A question for anyone living in Sweden, about socialism

[superdevil]

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

Albert Einstein? Never heard of him. :roll:

Though the role he played in the development of the atomic bomb has been variously downplayed and upgraded through the years, it's a fact that the colloquial letter that Einstein, Edward Teller (father of the Hydrogen Bomb), E.P. Wigner, and Leo Szilzard (all Jewish scientists) wrote to Roosevelt regarding the German development of the atomic bomb is the root of the Manhattan Project, which several Jewish scientists also took part in the development of.

We would not have had the atomic bomb without Jewish scientists. Without the bomb, we may or may not have won the war, and regardless of the outcome a great many American and allied lives were saved with its implementation.

Please don't act as if Jews have contributed nothing towards the development of this country.

[Sal1000us]

Please don't act as if Jews have contributed nothing towards the development of this country.

Banking?

[Grim]

RE: Health Care.

How about the problem with name brand meds and all the commercials they put out.

That not only brings the price up but according to Med Weekly it leads people to start asking their doctor for those meds, self diagnosing, with out knowing the side effects of said drug.... not to mention all the BS advertising drives up the cost of said meds.

Like it or not something needs to be done about healthcare in this country.

You are trying to say because you are lucky enough to have a job that provides insurance that others dont deserve universal healthcare????

How about those who make your food??? or those who build your houses??? ( and yes you would be suprised about how many construction companies do not offer benefits ) , those who work in retail and so on.

You are saying they shouldnt get health care so you can pad your wallet while someone has a very serious ailment that cant be treated because hospitals/ doctors offices wont do a CT or MRI scan because that person doesnt have insurance.

The government should take care of its people instead of advantage of them.

Sounds like the OP is in a good enough financial situation to not see the other side of the coin.

Sure, the way its going its gonna suck but you act like all the people who need health care are in that situation because they chose to be.

Not all homeless, poor and bad off people are just f-ing retarded or lazy.

Sure, some people live off the government in projects and drive BMWs and Mercedes and have 20 kids so they can get an ass load back in taxes but thats a very small minority that does that to take advantage of the system.

As advanced as we consider ourselves, the USA, its actually kinda sad we dont have a universal healthcare system that works.

This country has turned to greed and self pleasures, its government no longer stands for the people, only special interests.

So i say to you, put yourself in a persons shoes whose family died in a car accident or something when they were just a child, then they were in foster care..

Got put into an abusive home finished High School but had no money to go through college and works 60 hours a week makin min wage at a resturaunt and can not afford insurance.

You are telling me that they dont deserve it??

Please.... money should come ou tof the fat cats wallets and go to help those in need, not towards a private island or some other uneeded luxury.

The rich deserve to pay higher taxes and I stand by that.

The middle and lower classes continue to be screwed over by them and its about time they paid something.

[Eidekker]

This is not a pleasant subject to discuss, but now that you bring it up, we better be factual and not anecdotal.

You may be right there.

Winning the war because of the nazi scientist is not as flattering as winning it with the aid of the jewish ones, some might say.. I'll continue with snus and other lighter topics..

Grim wrote well..

[smeden]

sadly my english is terible because this is somthing that i fell wery strongly about

iam am from litle "RED" denmark the contry with one off the higstes tax in the world income tax over 50% (59% is max thow) if i want a new car the tax is 180% plus 25%vat eletrycety for exampel 0,4$ for 1 kwh gas 1,9$ per litre


but as the trade unions are wery strong in denmark (skils worker more than 98% membership)
the wages is also ok and we have some off the best work inviroment in the world

90000-100000 us $ a year
37 hours a week
6 weeks fuly paid wacation time a year
8 % pention
6 month full paid if sik
wen kids get sik the first day full paid
and 14 days paid education a yer
wen u have ben a member of the union for 1 year and work for 2000 hours u can have unimplymetn insuranse for 4 years pt 145 $ a day

and here scools universty trade scools hospitals elderly care well most of thing are paid via the exept dentist ven you are more than 18

[Skimo]

Though Grim has a point... he's completely off base.

People deserve to be treated like people.

as far as anyone deserving anything... I think it can be BEST handled by communities and not an overshadowing totalatarian government that's allready out of control.

Plenty of people work to pay thier way through college while making payments on a car and eating ramen, no one deserves an education, having an education is a privlege, not a right.

Social classes have existed as far back as history dates.
In the modern era highly educated well trained sons of influential and wealthy men took positions in the military to maintain thier status.

People have rights, yes. No one has the right to be rich and well taken care of.

Sadly children are abused, neglected, and more often than not they aren't challenged to work towards goals.

As a very indulgent, spoon fed, lazy nation we are reaping what we sowed.

Unlversal healthcare etc. is a horrible answer to our problem, and will only compound the problem.

[lxskllr]

37 hours a week

That's an odd number of hours. How does that get broken down during the week?

[sgreger1]

I want to drink a beer with you people.

**** yah im down. Nice to hear somewhere that im not a wierdo for thinking this scheme of socializing everything and spending our way out of recession by getting tens of trillions more into debt is a bad idea.

[sgreger1]

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?

From a strategic point of view, Israel is a good investment, which is why we invest in them.

It allows us the ability to fight our enemies in the middle east via Israel as a proxy. They are already over tehre and its cheaper and more politicaly correct to wire money there than send troops.


Iran fights us using their proxy hezbollah and we fight them using Israel as our proxy. Its like an under the table war where you dont really see who is actually fighting.

[sgreger1]

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.

"Besides if you have health insurance you are paying for a bunch of other people's medical bills already"

I pay 30$ a month for health insurance, I dont care if that covers the whole planet as long as I have 8$ prescriptions and an $25$ copay for dr's visits.

If I have to pay for all the people who do not work full time and therefore get benefits via their employer it will cost me more than 30 a month.

[sgreger1]

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)

Wow, i'm not going to lie after reading the part wehre you added up their benefits I thought you were going to start saying that we could all live like this, and I was going to bash it with "well if we did that on the macro level who would be paying those taxes for everyone to get those benefits", but then you turned around and hit the nail right on the head.

It eliminates work ethic which means you dont appreciate anything. Hard work is what brings good rewards, look at paris hilton, she has everything and doesnt appreciate it becauseshe didnt have to work for it. I work 50 hours per week and when I bought my brand new R6 (although only a 10k$ bike) I feel like tis mine, I earned it, and even if it was only a bicycle I could afford it would be equally satisfying because is the fruit o f MY LABOR.

[sgreger1]

RE: Health Care.

How about the problem with name brand meds and all the commercials they put out.

That not only brings the price up but according to Med Weekly it leads people to start asking their doctor for those meds, self diagnosing, with out knowing the side effects of said drug.... not to mention all the BS advertising drives up the cost of said meds.

Like it or not something needs to be done about healthcare in this country.

You are trying to say because you are lucky enough to have a job that provides insurance that others dont deserve universal healthcare????

How about those who make your food??? or those who build your houses??? ( and yes you would be suprised about how many construction companies do not offer benefits ) , those who work in retail and so on.

You are saying they shouldnt get health care so you can pad your wallet while someone has a very serious ailment that cant be treated because hospitals/ doctors offices wont do a CT or MRI scan because that person doesnt have insurance.

The government should take care of its people instead of advantage of them.

Sounds like the OP is in a good enough financial situation to not see the other side of the coin.

Sure, the way its going its gonna suck but you act like all the people who need health care are in that situation because they chose to be.

Not all homeless, poor and bad off people are just f-ing retarded or lazy.

Sure, some people live off the government in projects and drive BMWs and Mercedes and have 20 kids so they can get an ass load back in taxes but thats a very small minority that does that to take advantage of the system.

As advanced as we consider ourselves, the USA, its actually kinda sad we dont have a universal healthcare system that works.

This country has turned to greed and self pleasures, its government no longer stands for the people, only special interests.

So i say to you, put yourself in a persons shoes whose family died in a car accident or something when they were just a child, then they were in foster care..

Got put into an abusive home finished High School but had no money to go through college and works 60 hours a week makin min wage at a resturaunt and can not afford insurance.

You are telling me that they dont deserve it??

Please.... money should come ou tof the fat cats wallets and go to help those in need, not towards a private island or some other uneeded luxury.

The rich deserve to pay higher taxes and I stand by that.

The middle and lower classes continue to be screwed over by them and its about time they paid something.

Grim, grim... grim. I think you think im working against you, btu im not. I agree our healthcare is ****ed up and needs reform, too much price gouging due to insrance etc.

"The OP must be in a good enough financial situaion to..."

Let me tell you something, I am 22 years old, with a GED, I left school and got a GED because I went to a school in LAUSD that sucked and I already knew what they were teaching by 10th grade so I dropped out took the GED and started working min wage jobs so I could have a car like all the rich kids at my school.

I just got back from 3 years in the 82nd Airborne, I get "socialized" free healthcare from the VA, however my new job is at a workers comp insurance company and the benefits here are a little bit better so I still pay the 20$. Its about the same for every full time job in california that ive ever worked at.

I agree we need to get healthcare for everyone, but I dont think that people who work hard and are good at producing money should share an inproportionate amount of the tax load. If your a millionare then yes paymore taxes, but Obama is saying any family making more than 250k a year. In california that is like 100k a year in most other states.

I ain rich bro but im going to school and trying my hardest to educate myself and do good at work (except for while im typing this post at my desk) so that I can be rich and successfull someday.

But when I get there I dont want Obama to take my money away and give it to the people who slouched all day long or all my old friends sitting around smoking pot.

[sgreger1]

Though Grim has a point... he's completely off base.

People deserve to be treated like people.

as far as anyone deserving anything... I think it can be BEST handled by communities and not an overshadowing totalatarian government that's allready out of control.

Plenty of people work to pay thier way through college while making payments on a car and eating ramen, no one deserves an education, having an education is a privlege, not a right.

Social classes have existed as far back as history dates.
In the modern era highly educated well trained sons of influential and wealthy men took positions in the military to maintain thier status.

People have rights, yes. No one has the right to be rich and well taken care of.

Sadly children are abused, neglected, and more often than not they aren't challenged to work towards goals.

As a very indulgent, spoon fed, lazy nation we are reaping what we sowed.

Unlversal healthcare etc. is a horrible answer to our problem, and will only compound the problem.

---- :arrow: MONEY SHOT right there. Absolutely true

[smeden]

8 man-thours
5 fridag

"Plenty of people work to pay thier way through college while making payments on a car and eating ramen, no one deserves an education, having an education is a privlege, not a right"

education is probaly the most importent thing
here itis more like a duty to get educatet
the goal in denmark pt is that atleast 90% of an generation gets an mediumlenght education itis around 80% know due to wery low unimpleument rate

[Starcadia]

Plenty of people work to pay thier way through college while making payments on a car and eating ramen, no one deserves an education, having an education is a privlege, not a right.

Nah, man. The only way any country is going to flourish is to get quality education to as many people as possible. The pen is mightier than the sword, always has been, always will be. The USA since WWII has been largely operating by the sword, and is therefore failing in almost every way that matters. We're increasingly fat, unhealthy, lazy, stupid, greedy and individualistic. Educated people generally don't let these things happen to themselves or their families.