Look, useless cherry picking argument is just not my cup of tea. and trying to deny the huge income inequality in the U.S. with spurious factoids is just that.
Interesting that democracy is sufficiently alive in Iceland to permit a referendum of this kind. I believe their President is to be given the accolades for this achievement. And here we have a "people's moment" of sorts for Iceland, something that in the United States will only be realized through strikes and mass public demonstrations so corrupted by the filth that run it has become our government. Instructive, no? Iceland, apparently, is a mature enough democracy to insure that their political leaders aren't eventually detained behind barbed wire, later to be interrogated and publically tried in some enormous football stadium environment. Ours, driven as much by self-seeking as they are, are not likely to avoid that kind of fate. Imagine for a moment, if you will, a much slimmed-down Larry Summers confessing in tears in public session to complicity in the rape of the American people.
bring back Main Street (mom and pop stores) and Walmart would go back to what it once was. I would stop having everything hinge on how well Wall Street is doing. I would have family farms and not mega corp farms.
Uruguay? I play music with a guy from Argentina. I'll need to ask why his parents moved to the USA and not over to Uruguay.
CIA World Book Infant mortality rate:
Uruguay 11.32 deaths/1,000 live births
USA 6.22 deaths/1,000 live births
Uruguay hm? Almost double infant deaths compared to the USA. What is that all about?
CIA World Book USA Net migration rate:
USA 4.32 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2009 est.)
Uruguay Net migration rate: -0.16 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2009 est.)
It seems Uruguay has a negative migration rate, I guess they need a good marketing plan because the people are missing out on the good GINI stats.
Odd that such a good GINI produces this in Uruguay Population below poverty line: 27.4% of households (2006)
USA Population below poverty line: 12% (2004 est.) Hm? Uruguay seems to have a 200% higher stat of people below poverty line.
Maybe there is a bit more under the covers of the GINI and its equality? Gotta check Costa Rica. I have friends and relatives that have retired down there.
Although South American politics does have a history of nasty political activities. Even in Uruguay......................... "A violent Marxist urban guerrilla movement named the Tupamaros, launched in the late 1960s, led Uruguay's president to cede control of the government to the military in 1973. By year end, the rebels had been crushed, but the military continued to expand its hold over the government. Civilian rule was not restored until 1985"
But you and I can both cherry pick all day long. Economies be they societies that have a bent toward Socialism and those that don't will all have ups and downs.
Even Cuba is getting into the business of using health insurance to control nationalized plan expenditures. To me it is a move that helps save their National Plan from getting cannibalized by non-residents.
Cuba to require medical insurance for visitors
07 Mar 2010 05:03:48 GMT
Source: Reuters
HAVANA, March 6 (Reuters) - Cash-strapped Cuba will require visitors to buy health insurance if they want to enter the country, according to a new government measure disclosed on Saturday.
Under the measure, which takes effect in May, the insurance will be sold by foreign companies approved by the Cuban government or by Cuban firms at ports of entry to the communist-led island, the government said in the online edition of Cuba's Official Gazette."
...because you and Robert Oak are in essential agreement about the most important things. Too bad that things degenerate into literal name-calling ("nimrod") which does not favor rational discussion, although I can hardly fault you alone as Oak has a very aggressive and sneering style, and responses in one vein tend to beget responses in the same vein. Too bad if you are serious about that being your final post at this site, as readers of this site will be the losers. Too bad that all this is so typical of human nature.
Economic history is not only appropriate on EP, we all love it! I don't know if you've caught midtowng's labor history posts and then myself, I love it too. Francis Perkins is one of my heroes. I don't think either Friedman has too many friends on this site. ;) Some monetary policy I think is valid and then on NAIRU, I do believe with increased mobility and transitions that can be somewhat true, but and this is where I might be more amenable to your policy push (which I'm obviously seriously differing, abet not the overall concept of a direct jobs program), dropping workers on dime to reduce costs should be made nationally just unacceptable.
Anyway, if that's what your focus is, economic history, I know this site has avid readers.
One activity I went through (haven't written anything on it though) was the history of slave economics...OMG so taboo! Really had to go digging to find out that one, despite it being the basis for a large part of the U.S. economy for so long as well as throughout history.
Here's the thing about the WPA - they did do long-term investments, but unlike the PWA, it was never their first priority. The WPA focused first on reducing unemployment, and then on using the people they hired to build stuff that was useful. And this part is important - unlike the PWA, they didn't mandate that projects had to be "self-liquidating" (i.e, produce revenue to pay off the cost of construction). Hence, they did a lot of projects which minimized non-labor costs. Building a schoolhouse with handtools probably doesn't add as much to GDP as Hoover Dam, but you can get away with limiting non-labor costs to 20% of the project. So the ethos for my proposed program is to focus on the jobs first, then figure out what we can build/make/service with the labor we've hired.
To that extent, sure, we should absolutely use the labor we've hired to fix up bridges and highways and rails and plants and houses, and build new infrastructure (alt. energy certainly, broadband WiFi too, mass transit, etc.). But we also need more child care providers, teacher's aides, etc.
Although technically positive GDP growth will claim a recession is over, also technically a recession that goes on for 36 months is classified as a Depression.
I really can see the possibility and what I found from last Friday's unemployment report in the MSM was astounding...
all sorts of headlines claiming job growth was "just around the corner" and I am like, uh, what? From where?
Even when one goes off of cyclical events, frankly I don't see it and it's not that I am by nature a Doom & Gloomer (yes I am), I mean I went digging around in the stats and theory and finally said, "Jesus, some sort of public relations thing has to be behind these headlines, this projection, just is not in reality!"
I mean I can be wrong, but ya know, show me de money and I didn't see it.
I believe we're going to get hit with a double dip, or at least very low GDP quarterly growth.
Broken system and a uber rich criminal class. hmmm, ever wonder if you were a Russian Serf in a past life? Maybe the unwashed masses in France? This is just random thoughts but what is really happening....talk about cyclical! We have history showing us, over and over and over when you get a narrow group of elites and then trade deficits > 5% of GDP and massive debt....you are almost guaranteed "social unrest" eventually.
If so, I applaud your efforts frankly. This is so beyond belief absurd. If you are a EU member and thus can get into EU universities, you are treated like a civil servant, with full pay, benefits when being a gradual student as well as adjunct to Post Doc...
here in the U.S., not only even when one obtains the coveted full scholarship and stipend, still living in a cardboard box, below the "you must be dead to qualify" poverty level...
they love their slave labor and extend (ahem, delay) obtaining the PhD sometimes up to 8 friggin' years and honestly I do not believe this is because someone's dissertation sucks.
I think I read adjuncts were making below minimum wage and if you're a gradual student, I don't have to mention that one for TAs (who I think get the worse working conditions) and even RAs...
With all of the talk about advanced skills and education, to me, even with top tier feathers, fellowships, scholarships and so on, it's impossible for someone to obtain a PHD without major hardship and lord help you if you do not have financial support elsewhere (SO, family money and so on)....and we haven't even gotten to the 6 figure debt when they offshore outsource your career 5 years into it and student loans.
Also, you should be aware, this site wrote a series of scathing pieces when labor was under attack in the big 3 auto bail out debate...
We know that labor costs, even legacy costs are not the huge problem, yet they will continually attack labor instead of attacking say...China's tariff schedule on trucks.
So, just because I'm giving you a hard time on this particular topic, exposing Academia for it's many abuses is almost non-existent! I don't think we've had a post on here on that one, although I'm obviously aware of it.
Well, I recommend more econ course work....you're reading like a SEIU sock puppet in some of these posts...
I personally could care less about construction, at least in Residential and CRE for the moment...
but I do not believe the fact the WPA focused on long term investments that obviously did add significantly to U.S. long term economic growth is a bad thing...
if anything hamstrung the 1930's unemployment rate it was....the Supreme court.
I'll bet you have a dart board with Milton Friedman's picture on it since he is the one who coined the concept "natural rate of unemployment".
Anywho, the idea of choosing, selecting critical projects that are strategic, focus in on same an advanced emerging sector the U.S. wants to grow and get into (say algae alt. energy production as an example), or bridges, supply chain infrastructure, and esp. manufacturing plants, advanced manufacturing is way more bang for the buck...
this is precisely what China and other countries who are kicking our economic ass do....and we need to do this badly.
I'm all for sharing the wealth and what not, but come on...first you have to generate some!
that's not a job sector. The service sector, occupational categories is not the same as social services, which is welfare, that's food stamps, housing vouchers, Medicaid, etc....these are state and government programs and of course a cost, a huge cost. Look at any state or federal budget report and see it. Sorry but thems are the numbers and of course it is a cost.
On top of denying these are a net loss, they are a major cost and it's a real good idea to get people working and not using them, not only for their own economic welfare but the nation too....
Again, the service sector occupational areas is simply not government programs of social safety nets, that's a distinction that obviously needs to be made here repeatedly.
No, those jobs are not offshore outsourced (except the management and administration which currently is in large part), so they do the opposite, which is insource...which is when they cannot offshore the job to cheap labor they bring the cheap labor in to do the job.
Right o, I'm sure China will not just walk all over the United States who is busy trying to make garbage men and nurses aids the new economy, nope not a problem there...
after all, that Communist country assuredly understands how creating a nation of unskilled labor doing menial tasks will enable them to dominate the global economy, even Russia understood that one....
no major industrial or mercantile agendas with those guys...of course not....
I can assure you the U.S. is not magically going to grow economically creating a nation of Janitors or Nurses aids...or by giving everyone in the nation a welfare check.
Ah, it's Uruguay, wrong country....you have to scroll down to the bottom of the list here to see the income inequality GINI coefficients, which I sorted by CIA statistics. That is The United States way at the bottom, rolling around with the other nations with the greatest income inequality.
Your cherry picking of Finland is getting a little old, for that country has a major problem being way to GDP output dependent on Nokia.
Also ignoring the 100%, 150% debt ratios of other countries with supposed "freedom" to make sure their sick, disabled and poor suffer and die with no government available help is cherry picking.
I'm a member of UAW 2865, representing academic student workers at the University of California.
I'm not spinning anything - I disagree with you that it has to cost $60k to create a WPA-style construction job. I think the AAM is too conservative in their estimates both on the cost side and the employment side, probably because they're assuming that construction jobs will be done via contracting and standard construction methods. I also think that the AAM's focus on "strategic project selection" mirrors uncomfortably the Public Works Administration on "self-liquidating projects" that hamstrung its ability to lower the unemployment rate.
I'm a fan of increasing BOTH manufacturing and services. I think increasing manufacturing is an important lever for growing the economy - but I think increasing services is also a good way. Relying on just one strategy is a bad idea.
Social services aren't a cost - they're a service, same as any other. As you saying that the service sector doesn't exist?
Again, picking up trash != social services. Child care, health, and nursing aides = social services. Administrative jobs = social services. Hell, librarians = social services. These people do jobs that people want them to do and pay them for.
There's no reason why we can't turn the service sector - both the public and private sector - into a high-wage unionized industry. Back in the 1930s, unskilled and semi-skilled factory jobs were NOT good wages. I actually worked it out - unskilled factory workers in Ford plants made // modern minimum wage. It was unionization that made industrial jobs good jobs.
There's no reason we can't do that in the service sector today - btw, most of these jobs are un-exportable.
ebb and flow. Now Robert, it is a supercilious argument to expect us to believe we are on par with Zimbabwe. I travel a lot in this country and i can tell you we are no Zimbabwe. Yes we do have urban hell holes?
I give Finland 10 years before its unfunded benefits and pension liability eat their lunch. It is something that is about to eat the USA. Yep that HSA catastrophic plan is still chugging along and I have a hell of a lot of money in that account. SO you address the USA middle class mobility problem, which I agree with but totally gloss over what WiKi said "In 2008, the OECD reported that "the gap between rich and poor has widened more in Finland than in any other wealthy industrialized country over the past decade"
Or should I not use WiKi?
Picking cherries? You pick cherries too by picking out what you feel is working but don't address what is NOT working in those countries. So if it is ok for you to do...it is ok for me to do. :)
Yes, Finland had a severe recession around 1990, majorly bad and frankly I think some of the taxes in Finland are insane and repress economic growth, even incentive for innovation....but that said, I think you need to look at the big picture and esp. the U.S., which last I checked had a GINI index which put us on the level of Zimbabwe or some hell hole in terms of income inequality. The U.S. used to have high social mobility numbers and now that also is on the level of a 3rd world status, but I think all nations went heavily into more debt due to the financial crisis, our pal, corporate welfare, the Banksters...
so ya know, take the good, leave the bad is my own philosophy but I think pulling out data from 20 years ago isn't quite fair.
We debunked your "I never got seriously ill" health savings account with catastrophic insurance some time ago.
"Unsustainable fiscal positions" in "many countries," Stark warned, now raise the risk of a "sovereign debt crisis." Stark didn't single out Greece in his remarks.
and the article goes on about the refusal to enact real financial reforms. ECB, that's the Bernanke of Europe saying this.
Yes, social constructs and social values do create a climate of innovation and industry. So does government policies, but look at what you typed and remember I am the site admin, the resident content police. (and yes, I did take Soc. in college).
You are amplifying birth, reproduction instead of the fact Jews studied the Torah, scholarship is a huge cultural value.
Also, some of these beliefs that it is "in our genes" are well known, even Larry Summers decided one day that women, due to their sex, just couldn't do math. So, it is not like this attitude or belief isn't around in mass.
Not only is it my job to keep things on topic, but I also have to screen out the weird. From your response, you're saying I misinterpreted, ok, but my job, from the typing is to make sure we do not encourage those who want to claim one nation, one society, one race is superior to another, if you get why I would jump on your typing, which I hope you would. If this is a miscommunication issue, not a big deal, happens all of the time in fast typed comments, but I am the content police around here, no one else is doing it.
You are truly nothing if not consistently tedious.
It's not about Eugenics, nor is it crap, nimrod! Learn some science for a change instead of continually prattling about it.
It's about cultural differences built up over long periods of time. India was under British rule for four hundred some years -- although I don't underrate their inventiveness, they are not exactly a cauldron of invention and innovation. The same goes for other cultures, although, given the right circumstances, I'm sure they will catch up.
Geez, you have an absurdly low-level of comprehension.
Look, useless cherry picking argument is just not my cup of tea. and trying to deny the huge income inequality in the U.S. with spurious factoids is just that.
Hasn't the UK tied an aid package to their demand for repayment?
So you pay us back what we say you owe us and we give you some money to live on and you pay that back too.
Iceland just needs a printing press and some paper. Thats how we do it.
Interesting that democracy is sufficiently alive in Iceland to permit a referendum of this kind. I believe their President is to be given the accolades for this achievement. And here we have a "people's moment" of sorts for Iceland, something that in the United States will only be realized through strikes and mass public demonstrations so corrupted by the filth that run it has become our government. Instructive, no? Iceland, apparently, is a mature enough democracy to insure that their political leaders aren't eventually detained behind barbed wire, later to be interrogated and publically tried in some enormous football stadium environment. Ours, driven as much by self-seeking as they are, are not likely to avoid that kind of fate. Imagine for a moment, if you will, a much slimmed-down Larry Summers confessing in tears in public session to complicity in the rape of the American people.
bring back Main Street (mom and pop stores) and Walmart would go back to what it once was. I would stop having everything hinge on how well Wall Street is doing. I would have family farms and not mega corp farms.
Uruguay? I play music with a guy from Argentina. I'll need to ask why his parents moved to the USA and not over to Uruguay.
CIA World Book Infant mortality rate:
Uruguay 11.32 deaths/1,000 live births
USA 6.22 deaths/1,000 live births
Uruguay hm? Almost double infant deaths compared to the USA. What is that all about?
CIA World Book USA Net migration rate:
USA 4.32 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2009 est.)
Uruguay Net migration rate: -0.16 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2009 est.)
It seems Uruguay has a negative migration rate, I guess they need a good marketing plan because the people are missing out on the good GINI stats.
Odd that such a good GINI produces this in Uruguay Population below poverty line: 27.4% of households (2006)
USA Population below poverty line: 12% (2004 est.) Hm? Uruguay seems to have a 200% higher stat of people below poverty line.
Maybe there is a bit more under the covers of the GINI and its equality? Gotta check Costa Rica. I have friends and relatives that have retired down there.
Although South American politics does have a history of nasty political activities. Even in Uruguay......................... "A violent Marxist urban guerrilla movement named the Tupamaros, launched in the late 1960s, led Uruguay's president to cede control of the government to the military in 1973. By year end, the rebels had been crushed, but the military continued to expand its hold over the government. Civilian rule was not restored until 1985"
But you and I can both cherry pick all day long. Economies be they societies that have a bent toward Socialism and those that don't will all have ups and downs.
Even Cuba is getting into the business of using health insurance to control nationalized plan expenditures. To me it is a move that helps save their National Plan from getting cannibalized by non-residents.
HAVANA, March 6 (Reuters) - Cash-strapped Cuba will require visitors to buy health insurance if they want to enter the country, according to a new government measure disclosed on Saturday.
Under the measure, which takes effect in May, the insurance will be sold by foreign companies approved by the Cuban government or by Cuban firms at ports of entry to the communist-led island, the government said in the online edition of Cuba's Official Gazette."
...because you and Robert Oak are in essential agreement about the most important things. Too bad that things degenerate into literal name-calling ("nimrod") which does not favor rational discussion, although I can hardly fault you alone as Oak has a very aggressive and sneering style, and responses in one vein tend to beget responses in the same vein. Too bad if you are serious about that being your final post at this site, as readers of this site will be the losers. Too bad that all this is so typical of human nature.
Economic history is not only appropriate on EP, we all love it! I don't know if you've caught midtowng's labor history posts and then myself, I love it too. Francis Perkins is one of my heroes. I don't think either Friedman has too many friends on this site. ;) Some monetary policy I think is valid and then on NAIRU, I do believe with increased mobility and transitions that can be somewhat true, but and this is where I might be more amenable to your policy push (which I'm obviously seriously differing, abet not the overall concept of a direct jobs program), dropping workers on dime to reduce costs should be made nationally just unacceptable.
Anyway, if that's what your focus is, economic history, I know this site has avid readers.
One activity I went through (haven't written anything on it though) was the history of slave economics...OMG so taboo! Really had to go digging to find out that one, despite it being the basis for a large part of the U.S. economy for so long as well as throughout history.
But I'm a historian, not an econ grad student.
Here's the thing about the WPA - they did do long-term investments, but unlike the PWA, it was never their first priority. The WPA focused first on reducing unemployment, and then on using the people they hired to build stuff that was useful. And this part is important - unlike the PWA, they didn't mandate that projects had to be "self-liquidating" (i.e, produce revenue to pay off the cost of construction). Hence, they did a lot of projects which minimized non-labor costs. Building a schoolhouse with handtools probably doesn't add as much to GDP as Hoover Dam, but you can get away with limiting non-labor costs to 20% of the project. So the ethos for my proposed program is to focus on the jobs first, then figure out what we can build/make/service with the labor we've hired.
To that extent, sure, we should absolutely use the labor we've hired to fix up bridges and highways and rails and plants and houses, and build new infrastructure (alt. energy certainly, broadband WiFi too, mass transit, etc.). But we also need more child care providers, teacher's aides, etc.
Ah, NAIRU. Yeah, that's utter hogwash. Not a big fan of Friedman, either.
TAs, Tutors, and Readers.
Although technically positive GDP growth will claim a recession is over, also technically a recession that goes on for 36 months is classified as a Depression.
I really can see the possibility and what I found from last Friday's unemployment report in the MSM was astounding...
all sorts of headlines claiming job growth was "just around the corner" and I am like, uh, what? From where?
Even when one goes off of cyclical events, frankly I don't see it and it's not that I am by nature a Doom & Gloomer (yes I am), I mean I went digging around in the stats and theory and finally said, "Jesus, some sort of public relations thing has to be behind these headlines, this projection, just is not in reality!"
I mean I can be wrong, but ya know, show me de money and I didn't see it.
I believe we're going to get hit with a double dip, or at least very low GDP quarterly growth.
Broken system and a uber rich criminal class. hmmm, ever wonder if you were a Russian Serf in a past life? Maybe the unwashed masses in France? This is just random thoughts but what is really happening....talk about cyclical! We have history showing us, over and over and over when you get a narrow group of elites and then trade deficits > 5% of GDP and massive debt....you are almost guaranteed "social unrest" eventually.
If so, I applaud your efforts frankly. This is so beyond belief absurd. If you are a EU member and thus can get into EU universities, you are treated like a civil servant, with full pay, benefits when being a gradual student as well as adjunct to Post Doc...
here in the U.S., not only even when one obtains the coveted full scholarship and stipend, still living in a cardboard box, below the "you must be dead to qualify" poverty level...
they love their slave labor and extend (ahem, delay) obtaining the PhD sometimes up to 8 friggin' years and honestly I do not believe this is because someone's dissertation sucks.
I think I read adjuncts were making below minimum wage and if you're a gradual student, I don't have to mention that one for TAs (who I think get the worse working conditions) and even RAs...
With all of the talk about advanced skills and education, to me, even with top tier feathers, fellowships, scholarships and so on, it's impossible for someone to obtain a PHD without major hardship and lord help you if you do not have financial support elsewhere (SO, family money and so on)....and we haven't even gotten to the 6 figure debt when they offshore outsource your career 5 years into it and student loans.
Also, you should be aware, this site wrote a series of scathing pieces when labor was under attack in the big 3 auto bail out debate...
We know that labor costs, even legacy costs are not the huge problem, yet they will continually attack labor instead of attacking say...China's tariff schedule on trucks.
So, just because I'm giving you a hard time on this particular topic, exposing Academia for it's many abuses is almost non-existent! I don't think we've had a post on here on that one, although I'm obviously aware of it.
Well, I recommend more econ course work....you're reading like a SEIU sock puppet in some of these posts...
I personally could care less about construction, at least in Residential and CRE for the moment...
but I do not believe the fact the WPA focused on long term investments that obviously did add significantly to U.S. long term economic growth is a bad thing...
if anything hamstrung the 1930's unemployment rate it was....the Supreme court.
I'll bet you have a dart board with Milton Friedman's picture on it since he is the one who coined the concept "natural rate of unemployment".
Anywho, the idea of choosing, selecting critical projects that are strategic, focus in on same an advanced emerging sector the U.S. wants to grow and get into (say algae alt. energy production as an example), or bridges, supply chain infrastructure, and esp. manufacturing plants, advanced manufacturing is way more bang for the buck...
this is precisely what China and other countries who are kicking our economic ass do....and we need to do this badly.
I'm all for sharing the wealth and what not, but come on...first you have to generate some!
that's not a job sector. The service sector, occupational categories is not the same as social services, which is welfare, that's food stamps, housing vouchers, Medicaid, etc....these are state and government programs and of course a cost, a huge cost. Look at any state or federal budget report and see it. Sorry but thems are the numbers and of course it is a cost.
On top of denying these are a net loss, they are a major cost and it's a real good idea to get people working and not using them, not only for their own economic welfare but the nation too....
Again, the service sector occupational areas is simply not government programs of social safety nets, that's a distinction that obviously needs to be made here repeatedly.
No, those jobs are not offshore outsourced (except the management and administration which currently is in large part), so they do the opposite, which is insource...which is when they cannot offshore the job to cheap labor they bring the cheap labor in to do the job.
Right o, I'm sure China will not just walk all over the United States who is busy trying to make garbage men and nurses aids the new economy, nope not a problem there...
after all, that Communist country assuredly understands how creating a nation of unskilled labor doing menial tasks will enable them to dominate the global economy, even Russia understood that one....
no major industrial or mercantile agendas with those guys...of course not....
I can assure you the U.S. is not magically going to grow economically creating a nation of Janitors or Nurses aids...or by giving everyone in the nation a welfare check.
Ah, it's Uruguay, wrong country....you have to scroll down to the bottom of the list here to see the income inequality GINI coefficients, which I sorted by CIA statistics. That is The United States way at the bottom, rolling around with the other nations with the greatest income inequality.
List of Countries by Income Equality.
Your cherry picking of Finland is getting a little old, for that country has a major problem being way to GDP output dependent on Nokia.
Also ignoring the 100%, 150% debt ratios of other countries with supposed "freedom" to make sure their sick, disabled and poor suffer and die with no government available help is cherry picking.
I'm a member of UAW 2865, representing academic student workers at the University of California.
I'm not spinning anything - I disagree with you that it has to cost $60k to create a WPA-style construction job. I think the AAM is too conservative in their estimates both on the cost side and the employment side, probably because they're assuming that construction jobs will be done via contracting and standard construction methods. I also think that the AAM's focus on "strategic project selection" mirrors uncomfortably the Public Works Administration on "self-liquidating projects" that hamstrung its ability to lower the unemployment rate.
I'm a fan of increasing BOTH manufacturing and services. I think increasing manufacturing is an important lever for growing the economy - but I think increasing services is also a good way. Relying on just one strategy is a bad idea.
Social services aren't a cost - they're a service, same as any other. As you saying that the service sector doesn't exist?
Again, picking up trash != social services. Child care, health, and nursing aides = social services. Administrative jobs = social services. Hell, librarians = social services. These people do jobs that people want them to do and pay them for.
There's no reason why we can't turn the service sector - both the public and private sector - into a high-wage unionized industry. Back in the 1930s, unskilled and semi-skilled factory jobs were NOT good wages. I actually worked it out - unskilled factory workers in Ford plants made // modern minimum wage. It was unionization that made industrial jobs good jobs.
There's no reason we can't do that in the service sector today - btw, most of these jobs are un-exportable.
ebb and flow. Now Robert, it is a supercilious argument to expect us to believe we are on par with Zimbabwe. I travel a lot in this country and i can tell you we are no Zimbabwe. Yes we do have urban hell holes?
I give Finland 10 years before its unfunded benefits and pension liability eat their lunch. It is something that is about to eat the USA. Yep that HSA catastrophic plan is still chugging along and I have a hell of a lot of money in that account. SO you address the USA middle class mobility problem, which I agree with but totally gloss over what WiKi said "In 2008, the OECD reported that "the gap between rich and poor has widened more in Finland than in any other wealthy industrialized country over the past decade"
Or should I not use WiKi?
Picking cherries? You pick cherries too by picking out what you feel is working but don't address what is NOT working in those countries. So if it is ok for you to do...it is ok for me to do. :)
Yes, Finland had a severe recession around 1990, majorly bad and frankly I think some of the taxes in Finland are insane and repress economic growth, even incentive for innovation....but that said, I think you need to look at the big picture and esp. the U.S., which last I checked had a GINI index which put us on the level of Zimbabwe or some hell hole in terms of income inequality. The U.S. used to have high social mobility numbers and now that also is on the level of a 3rd world status, but I think all nations went heavily into more debt due to the financial crisis, our pal, corporate welfare, the Banksters...
so ya know, take the good, leave the bad is my own philosophy but I think pulling out data from 20 years ago isn't quite fair.
We debunked your "I never got seriously ill" health savings account with catastrophic insurance some time ago.
here (h/t CR).
and the article goes on about the refusal to enact real financial reforms. ECB, that's the Bernanke of Europe saying this.
Yes, social constructs and social values do create a climate of innovation and industry. So does government policies, but look at what you typed and remember I am the site admin, the resident content police. (and yes, I did take Soc. in college).
You are amplifying birth, reproduction instead of the fact Jews studied the Torah, scholarship is a huge cultural value.
Also, some of these beliefs that it is "in our genes" are well known, even Larry Summers decided one day that women, due to their sex, just couldn't do math. So, it is not like this attitude or belief isn't around in mass.
Not only is it my job to keep things on topic, but I also have to screen out the weird. From your response, you're saying I misinterpreted, ok, but my job, from the typing is to make sure we do not encourage those who want to claim one nation, one society, one race is superior to another, if you get why I would jump on your typing, which I hope you would. If this is a miscommunication issue, not a big deal, happens all of the time in fast typed comments, but I am the content police around here, no one else is doing it.
You are truly nothing if not consistently tedious.
It's not about Eugenics, nor is it crap, nimrod! Learn some science for a change instead of continually prattling about it.
It's about cultural differences built up over long periods of time. India was under British rule for four hundred some years -- although I don't underrate their inventiveness, they are not exactly a cauldron of invention and innovation. The same goes for other cultures, although, given the right circumstances, I'm sure they will catch up.
Geez, you have an absurdly low-level of comprehension.
MY FINAL POST AT THIS SITE!
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