BTW, the spelling error in the bold above was from the link, not mine. Apologies for not catching it before...

bb

Your statement about Reagan was the first president since the war to run a deficit is false

Carter did run a deficit during the oil crisis. I over stated....
However, Carter paid politically for those deficits...


ray

Isn't the definition of Keynesian stimulus the conscious decision by the government to buy things that it will pay for later. Perhaps you get a free pass if it is an investment (and we can debate how good the investment is) but much of the Obama stimulus was not an investment per se (unemployment insurance, state governments to pay for municipal payroll, etc.)

NO. Keynes says that the government should spend borrowed money in down cycles in order to stimulate the failing economy... BUT he also says that in good times the govnerment should be run at a surplus.That the ability to react in bad economic times, is earned by responsible fiscal management in good times...

I take your point about Obama's health care.... I know that there is a debate about whether or not there is a "bending of the cost curve" as is promised. But I think that the counter factual arguements are still inconclusive. If I remember the Congressional Budget Office has forecast a cost curve to really start working in 14?
I do note that he has increased the power of the administrators of Medicare to negotiate pricing on drugs.... But, without getting too far into it, he hasn't wrung out savings enormously.
I don't think he should get a free pass on this....at best he's trying for incremental improvements. More is required.
I just don't think that the nation is capable of making a major change to the health care system, as the system is gamed too much by the stakeholders who benefit from its current structure. So incremental improvement is probably all that could be expected unless the political climate changes, and there is a willingness to accept a wholesale change.

And by the way, when a government decides to intervene in an industrial sector in order to help establish and nuture the sector ... that doesn't mean they get to run deficits because of that . Unless its part of a stimulus in bad times program and I'm leery of those decisions because they sometimes seem forced by immediate circumstance rather than long term strategy. Solyndra strikes me as an example of that...

Ray Jay wrote:I love this country, and especially its diversity. It's our richness and I don't envy Europe or Sweden one bit. Ethnic group is more than race; we have every type of European, Hispanic, Middleastern, Asian, black, etc. It's great. Have I missed anyone?

"Europe" is also pretty diverse if you consider it. Sweden is perhaps more diverse than people assume. Odd how it's easy to call one ignorant for not agreeing to the native view of America, but how much do you guys really know about Sweden?

However, it also means that we are more complex.

You know what? I'm not convinced.

We don't all speak the same language.

Britain is 20% the size of America in terms of population, and we don't all have the same language (English is the main language, but there are places where it is a minority language amongst the native population, and it's not unknown for the odd million or so immigrants to come along with their own languages. I frequently hear Polish being spoken on the street in my (small-medium) town.

But let's go back to Sweden. Guess what - they don't all speak Swedish in Sweden. For a start, a fair number of people in the north of the country speak Finnish or other Finno-Ugaric languages, and there's the Sami. Yiddish is an official language in Sweden, as is Romani. About 10% of Swedes do not have Swedish as a first language, although the vast majority of those do as a second language.

We don't all have the same cultural expectations for hard work or using benefits. We have a long legacy of slavery and segregation. None of this is code for racism. This is just describing what America is.

No, but part of the thing is that you mentioned 'illegal immigrants' in your reasoning. Interestingly, I suspect that illegal immigrants have some of the highest work ethics (it's damn hard to get in, then to hide, and to make a living) and because they are less likely to be able to claim benefits, it's not actually as significant a difference as you think.

Sure there are people who are indigent. Oddly, that tends to be more prevalent in places where there's less work around to begin with.

I want to fully integrate this country as the land of opportunity based on hard work, and not a land of opportunity based on social programs. That's the dream over here. If you and Ricky dream of a different society, that’s fine. Go build it.

Your dream is not that different from mine. Except that I see social programmes as having two key functions. Firstly to enable mroe people to have the equal opportunity to be able to have access to the prosperity from work. Secondly to act as a means to keep people comfortable when you need more than just a willingness to work hard (such as when the banks overspeculate and cause a worldwide recession).

By the way, all ethnic and racial groups have good and bad, hard workers, and lazy people, some with high moral standards, and others without. Some who contribute to the greater good, and others who will take whatever they can get regardless of fairness or law. And some who just need help because they can't fend for themselves.

That being true, it is also true that cultures vary widely. Germans are known for precision, and Brits are known for stiff upper lips. Italians enjoy life and Israelis like to argue. There’s some truth to all of that, and yet every culture has every type.

What works for Sweden may not work for the U.S. It isn’t working for Greece, Spain, or Portugal.

Greece and Portugal (and this applies to Spain until very recently) did not have the same kind of social democracy as Sweden. Benefits are much lower. State involvement in health and education is lower. Pensions are lower (and despite the lies told on US TV, the average retirement age in Greece is not 50, it's one of the highest in Europem beating those work-ethicy Germans). There's also a key difference between Spain, Portugal and Greece and the rest of Western Europe that may also affect attitudes to the State (and paying dues to it) that won't apply to the US or Sweden - Until 40 years ago (ie: withing living memory) they were run by dictatorships/military cabals.

Danivon:

So, ignoring the bit of my response you don't like, can you accept that just showing a difference between the USA and Sweden is not sufficient to explain why that difference is enough to negate it as an example? You already used the 'Greece' response, now you move on to the 'America is just different' response. Neither are reasons to ignore Sweden without a lot more explanation.

I didn't negate Sweden or say we should ignore it. I said

I'm all for learning as much as possible about what other countries do.

What's up with this constant misquoting?

It's not 'misquoting' to omit something. You've said a lot, and we can't quote it all. Ricky's said a lot too, and both of you are talking past each other to an extent. You are both arguing against a straw man version each other's position, when the reality is you are closer than you think.

I also said that it is not a sufficient example to prove that the US can or should build a European style economy with large social spending and higher taxes. For every Sweden or Germany that you name, I can name a Greece or Portugal. This has nothing to do with complexion by the way. I'm just looking at the headlines of what's going on for some of Europe. Certainly it is complex, and cultural attitudes within nations are important.

And, as above, there are many other factors. Greece and Portugal never had an appreciable industrial sector and don't have much of a high-skill or knowledge-based economy. Sweden and the US, on the contrary are more similar in that regard.

It's not a case of naming countries. It's a case of going into why some succeed and others fail.

Ricky seems to believe that the topic sentence is that this is all Republican’s fault, and in particular it is Reagan’s legacy. I just don’t agree with that since we’ve had budget surpluses since Reagan’s time.

Well, you had them once, at the end of Clinton, at the end of a period of growth that came just before the dotcom bubble bursting. If you were ever going to have a balanced budget, it would be then.

What Reagan did was to promote the idea of 'trickle-down' economics, combined with a belief that tax cuts (particularly at the top end) that contributed to a deficit were ok because (handwaving) the resultant freedom for the rich would generate more money etc.

It didn't work (and Reagan and Bush I themselves undid part of it, in order to deal with increasing deficits), but the mythology lives on. I blame the 80s politicians for helping create the climate of irresponsibility that pervaded the 00s leaders.

The deficit magnitude since Bush II / Pelosi / Obama have been in charge is breathtaking. I believe there is shared responsibility between Democrats and Republicans because they have both controlled the executive branch at times and they have both controlled the legislature at times over these many years.

I agree that there is shared responsibility. Both parties voted pretty much for Iraq, which adds much to the deficit. Both supported the first set of tax cuts to some degree (if not the second set).

And, both decided to bail out banks and others in response to the 2008 crash. Of course, the choice then was bail them out now, or bail everyone out later (or not be able to do that even, as was the case in 1929-30). And despite what some people might wish to believe, that crash was not caused by government deficit spending, or just by poor-ish people trying to buy houses. It was caused because banks took the exact wrong approach to dealing with sub-prime loans. Instead of hedging, they doubled down. And quadrupled down. And hexadecled down. And hexacontatetralled down... And both Parties in Congress (and politicians over here) stood back and said, well it seems to make money, so let's not bother regulating it much, and the banks said well, it makes money so even though we don't really understand it, let's keep on, and then a sudden rise in oil and other raw materials prices (in early 2007) that would normally be a bump in the road turned into a multilane pile-up involving a couple of petrol tankers.

And yes, the deficit will grow when that happens (regardless of any attempts to keep it down), and the knock on will be to push deficits up in the future.

Ricky seems to believe that another topic sentence is that social programs work because social security seems to be on firm footing and Sweden is doing just fine. My issue continues to be Medicare which has ballooning deficits. I still haven’t heard Obama’s plan to deal with this; he definitively made it worse 2 years ago. That’s my marker for how good a job he is doing, and I think that should be our topic sentence because it is his speech we are evaluating.

[/quote]I don't know if he really did make it worse. He made it pretty much no better, but if more people have access to healthcare, that's fewer days lost in the economy which is a roundabout help to national productivity and will 'trickle-up' in taxes over time. This part of the healthcare debate is usually forgotten about when people look at the bottom-line cost of the healthcare bill. Again, it's not just about the accounting of the Federal government, it's about the effect on the wider economy.

Personally, I think the solution to the healthcare issues in the USA is to go for single-payer universal national insurance, similar to what they have in Germany, which allows for private competition and is much more efficient. Or you could use the Swiss system, which my sister is currently living with, which is kind of what Obamacare would have been with a full mandate and no exceptions and a better organised system. The Swiss are diverse (you want languages? the Swiss gottem) and love freedom (as long you are not foreign in any way).

However, there's one truism about major reforms to big systems - the worst thing you can do after one is do another straight away. I've seen the effect here on our NHS, and the government elected on a promise not to reform the NHS is now trying to force a massive set of changes through despite everyone (except the family doctors who stand to make a bucket from becoming effectively the equivalent of HMOs) hating it and pointing out the flaws and also noting that it's costing lots of money at just the time the government claims it's trying to save money... I could go on.

Some of the provisions are still coming on stream. When they do, people may look at it differently. Maybe not. But rather than prejudge it, I think it's better to use an evidence-based approach. You can't do that without looking at all of the effects of a policy, the indirect as well as the direct.

Oh, and 'hard work'. I think actually that's a poor aspiration. In my view, if I'm having to work hard in my job, it's an indication of failure on someone's part. Because work doesn't have to be hard if you work smart.

Perhaps that's having a background in support. If I was busy, it meant that people had problems with the IT. That could be because I wasn't fixing stuff properly. It could be because the users were idiots who shouldn't be trusted with anything more complicated than a TV remote. It could be because the system testing was done by a monkey and passed by a manager who only wanted to tick a box. It could be because the designers and coders were slapdash. or it could be because the system was a stupidly over-engineered, bought-in-because-the-Director-had-a-mate-and-liked-the-pretty-screenshots, Android-tweaked* pile of crap.

Either way, if I was working hard, someone was working stupid. If I could find a way to reduce my workload, I'd do it. For selfish reasons, of course, but I'd be warmly welcomed for doing it because it usually meant a workaround or a preventive method for a common problem. My dad works in mechanical maintenance, which is pretty much a pre-silicon version of what I did. He said that the best engineers were also lazy ones - they were always trying to find ways to do less work, which meant improving things.

Besides, in reality do you actually think that capitalism rewards 'hard' work? Of course not. The hardest work is probably stuff like coal mining, manual labour in farming, road-work, trying to teach 30 unruly teenagers.

But who gets the rewards? Guys in air-conditioned offices with glorified spreadsheets on their computers, gambling away OPM**. Now, that's what I call money for old rope - it's not 'hard' to do, but it's darn smart.

*What used to be called Anderson Consulting, now called Accenture. Never have I seen so many, paid so much to do so little (while wearing such nice suits) as when I saw them leach of our client. No word of a lie, the first delivery ended up being over a year late and comprised 10% of the designed functionality. A system that was supposed to be the basis for all policy administration for a major pension and life assurance company had to be babysat for months as a handful of policies went through and caused it to fall over in a heap. But as this was the private sector, and as the company was making a bundle from selling old-tech supported products, no-one really knew hwo much the company had wasted on a vanity project. if it had been a publicly owned company, I'm sure the scale of it would have made the Uk national news (as were similar IT flubs by government departments)

**Other People's Money

Actually RickyP, since the World War II, the following years WERE in budget.
1947, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1956, 1957, 1960, 1969, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals

Table 1.1 would show it.

12 years out of 65? This is exactly what I mean about both sides are running up bills. Just because one side does it more, does not mean we keep doing it. 1.1TRILLION for next year? Come on... I meant what I said, neither side is serious about this major debt problem. Eisenhower and Clinton are the only 2 who consistently balanced. (if 3 out of the 8 years constitute consistent...?).

I'll tell you what B I'll apologize for over stating the "balanced budget history" and point you to this information which discusses how debt actually grew and expanded since the war. Its more exactingand i think makes points that we both agree upon...What we don't agree upon is that social policies like Medicare, or social insurance necessarily lead to deficits or added debt.
They do if you refuse to act responsibly and ensure the appropriate levels of taxation to pay for them.
Alternatively its entirely accetable to say, lets forgo the social programs we can't afford them. But when conditions return to the the way things were when society decided the social programs were necessary... as they inevitably will ...

The debt burden fell rapidly after the end of World War II, as the US and the rest of the world experienced a post-war economic expansion. The outstanding debt held stable for the next 25 years, going up to $283 billion in 1970 from $242 billion in 1946. However, over the last 30 years, beginning with deficit spending from the Vietnam War and 1970s recessions, the overall debt has increased under every president.[8]

Debt relative to GDP rose rapidly during the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan, whose economic policies increased military spending and lowered tax rates.[9] Gross debt in nominal dollars quadrupled during the Reagan and Bush presidencies from 1980 to 1992. The net public debt quintupled in nominal terms. Debt held by the public had declined from 28% to 26% of GDP in the 1970s, by contrast, it rose to 41% of GDP by the end of the 1980s.

The budget controls instituted in the 1990s successfully restrained fiscal action by the Congress and the President and together with economic growth contributed to the budget surpluses that materialized by the end of the decade. These surpluses led to a decline in the debt held by the public, and from fiscal years 1998 through 2001, the debt-to-GDP measure declined from about 43 percent to about 33 percent.[10]

Debt relative to GDP rose due to recessions and policy decisions in the early 21st century. From 2000 to 2008 debt held by the public rose from 35% to 40%, and to 62% by the end of fiscal year 2010.[11] During the presidency of George W. Bush, the gross public debt increased from $5.7 trillion in January 2001 to $10.7 trillion by December 2008,[12] due in part to the Bush tax cuts and increased military spending caused by the wars in the Middle East.[13] Under President Barack Obama, the debt increased from $10.7 trillion in 2008 to $14.2 trillion by February 2011, caused mainly by decreased tax revenue due to the late-2000s recession.[14]

sourced from wikipedia...

Ricky, can you delete the '/' from your first [/quote]? Ta.

For the benefit of others, he's quoting this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#History It has a couple of graphs next to it that may be of interest.

No, but part of the thing is that you mentioned 'illegal immigrants' in your reasoning. Interestingly, I suspect that illegal immigrants have some of the highest work ethics (it's damn hard to get in, then to hide, and to make a living) and because they are less likely to be able to claim benefits, it's not actually as significant a difference as you think.

My experience has also been that immigrants work incredibly hard. Mostly they have no choice and they are seizing the opportunity that we have. There also is a tendency to want ones children to have a better life. Those who live in border states tend to tell it differently; but the immigrants that I've met in my life tend to work very hard. I don't know whether they are legal or not.

I mentioned illegal immigrants in the context of size and diversity. I wanted to give a sense of how much larger and more complex the US is than Sweden. We have more illegals than they have people. That seems very relevant to me when designing social programs.

Monte,. Thanks for the kind words a few days back--I feel likewise regarding our discussions.

I wanted to make a few comments regarding the discussions over the past few days…(Ed. "you" used below does not refer to a particular person)

(1) I think it is a mistake not to separate out Republican vs. Democratic policies. Yes, Democrats voted for the Iraq war--does anyone think that we would have invaded Iraq if Al Gore were president? Democrats may have voted for Bush Tax Cuts (I don’t think it was that many because Republicans used Reconciliation to get it passed in the Senate), but does anyone think that Al Gore (or any Democratic president for that matter) would have proposed those tax cuts? Well, you say, what about the fact that Clinton helped get rid of Glass-Steagal and did not regulate derivatives? Clinton was A New Democrat who wanted to move the Democratic Party to the right because he thought it was necessary in order to beat the Republicans. That meant becoming more pro-business. The idea that the market did not have to be regulated came from Ayn Rand (one of whose disciples was Alan Greenspain). The point is that the fact that a Democrat moved to the right should not make us forget that idea like getting rid of Glas-Steagall and not regulating derivatives came from the right.

(2) Our current problems come from conservative polices of increasing military spending and cutting taxes and the Financial Crisis (again associated with conservative policies). When Obama is criticized for having large deficits, how exactly would we cut the deficits significantly given Republican opposition to raising taxes and cutting military spending? Let me frame it a different way--what cuts could Obama have done to rein in the deficit with no cuts in military spending and no raising of taxes? Please be specific.

(3) If you want to elect Romney, how do you think he is going to cut the deficit when he is committed to lowering taxes even more and not cutting military spending?

(4) I(f social security and Medicare are not causing our current budget deficits, then why talk about them? Shouldn’t we solve the current budget problems (short-term problem) as a separate issue from a long-term concern about Social Security and Medicare. I think the linkage is unnecessary. When we need to solve Social Security and Medicare we will and we will do so in a bi-partisan way. Trying to solve everything at the same time needlessly complicates things.

(5) Monte, you referenced some conservatives who claim that welfare was an incentive for single black women in the 19602 to have babies so that they could getmoney from the government. I am not sure that I disagree with that assessment, because human beings will adapt and make the most of their situation. But I think the underlying problem was the loss of manufacturing jobs in the cities, causing unemployment to rise for African-American males. This is in turn leads them not to be able to support a family, meaning that you have a lot of single African-American women without husbands. Then, and only then, would they at least theoretically adapt to the situation and have babies. The solution of course was to find jobs for African-American men who then would have the ability to support a family.

(6) With every governmental program there is going to be fraud and inefficiency. Be it as it may we all benefit from making sure that people have enough to eat (food stamps), have affordable housing (Section 8), and enough money to barely get rid and raise a child (welfare). Private charities cannot do this. We all benefit in that a decent safety net is a societal stabilizer. If you (the general you) are more concerned that someone gets money than someone who needs it doesn’t, ask yourself why you feel that way? Let me put it another way: with regard to the safety net, you have to choose whether it makes you feel worse that some people might not get the basic necessities of life in our rich country or it makes you feel worse that there are some freeloaders. Either you cut the program because there are people getting benefits that shouldn’t (and there will always be such people) and let people suffer or you keep the program and say it is better that some people freeload than some suffer.

(7) With regard to this concern about someone getting a thousand dollars a month that they should not get, why does that bother people morethan when people make enormous amounts of money doing little work? People make vast sums in the financial industry and they did not in the past make that money until they lobbied to get rules changed so that they could (meanwhile sticking us with the bill). CEOS make much more money than they used to (are they any better than they were before)? As long as money is made under the “rules” it is ok, not matter who much the rules have been manipulated to allow them to make that money.

(8) I am not an ideologue in the sense I would be perfectly happy to accept conservative ideas if they worked. Friedman/Hayek said cut taxes, deregulate, let people be free to create and the wealth will come pouring in. It seems to me that what should have happened is that the wealthy would be much wealthier but everyone else would be wealthier too. That is not happened. So why haven’t the conservatives conceded that they were WRONG. It used to be that you could criticize liberals as tax and spend liberals. Of course, that is a laughable criticism when conservatives see government as a cash cow--cut taxes, have government programs go to business cronies, and don’t worry about deficits. Conservatives do all that and then come back and want to say oh it’s the liberals fault for restraining free enterprise--you need to cut taxes even more!

(9) How do you get to a better society when we cater to corporations? People in the 1950s would look forward to the future and see a place where people worked a lot less, had plenty of time of leisure, etc? Why is it that people have to work harder than they used to? In my opinion, a better society is not possible as long as we allow corporations disparate power vis-à-vis their workers. Corporations have no incentive to allow workers to share in the wealth created by a company. Unions used to be able to force corporations to share with workers, but unions are essentially dead. Any attempt by government to rein in corporations is almost impossible, considering that corporations can kill legislation with unlimited amounts of money.

Freeman2,
This is exactly the mentality that is perpetuating the problem. "It is not my side that is the problem...It is the other side!"

1) Are you really saying that the Dems were voting in regs and laws that are conservative because they are really center right? I don't see your point.

2) Here is the crux of the problem. I have said that military spending needs to be cut. I have also said that social programs need trimmed down as well. To say it is the Rs or Ds only is the problem.

3) Neither side has shown propensity to reduce the deficit, so I can see that neither party has a candidate to looks promising in that arena of deficit reduction.

4) I disagree with your premise. Social Security and Medicare are part of the problem. So are many military programs. So many other government programs have problem areas that need to go away.

5) No comment. Consequences speak for themselves

6) Are you saying that every recipient is deserving? I can confidently say they are not. Take care of the deserving, cut the undeserving, and eliminate the fraud.

7) Would you accept people working for the benefits? I could accept that. The rest of the paragraph was pure class warfare...

8) I am all for removal of ALL government supports whether it is social or business, Let the business make it without any support. Did you support the auto bailouts? How about TARP? Shall I bring in Solyndra or the Volt?

9) Where would the US be without the auto industry. How about the steel industry. Corporations serve a purpose, they employ people. See 8 above. Do not support the industry, but stay out of it's way, as well. If the industry is so terrible, have the worker quit.

If the US is so terrible to the poor, I would recommend that those who are feeling trodden upon try another country. The US is a wonderful supporting country that provides opportunity to may who work hard.

Sweden might be great option, I hear.

Hmm, not a bad idea about going to Sweden, Brad. Only thing it's too cold there and I would have to get licensed as a lawyer. But the women are not unattractive (at least the ones that come to the U.S.!)

bbauska wrote:Freeman2,
This is exactly the mentality that is perpetuating the problem. "It is not my side that is the problem...It is the other side!"

Mind you, the mentality of "it's both sides as bad as each other" might work, but what are people doing as a consequence? Are they working for an alternative? Will you be voting for viable non-Republicrat candidates in elections this year? Could you go further and work for another (perhaps new) political party? Are you trying to argue your case with the party you normally identify with (and no, debating on here does not do that)?

1) Are you really saying that the Dems were voting in regs and laws that are conservative because they are really center right? I don't see your point.

They were voting to remove regulation, and Clinton was certainly running as and ruling as a moderate on economic policy. From my perspective, the Democrats are largely centre-right, particularly at the leadership level. So I see Freeman's point clearly, and that seems to be what he was saying.

2) Here is the crux of the problem. I have said that military spending needs to be cut. I have also said that social programs need trimmed down as well. To say it is the Rs or Ds only is the problem.

Freeman is talking about the history. Social Security is not causing the current deficit, for example. You don't address his point that tax cuts caused part of the deficits, you only talk about the spending side here, and your approach to taxes is not to start from the position of "What do we need to spend as a nation to balance the books and do what we as a society want", but "I want to pay x% and no more". Totally different directions.

3) Neither side has shown propensity to reduce the deficit, so I can see that neither party has a candidate to looks promising in that arena of deficit reduction.

But that's basically the choice you have. As before, it's all very well saying it, but what are you going to do about it?

4) I disagree with your premise. Social Security and Medicare are part of the problem. So are many military programs. So many other government programs have problem areas that need to go away.

I think freeman is trying to distinguish between future problems and current ones. Which are more important to resolve, given a choice?

5) No comment. Consequences speak for themselves

Yes, the consequences of high unemployment are not good. The consequences of offshoring jobs and not generating work to fill the gap are not good. The consequences of allowing parts of the country to fester for decades are not good, That's what you meant, right? You don't think if welfare was reduced/removed that jobs would suddenly appear?

By the way, Brad, at the moment, for every job vacancy in the USA there are 4 people unemployed. A lot of those vacancies are 'churn' rather than new jobs

6) Are you saying that every recipient is deserving? I can confidently say they are not. Take care of the deserving, cut the undeserving, and eliminate the fraud.

You've made it clear that you feel one way about this. You said it before - if anyone 'undeserving' gets it, you want to change it so they can't. The reality is that if you take that approach, some of the 'deserving' will lose out too, because marginal cases will always be hard to deal with using simple mechanisms. Babies and bathwater spring to mind.

7) Would you accept people working for the benefits? I could accept that. The rest of the paragraph was pure class warfare...

Of course you'd 'accept' it. You think it won't be you who ends up on benefits, so it's not really something that you personally would have to deal with. However, beware of unintended consequences. If benefits are contingent on work, then effectively you get a load of new free labour. What does that do (any good capitalist knows the laws of supply and demand)? It becomes a downward drag on wages. Putting more people who have jobs at risk of losing out.

Besides, many people have worked for their welfare. What do you think payroll taxes are for?

8) I am all for removal of ALL government supports whether it is social or business, Let the business make it without any support. Did you support the auto bailouts? How about TARP? Shall I bring in Solyndra or the Volt?

Surely not all. You aren't a libertarian, after all? Again, you wander off freeman's point, although you seem to be taking a more dogmatic (ideological) line as you go through the debate.

9) Where would the US be without the auto industry. How about the steel industry. Corporations serve a purpose, they employ people. See 8 above. Do not support the industry, but stay out of it's way, as well. If the industry is so terrible, have the worker quit.

I don't think you addressed Freeman's point at all here. He's making a general point - that even though technology has advanced and there are more ways to save labour than ever before, the benefit of that is incredibly uneven. People are apparently having to work harder (and some revel in this) just to keep going, despite the fact that 'work' should be a lot easier. We can do so much more with less effort than any preceding generation, but what we have is a situation where some do nothing and get paid anyway (those on welfare get paid a little, those who 'invest' in companies get paid a lot) and others are working harder to get the same as before.

If the US is so terrible to the poor, I would recommend that those who are feeling trodden upon try another country. The US is a wonderful supporting country that provides opportunity to may who work hard.

Sweden might be great option, I hear.

Ahh, the "Go back to Russia" gambit. Apparently it's not ok to want to improve your own country (as you see it).

America is a pretty good country. But it's not perfect. It has a lot of poor people for such a rich place, and a lot of those poor people are trapped. Regardless of whether other places are better or worse, the question is how to improve the USA, right?

Ray Jay wrote:I mentioned illegal immigrants in the context of size and diversity. I wanted to give a sense of how much larger and more complex the US is than Sweden. We have more illegals than they have people. That seems very relevant to me when designing social programs.

Yes, it's relevant. But this doesn't go anywhere towards explaining what the actual effects of the differences in size and diversity actually mean for trying to apply lessons from Sweden (or anywhere else) to the USA.

That's the point I was trying to make - I get that the USA is bigger and that you think it's much more complex (I beg to differ, but there we are), but what do those actually mean in this context?

freeman2 wrote:Hmm, not a bad idea about going to Sweden, Brad. Only thing it's too cold there and I would have to get licensed as a lawyer. But the women are not unattractive (at least the ones that come to the U.S.!)

Just as an aside, a good friend of mine was offered an academic position in Sweden. It was a 10 year posting because he has a lot of expensive scientific equipment that goes with him. Afterwards he could live in Sweden for the rest of his life, as an academic and a retiree. They have young 4 kids who presumably would benefit from an inexpensive college education many years from now. It was a very interesting job, and his family liked the idea. They have some Nordic ancestry.

In the end he declined because he felt that he would have to live in Sweden for the rest of his life. During that 10 years he would not build up any savings, and he would not build up a US pension or US social security.

It's just one experience, but interesting under the circumstances.