A Feast of Unrepentant Wingnuts

[dudalb]

Invent a system, it get's abused. Get over it.

Agreed. Someone will always find a way to screw other people over.

 

[Patrick_R]

1) The Current Account Balance doesn't matter
2) The American standard of living has been rising
3) It takes us less time to work today to purchase even more goods than decades ago
4) Income inequality doesn't matter if the distribution occured because of voluntary transactions

Here is a good article pwning the idea of "Nostalgianomics" or the idea that life was some how better and more just when we had higher taxes etc. http://www.reason.com/news/show/133222.html

And here is a video on "Living Large" why the "War on the Middle class" is just a myth http://reason.tv/video/show/living-large

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Does government invetvention in the economy work?

The fact that you don't have the boom and crash economic cycles that plagued the world before the Great Depression any more, or that America recovered quite gracefully from the previous crises provoked by banking numbnuts, would seem to suggest that it works.

_All_ western world governments intervene in the economy, one way or the other. It's not just Germany or generally Europe. For better or worse we're all Keynesian now, and that includes the USA. That does include doing this or that when a recession hits.

It's still government intervention in the economy, even if most people don't see it.

Heck, even having a fiscal policy at all, and constantly tweaking unemployment-vs-inflation to an acceptable point, _is_ intervention in the economy. The USA does it too. That's what made the economy run smoothly for so many decades, so, yes, it works.

The economy of Germany isn't really all that different from that of the USA. There is more social protection, and IMHO a better healthcare system, but in the end the government doesn't really intervene in the economy more than the USA government does. It's not like the government tells factories what to produce or anything. At its heart, it's still a free market system, just with a different tax and social-protection structure on top of it.

The political system, now that's the bigger difference. There isn't much of a military-industrial lobby around here, or at least doesn't have all that much influence.

The German election system never resulted in two parties, but in many smaller parties, and practically there's never one who has over 50% of the votes. Elections are won by uneasy coalitions, and often that small party you co-opted to get a 51% total for your coalition, has quite a bit of say in what the coalition does.

The threat is always there that if you make yourself really unpopular, a coalition could form the other way around, moving you from the head of the winning coalition to the opposition party. So politicians... well, are still politicians, but are rather careful about what they say or do. Any kind of overt corruption or overt toadying to a corporation, could get one dropped by his own party like a hot potato.

Which, of course isn't to say that corruption doesn't exist, just that it's the covert kind

At any rate, lobbies have a _lot_ less overt influence, and everyone is very careful to not look like they're the muppet of a lobby. Again, it doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but it does put a lot of a limit to how much a lobby can do. Military-industrial or otherwise, the winning kind of position is to go populist, not to side with a lobby.

And probably any lobby that includes the military would actually be very unpopular to side with. Most of Germany learned its lesson in WW2, and doesn't want another war, nor anything to do with macho military posturing. There was a lot of opposition to getting German soldiers anywhere outside Germany, even as part of some "peacekeeping" force. So a military-industrial lobby would have a harder time selling itself.

But it's not the perfect system either. One flaw I've already hinted at is that smaller parties do often exert more of an influence on politics than their number of votes would entitle them to.

But, still, I'm just saying, being led by the military-industrial complex doesn't automatically happen everywhere in the world.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Well, here is another rant that i do not have the constitution to deal with.

http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2009/07/texas-is-number-one-in-executions.html

 

[leftysergeant]

1) The Current Account Balance doesn't matter
2) The American standard of living has been rising
3) It takes us less time to work today to purchase even more goods than decades ago
4) Income inequality doesn't matter if the distribution occured because of voluntary transactions

There is nothing voluntary about the transaction if some capitalist pig convinces your airheaded governor to sell all the public infrastruture to you and you charge anyone who wants to use it five times what it is worth.

Privatization of our health care system is costing everyone except vultures like Bill Frist their future.

 

[Patrick_R]

There is nothing voluntary about the transaction if some capitalist pig convinces your airheaded governor to sell all the public infrastruture to you and you charge anyone who wants to use it five times what it is worth.

Privatization of our health care system is costing everyone except vultures like Bill Frist their future.

Yes there is, you could purchase it, a group of friends could purchase it. But the public infrastructure (wether it was legite or not) was forced on all others. If it was an illegitimate use of government power to create that public infrastructure then privatizing it would be the appropriate thing. The proceeds of the sale should be returned to the taxpayer as a rebate.

And so long as your government isn't greating a regulatory or tax framework that protects that now privatized business, there is a very strong likelyhood that someone will come along and create some competition.

But likely, you've been using the force of government to make other people subsidize your enjoyment of X commodity. The privatization would be a social justice and the higher price would end up reflecting its true value.

We don't have a truly private health care system in America we have a semi socialist heavily regulated system that doesn't work. Going from our current overly regulated third party payer system to a third party payer system run by bureaucrats won't be any better.

 

[elbe]

We don't have a truly private health care system in America we have a semi socialist heavily regulated system that doesn't work. Going from our current overly regulated third party payer system to a third party payer system run by bureaucrats won't be any better.

Who runs it now? Who would run it if it were entirely private?