Game News Support Nazism by Supporting Grimoire

[Keldorn]

It's all bullshit.

No, but your shallow & blind dismissal IS.

 

[Keldorn]

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=mil ... ngry&meta=

You'd think that people who are hungry, that is without food, would have "nothing" which means it's hard for them to get poorer as you can't have "more nothing". So it sounds more like the poor are still poor to me.

If you get to the point of having absolutely, literally nothing when you are poor, you are dead. Even a homeless person has a cart, a jacket, shoes, a cigarette and 80 cents. The risk of hunger starts as soon as a family gets below the poverty line ($20,000/yr.)


Hunger is a matter of degree. It starts with malnutrition, and leads incrementally up to death. Number of calories per day and % of required nutrients determines the severity.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Ma ... e.ssl.html

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/nat ... -help.html

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... MDKM41.DTL

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/11/ ... ng-hungry/

http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/hunger.cfm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... -usa_N.htm


http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=31 ... id=3510203

 

[Keldorn]

Where the fuck did Cleve go? He's way more entertaining to read than this poofter.

So you want some entertaining Nazism ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler

 

[Keldorn]

Fun Fact™ about Norway: Having oil sure makes a difference, doesn't it? Other than that, the US kicks everyone to the curb and Australia and the UK come in about average.

Why do you keep repeating the fallacy ? Sweden, Denmark and Finland have consistently outranked Norway in economic competitiveness rankings, and they are not oil based economies.

http://www.finland.org/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=56600

http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/g ... /index.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1605273.stm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1026/p01s03-woeu.html

http://www.energy-enviro.fi/index.php?P ... ANY=enviro


Norway can't keep up with the US, Sweden, Denmark and Finland in the rankings. Norway also ranks beneath Sweden, Denmark and Finland in education rankings.

 

[Keldorn]

and almost ZERO homeless.

This was hard to find any data on. Given the number of articles I found about homelessness in Sweden though, "zero" doesn't quite sound right.

So you discard the word "almost", thereby misrepresenting my initial point ? In the Scandinavian region, there is almost a 0% rate of homelessness.

 

[Keldorn]

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statist ... -2008.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934744.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934746.html

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/obesity.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934554.html

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statist ... tions.html

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statist ... -2007.html





Scandinavia wins.

USA loses (under Bush, under centrism, it would win AGAIN).

 

[Gnidrologist]

So... sup, guys?
Wtf, ur not Cleve.
Go away!

 

[Lyric Suite]

It's all bullshit.

Despite a standard of life better than any of the generations in human history before us, people still bitch.

Well you know, some people actually believe material wealth and comfort is a sure ticked to happiness.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Yeah, I was thinking maybe we should entice him back by...

Where the fuck did Cleve go? He's way more entertaining to read than this poofter.

Yeah, I was thinking maybe we should entice him back by converting Chuck Norris jokes into Cleve jokes.

My first one (ok, this is terrible, and yes I've been waiting for an opportunity to post this godawful pun):

Cleve is so tough that Dungeons and Dragons even based two feats on him - Cleve and Great Cleve!

 

[Gnidrologist]

It's all bullshit.

Despite a standard of life better than any of the generations in human history before us, people still bitch.

Well you know, some people actually believe material wealth and comfort is a sure ticked to happiness.

Oh, romantic, aren't we.
Well yeah, most common people do. Always did. Even in your precious time of glorious virtue. Striving for material goodness has been the backbone mentality of western civilization from the get go. And that includes all those nice medieval times of ''high spirituality and family values''.

 

[thesheeep]

Re: Yeah, I was thinking maybe we should entice him back by.

My first one (ok, this is terrible, and yes I've been waiting for an opportunity to post this godawful pun):

Cleve is so tough that Dungeons and Dragons even based two feats on him - Cleve and Great Cleve!

Hey, I love jokes like that.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

But it's the US incarceration rate...

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... rate&meta=

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration

...which is troublesome, as it inevitably has a profound effect on the poverty rate. The US has the WORLD'S HIGHEST INCARCERATION RATE. Even MUCH higher than either Russia or China.

Yes. Let's free the prisoners so they're no longer in poverty! They should look on the bright side, at least they're being fed.

Fun Fact™ about Norway: Having oil sure makes a difference, doesn't it? Other than that, the US kicks everyone to the curb and Australia and the UK come in about average.

Why do you keep repeating the fallacy ? Sweden, Denmark and Finland have consistently outranked Norway in economic competitiveness rankings, and they are not oil based economies.

http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/g ... /index.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1605273.stm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1026/p01s03-woeu.html

http://www.energy-enviro.fi/index.php?P ... ANY=enviro

Norway can't keep up with the US, Sweden, Denmark and Finland in the rankings. Norway also ranks beneath Sweden, Denmark and Finland in education rankings.

You just pointed to a bunch of stuff that either has the US in number #1 spot or number #2 or in the top #10. Depending on which report you read it's either beating all of Scandanavia or about the same level with Scandanavia. Certainly not the "Scandanavia is kicking US to the curb" scenario that you seem to be implying. And in one case, it mentioned the US had been at the top previously but the tech-bust knocked it down to #2, meaning Scandinavia's brilliant system had little to do with it. In fact, it shows the US system as being quite comparable.

One even has people complaining about lack of healthcare and poor pensions:

The public health system in Helsinki, for example, is overcrowded with older Finns. "You wait a long time to see a doctor, and then you don't see him for very long," complains Sirelius.

Pensions have risen by only three percent in real terms since 1993 - ten times more slowly than wages. Many jobs lost in the crisis have not been replaced, and unemployment stands at 8.6 percent.

Even better is this one...

"The cleavage between rich and poor is perhaps widening," says Jouko Kajanajo, the head of social research at the Social Security headquarters

Oh dear, don't tell me the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer in Finland, Shining Jewel of the Welfare State Crown?

It helps, of course, that Finland's population of 5.3 million is largely homogenous, with a 6 percent Swedish minority and no significant immigration.

"In 2006, the number of immigrants [in the United States] totaled 37.5 million." Let's see Scandinavia handle that.

and almost ZERO homeless.

This was hard to find any data on. Given the number of articles I found about homelessness in Sweden though, "zero" doesn't quite sound right.

So you discard the word "almost", thereby misrepresenting my initial point ? In the Scandinavian region, there is almost a 0% rate of homelessness.

... and in one of the articles you linked to it says:

About three-quarters of a million people were homeless on a given day in 2005, according to federal estimates.

According to another study there's:

There were about 744,000 homeless people in the United States in 2005, according to the first national estimate in 10 years.

Population of United States: 300,000,000. 744,000 / 300,000,000 = 0.248%. That's not even half of 1% and guess what that rounds down to?

So there doesn't appear to be any more homeless people in the US then there is in Sweden. Sweden certainly haven't obliterated the homeless issue completely.

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/state-world-mothers-2008.html

In the full report, the US is 27th out of 146. Not bad for a country that accepts more legal immigrants as permanent residents than any other country in the world. You want to know where Scandinavia ranks on that list?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... population [Immigrants as percentage of state population]

United States: 12.81%
Sweden: 12.3%
Norway: 7.37%
Denmark: 7.16%
Finland: 2.96%

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934744.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934746.html

Once again, the US isn't far off in any of those.

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/obesity.html

Funny how so many people are starving in one of the fattest countries in the world, isn't it? Maybe Americans were answering "Damn, I couldn't get a Big Mac the other day" as being "food insecure".

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934554.html

Public Health Expenditure by GDP
Sweden: 7.7% of $336 billion
Norway: 8.1% of $257.4 billion
Denmark: 7.1% of $198.5 billion
United States: 6.9% of $13.794 trillion ($43,594)

The winner? Malawi: 9.6% of $7.67 billion (Malawi has a per capita GDP of $596 USD)

Let's all move to Malawi and experience their $57 USD per person healthcare! It's okay, according to the study, they spend the most on healthcare per GDP! It's just a pity their GDP is so shitty.

If you actually do the math and break them down to amounts, Norway spends an impressive $4,300 per person on healthcare (just goes to show what oil can do for you) with Sweden coming in at about $3,200 per person. The US spends $3,000, while Denmark brings in the rear with a meagre $2,500 USD per person. Not a huge difference and again, oh look, the US is coming in as easily comparable if not better. If you look at actual amounts, the US spends a whopping $934 Billion on healthcare compared to $29 Billion for Sweden, $20 Billion for Norway and $14 Billion for Denmark.

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/2007-transparency-international-corruption-perceptions.html

The United States isn't even included in the survey.

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/lowest-ranking-press-freedom-2007.html

Yeah ermm... That's a report about the "Lowest Ranking Countries for Press Freedom" and the US isn't in that one either.

You might want to read the surveys you link to rather than just randomly throwing them out there and hoping they prove something.

Scandinavia wins.

Once again, the United States is just as comparable to, if not better than, Scandinavia.

 

[aron searle]

You might want to read the surveys you link to rather than just randomly throwing them out there and hoping they prove something.

He's playing a war of attrition, where he hopes to throw so much stuff at you, you just give up and he "wins".

 

[Goliath]

Just adopting the model to a country like USA would never ever work though. The US are pretty much founded on the idea of competition along with the so called natural rights, the Scandinavian model would never work there without a total change in culture, and that's pretty much impossible and hardly something worth striving for. Sure, we Scandinavians value competition and owning stuff, but they are not our core values to the same extent as in the US.

I think you underestimate the diversity of American culture. If you really believe the United States were founded by people who loved "teh free markets!" look up Thomas Jefferson as a counter-example.

Thomas Jefferson despised bankers and industrialists and considered them a threat to the nation. His ideal was a republic for independent farmers who owned their own land. He saw the capitalists as corrupt and depraved and the workers who were forced to sell their labor as too dependent on said capitalists to be the backbone of a free country. He insightfully pointed out the danger that the employers could always blackmail their employees to do what they want, effectivly undermining democracy and turning the nation into a plutocracy i.e. exactly what happened. (Look up "Jeffersonian democracy" for more info.)
Let me quote this guy, the third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence:
"I hope we shall crush ... in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country"
What a butthurt Eurofag!

Also while the capitalist lifestyle dominates these days there is still a strong anti-capialist scene in the US. The most well-known leftist intellectual in the world these days is an American: Noam Chomsky. And he is not a social outcast in his home country either, he is a best-selling author and an Institute Professor at the MIT.

Oh, and John Edwards almost became the Vice President of the US in 2004. I don't know if you have ever heard that guy talking but let me tell you no mainstream party in Germany would accept him - he is way too red!

So it's really not that black and white as far as the US/Old Europe divide is concerned.

 

[Keldorn]

But it's the US incarceration rate...

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... rate&meta=

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration

...which is troublesome, as it inevitably has a profound effect on the poverty rate. The US has the WORLD'S HIGHEST INCARCERATION RATE. Even MUCH higher than either Russia or China.

Yes. Let's free the prisoners so they're no longer in poverty! They should look on the bright side, at least they're being fed.

Fun Fact™ about Norway: Having oil sure makes a difference, doesn't it? Other than that, the US kicks everyone to the curb and Australia and the UK come in about average.

Why do you keep repeating the fallacy ? Sweden, Denmark and Finland have consistently outranked Norway in economic competitiveness rankings, and they are not oil based economies.

http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/g ... /index.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1605273.stm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1026/p01s03-woeu.html

http://www.energy-enviro.fi/index.php?P ... ANY=enviro

Norway can't keep up with the US, Sweden, Denmark and Finland in the rankings. Norway also ranks beneath Sweden, Denmark and Finland in education rankings.

You just pointed to a bunch of stuff that either has the US in number #1 spot or number #2 or in the top #10. Depending on which report you read it's either beating all of Scandanavia or about the same level with Scandanavia. Certainly not the "Scandanavia is kicking US to the curb" scenario that you seem to be implying. And in one case, it mentioned the US had been at the top previously but the tech-bust knocked it down to #2, meaning Scandinavia's brilliant system had little to do with it. In fact, it shows the US system as being quite comparable.

One even has people complaining about lack of healthcare and poor pensions:

The public health system in Helsinki, for example, is overcrowded with older Finns. "You wait a long time to see a doctor, and then you don't see him for very long," complains Sirelius.

Pensions have risen by only three percent in real terms since 1993 - ten times more slowly than wages. Many jobs lost in the crisis have not been replaced, and unemployment stands at 8.6 percent.

Even better is this one...

"The cleavage between rich and poor is perhaps widening," says Jouko Kajanajo, the head of social research at the Social Security headquarters

Oh dear, don't tell me the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer in Finland, Shining Jewel of the Welfare State Crown?

It helps, of course, that Finland's population of 5.3 million is largely homogenous, with a 6 percent Swedish minority and no significant immigration.

"In 2006, the number of immigrants [in the United States] totaled 37.5 million." Let's see Scandinavia handle that.

and almost ZERO homeless.

This was hard to find any data on. Given the number of articles I found about homelessness in Sweden though, "zero" doesn't quite sound right.

So you discard the word "almost", thereby misrepresenting my initial point ? In the Scandinavian region, there is almost a 0% rate of homelessness.

... and in one of the articles you linked to it says:

About three-quarters of a million people were homeless on a given day in 2005, according to federal estimates.

According to another study there's:

There were about 744,000 homeless people in the United States in 2005, according to the first national estimate in 10 years.

Population of United States: 300,000,000. 744,000 / 300,000,000 = 0.248%. That's not even half of 1% and guess what that rounds down to?

So there doesn't appear to be any more homeless people in the US then there is in Sweden. Sweden certainly haven't obliterated the homeless issue completely.

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/state-world-mothers-2008.html

In the full report, the US is 27th out of 146. Not bad for a country that accepts more legal immigrants as permanent residents than any other country in the world. You want to know where Scandinavia ranks on that list?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... population [Immigrants as percentage of state population]

United States: 12.81%
Sweden: 12.3%
Norway: 7.37%
Denmark: 7.16%
Finland: 2.96%

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934744.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934746.html

Once again, the US isn't far off in any of those.

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/obesity.html

Funny how so many people are starving in one of the fattest countries in the world, isn't it? Maybe Americans were answering "Damn, I couldn't get a Big Mac the other day" as being "food insecure".

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934554.html

Public Health Expenditure by GDP
Sweden: 7.7% of $336 billion
Norway: 8.1% of $257.4 billion
Denmark: 7.1% of $198.5 billion
United States: 6.9% of $13.794 trillion ($43,594)

The winner? Malawi: 9.6% of $7.67 billion (Malawi has a per capita GDP of $596 USD)

Let's all move to Malawi and experience their $57 USD per person healthcare! It's okay, according to the study, they spend the most on healthcare per GDP! It's just a pity their GDP is so shitty.

If you actually do the math and break them down to amounts, Norway spends an impressive $4,300 per person on healthcare (just goes to show what oil can do for you) with Sweden coming in at about $3,200 per person. The US spends $3,000, while Denmark brings in the rear with a meagre $2,500 USD per person. Not a huge difference and again, oh look, the US is coming in as easily comparable if not better. If you look at actual amounts, the US spends a whopping $934 Billion on healthcare compared to $29 Billion for Sweden, $20 Billion for Norway and $14 Billion for Denmark.

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/2007-transparency-international-corruption-perceptions.html

The United States isn't even included in the survey.

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/lowest-ranking-press-freedom-2007.html

Yeah ermm... That's a report about the "Lowest Ranking Countries for Press Freedom" and the US isn't in that one either.

You might want to read the surveys you link to rather than just randomly throwing them out there and hoping they prove something.

Scandinavia wins.

Once again, the United States is just as comparable to, if not better than, Scandinavia.

1) With the US having the highest incarceration rate on earth (to help the prison industry and republican morality Fascists), they have negatively impacted poverty, crime and other stats. About 1/2 of US prisoners are there because they were involved in drug use or other non-violent consenting behaviour.

2) I pointed to where Scandinavia competes with the US economic powerhouse, sometimes beating it, even though Scandinavia has much more government involvement, higher taxation and a welfare state. it refutes the idea that the center-left approach wrecks the economy.

3) The US ranks much worse than Scandinavia in the following statistics...


-Life expectancy
-Infant mortality
-General poverty rate
-Child poverty rate
-Education standards & acheivement
-Violent crime
-Incarceration rate
-% of pop. w high school / university degree
-Personal bankruptcy

and many many other statistics.

Again, scandinavia wins, which is why the US is moving left.

 

[Keldorn]

Completely accurate and comprehensive statistics are difficult to acquire for any social study, but especially so when measuring the ambiguous, hidden, and erratic reality of homelessness. All figures given are estimates. In addition, these estimates represent overall national averages; the proportions of specific homeless communities can vary substantially depending on local geography.

The mobile and often hidden nature of homelessness makes this group difficult to accurately survey. The last rigorous attempt at estimating annual homeless prevalence in the United States was undertaken by the 1996 National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC).[7] Annual homeless prevalence was estimated at between 1.58 million (based on October/November four-week count) to 3.49 million (based on February seven day count).[8] Most, though not all, advocates use the higher estimate of over 3 million, especially since homelessness is thought to have risen since 1996.

Lifetime homeless prevalence measured in 1990 by Bruce Link and colleagues found 7.4% or 13.5 million people reported experiencing literal homelessness.[9] These estimates were tabulated from telephone interviews and thus most likely excluded all currently homeless individuals.

Some estimates from various sources on the characteristics and number of homeless people:

Total Number
As many as 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year (1% of the entire U.S. population or 10% of its poor), and about 842,000 people in any given week.[10]
Familial composition[11]
40% are families with children—the fastest growing segment.
41% are single males.
14% are single females.
5% are minors unaccompanied by adults.
1.37 million (or 39%) of the total homeless population are children under the age of 18.[12]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessne ... ted_States

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 38077.html

http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/ratesusa.htm

http://www.mediastudy.com/articles/incarceration.html


For someone to claim that there is no relationship between mass incarceration and poverty (again, many imprisoned are there for NON-VIOLENT CONSENTUAL ADULT BEHAVIOUR), shows their blind stupidity.

1000's upon 1000's of non-immigrant White Americans are imprisoned for DECADES for drug use or other behaviour deemed immoral by the military-corporate Bushian Republicult.

 

[Keldorn]

The US CEOs, millionaires and billionaires, the military and corporate elite are LAUGHING under BUSH-NAZI. Others (the middle class and poor) are NOT.



http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/ ... RTM0012199

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/4307745.stm

http://www.unicef.org/pon96/indust4.htm


The US has the highest child poverty rate in the western 'developed' world.

 

[Keldorn]

You might want to read the surveys you link to rather than just randomly throwing them out there and hoping they prove something.

He's playing a war of attrition, where he hopes to throw so much stuff at you, you just give up and he "wins".

Actually, if you read my 3 posts previous to this, without the right-wing blindfold on, you'll see that under Republican domination, the bottom 1/3rd of the US is really hurting badly.


And then there is the non-domestic issue of secret CIA torture prisons, and 1 million innocent civilians killed by US weapons...


Not only is the US the world's leading jailer in 2008, it is also the world's leading killer in 2008.


But 70-80% of Americans OPPOSE Bush and his policies, so they will shift a tad left with MCain, 2 notches left with Shrillary, or 3.35 notches left with Obama.

 

[Keldorn]

Just adopting the model to a country like USA would never ever work though. The US are pretty much founded on the idea of competition along with the so called natural rights, the Scandinavian model would never work there without a total change in culture, and that's pretty much impossible and hardly something worth striving for. Sure, we Scandinavians value competition and owning stuff, but they are not our core values to the same extent as in the US.

I think you underestimate the diversity of American culture. If you really believe the United States were founded by people who loved "teh free markets!" look up Thomas Jefferson as a counter-example.

Thomas Jefferson despised bankers and industrialists and considered them a threat to the nation. His ideal was a republic for independent farmers who owned their own land. He saw the capitalists as corrupt and depraved and the workers who were forced to sell their labor as too dependent on said capitalists to be the backbone of a free country. He insightfully pointed out the danger that the employers could always blackmail their employees to do what they want, effectivly undermining democracy and turning the nation into a plutocracy i.e. exactly what happened. (Look up "Jeffersonian democracy" for more info.)
Let me quote this guy, the third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence:
"I hope we shall crush ... in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country"
What a butthurt Eurofag!

Also while the capitalist lifestyle dominates these days there is still a strong anti-capialist scene in the US. The most well-known leftist intellectual in the world these days is an American: Noam Chomsky. And he is not a social outcast in his home country either, he is a best-selling author and an Institute Professor at the MIT.

Oh, and John Edwards almost became the Vice President of the US in 2004. I don't know if you have ever heard that guy talking but let me tell you no mainstream party in Germany would accept him - he is way too red!

So it's really not that black and white as far as the US/Old Europe divide is concerned.

Some spots in Europe suck, but the Northern Scandinavian part, and the Netherlands, are doing very well.

The USA is theoretically the greatest, most free, most prosperous, most innovative country on Earth. The Bush administration has harmed it, in practice. Under a less polarizing non-ideology (a fusion of Kucinich, Paul, Biden and Huckabee), the US is looking towards a half-black, grey mixture for relief.

And so is the world...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

1) You are repressing the US poverty and hunger figures. Typical right-wing extremist.


http://www.alternet.org/story/68054/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007 ... 092544.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... -usa_N.htm

I'm not repressing anything, I just don't buy the bullshit about 35.5 million people in America going hungry considering all the food stamp programs we have in America, or WIC, or any number of other similar "free food" programs.

Considering the rate of obesity amongst our people who live below the poverty line in the United States has steadily gone up, It's hard to believe any study that says our poor people are starving to death. They can't be starving and getting fat at the same time.

Highest child poverty rate in the developed western world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in ... ted_States

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0828/p17s02-cogn.html

Poor people in America make lots more babies than non-poor people. Considering our welfare system is structured to insure they keep making babies, of course we're going to have a high percentage of poor people with babies.

2) You are a dipshit if you believe that the country with far LESS consumer protections (the US) can blame their mortgage crisis problems on the almost non-existent consumer protections, while the countries with far MORE consumer protections (in Scandinavia) don't share the same mortgage crisis related problems of consumer exploitation/victimization at ALL. The dipshit (you) doesn't comprehend that it was the overly free capitalist process of lenders getting big bonuses for every subprime mortgage they unloaded on someone who's credit rating was poor. That's right, a short-term minded capitalist feeding frenzy to pocket those big bonuses everytime you told a poor naive person "SURE you can afford this house... BUY NOW !!!"

How hard of a concept is it for you to understand that if people don't pay back their loans, the banks don't make money? "Yes, let's EVILLY lend money to people who won't pay it back! Mwuahahahahha!" Um, no.

With stricter regulations and enforcement on who can qualify and cracking down on mortgage fraud (it increased drastically under Bush, again, due to LACK of regulations and enforcement), the crisis wouldn't have happened.

Actually, this all started in the 1990s, before Bush. But, thanks for playing.

But the systemic crisis was ALLOWED to happen, because that's how many capitalists play the greed game - by a ruthless crash & burn, buy low, sell high strategy. And you want MORE of that environment.

Except in this case, the banks were lending low, then not getting paid back. What they did get paid back was at a loss due to the drop in real estate equity.

Again, the more left-wing governments in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, France have a housing market with MORE controls, limitations, fines, penalties, transparancy, regulations and enforcement, so, guess what (dipshit) ? They don't get the capitalistic US-Bushian-Republican greed-based corporate predatory environment which allows and breeds such unscrupulous practices (for profit) and subsequent market catastrophies.

They also have smaller houses, and the majority of the people in those countries live in apartments.

3) It's not all about manufacturing. It's about other indicators of overall quality of life. The US ranks far below other more left-leaning European/Scandinavian countries when you consider poverty rates, infant mortality, life expectancy, violent crime, incarceration rate, personal bankrutcies due to medical expenditures and subprime mortgages, unionization rate, percentage of the population experiencing hunger, homelessness, educational standards, etc.

So, you're backpedaling on your assertion that we're outsourcing all our manufacturing now? I win!

Illegal immigration has skyrocketed under Bush, a pro-capitalist president.

Nope, it's been steady over the last few decades.

5) Income tax is good if all loopholes are closed, and the more you earn, the more you pay. It must be simple, transparent, incrementally proportional and non-distorted. The US millionaires/billionaires and corporations LOVE the big convoluted tax code book because it has more loopholes and intricacies. Meanwhile, in Scandinavia, the megarich are forced to pay hefty progressive taxes and fines - in direct proportion to their income, and this fuels their welfare state making everyone better off.

No, income tax is bad, loopholes or not. States without income taxes come out of recessions faster than those which have them. Therefore, income taxes BAD.

The USA :

-military funding
-corporate welfare
-war on drugs
-prison industry
-intelligence/investigative agencies

http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm

You're believing a pie chart from a site called "War Resisters dot org"?

This one is closer to reality:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/index.php

Defense isn't even a full fourth of our spending. We spend more on pensions for government workers than we do on the military.

 

[DefJam101]

You're believing a pie chart from a site called "War Resisters dot org"?

This one is closer to reality:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/index.php

Defense isn't even a full fourth of our spending. We spend more on pensions for government workers than we do on the military.

Not to say I don't agree with you Proverbius, nor do I agree with you; I'm staying neutral on the subject which I really don't know much about.



How exactly is a website quoted directly from the government, a source you would expect to be trying to cover up it's political/economic faults, a more credible source than a site that is specifically trying to attack the government's military spending? Would you not expect the government to try and cover up the faults that it is being criticized for, much like you could expect an anti-war website to exaggerate them?

I'm not saying that either is true, but I fail to see the difference between these two charts as far as credibility goes.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

1) With the US having the highest incarceration rate on earth (to help the prison industry and republican morality Fascists)

Actually it has more to do with the US' "tough on crime" policies, including minimum sentencing terms and 3-strike rules. Rule of thumb: If there's an enforced minimum sentence and you get thrown in jail because of that, it means you committed a crime.

they have negatively impacted poverty, crime and other stats.

I should hope a higher incarceration rate has negatively impacted crime!

• According to new research by a University of California, Berkeley, law professor, the crime rate dropped dramatically during the 1990s, falling 40 percent in cities and states across the country and in all major crime categories from homicides to auto thefts, producing the longest and deepest crime decline in the United States since World War II.

About 1/2 of US prisoners are there because they were involved in drug use or other non-violent consenting behaviour.

That has less to do with Scandinavia vs USA and more to do with your own LEFTY views.

2) I pointed to where Scandinavia competes with the US economic powerhouse, sometimes beating it, even though Scandinavia has much more government involvement, higher taxation and a welfare state. it refutes the idea that the center-left approach wrecks the economy.

Oh, you mean the reports you pointed to where it showed the best healthcare expenditure was by an impoverished African country with it's impressive $57 USD per person expenditure and the two reports that didn't even include Scandinavia or the United States? I'm not quite sure what you intended to refute with those but it wasn't what you think.

3) The US ranks much worse than Scandinavia in the following statistics...


-Life expectancy
-Infant mortality
-General poverty rate
-Child poverty rate
-Education standards & acheivement
-Violent crime
-Incarceration rate
-% of pop. w high school / university degree
-Personal bankruptcy

and many many other statistics.

Again, scandinavia wins, which is why the US is moving left.

Let's learn more about how Scandinavia is able to match the US:

Norway:

• Cost of living is about 30% higher in Norway than in the United States and 25% higher than the United Kingdom.
  
  The country is richly endowed with natural resources including petroleum, hydropower, fish, forests, and minerals. Norway has obtained one of the highest standards of living in the world in part by having a large amount of natural resources compared to the size of the population.
  
  In 2006, oil and gas accounted for 58% of exports. Only Russia and OPEC member Saudi Arabia export more oil than Norway.

So we know Norway gets ahead thanks to oil.

Denmark:

• The unemployment rate for December 2007 was 2.7%... It should however be noted that this has been achieved by employing more than 38% [36] of the total workforce in public sector jobs, placing an enormous strain on the private sector and resulting in the world's highest taxes.

Denmark has the world's highest taxes and yet according to the statistics earlier, spends less USD per person on healthcare than the US.

Sweden:

• Sweden is known for its high taxes and large public sector. Sweden has the second highest total tax revenue behind Denmark, as a share of the country's income. As of 2007, total tax revenue was 47.8% of GDP, down from 49.1% 2006.

Sweden has the world's second highest taxes and yet is only able to match the US for healthcare expenditure. Ignoring military and any other expenses.

The US is able to match Scandinavia in most statistics, has lower taxes and spends more on other areas of Government (including having their armed forces crawling all over the world). Sounds like Scandinavia is barely struggling to keep their system in place. They're not spending it on military or healthcare, so where's all the money going?

• "On the contrary, Sweden's dominant social democratic party has won national as well as local elections proposing higher taxes in recent years."

How much higher do you reckon taxes can go before Scandinavia falls over again like it did in the 70's?

Completely accurate and comprehensive statistics are difficult to acquire for any social study, but especially so when measuring the ambiguous, hidden, and erratic reality of homelessness. All figures given are estimates. In addition, these estimates represent overall national averages; the proportions of specific homeless communities can vary substantially depending on local geography.

The mobile and often hidden nature of homelessness makes this group difficult to accurately survey. The last rigorous attempt at estimating annual homeless prevalence in the United States was undertaken by the 1996 National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC).[7] Annual homeless prevalence was estimated at between 1.58 million (based on October/November four-week count) to 3.49 million (based on February seven day count).[8] Most, though not all, advocates use the higher estimate of over 3 million, especially since homelessness is thought to have risen since 1996.

So you realised that applied to Scandinavia too before you posted it, right?

http://www.udenfor.dk/uk/Menu/News+&+Vi ... in+Denmark

• The result of the survey is a snapshot and shows that the total number of homeless people in week 6, 2007, was 5.253 homeless people. There are of cause some biases why the number of 5.253 persons must be regarded as a minimum.

That's apparently "the minimum" and worked against Denmark's population gives just under the same result as the 750k out of 300M US figures.

For someone to claim that there is no relationship between mass incarceration and poverty (again, many imprisoned are there for NON-VIOLENT CONSENTUAL ADULT BEHAVIOUR), shows their blind stupidity.

Careful, or you'll start sounding like this guy.

• You cannot comprehend the actual 4 simultaneous days in single rotation of Earth, as 1 day 1 God ONEism blocks the ability to think opposite of the ONEism crap taught. Education destroys brain.

1000's upon 1000's of non-immigrant White Americans are imprisoned for DECADES for drug use or other behaviour deemed immoral by the military-corporate Bushian Republicult.

Once again, this seems to be your personal LEFTY viewpoint that's the problem.

The US CEOs, millionaires and billionaires, the military and corporate elite are LAUGHING under BUSH-NAZI. Others (the middle class and poor) are NOT.

You're really starting to sound like this guy now.

• You are educated Stupid, You are educated Evil

And then there is the non-domestic issue of secret CIA torture prisons, and 1 million innocent civilians killed by US weapons...

Keldorn's at the intersection. The driver asked where to go and Keldorns screaming LEFT, LEFT, LEFT!

Not only is the US the world's leading jailer in 2008, it is also the world's leading killer in 2008.

And they do it all with low, low taxes!

Some spots in Europe suck, but the Northern Scandinavian part, and the Netherlands, are doing very well.

Apart from, it seems, their declining birth rate. A few more years of that and there won't be any people left in Scandinavia apart from pensioners and early retirees sucking Government revenue dry.

The USA is theoretically the greatest, most free, most prosperous, most innovative country on Earth. The Bush administration has harmed it, in practice. Under a less polarizing non-ideology (a fusion of Kucinich, Paul, Biden and Huckabee), the US is looking towards a half-black, grey mixture for relief.

And so is the world...

If you get to link LEFTY websites to prove your point, then I think I should get to link RIGHTY ones. Ignoring Norway because of all the oil and using Sweden as the basis for comparison:

http://www.mises.org/story/2259

• If we look beneath the aggregate production figures, we can see deep structural problems. The number of people employed is now 6% lower than in 1990, a weaker development than in any other western economy. By contrast, even with the weak job growth in recent years (by American standards), employment in the United States is 20% higher than in 1990.
  
  And the number of people employed in Sweden is actually lower than in 1980, too. You have to go back to the mid-1970s to find employment numbers lower than the current ones. While total employment has been roughly unchanged since 1975, it masks a significant decline in male employment. And if you look only at the private sector, employment is now at a level lower than in 1950.
  
  The headline unemployment rate in Sweden is only 5–5.5%, but this number is extremely misleading as it only includes a small number of the people who the government pays not to work. Many unemployed are sent to so-called "labor market political activities" — activities whose only purpose is to reduce the official unemployment rate.

http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/Pap ... eden.shtml

• The tax burden in the Swedish economy tripled between 1950 and 1980. In 1970, when taxes were not much higher than they are in America today, Sweden's GDP per capita ranked fifth in the world4. Since taxes passed 50 percent of GDP the country's overall prosperity has dwindled, and the downturn has been most dramatic in measures of the standard of living. In 1970 Sweden ranked third in OECD for individual consumption, 39 percent above OECD average. By 1995, Sweden barely beat the OECD average, ranking 14th with an individual consumption 1.4 percent above OECD average, and has been stagnant since that time.
  
• Unemployment is now a significant problem in Sweden. The official jobless rate is about 8 percent, but independent estimates show the rate is closer to 20 percent.
  
• High taxes and excessive regulations have encouraged many large corporations to leave the country. Many individuals also are escaping the Swedish tax system, ranging from high-net worth entrepreneurs to new college graduates. This combination of capital flight and brain drain does not bode well for the future.
  
• Even the Swedish tax authority tries to avoid Swedish taxes. As noted by the Wall Street Journal, "When it comes to paying taxes itself, the Swedish Tax Authority, responsible for collecting some of the highest in the world, would just as soon keep them as low as possible. It's saving a bundle on the production of slick TV spots that encourage Swedes to file online by producing them in the neighboring free-market, low-tax haven of Estonia. ...Spokesman Björn Tharnstrom told us, "We decided to do it in Tallinn because the costs are lower. One of those costs is taxes, of course."
  
• High taxes and excessive regulations have encouraged many large corporations to leave the country. Almost the entire pharmaceutical industry has moved: the most significant examples are Pharmacia, which was bought by Michigan-based Upjohn, and Astra, which was effectively taken over by Zeneca. Research and development has moved abroad, while some low tech production has remained in Sweden. The automobile industry met a similar fate in the 1990s: Volvo Cars was broken out of the Volvo Corporation and sold to Ford; GM took over SAAB Automobile. SAAB is already building two of its four models for the American market outside Sweden and Volvo has expanded its Netherlands and Belgium operations significantly.
  
• IKEA and TetraPak also moved abroad. IKEA was founded by Mr. Ingvar Kamprad soon after World War II. Having become one of the world's richest men on low price, "self assembly" furniture, Mr. Kamprad has relocated his corporation to the Netherlands. He himself resides in Switzerland.24 The TetraPak Corporation, founded by the Rausing brothers, gave the world the "sausage stuffing" procedure for manufacturing and filling milk cartons. The technology made the brothers billionaires, and motivated them to relocate to England.

Meanwhile people like Rupert Murdoch move to the United States and Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have no trouble staying in their home country.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Not to say I don't agree with you Proverbius, nor do I agree with you; I'm staying neutral on the subject which I really don't know much about.



How exactly is a website quoted directly from the government, a source you would expect to be trying to cover up it's political/economic faults, a more credible source than a site that is specifically trying to attack the government's military spending? Would you not expect the government to try and cover up the faults that it is being criticized for, much like you could expect an anti-war website to exaggerate them?

I'm not saying that either is true, but I fail to see the difference between these two charts as far as credibility goes.

Because in the information age it's nearly impossible to cover up a conspiracy or scandal. If that information were false then there would probably be a six-month investigation followed by dozens of people resigning.

 

[Keldorn]

1) With the US having the highest incarceration rate on earth (to help the prison industry and republican morality Fascists)

Actually it has more to do with the US' "tough on crime" policies, including minimum sentencing terms and 3-strike rules. Rule of thumb: If there's an enforced minimum sentence and you get thrown in jail because of that, it means you committed a crime.

they have negatively impacted poverty, crime and other stats.

I should hope a higher incarceration rate has negatively impacted crime!

• According to new research by a University of California, Berkeley, law professor, the crime rate dropped dramatically during the 1990s, falling 40 percent in cities and states across the country and in all major crime categories from homicides to auto thefts, producing the longest and deepest crime decline in the United States since World War II.

About 1/2 of US prisoners are there because they were involved in drug use or other non-violent consenting behaviour.

That has less to do with Scandinavia vs USA and more to do with your own LEFTY views.

2) I pointed to where Scandinavia competes with the US economic powerhouse, sometimes beating it, even though Scandinavia has much more government involvement, higher taxation and a welfare state. it refutes the idea that the center-left approach wrecks the economy.

Oh, you mean the reports you pointed to where it showed the best healthcare expenditure was by an impoverished African country with it's impressive $57 USD per person expenditure and the two reports that didn't even include Scandinavia or the United States? I'm not quite sure what you intended to refute with those but it wasn't what you think.

3) The US ranks much worse than Scandinavia in the following statistics...


-Life expectancy
-Infant mortality
-General poverty rate
-Child poverty rate
-Education standards & acheivement
-Violent crime
-Incarceration rate
-% of pop. w high school / university degree
-Personal bankruptcy

and many many other statistics.

Again, scandinavia wins, which is why the US is moving left.

Let's learn more about how Scandinavia is able to match the US:

Norway:

• Cost of living is about 30% higher in Norway than in the United States and 25% higher than the United Kingdom.
  
  The country is richly endowed with natural resources including petroleum, hydropower, fish, forests, and minerals. Norway has obtained one of the highest standards of living in the world in part by having a large amount of natural resources compared to the size of the population.
  
  In 2006, oil and gas accounted for 58% of exports. Only Russia and OPEC member Saudi Arabia export more oil than Norway.

So we know Norway gets ahead thanks to oil.

Denmark:

• The unemployment rate for December 2007 was 2.7%... It should however be noted that this has been achieved by employing more than 38% [36] of the total workforce in public sector jobs, placing an enormous strain on the private sector and resulting in the world's highest taxes.

Denmark has the world's highest taxes and yet according to the statistics earlier, spends less USD per person on healthcare than the US.

Sweden:

• Sweden is known for its high taxes and large public sector. Sweden has the second highest total tax revenue behind Denmark, as a share of the country's income. As of 2007, total tax revenue was 47.8% of GDP, down from 49.1% 2006.

Sweden has the world's second highest taxes and yet is only able to match the US for healthcare expenditure. Ignoring military and any other expenses.

The US is able to match Scandinavia in most statistics, has lower taxes and spends more on other areas of Government (including having their armed forces crawling all over the world). Sounds like Scandinavia is barely struggling to keep their system in place. They're not spending it on military or healthcare, so where's all the money going?

• "On the contrary, Sweden's dominant social democratic party has won national as well as local elections proposing higher taxes in recent years."

How much higher do you reckon taxes can go before Scandinavia falls over again like it did in the 70's?

Completely accurate and comprehensive statistics are difficult to acquire for any social study, but especially so when measuring the ambiguous, hidden, and erratic reality of homelessness. All figures given are estimates. In addition, these estimates represent overall national averages; the proportions of specific homeless communities can vary substantially depending on local geography.

The mobile and often hidden nature of homelessness makes this group difficult to accurately survey. The last rigorous attempt at estimating annual homeless prevalence in the United States was undertaken by the 1996 National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC).[7] Annual homeless prevalence was estimated at between 1.58 million (based on October/November four-week count) to 3.49 million (based on February seven day count).[8] Most, though not all, advocates use the higher estimate of over 3 million, especially since homelessness is thought to have risen since 1996.

So you realised that applied to Scandinavia too before you posted it, right?

http://www.udenfor.dk/uk/Menu/News+&+Vi ... in+Denmark

• The result of the survey is a snapshot and shows that the total number of homeless people in week 6, 2007, was 5.253 homeless people. There are of cause some biases why the number of 5.253 persons must be regarded as a minimum.

That's apparently "the minimum" and worked against Denmark's population gives just under the same result as the 750k out of 300M US figures.

For someone to claim that there is no relationship between mass incarceration and poverty (again, many imprisoned are there for NON-VIOLENT CONSENTUAL ADULT BEHAVIOUR), shows their blind stupidity.

Careful, or you'll start sounding like this guy.

• You cannot comprehend the actual 4 simultaneous days in single rotation of Earth, as 1 day 1 God ONEism blocks the ability to think opposite of the ONEism crap taught. Education destroys brain.

1000's upon 1000's of non-immigrant White Americans are imprisoned for DECADES for drug use or other behaviour deemed immoral by the military-corporate Bushian Republicult.

Once again, this seems to be your personal LEFTY viewpoint that's the problem.

The US CEOs, millionaires and billionaires, the military and corporate elite are LAUGHING under BUSH-NAZI. Others (the middle class and poor) are NOT.

You're really starting to sound like this guy now.

• You are educated Stupid, You are educated Evil

And then there is the non-domestic issue of secret CIA torture prisons, and 1 million innocent civilians killed by US weapons...

Keldorn's at the intersection. The driver asked where to go and Keldorns screaming LEFT, LEFT, LEFT!

Not only is the US the world's leading jailer in 2008, it is also the world's leading killer in 2008.

And they do it all with low, low taxes!

Some spots in Europe suck, but the Northern Scandinavian part, and the Netherlands, are doing very well.

Apart from, it seems, their declining birth rate. A few more years of that and there won't be any people left in Scandinavia apart from pensioners and early retirees sucking Government revenue dry.

The USA is theoretically the greatest, most free, most prosperous, most innovative country on Earth. The Bush administration has harmed it, in practice. Under a less polarizing non-ideology (a fusion of Kucinich, Paul, Biden and Huckabee), the US is looking towards a half-black, grey mixture for relief.

And so is the world...

If you get to link LEFTY websites to prove your point, then I think I should get to link RIGHTY ones. Ignoring Norway because of all the oil and using Sweden as the basis for comparison:

http://www.mises.org/story/2259

• If we look beneath the aggregate production figures, we can see deep structural problems. The number of people employed is now 6% lower than in 1990, a weaker development than in any other western economy. By contrast, even with the weak job growth in recent years (by American standards), employment in the United States is 20% higher than in 1990.
  
  And the number of people employed in Sweden is actually lower than in 1980, too. You have to go back to the mid-1970s to find employment numbers lower than the current ones. While total employment has been roughly unchanged since 1975, it masks a significant decline in male employment. And if you look only at the private sector, employment is now at a level lower than in 1950.
  
  The headline unemployment rate in Sweden is only 5–5.5%, but this number is extremely misleading as it only includes a small number of the people who the government pays not to work. Many unemployed are sent to so-called "labor market political activities" — activities whose only purpose is to reduce the official unemployment rate.

http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/Pap ... eden.shtml

• The tax burden in the Swedish economy tripled between 1950 and 1980. In 1970, when taxes were not much higher than they are in America today, Sweden's GDP per capita ranked fifth in the world4. Since taxes passed 50 percent of GDP the country's overall prosperity has dwindled, and the downturn has been most dramatic in measures of the standard of living. In 1970 Sweden ranked third in OECD for individual consumption, 39 percent above OECD average. By 1995, Sweden barely beat the OECD average, ranking 14th with an individual consumption 1.4 percent above OECD average, and has been stagnant since that time.
  
• Unemployment is now a significant problem in Sweden. The official jobless rate is about 8 percent, but independent estimates show the rate is closer to 20 percent.
  
• High taxes and excessive regulations have encouraged many large corporations to leave the country. Many individuals also are escaping the Swedish tax system, ranging from high-net worth entrepreneurs to new college graduates. This combination of capital flight and brain drain does not bode well for the future.
  
• Even the Swedish tax authority tries to avoid Swedish taxes. As noted by the Wall Street Journal, "When it comes to paying taxes itself, the Swedish Tax Authority, responsible for collecting some of the highest in the world, would just as soon keep them as low as possible. It's saving a bundle on the production of slick TV spots that encourage Swedes to file online by producing them in the neighboring free-market, low-tax haven of Estonia. ...Spokesman Björn Tharnstrom told us, "We decided to do it in Tallinn because the costs are lower. One of those costs is taxes, of course."
  
• High taxes and excessive regulations have encouraged many large corporations to leave the country. Almost the entire pharmaceutical industry has moved: the most significant examples are Pharmacia, which was bought by Michigan-based Upjohn, and Astra, which was effectively taken over by Zeneca. Research and development has moved abroad, while some low tech production has remained in Sweden. The automobile industry met a similar fate in the 1990s: Volvo Cars was broken out of the Volvo Corporation and sold to Ford; GM took over SAAB Automobile. SAAB is already building two of its four models for the American market outside Sweden and Volvo has expanded its Netherlands and Belgium operations significantly.
  
• IKEA and TetraPak also moved abroad. IKEA was founded by Mr. Ingvar Kamprad soon after World War II. Having become one of the world's richest men on low price, "self assembly" furniture, Mr. Kamprad has relocated his corporation to the Netherlands. He himself resides in Switzerland.24 The TetraPak Corporation, founded by the Rausing brothers, gave the world the "sausage stuffing" procedure for manufacturing and filling milk cartons. The technology made the brothers billionaires, and motivated them to relocate to England.

Meanwhile people like Rupert Murdoch move to the United States and Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have no trouble staying in their home country.

1) The US under Republican rule is incarceration nation, a Fascist state which you support. The war on drugs is a puritanical enslavement rationalization via religion and the prison state. The US is the world's leading jailer due mainly to harsh sentences and banishment of supposed immoral behaviour (according to Falwellian biblical doctrine), they are mass incarcerating those who oppose Republican morality edicts and Christo-Fascist code.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01793.html

http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/majority.htm

http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/texas/texaspr.html

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,51 ... 45,00.html

http://www.alternet.org/rights/34773/

http://12degreesoffreedom.blogspot.com/ ... te-in.html

http://corporatism.tripod.com/charts.htm

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm

http://www.hr95.org/

http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/LIB ... sicfax.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs


http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=us+ ... stry&meta=


I know you like seeing Pat Robertson and the Prison executive smile. To blindly accept the US incarceration paradigm, via your circular defense, shows Fascism.

When you take an adult engaging in non-violent consentual adult behaviour (or 15 & 17 year olds having sex) and jail them, you impoverish them, their family (stress, legal costs) and their dependants (you wreck their lives).


2) Health care expenditures are more about bang for the buck, just because one spends more per captita as a % of GDP (US) doesn't mean the citizens benefit more (as in Scandinavia). In the US, the bottom 1/3rd can't afford it, in Scandinavia, no one is left out. IOW, the US spends way more, but a major percentage of it's pop. doesn't get it or can't afford it !!!!!! Medical expenditures are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. Maybe right-wing retards can't see that socialized medicine in the US would increase it's life expectancy and reduce it's horrific infant mortality rate.

The US spends most on health care, but covers LEAST.


http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/newsflash_060725_swa

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18802

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/ ... /678/d?eaf

http://www.canadiandemocraticmovement.c ... le416.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... expectancy

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/08/13/li ... index.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/h ... ife12.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0202-08.htm

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2005/02/0 ... 50202.html

http://www.totalbankruptcy.com/medical_ ... ruptcy.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... 5Feb8.html

http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml


Good to see seniors and families become impoverished, hungry and homeless... because the private medical industry CEO is LAUGHING all the way to the (underregulated bank). Profits before people, if you can't pay, then suffer and die. That is an uncivilized nation (Under Republican rule).





3)

-Life expectancy
-Infant mortality
-General poverty rate
-Child poverty rate
-Education standards & acheivement
-Violent crime
-Incarceration rate
-% of pop. w high school / university degree
-Personal bankruptcy

When you study the 4 Scandinavian countries vs. the US, you should have at least 5X9=45 sub-cataegories, but you just cherrypick scarecrows.

a) Each Norwegian has $80,000 in a private oil fund derived account, and gets to have the welfare state and socialized medicine, so they can afford a higher cost of living. You keep demonizing Norway for it's oil, and you hate the fact it benefits their entire population. But the other 3 non-oil-based Scandinavian economies have often ranked higher than Norway in many socio-economic factors and areas of performance, so it shows it's not because of oil. VS. the US, NORWAY & SCANDINAVIA WINS.

b) Denmark can afford higher taxes because of it's welfare state benefits. They willingly vote in left-wing parties in ORDER to do that. They have the lowest child poverty rate (vs. US who is highest) in the western developed world, and make the US look 2nd world if you consider crime, incarceration, poverty, and infant mortality. Again, the less per capita GDP spending on healthcare than the US is GOOD because it means they WIN (all persons are covered, no bankrutcies due to private health care costs, and a lower infant mortality rate). DENMARK WINS. When you pay less for healthcare as % of GDP, and 100% of the general population is covered, and you easily outrank the US WRT lower infant mortality and higher life expectancy, and no bankruptcies caused by medical expenditures, then you WIN. Semi-socialist welfare state model WINS while being very compeitive economically.

c ) Sweden beats US in per person health care based on per capita spending (100% of citizens get treated, and NO one is forced into bankruptcy). You are obviously retarded. The more the US spends with less % of pop. treated = WORSE. DUH.

Swedes keep voting for higher taxes than the US, this means they are satisfied with the welfare state benefits and quality of life, you twit.

Again WRT

-Life expectancy
-Infant mortality
-General poverty rate
-Child poverty rate
-Education standards & acheivement
-Violent crime
-Incarceration rate
-% of pop. w high school / university degree
-Personal bankruptcy

Scandinavia beats the US easily. The US (under right-wingness) LOSES.


4) The US has a far worse per capita homeless problem than any other western developed nation.


United States: Chronically homeless people (those with repeated episodes or who have been homeless for long periods) 847,000-3,470,000

United States Homeless Statistics

3.5 million people (1.35 million of which are children) will experience homelessness in a given year.
Children under the age of 18 account for 39% of the homeless population. 42% of these are under the age of 5.
43% of the homeless population are women; 40% of these women are unaccompanied. 22% of homeless women claim domestic abuse as reason for homelessness. 25% of these claim to have been abused within the past year.
Families with children comprise 33% of the homeless population.
Vets constitute 40% of the homeless population.
1 in every 5 homeless persons has a severe or persistent mental illness.
25% of the homeless nationwide are employed

lahsc.org


Chronically homeless stats are lower, don't just use them or all you do is cherrypick pro-Republican Pro-Corporate data.


5) The US fails in education rankings, again, because it's too private and publicly underfunded thanks to Republican corporatists.

http://kapio.kcc.hawaii.edu/upload/fullnews.php?id=52

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/educ ... 073753.stm

http://www.theage.com.au/news/education ... 39731.html

http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/16110377.html

http://dailycolonial.com/go.dc?p=3&s=1169

http://www.dailytrojan.com/news/2005/09 ... 5055.shtml



Why is Finland best ? It's not Oil, it's socialized education.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland

The World Economic Forum ranks Finland's tertiary education #1 in the world

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4073753.stm

http://www.weforum.org/en/media/Latest% ... ss_release

http://www.finfacts.ie/irelandbusinessn ... 9586.shtml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6502725.stm

http://www.finland.org/netcomm/news/sho ... Position=9

http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehran ... smart.html

http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/archives/ ... world.html



6) Under Bush, US ranks low in press freedom too.... George is such a reader of the right-wing rags.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01148.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1029-07.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2354077.stm


7) American CEOs keep gouging the general public.

http://www.allbusiness.com/labor-employ ... 019-1.html

8) Right-Wing Wacko : "A few more years of that and there won't be any people left in Scandinavia apart from pensioners and early retirees sucking Government revenue dry."

Blindly rampaging capitalists have been saying that about europe and scandinavia for decades. The empirical evidence shows that capitalist extremists don't comprehend a balanced semi-socialist MIXED economy.

9) You must look beyond the mere superficial employement numbers. Many US workers are wage slaves, the working poor.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2 ... poor_x.htm

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Sa ... asics.aspx

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatu ... y_20020214



My sources are center & center-left, whereas Von Mises sources are pure laissez-faire capitalist (rabid capitalist extremist). mises=radical. i don't quote pure communist sources, I quote progressive, centristic 3rd way sources.

http://www.mises.org/

Dumb capitalists. Want Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland to FAIL, but it is the US which is failing, in nearly EVERY socio-economic indicator.

The center-left WINS.

Right-Wing, Republicultian Authoritarianism via militaristc corporatism LOSES. Dumb capitalists ignore 75% of Scandinavian countries to look at the 25% which does social democracy worst. Still... a Swede getting a welfare check is likely better off than an impoverished American wage slave.




INFANT MORTALITY RATE :

http://www.indexmundi.com/sweden/infant ... _rate.html

The US rate is more than twice as bad !!!!

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=sw&v=29

I thought the US was pro-life ? I thought private health care is better ! But the US spends way more per on health care as % of GDP !!! Infuckingcredible right-wing MORONS !!!


AVERAGE LIFE EXPECTANCY :

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=0&v=30&l=en


Again, Scandinavia wins by FAR !!!!!!!!!


POVERTY :

http://www.ccsd.ca/pubs/2002/olympic/indicators.htm

http://www.tagg.org/rants/OECDChildPov.html

http://thetyee.ca/electioncentral/2006/01/19/406/

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatu ... s_06232004

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/4307745.stm

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_38299.html

http://www.childpolicyintl.org/countries/denmark.html

http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/econ ... EALTH.html

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/12/4496/

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0828/p17s02-cogn.html

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/736/pr1.htm

http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2680/ ... TRIES.html



The Scandinavian welfare state wins, and has billions to spare...


http://www.poverty.com/internationalaid.html


Scandinavia (including Sweden) has generally equalled the US in economic competitiveness rankings over the last decade.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/20060 ... 06626.html

http://www.tekes.fi/eng/news/uutis_tiedot.asp?id=4680

http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/g ... /index.htm

http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2007/11 ... itiveness/


US Is More Corrupt : US loses !

http://www.transparency.org/

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/corruption1.html


The US is least free nation on earth.... it is world's leading jailer.

http://www.mediastudy.com/articles/incarceration.html

http://www.thought-criminal.org/article/node/1037

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Priso ... ayKey.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/us/06prison.html


http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... a&aid=8801


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03016.html


http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3321586


Denmark is happy, and highly taxed. Low crime, low poverty, low incarceration. Great education standards, great universal health care, good economic competitiveness


http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/c ... 072596.htm

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=0&v=74&l=en

http://www.oecd.org/document/27/0,3343, ... _1,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6174573.stm

http://www.danishexporters.dk/scripts/d ... conomy.asp


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Denmark




Stupid In Debt Right-Wingers...

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=0&v=94&l=en


Gotta fund the military-industrial complex, to make it look economically powerful !! Gotta tax the non-rich higher than the rich - rob from the non-rich and give to the rich !!!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_welfare

http://www.democracyforutah.com/node/1622


Again, Scandinavian Social-Democracy WINS. Again, and again , and again.

 

[Keldorn]

Not to say I don't agree with you Proverbius, nor do I agree with you; I'm staying neutral on the subject which I really don't know much about.



How exactly is a website quoted directly from the government, a source you would expect to be trying to cover up it's political/economic faults, a more credible source than a site that is specifically trying to attack the government's military spending? Would you not expect the government to try and cover up the faults that it is being criticized for, much like you could expect an anti-war website to exaggerate them?

I'm not saying that either is true, but I fail to see the difference between these two charts as far as credibility goes.

Because in the information age it's nearly impossible to cover up a conspiracy or scandal. If that information were false then there would probably be a six-month investigation followed by dozens of people resigning.

JL is WRONG. The US under (R) is VERY corrupt. They just bribe, threaten and kill those who oppose the Republicult Bushians. Imagine maniacs like Rove & Cheney conspiring to wreck someone after they spoke the truth. The Bush administration is littered with such happenings. FEMA staging fake press conferences... the outing of CIA agents.... anyone who claims that the Republican administrations are transparent, is an idiot. They are corrupt, criminal, corporate militarists. Nixon + Bush = Bush Jr. = Fascism. The military-industrial complex has 1 trillion dollars to cover up it's antics (secret torture prisons in Eastern Europe, election irregularities via the pro-Bush Diebold corporation and their hackable e-voting machines).

ANYONE who dismisses the facts that the Bush admin. is corrupt is part of the blindly rampaging Republicult.

It's really quite simple.

70-80% of Americans do not approve of Bush, and it's likely 80-90% in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, France, Britain, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and likely 95-99% everywhere else.

If you support the Bush administration you are Anti-American and Anti-world.


That's why the US is shifting left... it sees the effects of Republicultian policies. The only way to stop the left is to rig the election.