@Yellowjacket:
I think semck made some interesting points in his response to you, but as a proud Dutchman, let me discuss this point

"Social welfare programs instituted at the federal level aren't some "crazy experiment" that is doomed to fail - it's merely catching up with the rest of the civilized world."

-By all means don't. Do it because you feel it's a good idea. Do it because you can demonstrate calculations that show the greater good is served by doing it. But by all means don't catch up with "the rest of the civilized world."

The Netherlands is a great nation, although a lot what's said about Sweden in semck's article applies to us as well. But we literally built chunks of our own country: which other country turns seas into lakes and arable land and has such an advanced system of protecting its shores?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuiderzee_Works
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Works)

These are Dutch solutions to Dutch problems. You should find American solutions to America's problems (possibly inspired by solutions abroad, but they have to be American solutions).

And yes, part of my enjoyment of Nigee's troll thread about how great the US is is squeezing in stuff about how cool Holland is. :D

red, is what I have written really a troll ..... I don't judge a country because it has a few nutters in it.
But The Netherlands is the coolest place on Earth, apart from Bali :-)

^Which was Dutch territory until not so long ago. Coincidence? I think not.

:-)

Dutch plans to increase their territory by stealing bits of the ocean has occured at the same time as global sea level rises. Coincidence? I think not ;)

David Cameron and Mark Rutte BFFs at the EU heads of government summit and both countries ranking at the top of the awesome ladder. Coincidence? I think not.

@ Yellowjacket

As a broad generalization, many of those European nations you are probably referring to are struggling with crippling debt as we speak. Also, those are much smaller nations, both geographically and with respect to population. It is not foolish of me to claim that those programs could not work at the federal level. I am a strong believer in the Tenth Amendment. Many of those programs could work very well at the state level if the federal government merely stepped out of the way.

"These are Dutch solutions to Dutch problems. You should find American solutions to America's problems"

Well said, redhouse. The thing is, we have our own unique culture and history that would not be conducive to a social safety net. It may look near barbaric to you Europeans but the truth is that our people are more free because of it.

Ow no it doesn't look barbaric, although I'm not sure whether there is no social safety net at all in the US, I just think it's extremely sober with respect to ours, am I correct?

Also, I believe a good social nets resonates not so much with my sense of justice (although I do believe our society is rich enough to take care of the minimum needs who can't take care of themselves and I believe it is our duty to do so) but there is also the sense of order it corresponds to. Just like a country needs to be attractive to talent, so as to prevent talented and high-skilled workers leaving the country (this is why French president Hollande a few years from now will prove to have made a fatal mistake augmenting the taxes for the richest to 75% of their income, not because it is unjust, but simply because it scares away talent out of France) it also needs to be attractive to those who have few opportunities in life, to prevent revolt.

If I didn't know better, red, I'd have sworn you just suggested that France has talent to scare away!

Joking aside, there's a lot of truth in it. Parts of London were becoming like a French colony even before Hollande started using his delicate economic sledgehammer.

"If I didn't know better, red, I'd have sworn you just suggested that France has talent to scare away!"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Roflcopter.gif

Is that true, by the way, about everybody fleeing to the City? I just heard rumors.

"As a broad generalization, many of those European nations you are probably referring to are struggling with crippling debt as we speak"

Good point, because america certainly isnt struggling with any kind of debt whatsoever.

Hey Sic,

How about we compare the US economy to that of say... Greece. Greece is a good socialist policy nation to compare to. Now tell me which nation is hurting worse per capita?

"The thing is, we have our own unique culture and history that would not be conducive to a social safety net." - Gunfighter
Are you kidding yourself? The US spend more on healthcare as a % of GDP than the UK, billions of dollars, the difference is the US govt cannot fund their health system with the money they receive, that does not mean there is no social safety net, just a wasteful and inefficient one. The FDA gets hundreds of millions of dollars of subsidies from multinational healthcare companies to help them gets their drugs approved for sales and use in the US.
Don't get confused with doing something badly and inefficiently compared with not doing it at all. Look at the average health of the nation, how can people that are 'relatively unhealthy' be more efficient at doing anything in relative terms.
Some people are trying to live on past glories, those days are gone. In business they say change or die .... to a certain extent this is true of all organisations, govts, democracies. The USA is slightly hamstrung by a Constitution that was written a long time ago, move on, make it better, modernise.

Greece I would imagine. Probably by alot. I was just making the point tht america isnt doing much better debt wise than most 'socialist' nations so whether or not the country is socialist is prolly not the biggest factor

But, Sic, with virtually the entire world in economic turmoil, what sets Greece apart from the US and would explain why it is in such worse shape? Hint: it starts with "soc" and is an "ism".

"What are some of the European countries you speak of, YJ?"

Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, and yes, Sweden, come to mind.


"While I await your answer, here's a good general response to the form of argument you raise:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/26/america-really-is-exceptional.html"

That's an untimately unimpressive opinion column. I'm going to assume you don't want me to bother counterpointing it bit by bit, but
do allow me say only that nothing it says is supported. It's evoking powerful emotion response and not much else, while at the same time
putting the ways that other countries are "different" as somehow "not better" when in some specific circumstances they are just better period.
It's the type of tripe thats going to have vast appeal to those who already agree with it in spirit.


"Your other arguments are all too commonly refuted to worry much about, needless to say."

Wow, I wish I could dismiss 4 paragraphs of anything Krellin didn't type so easily.


"You talk a lot about worth, but you'll never give me another way to actually determine it numerically other than a market."

That's because you've entirely missed my point. I'm not talking about a worth that can be quantified. I'm talking about the dignity of
human life and labor and the basic things that merely being a contributing member of society now earns a person in many devoloped nations.
As it ought to here, as I am trying to argue. If you can do that with the free market, Semck, fine. But we aren't and we haven't and we
sure as hell don't seem to be trying to either.


"It is you, patently, who thinks somebody is worth only the money they own or make."

You're going to need to be more specific, since I feel I'm pretty clearly arguing the exact opposite.


"If the laborer's labor was worth more than what he got for it, he should not have done it."

Hmm, if only there were some organized labor scheme that would allow laborers to get fair value for their work. Even that point notwithstanding
I don't buy your argument. Business needs labor just like labor needs business. I know that labor is viewed as a commodity, that unskilled
labor is basically seen as a replaceable part. But I believe that's a wrongheaded view. These are people, and they are working for a living
and if we're not going to pay them very damn much then the least we can do is make sure they don't die young and sick from preventable
disease and make sure there is a bit of a safety net in place because they didn't earn enough to save enough. The relationship between
business and labor is a symbiotic one. Nobody who participates should be struggling to the degree that working class Americans are and be
without healthcare or social security.


"The rest is just a lot of fallacious justifications for taking the results of other people's labor."

ROFL. isn't taking the results of other
peoples labor is exactly what the businesses you cherish so much are doing? No, Semck, you
can argue that businesses deserve to make the ridiculous profits that they do make. You can arge they deserve it even though its earned on
the backs of their employees. But don't you dare claim that what they do is anything as noble as labor. And Don't try to argue fallacy with
me unless you can spell out specifically where and how. I find it a amusing that you are able to dismiss a vastly popular
political viewpoint as mere logical fallacy without supporting that in the slightest.

You know there are Polish people working in the Netherlands because scores of Dutch people simply aren't prepared to do the dirty work in our society (working in the greenhouses, cleaning people's homes etc.).

I'd argue that scores of natives are prepared to do the dirty work, but just not at the prices and conditions on offer. It has always depressed me that the leftwing parties that campaign endlessly for raising the standards of the poor are the same parties that have paved the way for thousands of foriegn workers to move to wealthy countries and keep the low paid, dirty jobs low paid and dirty. A cynical man could almost imagine that they're doing it on purpose to maintain an underclass that will always vote for them.

Also, I spent a good few months unemployed a couple of years ago after coming out of uni and thought spending a few months picking fruit or packing boxes would do me good whilst looking for a career...

...could I find one? Not a chance! I looked high and low but they all went to foreigners who were recruited in their own country without the jobs even being offered to locals here. A bloody disgrace, is what I call it.

@Octavious: Which left-wing parties?

I own my loyalty to the USA but, I think every nation has the rights to be proud of their nation.

@ Sic

"Good point, because america certainly isnt struggling with any kind of debt whatsoever."

Because of the aforementioned entitlements and consumer-based economy.

@ redhouse

"although I do believe our society is rich enough to take care of the minimum needs who can't take care of themselves and I believe it is our duty to do so"

I would not necessarily disagree with that statement, but someone who sits on their ass all day and makes no attempt to work but has the mental and physical ability to take care of themselves should not get a dime from any level of government.

Mentally and physically incompetent people; that's different.

@ NigeeBaby

"Are you kidding yourself? The US spend more on healthcare as a % of GDP than the UK, billions of dollars, the difference is the US govt cannot fund their health system with the money they receive, that does not mean there is no social safety net, just a wasteful and inefficient one."

I would agree with all of that wholeheartedly. It only proves my point that continuing to combine America with government-provided healthcare will invariably result in a continuation of the current clusterfuck plaguing the healthcare system. Time to privatize or turn healthcare over to the states.

Yes, management and labor (aka the collective business) do have a symbiotic relationship. But it is disingenuous to imply that businesses in general are all about exploiting their employees. Many (most?) larger businesses are all for and offer health insurance and a great number (I won't claim most here) offer profit sharing and matching 401k/Simple IRAs and what not. And this offer typically applies to salaried and hourly alike.

Smaller businesses may not offer all the benefits but they don't rake in the profits that you imply. So your comparison of businesses exploiting workers while raking in huge profits is demonstrably false. Some businesses rake in huge profits. They typically care for the labor. Some not so much on the profit and can't afford to do what labor would like. The problem is two fold: a matter of perception (labor doesn't see the books and doesn't see how narrow the margin is in smaller privately held businesses), and a matter of misinformation/presenting outliers as the norm by mass media.

Look at Hostess. Yes, the CEO made 1.2 million a year (the correct amount, not the errantly advertised 2.5 mill and he didn't get a 300% payraise just before the declared bankruptcy as he wasn't CEO until after they already declared). Hostess laid off 15,000 workers. That's less than $100 per worker per year in his salary. He was even going to have his and the other top executives pay cut to just $1 until the end of the year to try and make things work. But labor decided to strike and cost themselves the jobs. They weren't fired. They shut the company down and it had to close it's doors. Who is to blame for this? Not management. They tried to reach a settlement to keep the company's doors open and keep the people working in this shitty economy. No, *labot* decided they'd rather try a tactic that was doomed from the beginning and now they whine about being out of work. Yet mass media *still* tries to make Hostess look like the big bad guys. The company went under. IT didn't want to. Labor forced it to. And yet the managment who worked in good faith to try and keep those folks employed in jobs is taking the brunt of it because of mismedia.

I dont understand why so many are so quick to decry 'socialist' policies. If the government does not take care of its own people what is their purpose?

@GF:

"I would not necessarily disagree with that statement, but someone who sits on their ass all day and makes no attempt to work but has the mental and physical ability to take care of themselves should not get a dime from any level of government."

I believe you and Draugnar and I already chased this squirrel in our "housing for everybody" thread. Though I was unable to convince you of my greater point, I recall in the end we all acknowledged that the vast majority of poor people are not poor because they are lazy, so I'll thank you to stop raising it as any sort of valid guideline or justification on how to treat the working poor as a whole.

@Draug:

"Smaller businesses may not offer all the benefits.... demonstrably false."

I'm afraid you're engaging again in your favorite debate tactic, Draugnar, mentioning a specific subset of the argument and then pretending it applies to the general case - that is to say, nobody here but you is specifically talking about small business. Even if we were, it's hardly contrary to my main point. In fact, you're supporting it. You said yourself that small businesses can't afford to provide health insurance. People who work need health insurance. People who work deserve health insurance. What to do, what to do? No matter where you and GF take this argument you are going to end up at the same place, making some kind of argument that those who cannot afford it somehow *deserve* to be that way.


"huge profits...they typically care for the labor..."

Bullshit they do. As a person who was worked for a hell of a lot of different kinds of low-wage employers, I can confidently say that most employers don't give a damn about their employees. Of the 15 or so I've worked at, two that I can recall do. One, Heat-n-glo, is a fireplace manufacturer, and actually did take good care of us, in much the way you describe. This is definitely an exception, and they have reached nationwide notice in past years for their exceptional treatment. The other, UPS, was forced to act decently so by the union (great hourly wage + benefits befitting honest work). I also worked for FedEX, unionless, and they treat their people like shit in comparison). You'll be pleased also to note that though UPS does occasionaly struggle with the union, they show no signs of insolvency, and the fellas at the top are earning lots of good money for themselves. Sorry, that's a bit of a tangent, but I hope you agree it's not irrelevant to the greater picture.

"Hostess..."

I have no information, opinion, or interest in this. Nor do I understand what point you're trying to make other than UNION SMASH UNION.

"anyone can get rich" doesnt mean "everyone can get rich"
100 people may have an "equal" shot at it, but one person is rich because 99 are not.

^...and? What's the problem? The one who got rich worked hard to get there.

I dont necessarily disagree with that, but to say only that 1 person worked hard is absurd.