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I don’t know about another New Deal.Temptingly optimistic as it may sound.
The Republicans did not have Fox News back then,nor did they have the mindless followers that they have now.
Posted by wwoods on Sep 9, 2005 at 12:52 PM
When will this crap end? The “class-based” response? Hey news flash to the idiot writer: the poor population is made up disparately of BLACKS in NOLA; everyone else had already vacated the city!
Who, the hell, do you think was being rescued?? It sure wasn’t the likes of Trent Lott, whom Dubya will surely be sipping mint juleps with when Lott’s multi-million dollar mansion is rebuilt.
It’s articles written by morons like this that give the left a bad name.
Posted by g-love on Sep 9, 2005 at 1:55 PM
I’m not sure about another New Deal happening, either. As Gore Vidal said, “Nothing repeats itself, except human folly.”
I’m hoping that there will be some kind of new populist coalition that cuts across both race, class, and even party lines. Even if it doesn’t win (it probably won’t), it could force issues into the open.
But the New Deal was actually a last-ditch effort to save capitalism. FDR felt the heat from Huey Long, Dr. Franics Townshend, Charles Coughlin, Upton Sinclair, Norman Thomas, and others throughout the 1930’s. How could that kind of pressure happen now, in a country where there isn’t a strong, popular alternative to winner-take-all free trade? A New New Deal would have a hard time getting past the corporate types (who haven’t had their stocks collapse, like in the ‘30s).
Posted by albigensian on Sep 9, 2005 at 3:24 PM
Who was it who said “people get the government they deserve” ? I’m already starting to see the shortlived wave of media independence receding as the white house spin machine shifts into overdrive. Not to be overly cynical, but the public’s attention span is nearing it’s expiration date. Soon we’ll be celebrating the anniversary of 9/11 (“whew…”). Mid-term elections are more than a year away, and the problem of computerized paperless voting machines has still not been addressed. And the democrats are as much a part of the problem as the republicans, with few exceptions. The problems facing this nation are gigantic and complex and most people are too tired to even engage in conversation about them, let alone take action, or bother to vote. Before Bush’s term is over there will be another manufactured crisis to distract from the one’s he actually caused or exacerbated, Roberts will be chief justice, tax cuts for the top will have been made permanent, and Jeb will be “voted” into the white house. New “New Deal” ? It’ll be a miracle if we can hang on to even a pretense of democracy in a Neo-Con America run by christo-fascists and their corporate sponsors.
Posted by Kenneth D. Brown on Sep 9, 2005 at 10:46 PM
Nice quote. Google says it was Alexis de Tocqueville and he applied it to democracies. Does this mean that if the Iraqis get a government that only a foreign power could love… then that’s pretty much on them?
Pardon the off topic remark.
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 10, 2005 at 12:32 AM
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2315/
From the article
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 10, 2005 at 8:47 AM
In some instances and with some groups of people, one can foster confusion about the cause of disparity in America. With blacks in America, it is not really difficult at all because we can all point to slavery as the starting point. People want to believe that ending slavery soved evertything, but that lets us off the hook a bit easy.
The garanteed right to vote was hard fought and embarrassingly recent. When exactly, can we point to the fundamental change of heart that rid us of racism as a nation? It didn’t happen. WTH wants to pretend it did.
We assume that much of the problem of disparity boils down to poverty and education, access to resources and the fundamental question of how to remedy the situation escapes us.
You have a choice, really. You can claim that the lack of income and opportunity is solely the fault of the individuals at the bottom, or you can look at the rules of the game and try to understand why it is so hard to break the cycle of poverty.
The former invites us to blame genetics for a personality flaw shared disproportionately by minorities. The latter, casts doubt on the inherent superiority of those with means and the cycle of entitlement enjoyed by their offspring and relations.
Conservatives tell me that if we stop helping the poor so much, they will do better. From this we should infer that being raised by wolves is the conservative ideal.
My God, what would happen to Rabbit?
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 10, 2005 at 9:53 AM
>> Indeed, the main problem was not the class-biased emergency response and relief, but rather the degree of poverty and inequality in the country
Posted by scorp on Sep 10, 2005 at 11:20 AM
(Cont.)
>>
Posted by scorp on Sep 10, 2005 at 11:20 AM
“polls show Americans think the government failed in its responsibilities”
-So lets make government bigger!
“America
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 10, 2005 at 12:56 PM
My New Deal:
Blaming one party or another is in no way helping to solve the problems of America.
Believe it or not, but I was a registered democrat until just before 2000 when I left the party to be an independent. (I feel the party left me though.) When I made this choice, I thought the Left was about to destroy the Right. My plan was to do all I could to reel in the Left (I think big) and take them down, locally and nationally. I thought it was going to be the Left that would have all the power today, man was I wrong. Although, I believed then as I do now; the Right will be easy to bring down.
I think that this disaster has shown how the federal government and all its bureaucracy have hurt the individual, and probably the poor more so. I think this is because of the lack of the States and the people being represented in the federal government. Our system was setup so no one entity could
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 10, 2005 at 2:14 PM
TFY: What?
You said: (the government failed) “-So lets make government bigger!”
How about “The fireman was unable to extinguish the flames with a garden hose, so why should we give him a firetruck?”
You said: “-...In America, your life discisions create you economic status. Only those that are LAZY stay in poverty…”
I call B.S. That is so wrong that it is nearly obscene. You think Paris Hilton created her own economic Status? Shrewed of her to be born into the Hilton family. The trouble with libertarians is that their models always leave out important variables.
What you earn has a lot to do with where you started in life. If your parents provide for you and have the means to see to it that you are well educated and well rounded, then you really have to be a complete moron to fail. (not that some don’t try - but some morons obviously succeed anyway)
On the other hand, if your parent(s) can’t afford to provide for your basic requirements or are abusive, then you have to be extraordinary to achieve even modest success. You will be prone to reject formal education as irrelevant while you scrap for short-term gains. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Your attitude does so much harm. It’s a lie you tell yourself because it makes you feel good thinking that all your success is earned success. Or maybe you think you deserved to be born to a middle-class supportive family because God loves you especially much. The again, perhaps you are one of the extraordinary ones. - Odds are that you aren’t.
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 10, 2005 at 10:37 PM
Posted by GrayArea on September 10, 2005 at 11:53 AM
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 5:57 AM
You guys are really bizarre, you ideologue socialists and evangelistic capitalists. The purity of your ideologies, the selectivity of the evidence you cite.
Selective. Biased. Preconceived. Prejudicial. Doctrinaire. No one can tell you guys a damn thing, because you already think you know.
What you both have in common is a lack of connectedness to what takes place in real people’s lives. You are both determined to see with only one eye, and you refuse to perceive what your other eye could show you.
You capitalists say that all we need is a will to work and to get government off our backs, but you don’t articulate any expectation that your wealth, once acquired and concentrated, should be used not only for masturbatory self-indulgence but for the betterment of the world in which you live and the people living in it. You say that unadulterated self-interest is the key to social advancement. That’s magical thinking! Thank God some among your number learned something other than unfiltered self-focus, and actually do use their wealth as a tool for the benefit of those around them. But don’t take credit for their generosity, there’s nothing in the heart of your “wisdom” that made them be generous. They probably learned it from church or from a socialist!
And you socialists, every time you encourage anyone to think that someone else is responsible for their quality of life, every time you convince a man that nothing he can do for himself has anything to do with his advancement or degradation, you mislead him. You play him false. You set him up for further failure and humiliation, while encouraging nothing but his resentment and his habit of casting about to find out who’s to blame for his sorrows and his dead-end life. You encourage a culture of feeling victimized. You encourage psychological emasculation. Thank God some among you have gotten the clue that in order to share wealth, you have to work your ass off to create it! But don’t take any credit for it, there’s also nothing in the heart of your “wisdom” that did anything but instill envy and jealousy at another’s success. Those of your ilk who did get ahead had to learn to do so from someone else, maybe their hard-working parents or another life experience that correlated effort with excellence.
There’s got to be another social philosophy besides the two of yours, that doesn’t encourage either alienated acquisitiveness nor idle bitching about how you got done to unfairly. The sooner it’s synthesized or invented, the better for us all. Too bad we’re wasting all this energy in the meantime as you two figuratively fight it out!
Posted by Kuya on Sep 11, 2005 at 9:15 AM
Posted by scorp on September 10, 2005 at 1:20 PM
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 9:19 AM
Posted by scorp on September 10, 2005 at 1:20 PM
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 9:30 AM
Whoops, sorry about the double entry
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 9:42 AM
WTH:
You clearly implied that in your view, keeping the notion of race in the social model is a large part of the problem. You offer no solution to the primary inequalities.
Equal, is, in fact hard to understand. The tragedy of what teachers do to minority children has little to do with discipline (at first). One major problem is is that they perceive them to be of lower performance. When white teachers listen to recordings of speech, the recording associated with the minority child tends to be rated lower than the tape associated with the white child - even if the tapes are swapped. This takes a lot of training to eliminate from the educations system - training that most tax payers don’t understand the need for.
The problem started long before the situation you describe with the quotas in the advanced math class tried to remedy the problem - inneffectively I would wager. What does work is early education intervention and training beyond that to bring up the level of awareness of these issues in the education system.
Nobody wants to pay for any of this stuff, so they don’t happen, or access is too limited. Sometimes assistance is there, but tangential issues like poverty interfere with success factors. Then, when everyone sees the achievement gap widening, they make attempts to institute the sorts of corrections you describe.
It is important to understand as a society that no child is responsible for their own poverty. No life decisions made by the child before 12th grade have established their economic status. The deck is stacked though and there are too many people who are unwilling to accept that. Correcting the problem too late is leveraged by the right as a political tool. It divides society as you have described and it makes people unwilling to invest in good programs.
Your strapped school systems are still underfunded. It is immoral I think to leave these problems untreated.
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 11, 2005 at 9:45 AM
Gray,
If we need a fire truck then I’d be fine with us getting one. My point is every time their is any kind problem there are people calling for more government. I do not like that.
You are right Paris did not do a damn thing to get what she has, but that does not mean we have a right to give her wealth to anyone else. I stand by what I said about being lazy. I have been on food stamps, and my family was on Medicaid, I WAS making poor discisions, now I am not. As for being born into a situation, change WILL not take place from outside influence. Change starts from within, individualy and socialy.
As to what I earn, I took home $19,632 in 2004; $13,690 in 2003. (I miss reported this in another thread, sorry.) I also have a wife and six year old son. Taking money away from Paris is not what makes us happy nor will it help me make sure my son gets an education. Money is not everything. Whats inpoetant? Family, Food, Shelter,.... things they had in New Orleans.
Give a “poor” person $5000, they spend it on cigarettes and lotto tickets; give $5000 to a “rich” person and they invest the money. Then when the “poor” have nothing again, take more money from the “rich”, because he had parents that told him to invest. Okay.
As to where I started in life; gas station attendent. I did not like that, so I moved on. No one gave me anything, I have just showed up for work, and worked harder than everyone else. I have now,ten years later, taken on a supervisor position with a biopharmaceutical company (plasma center)and my income is directly related to me busting my arse.
Now if I can go back to what I believe will help fix this country; repeal the 17th amendment, this would give back the voice of the states taking it away from “big” money.
The other is, the passage of HB25 (fairtax.org). This is the best system for the “poor”. Taxes would only be collected at the retail level, and most of the poor do not buy everything new, I do not. The poor would also get a check every month for taxes paid on the necessities of life. There would be ZERO FICA/payroll taxes, because HB25 abolishes the IRS, therefore politicians can not use class warfare to divide the country so they can get elected. Check it out for yourself: Fairtax.org.
To those that fear globalization,
What is the matter with globalization? Textiles used to be produced in the Northeast, then cheaper labor in the southeast caused textiles to move there and those in the industry lost their jobs. Did the Northeast fall apart? No, they learned new trades. Textiles are now shifting overseas and those at home need to learn a new trade. This happens in all trades to some degree. We all know someone that has lost a job, shat happens.
Everyone in the world should be able to make money, and no one should have the right to say how/where that money is made. That is how we will help the poor of the world, not buy taxing those that have money. But, if it were up to socialists/communists, the government would appoint lifetime jobs and all would be fine, and if you buy that, I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona.
The best way to help is to get more people/countries involved in baking the economic pie, because we will bake a bigger pie, therefore more pie to go around. “Giving” someone a bigger piece of the smaller pie does not help them when that pie is gone.
Think
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 11, 2005 at 11:03 AM
The problem with how we are educating our students is; we are teaching to the lowest common denomenator.
2+2=5, until you realize it does not.
The solution on the Left; give them more money.
How much money did the first “one room” schools have? ZERO!
Yet, somehow we have created this great nation.
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 11, 2005 at 11:30 AM
wth
Posted by scorp on Sep 11, 2005 at 12:10 PM
TFY:
Of course nobody owes you happiness. But do you really think that you are lazier than me if you take home less than I do? That is a crock. Someone has you brainwashed.
I’m trying to tell you that your chances of catching up are about the same as that lottery ticket paying off. There may be more millionaires this year than last, but it is a valid question as to how much of it stays in the family.
The wealthy reap the benefits of the natural resources in this country. The laws protect their investments. They benefit more from the infrastructure like good roads, telecommunications, subsidies, an available, educated workforce. Capital is emphasized in the “ownership society” and work is trivialized. The more that labor is de-emphasized, the lower the chance you are going to get amass that kind of cash.
The wealthy are always going to provide for their families and provide opportunities that you can’t even imagine. You think anyone is going to set you up with your own oil company or sports team? Hardly. Nobody is talking about knocking the rich back to the stone age, but it would be nice if they would chip in commensurate with what they take out.
Consumption tax? sorry. Suppose I am one one of the fat cats. If I buy more than you do, I pay higher taxes? Ok, fine. While a guy who makes barely enough to survive spends everything he has, I might spend only half of what I make. Seems fair to me. You going to tax my house payment too? Gee, that doesn’t seem fair, but ok. I still have a lot more choices than the poor guy. I win either way.
I am not a communist, but I don’t see how this does anything for us. I do feel that progressive taxation has a chance if it is truly progressive.
By the way, our great nation was created on the backs of some people who suffered greatly before progressive ideas helped level the playing field.
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 11, 2005 at 12:40 PM
Think said
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 1:44 PM
Posted by scorp on September 11, 2005 at 2:10 PM
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 11, 2005 at 2:07 PM
wth -
Well, you have come a long way from my original point. Economically and politically, the people of almost every nation are worse off than people in the USA. I am certainly not saying the USA is perfect, there is no such thing as a perfect system involving people, but the material and non-material things we have are reduced considerably if our system is socialist in nature.
You seem to have a leftist envy of people who have things, but all successful businesses earn their way by providing goods and services that people pay for voluntarily. If these businesses were not satisfying needs, they would be unsuccessful businesses and the proprietors would go broke. Political interference, as from socialist schemes, does not produce more goods, but only produces inefficiency and waste, while the bureaucracy consumes vast amounts of assets. All of the leftist authors you have cited have produced nothing of worth in building our economy, but you seem to derive some satisfaction from them.
Posted by scorp on Sep 11, 2005 at 4:10 PM
Hello WTH,
I will look up your article and respond afterward.
As for me being off-base, a closer reading of my tirade above will show that I was addressing TWO groups, socialistic types AND capitalistic types, i.e. ideologues of either stripe. Not lumping them together as one group, but expressing my frustration and annoyance, to both, at what appears to me to be selective attention and an overall refusal to admit the human costs (x2) of clinging to your ideologies and working toward their logical conclusions.
Actually, forget all the high-falutin’ talk. I’m pissed at the endless chatter of the American right and the American left. Nothing but talk, talk, talk, always rhetorical spin and never any real solutions to the problems that real-life people face. And yet the promises just keep on piling up.
Write it off as an unseemly gesture of anger at all the relentless head-smacking and lack of progress, if that’s how you perceive it.
Yeah, it’s an emotional reaction, it’s a spew of disgust. Whenever either of you (that’s two I’m addressing, eh?) have your unobstructed way with things, the cost to people and the planet (read: people again) soars. It’s either unfettered “free trade” and the concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, or, it’s managed “equality” and economic and personal stagnation.
If you think my criticism is only valid when applied to your adversaries, well, that’s part of my point.
I’m getting angry again. I’ll read your article and get back to you.
Posted by Kuya on Sep 11, 2005 at 5:09 PM
When scorp evaluates the level of wealth in the U.S. as compared to western Europe, he is deceiving you. While the mean income in the United States is higher than that of western Europe, that is only due to outliers distirting the data. The U.S. has a very small collection of EXTREMELY wealthy people with the rest of the United States barely scraping by. For example, 75% of U.S. households survive on an annual income of $60,000 or less.
In addition, Germany calculates its unemployment rate differently. If the rampant unemployment in the former East Germany is accounted for, the unemployment rate is only about the equivalent of 6% in the U.S. In addition, scorp neglects to mention that the residents of Europe do not have to pay for healthcare out-of-pocket. If you subtract average healthcare and pharmaceutical expenses from the U.S. GDP per capita figures, the number drops significantly. Also, college tuition is FREE in western Europe as is child care. When these government-provided expenses are accounted for, one can see that the standard of living in these countries is quite high.
When it comes to caring for our fellow countrymen, we all know that America has never ranked very high. We are, of course, the only democracy in the developed world that doesn’t offer health care to its citizens as a matter of right. We rank 34th among nations in infant mortality rates, behind such rival superpowers as Cyprus, Andorra and Brunei.
Wow, what a great country….
Posted by Liberal on Sep 11, 2005 at 5:14 PM
Hello yet again WTH,
Yes that was an interesting article. I’m happy someone was able to get off their asses and make good things happen to assist the victims of Katrina. Against the scale of the destruction it may not look like much of a difference to some, but I will grant the point that in comparison to the official agencies charged with preparing for and responding to such emergencies, the private sector has done much more.
Not being particularly socialist (I certainly don’t think criticizing the decision to make massive tax cuts and then to engage in two wars, nor criticizing the unethical practice of business in the US or abroad, to be socialist formulations), I’ve never been allergic to the business community per se.
When the private sector wants to mobilize its resources and get a job done, with the added element of the good will of the people at their tasks, there’s no denying the beneficial outcomes.
But a couple of questions: What happens when the business community does not consider a needed task to be worthy of their efforts? Also, since the motivations of those business people to get things rolling in preparation for Katrina was in large part a gesture of conscience and connectedness to people (which is the only thing that mitigates rampant, gluttonous acquisitiveness), what happens when those virtuous concepts are absent from business ethics?
Surely you’ll agree that the business community per se does not hold a monopoly on ethical or compassionate priorities. (Not to uphold bureaucracies as being a better example of such attitudes, mind you).
I look forward to your answer.
Posted by Kuya on Sep 11, 2005 at 5:38 PM
liberal,
How is it that you can say, ” When it comes to caring for our fellow countrymen, we all know that America has never ranked very high”, when private donations are at almost a billion dollars for katrina.
I have to disagree whole heartily with this assertion, all one has to do is look at this site where we have the Right, Left and Center, and I would have to say we all care! Now some of us do more than others, but that does not mean they care less.
So, does it only count when the government redistributes money, at the point of a gun?
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 11, 2005 at 5:46 PM
Gray,
No I do not think I am lazier than you if you make more money, I was reffering to those that do not try and make anything. Our poor are lazy though, any third world peasant would probably agree. As for me, I have no need to make anywhere close to six figures.
As for the fair tax you should really look into it at fairtax.org. Give me a second to explain the basis behind it. Cooperations do not pay any taxes, they pass all of them off to the consumer. With the Fair Tax we will buy goods that have ZERO imbedded taxes, because the IRS would be abolished, so goods will be about 22% less. Houses generally have up to 50% imbedded taxes in them, so new houses would cost less. So goods are cheaper, you get your whole paycheck, you get a rebate at the first of the month and you only pay taxes when you buy at the retail level. So if you do not want to pay taxes, you do not have too.
What if the bussiness’ do not lower there cost once they do not pay tax?
FREE MARKET! Once one company lowers their price all of them will.
You should think of all the benifits to the poor, instead of how it does not hurt the rich enough.
Think
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 11, 2005 at 6:05 PM
TFY:
John Stossel wrote an article recently that is illustrative of what the inbridled free market is supposed to do for us. If you will merely forgive that he is missing a few important variables in his model and overlook the possibility that he is off his meds, you might think he has a point:
http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=jst
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 11, 2005 at 7:36 PM
Liberal
Posted by scorp on Sep 11, 2005 at 8:35 PM
In answer to the question of any New Deal happening in the wake of Katrina: president stupidhead sure was johnny-on-the-spot in suspending the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act (as if he had ever even heard of it before) to allow contractors to pay less than scale in the rebuilding efforts. They don’t have a problem with doling out billions to private contractors in Iraq, where much of it remains unaccounted for, but when it comes to rebuilding here at home….
http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut/
Posted by Tim Christopher on Sep 11, 2005 at 9:20 PM
Before the midnight hour passes, may I offer my heartfelt condolence to those who lost loved ones 4 years ago in New York City, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
And may I also offer a damnation to the medievalists who brought down the WTC towers and authored the other events of 9/11/2001, including any who helped them.
And finally, I express my sad chagrin that those events have managed to push America around a psychological corner, toward generalized fear and an acceptance of abridged freedoms in pursuit of a mythical state of safety that didn’t much exist before that bad day anyway.
May we do as the courageous passengers of Flight 93 did when they stormed the cockpit and crashed the aircraft, denying the murderers their target. What they really want to destroy is our ideals, our energy, our creative and optimistic minds; let us deny them those targets as well.
Posted by Kuya on Sep 11, 2005 at 11:41 PM
Hmm, well I missed midnight by more than an hour, but it doesn’t change the sentiment.
Posted by Kuya on Sep 11, 2005 at 11:42 PM
I find it interesting that I have been labeled as a socialist by some and a capitalist promoter by others. There seems to be more labeling on this site than any other I visit.
I’ll try to keep this plain and simple…
Race relations: When I said,
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 12, 2005 at 5:28 AM
Kuya,
In no way do I think the business community has a monopoly on doing good
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 12, 2005 at 6:09 AM
scorp,
How did you make the jump to socialism? Having been a one man business for over forty years I am well aware of what people will or won
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 12, 2005 at 8:07 AM
wth -
“Our current economic mess” sure is bad. Very low unemployment, low interest rates, almost no inflation, high markets, and extremely high productivity. Terrible. Just terrible.
“Ah, but look at the deficit,” you say. “Look at the national debt.”
OK, I’m looking. So what?
We have run deficits most of the time for the last 230 years. Fall down, go boom? No.
The last three periods of untoward deficits were WWII, the 1980s, and the early 2000s. Each of these periods followed an economic crisis: the Great Depression, Carter
Posted by scorp on Sep 12, 2005 at 9:04 AM
scorp,
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 12, 2005 at 11:27 AM
Is Rabbit oversimplifying things to take the following figures as some sort of economic performance indicator?
US BUDGET SURPLUS under Clinton +$523 billion
US BUDGET Deficit under Bushler -$523 billion
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 12, 2005 at 12:21 PM
Scorp shows his true colors for attacking my character. I never did this to him, so why does he now feel entitled to employ pejoratives to describe my character? I think it is becoming quite clear what the fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals is.
Posted by Liberal on Sep 12, 2005 at 12:31 PM
wth -
There are legitimate differences on some of the numbers we are discussing, and there are uncertainties in methodology, but there are absolutely no grounds for disbelief. For example, unemployment is officially determined by the Current Population Survey (CPS), but other figures are given for total unemployed and long-term (15 week) unemployed. If the economic situation is changing rapidly, some of these figures may lag behind reality, but that does not make them untrue.
I am far more concerned with faulty perceptions. In 1996, with the Dow at 6000 and rising rapidly, Chairman Greenspan warned about “irrational exuberance” in the markets. Everybody took note and nobody did anything. Specifically, Bill Clinton did nothing. Then the Dow continued rising to 12,000 over a four-year period, and the dot.com bubble carried NASDAQ to over 5000. This was alarming.
Greenspan is not given to casual comments on irrational market behavior. Millions of people (we won’t call them investors) were paying billion of dollars for stocks that had come into existence just weeks before, and that had never earned a cent, and that would never earn a cent. Everyone thought it was wonderful.
The NASDAQ fell from over 5000 to under 2000 during Clinton’s last year in office, and the Dow peaked at near 12,000 and started down during Clinton’s last months. Economically, the situation was a train wreck in motion, but the perception was that under Clinton, the markets rose and the debt fell. Lots of people still think that Clinton did a good job with the economy.
Too bad Gore didn’t win in 2000 and take the rap for Clinton’s mismanagement of the economy. Under the circumstances, it was a credit to the increased sophistication of the American people that George Bush was elected in 2000. Regardless, Democrats still strongly criticize Bush for the Clinton Recession, as for everything else.
Your personal hang-up seems to be NAFTA. NAFTA passed in 1992, with an effective date of January 1, 1994. In January 1994, the employment/ unemployment was 121,971,000/ 8,696,000, for an unemployment rate of 6.7%. In August 2005, the figures were 149,814,00/ 7,3091,000, for a rate of 4.9% unemployed.
So, since NAFTA went into effect, we have gained 28 million jobs and the unemployment rate has fallen. Not to mention the increasing numbers of jobs in Canada and Mexico. You simply cannot make a convincing argument based on the evidence. Your anecdotal arguments may reflect changes to the economy, but they certainly do not indicate a loss of economic vitality. On the contrary, there has been a tremendous and valuable gain in economic vitality in Mexico, the USA, and Canada. This strengthens the countries of North America, and is to be commended.
Posted by scorp on Sep 12, 2005 at 2:38 PM
Scorp is wrong to assert that NAFTA has improved the economies of the United States and Mexico. Economic growth in Mexico has stalled to 0.5% over the past few years, the worst since the 1980s. Real wages have declined in Mexico as well, and immigration to the United States is at an all time high. If NAFTA was supposed to help Mexico, then explain these statistics please.
The U.S. trade deficit has exploded with Mexico since the enactment of NAFTA. The U.S. has lost nearly a million manufacturing jobs to Mexico. Ironically, those jobs that moved to Mexico have since left and gone to China, where an even cheaper labor force resides. NAFTA allocated a measly $56 million towards training and education for laid-off U.S. workers. The only entities to benefit from NAFTA are multi-national corporations.
Posted by Liberal on Sep 12, 2005 at 4:44 PM
The following is a more accurate description of NAFTA’s consequenses from TomPaine.com:
“Ten years after NAFTA we find that NAFTA’s special protection for foreign investors did increase foreign direct investment in Mexico from $9.53 billion in 1995 to $24.73 billion in 2001 and Mexico was the world’s eighth-largest exporter in 2002. Yet, the standard of living for most Mexican has declined under NAFTA, with Mexico now ranking 54th in human development indices.
NAFTA’s agriculture rules have resulted in tons of corn being dumped into Mexico below the cost of production
Posted by Liberal on Sep 12, 2005 at 4:52 PM
g-love; class and race in America are inextricably linked; only in the case of a few “freaks” like Sleeza and Powell and Thomas is this not so.
g-love: DIDN’T YOU SEE all those POOR OLD WHITE LADIES who were waiting, dehydrated and out of medication, in the Superdome?? Or did that pass you by, dearie? I noticed that most of the white people who were affected, including those stuck in their houses, seemed to be old. And what about the cases where nursing homes weren’t evacuated and dozens were drowned - bet a lot of those were white as well. If I were the Democrats I would make a special effort to drum up support and indignation amongst old people - demographically they are very significant.
David Moberg - I certainly hope so! I like the idea that the 1927 flood was one of the factors paving the way for the New Deal. However, Southern Democrats like Huey Long always had to play to the white supremacists, didn’t they, or they wouldn’t have got elected. Hopefully nowadays things are different… the Democrats need a “Southern strategy”.. and I don’t think this should consist of middle-class people who aren’t religious pretending to be religious. Church-state divide, anyone?
Posted by Liz on Sep 13, 2005 at 12:47 AM
The surplus was due to the dot com era, which Clinton did nothing to protect before the bubble burst.
The deficit is related to the dot com crash, the reccession, 9/11, and the war. The deficit is also getting smaller as government revenues are increasing.
Posted by think4yourself on Sep 13, 2005 at 6:18 AM
Is Rabbit oversimplifying things to take the following figures as some sort of economic performance indicator?
US BUDGET SURPLUS under Clinton +$523 billion
US BUDGET Deficit under Bushler -$523 billion
————————————————
Answer: Yes. That was an easy one.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 13, 2005 at 8:28 AM
American Capitalism….ha ha ha!
Massive Government and Personal Debt!
US Infant Mortality Rate = Malaysia IMR!
Longest Work Week!
46 million people with no health insurance!
Fattest People on the Planet!
Total Energy Hogs….snort, snort!
Highest mental illness rate in the world!
Politically, historically, culturally Clueless!
Hey, but I’ve got my SUV, my home entertainment unit, my perscription drugs, my McHouse, my cheap Chinese goods, and life is good….
Posted by magenta on Sep 13, 2005 at 10:47 AM
Someone a few posts back was talking about median income going up and the economy improving, etc.
I’m a little troubled by the rosy attitude when juxtaposed with the poverty rate since Bush took office. The problem isn’t so much that it is outrageously high, but it is the trend. The rate has gone up every year that the current administration has been in power. The census table below couldn’t be easier to read.
Not to oversimplify things, but if everything is supposedly booming while the number of impoverished individuals and households is steadily rising, what does this say about the policies? “Booming for whom?” is a legitimate question.
Personally, I feel that using tax cuts to solve every economic malady is an over-simplification.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html
Posted by GrayArea on Sep 13, 2005 at 11:54 AM
scorp,
re: Presidential economic performance… I believe people wrongly credit/blame administrations for the economy
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 13, 2005 at 1:36 PM
scorp (continued)
Why I distrust government numbers: (If a person cares to take the time the info is available, but in a sound bite world it is not included.)
Job gains… What is the quality of those jobs? I realize not all service jobs are at fast food places. I know that here in the Midwest we are worse off than the two coasts. However, many are now taking jobs with few benefits. More households have more people working just to stay even.
In my city we have lost over 10,000 manufacturing jobs since NAFTA. My representative is quick to point out an increase of exports due to NAFTA. What he ignores is most of those go to expatriate US firms like GM Electro-motive Div., Johnson & Johnson, Avery-Dennison and others which used to be next door.
The birth/death index is applied to those monthly new job numbers
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 13, 2005 at 1:37 PM
scorp 3 (conclusion)
My life experience is with graphics. Computers put typesetters out of work. Retouchers were next
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 13, 2005 at 1:45 PM
wth -
You went to some effort to articulate your position regarding globalization, and I do appreciate what you have to say and the time you took to make your points clear.
I can sympathize with your experiences on a personal level, but in the abstract, no more than I sympathize with the thousands of saddle makers and buggy whip manufacturers who went out of business one hundred years before. Where DID all those people go? Automobile manufacturing, of course, which pays more and pollutes less.
If we are sufficiently nimble in economic and job matters, the payoff from democracy and free markets is tremendous. The latest annual Economic Freedom of the World Report has just been released. WILLisms has posted the information in graphic form. Nations with greater economic freedom exhibit greater per cap income, growth, investment, and life expectancy, and lower unemployment. Some of the figures are startling; average incomes are almost twice as much in the first quintile (USA, New Zealand, Great Britain) than in the second quintile (France, Germany). Everybody else gets steadily worse. Check it out at http://www.willisms.com/.
Posted by scorp on Sep 15, 2005 at 7:05 PM
Clinton helped create the telecommunications bubble. Research telecommunications deregulation act of 1996. That act in many ways failed under clinton and continues to fail and now is partly gutted by the FCC under Bush, but it benefited some libararies, shools and business owners. Most of all, it, along with the Internet, helped trigger a huge teleom rollout that lasted years but was the first to pop, a few months before the dotcom pop.
Posted by marge on Sep 17, 2005 at 7:06 AM
there are a few gaping holes you should examine Scorp. I would suggest a few things: 1. Visit Chiapas, 2. research the effects of neo-liberal economic policies (especially comparing South Korea with Haiti)and 3. think long and hard about the national security implications of outsourcing everything from manuacturing to computer communications.
The globalization that is rolling out now is run by shortsighted corporate interests. It is not run by a free and autonomous US Congress, but one bought and sold thanks to campaign finances.
If the corporate dominence of this trend weren’t so great, I would be less wary of globilization. Afterall, any uptopian would envision a world without borders.
Posted by marge on Sep 17, 2005 at 10:14 AM
Along with “Nickle and Dimed” suggested by whatheheck, and since we have come full circle and are talking about the New Deal: “How the Other Half Lives,” by Jacob Riis. Published in 1890. The book that helped spark the Progessive movement, which was capped off with the New Deal.
Maybe this is a good time to examine the head waters of the New Deal, and read both books to gain perspective.
Posted by marge on Sep 17, 2005 at 10:50 AM
WTH something you said sticks out to Rabbit.
“Over the years I must admit to a lot of ignorance about how dificult it is to get ahead or even survive when you start at square one or lower.”
Now this is actually a very significant statement. Rabbit, perhaps like some others around here does not need to read a book to know about, not only how difficult but how there are barriers to advancement outside ones alloted state. The haves always fear they will be swamped by equality, so actively work to avoid it. The haves have the wrong view that they are fighting a defensive war, when all they are doing is enforcing poverty and inequality. Thus fomenting the very thing they most fear, as it happens.
Communism did not occur in a vacuum. There had to be a cause, and although communism is not the answer, a form of socialism is the only option you will be given if you are not prepared to share.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 17, 2005 at 11:59 AM
The New Deal was about getting people back on their feet, not creating lifelong subsistence programs. Considering that the objections from the other side of the aisle has substantially been against the perpetuation of welfare states, and not against lifting people up, it would not surprise me in the least if we would finally get a more progressive conservativism out of a party that has been mostly about reactionary conservatism.
click here
I hit a 4000 character wall on this one…
Here is an abbreviated version.
... the aftermath of Katrina destroyed much more (than a city). Katrina destroyed the social fiber of an entire community.
....
For any comparable moment of social upheaval we must go back to the Great Depression.
America’s response, FDR’s response, to the economic calamity that put a quarter of the nation out of work was to build new institutions, social safety nets that said to every American, you will fall no further than this. FDR’s New Deals widely succeeded, pulling the country out of the Depression and built a new foundation for a new society that emerged stronger and gave us strength to fight a global war against tyranny and oppression.
And, ultimately, this new society went wildly out of control. Instead of lifting people up out of misery, it institutionalized it; holding their misery at barely tolerable levels while offering little, if any, incentive to go beyond. A whole generation grew up in a welfare state. Building a brave new world, we forgot the lessons of our forefathers who created their own new nation and new form of government, of, by and for the people. We forgot the lessons of our forefathers who left their homelands and settled the Great Plains and the Western Frontier, on the sweat of their own brow and the labor of their own muscle.
In this brave new society, we left behind the individual.
Conservatives have long railed against the social programs of progressive liberals. Not because the policy was bad. The New Deal, The War on Poverty, Affirmative Action; all were good policy ideas. But they were implemented on a bad model, one that said the government knows best. Innovation, political and social innovation, suffered terribly. In fact, the only real innovative political policy that came out of this was enslaving and beholding millions to the Democratic Party with trillions of dollars in handouts and doles. Consequently, even talking about trimming back entitlement programs meant political suicide.
In the past ten or fifteen years, the progressive conservative movement has gotten off to a good start. The Welfare Reform Act of the 1990s succeeded, not in actually gutting a welfare state, but gutting a welfare state mentality. Honest debate on Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs now reaches the American people. And they are listening. But they are also hearing the Democratic rhetoric that paints conservatives as being “so much better at taking things apart than putting them together” as Thomas Friedman did in a September 7 piece for the New York Times. Which is unfair. To build a better house, you have to tear down the old dilapidated one first, foundation and all.
This, ultimately, is the legacy that Katrina washed away in New Orleans. Katrina cleared the land for redevelopment.
In his speech in New Orleans last Thursday, President Bush raised hope that we can build a new city in the ruins of the old.
...
This can be a model for the future of America, a model that can transcend the intrinsic weakness of FDR’s legacy. We have already demonstrated we can tear down outdated structures and policies.
It is now time to boldly build anew.
Posted by Jay Cline on Sep 19, 2005 at 10:34 AM
scorp,
There are at least two big differences today as opposed to the days of switching from making buggy whips to autos, or from agriculture to manufacturing, or hunting and gathering to agriculture.
First, in prior situations the changes occurred over a generation or more. The second is perhaps even more important
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 22, 2005 at 6:09 AM
scorp (continued)
The replacement jobs many people are finding are often for less money, with fewer benefits, involve either relocating or longer commutes. They will likely be of shorter duration. I know one couple who both worked for a Fortune 500 company in Ohio, when the division was sold they chose to move where the new owner sent them. In less than two years that company was sold and they both lost their jobs again. She found another, he has not.
What is the incentive to get a degree or advanced education when companies are sending white collar jobs to India where someone with a masters or Ph.D is available cheaper than a grad here?
The new tech jobs require far fewer workers and prices are plunging. In 1993 I bought more computer memory at $45.50 per megabyte. In 2005 I bought at $0.27 per megabyte.
A recent graduate with a degree in graphic design called about a month ago looking for work. He is selling computers at CompUSA and is earning less than one half what I charged per hour in 1966. (I have no degree.)
As for comparisons to the other countries you mention, Great Britain, France and Germany are all much more into socialism than we are (so far).
I did go to http://www.willisms.com/ This is from their article, The Tragedy of Germany.
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 22, 2005 at 6:11 AM
scorp (conclusion)
Delphi has a factory in Mexico whose employees live in a makeshift
Posted by whattheheck on Sep 22, 2005 at 6:13 AM
interesting reading. Is the Kool-aid good? I especially like the one where the 100 year anniversary of the company co-incided with leaving town, as the jobs had already been sold to China and the CEO got a nice bonus for improving the bottom line. I see lots of that. My wife is a school teacher, who substitutes, and has a schedule carefully crafted to not quite reach full time status,which would grant her health care. Her own doctor, from England, is aghast at the American system,in which health care is a privelege, not a right,as in the rest of the civilized world.Costa Rica, kids. They provide 3 levels of health service, but don’t bother with a military-industrial complex. The people come first, not as an afterthought. The United States ia already PAYING for Universal health care, they are just not getting it
Posted by 90miata on Oct 12, 2005 at 2:09 PM
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Reader Comments
I don’t know about another New Deal.Temptingly optimistic as it may sound.
The Republicans did not have Fox News back then,nor did they have the mindless followers that they have now.
When will this crap end? The “class-based” response? Hey news flash to the idiot writer: the poor population is made up disparately of BLACKS in NOLA; everyone else had already vacated the city!
Who, the hell, do you think was being rescued?? It sure wasn’t the likes of Trent Lott, whom Dubya will surely be sipping mint juleps with when Lott’s multi-million dollar mansion is rebuilt.
It’s articles written by morons like this that give the left a bad name.
I’m not sure about another New Deal happening, either. As Gore Vidal said, “Nothing repeats itself, except human folly.”
I’m hoping that there will be some kind of new populist coalition that cuts across both race, class, and even party lines. Even if it doesn’t win (it probably won’t), it could force issues into the open.
But the New Deal was actually a last-ditch effort to save capitalism. FDR felt the heat from Huey Long, Dr. Franics Townshend, Charles Coughlin, Upton Sinclair, Norman Thomas, and others throughout the 1930’s. How could that kind of pressure happen now, in a country where there isn’t a strong, popular alternative to winner-take-all free trade? A New New Deal would have a hard time getting past the corporate types (who haven’t had their stocks collapse, like in the ‘30s).
Who was it who said “people get the government they deserve” ? I’m already starting to see the shortlived wave of media independence receding as the white house spin machine shifts into overdrive. Not to be overly cynical, but the public’s attention span is nearing it’s expiration date. Soon we’ll be celebrating the anniversary of 9/11 (“whew…”). Mid-term elections are more than a year away, and the problem of computerized paperless voting machines has still not been addressed. And the democrats are as much a part of the problem as the republicans, with few exceptions. The problems facing this nation are gigantic and complex and most people are too tired to even engage in conversation about them, let alone take action, or bother to vote. Before Bush’s term is over there will be another manufactured crisis to distract from the one’s he actually caused or exacerbated, Roberts will be chief justice, tax cuts for the top will have been made permanent, and Jeb will be “voted” into the white house. New “New Deal” ? It’ll be a miracle if we can hang on to even a pretense of democracy in a Neo-Con America run by christo-fascists and their corporate sponsors.
Nice quote. Google says it was Alexis de Tocqueville and he applied it to democracies. Does this mean that if the Iraqis get a government that only a foreign power could love… then that’s pretty much on them?
Pardon the off topic remark.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2315/
From the article
In some instances and with some groups of people, one can foster confusion about the cause of disparity in America. With blacks in America, it is not really difficult at all because we can all point to slavery as the starting point. People want to believe that ending slavery soved evertything, but that lets us off the hook a bit easy.
The garanteed right to vote was hard fought and embarrassingly recent. When exactly, can we point to the fundamental change of heart that rid us of racism as a nation? It didn’t happen. WTH wants to pretend it did.
We assume that much of the problem of disparity boils down to poverty and education, access to resources and the fundamental question of how to remedy the situation escapes us.
You have a choice, really. You can claim that the lack of income and opportunity is solely the fault of the individuals at the bottom, or you can look at the rules of the game and try to understand why it is so hard to break the cycle of poverty.
The former invites us to blame genetics for a personality flaw shared disproportionately by minorities. The latter, casts doubt on the inherent superiority of those with means and the cycle of entitlement enjoyed by their offspring and relations.
Conservatives tell me that if we stop helping the poor so much, they will do better. From this we should infer that being raised by wolves is the conservative ideal.
My God, what would happen to Rabbit?
>> Indeed, the main problem was not the class-biased emergency response and relief, but rather the degree of poverty and inequality in the country
(Cont.)
>>
“polls show Americans think the government failed in its responsibilities”
-So lets make government bigger!
“America
My New Deal:
Blaming one party or another is in no way helping to solve the problems of America.
Believe it or not, but I was a registered democrat until just before 2000 when I left the party to be an independent. (I feel the party left me though.) When I made this choice, I thought the Left was about to destroy the Right. My plan was to do all I could to reel in the Left (I think big) and take them down, locally and nationally. I thought it was going to be the Left that would have all the power today, man was I wrong. Although, I believed then as I do now; the Right will be easy to bring down.
I think that this disaster has shown how the federal government and all its bureaucracy have hurt the individual, and probably the poor more so. I think this is because of the lack of the States and the people being represented in the federal government. Our system was setup so no one entity could
TFY: What?
You said: (the government failed) “-So lets make government bigger!”
How about “The fireman was unable to extinguish the flames with a garden hose, so why should we give him a firetruck?”
You said: “-...In America, your life discisions create you economic status. Only those that are LAZY stay in poverty…”
I call B.S. That is so wrong that it is nearly obscene. You think Paris Hilton created her own economic Status? Shrewed of her to be born into the Hilton family. The trouble with libertarians is that their models always leave out important variables.
What you earn has a lot to do with where you started in life. If your parents provide for you and have the means to see to it that you are well educated and well rounded, then you really have to be a complete moron to fail. (not that some don’t try - but some morons obviously succeed anyway)
On the other hand, if your parent(s) can’t afford to provide for your basic requirements or are abusive, then you have to be extraordinary to achieve even modest success. You will be prone to reject formal education as irrelevant while you scrap for short-term gains. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Your attitude does so much harm. It’s a lie you tell yourself because it makes you feel good thinking that all your success is earned success. Or maybe you think you deserved to be born to a middle-class supportive family because God loves you especially much. The again, perhaps you are one of the extraordinary ones. - Odds are that you aren’t.
Posted by GrayArea on September 10, 2005 at 11:53 AM
You guys are really bizarre, you ideologue socialists and evangelistic capitalists. The purity of your ideologies, the selectivity of the evidence you cite.
Selective. Biased. Preconceived. Prejudicial. Doctrinaire. No one can tell you guys a damn thing, because you already think you know.
What you both have in common is a lack of connectedness to what takes place in real people’s lives. You are both determined to see with only one eye, and you refuse to perceive what your other eye could show you.
You capitalists say that all we need is a will to work and to get government off our backs, but you don’t articulate any expectation that your wealth, once acquired and concentrated, should be used not only for masturbatory self-indulgence but for the betterment of the world in which you live and the people living in it. You say that unadulterated self-interest is the key to social advancement. That’s magical thinking! Thank God some among your number learned something other than unfiltered self-focus, and actually do use their wealth as a tool for the benefit of those around them. But don’t take credit for their generosity, there’s nothing in the heart of your “wisdom” that made them be generous. They probably learned it from church or from a socialist!
And you socialists, every time you encourage anyone to think that someone else is responsible for their quality of life, every time you convince a man that nothing he can do for himself has anything to do with his advancement or degradation, you mislead him. You play him false. You set him up for further failure and humiliation, while encouraging nothing but his resentment and his habit of casting about to find out who’s to blame for his sorrows and his dead-end life. You encourage a culture of feeling victimized. You encourage psychological emasculation. Thank God some among you have gotten the clue that in order to share wealth, you have to work your ass off to create it! But don’t take any credit for it, there’s also nothing in the heart of your “wisdom” that did anything but instill envy and jealousy at another’s success. Those of your ilk who did get ahead had to learn to do so from someone else, maybe their hard-working parents or another life experience that correlated effort with excellence.
There’s got to be another social philosophy besides the two of yours, that doesn’t encourage either alienated acquisitiveness nor idle bitching about how you got done to unfairly. The sooner it’s synthesized or invented, the better for us all. Too bad we’re wasting all this energy in the meantime as you two figuratively fight it out!
Posted by scorp on September 10, 2005 at 1:20 PM
Posted by scorp on September 10, 2005 at 1:20 PM
Whoops, sorry about the double entry
WTH:
You clearly implied that in your view, keeping the notion of race in the social model is a large part of the problem. You offer no solution to the primary inequalities.
Equal, is, in fact hard to understand. The tragedy of what teachers do to minority children has little to do with discipline (at first). One major problem is is that they perceive them to be of lower performance. When white teachers listen to recordings of speech, the recording associated with the minority child tends to be rated lower than the tape associated with the white child - even if the tapes are swapped. This takes a lot of training to eliminate from the educations system - training that most tax payers don’t understand the need for.
The problem started long before the situation you describe with the quotas in the advanced math class tried to remedy the problem - inneffectively I would wager. What does work is early education intervention and training beyond that to bring up the level of awareness of these issues in the education system.
Nobody wants to pay for any of this stuff, so they don’t happen, or access is too limited. Sometimes assistance is there, but tangential issues like poverty interfere with success factors. Then, when everyone sees the achievement gap widening, they make attempts to institute the sorts of corrections you describe.
It is important to understand as a society that no child is responsible for their own poverty. No life decisions made by the child before 12th grade have established their economic status. The deck is stacked though and there are too many people who are unwilling to accept that. Correcting the problem too late is leveraged by the right as a political tool. It divides society as you have described and it makes people unwilling to invest in good programs.
Your strapped school systems are still underfunded. It is immoral I think to leave these problems untreated.
Gray,
If we need a fire truck then I’d be fine with us getting one. My point is every time their is any kind problem there are people calling for more government. I do not like that.
You are right Paris did not do a damn thing to get what she has, but that does not mean we have a right to give her wealth to anyone else. I stand by what I said about being lazy. I have been on food stamps, and my family was on Medicaid, I WAS making poor discisions, now I am not. As for being born into a situation, change WILL not take place from outside influence. Change starts from within, individualy and socialy.
As to what I earn, I took home $19,632 in 2004; $13,690 in 2003. (I miss reported this in another thread, sorry.) I also have a wife and six year old son. Taking money away from Paris is not what makes us happy nor will it help me make sure my son gets an education. Money is not everything. Whats inpoetant? Family, Food, Shelter,.... things they had in New Orleans.
Give a “poor” person $5000, they spend it on cigarettes and lotto tickets; give $5000 to a “rich” person and they invest the money. Then when the “poor” have nothing again, take more money from the “rich”, because he had parents that told him to invest. Okay.
As to where I started in life; gas station attendent. I did not like that, so I moved on. No one gave me anything, I have just showed up for work, and worked harder than everyone else. I have now,ten years later, taken on a supervisor position with a biopharmaceutical company (plasma center)and my income is directly related to me busting my arse.
Now if I can go back to what I believe will help fix this country; repeal the 17th amendment, this would give back the voice of the states taking it away from “big” money.
The other is, the passage of HB25 (fairtax.org). This is the best system for the “poor”. Taxes would only be collected at the retail level, and most of the poor do not buy everything new, I do not. The poor would also get a check every month for taxes paid on the necessities of life. There would be ZERO FICA/payroll taxes, because HB25 abolishes the IRS, therefore politicians can not use class warfare to divide the country so they can get elected. Check it out for yourself: Fairtax.org.
To those that fear globalization,
What is the matter with globalization? Textiles used to be produced in the Northeast, then cheaper labor in the southeast caused textiles to move there and those in the industry lost their jobs. Did the Northeast fall apart? No, they learned new trades. Textiles are now shifting overseas and those at home need to learn a new trade. This happens in all trades to some degree. We all know someone that has lost a job, shat happens.
Everyone in the world should be able to make money, and no one should have the right to say how/where that money is made. That is how we will help the poor of the world, not buy taxing those that have money. But, if it were up to socialists/communists, the government would appoint lifetime jobs and all would be fine, and if you buy that, I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona.
The best way to help is to get more people/countries involved in baking the economic pie, because we will bake a bigger pie, therefore more pie to go around. “Giving” someone a bigger piece of the smaller pie does not help them when that pie is gone.
Think
The problem with how we are educating our students is; we are teaching to the lowest common denomenator.
2+2=5, until you realize it does not.
The solution on the Left; give them more money.
How much money did the first “one room” schools have? ZERO!
Yet, somehow we have created this great nation.
wth
TFY:
Of course nobody owes you happiness. But do you really think that you are lazier than me if you take home less than I do? That is a crock. Someone has you brainwashed.
I’m trying to tell you that your chances of catching up are about the same as that lottery ticket paying off. There may be more millionaires this year than last, but it is a valid question as to how much of it stays in the family.
The wealthy reap the benefits of the natural resources in this country. The laws protect their investments. They benefit more from the infrastructure like good roads, telecommunications, subsidies, an available, educated workforce. Capital is emphasized in the “ownership society” and work is trivialized. The more that labor is de-emphasized, the lower the chance you are going to get amass that kind of cash.
The wealthy are always going to provide for their families and provide opportunities that you can’t even imagine. You think anyone is going to set you up with your own oil company or sports team? Hardly. Nobody is talking about knocking the rich back to the stone age, but it would be nice if they would chip in commensurate with what they take out.
Consumption tax? sorry. Suppose I am one one of the fat cats. If I buy more than you do, I pay higher taxes? Ok, fine. While a guy who makes barely enough to survive spends everything he has, I might spend only half of what I make. Seems fair to me. You going to tax my house payment too? Gee, that doesn’t seem fair, but ok. I still have a lot more choices than the poor guy. I win either way.
I am not a communist, but I don’t see how this does anything for us. I do feel that progressive taxation has a chance if it is truly progressive.
By the way, our great nation was created on the backs of some people who suffered greatly before progressive ideas helped level the playing field.
Think said
Posted by scorp on September 11, 2005 at 2:10 PM
wth -
Well, you have come a long way from my original point. Economically and politically, the people of almost every nation are worse off than people in the USA. I am certainly not saying the USA is perfect, there is no such thing as a perfect system involving people, but the material and non-material things we have are reduced considerably if our system is socialist in nature.
You seem to have a leftist envy of people who have things, but all successful businesses earn their way by providing goods and services that people pay for voluntarily. If these businesses were not satisfying needs, they would be unsuccessful businesses and the proprietors would go broke. Political interference, as from socialist schemes, does not produce more goods, but only produces inefficiency and waste, while the bureaucracy consumes vast amounts of assets. All of the leftist authors you have cited have produced nothing of worth in building our economy, but you seem to derive some satisfaction from them.
Hello WTH,
I will look up your article and respond afterward.
As for me being off-base, a closer reading of my tirade above will show that I was addressing TWO groups, socialistic types AND capitalistic types, i.e. ideologues of either stripe. Not lumping them together as one group, but expressing my frustration and annoyance, to both, at what appears to me to be selective attention and an overall refusal to admit the human costs (x2) of clinging to your ideologies and working toward their logical conclusions.
Actually, forget all the high-falutin’ talk. I’m pissed at the endless chatter of the American right and the American left. Nothing but talk, talk, talk, always rhetorical spin and never any real solutions to the problems that real-life people face. And yet the promises just keep on piling up.
Write it off as an unseemly gesture of anger at all the relentless head-smacking and lack of progress, if that’s how you perceive it.
Yeah, it’s an emotional reaction, it’s a spew of disgust. Whenever either of you (that’s two I’m addressing, eh?) have your unobstructed way with things, the cost to people and the planet (read: people again) soars. It’s either unfettered “free trade” and the concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, or, it’s managed “equality” and economic and personal stagnation.
If you think my criticism is only valid when applied to your adversaries, well, that’s part of my point.
I’m getting angry again. I’ll read your article and get back to you.
When scorp evaluates the level of wealth in the U.S. as compared to western Europe, he is deceiving you. While the mean income in the United States is higher than that of western Europe, that is only due to outliers distirting the data. The U.S. has a very small collection of EXTREMELY wealthy people with the rest of the United States barely scraping by. For example, 75% of U.S. households survive on an annual income of $60,000 or less.
In addition, Germany calculates its unemployment rate differently. If the rampant unemployment in the former East Germany is accounted for, the unemployment rate is only about the equivalent of 6% in the U.S. In addition, scorp neglects to mention that the residents of Europe do not have to pay for healthcare out-of-pocket. If you subtract average healthcare and pharmaceutical expenses from the U.S. GDP per capita figures, the number drops significantly. Also, college tuition is FREE in western Europe as is child care. When these government-provided expenses are accounted for, one can see that the standard of living in these countries is quite high.
When it comes to caring for our fellow countrymen, we all know that America has never ranked very high. We are, of course, the only democracy in the developed world that doesn’t offer health care to its citizens as a matter of right. We rank 34th among nations in infant mortality rates, behind such rival superpowers as Cyprus, Andorra and Brunei.
Wow, what a great country….
Hello yet again WTH,
Yes that was an interesting article. I’m happy someone was able to get off their asses and make good things happen to assist the victims of Katrina. Against the scale of the destruction it may not look like much of a difference to some, but I will grant the point that in comparison to the official agencies charged with preparing for and responding to such emergencies, the private sector has done much more.
Not being particularly socialist (I certainly don’t think criticizing the decision to make massive tax cuts and then to engage in two wars, nor criticizing the unethical practice of business in the US or abroad, to be socialist formulations), I’ve never been allergic to the business community per se.
When the private sector wants to mobilize its resources and get a job done, with the added element of the good will of the people at their tasks, there’s no denying the beneficial outcomes.
But a couple of questions: What happens when the business community does not consider a needed task to be worthy of their efforts? Also, since the motivations of those business people to get things rolling in preparation for Katrina was in large part a gesture of conscience and connectedness to people (which is the only thing that mitigates rampant, gluttonous acquisitiveness), what happens when those virtuous concepts are absent from business ethics?
Surely you’ll agree that the business community per se does not hold a monopoly on ethical or compassionate priorities. (Not to uphold bureaucracies as being a better example of such attitudes, mind you).
I look forward to your answer.
liberal,
How is it that you can say, ” When it comes to caring for our fellow countrymen, we all know that America has never ranked very high”, when private donations are at almost a billion dollars for katrina.
I have to disagree whole heartily with this assertion, all one has to do is look at this site where we have the Right, Left and Center, and I would have to say we all care! Now some of us do more than others, but that does not mean they care less.
So, does it only count when the government redistributes money, at the point of a gun?
Gray,
No I do not think I am lazier than you if you make more money, I was reffering to those that do not try and make anything. Our poor are lazy though, any third world peasant would probably agree. As for me, I have no need to make anywhere close to six figures.
As for the fair tax you should really look into it at fairtax.org. Give me a second to explain the basis behind it. Cooperations do not pay any taxes, they pass all of them off to the consumer. With the Fair Tax we will buy goods that have ZERO imbedded taxes, because the IRS would be abolished, so goods will be about 22% less. Houses generally have up to 50% imbedded taxes in them, so new houses would cost less. So goods are cheaper, you get your whole paycheck, you get a rebate at the first of the month and you only pay taxes when you buy at the retail level. So if you do not want to pay taxes, you do not have too.
What if the bussiness’ do not lower there cost once they do not pay tax?
FREE MARKET! Once one company lowers their price all of them will.
You should think of all the benifits to the poor, instead of how it does not hurt the rich enough.
Think
TFY:
John Stossel wrote an article recently that is illustrative of what the inbridled free market is supposed to do for us. If you will merely forgive that he is missing a few important variables in his model and overlook the possibility that he is off his meds, you might think he has a point:
http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=jst
Liberal
In answer to the question of any New Deal happening in the wake of Katrina: president stupidhead sure was johnny-on-the-spot in suspending the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act (as if he had ever even heard of it before) to allow contractors to pay less than scale in the rebuilding efforts. They don’t have a problem with doling out billions to private contractors in Iraq, where much of it remains unaccounted for, but when it comes to rebuilding here at home….
http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut/
Before the midnight hour passes, may I offer my heartfelt condolence to those who lost loved ones 4 years ago in New York City, Washington, and Pennsylvania.
And may I also offer a damnation to the medievalists who brought down the WTC towers and authored the other events of 9/11/2001, including any who helped them.
And finally, I express my sad chagrin that those events have managed to push America around a psychological corner, toward generalized fear and an acceptance of abridged freedoms in pursuit of a mythical state of safety that didn’t much exist before that bad day anyway.
May we do as the courageous passengers of Flight 93 did when they stormed the cockpit and crashed the aircraft, denying the murderers their target. What they really want to destroy is our ideals, our energy, our creative and optimistic minds; let us deny them those targets as well.
Hmm, well I missed midnight by more than an hour, but it doesn’t change the sentiment.
I find it interesting that I have been labeled as a socialist by some and a capitalist promoter by others. There seems to be more labeling on this site than any other I visit.
I’ll try to keep this plain and simple…
Race relations: When I said,
Kuya,
In no way do I think the business community has a monopoly on doing good
scorp,
How did you make the jump to socialism? Having been a one man business for over forty years I am well aware of what people will or won
wth -
“Our current economic mess” sure is bad. Very low unemployment, low interest rates, almost no inflation, high markets, and extremely high productivity. Terrible. Just terrible.
“Ah, but look at the deficit,” you say. “Look at the national debt.”
OK, I’m looking. So what?
We have run deficits most of the time for the last 230 years. Fall down, go boom? No.
The last three periods of untoward deficits were WWII, the 1980s, and the early 2000s. Each of these periods followed an economic crisis: the Great Depression, Carter
scorp,
Is Rabbit oversimplifying things to take the following figures as some sort of economic performance indicator?
US BUDGET SURPLUS under Clinton +$523 billion
US BUDGET Deficit under Bushler -$523 billion
Scorp shows his true colors for attacking my character. I never did this to him, so why does he now feel entitled to employ pejoratives to describe my character? I think it is becoming quite clear what the fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals is.
wth -
There are legitimate differences on some of the numbers we are discussing, and there are uncertainties in methodology, but there are absolutely no grounds for disbelief. For example, unemployment is officially determined by the Current Population Survey (CPS), but other figures are given for total unemployed and long-term (15 week) unemployed. If the economic situation is changing rapidly, some of these figures may lag behind reality, but that does not make them untrue.
I am far more concerned with faulty perceptions. In 1996, with the Dow at 6000 and rising rapidly, Chairman Greenspan warned about “irrational exuberance” in the markets. Everybody took note and nobody did anything. Specifically, Bill Clinton did nothing. Then the Dow continued rising to 12,000 over a four-year period, and the dot.com bubble carried NASDAQ to over 5000. This was alarming.
Greenspan is not given to casual comments on irrational market behavior. Millions of people (we won’t call them investors) were paying billion of dollars for stocks that had come into existence just weeks before, and that had never earned a cent, and that would never earn a cent. Everyone thought it was wonderful.
The NASDAQ fell from over 5000 to under 2000 during Clinton’s last year in office, and the Dow peaked at near 12,000 and started down during Clinton’s last months. Economically, the situation was a train wreck in motion, but the perception was that under Clinton, the markets rose and the debt fell. Lots of people still think that Clinton did a good job with the economy.
Too bad Gore didn’t win in 2000 and take the rap for Clinton’s mismanagement of the economy. Under the circumstances, it was a credit to the increased sophistication of the American people that George Bush was elected in 2000. Regardless, Democrats still strongly criticize Bush for the Clinton Recession, as for everything else.
Your personal hang-up seems to be NAFTA. NAFTA passed in 1992, with an effective date of January 1, 1994. In January 1994, the employment/ unemployment was 121,971,000/ 8,696,000, for an unemployment rate of 6.7%. In August 2005, the figures were 149,814,00/ 7,3091,000, for a rate of 4.9% unemployed.
So, since NAFTA went into effect, we have gained 28 million jobs and the unemployment rate has fallen. Not to mention the increasing numbers of jobs in Canada and Mexico. You simply cannot make a convincing argument based on the evidence. Your anecdotal arguments may reflect changes to the economy, but they certainly do not indicate a loss of economic vitality. On the contrary, there has been a tremendous and valuable gain in economic vitality in Mexico, the USA, and Canada. This strengthens the countries of North America, and is to be commended.
Scorp is wrong to assert that NAFTA has improved the economies of the United States and Mexico. Economic growth in Mexico has stalled to 0.5% over the past few years, the worst since the 1980s. Real wages have declined in Mexico as well, and immigration to the United States is at an all time high. If NAFTA was supposed to help Mexico, then explain these statistics please.
The U.S. trade deficit has exploded with Mexico since the enactment of NAFTA. The U.S. has lost nearly a million manufacturing jobs to Mexico. Ironically, those jobs that moved to Mexico have since left and gone to China, where an even cheaper labor force resides. NAFTA allocated a measly $56 million towards training and education for laid-off U.S. workers. The only entities to benefit from NAFTA are multi-national corporations.
The following is a more accurate description of NAFTA’s consequenses from TomPaine.com:
“Ten years after NAFTA we find that NAFTA’s special protection for foreign investors did increase foreign direct investment in Mexico from $9.53 billion in 1995 to $24.73 billion in 2001 and Mexico was the world’s eighth-largest exporter in 2002. Yet, the standard of living for most Mexican has declined under NAFTA, with Mexico now ranking 54th in human development indices.
NAFTA’s agriculture rules have resulted in tons of corn being dumped into Mexico below the cost of production
g-love; class and race in America are inextricably linked; only in the case of a few “freaks” like Sleeza and Powell and Thomas is this not so.
g-love: DIDN’T YOU SEE all those POOR OLD WHITE LADIES who were waiting, dehydrated and out of medication, in the Superdome?? Or did that pass you by, dearie? I noticed that most of the white people who were affected, including those stuck in their houses, seemed to be old. And what about the cases where nursing homes weren’t evacuated and dozens were drowned - bet a lot of those were white as well. If I were the Democrats I would make a special effort to drum up support and indignation amongst old people - demographically they are very significant.
David Moberg - I certainly hope so! I like the idea that the 1927 flood was one of the factors paving the way for the New Deal. However, Southern Democrats like Huey Long always had to play to the white supremacists, didn’t they, or they wouldn’t have got elected. Hopefully nowadays things are different… the Democrats need a “Southern strategy”.. and I don’t think this should consist of middle-class people who aren’t religious pretending to be religious. Church-state divide, anyone?
The surplus was due to the dot com era, which Clinton did nothing to protect before the bubble burst.
The deficit is related to the dot com crash, the reccession, 9/11, and the war. The deficit is also getting smaller as government revenues are increasing.
Is Rabbit oversimplifying things to take the following figures as some sort of economic performance indicator?
US BUDGET SURPLUS under Clinton +$523 billion
US BUDGET Deficit under Bushler -$523 billion
————————————————
Answer: Yes. That was an easy one.
American Capitalism….ha ha ha!
Massive Government and Personal Debt!
US Infant Mortality Rate = Malaysia IMR!
Longest Work Week!
46 million people with no health insurance!
Fattest People on the Planet!
Total Energy Hogs….snort, snort!
Highest mental illness rate in the world!
Politically, historically, culturally Clueless!
Hey, but I’ve got my SUV, my home entertainment unit, my perscription drugs, my McHouse, my cheap Chinese goods, and life is good….
Someone a few posts back was talking about median income going up and the economy improving, etc.
I’m a little troubled by the rosy attitude when juxtaposed with the poverty rate since Bush took office. The problem isn’t so much that it is outrageously high, but it is the trend. The rate has gone up every year that the current administration has been in power. The census table below couldn’t be easier to read.
Not to oversimplify things, but if everything is supposedly booming while the number of impoverished individuals and households is steadily rising, what does this say about the policies? “Booming for whom?” is a legitimate question.
Personally, I feel that using tax cuts to solve every economic malady is an over-simplification.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html
scorp,
re: Presidential economic performance… I believe people wrongly credit/blame administrations for the economy
scorp (continued)
Why I distrust government numbers: (If a person cares to take the time the info is available, but in a sound bite world it is not included.)
Job gains… What is the quality of those jobs? I realize not all service jobs are at fast food places. I know that here in the Midwest we are worse off than the two coasts. However, many are now taking jobs with few benefits. More households have more people working just to stay even.
In my city we have lost over 10,000 manufacturing jobs since NAFTA. My representative is quick to point out an increase of exports due to NAFTA. What he ignores is most of those go to expatriate US firms like GM Electro-motive Div., Johnson & Johnson, Avery-Dennison and others which used to be next door.
The birth/death index is applied to those monthly new job numbers
scorp 3 (conclusion)
My life experience is with graphics. Computers put typesetters out of work. Retouchers were next
wth -
You went to some effort to articulate your position regarding globalization, and I do appreciate what you have to say and the time you took to make your points clear.
I can sympathize with your experiences on a personal level, but in the abstract, no more than I sympathize with the thousands of saddle makers and buggy whip manufacturers who went out of business one hundred years before. Where DID all those people go? Automobile manufacturing, of course, which pays more and pollutes less.
If we are sufficiently nimble in economic and job matters, the payoff from democracy and free markets is tremendous. The latest annual Economic Freedom of the World Report has just been released. WILLisms has posted the information in graphic form. Nations with greater economic freedom exhibit greater per cap income, growth, investment, and life expectancy, and lower unemployment. Some of the figures are startling; average incomes are almost twice as much in the first quintile (USA, New Zealand, Great Britain) than in the second quintile (France, Germany). Everybody else gets steadily worse. Check it out at http://www.willisms.com/.
Clinton helped create the telecommunications bubble. Research telecommunications deregulation act of 1996. That act in many ways failed under clinton and continues to fail and now is partly gutted by the FCC under Bush, but it benefited some libararies, shools and business owners. Most of all, it, along with the Internet, helped trigger a huge teleom rollout that lasted years but was the first to pop, a few months before the dotcom pop.
there are a few gaping holes you should examine Scorp. I would suggest a few things: 1. Visit Chiapas, 2. research the effects of neo-liberal economic policies (especially comparing South Korea with Haiti)and 3. think long and hard about the national security implications of outsourcing everything from manuacturing to computer communications.
The globalization that is rolling out now is run by shortsighted corporate interests. It is not run by a free and autonomous US Congress, but one bought and sold thanks to campaign finances.
If the corporate dominence of this trend weren’t so great, I would be less wary of globilization. Afterall, any uptopian would envision a world without borders.
Along with “Nickle and Dimed” suggested by whatheheck, and since we have come full circle and are talking about the New Deal: “How the Other Half Lives,” by Jacob Riis. Published in 1890. The book that helped spark the Progessive movement, which was capped off with the New Deal.
Maybe this is a good time to examine the head waters of the New Deal, and read both books to gain perspective.
WTH something you said sticks out to Rabbit.
“Over the years I must admit to a lot of ignorance about how dificult it is to get ahead or even survive when you start at square one or lower.”
Now this is actually a very significant statement. Rabbit, perhaps like some others around here does not need to read a book to know about, not only how difficult but how there are barriers to advancement outside ones alloted state. The haves always fear they will be swamped by equality, so actively work to avoid it. The haves have the wrong view that they are fighting a defensive war, when all they are doing is enforcing poverty and inequality. Thus fomenting the very thing they most fear, as it happens.
Communism did not occur in a vacuum. There had to be a cause, and although communism is not the answer, a form of socialism is the only option you will be given if you are not prepared to share.
The New Deal was about getting people back on their feet, not creating lifelong subsistence programs. Considering that the objections from the other side of the aisle has substantially been against the perpetuation of welfare states, and not against lifting people up, it would not surprise me in the least if we would finally get a more progressive conservativism out of a party that has been mostly about reactionary conservatism.
click here
I hit a 4000 character wall on this one…
Here is an abbreviated version.
... the aftermath of Katrina destroyed much more (than a city). Katrina destroyed the social fiber of an entire community.
....
For any comparable moment of social upheaval we must go back to the Great Depression.
America’s response, FDR’s response, to the economic calamity that put a quarter of the nation out of work was to build new institutions, social safety nets that said to every American, you will fall no further than this. FDR’s New Deals widely succeeded, pulling the country out of the Depression and built a new foundation for a new society that emerged stronger and gave us strength to fight a global war against tyranny and oppression.
And, ultimately, this new society went wildly out of control. Instead of lifting people up out of misery, it institutionalized it; holding their misery at barely tolerable levels while offering little, if any, incentive to go beyond. A whole generation grew up in a welfare state. Building a brave new world, we forgot the lessons of our forefathers who created their own new nation and new form of government, of, by and for the people. We forgot the lessons of our forefathers who left their homelands and settled the Great Plains and the Western Frontier, on the sweat of their own brow and the labor of their own muscle.
In this brave new society, we left behind the individual.
Conservatives have long railed against the social programs of progressive liberals. Not because the policy was bad. The New Deal, The War on Poverty, Affirmative Action; all were good policy ideas. But they were implemented on a bad model, one that said the government knows best. Innovation, political and social innovation, suffered terribly. In fact, the only real innovative political policy that came out of this was enslaving and beholding millions to the Democratic Party with trillions of dollars in handouts and doles. Consequently, even talking about trimming back entitlement programs meant political suicide.
In the past ten or fifteen years, the progressive conservative movement has gotten off to a good start. The Welfare Reform Act of the 1990s succeeded, not in actually gutting a welfare state, but gutting a welfare state mentality. Honest debate on Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs now reaches the American people. And they are listening. But they are also hearing the Democratic rhetoric that paints conservatives as being “so much better at taking things apart than putting them together” as Thomas Friedman did in a September 7 piece for the New York Times. Which is unfair. To build a better house, you have to tear down the old dilapidated one first, foundation and all.
This, ultimately, is the legacy that Katrina washed away in New Orleans. Katrina cleared the land for redevelopment.
In his speech in New Orleans last Thursday, President Bush raised hope that we can build a new city in the ruins of the old.
...
This can be a model for the future of America, a model that can transcend the intrinsic weakness of FDR’s legacy. We have already demonstrated we can tear down outdated structures and policies.
It is now time to boldly build anew.
scorp,
There are at least two big differences today as opposed to the days of switching from making buggy whips to autos, or from agriculture to manufacturing, or hunting and gathering to agriculture.
First, in prior situations the changes occurred over a generation or more. The second is perhaps even more important
scorp (continued)
The replacement jobs many people are finding are often for less money, with fewer benefits, involve either relocating or longer commutes. They will likely be of shorter duration. I know one couple who both worked for a Fortune 500 company in Ohio, when the division was sold they chose to move where the new owner sent them. In less than two years that company was sold and they both lost their jobs again. She found another, he has not.
What is the incentive to get a degree or advanced education when companies are sending white collar jobs to India where someone with a masters or Ph.D is available cheaper than a grad here?
The new tech jobs require far fewer workers and prices are plunging. In 1993 I bought more computer memory at $45.50 per megabyte. In 2005 I bought at $0.27 per megabyte.
A recent graduate with a degree in graphic design called about a month ago looking for work. He is selling computers at CompUSA and is earning less than one half what I charged per hour in 1966. (I have no degree.)
As for comparisons to the other countries you mention, Great Britain, France and Germany are all much more into socialism than we are (so far).
I did go to http://www.willisms.com/ This is from their article, The Tragedy of Germany.
scorp (conclusion)
Delphi has a factory in Mexico whose employees live in a makeshift
interesting reading. Is the Kool-aid good? I especially like the one where the 100 year anniversary of the company co-incided with leaving town, as the jobs had already been sold to China and the CEO got a nice bonus for improving the bottom line. I see lots of that. My wife is a school teacher, who substitutes, and has a schedule carefully crafted to not quite reach full time status,which would grant her health care. Her own doctor, from England, is aghast at the American system,in which health care is a privelege, not a right,as in the rest of the civilized world.Costa Rica, kids. They provide 3 levels of health service, but don’t bother with a military-industrial complex. The people come first, not as an afterthought. The United States ia already PAYING for Universal health care, they are just not getting it
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