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In US, just 53% favor capitalism: poll

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posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 01:37 AM
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oooo. what a comeback!



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 08:01 AM
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Originally posted by pexx421
oooo. what a comeback!


What did you expect? You expected me to "logically" counter your "points," but you provided no points to counter. All you have is your resentful socialist European propaganda, meaningless hourly work statistics, human life span statistics, and a very poor mastery of the English language.

Which is why I provided a table from a source that was neither American nor European, a table clearly showing that Europe's productivity growth rate has declined five-fold over the last 40 years, while the American productivity growth rate remained stable and even exceeded the European productivity growth rate from 2000 to 2007 — the duration of that terrible Bush administration that you hated so much.

The hardest pill for you to swallow is that Europe's productivity has suffered grave damage under socialism, while America's productivity has remained stable and has outperformed Europe's best efforts.

Best efforts. HA!

— Doc Velocity



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 08:13 AM
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reply to post by Doc Velocity
 


Do you not understand what productivity vs productivity growth rate means? - well then let me explain!

Productivity is what is actually produced or what is actually made.

Productivity growth means what the increase in productivity has been or what extra the worker has produced this year over last year.

Therefore if you take the tables that we both provided it shows that currently European workers are more productive then the US workers, in other words they produce more every hour.

All your table shows is that the US workers productivity is increasing year on year over what had been produced in previous years but as my table shows it still lags behind the European Workers.

Now as anyone knows when you have an already high rate of productivity your productivity growth rate will slow as you are near maximum productivity and also the inverse is true - when you have a lower productivity rate your productivity growth rate has the potential to be higher as there is more room for growth as you are not near maximum productivity.

Now that you understand what the difference between the two is - perhaps then you can get the actually meaning of the statistics rather then the lack of understanding shown in your previous responses.

Now what I'm trying to show you is not that European Workers are better then US workers or any of that nonsense.

But what I am trying to display is that when workers don't have to worry about healthcare, education costs etc as they know the taxes they pay are going to be used by the state to provide same, then they can concentrate on their work without distractions. ( as you get in the European Socialist Democracies)

However when you have all these added social worries on top of your working life then obviously your productivity is going to be affected and the stress of same or lack of needed medical attention through cost restrictions will affect your life span.


[edit on 11-4-2009 by count66]

[edit on 11-4-2009 by count66]



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 09:56 AM
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Originally posted by pexx421
Strange comment that. Seems to me that lately the US has fallen largely behind most western european countries in social mobility, and THAT is the true US dream, that even the poor may rise above their birth station based on merit. And what are most of those western european countries...Sweden, Norway, Switzerland....oh yeah! Socialist democracies! Imagine that! Hold on to your nationalistic propaganda if you like, (america is the best land in the world!!), it has been shown now, in almost all studies, that the standards of living, of healthcare, and of education in america are being left behind by these SOCIALIST DEMOCRACIES!!!


People always overlook social mobility when they're discussing political-economic issues. In a country with low social mobility, there isn't much incentive for people to invest in human and physical capital, and without investment there cannot be productivity growth. In addition, the lack of social mobility implies an inefficient use of human capital.



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 12:10 PM
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I was laughing at the fact that he did not understand the difference between your two charts!

Look here silly clown, you must also realize that america's population is continuing to grow faster than europes, and that also accounts for a large growth in production. Sadly, however, while our productivity AS A COUNTRY (not per capita) may be growing, none of that productivity benefits the american workers, as in your monopolistic oligarchy the business owners have horded all the profit for themselves. In fact, since the 70's while the US's productivity was so massively growing, as you point out....the average workers buying power has actually decreased. How good of a marker for the worth of a political system is productivity, when few of the working class are able to benefit from it??

Sadly, in this, our real world, the "productivity growth rate" of a country is no more an indicator of the peoples standard of living and quality of life than the Stock exchange index is.



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 12:23 PM
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It is funny that people would choose socialism while never really experiencing it, so never underestimate the ignorance of the general population. Many don’t have a clue to what socialism is and so they see it only as a free ride, and when they look at their life under capitalism where they haven’t done jack sh@t their whole life they are like "hey put me on the gravy train”.

The reality is government, any government, equates to wasteful spending, and the more you have of it the more money is wasted. In the end the hard workers just get taxed a lot more and normally don’t even use the benefits that their now double or triple taxes pay for since free doesn’t also equal quality.

The other 20 plus percent that don't know which one they want is because they havn't a clue as to what either is....



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 12:50 PM
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Originally posted by count66

Luxembourg : 57.5
France : 56.6
Belgium : 55.9
Norway : 53.0
Ireland : 51.8
Italy : 50.3
USA : 49.6
Japan : 37.3


This is because we have a lot of lazy people who have breeded a lifestyle of do nothing their whole lives, so for America socialism would only make it worst. BTW, please list any socialist countries that do not have a higher production rate and not pick cream of the crop.

Much of this is based more on culture than govenment.





# 47 United States: 78.14 years 2008

Seems like these socialist countries seem to do alright actually - in fact they seem to do better then the U.S.


So are you suggesting that health care is better in these other countries than the US or that the people there live a healthier lifestyle. America, home of everything and in any size, is also home of the fat and unhealthy. This is why we are 47th, and if we lived and ate like many of these other countries we would not only be no 1 but extremely higher than no 2.

We are fat and totally out of shape and we don't care.....

I lived in France, Germany, Japan and Korea and in all these countries they do not have endless food chains, Costco size supermarkets with never ending supply of cheap food, big housing that people don't ever need to leave, easy transportation with personal cars etc...

So what you have are families that can’t afford those 16 ounce rib eyes every night, they need to walk to many smaller market shops to buy their different food items, they do not have 2 or more friges/freezers, so they buy one or two day’s supply at a time. One day of meat in an American family is a week’s worth in larger Japanese family.

So it is not that they don’t want to do it like America it is because they can’t afford it. BTW the healthiness of Japanese kids are now worst than American kids, so expect Japan to fall on the list to about where America is in the near future.

For me in America I could eat 10 pounds of meat a day, waste 30 gallons of gas a day, leave everything in my house on all day, spend ½ the day on the phone, not leave my house for a month with my 3 computers, three 50 inch plus TVs with 500 channels, DS/WII/PS2 etc, 2 friges/1 freezer the size of a 18 wheeler (and its always full) and much more if I wanted to. Nowhere else in the world can they do this for the general population.



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 12:51 PM
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And what you oafs fail to grasp is that your statistics are meaningless. Europe isn't out-producing anyone, except perhaps in righteous, malcontent blather. The only history of modernization that Europe can boast is the modernization siphoned off of America.

Your statistics are only measuring man-hours and life expectancy — which mean nothing taken as a static table of numbers. Where is the duration of the study? What is Europe actually producing? How is Europe's "quality of life" so vastly improved? Oh, and what happened to your middle-class?

If you can stand on your own, then why all this animosity and resentment toward America? What we see in America is that the rest of the world is feeding from our fields, your hands stretched out and demanding more and more of our money to finance your ridiculous global agenda.

We have a similar situation here in the States, sort of a world stage in microcosm, with the uninspired and unmotivated of our population living off of the state like fat, angry, retarded invalids with nothing to offer and nothing to justify their existence — we call it The Welfare State.

America finances the existence of a sniveling mob of ungrateful and yet arrogant beggars, both on the domestic front and around the world. So, shut your mouths and get back in line for your free handouts.


— Doc Velocity



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 01:19 PM
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reply to post by Doc Velocity
 


In most states, it's pretty much impossible to get anything beyond food stamps, unless you have children, or are physically or psychologically unable to work. This was the result of Clinton-era welfare reform.



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 01:37 PM
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I think its interesting that, while we make points of the debate and try to show reasons for our beliefs and ideas, they resort to making personal attacks, and assumptions of who we are, as if they know us, labelling us as beggars with our hands out. I actually live in the US, and I served 12 years in the military (a socialist organization) and work now for a living in the healthcare field where i can make a nice living depending on where i choose to practice.
I certainly am not arguing from the point of view of needing a hand out so i can sit around at home. The problem is i live in our "capitalist system" which as i pointed out before is actually a monopolistic oligarchy....and working in the hospitals i see the massive effect that the weight of our system has on the physical and mental health and wellbeing of the general populace. I have seen people die many many times, and i can tell you that for most people here in our old age they are experiencing the same confusion and hopelessness that our youth are experiencing....why? because they are all trying to reconcile the "american dream" that they were all taught as children to the true world that we actually live in....where if you are born poor you will most likely die poor, and the masses have no control over what our country taxes them on, or does with those taxes, meanwhile the rich corporations pay congressmen to continually enslave the masses to their will, keeping the flow of money moving from the middle and lower class up into the pockets of the rich.
Im talking things like the burden of massive regulations on small farms and on alternative health practices limiting our freedom to use those things... our massive burden of debt that the government lays on us to support that MIC that NO ONE wants to support.
Tax freedom day this year is i believe may 26....that means that 42% of our income goes to pay taxes through income tax or property tax, or sales tax. Rebellions were started for less! America secceded from Brittain for WAY less!! And those tax dollars are now going to rich bankers who collapsed our system and cost us all our retirement, and wrecked our economy. This is the freedom you speak of....the wonderful enlightened self interest of capitalism?? the majority of us dont even get any benefits from our tax dollars, no healthcare, no education, hell, even our infrastructure is falling apart.



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 02:18 PM
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And a point i want to make to xtozero.....you really believe that our country and our system is set up so the hard workers get compensated? Dont be naive. Some of the hardest workers in our country are those in the lower class and middle class. The richest groups in our society are those who have learned to manipulate the system....through manipulating finance or manipulating legislation. They are not the hardest workers, rather they are those who are the most ruthless, such as the big pharma industry who uses manipulation and coercion to keep any alternative medicines from being practiced or available to a large degree, thereby limiting peoples access to all their health options, while at the same time ramming massive legislation through congress such as the medicare expansion act of 05 i believe, that keeps american medical expenses the highest in the world. Or the big agro industry who ruthlessly squash any organic or small farm competition by pushing legislation to make small farming practices unprofitable. Meanwhile our corporatization system forces all business (and ive seen this in hospitals since i began working in them 10 years ago) to constantly be tasking the workers with more responsibilities and more work, while constantly reducing their benefits, perks, and raises. In our system the average worker has become the bottom line that the corporations are constantly trying to reduce in order to increase their margin.



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 02:30 PM
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Originally posted by pexx421
....you really believe that our country and our system is set up so the hard workers get compensated?


Simple thing I learned while in USA...

Those who kiss capitalist behind are most likely to be better compensated



posted on Apr, 11 2009 @ 10:49 PM
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Originally posted by pexx421
And a point i want to make to xtozero.....you really believe that our country and our system is set up so the hard workers get compensated? Dont be naive. Some of the hardest workers in our country are those in the lower class and middle class. The richest groups in our society are those who have learned to manipulate the system....through manipulating finance or manipulating legislation.


Well the hardest workers are normally those on the lower end and those who are in the position where the buck actually stops at them. Take an owner of a small to mid size company…that person can easily work 80 hours a week and have the whole weight of the company with 100s of families depending on him. Then take the person who works two back breaking jobs to make ends meet.

I’m in the middle for I don’t work very hard and I make good money….



So what do you want to do, replace the big evil company with the big evil government?


[edit on 11-4-2009 by Xtrozero]



posted on Apr, 12 2009 @ 12:02 AM
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Just my point though. The big evil company IS effectively the big evil government. Our large industry leaders have MUCH more to say about which legislation is written up and passed than your average american, and indeed even much more than your senator or congressman. The definition of Fascism is when government combines with corporation....and this is exactly what we have and celebrate here.



posted on Apr, 14 2009 @ 02:02 AM
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reply to post by Doc Velocity
 


Dude, enough of the America cheerleading, you're making us look like arrogant jackasses. Hard to shake the stereotypes when they are so often accurate.

Ok I won't sell us short. We are really awesome at plundering the third world and environment, manipulating financial markets, and pushing our culture on people.



posted on Apr, 14 2009 @ 04:17 AM
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Let's see now.... America kicks mighty butt and the rest of the world complains.... YES!!! THANK GOD I'M ON THE RIGHT TEAM!! All I had to do was be born in the USA in the 20th century. What luck. What total luck!!!

Don't worry. You can be a winner, too. I remember when I was an upset youngster that thought the old folks had it all wrong.


I'm glad I grew out of that nonsense.

Oh yeah... you go on and favor whatever else you want.... makes capitalism easier for the rest of us.... because you know we are capitalizing on your ignorance!


[edit on 14-4-2009 by THX-1138]



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