Quote from achilles28:
Welfare states were created under demographic and cultural homogeny. With the recent influx of third-world immigrants who want something for nothing, and the notable slide in western morality, the welfare state can't survive. It's crushing the taxpayer, which yes, makes the productive not want to work (or work less).
Quote from piezoe:
If in the context of this thread you mean to refer to the U.S.A. as socialist, then you are nuts. The U.S. is by far the most capitalist large country the world has ever known, any elements of socialism in the U.S. are extremely minor. If you described the government in the U.S. as fascist then that would be a little closer to the truth, but still not capture the real essence of the USA. Though no one term is a perfect description, possibly to say it is a nation controlled by those with the most money, with elements of fascism and what has become known as corporatism, is closest to the truth.
Incidentally, it is not at all unusual for a country's government to be predominantly controlled by those with the most money, in fact this is the rule rather than exception.
Quote from oldtime:
it's not a matter of socialism vs capitalism, take social security, it's the most socialist program we have, yet, most people like it, what bothers me is, we are the United States of America, and there is absolutely no reason that we can't run a social security system that is so amazing that no matter how bad you screw up for 65 years you can live the rest of your life in relative comfort
for cying out loud, take a little pride in your socialism
Quote from Random.Capital:
I don't know what that means. US-style socialism is a LOT different than, say, Canadian-style socialism or Russian-style socialism or Singaporean-style socialism.
Could you rephrase the question?
that's what I mean man, just about any poster on ET could manage the system better than how it is being done now, if it was good, people would either be smiling or worried every morning when they checked the SS performance resultsQuote from logic_man:
The big problem is that no one pays attention to the opportunity cost of something like Social Security. Almost any investment program followed for the 50-odd years someone is in the workforce until they begin to collect SS would result in a higher post-retirement income. Instead, it's portrayed as if SS is some great kind of payoff for sending your payroll taxes to the Feds for all those years, when in reality, if you weren't in the first or second generation to collect SS, your returns are pretty meager.
Same with Medicare. If you put that money taken out of your paycheck into a Health Savings Account with some kind of investment options, you could have more money to pay for your own healthcare in old age than the Medicare program will allocate to you.
People are so stupid they buy the politicians' claims that these programs are great at face value.
Quote from oldtime:
that's what I mean man, just about any poster on ET could manage the system better than how it is being done now, if it was good, people would either be smiling or worried every morning when they checked the SS performance results
medicare? I don't think there is any hope for that, the government should totally get out of the healthcare business, medicaid is fine, I can cover you if you are sick and have no money
It aint just western socialism that is so demoralizing, it has now just become an accepted fact that whoever is the President is responsible for employment
now that is one sick society