A question for anyone living in Sweden, about socialism

[TexDis]

Good catch TexDis

Thanks. With allies like that, who needs enemies?

[Sal1000us]

Polietly put, Israel is a supersmart entity and the number one user of all unpaid resources.

[Eidekker]

What I don't understand is why US keeps giving Israel billions of dollars a year..

Careful. It is a thoughtcrime to question that "special relationship".

In Europe, it could send you to prison.

Not really, only if you denied holocost, and only in Germany and Austria I think.

One german dude got fined for teaching his dog a roman salute.. That's a bit overboard I think..

Then again in GB they almost removed mention of holocaust from school history books, to not offend those in "religion of peace".. Go figure..

Which reminds me of Pat Condell's hilarious religion criticism on YouTube...

[Eidekker]

Polietly put, Israel is a supersmart entity and the number one user of all unpaid resources.

They got more than 100+ nukes, I guess they could deal with hostile enemy easily by themselves..

[Condor]

I just think its scary to think of your doctor as a federal employee :shock:

Do you think its any stranger to think of the people that build Chryslers or Chevys as federal employees?

Think "Yugo"

[Condor]

I want to drink a beer with you people.

[Sal1000us]

They got more than 100+ nukes

Where do you think they got all that stuff and more importantly, do think they paid a dime for any of that?

[Sal1000us]

I guess they could deal with hostile enemy easily by themselves.

Not really, they are supposed to be our sattelite office in the middle east. No major decisions on their part without a firm order from uncle sam.

[madgar]

So instead of paying your own bills, I should have to pay part of it? I don't think so. How is that fair?

What we need to do is kill the insurance companies and government funded health care. The whole problem is since someone else is paying the bill, drs. hospitals and such overcharge for all their services. Eliminate the fraud and waste and costs will go down.

Well I don't want to pay your bills either, but it is a small price to pay to get health care under control. I would much rather pay for that than to save AIG, GM, and Chrysler. Besides if you have health insurance you are paying for a bunch of other people's medical bills already.

[lxskllr]

Re. health care

It's more complicated than you all are making it out to be, and isn't fixable without *drastic* changes. It would take a Phd in economics to sort it all out. Here's a few of the problems that pop into mind...

Greedy Americans filing lawsuits for every small issue.
Insurance fraud
Costly insurance bureaucracy
Costly drug development and subsequent price gouging
People running to the doctor/ER for every small issue
Modern equipment/facilities, and their high cost

....

[Ainkor]

Feel free to not read this post if you are easily offended. I would like to give everyone a lesson in pure socialism. Socialism exists right this very second in our very country and in various places around the country. I will use an example from a place I used to live.....

Many years ago I ran a quick service restaurant on an Indian reservation. This is a moderately populated one and could be thought of as one with a pretty high standard of living compared to many others. Before anyone gets your panties in a wad about how Indians were treated, I think that they were jacked over sideways by our government, had their lands taken, their way of life decimated and many of them were killed by our hands.

I have zero respect for the people that did this and continue to do things of this nature today. Also, this is just an example. I have met many lazy ass white folks and many motivated Indians who are active members of their communities.

Before I took over this location, I was told how bad the work ethic of everyone (whites, Hispanics, blacks and natives) were. I refused to believe it until I actually saw it for myself. This is not a blanket statement about everyone that lived on the reservation, this is a statement about a very large percent of the people though. I will use the example of one guy who worked for me, we will call him Walter in this example. He was married and has three kids. He is a member of the tribe as is his wife and 3 kids.

Twice a year, he gets a $4,500 check as does his wife.
Each of their kids gets the money put into a trust fund for when they graduate high school and turn 18, or if they drop out, when they turn 21.
He pays $100 a month for a 3 bedroom brick house (brand new, two years ago). Normal payments around there average around $1000 per month for a mortgage of an equivalent house.

He pays zero monthly for health coverage (dental and vision included). Most people I know pay around $300 per month for similar coverage. He and his wife pay no state taxes on their income. Most families pay around $3,000 per year in state taxes in that state.
He gets subsidized heating oil and electricity due to his low income levels. This alone saves them around $100 per month, or $1,200 per year.
He gets earned income tax credits each year due to him and his wife’s low income. This nets them around $3000 per year for income tax refunds.
They both made $7.50 per hour and averaged 30 or so hours per week making around $24,000 per year. Let's look at their effective spending power:

24,000 income

10,800 house payment savings

3,600 health benefit savings

1,200 electric/heating savings

3,000 income tax refund year after year

18,000 tribal disbursement (not counting children, in trust funds)

Total effective income: $60,600

I work about 75 hours a week at a nice paying job and my wife works 40+ hours a week and we made an effective spending level income of less than that after taxes and such.

Average family income for that area: $39,500 (2007)


What the hell does all of this have to do with anything?

Everything.

I was very surprised to see how they used their twice yearly checks. They paid their house payment, gas, water and power 6 months at a time, automatically taken out of their checks. They had no need to do anything other than make enough money to eat on and pay for their vehicles and other smalls items like clothing. I thought that was a pretty good use of it, but it still removed 90% of the motivation that most everyone has.

Also, don't forget about a free college education.

Everything is handed on a plate to them. Granted, there are many examples of people using this spending power to live a good and decent life but there are so many examples that I have seen of absolute crap going on that I just shook my head. He never keeps a job for more than 2 or 3 months. He was proud of the fact that if any boss asked him to do anything he didn't want to do, he would just quit and find a new job. His wife was the same way.

So were the other 200 people that I fired in 1 year. There was not color correlation either. It was Black, White, Hispanic, Native or any other color of person you could think of. This place was a black hole. There was never a reason for anyone to accomplish anything because everything was taken care of for you. The high school has a freaking 65% drop out rate.

Nothing makes a more profound impact on your view of humanity as a whole as seeing a reasonably bright young man get his first disbursement check for over $100,000 cash, quit his job, buy a new $50,00 car and total is two weeks later and not be able to afford to fix it because he was too stupid to get insurance on it because it was paid for and because he went and spent the other part of his check on a 2 week long party with his friends.

To see people know that there is an extremely effective social net that will cushion them if they fall too far (free housing etc). When you don't have to work for EVERY LITTLE THING YOU HAVE you appreciate NONE OF WHAT YOU HAVE. It is human nature.

There is no exception to on a macro scale.

Pure socialism is crap and it kills the drive to do anything worthwhile for a large percent of people. I lived it and was amazed, ashamed and alarmed each and every day.

I hired hundreds of people who didn't even bother to show up for their first day at work. They didn't have to. Now, take this microcosm of America and blow this up to the macro level. What do YOU think will happen?

If you still want to get your titties twisted and think this is an anti Indian rant, chill. I have many natives in my family and I am about 1/32nd native myself (which is about the same percent that Walter actually is, regardless of what his tribal card says - per him and his family)

Does this mean that partial socialism is bad? There has to be a certain level of socialism.

We all see what happened when capitalism ran rampant but we are on a very slippery slope.

Any time you have one extreme or another there are bad consequences.

/rant off, now back to your regularly scheduled thread about snus.

(edited for clarification and numerous spelling errors :P)

[Eidekker]

Where do you think they got all that stuff and more importantly, do think they paid a dime for any of that?

I think it's pretty evident they built it themselve in Dimonah, possibly getting the raw materials initially elsewhere.

http://www.scientistsandfriends.com/files/secrets.doc

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

Where did you think US got so many talented scientists, many of them Nobelists, before, during and after WWII?

Jews have a very prominent represantion n Nobel prize winners list, and that is not a coincidence, they traditionally value education greatly..

Back to snus now..

[Sal1000us]

Where did you think US got so many talented scientists, many of them Nobelists, before, during and after WWII? Jews have a very prominent represantion n Nobel prize winners list, and that is not a coincidence, they traditionally value education greatly..

This is not a pleasant subject to discuss, but now that you bring it up, we better be factual and not anecdotal. Most of the 118 German rocket scientists who started working together at Fort Bliss, Texas in December of 1945 were affiliated with the Nazi regime and none was Jewish. This was followed by as many as 1,600 German scientists in biological and chemical warfare, submarines, rockets, and aviation who were mostly affiliated with the SS or Nazi regime and again none was Jewish.

Only a handful of physicists were Jewish.

This country is not where it is because of a few Jewish scientists.

[lxskllr]

Tangentially related...

My father met Oppenheimer when he was stationed in Los Alamos during WWII. He didn't really talk with him, but it's kind of cool none the less.

[Sal1000us]

Tangentially related...

Gotta like the precision