching free market capitalistic society, but it is more a fear tactic to rail against the only supposed antithesis of capitalism which is socialism. Yet in practice, the government has proven that it is perfectly willing to control markets buy bailing them out instead of allowing them to fail. That is a major type of government regulation right there. The kind that Congress likes to villify every day yet not vote against.
I believe that a form of progressive taxation could further the benefits of a mixed-Capitalist system
I'll just say it's a damn shame we don't have a flat tax rate. Everyone should be taxed the same percentage of their income no matter how much they make.
Now all American alarms go off, "oh no, communism!" but this is due to a misconception concerning socialism. You see, every form of economy that taxes high incomes more than low incomes is socialist, though it can be in varying degrees.
I'm not arguing that the U.S. doesn't have socialist policies. It does. But U.S. tax policies often find middle class workers paying proportionately more than upper class workers. Or at least, beyond a certain level of income, the proportion doesn't continue to increase leaving really rich people paying the same taxes as those only slightly above middle class.
So, if you make 19.999 dollar a year, you have to pay 10%, equalling ~2k, giving you a net income of ~18k.
But, if you make 21.000 dollar a year, you have to pay 20%, equalling ~4k, giving you a net income of 17k.
This actually means that going forward in life is being punished. This is very detrimental to economic growth and a reason not to seek progress.
Yeah that's a pretty crazy gap in such a small amount of added income.
Why do people spend years in college learning tremendously difficult things, and busting their brains, living on a diet of coffee? Because the reward is big. What happens when you cut down the reward? People's aspirations go down. This is the same problem communism had, though to a much higher degree.
Like I said earlier. You guys could probably afford to be a tad less socialistic. But if it seems unfair to you that people working hard and rightly earning their money that they should be taxed so severely for that, it still doesn't seem to be stopping people from pursuing careers, does it? I don't know. You tell me if people over there have on average become less ambitious.
Second is a very practical problem. Poor people may rejoice at this system, rich people are surprisingly un-fond of it, especially in a country like the USA, where anything resembling socialism is nearly equalled to satanism.
This again is the result of ignorance and our vitriol political culture. Sadly.
A result is that big companies will move their business to other countries, that aren't as social in their tax policies.
Ironically here it is still good to do business in America cause actually have lots of business friendly taxes. I say ironic cause a lot of our jobs leave the country anyway because shop can be set up in poorer countries where workers can be paid a lot less. But the business owners who do that seem to do much better anyway.
I wholely agree that a socialist structure would be an ideal. Problem is, how do you sell it to the people who have to make it happen?
What's funny to me about this is that Americans love big government. They just don't realize it. We have shitloads of government programs and different levels of government. It is easy to form local governments and municipalities and we expect tons of services from our government and are perfectly willing to pay for them as much as we say out loud we hate doing so. But big government aside, we also still pay some of the lowest taxes in the world which is also funny to me. I mean, you could raise everyone's taxes in the U.S. by even five percent and we'd still be paying way less than everyone else.
What's funny to me about this is that Americans love big government. They just don't realize it. We have shitloads of government programs and different levels of government. It is easy to form local governments and municipalities and we expect tons of services from our government and are perfectly willing to pay for them as much as we say out loud we hate doing so.
I find it especially funny when Conservatives ask government to get "out of their lives" but, in reality, if "Big Brother" wasn't there to regulate the things that protected them, they'd be begging for government involvement.
Like, take the quality of our water for example (not a very sound example, I know). If there wasn't the EPA or the FDA to make sure they weren't putting goddamn anthrax or liquid shit in your water, then we'd all be getting terminal illnesses and disease would run rampant in the streets, but we couldn't get proper healthcare coverage because liver disease is a pre-existing condition.
The government can actually help; it just matters who's in charge. We can't trust humans though, so that's where government fails us (as Don_G said).
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I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
I've never understood the fuss around Obama neither, why is everyone against affordable health care? Any American who would like to explain that to me?
I can attempt to answer that.
There is an argument really headed by conservatives that government paid health care would limit a person's choice in health providers. This is a stupid argument for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, many Americans don't even have access to preventative health care. So why would anyone be picky about what doctor they saw if it was just for a routine medical check up? Or say you needed to go to a gastro-intestinal doctor because you had a bad ulcer in your stomach. How picky are you really going to be about who you see to treat that infliction? But people against government funded health care have successfully scared people into the idea that if they choose this form of heath care, then they can't decide which doctors to go to.
This is doubly stupid because even private insurance companies will only allow you to go to specific doctors who are under their system anyway. So no matter what insurance you go with, your choices are limited based on what your insurance is willing to send you to. But basically people may have a family practitioner and that is only their doctor because years ago that's where their insurance companies said it was okay to go. But people think with government funded insurance you're gonna be sent to some dank ghetto clinic with poor lighting in the basement of some building. But gosh, even if that WAS the case, is that still not better than nothing? If the government is willing to let me go to a clinic for free and get some preventative care done, is that not better than worrying about a specific doctor later when I have some acute illness that could have been prevented?
I find it especially funny when Conservatives ask government to get "out of their lives" but, in reality, if "Big Brother" wasn't there to regulate the things that protected them, they'd be begging for government involvement.
If you want to equate conservatives with Republicans basically which is fair to do, I learned in public admin classes that it's a statistical fact that overall Republican presidents have created more new agencies than the Democrats. These agencies aren't free. They cost tax dollars to operate. And it's a simple fact that Republicans expanded government way more than their opposition ever has.
@Veggie50: actually, the population of developed/'comfortable' societies has plateaued and has even started to decline a bit; on the other hand, populations of 3rd world countries continue to grow unchecked. I think it's safe to assume that if all countries had the same level of comfort, their populations would follow the same trend.
This is absolutely true. So much in fact that many European countries are concerned about having a labor crises in the next 25 years if not sooner. But yeah, the correlation between affluency and birthrate is very high. Poor people just love making babies more than wealthier people. I've always found that interesting.
So what you're saying is, is that people think they will have to go to another doctor to get free treatment? Is that what will happen? Or will it be like here (Belgium) where you pay the doctor like 25 euros and he gets the rest payed by the government?
Tax issues aside, they're afraid that the government will dictate what doctors they are allowed to have access to. Which is what private insurance companies do anyway.
I'm not american (see my location), and I don't trust any government :P.
You're crazy. I love government. I just hate politics and politicians. But actual government in practice consists of trained bureaucrats who are highly skilled and work in the adverse environment that is politics. I myself am training to become a bureaucrat and I love what government is capable of.
This kind of system encourages people to improve their life. In a system like this, every unit of money earned above 1,350 (an arbitrary number) would be just as valuable. In a progressive tax system, money becomes increasingly devalued.
Devalued as in ideologically or economically (like along the same lines as inflation)?
I know that a fixed rate for any federal currency is a pipe dream in this day and age. What gives one currency's power over another, however, is an entirely different story; the US Dollar is still upheld in many countries around the world because those same countries have faith in the strength of that currency and the country behind it. However, I still don't understand how a progressive tax policy could devalue any currency. I just don't see the correlation.
I was proposing the graduated tax rates because I know that those who have more should pay more (maybe 70%< wasn't a good example). I also made it practical to want to advance through societal ranks since, although the higher income brackets pay more overall, they keep more than the last bracket kept so, in theory, they are making money, but they are still giving their fair share.
Person A makes $10,000 a month, gives 30% of that up to taxes, so they keep $7,000 a month.
Person B makes $100,000 a month, gives 45% of that up to taxes, so they keep $55,000 a month.
That is a steep increase in overall income. Person B, overall, keeps up to $48,000 more than the person in the lesser bracket. Is that not incentive enough to want to advance?
(PS: No harsh feelings, bro, I just kinda feel that you sidestepped my original idea and called it something else. I'm all for your system as I am for mine.)
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I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
I was proposing the graduated tax rates because I know that those who have more should pay more (maybe 70%< wasn't a good example). I also made it practical to want to advance through societal ranks since, although the higher income brackets pay more overall, they keep more than the last bracket kept so, in theory, they are making money, but they are still giving their fair share.
There is unfortunately also the problem of administrating this in practice. As just as such as system as you propose may seem, it must be possible to actually enfoce it.
A good example of this is Sweden during the 70-80s, during which time the the progressive elements in our taxation were large, specifically for the reasons you cite (although we did take it even further than you originally suggested, since it was actually possible to pay more than 100% tax on the final margins of your income). That obvious problem aside however, it turned out it was very problematic to actually administer.
In theory it sounds great and easy, just make people with higher incomes pay more tax. In practice however people tend to go to great lengths to circumvent such systems. Instead of getting pay raises, employees would get various forms of "benefits". Essentially a higher salary, but one that wasn't taxated. And even today, when Sweden has done away with many of our previous progressive elements, people find clever ways to circumvent various forms of taxation. There seems to be a neverending stream of people who sidestep many of these tax systems in different ways.
Say what you will of the injustice of a flat tax system, but it has the benefit of extreme simplicity. You know exactly how much you're supposed to pay, and the administrative costs drop severely.
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Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
It's not the rich taxation has the biggest effects on. It's upper middle class of income. But as I already said, actually poor people should be taxed less. As an example, everyone could earn 1,350 tax-free, and then they paid 30% of the income above that. In this example, someone earning 2,000 a month would pay 195 as taxes (10% of their income). Then someone earning 5,000 a month pays 1,095 (21,9% of their income). And eventually someone earning 1,000,000 would pay 299,595 (29,6%).
You're also just talking about income taxes. There are regressive taxes against the poor as well such as sales taxes. Many people don't even realize that they easily sometimes pay more each year in sales taxes than income taxes. Taxes on things like food and gas should be much lower while luxury items should have a way higher tax on them. Yep. I'm talking about a luxury tax. I mean, it's a good way to generate income and people who are rich enough expect a sales tax to be paid on that new yacht anyway. So just tack on a bit more of a luxury item tax and that's an easy source of income to the state.
A flat tax rate system can be turned into a dynamic progressive model by introducing a number of money a person can earn before it begins to be taxed. In this example it was 1,350, which resulted in a progressive model.
Don't many European countries enjoy this kind of a system? I know this would never happen in the U.S. Sadly.
When an external body decides what someone needs and doesn't need, there's a problem. Who is to say who needs what?
While this is mostly true, I'm not against all forms of paternalism. I think sometimes it's good for a government to tell its people what it needs and what it shouldn't do. Why? Because people are generally ignorant and will consume or borrow anything. I mean, the U.S. government started creating new laws that made borrowing money for people more difficult. This is a good thing. Cause lots of people want loans for things they can't really afford. So the government stepped in and said, "No, sorry, you can't buy EVERYTHING on credit." Now all the government has to do is follow its own example and stop increasing our national debt by spending on credit.
I distrust governments because at the end of the day their heads are politicians.
There's nothing wrong with distrusting government. I only wished people understood a little bit more about government when they badmouth bureaucracies since that is one of the only functioning parts of government. The way I see it is in government you got the politics, law, and administration. The latter is the bureaucracy that actually puts government into practice and gets things done. That's all I was saying on that. I've constantly had to defend bureaucracy in my political science classes when a bunch of self-righteous idealistic classmates would grandstand on how eeeevil bureaucracy is. I ain't saying it's infallible, but bureaucracy would be doing a lot better if it wasn't so constantly hindered by politics.
Voters don't necessarily vote based on rational opinions.
That's somewhat of an understatement. The average voter is highly uninformed. But by voter here I just mean all who are eligible to vote. I guess I should give more credit to those who actually do vote. But in U.S. politics anyway there is a cycle that takes place between politicians and voter demographics. That is, politicians do not try to appeal to many age groups because they know they're not going to go out and vote anyway. And say, younger voters do not vote because they feel the politicians aren't out there representing them.
I'm cynical about voting anyway. The voting that matters most here anyway is local elections and people hardly get involved in those but that's where people's vote counts the most. Our daily lives in the U.S. are far more affected each day by local politics than what is happening on the national level.
Big lines are drawn by the politicians, and executed in practice by bureaucrats. I have nothing against bureaucrats, who are almost always highly skilled professionals.
This highly depends on the situation. Many government jobs and services are outsourced to private companies. Some municipalities like to pool together their own money and pay private companies to either take out their garbage each weak or plow their snow. This practice is in opposition with regionalism where instead of an entire region having the same services paid for by all taxpayers regardless of income with equal services received, communities form their own tiny enclaves of government that they all pay into and basically shop around for their services that otherwise would have been provided by the government.
How about an airline owned and run by the government? One that gets infinite money from the owning government and runs on net loss? Maybe not (see Alitalia, owned largely by the Italian government).
Keep in mind though that the commercial airline industry is already one of the most heavily regulated industries in the world. Taxpayers have little tolerance for planes falling out of the sky. So in some respects the government does control that industry with all its heavy regulations. And they do a good job of it too. Flying these days is safer than ever, albeit still a shitty experience otherwise. LOL
I just mean that I distrust the government to be any more effective than a private corporation in the same sector. In fact, governments are almost always less effective than privately run corporations.
I would agree with this. At least to the extent that a lack of privitization in an industry stifles competition and innovation. Now I've never lived in a European country myself, but I have talked with several Europeans who loathe many of the public sector industries and wonder why they're not in the hands of private companies. This is even becoming increasingly true in the education business. But despite the U.S. having on average better higher education than other countries, I still think the other countries got it pretty sweet with the tax-payer funded higher education. I say this because college in the U.S. is becoming increasingly expensive and even harder to get grants and loans for. Thus again making a thing only as good as one has access to it. It's similar to the health care system in the U.S. Yeah we got awesome health care industries here, but if you don't even have access to it, how good can it be? And in that case you'd be just fine with going to some government funded clinic to get whatever you could out of it.
As such, I personally think that government should be limited to doing duties that aren't possible to produce any better by a private corporation. That does include public schools IMO. Not necessarily airlines (as one example).
I'm sure this sentiment is definitely more true over there in Finland. But hey, at least you guys got Nokia. :happy:
Of course sales tax is a huge income for governments. In Finland it's as large as all forms of income tax combined. However, I wouldn't really say it's regressive, because rich people tend to buy more expensive things. It's a difference whether you pay 19 cents of VAT on a 1 euro can of cola or 9,350 euros on a 50,000 euro car.
In the U.S. anyway it's considered a regressive tax but then we have larger gaps between socioeconomic classes than Finland does. Sales taxes here are also at the discretion of states. So some areas in the U.S. don't even have a sales tax. But I also say it's regressive because if a family with an income of 20,000 a year is paying a sales tax all year long on the groceries they are buying, overall the amount paid in taxes is still affecting them more than the family that buys the same amount of groceries but earns 150,000 a year. Like, there's no proportional difference of taxes paid for goods, yet income taxes are determined more on how much money is made. But even then only up to a certain point. And beyond a certain amount the amount of tax paid plateaus.
Actually such a system is barely used anywhere. Most European countries have a progressive tax system, but a flat rate tax with a deduction as I detailed would be the best alternative according to many theorists and common sense.
The solutions to many problems from taxes to social security are all mathematical. Mathematically we already know how to fix our social security system. What prevents implementing the number solution though is sheer politics.
An opposite example would be scientific breakthroughs -- they benefit more than the people inventing them -- which is why governments tend to pay subsidies, to reward companies for these beneficial third party effects.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Scientific research should be awarded especially if people are benefiting from it. But practicality to any kind of research takes time to reveal and is often lost on the public anyway. As is shown by what is kind of happening to the space program in the 21st century. I think it's something that's still worthwhile. And in the U.S. NASA used up at most like two percent of the annual budget. But to most people this cost was still wholly unjustified for what we got out of it.
You're right, I personally wouldn't be one to badmouth bureaucracies, since I think it is the most effective way to run government administrations. It's mostly ignorance, people in general don't necessarily even know what bureaucracy is.
Well to a lot of people government is just government. Period. But to people with such a simple minded view I can only ask, what's the alternative?
While that all is true, the point I tried to make with Alitalia is that right now there are far more airlines than is needed. There is overabundance of airlines compared to the passengers. This has led airfares down so low, that many of the world's airlines operate on a net loss.
Capitalism works through creative destruction: the least effective and worst entities go bankrupt. So my criticism was mainly about governments not letting these ineffective players go bankrupt, but instead subsidize them heavily on taxpayer money.
There are subsidized airlines? Gosh I never even realized that. I mean, we have a lot of subsidized industries in the U.S. and I remember when Delta Airlines successfully filed for bankruptcy. But I still wouldn't think it'd be an industry that would ever need subsidizing, even despite most airlines' pathetic attempts at reducing their costs and maximizing profits.
Yeah places like in the EU have way too much redtaping and regulation of their industries. The governments protect industries that actually could afford to fail.
It's more true in the EU in general :P. I think US has handled this sector much better than the Europeans. It's mostly historical reasons that led to this, but there's little need to recite them.
The U.S. though still suffers plenty of disadvantages as a result of its success in capitalism and privatization. Many would probably argue with that though. But I do think we're too afraid of socialistic policies. And when we do seem to put it into practice it's done so in the most botched up way possible. Like with all the bank bailouts back in 2008.
Indeed. There's a way to calculate mathematically an optimal or near optimal solution to a specific problem. The problem is that there's a long list of interconnected problems, and political reality dictates that the optimal solution is often not possible to implement.
The best way for a politician in the U.S. to commit political suicide is to talk about messing with social security. Raise the retirement age two years? Blasphemy! Even though today's 65 year old is much healthier than a 65 year old was back in the 1940's. This is why I'm all for term limits on Senators and House members. If they are limited to serve say only three or four terms, then during their last term they can enjoy doing what is smart and not just what is popular. What is popular is never what's smart.
Indeed! I think USA shouldn't be the only country to pay the costs of space programs, but with ESA and Japanese, Indian and Chinese equivalents, the progress looks like US citizens won't be the only ones paying the price.
Space exploration is more than a useless hobby. A huge array of practical solutions came from it. And once a cheap enough way to reach orbit is invented, there's practically limitless sources of metals and almost all other resources (well, besides oil perhaps) on moons and planets in our solar system and beyond. Not to mention understanding other planets and moons brings us genuine understanding of our own.
If we understand the processes that made Venus -- not called without a reason Earth's "twin planet" -- the overheated hellhole that it is today, we can battle global warming much more efficiently.
Or what about the fact that there may be an entire ocean underneath the frozen surface of Europa? Or also, we've discovered that life can thrive in the harshest environments. Like snottites that exist in caves with an atmosphere PH level of 5. Or the tubeworms in the deep ocean that have entire colonies around volcanic vents. Just learning about that stuff we can expand our parameters for the search for life in our own solar system. They've even found flourishing microorganism in the tiny air bubbles of ice caves. I mean, this stuff matters. It's sad that just enough people in government don't think so though.
Eh, don't get me talking about astronomy and stuff like that. I'll get way off topic.
Indeed. The governments support several badly functioning companies to "protect the jobs", while in the long run letting the inefficient ones go bankrupt is best. In short term there might be less jobs available, but in the long term there will be new jobs in better companies.
Again, that's politics getting in the way of the smartest solution. But your officials there also don't want to risk their political careers by snubbing out a bunch of jobs. Even if it's what's best for the country later on. I mean, no one wants to pay the price for anything. We know how to fix so many things. And it's not just the politicians' faults for refusing to take the risks but everyone's fault for being unwilling to pay the price now.
Also in retrospect, it would've been the cheapest option to not let the first bank fail (Bear Sterns). Letting the first one to fail caused other more healthy players troubles and eventually led the US government in a situation where it had to bail more banks out. If they had bailed Bear Sterns out, probably more would have been in troubles as well, but much less as the financial market itself would've taken care of the more healthy players.
I will never fully comprehend the financial meltdown of 2008. All I'm certain of is that it's scary stuff how precarious the world economy really is.
Don't many European countries enjoy this kind of a system? I know this would never happen in the U.S. Sadly.
I don't know about the rest of Eruope, but we do have such a limit in Sweden. However, it's set to about 2,600 a year. And considering that pretty much everything is more expensive here than it is in the states, that's not quite what Don proposed.
Indeed. The retirement age here is 63, and there's been some suggestions to raise it up to 65, but they've been confronted with utter and total public outcry.
That seems to be the general response pretty much anywhere this is suggested.
Funny how this has evolved. I don't know under which circumstances the age of 65 was decided upon inthe US, but over here the retirement age was set to 65 in a time when people rarely lived beyond 70. So the government figured they could sponsor people's pension until they died. And nowadays people often quit before 65 and live until they're 80... :rolleyes:
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
Funny how this has evolved. I don't know under which circumstances the age of 65 was decided upon inthe US, but over here the retirement age was set to 65 in a time when people rarely lived beyond 70. So the government figured they could sponsor people's pension until they died. And nowadays people often quit before 65 and live until they're 80... :rolleyes:
I think it was a combination of life expectancy science and what the current population projections were at the time. They sure didn't count on the baby boom after the war though.
And the thing about being 65 at least here anyway is that a lot of people still want to work at that age. Either they want to or still can't afford to retire.
This is a place for active debate; flaming will not be allowed.
I will start:
1. I wholeheartedly believe that Capitalism, in and of itself, is a policy that naturally creates a ever-widening wealth gap. This has been proven time and time again in history; the 1930's and the Great Depression within America, present day America, and in many other countries around the world. This system can have a negative influence upon economics and, due to the still persisting Communist fear within America today, will take time to regulate itself due to constant cries and accusations of "Socialism."
2. Speaking of Socialism, I think that a good balance of Socialism and Capitalism is preferable in highly developed countries. If an unregulated market is allowed to grow largely enough and quickly enough, it will almost always bounce back at the same rate in which it grew, creating a deadly bear market. A regulated market can help insure that growth can persist and, given the scenario that a bubble does burst somewhere within the market, the economic effect will be lessened. My major gripe with Capitalism is that it encourages a bull market, market speculation (remember home derivative trading?), and a profit based economy, whereas I believe that an economy should be based on efficiency and sustainability.
3. I believe that a form of progressive taxation could further the benefits of a mixed-Capitalist system. Example:
Let's say that there are 4 classes within a society: A lower class, a middle class, an upper-middle class, and an elite class.
Lower class pays %10 on all taxes (this is of course excluding sales tax)
Middle class pays %20 on all taxes
Upper-middle class pays %40 on all taxes
Elite class pays %70 on all taxes
Lower class makes an average of $2,750 a month. $275 of that goes towards federal revenue, which leaves $2,475 for necessities, mortgage, and indulgences within that family unit. The rest of the classes follow suit with graduating levels of income with the middle class making a monthly income somewhere in the $4,000+ range.
So, hypothetically:
$3300 annually from each lower class unit
$9,600 annually from each middle class unit
$36,000 annually from each upper-middle class unit (based on a monthly income of $7,500+)
And, assuming the elite class is making $1 million + monthly, they give up $700,000 of their income annually
I like this system because I think that it doesn't allow anyone to live beyond their means, but it still doesn't discourage people to aspire to achieve rank success. If the taxes on the elite were too high, then Person A may not want to be an elite at all because they'd be giving too much of their money away. But, Person A also sees that, although the average upper-middle class unit gives away $36,000 of their annual earnings, they get to keep $54,000 of their annual earnings (which is a pretty good sum of money), so they aspire to rise up to that rank. It encourages progression, which is the essence of Capitalism. Now, a large amount of the tax money goes to funding public programs such as education and healthcare (much like we see today, but at a much lesser margin). A small amount of the tax money goes towards a defense budget, and the rest is spent on welfare programs. In my opinion, those are the three essentials within any government and as long as they are funded, then I don't see why there would be any problems. A regulated market helps protect the consumer from fraud within the financial system, helps sustain economic progress.
I believe in a self-efficient society (trickle up). If we can build upon a base and abandon the belief that we can sustain ourselves on pillars of salt, then I can see some real progress made in the world as far as self-serving society goes. It would be even better if our society could run on completely renewable energy so oil ties, which are hindering Democracies around the world, are dissolved. It also helps create a Green industry that, given proper investment, could revolutionize the way we obtain and distribute power.
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
haha 69 posts. =| wow im lame
Simplified version:
Mixed economy + progressive taxation + rethinking of budget priorities = cool beans
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
Well I'm from Holland, which actually is a socialist country.
Now all American alarms go off, "oh no, communism!" but this is due to a misconception concerning socialism. You see, every form of economy that taxes high incomes more than low incomes is socialist, though it can be in varying degrees.
Your idea of making the different classes pay different taxes has been incorporated in our tax system, in an adapted form. You see, if you decide someones class based on their income, and then decide how much taxes they should pay, this leads to a problem. Say, for arguments sake, that the lower class makes upto 20k a year. 20k-40k can then be considered middle class.
So, if you make 19.999 dollar a year, you have to pay 10%, equalling ~2k, giving you a net income of ~18k.
But, if you make 21.000 dollar a year, you have to pay 20%, equalling ~4k, giving you a net income of 17k.
This actually means that going forward in life is being punished. This is very detrimental to economic growth and a reason not to seek progress.
Our system?
Say the classes are divided like this;
Lower: 0-20k
Middle:20-40k
Upper middle: 40-60k
Elite: 60k+
Now lets say we got someone with a before taxes income of 80k a year. This person would then have to pay 10% taxes over the first 20k, 20% over the second 20k, 30% over the third 20k, and 50% over anything above that. In this case that would be 2k + 4k + 6k + 10k = 22k.
This way it is never detrimental to your net income to make more money. This is glorious you say? Why doesn't the entire world quickly adapt this wonderfull system? Well here's why...
On paper, it sounds great. The people who have the most, contribute the most. But things that sound great on paper don't always work out as well.
Why do people spend years in college learning tremendously difficult things, and busting their brains, living on a diet of coffee? Because the reward is big. What happens when you cut down the reward? People's aspirations go down. This is the same problem communism had, though to a much higher degree.
Second is a very practical problem. Poor people may rejoice at this system, rich people are surprisingly un-fond of it, especially in a country like the USA, where anything resembling socialism is nearly equalled to satanism. A result is that big companies will move their business to other countries, that aren't as social in their tax policies.
I wholely agree that a socialist structure would be an ideal. Problem is, how do you sell it to the people who have to make it happen?
Other than that, I'd like to postulate that Americans are stupid... x) *hides*
Americans have democrats and republicans... Only one thing they both agree on, and thats that the system of gouvernment is deeply, deeply flawed. Yet nobody does anything but bitch and moan about it =P
If you don't trust your gouvernment, get a new one! Even Egypt can do that
You can just not mind my post, I'm not really here to take part in this debate, I can't hold my own when it comes to economic discussions.
You described communism =P And it's been proven to not work. =) No offense
As to keeping governments on a tight leash, that I agree with, but that doesn't mean governments can't have a lot of responsibilities, it just means everything must be made transparent. Ironically nobody says governments should have less power when they're calling the police, firebrigade, ambulances, or even send their kids to school. =) There is a reason we put up with its downsides, which is why I've always thought the libertarian view is a bit naive.
On another note though, Don
I am a fan of analogies, but this one doesn't quite make sense. Growth is by no means always exponential :3 (I see a whole different discussion coming xD)
Back on topic!
This sounds really nice and logical, but it wouldn't actually make a difference. Poverty will always exist, no matter what you do. Why? Because the more resources we get, the bigger we allow our world population to get. Say we solve world hunger today by doubling the amount of food available in the world. More food makes for a healthier population, and healthy populations reproduce faster than deprived populations. This will inevitably keep up untill the population is deprived once again, stabilizing the growth rate. Difference is, there would be more people, but relative to the entire world population, there would be the same amount of hunger.
If the tax rate was 100%, then corporations would just leave the country.
I think that, as long as the next bracket of wealth makes more than the previous, then progressive taxation would work due to the very fact that human greed will always drive man to pursue extraneous wealth. Why keep $6,000 a month when you could keep $300,000? Why settle for a used 1985 Ford truck when you can get a Mercedes or a Lincoln?
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
The U.S. is perfectly willing to sacrifice free market ideals, however, over a continuing notion in our society of "too big to fail". That is, so much investment and currency was tied up in these organizations that the government felt if they were to fail, so to could the entire economy. So, so far we have politicians preaching free market capitalistic society, but it is more a fear tactic to rail against the only supposed antithesis of capitalism which is socialism. Yet in practice, the government has proven that it is perfectly willing to control markets buy bailing them out instead of allowing them to fail. That is a major type of government regulation right there. The kind that Congress likes to villify every day yet not vote against.
I'll just say it's a damn shame we don't have a flat tax rate. Everyone should be taxed the same percentage of their income no matter how much they make.
I'm not arguing that the U.S. doesn't have socialist policies. It does. But U.S. tax policies often find middle class workers paying proportionately more than upper class workers. Or at least, beyond a certain level of income, the proportion doesn't continue to increase leaving really rich people paying the same taxes as those only slightly above middle class.
Yeah that's a pretty crazy gap in such a small amount of added income.
Like I said earlier. You guys could probably afford to be a tad less socialistic. But if it seems unfair to you that people working hard and rightly earning their money that they should be taxed so severely for that, it still doesn't seem to be stopping people from pursuing careers, does it? I don't know. You tell me if people over there have on average become less ambitious.
This again is the result of ignorance and our vitriol political culture. Sadly.
Ironically here it is still good to do business in America cause actually have lots of business friendly taxes. I say ironic cause a lot of our jobs leave the country anyway because shop can be set up in poorer countries where workers can be paid a lot less. But the business owners who do that seem to do much better anyway.
What's funny to me about this is that Americans love big government. They just don't realize it. We have shitloads of government programs and different levels of government. It is easy to form local governments and municipalities and we expect tons of services from our government and are perfectly willing to pay for them as much as we say out loud we hate doing so. But big government aside, we also still pay some of the lowest taxes in the world which is also funny to me. I mean, you could raise everyone's taxes in the U.S. by even five percent and we'd still be paying way less than everyone else.
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I find it especially funny when Conservatives ask government to get "out of their lives" but, in reality, if "Big Brother" wasn't there to regulate the things that protected them, they'd be begging for government involvement.
Like, take the quality of our water for example (not a very sound example, I know). If there wasn't the EPA or the FDA to make sure they weren't putting goddamn anthrax or liquid shit in your water, then we'd all be getting terminal illnesses and disease would run rampant in the streets, but we couldn't get proper healthcare coverage because liver disease is a pre-existing condition.
The government can actually help; it just matters who's in charge. We can't trust humans though, so that's where government fails us (as Don_G said).
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
There is an argument really headed by conservatives that government paid health care would limit a person's choice in health providers. This is a stupid argument for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, many Americans don't even have access to preventative health care. So why would anyone be picky about what doctor they saw if it was just for a routine medical check up? Or say you needed to go to a gastro-intestinal doctor because you had a bad ulcer in your stomach. How picky are you really going to be about who you see to treat that infliction? But people against government funded health care have successfully scared people into the idea that if they choose this form of heath care, then they can't decide which doctors to go to.
This is doubly stupid because even private insurance companies will only allow you to go to specific doctors who are under their system anyway. So no matter what insurance you go with, your choices are limited based on what your insurance is willing to send you to. But basically people may have a family practitioner and that is only their doctor because years ago that's where their insurance companies said it was okay to go. But people think with government funded insurance you're gonna be sent to some dank ghetto clinic with poor lighting in the basement of some building. But gosh, even if that WAS the case, is that still not better than nothing? If the government is willing to let me go to a clinic for free and get some preventative care done, is that not better than worrying about a specific doctor later when I have some acute illness that could have been prevented?
If you want to equate conservatives with Republicans basically which is fair to do, I learned in public admin classes that it's a statistical fact that overall Republican presidents have created more new agencies than the Democrats. These agencies aren't free. They cost tax dollars to operate. And it's a simple fact that Republicans expanded government way more than their opposition ever has.
This is absolutely true. So much in fact that many European countries are concerned about having a labor crises in the next 25 years if not sooner. But yeah, the correlation between affluency and birthrate is very high. Poor people just love making babies more than wealthier people. I've always found that interesting.
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You're crazy. I love government. I just hate politics and politicians. But actual government in practice consists of trained bureaucrats who are highly skilled and work in the adverse environment that is politics. I myself am training to become a bureaucrat and I love what government is capable of.
All conspiracy theories aside, of course.
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Devalued as in ideologically or economically (like along the same lines as inflation)?
I know that a fixed rate for any federal currency is a pipe dream in this day and age. What gives one currency's power over another, however, is an entirely different story; the US Dollar is still upheld in many countries around the world because those same countries have faith in the strength of that currency and the country behind it. However, I still don't understand how a progressive tax policy could devalue any currency. I just don't see the correlation.
I was proposing the graduated tax rates because I know that those who have more should pay more (maybe 70%< wasn't a good example). I also made it practical to want to advance through societal ranks since, although the higher income brackets pay more overall, they keep more than the last bracket kept so, in theory, they are making money, but they are still giving their fair share.
Person A makes $10,000 a month, gives 30% of that up to taxes, so they keep $7,000 a month.
Person B makes $100,000 a month, gives 45% of that up to taxes, so they keep $55,000 a month.
That is a steep increase in overall income. Person B, overall, keeps up to $48,000 more than the person in the lesser bracket. Is that not incentive enough to want to advance?
(PS: No harsh feelings, bro, I just kinda feel that you sidestepped my original idea and called it something else. I'm all for your system as I am for mine.)
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
A good example of this is Sweden during the 70-80s, during which time the the progressive elements in our taxation were large, specifically for the reasons you cite (although we did take it even further than you originally suggested, since it was actually possible to pay more than 100% tax on the final margins of your income). That obvious problem aside however, it turned out it was very problematic to actually administer.
In theory it sounds great and easy, just make people with higher incomes pay more tax. In practice however people tend to go to great lengths to circumvent such systems. Instead of getting pay raises, employees would get various forms of "benefits". Essentially a higher salary, but one that wasn't taxated. And even today, when Sweden has done away with many of our previous progressive elements, people find clever ways to circumvent various forms of taxation. There seems to be a neverending stream of people who sidestep many of these tax systems in different ways.
Say what you will of the injustice of a flat tax system, but it has the benefit of extreme simplicity. You know exactly how much you're supposed to pay, and the administrative costs drop severely.
Don't many European countries enjoy this kind of a system? I know this would never happen in the U.S. Sadly.
While this is mostly true, I'm not against all forms of paternalism. I think sometimes it's good for a government to tell its people what it needs and what it shouldn't do. Why? Because people are generally ignorant and will consume or borrow anything. I mean, the U.S. government started creating new laws that made borrowing money for people more difficult. This is a good thing. Cause lots of people want loans for things they can't really afford. So the government stepped in and said, "No, sorry, you can't buy EVERYTHING on credit." Now all the government has to do is follow its own example and stop increasing our national debt by spending on credit.
There's nothing wrong with distrusting government. I only wished people understood a little bit more about government when they badmouth bureaucracies since that is one of the only functioning parts of government. The way I see it is in government you got the politics, law, and administration. The latter is the bureaucracy that actually puts government into practice and gets things done. That's all I was saying on that. I've constantly had to defend bureaucracy in my political science classes when a bunch of self-righteous idealistic classmates would grandstand on how eeeevil bureaucracy is. I ain't saying it's infallible, but bureaucracy would be doing a lot better if it wasn't so constantly hindered by politics.
That's somewhat of an understatement. The average voter is highly uninformed. But by voter here I just mean all who are eligible to vote. I guess I should give more credit to those who actually do vote. But in U.S. politics anyway there is a cycle that takes place between politicians and voter demographics. That is, politicians do not try to appeal to many age groups because they know they're not going to go out and vote anyway. And say, younger voters do not vote because they feel the politicians aren't out there representing them.
I'm cynical about voting anyway. The voting that matters most here anyway is local elections and people hardly get involved in those but that's where people's vote counts the most. Our daily lives in the U.S. are far more affected each day by local politics than what is happening on the national level.
Big lines are drawn by the politicians, and executed in practice by bureaucrats. I have nothing against bureaucrats, who are almost always highly skilled professionals.
This highly depends on the situation. Many government jobs and services are outsourced to private companies. Some municipalities like to pool together their own money and pay private companies to either take out their garbage each weak or plow their snow. This practice is in opposition with regionalism where instead of an entire region having the same services paid for by all taxpayers regardless of income with equal services received, communities form their own tiny enclaves of government that they all pay into and basically shop around for their services that otherwise would have been provided by the government.
LOL, yeah I don't think anyone would argue a private industry should head the Environmental Protection Agency.
Keep in mind though that the commercial airline industry is already one of the most heavily regulated industries in the world. Taxpayers have little tolerance for planes falling out of the sky. So in some respects the government does control that industry with all its heavy regulations. And they do a good job of it too. Flying these days is safer than ever, albeit still a shitty experience otherwise. LOL
I know, I know. I was kidding about that as well.
I would agree with this. At least to the extent that a lack of privitization in an industry stifles competition and innovation. Now I've never lived in a European country myself, but I have talked with several Europeans who loathe many of the public sector industries and wonder why they're not in the hands of private companies. This is even becoming increasingly true in the education business. But despite the U.S. having on average better higher education than other countries, I still think the other countries got it pretty sweet with the tax-payer funded higher education. I say this because college in the U.S. is becoming increasingly expensive and even harder to get grants and loans for. Thus again making a thing only as good as one has access to it. It's similar to the health care system in the U.S. Yeah we got awesome health care industries here, but if you don't even have access to it, how good can it be? And in that case you'd be just fine with going to some government funded clinic to get whatever you could out of it.
I'm sure this sentiment is definitely more true over there in Finland. But hey, at least you guys got Nokia. :happy:
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VAT?
The solutions to many problems from taxes to social security are all mathematical. Mathematically we already know how to fix our social security system. What prevents implementing the number solution though is sheer politics.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Scientific research should be awarded especially if people are benefiting from it. But practicality to any kind of research takes time to reveal and is often lost on the public anyway. As is shown by what is kind of happening to the space program in the 21st century. I think it's something that's still worthwhile. And in the U.S. NASA used up at most like two percent of the annual budget. But to most people this cost was still wholly unjustified for what we got out of it.
Well to a lot of people government is just government. Period. But to people with such a simple minded view I can only ask, what's the alternative?
There are subsidized airlines? Gosh I never even realized that. I mean, we have a lot of subsidized industries in the U.S. and I remember when Delta Airlines successfully filed for bankruptcy. But I still wouldn't think it'd be an industry that would ever need subsidizing, even despite most airlines' pathetic attempts at reducing their costs and maximizing profits.
Yeah places like in the EU have way too much redtaping and regulation of their industries. The governments protect industries that actually could afford to fail.
The U.S. though still suffers plenty of disadvantages as a result of its success in capitalism and privatization. Many would probably argue with that though. But I do think we're too afraid of socialistic policies. And when we do seem to put it into practice it's done so in the most botched up way possible. Like with all the bank bailouts back in 2008.
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Or what about the fact that there may be an entire ocean underneath the frozen surface of Europa? Or also, we've discovered that life can thrive in the harshest environments. Like snottites that exist in caves with an atmosphere PH level of 5. Or the tubeworms in the deep ocean that have entire colonies around volcanic vents. Just learning about that stuff we can expand our parameters for the search for life in our own solar system. They've even found flourishing microorganism in the tiny air bubbles of ice caves. I mean, this stuff matters. It's sad that just enough people in government don't think so though.
Eh, don't get me talking about astronomy and stuff like that. I'll get way off topic.
Again, that's politics getting in the way of the smartest solution. But your officials there also don't want to risk their political careers by snubbing out a bunch of jobs. Even if it's what's best for the country later on. I mean, no one wants to pay the price for anything. We know how to fix so many things. And it's not just the politicians' faults for refusing to take the risks but everyone's fault for being unwilling to pay the price now.
I will never fully comprehend the financial meltdown of 2008. All I'm certain of is that it's scary stuff how precarious the world economy really is.
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Not for long it seems.
That seems to be the general response pretty much anywhere this is suggested.
Funny how this has evolved. I don't know under which circumstances the age of 65 was decided upon inthe US, but over here the retirement age was set to 65 in a time when people rarely lived beyond 70. So the government figured they could sponsor people's pension until they died. And nowadays people often quit before 65 and live until they're 80... :rolleyes:
And the thing about being 65 at least here anyway is that a lot of people still want to work at that age. Either they want to or still can't afford to retire.
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