Universal Welfare: yea or nay?

[North Suran]

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

2. Again. We did not have free market policies over the last 30 years. Stop blaming private individuals and start blaming the FEDs and stupid politicians such as Gordon Brown and George W.

We have a mixed economy. That is essentially a free market economy with some degree of government intervention and regulation. Private firms and entrepeneurs were free to make their own decisions. And their decisions were so poor that the State - the Archdemon of the Free Marketers - had to bail them out.

You cannot blame the State for the actions of independent, private firms. If anything, it was a lack of regulation which exarcebated this recession.

[EvilDarkMagicians]

1. You are simple minded if you really think you need to be an expert in order to care for your self. Building up your own retirement fond is extremely easy and does not take more than 2 hours of deep planning.

As it is today, people in many countries are forced to pay into a public retirement fund, even if they were smart enough to care for themselves. How is this preferable?

2. I can't wait to see you deniers bleeding out of your mouth, when Keynesianism fails once again. I hope you will eventually stop with those bullshit accusations that it's all the fault of those evil Austrian School economists (who actually foresaw the crisis as early as 2004-2005). Repeat: It is not the fault of the free market, because there exists no free market! Neither in Europe, nor the US!

1. Thank you for your humble assessment of my mental faculties. I'll note you completely missed the point, but I am somehow not surprised.

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

Let's put that up against socialist economys.

Sure. I nominate Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia and Italy.

These economy's are more successful than that of the United States?

Well that's a strawman.

[Treznor]

1. You are simple minded if you really think you need to be an expert in order to care for your self. Building up your own retirement fond is extremely easy and does not take more than 2 hours of deep planning.

As it is today, people in many countries are forced to pay into a public retirement fund, even if they were smart enough to care for themselves. How is this preferable?

2. I can't wait to see you deniers bleeding out of your mouth, when Keynesianism fails once again. I hope you will eventually stop with those bullshit accusations that it's all the fault of those evil Austrian School economists (who actually foresaw the crisis as early as 2004-2005). Repeat: It is not the fault of the free market, because there exists no free market! Neither in Europe, nor the US!

1. Thank you for your humble assessment of my mental faculties. I'll note you completely missed the point, but I am somehow not surprised.

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

Let's put that up against socialist economys.

Sure. I nominate Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia and Italy.

These economy's are more successful than that of the United States?

They're certainly a lot healthier, stable and more robust than the economy of the United States since Reagan started repealing FDR's New Deal. Of course, if you wish to move the goalposts again by defining "success" purely in terms of GDP then by all means. I'll accept that as proof of my point.

[North Calaveras]

1. You are simple minded if you really think you need to be an expert in order to care for your self. Building up your own retirement fond is extremely easy and does not take more than 2 hours of deep planning.

As it is today, people in many countries are forced to pay into a public retirement fund, even if they were smart enough to care for themselves. How is this preferable?

2. I can't wait to see you deniers bleeding out of your mouth, when Keynesianism fails once again. I hope you will eventually stop with those bullshit accusations that it's all the fault of those evil Austrian School economists (who actually foresaw the crisis as early as 2004-2005). Repeat: It is not the fault of the free market, because there exists no free market! Neither in Europe, nor the US!

1. Thank you for your humble assessment of my mental faculties. I'll note you completely missed the point, but I am somehow not surprised.

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

Let's put that up against socialist economys.

Sure. I nominate Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia and Italy.

These economy's are more successful than that of the United States?

Well that's a strawman.

lol...........funny, it was a question, idk where you get the idea that a question is a strawman.

[North Suran]

Let's put that up against socialist economys.

Sure. I nominate Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia and Italy.

These economy's are more successful than that of the United States?

Let's compare one of these to the USA:

Sweden

Size: 449,964 square kilometres
GDP: $333.2 billion
GDP per capita: $36,800
Unemployment: 9.1%
Poverty: 6%
Public Debt: 43.2% of GDP

USA

Size: 9,826,675 square kilometres
GDP: $14.266 trillion
GDP per capita: $46,442
Unemployment: 10.2%
Poverty: 13 to 17%
Public Debt: 84% of GDP

[North Calaveras]

1. You are simple minded if you really think you need to be an expert in order to care for your self. Building up your own retirement fond is extremely easy and does not take more than 2 hours of deep planning.

As it is today, people in many countries are forced to pay into a public retirement fund, even if they were smart enough to care for themselves. How is this preferable?

2. I can't wait to see you deniers bleeding out of your mouth, when Keynesianism fails once again. I hope you will eventually stop with those bullshit accusations that it's all the fault of those evil Austrian School economists (who actually foresaw the crisis as early as 2004-2005). Repeat: It is not the fault of the free market, because there exists no free market! Neither in Europe, nor the US!

1. Thank you for your humble assessment of my mental faculties. I'll note you completely missed the point, but I am somehow not surprised.

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

Let's put that up against socialist economys.

Sure. I nominate Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia and Italy.

These economy's are more successful than that of the United States?

They're certainly a lot healthier, stable and more robust than the economy of the United States since Reagan started repealing FDR's New Deal. Of course, if you wish to move the goalposts again by defining "success" purely in terms of GDP then by all means. I'll accept that as proof of my point.

I'm just pointing out that the worlds most powerful and successful nation is mostly free market based. What else are we going to measure our country's productivity on, its GDP.

[Self--Esteem]

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

2. Again. We did not have free market policies over the last 30 years. Stop blaming private individuals and start blaming the FEDs and stupid politicians such as Gordon Brown and George W.

We have a mixed economy. That is essentially a free market economy with some degree of government intervention and regulation. Private firms and entrepeneurs were free to make their own decisions. And their decisions were so poor that the State - the Archdemon of the Free Marketers - had to bail them out.

You cannot blame the State for the actions of independent, private firms. If anything, it was a lack of regulation which exarcebated this recession.

1. No. A mixed economy is as much a free economy as Marxism is.
2. The state (more precisely the FED/Central Bank) is the only one who directly regulates the money flow. So they are at fault if there is an inflation. It were also George W's housing policies who led to the whole misery.

[North Suran]

I'm just pointing out that the worlds most powerful and successful nation is mostly free market based. What else are we going to measure our country's productivity on, its GDP.

The USA is over four times the size of Sweden. So of course it is going to have a higher GDP. If you want to see which economy is more successful, however, you would look at the level of poverty and unemployment, as well as public sector debt and national debt. In which case, countries like Sweden triumph over the USA.

[EvilDarkMagicians]

1. You are simple minded if you really think you need to be an expert in order to care for your self. Building up your own retirement fond is extremely easy and does not take more than 2 hours of deep planning.

As it is today, people in many countries are forced to pay into a public retirement fund, even if they were smart enough to care for themselves. How is this preferable?

2. I can't wait to see you deniers bleeding out of your mouth, when Keynesianism fails once again. I hope you will eventually stop with those bullshit accusations that it's all the fault of those evil Austrian School economists (who actually foresaw the crisis as early as 2004-2005). Repeat: It is not the fault of the free market, because there exists no free market! Neither in Europe, nor the US!

1. Thank you for your humble assessment of my mental faculties. I'll note you completely missed the point, but I am somehow not surprised.

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

Let's put that up against socialist economys.

Sure. I nominate Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia and Italy.

These economy's are more successful than that of the United States?

Well that's a strawman.

lol...........funny, it was a question, idk where you get the idea that a question is a strawman.

So the US is completely non-socialist?

[SUPERFISHPIE]

YAY!
Let's bloody help everyone, ya know?
Yay for everyone.

[Treznor]

These economy's are more successful than that of the United States?

They're certainly a lot healthier, stable and more robust than the economy of the United States since Reagan started repealing FDR's New Deal. Of course, if you wish to move the goalposts again by defining "success" purely in terms of GDP then by all means. I'll accept that as proof of my point.

I'm just pointing out that the worlds most powerful and successful nation is mostly free market based. What else are we going to measure our country's productivity on, its GDP.

And that proves my point. Yes, there are other measures for success than pure wealth. The US falls far behind all of them in each of those measures. What good is wealth if your people aren't enjoying the benefits of it? This isn't to say that US citizens live in a third world country, but that nations that adopt more socialist policies do a far better job of maintaining their peoples' health, stability and all the other metrics that contribute to that ephemeral goal of "happiness."

[North Calaveras]

1. You are simple minded if you really think you need to be an expert in order to care for your self. Building up your own retirement fond is extremely easy and does not take more than 2 hours of deep planning.

As it is today, people in many countries are forced to pay into a public retirement fund, even if they were smart enough to care for themselves. How is this preferable?

2. I can't wait to see you deniers bleeding out of your mouth, when Keynesianism fails once again. I hope you will eventually stop with those bullshit accusations that it's all the fault of those evil Austrian School economists (who actually foresaw the crisis as early as 2004-2005). Repeat: It is not the fault of the free market, because there exists no free market! Neither in Europe, nor the US!

1. Thank you for your humble assessment of my mental faculties. I'll note you completely missed the point, but I am somehow not surprised.

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

Let's put that up against socialist economys.

Sure. I nominate Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia and Italy.

These economy's are more successful than that of the United States?

Well that's a strawman.

lol...........funny, it was a question, idk where you get the idea that a question is a strawman.

So the US is completely non-socialist?

No, but we are mostly free market based, just like the nations that were listed above are not completely socialist.

Why don't we bring up Greece as an example?

[North Suran]

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

2. Again. We did not have free market policies over the last 30 years. Stop blaming private individuals and start blaming the FEDs and stupid politicians such as Gordon Brown and George W.

We have a mixed economy. That is essentially a free market economy with some degree of government intervention and regulation. Private firms and entrepeneurs were free to make their own decisions. And their decisions were so poor that the State - the Archdemon of the Free Marketers - had to bail them out.

You cannot blame the State for the actions of independent, private firms. If anything, it was a lack of regulation which exarcebated this recession.

1. No. A mixed economy is as much a free economy as Marxism is.

Blatant lie. The factors of production are owned by the people. There is free enterprise. Anyone can own assets, create a company and make decisions for that company. That's all a mixed economy is; a free market with occassional State intervention and regulation.

2. The state (more precisely the FED/Central Bank) is the only one who directly regulates the money flow. So they are at fault if there is an inflation.

Inflation isn't the issue. Negative economic growth and unemployment are the issues. And these issues come directly from irresponsibility in the private sector undermining job security and reducing consumer confidence. As usual, the State had to come in after the 'infallible' free market made a mess.

It were also George W's housing policies who led to the whole misery.

It takes two to tango.

[Self--Esteem]

1. You are simple minded if you really think you need to be an expert in order to care for your self. Building up your own retirement fond is extremely easy and does not take more than 2 hours of deep planning.

As it is today, people in many countries are forced to pay into a public retirement fund, even if they were smart enough to care for themselves. How is this preferable?

2. I can't wait to see you deniers bleeding out of your mouth, when Keynesianism fails once again. I hope you will eventually stop with those bullshit accusations that it's all the fault of those evil Austrian School economists (who actually foresaw the crisis as early as 2004-2005). Repeat: It is not the fault of the free market, because there exists no free market! Neither in Europe, nor the US!

1. Thank you for your humble assessment of my mental faculties. I'll note you completely missed the point, but I am somehow not surprised.

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

2. Again. We did not have free market policies over the last 30 years. Stop blaming private individuals and start blaming the FEDs and stupid politicians such as Gordon Brown and George W.

Sure we didn't. And sadly, if you repeat it enough somebody might believe it.

Oh dear!

If the US were a free market economy, why would they have the FED and the S.E.C?

An economy is either free or it is not! Mostly free is an oxymoron.

[North Calaveras]

Let's put that up against socialist economys.

Sure. I nominate Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia and Italy.

These economy's are more successful than that of the United States?

Let's compare one of these to the USA:

Sweden

Size: 449,964 square kilometres
GDP: $333.2 billion
GDP per capita: $36,800
Unemployment: 9.1%
Poverty: 6%
Public Debt: 43.2% of GDP

USA

Size: 9,826,675 square kilometres
GDP: $14.266 trillion
GDP per capita: $46,442
Unemployment: 10.2%
Poverty: 13 to 17%
Public Debt: 84% of GDP

What is your source for these statistics.

[Treznor]

1. You are simple minded if you really think you need to be an expert in order to care for your self. Building up your own retirement fond is extremely easy and does not take more than 2 hours of deep planning.

As it is today, people in many countries are forced to pay into a public retirement fund, even if they were smart enough to care for themselves. How is this preferable?

2. I can't wait to see you deniers bleeding out of your mouth, when Keynesianism fails once again. I hope you will eventually stop with those bullshit accusations that it's all the fault of those evil Austrian School economists (who actually foresaw the crisis as early as 2004-2005). Repeat: It is not the fault of the free market, because there exists no free market! Neither in Europe, nor the US!

1. Thank you for your humble assessment of my mental faculties. I'll note you completely missed the point, but I am somehow not surprised.

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

2. Again. We did not have free market policies over the last 30 years. Stop blaming private individuals and start blaming the FEDs and stupid politicians such as Gordon Brown and George W.

Sure we didn't. And sadly, if you repeat it enough somebody might believe it.

Oh dear!

If the US were a free market economy, why would they have the FED and the S.E.C?

An economy is either free or it is not! Mostly free is an oxymoron.

What's the difference between a free market and a government that adopts a policy of leaving the free market to do whatever it wants?

[SUPERFISHPIE]

Also, this is a policy of the Green Party of Britain. They would implement a living wage (paying someone for living =) if they got into power (which is very unlikely but who cares) which would help evvvvvverybody as well as theoretically saving quite a bit of money on bureaucracy-you don't have to bother with all the paperwork of benefits and the like.

[Self--Esteem]

1. You are simple minded if you really think you need to be an expert in order to care for your self. Building up your own retirement fond is extremely easy and does not take more than 2 hours of deep planning.

As it is today, people in many countries are forced to pay into a public retirement fund, even if they were smart enough to care for themselves. How is this preferable?

2. I can't wait to see you deniers bleeding out of your mouth, when Keynesianism fails once again. I hope you will eventually stop with those bullshit accusations that it's all the fault of those evil Austrian School economists (who actually foresaw the crisis as early as 2004-2005). Repeat: It is not the fault of the free market, because there exists no free market! Neither in Europe, nor the US!

1. Thank you for your humble assessment of my mental faculties. I'll note you completely missed the point, but I am somehow not surprised.

2. I'm still waiting for you Free Market cultists to acknowledge the failure of free market policies over the last thirty years. All I'm seeing is the frantic movement of goalposts. Good thing I'm not holding my breath.

2. Again. We did not have free market policies over the last 30 years. Stop blaming private individuals and start blaming the FEDs and stupid politicians such as Gordon Brown and George W.

Sure we didn't. And sadly, if you repeat it enough somebody might believe it.

Oh dear!

If the US were a free market economy, why would they have the FED and the S.E.C?

An economy is either free or it is not! Mostly free is an oxymoron.

What's the difference between a free market and a government that adopts a policy of leaving the free market to do whatever it wants?

That the policy isn't worth the paper it is written on. You basically give them a free pass to intervene whenever they want but tell them not to do it.

[Self--Esteem]

Also, this is a policy of the Green Party of Britain. They would implement a living wage (paying someone for living =) if they got into power (which is very unlikely but who cares) which would help evvvvvverybody as well as theoretically saving quite a bit of money on bureaucracy-you don't have to bother with all the paperwork of benefits and the like.

Yea. Never mind that it won't work. Those savings on bureaucracy are balanced by debt, inflation and unhappy people.

[North Suran]

Let's put that up against socialist economys.

Sure. I nominate Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia and Italy.

These economy's are more successful than that of the United States?

Let's compare one of these to the USA:

Sweden

Size: 449,964 square kilometres
GDP: $333.2 billion
GDP per capita: $36,800
Unemployment: 9.1%
Poverty: 6%
Public Debt: 43.2% of GDP

USA

Size: 9,826,675 square kilometres
GDP: $14.266 trillion
GDP per capita: $46,442
Unemployment: 10.2%
Poverty: 13 to 17%
Public Debt: 84% of GDP

What is your source for these statistics.

Sweden:
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:SWE&dl=en&hl=en&q=Sweden+GDP
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&idim=country:SWE&dl=en&hl=en&q=Sweden+GDP+per+capita
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/3-01032010-AP/EN/3-01032010-AP-EN.PDF
http://www.fattiga.se/news.php
http://www.indexmundi.com/sweden/public_debt.html

USA:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2006&ey=2009&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=111&s=NGDPD%2CNGDPDPC%2CPPPGDP%2CPPPPC%2CLP&grp=0&a=&pr.x=64&pr.y=8
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=USA+unemployment
http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_debt_chart.html

[Treznor]

Sure we didn't. And sadly, if you repeat it enough somebody might believe it.

Oh dear!

If the US were a free market economy, why would they have the FED and the S.E.C?

An economy is either free or it is not! Mostly free is an oxymoron.

What's the difference between a free market and a government that adopts a policy of leaving the free market to do whatever it wants?

That the policy isn't worth the paper it is written on. You basically give them a free pass to intervene whenever they want but tell them not to do it.

That's your opinion. Also the opinion of the Bush administration, as it happened. They couldn't get Congress to repeal the policy, so they did the next best thing: they ordered the agencies tasked with oversight to stand down and do nothing unless told otherwise. The result? A market that was regulated in theory, but not in practice.

There was no difference. What the market did during that period was entirely their own doing, since they knew the government wasn't going to invoke regulation to stop them. So we had a taste of what the free market would be like in the US. Did you like the result? I sure as hell didn't.

[North Suran]

What's the difference between a free market and a government that adopts a policy of leaving the free market to do whatever it wants?

That the policy isn't worth the paper it is written on. You basically give them a free pass to intervene whenever they want but tell them not to do it.

That's your opinion. Also the opinion of the Bush administration, as it happened. They couldn't get Congress to repeal the policy, so they did the next best thing: they ordered the agencies tasked with oversight to stand down and do nothing unless told otherwise. The result? A market that was regulated in theory, but not in practice.

There was no difference. What the market did during that period was entirely their own doing, since they knew the government wasn't going to invoke regulation to stop them. So we had a taste of what the free market would be like in the US. Did you like the result? I sure as hell didn't.

You can't win, Treznor. If the State enforces any regulation, they're paralysing economic growth and enforcing Marxist ideals. If the State enforces no regulation, they're being negligent and leading private firms astray. At no point will a free marketer ever admit that private individuals may have been in the wrong.

[Treznor]

What's the difference between a free market and a government that adopts a policy of leaving the free market to do whatever it wants?

That the policy isn't worth the paper it is written on. You basically give them a free pass to intervene whenever they want but tell them not to do it.

That's your opinion. Also the opinion of the Bush administration, as it happened. They couldn't get Congress to repeal the policy, so they did the next best thing: they ordered the agencies tasked with oversight to stand down and do nothing unless told otherwise. The result? A market that was regulated in theory, but not in practice.

There was no difference. What the market did during that period was entirely their own doing, since they knew the government wasn't going to invoke regulation to stop them. So we had a taste of what the free market would be like in the US. Did you like the result? I sure as hell didn't.

You can't win, Treznor. If the State enforces any regulation, they're paralysing economic growth and enforcing Marxist ideals. If the State enforces no regulation, they're being negligent and leading private firms astray. At no point will a free marketer ever admit that private individuals may have been in the wrong.

Oh, I know damned well I won't convince people who worship at the altar of the Free Market Fairy. But for those who don't, I can provide them with context for what happened and why the Free Market does not cure all ills.

[Makaar]

You can't just increase the amount of money without increasing the amount of goods available - if you do, then money simply becomes worth less. $200 may seem like enough to live off at the bare minimums, but if everyone suddenly had $200, and there were no extra goods in the system, then prices would just go up because more people would buy more things.

I can't explain it very well, but in my head I know why this wouldn't work. Nice intentions, terrible execution.

[North Suran]

You can't just increase the amount of money without increasing the amount of goods available - if you do, then money simply becomes worth less. $200 may seem like enough to live off at the bare minimums, but if everyone suddenly had $200, and there were no extra goods in the system, then prices would just go up because more people would buy more things.

But if everyone had £200 extra, they would demand more goods and services. When demand for goods and services increases, firms will use their increased profits to expand the factors of production. Subsequently, they hire more workers so they can produce more output and increase their level of supply. An increase in supply will match the increase in demand, with the added bonus of more people being in employment.