socialism in America.

[Slartibartfast]

You must have been traveling and reading a LOT!
It is fun to read!

Wish it were mine. It is required reading I recon. I've used that list as the before-we-start-stuff on the projector teaching my occasional university class (trading, not economics) and in my I.T. career if I recall.

 

[NeoTrader]

In POLITICS dear boy. Make a thread, stop dirtying up other people's. You posts get deleted for a reason, your breaking the law (..breaking the law, so much for the golden future I can't even start..breakin.. etc.)

Every smiley of yours is an intentional offense Anyway, making fun of Rand is all just fruit of a poisoned tree. Rand = crazy psycho woman ∴ don't quote her as gospel and expect a serious response.

Also when talking to a guy who lives in Medellin Colombia.. you kind of let yourself down implying superior knowledge out of the gate there regarding Pablo Escobar.

As predicted...

 

[Slartibartfast]

As predicted...

By me, yes.

To be fair, the USA gingos piss out the other inhabitants of "America" by monopolizing the term.

So what is it like living in a weakly functioning American country? Do you think that gives you some useful insight here? That Brazil can't make democracy work very well, capitalism or socialism? Beyond a being a mess.. what do we have to learn from your experience there?

Facts, not personal opinion I'm using there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

 

[SimpleMeLike]

Trump’s Presidency May Decide the Fate of Socialism in America Greg Jones, The American Spectator
Last week, the Washington Post ran an opinion piece by Elizabeth Bruenig entitled “It’s time to give socialism a try.” While such an outlandish idea isn’t necessarily out of place on the Opinion page of the Post (or even in the thick of its news for that matter), Bruenig’s casual suggestion that we simply upend the very foundation of America is indicative of socialism’s increasing normalization among millennials and disenchanted baby boomers.

Trump’s Presidency May Decide the Fate of Socialism in America
link above to article

I guess I think differently. But I can truly care less what Donald Trump says or our government does. I just want to get paid.

America is great to me and I enjoy living here in America. I have no issue with our government. They can do whatever they wanna do. It does not bother me what the government does. I just want to get paid.

 

[NeoTrader]

By me, yes.

To be fair, the USA gingos piss out the other inhabitants of "America" by monopolizing the term.

So what is it like living in a weakly functioning American country? Do you think that gives you some useful insight here? That Brazil can't make democracy work very well, capitalism or socialism? Beyond a being a mess.. what do we have to learn from your experience there?

Facts, not personal opinion I'm using there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

Again, as I predicted, the evasion continues... Again, Stop evading my arguments and answer them without your usual personal BS...After that we can talk about Brazil.

 

[LukeZen]

Pure socialism does not work, pure capitalism does not work out so why not stick in the realm of reality gentlemen?

I agree with this. Where are you from Slart?

The quality of a countries universities is connected to it's populace's general brain power one might assume at least in large part.

Not quite the case, at least in appearance:

World ranking of countries by their average IQ



If you take a look at the QS world university rankings you will see there are a lot of socialist countries with high average IQ that, according to those rankings (THE and ARWU are almost the same) are scoring really low.

Let me ask you something about the socialist countries you were referring to, lets take Denmark and Finland: they are scoring pretty high on the economic freedom of world index for example. I know you mentioned those are not pure socialist countries as pure socialism wouldn't work, but aren't those countries more tilted to classical liberalism than socialism if you take in consideration their economic freedom, which is an important factor?

 

[Slartibartfast]

I agree with this. Where are you from Slart?



Not quite the case, at least in appearance:

World ranking of countries by their average IQ

View attachment 184019

If you take a look at the QS world university rankings you will see there are a lot of socialist countries with high average IQ that, according to those rankings (THE and ARWU are almost the same) are scoring really low.

Let me ask you something about the socialist countries you were referring to, lets take Denmark and Finland: they are scoring pretty high on the economic freedom of world index for example. I know you mentioned those are not pure socialist countries as pure socialism wouldn't work, but aren't those countries more tilted to classical liberalism than socialism if you take in consideration their economic freedom, which is an important factor?

That map seems very inaccurate, probably a lot of missing data IMHO however..

I am from Ireland and Denmark, also the US, at least in early upbringing.

I avoided IQ for a reason, not because of some namby pamby liberal stuff but because it is only a good measure under controlled conditions. There are a LOT of different IQ tests and even the standardised ones vary somewhat in translation. I can't see the numbers being trusted on closer scrutiny.

University rankings may have a bias but at least there are multiple competing ranking orgs so some pressure to find some equivalency of measurement. No perfect measure of course.

Saying some culture is more liberal or more socialist.. there is not accurate label. We tend to anthropomorphise countries into a type of person, it does not work but in our heads.

At what point in time? Most European countries have multiple parties, not an enshrined two party system. Governments must work in coalition, it is quite a bubbling cauldron, you just get runs of this style or that, or one labeled Labor but actually not. Between the US and Europe, "conservative" means very different things. Attached the joke I posted before. Only academics have terms defined so there is common understanding to progress an idea.

I lived in and visited in 43 countries now, not including airports. The countries you would want to live in have people who largely trust each other. Predictability of behavior (good or bad) will do fine if true trust is not available.

It seems that the US is being forced into a political mitosis, particularly in the Republicans. http://www.telemachusleaps.com/2015/04/political-mitosis-in-america.html

No more trust, the bedfellows are too polarised. Once there are six-eight significant enough parties in the US, European capitalistic/socialistic/conservative liberalism whatever may become dominant.

SOCIALISM: You have two cows. State takes one and give to someone else.

COMMUNISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and gives you milk.

FASCISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and sell you milk.

NAZISM: You have two cows. State takes both of them and shoot you.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. State takes both of them, kill one and spill the milk in system of sewage.

CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Alternative: A COWSMIC VIEW OF WORLD ORGANIZATION

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as the regulations say you should need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

SINGAPORE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed animals in an apartment.

MILITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair "Cowgate".

BRITISH DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You feed them sheep's brains and they go mad. The government doesn't do anything.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors kill you and take the cows.

CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

HONG KONG CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows' milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the Feng Shui is bad.

ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

FEMINISM: You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.

TOTALITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: You are associated with (the concept of "ownership"is a symbol of the phallo-centric, war-mongering, intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.

COUNTER CULTURE: Wow, dude, there's like... these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk. Far out! Awesome!

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

JAPANESE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You give the milk to gangsters so they don't ask any awkward questions about who you're giving the milk to.

EUROPEAN FEDERALISM: You have two cows which cost too much money to care for because everybody is buying milk imported from some cheap east-European country and would never pay the fortune you'd have to ask for your cows' milk. So you apply for financial aid from the European Union to subsidise your cows and are granted enough subsidies. You then sell your milk at the former elevated price to some government-owned distributor which then dumps your milk onto the market at east-European prices to make Europe competitive. You spend the money you got as a subsidy on two new cows and then go on a demonstration to Brussels complaining that the European farm-policy is going drive you out of your job.

EASTERN EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You sell the milk (diluted with some water) at a high price to the neighbors or to anyone at the open-air market. If somebody asks for receipt, you charge for a two times higher price, so nobody will request an invoice. For concerned families with small babies you claim that the milk is "bio", though you collect the grass for feeding at the side of the highway and you keep the milk in plastic barrels used previously as containers of dangerous chemicals. Later, your neighbor or anybody from town will steal the cows and will buy their meat for a high price, and if you ask for a receipt, you will be charged for a two times higher price.

FINNISH SOCIALISM: You have two cows. Soon you have to kill one of them because in the Netherlands there is an overproduction of milk and the European Union rules say so. When you do so, you realize that it was not necessary, only the system was too slow in getting you the up-to-date news. From the stress, you get an ulcer in your stomach so you go to a doctor. The doctor realizes that this ulcer is a serious one, so you need an urgent treatment. Therefore, you soon get a call to the local hospital. The call's date is for 3 months later, because there is a queue with more urgent cases. Then your ulcer becomes even more serious because you remember that 40 percent of your income is taken for social tax.

 

[jinxu]

I agree with this. Where are you from Slart?



Not quite the case, at least in appearance:

World ranking of countries by their average IQ

View attachment 184019

If you take a look at the QS world university rankings you will see there are a lot of socialist countries with high average IQ that, according to those rankings (THE and ARWU are almost the same) are scoring really low.

Let me ask you something about the socialist countries you were referring to, lets take Denmark and Finland: they are scoring pretty high on the economic freedom of world index for example. I know you mentioned those are not pure socialist countries as pure socialism wouldn't work, but aren't those countries more tilted to classical liberalism than socialism if you take in consideration their economic freedom, which is an important factor?

Why is China's IQ so high?

It would make sense that if China has the highest IQ in the world and they are a socialist country. Then socialism is a good thing.

 

[Neuroway]

Hmm... Why is China testosterone level so low, jinxu? Your correlation of socialism and China is childish at best, dumb at worst. Without mentioning your conclusion.

 

[Optionpro007]

Guys, you are missing a key piece of evidence. Economic systems cannot be seen in a vacuum. You also need to look at the subject society. Societies where you find high ethical work standards, where people have higher levels of trust among the populace at large, will then tend to succeed in the long run, regardless of the economic system used.

I posted this last summer for those who didn't get a chance to read it.

"The real key to Scandinavia’s unique successes isn’t socialism, it’s culture. Social trust and cohesion, a broad egalitarian ethic, a strong emphasis on work and responsibility, commitment to the rule of law — these are healthy attributes of a Nordic culture that was ingrained over centuries. In the region’s small and homogeneous countries (overwhelmingly white, Protestant, and native-born), those norms took deep root. The good outcomes and high living standards they produced antedated the socialist nostrums of the 1970s. Scandinavia’s quality of life didn’t spring from leftist policies. It survived them.

Sanandaji makes the acute observation that when Scandinavian emigrants left for the United States, those cultural attributes went with them and produced the same good effects. Scandinavian-Americans have higher incomes and lower poverty rates than the US average. Indeed, Danish-Americans economically outperform Danes still living in Denmark, as do Swedish-Americans compared with Swedes and Finnish-Americans compared with Finns. Scandinavian culture has been a blessing for native Scandinavians — and even more of one for their cousins across the ocean.

No, Scandinavia doesn’t “violate the laws of the economic universe.” It confirms them. With free markets and healthy values, almost any society will thrive. Socialism only makes things worse."

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion...list-utopia/lUk9N7dZotJRbvn8PosoIN/story.html