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Made in the USA: Spoiled brats
- Thread starter ElatedMaverick
- Start date
i agree with you on most of this, any stats will be misleading in some respect... but removing the top 15% spenders (an oversimplification to say that, i know, but still, close enough i think) its sure going to give you a very skewed picture: worth / "value" of any goods is determined but what the market can and does pay... the top 15% are key to determining the balance of prices (think RE but not only) in a particular country...Quote from Mom0/pH0x:
well you see, the problem with the statistic is that it's reductionist, if you average everyone, it dosent give an accurate picture of reality because the RICHEST americans are the most wealthy in the world... so in that way, the average is misleading, if you however look at the distribution of income vs. prices reality will become far more clear... as with many statistically based forms of analysis, the extremes can skew the accuracy... even with the reductionist methodology, we are STILL in the bottom of wealthier countries, in terms of education also, we are at the bottom of wealthy nations... also, let's compare apples to apples, nations to nations.... economies with economies.... i think comparing sweeden to florida would be a misnomer, also, sweeden would absolutely slaughter florida with regard to standard of living or education... i dont know by what means you consider canada a 'midget country' but i would have to respectfully disagree with you... also, if you gathered the notion that i have some sort of racist sentiment i should clarify that this is not the case... i mentioned it because i am familiar with pabst's posts and was interested in his POV with regard to that issue....
thats why i prefer per capita comparisons on a PPP basis (and preferably over comparable-size human groups)... i posted some years back in the economy section... will do a search later
and for the rest i was simply teasing
Quote from Mom0/pH0x:
normalize these figures for CURRENT exchange rates and the picture changes drastically,
I didn't mean to misrepresent this dataset as being current to today as you noted that it is not, I should point out that it is based on 01/06 exchange rates as stated so on the wiki page. Also, the polls which are the subject of the thread are from last year. I believe that they are more negative currently.
here's a good resource http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/
the poll question introduced relates to satisfaction of "direction headed" -- which supposedly has only one acceptable answer due to the fact that the US has electricity and firefighters.Quote from ElatedMaverick:
The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed
Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?
apparently any question whether the federal government should continue to flush billions of dollars of its citizens' wealth down the iraq toilet is obviated by the fact that the US has a lot of motels. stocked shelves in supermarkets means only a crybaby would wonder if warrantless wiretapping and incarcerating US citizens without a trial for 4 years are bad ideas. parts of new orleans still in ruins, but that's cool because you can get a helicopter ride to a hospital.
hey, darfur has it worse -- so bombs away, sell the chinese more debt, put the fiat money pump in high gear, set up some more entitlement programs, open the mexican border, and fuck all that Bill of Rights and privacy crap.
Quote from Madison:
the poll question introduced relates to satisfaction of "direction headed" -- which supposedly has only one acceptable answer due to the fact that the US has electricity and firefighters.
apparently any question whether the federal government should continue to flush billions of dollars of its citizens' wealth down the iraq toilet is obviated by the fact that the US has a lot of motels. stocked shelves in supermarkets means only a crybaby would wonder if warrantless wiretapping and incarcerating US citizens without a trial for 4 years are bad ideas. parts of new orleans still in ruins, but that's cool because you can get a helicopter ride to a hospital.
hey, darfur has it worse -- so bombs away, sell the chinese more debt, put the fiat money pump in high gear, set up some more entitlement programs, open the mexican border, and fuck all that Bill of Rights and privacy crap.
Nice points, but let's say we pull out of Iraq tomorrow, send the money saved to new orleans and pay down the debt, and close the border. Will a lot of Americans become satisfied with the direction again? Is that all it will take? If so, whichever party does this is going to become extremely popular and will be shoe-ins for elected offices for years to come, so why do you suppose that no one is doing it?
Why are those candidates who are standing up and proudly proclaiming they would pull out of Iraq now, on the bottom of the polls?
Quote from Mom0/pH0x:
ron paul, and on the contrary, he's at the TOP of most all media polls, although oddly enough is getting zero media attention...
maybe there are other candidates that favor an short term withdrawal but im unaware of them... also, why is noone doing it? it's antithical to all the interests which are currently being catered to in washington... so they contrive views to sell the stupid masses which generally eat one of the selections offered to them on the idiological buffet of the time... you will find that people will generally find that people will generally rather accept an innacurate simple solution or explanation of reality than a more accurate yet complex one... people by nature seem to be reductionist...
You must be looking at some internet poll or text message poll which is useless. I have not seen a real poll yet with Paul higher than 1%.
Governor Bill Richardson is campaigning on a fast Iraq pullout. His poll numbers are in the low to mid single digits.
Politicians seek popularity and chase votes. If what the previous poster purports were true, here should be a golden opportunity for them.
This type of voting can never be an accurate representation. People were not polled, votes were merely counted on the internet or text message system. There is a major difference.
This is not the correct answer of why the parties and candidates do not give the majority what they think they want (Although the house Dems ran on it just to get into office recently).
Quote from Mom0/pH0x:
then perhaps we'll simply have to agree to disagree, my opnion is that RP has alot more grass roots/popular support than the media would like to admit...
What is their motive for this? Sorry, but the idea makes no sense.
The media would love nothing more than a maverick underdog like Paul to become a hit with voters. They would have a blast with this story- it would have lots of legs, lots of interest, lots of ratings and generate tons of discussion. The truth is, it simply does not exist. If he ever scores well in a real poll and the media does not cover that, (which will not happen, they will be all over the story) then you can say what you are saying now and it will be the truth rather than just a romantic notion.
Quote from ElatedMaverick:
Nice points, but let's say we pull out of Iraq tomorrow, send the money saved to new orleans and pay down the debt, and close the border. Will a lot of Americans become satisfied with the direction again? Is that all it will take? If so, whichever party does this is going to become extremely popular and will be shoe-ins for elected offices for years to come, so why do you suppose that no one is doing it?
Why are those candidates who are standing up and proudly proclaiming they would pull out of Iraq now, on the bottom of the polls?
You raise some good questions. The truth is the public's views on these and other issues are not totally clear. They want out of the Iraq mess but don't want to hand al qaeda a victory, except for the kool aid democrats. They want illegal immigration stopped but want cheap and efficient people to do work around their house. They are dead set against "amnesty" but think illegals who have lived and worked here should have a path to citizenship. They want wasteful spending eliminated unless they personally benefit from it. They want social security reformed but are against all the reforms that would make it viable.
Add in democrats who are determined to foil any possible success Bush could have, a hostile media and repeated screwups by the administration and you have a public that is frustrated and angry. They just don't know who or what they're angry at.