i'm not talking about being a business owner. I'm talking about being an investor.

How about I step in here, since I'm in a class and reading a book/preparing a research paper on this very topic.

I'm assuming by "failing socialist economies" you are referring to the European Union. Am I correct in this assumption?

I'm not going to address poverty rates at the moment, but rather, income inequality. The difference between what the poorest of the poor is earning compared to the wealth the wealthiest are taking in. According to the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), the most authoratative database in the world on income distribution, the United States ranks 24th in nations, with only Russia and Mexico ranking lower. 18 of Europe's most developed states have less income inequality. In the US, the typical high-income person's salary is 5.6x higher than a low-income, after adjusting for taxes, transfers, and family size. By contrast, in Northern Europe high-income earners are only bringing in 3x as much.

Ok, so you say that makes sense because their economies are weaker than in the US? The US has more upward mobility, right?

No. Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the US is dead last in the growth rate of the total compensation of its workforce. Meaning, the amount the typical worker is getting paid has not risen with the increase in GDP. The CEOs are getting richer, but the payouts are not trickling down to the lower classes, (anyone recall Bush's tax-cut rhetoric? I can). Jobs lost during the sluggish economy in 2003 typically paid $17/hr. New jobs being created are only paying on average $14.50/hr. in the US, but Corporate profits are at their highest point since the 1960s. This is why I hate corporate America, btw.

Ok, poverty rates by country.... and population

17% of Americans live in poverty. (239 M)
5.1% in Finland. (5 M)
6.6% in Sweden. (8.9 M)
7.5% in Germany (82.4 M)
8% in France (60.4 M)
8.1% in Benelux (28 M combined)
10% in Spain (40.2 M)
11.1% in Ireland (3.9 M)
14.2% in Italy (58 M)

In terms of income redistribution.... (welfare)

US devotes 11% of its total GDP
EU average is 26%

US minimum wage is 39% of average wage.
EU minimum wage is 53% of average wage.

In terms of economic strength... 2002

Avg. US worker's output/hr. : $38.33
Avg. French worker's output/hr. : $41.85

(Germany, Ireland, Benelux also were higher, but France is the kicker since that's the stereotypical backwards European state most Americans think of)

and finally...

The EU's GDP - $10.5 T
The US's GDP - $10.4 T

So, these weak welfare economies... are where?

Oh ho, that's much better than anything I could dig up. My sociology text book had a concise version of that. Out of curiosity, do you have any figures for the Soviet Union in the 70s or 80s, in comparison to Russia now?

Hmm, and wealth being redistributed disproportionally to the work and study invested is a sign of good economy? By that rating Cuba, China, and North Korea would be around the top 3 countries in the world.

Okay Schming, I'll admit you have me on percentages, but I can't see a damn thing that has a number attached to it. You say our wealth distribution has so much disparity, but then you have to realize the richest person in our nation is also the RICHEST PERSON IN THE WORLD. So that might have something to do with it. I'll admit that I don't like the fact that the minimum wage hasn't hired at all, that jobs today aren't paying as much because people are still afraid about making new, high-paying jobs, and that the middle class is shrinking, but all of these things can be fixed, and probably (probably because we have a history of doing this) will be in time.

Once again, all I see are figures that are percentages. That's like taking two people, one with 1 dollar, another with 2, and they each donate 50% of their money towards charity. One will be donating less than the other, but it will look like just as much.

I'm just providing an example as to why percentages don't work much for me.

Yes, it will, and it will be fixed by socialists. It is socialists who protect and maintain the rights of trade unions and labourers.

yet these unions are also known for being corrupt a lot of the time.

Yes.

I am recalled of a certain labor union. The dock workers of Long Beach. This was some years ago and I cannot recall it all. But they had ridiculous demands. They wanted $100K+ salaries. The teacher's union isn't too much better. California is trying to implement a merit pay system. If you teach well, you will be paid well. If you suck, then you'll get the bare minimum. It's designed to inspire good teachers and force the bad ones out of the job or improve. It will also eliminate tenure. I've had some teachers who really should not have been doing that profession. But of course the teacher's union is adamently opposed to it because it will make them actually work for their desired high salaries. Unions aren't all glimmer and glory.

Yes the socialists might protect the worker but without the company there is no worker. And if you stifle the company with insane tax rates and ridiculously high wages (min wage), the company will ship somewhere else or fizzle away. Either way, the worker is now unemployed. Unless ALL the workers are employed by the government. Which is the goal of communists.

You mean like corporations? Like CEOs that raise their retirement/severance packages by $10 M and then the entire board quits because of industry slowdown, leaving the labor union and new board having to scrap together a new contract to keep the company out of bankruptcy? Ya, my dad works for Delta.

And DJ, point is, if our income distribution was more equal, in terms of transfer payments and other socialist programs, we wouldnt have such inequalities. The rich would still be rich, but the poor wouldnt be as poor. This would help reduce the crime rate and just generally improve the quality of life. There's no reason why 10% of the US population should be in jail and %50 of US citizens die from stress related diseases.

And no, I dont have figures on Russia, only on EU/accession memberstates. Those figures are culled from The European Dream by Jeremy Rifkin. I would recommend it to anyone who is literate.

Umm... 10% of the US population is not in jail. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I think you're thinking of 1%.

Sorry, didnt remember correctly what I read/I cant do percentages correctly sometimes...

685 incarcerations per 100,000 people in the US.
87 incarcerations per 100,000 people in the EU.

Except that's going to be near-impossible to implement, because teachers don't choose what students they get. If a teacher happens to get a class that's full of retards, then it'll make the teacher look bad through no fault of their own.
And, if it is based on exam scores, it will only further deteriorate from the quality of teaching: school will be even more about soley trying to pass exams, rather than learning skill and knowledge and enjoying education for the sake of education.

You could take into account some very basic factors of location, time teaching, and relative skill compared to other teachers in the school, so its not that hard to do a merit system.

I admit that corporations aren't perfect either, but like JediGandalf said, they create the jobs for your precious unionized employees. If not for the corporations, all those people would be out on their a**es. Also, unions are not as powerful or noble as you think they are. In southren Cali about a year and a half ago, we had one of the longest grocery worker's strikes on record. it lasted about 3-4 months, and the workers wanted outrageous benefits. (Like free comprehensive health care for working in a grocery store) The management at corporate level wouldn't consent, so there was a stalemate that wasn't going anywhere. I remember having to cross picket lines every time I needed some groceries, and the stores were practically deserted. Good produce and meat were hard to find (You had to go to non-union markets) and the big stores like Ralphs and safeway were almost empty even in the middle of the day. Towards the end of the strike, people no longer respected the picketers, began crossing picket lines, and several shouting matches and meelees were reported.

In the end, it was almost for nothing, b/c neither side got what they wanted, so they made life difficult for everyone for no reason. At that time, I hated the unions, and I still kind of do.

And you see I wouldn't have any objections to socialism if it worked as it should. But what happens is people get greedy, and want everything to be 'shared', in other words the poor want to get as rich as the richer people without having to work for it and do their part. Capitalism forces people to do their part by rewarding them, basically. If people could be trusted to do their part to keep an economy up, socialism would work. As demonstrated by Germany, France, and various other socialist countries who are in a slow decline, this isn't the case.

And Schming, sorry, but those figures are useless at arbitrary percentages. If they were real numbers, then I may be forced to think on it, but percentages can be any number.

Why should the rich have their income forcefully distributed? (And yes, it would be the rich... the money has to come from somplace, and I'll be damned if the middle class has it) A lot of the rich are self-made and worked hard to get to where they are. Why should we drag them down?

Also, how would this money be collected from the rich? The rich are too damn smart to let this happen to them. Their track record is impressive... they've constantly outsmarted the socialist-minded idealistic intellectuals that want to redistribute their wealth. The rich find workarounds. As it stands, the rich hardly pay anything in the form of income tax and social security b/c practically all of them get money from other venues instead of the standard job. (such as dividends from their holding corporations.)

Communism has no government.

I think a bigger question is 'why are you so in love with rich people'?

I admire rich people that made it big in real estate b/c I can become rich by doing what they do. They created tax loopholes that I can also use. They used their heads to rise out of the rat race instead of going with the flow like everyone else. That deserves my respect.

Socialism represents the opposite of what I want to do with my life. I don't want to work my a** off and be taxed to death to improve society. I want to work so I (and my future family) can benefit from my efforts. Socialism has nothing to offer me. In fact, it will probably take more from me than I will ever receive from it. What good is it to me?

Page: it is easier to bring someone else down to your level than it is for you to rise up to their level. It is better for someone to rise up to higher levels but people ALWAYS take the easy route.

I remember the grocery store strike well. I crossed picket lines many times. I know fellow classmates who worked at striking grocery stores. They all thought it was bull****. Some even did homework while "proudly displaying their signs" The union was losing money and employees just quit because they were not making an income. They did have ridiculous demands. Pay hikes, the aforementioned benefits. Those benefits would be quite the hit to the companies. See, the grocery stores here are being trumped out by the number of Wal-marts popping up. California got its second "supercenter" not too long ago. A third was going to be built but it was shot down by voters.

Part of the reason why wal-mart does so well is b/c they don't allow workers to unionize. Normally, I would agree with this, since unions for unskilled laborers often have a lack of vision and make unrealistic demands on an aspiring business owner. If I ever own a business that has unskilled workers, I'll do what I can to avoid unionization. However, I'll do it by treating my people well and not giving them any need to unionize.

That's not to say that unions don't serve a legitimate purpose. Unions are good for specialized workers that have skills that don't transfer from trade to trade, like teachers and pilots, just to name a few. Workers like this need protection b/c their skills are useless outside of their trade and are therefore very vulnerable due to this over-specialization. However, unions for unskilled workers (like Wal-mart employees or grocery store workers) are not really necessary because those workers don't have any specialized skills. If they are a floor mopper or shelf stocker, they don't need a union b/c they can be a floor mopper or shelf stocker anywhere in case they lose their job.


This goes into another thing: while there is good capitalism, there is also bad capitalism. Bad capitalism is where you use your power and business leverage to intimidate and exploit others for your own gains. Walmart delves into bad capitalism in several areas: first, they have been known to hire illegals. 2. I've heard that they have shorted their workers on overtime. There's more, but that's all I can remember for now, and that is enough to adequately prove my point.

I agree Page, unskilled labor unions are ridiculous. They basically have no leverage because any person hired off the street can do the exact same job.

I could really care less about unions in general. I'm more interested in quality of life and helping other people. It's not that I want to bring the rich down, I just want to do what's best for everyone. It's a different perspective.

And DJ, the point was that those economies are NOT in decline, they are growing. If you want to look at economies that are in decline, look at the US and Japan. Granted, the argument could, and should, be made that the economies of the US and Japan arent in decline as much as they are in transition.

If you want to point at bad examples of socialism, you can point to... .... ... if you want bad examples of capitalism, check out Mexico, Russia, and to some extent China.

Small note: I'd like to point out that this thread has not become a typical Massassi debate thread (flamewars and 2 people banned).

Kudos and good job!

Carry on.

It's because this is one of those where it's easy to see where the other person is coming from.

well, we try.

That, and the fact that these workers need no protection. If things get bad, they can just quit and find another job in a week or two.

Now you know why the people here in Cali were so pissed off at the Grocery worker's union by the time it was over. People were generally supportive at the beginning, but as it wore on it began to get ridiculous. (The teamsters even got involved, which meant no shipments. The stores were out of perishable items constantly for the duration of the strike. )If the union had gotten what they wanted, they would have been the only winners in the deal. The markets would have lost money, and they would have had to raise prices signifigantly to make up for it, which would have sucked for us. With that said It's obvious why I say that these unskilled unions have a definite lack of vision.

When it comes to a political aglinment, I am a Liberalist. However as a Briton politics is quite different and British liberalism is relfected by the 'thrid' party. You ask why? Well the reason why I take a liberal stance as it promotes democracy and freedom.

Which is what most of the world wants

Well okay American Democrats have the same idea, but they are a party of the left. Real liberal ideals are placed in the centre of the poltical spectrum not to the left or the right of it.

There are political aglinments that a have a problem with: Socialsim and Extremists (Communists, Fundermentalists and Fascists (including Nazis). These concepts promote the rule of the people and the GUN. Most of the worlds dictorships have some of kind of extremist governement. As for socialism, what does it achevie?

Im part of the Liberal cause

I believe it is the responsibility of society to support those who have no way of supporting themselves. Thus, I suppose I am socialist. I believe in state-sponsored health insurance and I think the state should subsidize child rearing to the extent that absolutely everybody can afford to have a child, no matter their current financial situation. I also think that all services which currently require a fee (such as licensing, copyrighting and filing for a patent) should have their fees eliminated.

I think income tax should be eliminated. Instead there should be a fairly high sales tax on absolutely everything, but it should be legally required to have the sticker price on retail merchandise include the sales tax. Investment income should be heavily taxed and so should estate inheritance, although in the latter case it should be based on the value of the estate and any immaterial assets of the estate should be doled out to the executor(s) based on their income level.

So, yeah, basically I think our whole economic system needs rebalancing.

Bad examples of socialism? How about France and Germany, whose economies are both in decline. Canada's was in decline, but it's coming back up. The US isn't in decline--we're coming OUT of a recession, so we're not as strong as we usually are, but not in decline. Japan...to be honest, I don't know a damn thing about their economy other than it's fueled by games and anime :p.

China is doing BETTER while more capitalism is introduced (their economy has been climbing since the people got more freedom to make jobs etc.) Russia...well that's bad implementation. You don't just go to a communist/socialist nation "HEY, GUYS, LET'S BE CAPITALIST LIKE...NOW." And Mexico doesn't really have the organization of government required for a good capitalist implementation.

Can you give me data on France and Germany's decline? I'm finding info on economic indicators suggesting sluggish growth for this year, but not decline or deteoriation. In fact, all the data is showing both of their economies rising comparatively to the US. You say that the US is coming out of a recession... German and French economies are as well, it wasnt just a North-American centric economic slump from 2001-present, it was global. Also, at the same time Germany and France have tied their economic fortunes to the EU. Individually, their growth may be stagnating, but overall the EU's economy is more robust and dynamic than the US. It's like comparing Alabama's economy to the EU. Germany is no longer an individual actor in terms of market exchanges, the EU must be looked at as a whole. The welfare states are still going strong, but they are adapting to new technologies and ideas.

German data:

http://www.consensuseconomics.com/special_data.htm

http://www.oecd.org/document/21/0,2340,en_2649_201185_33633173_1_1_1_1,00.html

Compared to EU:

http://www.bized.ac.uk/current/mind/2004_5/140305.htm

All data I had looked at previously pointed to their economies going in decline. And the US was in a recession before 2001--it started earlier, and the 9-11 attack just shot us deeper into recession. But I haven't looked at any EU stuff. Mainly because I think it will fail within twenty years, and that it's just a temporary solution to a permanent problem.

What data?

Exactly... I see lots of straw though...

but who is going to pay for it? Not many people would enjoy having to pay to take care of someone else's kids.

I'm not convinced that the state can do much of anything right. Look at public housing-- the projects the state builds for the poor are more often than not shoddy slums with many problems. I'm not really up for having the government manage health care when they can't even build a house correctly.

Yeah, that whole state paying for kids thing is ridiculous. What if I don't want kids? Then i sure as hell shouldn't have to pay for other peoples' kids.

True. What about Ms. F***s-a-lot who lives in poverty and pops out one kid after another b/c that's how she makes her living? Why should they live off of my dime? What do I get from them? Probably nothing.

Got any evidence to back up that claim that someone can live off the money received from the government for children?

You can't, currently. We're talking about Jon's idea:

Except she wouldn't make any money, because that would go towards childcare. Children aren't cheap, you know.