USA: "We're number 1!"

[Dr Deaf]

...right? (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8191.htm)

The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).

The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).

"The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).

Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!

"The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

"Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).

Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.

The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.

"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

"U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.
Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).

The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).

"Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.

"Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).

"Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).

The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).

U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).
Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).

Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.

Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.

One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).

"Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).
"Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).

Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).

"Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

"The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).

No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.

Reprinted from the Austin Chronicle. www.citypages.com/databank/26/1264/article12985.asp

Will our generation live to see the United States of America transform itself into a country closely resembling those it currently exploits?

I think so.

[yeahwho]

If only the rest of the world would embrace our culture...then and only then can we have an even playing field.

K, gotta get back ta MTV `Cribs. Them faggots gots some killa' `Cribs.

[Ace42]

But, but, but Capitalism works so well!

<sigh>

Been telling you guys y'all suck monkey balls for years. I just got branded an anti-american propoganda merchant.

[EN[i]GMA]

But, but, but Capitalism works so well!

<sigh>

Been telling you guys y'all suck monkey balls for years. I just got branded an anti-american propoganda merchant.

Use Switzerland or Hong Kong as a surrogate for America in regards to these statistics.

My country no longer reflects the ideals it once did.

Those statistics are evidence for the inefectiveness of state administered socialism and a failing culture more than any indictment of capitalism.

[DroppinScience]

GMA']Those statistics are evidence for the inefectiveness of state administered socialism and a failing culture more than any indictment of capitalism.

Yeah... "socialism" is what's bringing down America. You hit it on the head there. :rolleyes:

[EN[i]GMA]

Yeah... "socialism" is what's bringing down America. You hit it on the head there. :rolleyes:

America was far less socialistic in the 1950's and was by all accounts, the best country in the world at the time.

It isn't all socialism, not at all, but the increase in government didn't help the problems it was supposed to fix, it exacerbated them.

The war on drugs anyone?

The war on poverty anyone?

[DroppinScience]

GMA']America was far less socialistic in the 1950's and was by all accounts, the best country in the world at the time.

It isn't all socialism, not at all, but the increase in government didn't help the problems it was supposed to fix, it exacerbated them.

The war on drugs anyone?

The war on poverty anyone?

I thought Reagan and Bush would have handled all that scurrilous "socialism" plaguing the USA.

Why have you forsaken me, Reaganomics? WHY? :eek:

[EN[i]GMA]

I thought Reagan and Bush would have handled all that scurrilous "socialism" plaguing the USA.

Why have you forsaken me, Reaganomics? WHY? :eek:

Not at all.

Reagan increased the Federal Government's spending and Bush (Both of them) were abject failures at cutting government size.

All three of them, continued to feed the leviathan state.

And some of these are just utterly depressing.

Blame it on the school system I suppose.

It's funny, it really is. We've multiplied the money thrown into schools by 3 and 4 times since the 50's yet the people just keep getting more stupid.

Perhaps the problem isn't money.

Health Care is another depressing figure.

Before government started funding over 60% of health care costs in this country, we were the idol of the world in regards to health care.

The industry figures are also depressing.

Before it became exorbitantly expensive and hassle-prone to run your business in America, we stood commandingly over everyone else in terms of industrial production and consumer production.

Gee, out of wedleck birth couldn't be spurred by a welfare system that pays you to pregnant could it?

The increase in money spent on gamblind wouldn't have anything to do with living a depressing, hectic life made worse by exorbitant government taxes and controlls would it?


This makes it abundently clear change is necessary, that's for sure.

[Ace42]

GMA']Those statistics are evidence for the inefectiveness of state administered socialism and a failing culture more than any indictment of capitalism.

Still an ignorant opinionated pig-fucker I see, Enigma.

If you re-read the post, you will see that the US is performing substantially worse than the other countries which *DO* have a state-administered socialist system.

Those statistics are evidence that the anti-socialist state of the US is actually far less effective than the much more socialicised (and in varying degrees, anti-capitalist) nation's systems.

The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80).

Yeah, of course, it is the US becoming MORE like socialist countries (with substantially more efficient and equitable healthcare systems) that is causing its healthcare to become LESS like those superior countries.

Retard, can't you smell what you are shovelling?

Don't answer, that was rhetorical. If you could smell what you were shovelling, you'd be 'funny ha-hah', rather than funny like a spastic playing on a railroad.

And while it may well be the product of a failing culture (something subjective, and thus something you cannot properly debate) - that failing culture is the product of capitalism in its purest form.

The US culture has been anti-socialist in a phobic manner for years and years, so it still doesn't bear out your pro-capitalist drivel.

Or let me guess, the reason the US is declining is precisely BECAUSE you don't have the likes of Senator McCarthy jailing the hippies?

I'm sure Coulter would agree with you.

[EN[i]GMA]

Still an ignorant opinionated pig-fucker I see, Enigma.

If you re-read the post, you will see that the US is performing substantially worse than the other countries which *DO* have a state-administered socialist system.

Those statistics are evidence that the anti-socialist state of the US is actually far less effective than the much more socialicised (and in varying degrees, anti-capitalist) nation's systems.

Ah, Ace, I see your anal retention is still acting up. You might want to see a doctor about that.

Or rather, pray it clears it up, because you could be waiting in line for a while: http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/socialized.html#britain

Just pray you don't have something lodged in there, surgery could be a ways off.


If you re-read the post you would see the U.S. is performing substantially worse than many countries that are far more free-market oriented than us.

It's really evidence that there is a factor other than the level of socialism/capitalism involved in the success of a particular state.



Yeah, of course, it is the US becoming MORE like socialist countries (with substantially more efficient and equitable healthcare systems) that is causing its healthcare to become LESS like those superior countries.

Retard, can't you smell what you are shovelling?

Don't answer, that was rhetorical. If you could smell what you were shovelling, you'd be 'funny ha-hah', rather than funny like a spastic playing on a railroad.

And while it may well be the product of a failing culture (something subjective, and thus something you cannot properly debate) - that failing culture is the product of capitalism in its purest form.

The US culture has been anti-socialist in a phobic manner for years and years, so it still doesn't bear out your pro-capitalist drivel.

Or let me guess, the reason the US is declining is precisely BECAUSE you don't have the likes of Senator McCarthy jailing the hippies?

I'm sure Coulter would agree with you.

Failing culture is rather subjective, but with free-market and non-free-market countries consistently outperforming the U.S., it's a likely culprit.

Oh yes, America's rabid anti-socialism is obviously what drove us into record deficits, obscene government spending and an invasive and pervasive Federal Government, bounding out of it's legal restraints.

That must be it Ace. Surely America's depressing withdrawl into the hellish bastions of state socialism is REALLY some strange, anti-socialist plot thought up by Bush, Halliburton, the Bilderbergers and Jews.

It's all much to crafty for me, but an ace mind such as yours must be able to reconcile the blatently obvious contradictions.

Excellent work, Detective Dipshit, any other astounding rejoinders you would like to foul my computer screen with?

Or will you cease your loquacious manner and stop vomiting out of your fingers?

[popcorn girl]

GMA']Not at all.

Reagan increased the Federal Government's spending and Bush (Both of them) were abject failures at cutting government size.

All three of them, continued to feed the leviathan state.

And some of these are just utterly depressing.

Blame it on the school system I suppose.

It's funny, it really is. We've multiplied the money thrown into schools by 3 and 4 times since the 50's yet the people just keep getting more stupid.

Perhaps the problem isn't money.

Health Care is another depressing figure.

Before government started funding over 60% of health care costs in this country, we were the idol of the world in regards to health care.

The industry figures are also depressing.

Before it became exorbitantly expensive and hassle-prone to run your business in America, we stood commandingly over everyone else in terms of industrial production and consumer production.

Gee, out of wedleck birth couldn't be spurred by a welfare system that pays you to pregnant could it?

The increase in money spent on gamblind wouldn't have anything to do with living a depressing, hectic life made worse by exorbitant government taxes and controlls would it?


This makes it abundently clear change is necessary, that's for sure.

don't blame the schools for the problems in the u.s., it's the idiots not taking advantage of their education jackass

[Ace42]

GMA']
Or rather, pray it clears it up, because you could be waiting in line for a while: http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/socialized.html#britain


Don't let facts get in the way of your self-congratulation (not that you ever have) - but that is crap. I have never ever had to wait any length of time for any medical attention ever. Even in the ass-end of the country, my aquaintance had his appendix out the night he saught medical attention, and was back in his house a day or so later right as rain. While in hospital, he had access to the internet and various premium TV channels from his bed.

Clearly a nationalised healthcare system isn't working. Which is why the US and Africa, the only two developed nations not to offer comprehensive healthcare to all, both lead the world in medical care. Oh wait, they don't, as the initial post in this thread points out.

Just pray you don't have something lodged in there, surgery could be a ways off.

What, within a couple of hours of being taken into hospital? Terrible.

If you re-read the post you would see the U.S. is performing substantially worse than many countries that are far more free-market oriented than us.

So, when you were criticising socialism, you meant to say "socialism is inherantly superior to the US's form of capitalism, as it has a much better correlation with a greater degree of market freedom"

Right.

Oh yes, America's rabid anti-socialism is obviously what drove us into record deficits, obscene government spending and an invasive and pervasive Federal Government, bounding out of it's legal restraints.

Are you implying Bush is not anti-socialist?

It's all much to crafty for me, but an ace mind such as yours must be able to reconcile the blatently obvious contradictions.

You are only seeing contradictions because you are arguing based on mythos which you assume is fact. Something you do frequently.

When you grow some hair on your sack, you might've seen enough of the world to be able to smell when something is off.

Fact of the matter is that socialism is *not* more inefficient than capitalism, and nationalised industries are NOT more innefficient than privatised ones.

Both these myths you argue as fact, despite there being overwhelming real-world evidence to the contrary.

If you shed your false assumption that socialism / liberalism must entail more bureacracy and thus be less efficient (something that is demonstrably false) then the contradictions go away.

However, specifically:

Oh yes, America's rabid anti-socialism is obviously what drove us into record deficits, obscene government spending and an invasive and pervasive Federal Government, bounding out of it's legal restraints.

How much do you think arresting random writers, hippies, peace-niks, costs? How much do you think their trials cost? How much do you think was lost due to crime that could've been policed by the people who were rounding up the afore-mentioned people?

Of course, McCarthy's 'rabid anti-socialism' was saving money. And of course, the cold-war was saving the US money. The federal government buying vast ammounts of weaponry, etc instead of investing in public services is saving the US money.

Of course the US government giving over vast amounts of resources to near un-accountable security services who are responsible for staking out writers and social-commentators, not to mention extending their power and influence was actually keeping the power of the government *tightly restrained*

Of course hunting down people who had attended communist meetings was non-invasive or pervasive.

Feh.

Come join us in the real world, and you'll see.

Excellent work, Detective Dipshit

If you mean me systematically refuting your non-arguments on a point-by-point basis, thus making you appear foolish and ill-informed - then thankyou.

Or will you cease your loquacious manner and stop vomiting out of your fingers?

If you mean you want me to treat you like an informed and intelligent adult, whose opinion has merit and thus deserves respect - then sure, I'll do that. When you can grow a beard, buy a drink / bone a girl (legally).

Until then, I'll condescend to you like the pompous kid you are.

Hell, once in a lifetime offer - if you can construct arguments that are above the level of play-ground, I might even give you that respect in advance.

But, alas, I doubt you are able to. Your empty rhetoric might be sufficient to persuade or out-wit the other kids in your school, hell maybe even the slack-jawed gun-owning hicks. But here you are not dealing exclusively with pubescent Fox watching yanks, and as such it will take more than the rather weak usage of the word "loquacious" to make a case.

[yeahwho]

GMA']America was far less socialistic in the 1950's and was by all accounts, the best country in the world at the time.

Oh yes, the 1950's. When Labor Unions were at their strongest. The AFL merged with the CIO during 1955, then in 1956 US Labor Union membership was at 17.4 million, 33.4% of the workforce. Funny how that works.

[DroppinScience]

Oh yes, the 1950's. When Labor Unions were at their strongest. The AFL merged with the CIO during 1955, then in 1956 US Labor Union membership was at 17.4 million, 33.4% of the workforce. Funny how that works.

Too true.

I don't know what reality Enigma lives in... probably the same one as gmsisko.

[Schmeltz]

Hey, don't be talking shit about Enigma. I think he has just as "revolutionary" a spirit as phinkasaurus - he just disagrees about which direction we ought to take with the relevant social and cultural negotiations.

But there's a basic problem to the analysis taken by both Enigma and Ace42. The problem is that both of them make basic assumptions about universal principles - ideologies of socialism and capitalism as ideal expressions of sociality and culture - that really aren't applicable to any society of the contemporary world. I mean, balance these two statements against one another:


Enigma:
Before it became exorbitantly expensive and hassle-prone to run your business in America, we stood commandingly over everyone else in terms of industrial production and consumer production.



Ace42:
Fact of the matter is that socialism is *not* more inefficient than capitalism, and nationalised industries are NOT more innefficient than privatised ones.


Can anybody describe any difference, other than the most profound superficiality, between these two ideologies? Neither of these two is capable of taking into account the unique historical trajectories that have shaped the historical circumstances in which all of their ideological precedents must be located in order to procure any kind of relevant analysis of our present situation. All of us have followed different paths in negotating the respective social and cultural statuses in which we are forced to live - don't any of you see? There is no all-embracing set of ideological principles that can be followed to create the perfect society; each generation (and each individual within each generation) has to constantly renegotiate the terms on which we can all settle in order to produce a self-sustaining society. We all live in a state of perpetual social and cultural flux.

But we can choose. We know about this now - before the modern era, human society has always operated in a state of ignorance as to the realities that inform our interactions with one another. But now, thanks to the application of scientific principles of inquiry to our social behaviour, we have a better chance than ever before of creating a truly progressive society, beneficial to all members on equal terms! If we can only abandon the idea of ideology, of universally applicable principles, and recognize the need for constant renegotiation on productive terms, we can take another step in our cultural evolution - one that can elevate us to unimaginable levels of sophistication and achievement.

Infinity lies before us, ripe for the taking. But history tells me that our grip on its possibilities will be hesitant and tentative so long as we're given to emotive devotion to a concrete set of ideological principles. History is an experiment that can only be run once; and change is the only constant - but we'll go forward no matter what happens. All that remains is for us to dictate the pace at which we'll change. Whatever pace we set will be a measure by which future generations will gauge our place in history - so let's choose something that looks good. Aiight?

[Ace42]

The problem is that both of them make basic assumptions about universal principles

Such as?

My 'assumption' that nationalised industries are not intrinsically less efficient than privatised one? This statement can be proven true by the simple fact that many previously nationalised industries have become less efficient after being privatised. Refuting the assumption isn't so much a "universal principle" as dismissing one.

I mean, balance these two statements against one another:

Can anybody describe any difference, other than the most profound superficiality, between these two ideologies?

The former is based on assumption and subjective value judgements, the latter is based on demonstrable fact. However, while enigma's ideology is rather apparent, I'd say that my personal ideology is a lot less clear, and I am quite disappointed that you seem to infer an ideology from my rebuttal of his claims. While I would say I certainly have socialist (and even communist) ideals, that does not mean that I am a Leninist, Stalinist, Troskyite, or even a proper Marxist.

I might have quite a clear position on some considerations, but that does not mean I have nailed my colours to any particular mast, and certainly not here.

Neither of these two is capable of taking into account the unique historical trajectories that have shaped the historical circumstances in which all of their ideological precedents must be located in order to procure any kind of relevant analysis of our present situation.

I have on numerous occasions taken the various external factors that have effected the development of both systems. Feel free to search the forums for it. For starters I note that the economic problems in the USSR are more to do with isolationism, and thus an inability to borrow money off of external nations. If the US did not have the option to borrow money, it would be some 60% poorer, if not more so. Also, the effects of Totalitarianism, the socio-economic climate of various communist states pre / during / post revolution, the cultural idiosyncracies of vietnamese revolution, the mineral wealth and slaving history of the US, along with all manner of other factors both stated elsewhere and unstated.

If we can only abandon the idea of ideology, of universally applicable principles, and recognize the need for constant renegotiation on productive terms, we can take another step in our cultural evolution - one that can elevate us to unimaginable levels of sophistication and achievement.

If you eschew universally applicable principles, you eschew all rights accorded to an individual, and thus all freedoms. While a collective is no doubt more productive than a less integrated social system, the cost to/of individuality is far too great. There are many universal social principles that are simply non-negotiable.

But history tells me that our grip on its possibilities will be hesitant and tentative so long as we're given to emotive devotion to a concrete set of ideological principles.

How Nietzchen. We can be beyond good and evil. And thus beyond incentive to do the 'right thing' as there will be no 'right' thing. Does this leave us with "enlightened self-interest" ?

What about the social principle that slavery is morally abohorrant and should be prohibited? Is that negotiable? What about any number of civil rights that *I* would certainly find unsatisfactory to be deprived of?

[EN[i]GMA]

Don't let facts get in the way of your self-congratulation (not that you ever have) - but that is crap. I have never ever had to wait any length of time for any medical attention ever. Even in the ass-end of the country, my aquaintance had his appendix out the night he saught medical attention, and was back in his house a day or so later right as rain. While in hospital, he had access to the internet and various premium TV channels from his bed.

That's like me saying there's no poverty in America because me and my friends have never been poor.

That was the absolute worst argument I have ever heard.

Clearly documented are cases where thousands upon thousands of people are WAITING IN LONG LINES for medical care, and you're refutation is "my friend got his appendix taken out".

You're a fucking joke Ace. For the shit you talk, I expect better.


Clearly a nationalised healthcare system isn't working. Which is why the US and Africa, the only two developed nations not to offer comprehensive healthcare to all, both lead the world in medical care. Oh wait, they don't, as the initial post in this thread points out.

But of course a health care system far less socialized than our current one was the best in the world a few years ago, and it's fall in stature has mirrored the rise in government intervention.

Imagine that.



So, when you were criticising socialism, you meant to say "socialism is inherantly superior to the US's form of capitalism, as it has a much better correlation with a greater degree of market freedom"

Right.


Huh? I obviously meant that there are countries far LESS socialistic than the U.S. (Hong Kong (Technically), Switzerland, New Zealand), that are doing better than the U.S. in some, many, or almost all areas.

You're argument doesn't stand up to reason.


Are you implying Bush is not anti-socialist?


http://www.cato.org/research/fiscal_policy/bush/factsfigs.html

http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-087es.html



You are only seeing contradictions because you are arguing based on mythos which you assume is fact. Something you do frequently.

When you grow some hair on your sack, you might've seen enough of the world to be able to smell when something is off.

Fact of the matter is that socialism is *not* more inefficient than capitalism, and nationalised industries are NOT more innefficient than privatised ones.

Both these myths you argue as fact, despite there being overwhelming real-world evidence to the contrary.

If you shed your false assumption that socialism / liberalism must entail more bureacracy and thus be less efficient (something that is demonstrably false) then the contradictions go away.

So if I subscribe to your tripe ideology, the basic contradiction that Bush is an 'anti-socialist', who drastically increased Federal Spending in all areas and is near FDR, LBJ and Carter in all spending areas, will cease to exist?

How? Will Bush's budget magically shrink by 30% if I turn into a communist?

Or do you just ignore the vast piles of empirical evidence that Bush is one of this country's most socialistic Presidents, and continue parroting your worthless propaganda?



How much do you think arresting random writers, hippies, peace-niks, costs? How much do you think their trials cost? How much do you think was lost due to crime that could've been policed by the people who were rounding up the afore-mentioned people?

Hmm. I could have swore libertarians such as myself were steadfastly against this sort of thing.

Oh well, continue tearing down poorly drawn carictures of me Ace, it makes you look like a great debater.


Of course, McCarthy's 'rabid anti-socialism' was saving money. And of course, the cold-war was saving the US money. The federal government buying vast ammounts of weaponry, etc instead of investing in public services is saving the US money.

Not getting conquered by the Soviet Union did save a lot of money, true Ace.



Of course the US government giving over vast amounts of resources to near un-accountable security services who are responsible for staking out writers and social-commentators, not to mention extending their power and influence was actually keeping the power of the government *tightly restrained

Hmm, libertarians such as myself permit this sort of thing?

I could have swore we didn't.


Of course hunting down people who had attended communist meetings was non-invasive or pervasive.

Can you do anything other than erect strawmen and tear them down?


Come join us in the real world, and you'll see.

The 'real world'?

You idealistic country has never come close to existing, how can your thoughts be real?


If you mean me systematically refuting your non-arguments on a point-by-point basis, thus making you appear foolish and ill-informed - then thankyou.

No, by erecting strawman after strawman and valiently tearing them down as I stand off to side laughing at your pitiful attempts to discredit me.


If you mean you want me to treat you like an informed and intelligent adult, whose opinion has merit and thus deserves respect - then sure, I'll do that. When you can grow a beard, buy a drink / bone a girl (legally).

Oh yes Ace, what I want, more than anything in the world is for you to treat me like an adult.

Then my dream will be fulfilled.


Until then, I'll condescend to you like the pompous kid you are.

You'll do that no matter what I do, and end up looking an ignorant cunt every time.


Hell, once in a lifetime offer - if you can construct arguments that are above the level of play-ground, I might even give you that respect in advance.

Oh shit! I can't pass this up!


But, alas, I doubt you are able to. Your empty rhetoric might be sufficient to persuade or out-wit the other kids in your school, hell maybe even the slack-jawed gun-owning hicks. But here you are not dealing exclusively with pubescent Fox watching yanks, and as such it will take more than the rather weak usage of the word "loquacious" to make a case.

Damn, I couldn't impress him with my $6 dollar vocabulary, whatever shall I do!?

[EN[i]GMA]

Oh yes, the 1950's. When Labor Unions were at their strongest. The AFL merged with the CIO during 1955, then in 1956 US Labor Union membership was at 17.4 million, 33.4% of the workforce. Funny how that works.

Yeah.

And the 1950s when government tax rates were at a low and the free-market was allowed to create wealth.

I have no problem with labor unions, though I find it somewhat funny that their greatest achievement was still only 33.4%.

[EN[i]GMA]

Too true.

I don't know what reality Enigma lives in... probably the same one as gmsisko.

Right...

[Ace42]

GMA']That was the absolute worst argument I have ever heard.

That was not an argument, that was me putting it into context. You said, and I quote:

Just pray you don't have something lodged in there, surgery could be a ways off.

Notice your usage of the word "you" there. I took it to mean myself, who would not have to wait for surgery for the reasons I discussed. IE I have never had to wait for medical care, and neither has anyone I have known. Thus there is no reason to believe that against all probability *I PERSONALLY* would randomly / magically suffer a change of fate and become one of these "thousands upon thousands" of people that I have never encountered. I am not saying they don't exist, nor did I say they don't exist. I WILL say you don't know what you are talking about, and you are full of shit, just like you were about the Swiss. That is all beside the point.

I personally get prompt medical treatment for free on the NHS, and as such surgery would not be "a ways off."

However:
Clearly documented are cases where thousands upon thousands of people are WAITING IN LONG LINES for medical care, and you're refutation is "my friend got his appendix taken out".

If by "clearly documented cases" you mean one link which has unsupported allegations, then yes. However, I didn't feel the need to refute this with hospital league tables, etc. I wasted my time refuting your drivel in the gun control thread, and your response was "oh, yeah, you're right I was talking bullshit."

Well, excuse me if I saved myself the effort. Fact is, you have not made any allegations other than suggesting that the NHS is somehow falling apart and is failing to offer adequet healthcare. That is a nonsense, just like your ridiculous "Switzerland has 100% gun ownership in males" bullshit.

http://www.nhs.uk/England/AboutTheNHS/WaitingTimes/Default.cmsx

If you want to compare waiting lists in different regions for different illnesses, be my guest. I think you'll find that for a free service, they are well in line with what people can expect under other comparable systems.

You're a fucking joke Ace. For the shit you talk, I expect better.

This coming from the guy who asserted that the swiss have 100% gun ownership in males? Hah... Look in the mirror, if you can bear it.

But of course a health care system far less socialized than our current one was the best in the world a few years ago, and it's fall in stature has mirrored the rise in government intervention.

Imagine that.

I'll have to imagine that, as like all your other claims, they bear no relation to reality. You offer no facts, statistics or evidence to support this, other than your patriotic assertion. Just like you asserted that more guns means less crime - another misconception you had which I illustrated was clearly false.

There is NO correlation between the fall in US healthcare and the rise in government intervention whatsoever, and you certainly do not have anything other than your egotistical assertion to back up this claim. Just like all of your bullshit.

Huh? I obviously meant that there are countries far LESS socialistic than the U.S. (Hong Kong (Technically), Switzerland, New Zealand), that are doing better than the U.S. in some, many, or almost all areas.

You're argument doesn't stand up to reason.

Ahhh, but they do. Hong Kong was under UK dominion until relatively recently, and as such its prosperity and sucess is due to its use of the ENGLISH system. Furthermore, their healthcare policy department rejected proposals of an American style health insurance system when the UK lease expired and it was handed back to Communist (not capitalist, although getting that way) China.

http://www.hkpri.org.hk/bulletin/11/janelee.html

The Swiss healthcare system is funded in part by public money - a quater of *all* costs are met by the state, and true to *socialist* ideals, more 'when private initiative fails to produce satisfactory results'. The rest is arrived at through *mandatory* health-insurance (more 'invasive' government controlling your spending, that you dislike so much)

http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/Switzerland.pdf

The New Zealand government pours plenty of tax-money into subsidising its healthcare system and has recently been scaling up its spending.

http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget2002/summary/overview/ensuring.asp

So if I subscribe to your tripe ideology, the basic contradiction that Bush is an 'anti-socialist', who drastically increased Federal Spending in all areas and is near FDR, LBJ and Carter in all spending areas, will cease to exist?

Again, a misconception held by you because you are a deluded child who spends more time contriving his opinions than actually studying the facts they pertain to.

Firstly, your grammar sucks. You are saying that there is a basic contradition between "Bush" and anti-socialism. While you clearly meant to say that there is a contradiction between Anti-socialism and increased spending, that is not what you said.

Secondly, there is no correlation between socialism and spending. A communist dictator could cut investment in public services, he would not cease to be a socialist in a technical sense.

In a more meaningful sense, however, a government could spend less money, but spend it on socialist programs such as a nationalised health service like the NHS. A less socialist government could pump more money into a privatised healthcare system which only improves the quality of treatment for an elite few.

The latter spends more, but is less socialist.

If you were not an ignorant kid regurgitating feel-good capitalist propoganda which has no basis in observable evidence, you'd see this is self-evident.

How? Will Bush's budget magically shrink by 30% if I turn into a communist?

Again, the budget at your disposal and the amount you are willing to spend has no bearing whatsoever on whether you are a socialist or not. Check the dictionary, I don't see "Socialist - someone who spends a lot of money" on there. And you have the nerve to accuse *ME* of straw-manning? Hypocritical brat.

Or do you just ignore the vast piles of empirical evidence that Bush is one of this country's most socialistic Presidents, and continue parroting your worthless propaganda?

There is no empirical evidence whatsoever. Bush has not taken any steps in any way shape or form towards nationalising US industries. As we all know, Bush's tax-cuts benefitted the rich moreso than the poor - that is the antithesis of socialism. Kerry's stance was more socialist in this capacity. Bush has sub-contracted out more plump jobs to his Halliburton cronies than before his presidency. For example Halliburton engineers rather than US army engineers 'rebuilding' Iraq.

The only reason I can see for your suggesting that Bush is even remotely a socialist is that you are a boob who would rather define socialism according to a collection of stereotypical and patently false notions that you have somehow gotten into your cute little head, rather than according to the values which typify socialism.

Hmm. I could have swore libertarians such as myself were steadfastly against this sort of thing.

Did I say libertarians were rabidly anti-socialist? Did I say libertarians were behind the McCarthy witch hunt? Did I say Libertarians who were rabidly anti-socialist were behind the decline of the US economy and healthcare systems?

Infact, did I mention you (in that paragraph) at all?

No, because you weren't even alive through the hay-days of thatcherism, let alone through through the late fifties.

Oh well, continue tearing down poorly drawn carictures of me Ace, it makes you look like a great debater.

I was not doing that in that paragraph in any way shape or form. Again, it is you who is straw-manning. Although, to be fair, that is only what it ammounts to. To your credit, I attribute you totally missing my point to your ignorance rather than a deliberate attempt to use a straw-man argument.

However, I will continue to mock you as a self-important spoiled brat for as long as you persist in acting like one. That is beside the point of the argument, and is strictly a matter for your sole reflection.

Not getting conquered by the Soviet Union did save a lot of money, true Ace.

The cold war was a ridiculously expensive and totally unproductive exercise. This much is cold hard fact. Feel free to google for the precise expenditure to get an idea of the vast amounts of cash spent on the shambles.

That the Soviet Union intended to go on a mission of conquest, and it was only intimidation by the US that prevented a full scale conquest of the US is merely your supposition. As is your assertion that it would "cost the US more" if they did invade. As a sucessful invasion would quite possibly eliminate any money, then in an irrelevant and meaningless sense, the cold war expenditure did save a lot of otherwise obsolete pieces of paper. However, as under a communist system these pieces of paper would be instantly worthless, what the money represents (goods, services, etc) would still remain. Thus there would be no net loss. The conditions of the US under communist rule for up to half a century is well beyond your fathoming, and thus there is no reason to suppose that it would be that bad.

So, all this speculation aside, let's stick to what we know as fact:

During the cold war and after it, the US spent vast amounts of money on its military, while neglecting investment in socialist enterprises and the respective public services.

Hmm, libertarians such as myself permit this sort of thing?

The "rabid anti-socialists" did, precisely because of their rabid anti-socialism.

Can you do anything other than erect strawmen and tear them down?

It is not a strawman argument:

1. You brought up "rabid anti-socialists" - therefore it is not a strawman of *MY* construction. Hypocritical prick.
2. McCarthyism was the EPITOME of rabid anti-socialism, particularly during the 50s. The period of time we were discussing.
3. During the McCarthy witch-hunt, numerous innocent and law-abiding Americans were arrested, detained, and tried at public expense. This was both invasive and pervasive, and cost both funds and man-power than could've been better spent on more socialist budgetary concerns.

So, quite clearly rabid anti-socialists HAVE:
drove us into record deficits, obscene government spending and an invasive and pervasive Federal Government, bounding out of it's legal restraints.

Or do you think the money to conduct the McCarthy witch-hunt grew on trees? Let me guess, those wrongfully persecuted with compensated with orange-juice cheerfully donated by anti-socialist Floridians.

The 'real world'?

You idealistic country has never come close to existing, how can your thoughts be real?

I don't know what reality Enigma lives in... probably the same one as gmsisko.

See, here's the rub. For me "the real world" is perceived through objective fact that correlates to tangible empirical evidence. For you, "the real world" is merely whatever piece of populist misconception currently fits in to your view of how things 'should be'.

This equally goes for your professed "Libertarianism" - which is really just a pompous label you give yourself, much as your peers label themselves "goths" or whatever, in order to try and create the impression that you are an intellectual.

As I said formerly, this may well work on hicks and the hair-less wonders around you. But those of us who are bonafide intellectuals (and this is evidenced by the several other posters here who are refuting your assertions too) see right through your posturing. You are merely a poor imitation of the debaters here, and that is why you look like a cock whenever you try to argue.

No, by erecting strawman after strawman and valiently tearing them down as I stand off to side laughing at your pitiful attempts to discredit me.

Well, considering it is you who has been straw-manning, and everyone here can see you for the hypocrit you are, I think you'll find yourself in the minority. The majority are in centre stage having adult debate, and occasionally pointed and sniggering at you being aloof, alone, at the kid's buffet table.

Oh yes Ace, what I want, more than anything in the world is for you to treat me like an adult.

Then my dream will be fulfilled.

The old 'I didn't want to play ball with you poopie-heads anyway' ploy. How mature.

You'll do that no matter what I do, and end up looking an ignorant cunt every time.

Hah, yes of course. Me illustrating that you are full of bullshit, like when you said that 100% of swiss adult males had guns, makes *ME* look like an ignorant cunt.

Oh shit! I can't pass this up!

That will be the pig semen you swallowed. I gather it is viscuous.

Damn, I couldn't impress him with my $6 dollar vocabulary, whatever shall I do!?

Shut up, piss off, and come back when you have more to offer than a facile and unsubstantiated argument which is as divorced from reality as it is from the facts themselves?

Or are you not done stamping your foot yet, young man?

[Ali]

STFU cripple boy.

Got a job yet?

[EN[i]GMA]

Notice your usage of the word "you" there. I took it to mean myself, who would not have to wait for surgery for the reasons I discussed. IE I have never had to wait for medical care, and neither has anyone I have known. Thus there is no reason to believe that against all probability *I PERSONALLY* would randomly / magically suffer a change of fate and become one of these "thousands upon thousands" of people that I have never encountered. I am not saying they don't exist, nor did I say they don't exist. I WILL say you don't know what you are talking about, and you are full of shit, just like you were about the Swiss. That is all beside the point.

Except the waits are getting longer accross the board, so your past experiences aren't necessarily an accurate indicator, particularly because some areas have a far longer wait than others: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1205159.stm


I personally get prompt medical treatment for free on the NHS, and as such surgery would not be "a ways off."

Free? I could have sworn it was tax funded.



If by "clearly documented cases" you mean one link which has unsupported allegations, then yes. However, I didn't feel the need to refute this with hospital league tables, etc. I wasted my time refuting your drivel in the gun control thread, and your response was "oh, yeah, you're right I was talking bullshit."

Unsupported allegations?

Are you saying those people aren't waiting in lines? Their just decieving themselves?

The Guardian and the BBC are fraudulent sources?



I'll have to imagine that, as like all your other claims, they bear no relation to reality. You offer no facts, statistics or evidence to support this, other than your patriotic assertion. Just like you asserted that more guns means less crime - another misconception you had which I illustrated was clearly false.

There is NO correlation between the fall in US healthcare and the rise in government intervention whatsoever, and you certainly do not have anything other than your egotistical assertion to back up this claim. Just like all of your bullshit.

The Federal Government funds 60% of health care costs in the United States.

This was a trend started by LBJ's great society.

Let's compare current statistics with some past ones: http://www.whale.to/a/inf1.html

"(The U.S.) spends more resources than any other industrialized nation by a
wide margin," said study author Gerard Anderson, PhD, professor of health
policy and management at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. "Yet,
between 1990 and 1995 the United States fell to position 23 out of the 29
leading industrialized nations in terms of infant mortality. This country
was ranked twentieth out of 29 in 1995 in terms of life expectancy for
women and twenty-first in terms of life expectancy for men."

We spent more money, the problem got worse.

"In 1960, the U.S. was ranked 13th in life expectancy for women; in 1995,
it had slipped to 20th.


-- In 1960, the U.S. was ranked seventeenth in life expectancy for men; in
1995, that position had dropped to 21st."

We spent more money, we got worse.

Do I really need to google for more data? It's obvious that health care standards have declined in the U.S. and it's obvious spending has gone up.

You obivously deny the correlation, than what, pray tell, is the problem?

How will spending more government money help when it's done nothing but hinder to this point?


Ahhh, but they do. Hong Kong was under UK dominion until relatively recently, and as such its prosperity and sucess is due to its use of the ENGLISH system. Furthermore, their healthcare policy department rejected proposals of an American style health insurance system when the UK lease expired and it was handed back to Communist (not capitalist, although getting that way) China.

The English system of free-markets.

And I'm not a big supporter of our 'style' of health insurance, I would make drastic changes.


The Swiss healthcare system is funded in part by public money - a quater of *all* costs are met by the state, and true to *socialist* ideals, more 'when private initiative fails to produce satisfactory results'. The rest is arrived at through *mandatory* health-insurance (more 'invasive' government controlling your spending, that you dislike so much)

And the United States pays for 60% of all costs, so what?

Your link states there is a high amount of competition in the system (Which is working out very well).

Tax Financing of the system has decreased since 1980, by 7%.

A system more like Switzerland's would be acceptable to me, it's clearly better than our system and the systems used by nearly every country in the world.



The New Zealand government pours plenty of tax-money into subsidising its healthcare system and has recently been scaling up its spending.

http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget2002/summary/overview/ensuring.asp


And I quote: " Our aim is to build on existing fundamentals, with policies that actively focus on growth and innovation. We give particular focus to policies that enhance the economy's potential to foster innovation, encourage the commercialisation of good ideas, develop skills and talent and increase New Zealand's global connectedness."

Yes, they are increasing spending, but spending is still extremely low in comparison to nearly every other country in the world.

Hardly the socialistic bastion you made it out to be.


Again, a misconception held by you because you are a deluded child who spends more time contriving his opinions than actually studying the facts they pertain to.

You're like a broken record Ace.


Firstly, your grammar sucks. You are saying that there is a basic contradition between "Bush" and anti-socialism. While you clearly meant to say that there is a contradiction between Anti-socialism and increased spending, that is not what you said.

Playing the grammar Nazi, Ace?


Secondly, there is no correlation between socialism and spending. A communist dictator could cut investment in public services, he would not cease to be a socialist in a technical sense.

Is a socialist more likely to increase government spending, power, and jurisdiction or decrease it?


In a more meaningful sense, however, a government could spend less money, but spend it on socialist programs such as a nationalised health service like the NHS. A less socialist government could pump more money into a privatised healthcare system which only improves the quality of treatment for an elite few.

Except Bush is spending more on social services as well.

Remember the Medicare drug bill passed last year?

The latter spends more, but is less socialist.


If you were not an ignorant kid regurgitating feel-good capitalist propoganda which has no basis in observable evidence, you'd see this is self-evident.

Rather that than a wet sack-of-shit who spends his time insulting people over the internet, all the while making himself look like a complete twat with his arid, self-aggrandizing communist pap.


Again, the budget at your disposal and the amount you are willing to spend has no bearing whatsoever on whether you are a socialist or not. Check the dictionary, I don't see "Socialist - someone who spends a lot of money" on there. And you have the nerve to accuse *ME* of straw-manning? Hypocritical brat.

In your invaluable estimation, is Bush, the great spender and expander of government power throughout the free-market, not a socialist in action, if not in rhetoric?


There is no empirical evidence whatsoever. Bush has not taken any steps in any way shape or form towards nationalising US industries. As we all know, Bush's tax-cuts benefitted the rich moreso than the poor - that is the antithesis of socialism. Kerry's stance was more socialist in this capacity. Bush has sub-contracted out more plump jobs to his Halliburton cronies than before his presidency. For example Halliburton engineers rather than US army engineers 'rebuilding' Iraq.

That very same example is a case for a socialist tilt.

The erasure of lines between government and industry is a prime example of socialism.


The only reason I can see for your suggesting that Bush is even remotely a socialist is that you are a boob who would rather define socialism according to a collection of stereotypical and patently false notions that you have somehow gotten into your cute little head, rather than according to the values which typify socialism.

Give me a nice definition of socialism that works for you, and let me show how Bush is a socialist. Go ahead.


Did I say libertarians were rabidly anti-socialist? Did I say libertarians were behind the McCarthy witch hunt? Did I say Libertarians who were rabidly anti-socialist were behind the decline of the US economy and healthcare systems?

Infact, did I mention you (in that paragraph) at all?


No, because you weren't even alive through the hay-days of thatcherism, let alone through through the late fifties.

You're obviously trying to pin these past failings on me and my position, and it isn't going to work.



I was not doing that in that paragraph in any way shape or form. Again, it is you who is straw-manning. Although, to be fair, that is only what it ammounts to. To your credit, I attribute you totally missing my point to your ignorance rather than a deliberate attempt to use a straw-man argument.

However, I will continue to mock you as a self-important spoiled brat for as long as you persist in acting like one. That is beside the point of the argument, and is strictly a matter for your sole reflection.

If I'm inclined to getting my advice for self-correction from some limey twat over the internet, I may as well shoot myself not and save myself some wasted time and effort.


The cold war was a ridiculously expensive and totally unproductive exercise. This much is cold hard fact. Feel free to google for the precise expenditure to get an idea of the vast amounts of cash spent on the shambles.

That the Soviet Union intended to go on a mission of conquest, and it was only intimidation by the US that prevented a full scale conquest of the US is merely your supposition. As is your assertion that it would "cost the US more" if they did invade. As a sucessful invasion would quite possibly eliminate any money, then in an irrelevant and meaningless sense, the cold war expenditure did save a lot of otherwise obsolete pieces of paper. However, as under a communist system these pieces of paper would be instantly worthless, what the money represents (goods, services, etc) would still remain. Thus there would be no net loss. The conditions of the US under communist rule for up to half a century is well beyond your fathoming, and thus there is no reason to suppose that it would be that bad.

Do you listen to what you're saying?

It's hilarious and head-smashingly inane at the same time.

We have no idea what conditions in the U.S. would have been like under Soviet control?

Conditions in every other country under Soviet control might be a decent indicator.

Do you know what those conditions were?

So, all this speculation aside, let's stick to what we know as fact:


During the cold war and after it, the US spent vast amounts of money on its military, while neglecting investment in socialist enterprises and the respective public services.

The Great Society didn't happen, I take it?



It is not a strawman argument:

1. You brought up "rabid anti-socialists" - therefore it is not a strawman of *MY* construction. Hypocritical prick.
2. McCarthyism was the EPITOME of rabid anti-socialism, particularly during the 50s. The period of time we were discussing.
3. During the McCarthy witch-hunt, numerous innocent and law-abiding Americans were arrested, detained, and tried at public expense. This was both invasive and pervasive, and cost both funds and man-power than could've been better spent on more socialist budgetary concerns.


All of that is an extention of the leviathan state instituted by FDR and the GOP's utter contempt for limited government.

Don't pin their failings on me.

Whether they were 'socialists' or 'anti-socialists', the fact remains the same, government continued to grow at a breakneck pace while they sat idly by.

I maintain that this 'anti-socialism' was nothing more than a clever attempt to grow the Federal Government while fooling the public into thinking they were keeping it 'small' and 'American'.


Or do you think the money to conduct the McCarthy witch-hunt grew on trees? Let me guess, those wrongfully persecuted with compensated with orange-juice cheerfully donated by anti-socialist Floridians.

Like the 350 Americans who had ties to the Soviet Union, as made clear by the Venona Project files?

Are you denying that there were communist plants in high levels of the U.S. government?

The Rosenbergs were guilty. Hiss was guilty. Perlo, Coplon and Gold were guilty of at least some of the allegations.

How is it a 'witch-hunt', if he was actually right about a number of points regarding communists in the U.S. government?



See, here's the rub. For me "the real world" is perceived through objective fact that correlates to tangible empirical evidence. For you, "the real world" is merely whatever piece of populist misconception currently fits in to your view of how things 'should be'.

This equally goes for your professed "Libertarianism" - which is really just a pompous label you give yourself, much as your peers label themselves "goths" or whatever, in order to try and create the impression that you are an intellectual.

As I said formerly, this may well work on hicks and the hair-less wonders around you. But those of us who are bonafide intellectuals (and this is evidenced by the several other posters here who are refuting your assertions too) see right through your posturing. You are merely a poor imitation of the debaters here, and that is why you look like a cock whenever you try to argue.

Libertarianism isn't 'populist' at all.

And you're some 'intellectual' there Ace. Do you any actual qualifications, or just a PhD in internet dick swinging?

Well, considering it is you who has been straw-manning, and everyone here can see you for the hypocrit you are, I think you'll find yourself in the minority. The majority are in centre stage having adult debate, and occasionally pointed and sniggering at you being aloof, alone, at the kid's buffet table.

Does your misguided elitism know any bounds?

Your pitiful attempts at castigation have no real effect, particularly because you aren't the intellectual titan you seem to think you are, and many of your arguments are non-sensical and ineffectual.


The old 'I didn't want to play ball with you poopie-heads anyway' ploy. How mature.

More like the 'Ace is an arrogant fuck and thinks I somehow want his meaningless 'seal of approval'.

Clearly your designation is innaccurate as I'm replying to this post.


That will be the pig semen you swallowed. I gather it is viscuous.

You have experience in the field, I take it?


Shut up, piss off, and come back when you have more to offer than a facile and unsubstantiated argument which is as divorced from reality as it is from the facts themselves?

Or are you not done stamping your foot yet, young man?

You're what, 6 years older than me?

Isn't it the mark of maturity to actually DO something, as opposed to engagin in pissing contests over the internet with teenagers?

If your label of me is accurate, what does that say about you?

I think it says you're a failure at life.

[yeahwho]

GMA']Yeah.

And the 1950s when government tax rates were at a low and the free-market was allowed to create wealth.

I have no problem with labor unions, though I find it somewhat funny that their greatest achievement was still only 33.4%.

Distribution seems skewered (http://www.worldrevolution.org/Projects/Features/Inequality/USInequality.htm) as of late, why is it that fools believe great ideas revolve around the rich getting richer? Do you want to partake in owning a business that spends money lobbying constantly for the worlds cheapest labor?

Your really to much of a smug sort to carry on with (meaning your not even remotely able to come near a solution) you never bring your "A" game, just a bunch of BS about nothing. Another turd to the table.

I will say what should be obvious, When the balance between employee/employer representation was level, America worked better, stronger and smarter.

We are being governed by corporate interests, We the People are not what We the People once were.

[Ace42]

GMA']Except the waits are getting longer accross the board, so your past experiences aren't necessarily an accurate indicator, particularly because some areas have a far longer wait than others: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1205159.stm

Urm, that is for *neurology* - not *across the board*.

Secondly, I find it presumptous of you that you think you know what the waiting times in my area are like better than I do.

And my past experiences are a perfectly accurate indicator. If you check the figures, waiting times are not growing exponentially.

Free? I could have sworn it was tax funded.

Only if you pay taxes. As you do not pay taxes, it would be completely free for you. Secondly, you do not *pay for the NHS* any more than you pay the police to look into crimes for you, or the fire department to put out your house. These services cannot and do not distinguish between "non-payers" and "payers" so it is, in effect, free. There are lots of *free* services that pay their rates by *donations*, and lots of *free* products that are subsidised by things that must be purchased.

By your argument, zonealarm (www.zonelabs.com) isn't free because it *other people* who buy the commercial applications have to pay. Well, sorry, but it is free.

That to one side, the GOVERNMENT funds these industries. Again, your argument would be like saying that I sponsor terrorism because the guy I buy kebabs off of (through a perfectly legitimate business) forwards the money on to Lebanese militants.

Are you saying those people aren't waiting in lines? Their just decieving themselves?

The Guardian and the BBC are fraudulent sources?

Your link was to neither the BBC, nor the Guardian. If you actually check the BBC and Guardian links offered as sources, neither directly support the analysis in your link.

For example:

The total number waiting longer than nine months for treatment has fallen by 34,000 in a year.

From the first Guardian extract on your link.

The second Guardian (Observer) link states that the reason for the delays in seeing Neurologists was due to a shortage of qualified individuals, NOT due to a lack of financial investment. Thus irrelevant to your argument.

The first BBC link merely says there is "No strategy" on the question of waiting lists, and contained the statement:

Her successor Brian Gibbons said waiting times fell in the past year.

Infact, if you disregard the blogs, there is no comparative articles on there whatsoever, comparing the NHS to other nation's healthcare systems.

The Federal Government funds 60% of health care costs in the United States.

Yeah, I read that study too -

“We have a system in which we’ve “privatized the profits, and socialized the risks,” said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a co-author of the study

So let's see... Privatising profits... Yes... That sounds socialist to me. Now where did I hear that?

Oh yes... My previous post where I pointed out that diverting public spending towards private profit is *NOT* socialist.

We spent more money, the problem got worse.

Precisely, because the money was eaten by the private sector. This should be unsurprising to anyone with even a passing aquaintance with capitalism. Common sense should tell you that capitalism has a natural tendancy to convert a pile of pennys divided between millions of people into a shiny new car for a CEO.

“Insurance companies reap the profits and pay their executives millions while drowning our health system in paperwork at public expense. For their part, businesses complain bitterly of rising health care costs, yet they pay only 19% of total U.S. health costs, insure the mostly healthy and wealthy, and reap large tax-breaks (subtracting tax-breaks reduces employers share of health spending to just 11%).”

- Again, that is the antithesis of socialism.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2002/july/government_funds_60_.php

Do I really need to google for more data? It's obvious that health care standards have declined in the U.S. and it's obvious spending has gone up.

You obivously deny the correlation, than what, pray tell, is the problem?

I do not deny the correlation. I support it. Spending is going up because private companies are doing what they do best - fleecing the consumer. This is precisely the product of capitalism, and which is why more socialist systems are out-performing the US system.

How will spending more government money help when it's done nothing but hinder to this point?

Again, you are ignorantly assuming that socialism = more spending. It doesn't. There is nothing anywhere that says "Socialism means more spending!" - well, nothing outside of your pathetic propoganda sites anyway.

“National health insurance doesn’t mean spending more; it means spending wisely,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). “We spend over $309 billion on paperwork in insurance companies, hospitals, nursing homes and doctor’s offices – at least half of which could be saved through national health insurance. We spend over $150 billion on medications -- at prices 50% higher than Canada’s”.

Under socialism, money is spent on the service, NOT on:

“executives['s] millions[,] while drowning our health system in paperwork at public expense.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2002/july/government_funds_60_.php


A system more like Switzerland's would be acceptable to me, it's clearly better than our system and the systems used by nearly every country in the world.

You were against increasing spending, I thought? The Swiss system costs more than the US system. Admittedly it is probably worth that expense, but still.

Yes, they are increasing spending, but spending is still extremely low in comparison to nearly every other country in the world.

Hardly the socialistic bastion you made it out to be.

I didn't make it out to be any sort of socialistic bastion. You really shouldn't've made that straw-man jibe at me earlier. I appreciate you thought it would make you look informed an intellectual, but as you can see it has backfired as you were not only wrong, but opened the gate for me to bash you over the head with it repeatedly.

THAT is a straw-man argument right there. And spending is low because it is a very very small country, obviously. And you will have to give (recent) comparative figures, as you have a habit of making shit up.

You're like a broken record Ace.

When you stop repeating the same mistakes, I will stop correcting them.

Playing the grammar Nazi, Ace?

No, I over-looked many of your spelling, punctuation and gramatical errors, as I hope anyone else here would do for me. However, in that case it interferred with the reading of your sentence, causing ambiguity which needed to be addressed.

Is a socialist more likely to increase government spending, power, and jurisdiction or decrease it?

Neither. There is no genetic predisposition to socialism. To simplify the position to "Socialism means more spending" is particularly facile and demonstrably false. I know that, as a litle child, you feel the need to put things into constrictive limiting boxes and compartementalise, but try to bear with the adults on this one.

The Liberal Democrat part in the UK is the most socialist party around at the moment, and they are campaigning VERY heavily against Tony Blair's anti-socialist policies of curtailing civil liberties, and granting unprecedented power to MPs. Those are socialists who are more likely to curtail government power and jurisdiction. Now, while I could get into the intricacies of the three major UK party's budgetary concerns, it would be over your head, irrelevant, and totally unproductive as the parties invariably bullshit about their spending plans anyway.

The UK's Labour party has been distinctly anti-socialist in recent years (privatising the London Underground, increasing private sector spending in various "Private Finance Initiatives", etc etc) and yet are accused of over-spending hand over foot.

Clearly, there is NO correlation between spending and whether you are socialistic or not. And your rather pathetic attempts to prove against all common sense or logic that there is has no effect other than making you look like a kid saying "But everyone knows Yankee pitchers are better at fast-balls! It's fact! Has been true ever since the 20's!"

Except Bush is spending more on social services as well.

Again, funnelling public spending into the private sector is NOT socialist.

Rather that than a wet sack-of-shit who spends his time insulting people over the internet, all the while making himself look like a complete twat with his arid, self-aggrandizing communist pap.

Again, I fail to see how me pointing out your numerous errors and personality defects makes *ME* look like a twat. Like someone who has too much time on their hands, possibly. Like someone who is often pedantic, certainly. Like a "complete twat" ? Well, to be honest I think anyone reading this would think the kid that said every man in Switzerland has a gun looks more foolish than the guy who calls bullshit on him.

In your invaluable estimation, is Bush, the great spender and expander of government power throughout the free-market, not a socialist in action, if not in rhetoric?

He is a socialist in neither. For the Nth time, spending has no correlation to the level of socialism. Likewise, tilting the scales of the free-market *IN THE FAVOUR OF A RICH MINORITY* is not socialism. Clearly, by definition, it is the exact opposite.

The erasure of lines between government and industry is a prime example of socialism.

No, that's Mussolini's definition of facism. And I'll agree that Bush is a facist.

Give me a nice definition of socialism that works for you, and let me show how Bush is a socialist. Go ahead.

Apart from the nationalisation of industries and services which are generally a prime example, it is a system of government that focuses more on social equity than the stratification of power.

You're obviously trying to pin these past failings on me and my position

Of course me posting on a thread which you hadn't stuck your pimpled pudgy face into at that point was CLEARLY a direct affront on your position. And me refuting your claims and logic-errors one by one was CLEARLY an attack of Libertarian ideals.


If I'm inclined to getting my advice for self-correction from some limey twat over the internet, I may as well shoot myself not and save myself some wasted time and effort.

I'll agree that shooting yourself would be a step in the right direction, however you'd be wise to listen to your elders and betters. You'd look less like a spoilt kid. And you might be able to form a coherant argument, without having to surrender point after point after point until the argument gets bogged down in irrelevancies. Personally, I have the time and the inclination to hunt your argument down to the minutae of details until your position is left barren, but don't think that just because I am still busy refuting, it means you haven't lost the argument yet.

If you listened to this limey, you might not be
a smug sort ... [bringing] Another turd to the table.

We have no idea what conditions in the U.S. would have been like under Soviet control?

Conditions in every other country under Soviet control might be a decent indicator.

Circumstantial evidence, and thus totally inadmissable. Conditions in those countries did not involve Texan oil wells for starters.

Do you know what those conditions were?

You mean other than totally irrelevant? We are not talking about those countries.

Allow me to quote yourself:

That's like me saying there's no poverty in America because me and my friends have never been poor.

That was the absolute worst argument I have ever heard.

Again, you illustrating what a hypocritical deluded fool you are.

The Great Society didn't happen, I take it?

The Great Society started with, lasted the entire duration of, and still remained after the Cold War?

The Great Society cost more to instigate than the net cost of the Cold War?

Submarines and Aircraft carriers, and nukes, and gases and napalm, and F4 phantoms, etc etc are cheaper than a good healtcare system?

All of that is an extention of the leviathan state instituted by FDR and the GOP's utter contempt for limited government.

Ah, and that of course suddenly makes logic not apply and despite it being you who brought it up, it is magically *MY* straw-man.

Don't pin their failings on me.

I wasn't you arrogant prick. You can't pay taxes or vote, so of course the numerous failings of the US government have nothing to do with you.

Yet.

When you are an adult, and thus actually have the power to implement your hair-brained ideas (which you will have grown out of, just like Britney Spears) *THEN* I will blame you.

Whether they were 'socialists' or 'anti-socialists', the fact remains the same, government continued to grow at a breakneck pace while they sat idly by.

I agree. The US would be a much better place if they shrunk the government down to medicine men sitting in their TeePees consulting the Bones.

I maintain that this 'anti-socialism' was nothing more than a clever attempt to grow the Federal Government while fooling the public into thinking they were keeping it 'small' and 'American'.

Hah, yes. That was it. The whole scape-goating of communism and socialism (which you thouroughly support, as can be seen by your constant ignorant bashing and misrepresentation of both) was just a plan to frustrate future Libertarians.

Like the 350 Americans who had ties to the Soviet Union, as made clear by the Venona Project files?

Are you denying that there were communist plants in high levels of the U.S. government?

The Rosenbergs were guilty. Hiss was guilty. Perlo, Coplon and Gold were guilty of at least some of the allegations.

How is it a 'witch-hunt', if he was actually right about a number of points regarding communists in the U.S. government?

Read some history books, instead of anti-communist hysteric propoganda.

On May 31, 1950, less than four months after Senator Joseph McCarthy announced that he had in his hand a list of 205 Communists in the U.S. State Department, Senator Margaret Chase Smith became the first member of the Republican party to openly condemn the reckless Wisconsin senator. Smith, elected to the Senate in 1948, was by 1950 regarded by many as the conscience of that body. Unlike most Republicans, Chase refused to remain silent as McCarthy's sensational charges gave rise to an anticommunist witch-hunt sanctioned by the Senate. In widely publicized public hearings, McCarthy bullied defendants under cross-examination with unsubstantiated and damaging accusations, destroying the reputations of hundreds of innocent citizens and officials. In 1954, thanks in part to the efforts of Chase and other opponents of McCarthyism, Republican support for McCarthy evaporated. On December 2 of that year, he was officially silenced by the Senate. Chase continued to serve in the Senate until 1973. In 1989, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/archive/speech_279.html

McCarthy, in a speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, mounted an attack on Truman’s foreign policy agenda by charging that the State Department and its Secretary, Dean Acheson, harbored “traitorous” Communists. Although McCarthy displayed a list of names, he never made the list public.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6456/

I think the greatest asset that the Kremlin has is Senator McCarthy.

Harry Truman

People became alarmed here in the United States then, that there might be people whose sympathies were with the Communist ideal of government—which is not communism under any circumstances, it is totalitarianism of the worst brand.

Harry Truman

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6456/

Why not read "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller, and then make proclamations about those nefarious commies that good ol' senator McCarthy locked up.

His parents were tried in 1951 and executed two years later on June 19, 1953, for allegedly helping the Soviet Union during World War II in its race to make the atom bomb.

The U.S. government used what was later revealed as perjured testimony. The sentencing judge led the public to believe the couple was executed for giving Moscow the bomb when the actual charge was conspiracy to commit espionage.

Rosenberg supporters denounced the trial as a frame-up amid anti-communist hysteria and Cold War fear.

http://www.moun.com/Articles/june2003/6-16-7.htm

http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/library/Divisions/Government/rosenbergs.html

Libertarianism isn't 'populist' at all.

: a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=Populist

As Libertarianism is against the government intervening with the autonomy of "the common people" it is clearly populist.

And in America, the home of the hick, populism is dangerous.

However, that to one side, you only support Libertarianism because you have a facile understanding of politics, and as such the simplistic (In the Forest Gump sense of the word) principles are more accessible to you than alternative sophisticated power systems.

While libertarianism no doubt has some values, no doubt you fail to appreciate them. Why not put mummy or daddy on to argue about libertarianism? Cut out your ill-informed BS. If not, then excuse me if we leave that little irrelevance out of this thread. I have no desire to engage in an off-topic diatribe about your little back-water spunk-party. I am sorry if that means you don't get a chance to put all your pro-Libertarian links in, which show clearly and undeniably just how perfect a form of government it is, and why it would no doubt solve all of the US's problems and vindicate all of your opinions.

And you're some 'intellectual' there Ace. Do you any actual qualifications, or just a PhD in internet dick swinging?

Numerous qualifications. Maybe, if you work really hard, you might have some too. Then you will be able to construct opinions based on reasoned arguments, rather than regurgitating suburban mythos and sophistries.


Does your misguided elitism know any bounds?

If by 'misguided' you mean "totally justified" then yes. You accused me (wrongly) of straw-manning, when doing so constantly yourself. That to one side, how is "the majority being in centre stage" elitism if it is THE MAJORITY?

Retard.

Your pitiful attempts at castigation have no real effect, particularly because you aren't the intellectual titan you seem to think you are, and many of your arguments are non-sensical and ineffectual.

Meanwhile, in the real world, I have made you look like the fool you are again and again and you barely have a shred of credibility left. But let me guess, it is *ME* who has been accused of bring a turd to the table.

More like the 'Ace is an arrogant fuck and thinks I somehow want his meaningless 'seal of approval'.

You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel adult.

Clearly your designation is innaccurate as I'm replying to this post.

Clearly you missed the point if you think that is what I was driving at.

You have experience in the field, I take it?

I asked your mother, and she'd know, she has to wash it off the gusset of your under-pants.

You're what, 6 years older than me?

Yeah, which is why 12 year olds should be allowed to drink and fuck and drive. I mean, it's what, less than 6 years younger than the current (UK) legal limit?

Isn't it the mark of maturity to actually DO something, as opposed to engagin in pissing contests over the internet with teenagers?

Must've missed that meeting. I didn't realise that communicating via the internet was strictly the domain of children.

And I am doing something. Children are the future. And if someone doesn't put little gobshites like you in their place, you'll end up acting on your current deluded and ignorant opinions as an adult.

It's arrogant little punks like you that is why children are prohibited from voting.

If your label of me is accurate, what does that say about you?

I think it says you're a failure at life.

Ahhhh, of course, *your* personality flaws says things about *me*.

I forgot that we were symbiotically linked, and that you being a pig-fucking retard means that *I* must be a pig-fucking retard.

Now that you have pointed it out, it seems so obvious.

Now all you have to do is stop being an ignorant douche, and then your opinion of *me* will increase in parrallel.

Which is what I was saying all along...

[EN[i]GMA]

Distribution seems skewered (http://www.worldrevolution.org/Projects/Features/Inequality/USInequality.htm) as of late, why is it that fools believe great ideas revolve around the rich getting richer? Do you want to partake in owning a business that spends money lobbying constantly for the worlds cheapest labor?

Your really to much of a smug sort to carry on with (meaning your not even remotely able to come near a solution) you never bring your "A" game, just a bunch of BS about nothing. Another turd to the table.

I will say what should be obvious, When the balance between employee/employer representation was level, America worked better, stronger and smarter.

We are being governed by corporate interests, We the People are not what We the People once were.

And I would agree with you.

I don't believe in being governed by corporate interests at all and i want to revert the government back to near-Constitutional limits, surely more 'We the People' than anything else.

[EN[i]GMA]

Urm, that is for *neurology* - not *across the board*.

Secondly, I find it presumptous of you that you think you know what the waiting times in my area are like better than I do.

And my past experiences are a perfectly accurate indicator. If you check the figures, waiting times are not growing exponentially.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1357828.stm

Quoted: "Even people who may struggle to afford private health care will consider it in a bid to skip lengthy waiting lists, according to a survey."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1755865.stm

Quoted: "A third of patients whose hospital discharge is delayed take up a hospital bed unnecessarily for more than 28 days, figures show."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1698214.stm

Quoted: "Scotland's private hospitals have claimed that they could help to cut NHS waiting lists by up to 10,000."

http://collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/201/300/cdn_medical_association/cmaj/vol-154/0378e.htm

Quoted: "Health care: public, private or both? In Great Britain, about 13% of the population is covered by private health insurance, and everyone else is served by the public health care system known as the National Health Service, or NHS. Caroline Richmond, who examined the impact of private medical practice in Britain, says people become private patients for one compelling reason: to avoid the NHS's notoriously long waiting lists for surgery. According to Professor Alan Maynard, a health care researcher, the mainstays of the private sector are the "three h's" -- hips, hernias and hemorrhoids -- along with some elective surgery, particularly in gynecology and ophthalmology. Another small sector focuses on fertility regulation and cosmetic surgery. Although the levels are not monitored closely, physician consultants are not permitted to earn more than 10% of their income from private practice."



Only if you pay taxes. As you do not pay taxes, it would be completely free for you. Secondly, you do not *pay for the NHS* any more than you pay the police to look into crimes for you, or the fire department to put out your house. These services cannot and do not distinguish between "non-payers" and "payers" so it is, in effect, free. There are lots of *free* services that pay their rates by *donations*, and lots of *free* products that are subsidised by things that must be purchased.

By your argument, zonealarm (www.zonelabs.com) isn't free because it *other people* who buy the commercial applications have to pay. Well, sorry, but it is free.

That to one side, the GOVERNMENT funds these industries. Again, your argument would be like saying that I sponsor terrorism because the guy I buy kebabs off of (through a perfectly legitimate business) forwards the money on to Lebanese militants.

Yeah, it's free if you don't pay for it.

Obviously I don't pay British taxes but also, I haven't used any British health-care.

But, if you do pay British taxes, it isn't free at all.

And no, by my argument you would be paying for something and getting some kebabs.

Though, using your logic I could say that crimes commited by the government are excusable because "I was just buying my kebabs", until, I guess, we figured out what they were doing.



Your link was to neither the BBC, nor the Guardian. If you actually check the BBC and Guardian links offered as sources, neither directly support the analysis in your link.

Scroll up.


The second Guardian (Observer) link states that the reason for the delays in seeing Neurologists was due to a shortage of qualified individuals, NOT due to a lack of financial investment. Thus irrelevant to your argument.

The first BBC link merely says there is "No strategy" on the question of waiting lists, and contained the statement:

It's still a problem with the system. It doesn't really matter why the particular system is failing, merely that is.

Did you ever think these qualified individuals are leaving for reasons? I don't really know them, so I can only speculate, but would it be to strange a coincedence for it to be NHS related?


Yeah, I read that study too -

“We have a system in which we’ve “privatized the profits, and socialized the risks,” said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a co-author of the study

So let's see... Privatising profits... Yes... That sounds socialist to me. Now where did I hear that?

Oh yes... My previous post where I pointed out that diverting public spending towards private profit is *NOT* socialist.

I too disagree with this. We don't need to pay taxes to buy Joe CEO anything.

But this goes to show the inneficiency and general ineptitude (Or crookedness) of government, in regards to handling money.

If these people are going to do this with our money, right in front our noses, how can we ever expect them to be good socialists and vote for a fair health care system?



Precisely, because the money was eaten by the private sector. This should be unsurprising to anyone with even a passing aquaintance with capitalism. Common sense should tell you that capitalism has a natural tendancy to convert a pile of pennys divided between millions of people into a shiny new car for a CEO.

Precisely because the money was pissed away by the Federal Government which should come as no surprise to any follower of government planning.

Obviously capitalism has a tendancy to do just this, why enable it? Why GIVE them money when instead, they could earn it in the private market and in turn, benefit the general public.


I do not deny the correlation. I support it. Spending is going up because private companies are doing what they do best - fleecing the consumer. This is precisely the product of capitalism, and which is why more socialist systems are out-performing the US system.

I too support the correlation.

As a supporter of capitalism, I am against any coercion that unnecessarily influences market forces.

Giving money to companies without regards to consequences, or effects, or quality, or anything, is something I'm staunchly against.


Again, you are ignorantly assuming that socialism = more spending. It doesn't. There is nothing anywhere that says "Socialism means more spending!" - well, nothing outside of your pathetic propoganda sites anyway.

Socialism like 'free' health care, 'free' housing and various schemes for redistributing wealth are all expensive government edeavors and are the primary forms of socialism these days.

They all cost government a lot of money.

It costs the government more for the government to give heath care to everyone in the country than to give it to none, correct?


You were against increasing spending, I thought? The Swiss system costs more than the US system. Admittedly it is probably worth that expense, but still.

I'm against government spending primarily, but yes spending in general.

But good health care is likely worth paying more for.


I didn't make it out to be any sort of socialistic bastion. You really shouldn't've made that straw-man jibe at me earlier. I appreciate you thought it would make you look informed an intellectual, but as you can see it has backfired as you were not only wrong, but opened the gate for me to bash you over the head with it repeatedly.

THAT is a straw-man argument right there. And spending is low because it is a very very small country, obviously. And you will have to give (recent) comparative figures, as you have a habit of making shit up.

http://www.healthaffairs.org/press/mayjune0301.htm

"Switzerland spent 10.7 percent [of GDP on healthcare]"


Neither. There is no genetic predisposition to socialism. To simplify the position to "Socialism means more spending" is particularly facile and demonstrably false. I know that, as a litle child, you feel the need to put things into constrictive limiting boxes and compartementalise, but try to bear with the adults on this one.

The Liberal Democrat part in the UK is the most socialist party around at the moment, and they are campaigning VERY heavily against Tony Blair's anti-socialist policies of curtailing civil liberties, and granting unprecedented power to MPs. Those are socialists who are more likely to curtail government power and jurisdiction. Now, while I could get into the intricacies of the three major UK party's budgetary concerns, it would be over your head, irrelevant, and totally unproductive as the parties invariably bullshit about their spending plans anyway.

The UK's Labour party has been distinctly anti-socialist in recent years (privatising the London Underground, increasing private sector spending in various "Private Finance Initiatives", etc etc) and yet are accused of over-spending hand over foot.

Clearly, there is NO correlation between spending and whether you are socialistic or not. And your rather pathetic attempts to prove against all common sense or logic that there is has no effect other than making you look like a kid saying "But everyone knows Yankee pitchers are better at fast-balls! It's fact! Has been true ever since the 20's!"

Let me qualify: Socialism often denotes government spending, government spending does not always denote socialism.

Socialism, as in government control of industry, is always going to be at least marginally expensive, and will always increase government spending.

How can the government run an entire industry without spending more money?


Again, I fail to see how me pointing out your numerous errors and personality defects makes *ME* look like a twat. Like someone who has too much time on their hands, possibly. Like someone who is often pedantic, certainly. Like a "complete twat" ? Well, to be honest I think anyone reading this would think the kid that said every man in Switzerland has a gun looks more foolish than the guy who calls bullshit on him.

Call it a colloquialism.


He is a socialist in neither. For the Nth time, spending has no correlation to the level of socialism. Likewise, tilting the scales of the free-market *IN THE FAVOUR OF A RICH MINORITY* is not socialism. Clearly, by definition, it is the exact opposite.

You cannot 'tilt the scales' of a 'free market'. That's a contradiction in terms.

What you're describing isn't capitalism either.

It's been called mercantilism by guys with PhD in front of their name, so that's what I call it.


No, that's Mussolini's definition of facism. And I'll agree that Bush is a facist.

That makes two of us.

But fascism is very much related to socialism, rather, it's not government control of industry but more of an industrial control of government, with the effect being the same, government and industry becoming one.





I'll agree that shooting yourself would be a step in the right direction, however you'd be wise to listen to your elders and betters. You'd look less like a spoilt kid. And you might be able to form a coherant argument, without having to surrender point after point after point until the argument gets bogged down in irrelevancies. Personally, I have the time and the inclination to hunt your argument down to the minutae of details until your position is left barren, but don't think that just because I am still busy refuting, it means you haven't lost the argument yet.

If you listened to this limey, you might not be

I'll try to keep that in mind.


Circumstantial evidence, and thus totally inadmissable. Conditions in those countries did not involve Texan oil wells for starters.

You're a trick Ace.

You mean the country that came within' 5 minutes of nuking us, had good or ambigous intentions for us?

Just pitiful.



The Great Society started with, lasted the entire duration of, and still remained after the Cold War?

The Great Society cost more to instigate than the net cost of the Cold War?

Submarines and Aircraft carriers, and nukes, and gases and napalm, and F4 phantoms, etc etc are cheaper than a good healtcare system?

No, the Great Society was a colossal waste of money for just the programs you support.

It was inneffetive.






I wasn't you arrogant prick. You can't pay taxes or vote, so of course the numerous failings of the US government have nothing to do with you.

Yet.

When you are an adult, and thus actually have the power to implement your hair-brained ideas (which you will have grown out of, just like Britney Spears) *THEN* I will blame you.

So I take it I'll become some communist or something? Perhaps I will shoot myself...


I agree. The US would be a much better place if they shrunk the government down to medicine men sitting in their TeePees consulting the Bones.

That's how I feel.

I mean, our councils helped us kick the white man's ass, surely they will be able to limit Congressional discretionary spending.


Hah, yes. That was it. The whole scape-goating of communism and socialism (which you thouroughly support, as can be seen by your constant ignorant bashing and misrepresentation of both) was just a plan to frustrate future Libertarians.

No, it was a plan to make the government bigger and more powerful.



Read some history books, instead of anti-communist hysteric propoganda.

Were there or were there not communists in the State department?

I'm not saying he handled himself well, or anything like that, merely that, in some areas, he was right, and this villification of him is not fully accurate BECAUSE he was vindicated to a degree and proven right in a number of areas.


Numerous qualifications. Maybe, if you work really hard, you might have some too. Then you will be able to construct opinions based on reasoned arguments, rather than regurgitating suburban mythos and sophistries.

When I grow up Ace, I want to be just like you! I too dream of being the self-decreed scourge of the Beasties Boys Political Discussion board, and presumably, an expert at masturbation.


Yeah, which is why 12 year olds should be allowed to drink and fuck and drive. I mean, it's what, less than 6 years younger than the current (UK) legal limit?

The differences between a 17 year old and a 23 year old are less than the differences between 1 year old and a 3 year old.

Take the growth rates into account and you really don't have much to stand on.



Must've missed that meeting. I didn't realise that communicating via the internet was strictly the domain of children.

And I am doing something. Children are the future. And if someone doesn't put little gobshites like you in their place, you'll end up acting on your current deluded and ignorant opinions as an adult.

It's arrogant little punks like you that is why children are prohibited from voting.

I'm sure, one day, we'll extoll the exploits of Ace42, the man who single-handedly saved the Universe through his 'children-smacking'.



Well, that was an immense waste of time.

[bb_bboy]

While in hospital, he had access to the internet and various premium TV channels from his bed.

Your hospitals sound like our prisons!

[Ace42]

GMA']
Quoted: "Even people who may struggle to afford private health care will consider it in a bid to skip lengthy waiting lists, according to a survey."

As you quoted "according to a survey" - however as you can see, that survey presupposes waiting lists, rather than taking them as fact. Also it was a very small percentage, as the article clearly shows.

Quoted: "A third of patients whose hospital discharge is delayed take up a hospital bed unnecessarily for more than 28 days, figures show."

And how many patients have a delayed hospital discharge? How does that compare to other nations? Oh, that's right, there is no comparison. If there were, it would no doubt be in agreement with the first post in the thread, that it is still head and shoulders above the US.

Quoted: "Scotland's private hospitals have claimed that they could help to cut NHS waiting lists by up to 10,000."

Of course numerous additional hospitals would allow more patients to be passed through. But also the costs would go up significantly.

<quote>Caroline Richmond, who examined the impact of private medical practice in Britain, says people become private patients for one compelling reason: to avoid the NHS's notoriously long waiting lists for surgery.</quote>

If by "Notoriously long" they mean "in line with numerous other countries" then yes, that is quite right. And unlike in the US, these people do eventually get surgery, whereas the numerous US citizens who cannot afford treatment do not get it at all.

Secondly, it is ignoring the fact that numerous private companies offer private healtcare as part of their employment package. A sizeable proportion of people with private healtcare are so because they get it bundled with their job, not because they live in mortal fear of having a delayed operation.

According to Professor Alan Maynard, a health care researcher, the mainstays of the private sector are the "three h's" -- hips, hernias and hemorrhoids -- along with some elective surgery, particularly in gynecology and ophthalmology. Another small sector focuses on fertility regulation and cosmetic surgery.

All areas which most US healthcare insurance packages do no cover at all.

Yeah, it's free if you don't pay for it.

And many people don't pay for it, therefore it is free. QED. As no-one *has* to pay for it, it *must* be free. It is fairly simple.

I understand what you are trying to argue, but it is wrong.

But, if you do pay British taxes, it isn't free at all.

It is, for the reasons I outlined above.

To put this in a way that your crooked thinking might be unable to miss:

Free: Without charge.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=free

As you are NOT charged for medical care under the NHS, it is therefore literally free.

And no, by my argument you would be paying for something and getting some kebabs.

No. That isn't how your argument relates to that analogy at all. If your argument were different, then that statement might be true. That should tell you that you should rethink your argument.

Though, using your logic I could say that crimes commited by the government are excusable because "I was just buying my kebabs", until, I guess, we figured out what they were doing.

It's still a problem with the system. It doesn't really matter why the particular system is failing, merely that is.

Firstly, the system is not "failing" (Lit: ceasing to operate, pardon the pun) just because a few people have to wait longer than we would all like. Secondly, it does matter *why* the system is failing, because your argument was against socialist / nationalised industries. As this case does not reflect this argument whatsoever, it is clearly irrelevant, and does not support your point in any way shape or form.

It is an irrelevance. What Qdrop would call a "red-herring."

Did you ever think these qualified individuals are leaving for reasons? I don't really know them, so I can only speculate, but would it be to strange a coincedence for it to be NHS related?

Your speculations are worthless, particularly because they are not based on fact in any way shape or form.

I too disagree with this.

And yet you support a system which is entirely and intrinsically geared up for this whole reason. It was you who not too long ago posted an obnoxious article saying how much the labour force should be greatful to the CEOs and give them money hand over fist for the privlidge of working in a capitalist nation.

But this goes to show the inneficiency and general ineptitude (Or crookedness) of government, in regards to handling money.

No, it shows who intrinsically crooked the "pure" capitalist system is, when it is not properly constrained by socialist thinking.

If these people are going to do this with our money, right in front our noses, how can we ever expect them to be good socialists and vote for a fair health care system?

Of course you can't expect privilidged fat-cat capitalists to be good socialists. They have the most to lose by socialism.

Obviously capitalism has a tendancy to do just this, why enable it? Why GIVE them money when instead, they could earn it in the private market and in turn, benefit the general public.

Capitalists do not "earn" money, as they do not *produce* anything. Their wealth comes from their *capital* not their work.

Thus them fleecing consumers is precisely and literally them "earning" their money in precisely and literally the way capitalism promotes them to.

This can only be limited by socialist (in nature, not in name) laws constraining their ability to abuse the power that their wealth (and not talent, work, effort, or any such thing) affords them.

It is not their ineptitude - they are getting wealthy. Capitalism is rewarding them for their actions. It is precisely their eptitude at working WITH the capitalist system that has led to this problem.

As a supporter of capitalism, I am against any coercion that unnecessarily influences market forces.

That is not the definition of a capitalist, or even a "true / pure" capitalist. Capitalists are fully in favour coercion of market forces if it benefits them.

Giving money to companies without regards to consequences, or effects, or quality, or anything, is something I'm staunchly against.

Then you are not the capitalist you'd like to think yourself. Capitalism is solely concerned with the aquisition of wealth. As long as the effects are profit, the suffering they inflict, the quality of the product, the benefits to the community are *ALL* irrelevant.

Socialism like 'free' health care, 'free' housing and various schemes for redistributing wealth are all expensive government edeavors and are the primary forms of socialism these days.

They all cost government a lot of money.

Money that capitalism locks up in CEO's third mansions, new Mercs, private leer jets, etc. Not to mention nukes, aircraft carriers, submarines.

And read what you just said. "Schemes for redistributing wealth are expensive" - clearly they are not expensive, as they are not adding to, but re-adjusting the balance of wealth.

It costs the government more for the government to give heath care to everyone in the country than to give it to none, correct?

Yes, but having no healthcare is of course unnacceptable. Simply "doing without" healtcare is no an option.

But good health care is likely worth paying more for.

Read the previous quoted statemet.

Let me qualify: Socialism often denotes government spending, government spending does not always denote socialism.

Rather than often (you have offered no evidence to suggest a relative level of frequency) use 'can'.

Of course, that renders that assertion relatively useless in an argument.

Socialism, as in government control of industry, is always going to be at least marginally expensive, and will always increase government spending.

While it will clearly increase government spending, you neglect to consider that it also can bring in money. If microsoft were turned over to the government today, there is no reason to think that because it is Uncle Sam getting the billions of dollars of profit instead of Bill G, it suddenly falls apart.

Infact, as MS would be making a profit, thus it would increase government revenue, actually reducing the net taxation / deficet, despite the increase in spending.

How can the government run an entire industry without spending more money?

The industries can often pay for themselves. There is no reason to think that the government creaming money off the top would be more damaging to the company than a CEO putting it into Jags.

Call it a colloquialism.

You lying straight-faced was 'a quirk of localised speech?'

Well, in that teenagers in your area are probably full of shit, possibly. That does not mitigate your purjory.

You cannot 'tilt the scales' of a 'free market'. That's a contradiction in terms.

Quite, which again shows that a free-market is not intrinsically linked to the capitalism you adore. Furthermore that free-market is an oxymoron.

It's been called mercantilism by guys with PhD in front of their name, so that's what I call it.

No, Mercantilism is:
The theory and system of political economy prevailing in Europe after the decline of feudalism, based on national policies of accumulating bullion, establishing colonies and a merchant marine, and developing industry and mining to attain a favorable balance of trade;

The practice, methods, or spirit of merchants

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mercantilism

And is in no way mutually exclusive with capitalism. Infact, as CEOs are not merchants in any way shape or form (they manage, not transact) clearly it is *not* directly congruent with what I was describing.

But fascism is very much related to socialism, rather, it's not government control of industry but more of an industrial control of government, with the effect being the same, government and industry becoming one.

No, it isn't. Firstly, the fact that the Nazi Party were formerly called "the national socialists" is beside the point. "The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." - Voltaire.

Infact, Hitler was constantly and throughout his reign against the communists. In his initial rise to power, Communists were right next to the Jews in his oratory.

As Truman said, both Hitler and Stalin were the worst of totalitarian tyrannts; and as such neither reflect the values of communism or socialism.

You mean the country that came within' 5 minutes of nuking us, had good or ambigous intentions for us?

Just pitiful.

Why not read up on the Cuban missile crisis before making specious assertions like that. The USSR was nuke-ready because of US antagonism. There is NO reason to assume that they would arbitrarily nuke the US "just because they could."

No, the Great Society was a colossal waste of money for just the programs you support.

It was inneffetive.

Just like these programs are inneffective in every developed nation in the world (bar South-Africa!) which nearly all have superior health-care systems?

Again, you are arguing with the facts, not me. Why not put down your beliefs, and take up the truth? Yeah you'd not get to ego-trip as much, but you also wouldn't look like a spoilt kid.


So I take it I'll become some communist or something? Perhaps I will shoot myself...

Even YOU don't know where you were going with this one... Really you should've just left it. It just makes you look like a kid with no retort who doesn't want to LOOK like he has no retort.

I mean, our councils helped us kick the white man's ass, surely they will be able to limit Congressional discretionary spending.

Ditto.

No, it was a plan to make the government bigger and more powerful.

It was fear-mongering and hysteria, two things which have been prevalent in the US ever since. As Michael Moore points out - killer bees, etc etc.

Were there or were there not communists in the State department?

I'm not saying he handled himself well, or anything like that, merely that, in some areas, he was right, and this villification of him is not fully accurate BECAUSE he was vindicated to a degree and proven right in a number of areas.

He was proven right it no areas whatsoever. The only people who maintain he was right are rabid right-wing anti-communist nuts who can't let go. Read some books about it. And I don't been Coulteresque paper-backs either.

When I grow up Ace, I want to be just like you! I too dream of being the self-decreed scourge of the Beasties Boys Political Discussion board, and presumably, an expert at masturbation.

Firstly, I have not self-decreed that whatsoever. But again, don't let the facts get in the way of your hubris. Secondly, when your testicles drop and you are capable of producing semen in your tiny immature testes, you may well be able to masturbate as competently as me. The world is your lobster.

The differences between a 17 year old and a 23 year old are less than the differences between 1 year old and a 3 year old.

But the differences between you are a three year old are clearly a lot less pronounced.

Take the growth rates into account and you really don't have much to stand on.

So you say. But as you have no qualifications in paediatric psychology, or infact anything but the most spurious understanding, whereas I have been both a teenager and an adult and have qualifications is psychology, that doesn't count for much.

But don't worry, I believe you. You're a big boy now.

I'm sure, one day, we'll extoll the exploits of Ace42, the man who single-handedly saved the Universe through his 'children-smacking'.

The greatest heroes are unsung.

Well, that was an immense waste of time.

Of course it was. For you to learn anything, you have to be open-minded. If you are jsut going to regurgitate propoganda and suposition as fact, of course you are not going to get anywhere.

Now, if you shut your pie-hole, and accepted the facts here, and stopped trying to contrive fallacious arguments that everyone else here is poking holes in, you might actually get somewhere and not be wasting both of our time.

[ASsman]

Someone cut that post up like the J.D did with M$, only better.

[EN[i]GMA]

As you quoted "according to a survey" - however as you can see, that survey presupposes waiting lists, rather than taking them as fact. Also it was a very small percentage, as the article clearly shows.

'Small' is a rather subjective term.

40% is certainly significant.

The survery shows that a lot of people doubt the NHS's long-term validity.



And how many patients have a delayed hospital discharge? How does that compare to other nations? Oh, that's right, there is no comparison. If there were, it would no doubt be in agreement with the first post in the thread, that it is still head and shoulders above the US.

I could have swore I wasn't comparing this to other nations...

And saying "It's better than the U.S. so it must be great" is fallacious. It's already been established that our system sucks.

Honestly, I would prefer nationilized health care to this collosal waste of money.

With the Federal Government paying for 60% of health care, we're paying for it, just not getting it.



Of course numerous additional hospitals would allow more patients to be passed through. But also the costs would go up significantly.

<quote>Caroline Richmond, who examined the impact of private medical practice in Britain, says people become private patients for one compelling reason: to avoid the NHS's notoriously long waiting lists for surgery.</quote>

If by "Notoriously long" they mean "in line with numerous other countries" then yes, that is quite right. And unlike in the US, these people do eventually get surgery, whereas the numerous US citizens who cannot afford treatment do not get it at all.

Secondly, it is ignoring the fact that numerous private companies offer private healtcare as part of their employment package. A sizeable proportion of people with private healtcare are so because they get it bundled with their job, not because they live in mortal fear of having a delayed operation.

Waiting lists are hardly ideal. In some cases they are as bad as not getting care at all. Saying "we have fewer people die" while waiting for surgery is again fallacious.


And many people don't pay for it, therefore it is free. QED. As no-one *has* to pay for it, it *must* be free. It is fairly simple.

I understand what you are trying to argue, but it is wrong.

I too see what you're saying. Regardless of what the 'free' thing is, someone had to pay for it at some point.

Still though, it's somewhat of a misnomer to call something free that a great percentage of the British population pay for.



It is, for the reasons I outlined above.

To put this in a way that your crooked thinking might be unable to miss:

Free: Without charge.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=free

As you are NOT charged for medical care under the NHS, it is therefore literally free.

And if you are, it isn't.


Firstly, the system is not "failing" (Lit: ceasing to operate, pardon the pun) just because a few people have to wait longer than we would all like. Secondly, it does matter *why* the system is failing, because your argument was against socialist / nationalised industries. As this case does not reflect this argument whatsoever, it is clearly irrelevant, and does not support your point in any way shape or form.

It is an irrelevance. What Qdrop would call a "red-herring."

When a health care system is having waits that are long to enough to allow some people to die, it's failing to a degree.

It's certainly not a flawless system.


Your speculations are worthless, particularly because they are not based on fact in any way shape or form.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7477/0-a

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=7092

http://www.bma.org.uk/ap.nsf/Content/retention

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=21031


And yet you support a system which is entirely and intrinsically geared up for this whole reason. It was you who not too long ago posted an obnoxious article saying how much the labour force should be greatful to the CEOs and give them money hand over fist for the privlidge of working in a capitalist nation.

Obnoxious? *laughs*


No, it shows who intrinsically crooked the "pure" capitalist system is, when it is not properly constrained by socialist thinking.

Oh yes, save us with your socialist thinking.

Why was our health care system good without ANY of this 'socialist thinking' and then this 'socialist thinking' is foisted upon our CEOs (And they laugh all the way to the bank), our system got worse.

I don't know if there was a direct correlation, but I do know our system sucks.


Of course you can't expect privilidged fat-cat capitalists to be good socialists. They have the most to lose by socialism.

That is true.


Capitalists do not "earn" money, as they do not *produce* anything. Their wealth comes from their *capital* not their work.

Thus them fleecing consumers is precisely and literally them "earning" their money in precisely and literally the way capitalism promotes them to.

This can only be limited by socialist (in nature, not in name) laws constraining their ability to abuse the power that their wealth (and not talent, work, effort, or any such thing) affords them.

It is not their ineptitude - they are getting wealthy. Capitalism is rewarding them for their actions. It is precisely their eptitude at working WITH the capitalist system that has led to this problem.

So labor denotes production? If you worker harder, you deserve more? The guy who digs a big hole in the ground's labor is worth more than the poem a guy writes?

Oh wait, that's stupid. The amount of labor in no way reflects the relative value of that labor. That would be Marxist metaphysical garbage.

I agree, capitalists are great at working the system. Therefore,the system should be 'Who can please consumers the best', not 'Who can bribe politicians the best'.


That is not the definition of a capitalist, or even a "true / pure" capitalist. Capitalists are fully in favour coercion of market forces if it benefits them.

But of course that directly hurts other capitalists.

The concept of laissez-faire (Or almost laissez-faire) is what this is based upon.

'Hands off' not 'hands jerking off' big business.


Then you are not the capitalist you'd like to think yourself. Capitalism is solely concerned with the aquisition of wealth. As long as the effects are profit, the suffering they inflict, the quality of the product, the benefits to the community are *ALL* irrelevant.

No, I'm not a capitalist.

I don't control much capital and am not the CEO of any company.


Money that capitalism locks up in CEO's third mansions, new Mercs, private leer jets, etc. Not to mention nukes, aircraft carriers, submarines.

And read what you just said. "Schemes for redistributing wealth are expensive" - clearly they are not expensive, as they are not adding to, but re-adjusting the balance of wealth.

Don't mansions need to built? Don't they pay people to build them? Don't Mercs need to built? Aren't people payed to build them? Don't leer jets need to be built?

It's almost like the CEO's expenditures are other people's wages!

Actually, they are!

They are expensive for the people whose money is taken away (And the overhead is usually very costly).


While it will clearly increase government spending, you neglect to consider that it also can bring in money. If microsoft were turned over to the government today, there is no reason to think that because it is Uncle Sam getting the billions of dollars of profit instead of Bill G, it suddenly falls apart.

Infact, as MS would be making a profit, thus it would increase government revenue, actually reducing the net taxation / deficet, despite the increase in spending.

I seriously doubt the government would be anything like the moneymaking giant MS currently is.


The industries can often pay for themselves. There is no reason to think that the government creaming money off the top would be more damaging to the company than a CEO putting it into Jags.

Sure there is.

I really doubt government could maintain the same profits.

As such, they really couldn't keep pace with production.

So they would in-turn make less money.

Furthermore, it benefits government just to say "Screw Microsoft, we can get free money!" and just take a bunch.

A CEO can't really do this because he'll be out of a job and have no more money.

Government has no reason to show caution, it can fuck the company up and go take over another.



You lying straight-faced was 'a quirk of localised speech?'

Well, in that teenagers in your area are probably full of shit, possibly. That does not mitigate your purjory.

Me and my friends actually do use 'twat' quite often.

And so sue me, call it libel.


Quite, which again shows that a free-market is not intrinsically linked to the capitalism you adore. Furthermore that free-market is an oxymoron.

No, the free-market isn't always indictive of capitalism, as current day America shows.

And how is the free-market an oxymoron?



No, it isn't. Firstly, the fact that the Nazi Party were formerly called "the national socialists" is beside the point. "The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." - Voltaire.

Infact, Hitler was constantly and throughout his reign against the communists. In his initial rise to power, Communists were right next to the Jews in his oratory.

As Truman said, both Hitler and Stalin were the worst of totalitarian tyrannts; and as such neither reflect the values of communism or socialism.

"Most cruel joke of all, however, has been played by Hitler & Co. on those German capitalists and small businessmen who once backed National Socialism as a means of saving Germany's bourgeois economic structure from radicalism. The Nazi credo that the individual belongs to the state also applies to business. Some businesses have been confiscated outright, on other what amounts to a capital tax has been levied. Profits have been strictly controlled. Some idea of the increasing Governmental control and interference in business could be deduced from the fact that 80% of all building and 50% of all industrial orders in Germany originated last year with the Government. Hard-pressed for food- stuffs as well as funds, the Nazi regime has taken over large estates and in many instances collectivized agriculture, a procedure fundamentally similar to Russian Communism."

(Source: Time Magazine; Jaunuary 2, 1939.)

And of course:

The 25 Points of Hitler's Nazi Party
1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.

2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of other nations; and that the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain shall be abrogated.

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our people and the settlement of our surplus population.

4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be a countryman.

5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.

6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the State shall belong only to citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever nature, whether in the central government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone who is not a citizen.

We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby men are appointed to posts by favor of the party without regard to character and fitness.

7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should not be possible to feed the whole population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.

8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately.

9. All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.

10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. No individual shall do any work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit of all.

Therefore we demand:

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.

14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.

15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small tradespeople, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.

18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.

19. We demand that Roman law, which serves a materialist ordering of the world, be replaced by German common law.

20. In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State.

21. The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.

22. We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a national (folk) army.

23. We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the creation of a German press, we demand:

(a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens.

(b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State. They must not be published in the German language.

(c) All financial interests in or in any way affecting German newspapers shall be forbidden to non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the non-Germans from the Reich.

Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be suppressed. We demand legal action against those tendencies in art and literature that have a disruptive influence upon the life of our folk, and that any organizations that offend against the foregoing demands shall be dissolved.
24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race.

The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our folk can only come about from within on the pinciple:

COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD

b25. In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.

The formation of professional committees and of committees representing the several estates of the realm, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority shall be carried out by the federal states.




Well, ain't that some shit.



Why not read up on the Cuban missile crisis before making specious assertions like that. The USSR was nuke-ready because of US antagonism. There is NO reason to assume that they would arbitrarily nuke the US "just because they could."

I'm aware of the reasons for the Cuban missle crisis, bay of pigs, nukes in Turkey, etc. but the fact remains they same, they WERE ready to nuke our asses (Even if we did goad them on).


Just like these programs are inneffective in every developed nation in the world (bar South-Africa!) which nearly all have superior health-care systems?

Again, you are arguing with the facts, not me. Why not put down your beliefs, and take up the truth? Yeah you'd not get to ego-trip as much, but you also wouldn't look like a spoilt kid.

It isn't all lost.

This is causing me to seriously rethink health care.

I still don't know what should be done, but I'm thinking.


It was fear-mongering and hysteria, two things which have been prevalent in the US ever since. As Michael Moore points out - killer bees, etc etc.

OH SHIT! I FUCKING FORGOT! THOSE BEES ARE GONNA GET HERE ANY DAY NOW!!!


He was proven right it no areas whatsoever. The only people who maintain he was right are rabid right-wing anti-communist nuts who can't let go. Read some books about it. And I don't been Coulteresque paper-backs either.

Except there WERE communists in the State Department...


Firstly, I have not self-decreed that whatsoever. But again, don't let the facts get in the way of your hubris. Secondly, when your testicles drop and you are capable of producing semen in your tiny immature testes, you may well be able to masturbate as competently as me. The world is your lobster.


That's my dream, Ace.


The greatest heroes are unsung.

Sure they are.



Of course it was. For you to learn anything, you have to be open-minded. If you are jsut going to regurgitate propoganda and suposition as fact, of course you are not going to get anywhere.

Now, if you shut your pie-hole, and accepted the facts here, and stopped trying to contrive fallacious arguments that everyone else here is poking holes in, you might actually get somewhere and not be wasting both of our time.

Believe it or not, I have learned something.

[Ace42]

GMA']'Small' is a rather subjective term.

40% is certainly significant.

40% said they would consider it, of that 40% the majority were more affluent.

Of the unfixed percentage of poorer people, only 1 in 3 said they would consider it. Depending on how you interpret the phraseology, that could even mean less than 13%.

The survery shows that a lot of people doubt the NHS's long-term validity.

No, it doesn't show that at all. It shows that less than half the people would consider going private *IF* they had to have a major operation, *AND* were faced with lengthy waiting lists.

And as it merely reflects opinion, it doesn't really tell you anything, other than perception. It would be like inferring that the US is a dangerous place to live solely because a survey said that 75% of Americans feared a terrorist attack.

I could have swore I wasn't comparing this to other nations.

Yah, exactly, because you know it would totally undermine your initial premiss.

However, if we go back on topic and follow this argument through from the start (An article marked we're #1 which was solely concerned about comparing the US to other nations) to your initial post suggesting (erroneously) that the US adopting a more European socialised healthcare system was responsible for it performing *worse* than European countries, all the way through the socialism vs capitalism arguments, you will see the whole thing has been a comparison.

Your rebuttals have centred predominantly around the current state of the NHS compared to the previous state of the NHS over it's fifty year history. This totally fails to prove any of your arguments whatsoever as the NHS has been increasingly privatised (Through Private Finance Initiatives, etc) which has actually increased spending while delivering an inferior service. The same has been seen in the privatised transport industries as well.

And so it says absolutely nothing about socialism whatsoever.

And saying "It's better than the U.S. so it must be great" is fallacious.

And a strawman constructed by you. There is always room for improvement in any system. You seem to be under the naive belief that perfection in a healthcare system is attainable. Frankly, that is impossible. By your argument (whether you know it or not) all healthcare systems are doomed to failure, as it is a field in which 100% success rates are clearly impossible.

Honestly, I would prefer nationilized health care to this collosal waste of money.

The NHS is adequet for the majority of individuals. A small percentage of the population require surgery at any given time, and of them only a small percentage are in an area which has insufficient resources at a time when there is a backlog, in the field which this backlog has occured.

With the Federal Government paying for 60% of health care, we're paying for it, just not getting it.

Which is precisely what the article I cited said, and which is precisely the defacto result of capitalism. Think about it, this is the optimum level of profit for the private companies - they make more and do less. This is *precisely* the 'most efficient' way of making profit that you extoll as the cost-cutting virtue of capitalism.

As I have stated time and again, what benefits the corporation seldom benefits the customer. Customers are like cows being transported to an abattoir, or slaves shipped from Africa. Without them, your busines is scuppered, but whether you treat them well to improve quality, of whether you cram them in like sardines and hope more survive than die is not a matter of social conscience, and it will not turn out to be the former "just as much as the latter."

Waiting lists are hardly ideal. In some cases they are as bad as not getting care at all. Saying "we have fewer people die" while waiting for surgery is again fallacious.

Of course they are not ideal, but we do not live in an ideal world where excess specialist surgeons (highly paid proffessionals, incase you didn't know) can be paid to sit on their hands just in the off-chance that there is an influx of patients at any given day. Likewise operating theatres sitting unused is hardly efficient. And saying "we have fewer people die" is not fallacious - it is (a grossly over-simplified) the bottom line. What better method than the success-rate do you propose for judging medical care? How nice the wall paper was while the patient was waiting a pleasantly brief time for a *failed* operation? Or no waiting time at all because the patient doesn't have the medical insurance to cover the operation?

Both clearly vastly superior methods of analysis.

Still though, it's somewhat of a misnomer to call something free that a great percentage of the British population pay for.

Zonealarm (Non-commercial) is still *free*, even though it is paid for by commerical users.

Likewise, if a charity organisation is paid for by donations, and I (out of the goodness of my heart) make a donation, then decades later have use of this organisation, I have not *paid* for what I receive. The fact that without donations such as my own this hypothetical service would not be available is irrelevant.

And if you are, it isn't.

No-one is ever charged for NHS covered healthcare. While they may be funding it relatively *indirectly* through taxes, they are not *paying for* it.

When a health care system is having waits that are long to enough to allow some people to die, it's failing to a degree.

It's certainly not a flawless system.

You mean it is not a Platonic 'ideal' ? Colour me surprised. There are *no* perfect systems, and it is insane that you'd imagine a healthcare system could ever be one.

As such there are only degrees of quality, and these are only relevant through inter-service comparison. You freely admit you "could have swore I wasn't comparing this to other nations."

http://www.bma.org.uk/ap.nsf/Content/retention

The main reasons why doctors leave the profession are:

- they are not valued
- they are not supported
- Unacceptable work-life balance

I don't see any mention of money or funding there. Unless you argue that being a faceless cog in a capitalist corporation is somehow personally rewarding more than helping the unfortunate through a public service.

Obnoxious? *laughs*

Can you think of anything more obnoxious than being told you don't deserve the fruits of your labour because someone on a golf course signed on your behalf? Or that because you and your colleagues worked extra-specially hard, you do not deserve (or get) a bonus for the increase in production, the guy who was sitting behind a big glass desk with his executive stress-relief dartboard on it deserves a new car instead?

Well, probably, but it is still pretty obnoxious.

Oh yes, save us with your socialist thinking.

Well, seen as you asked so nicely I might. Afterall, someone has to.

Why was our health care system good without ANY of this 'socialist thinking'

Firstly, it wasn't. Socialism is concerned with getting adequet healthcare to the poor and the needy. If you are truly arguing that in its "glory days" (which I am going to take your word for, solely for the sake of argument. Normally I would treat your claims with the greatest of skepticism. As others have pointed out, your historical knowledge is far from reliable) the US system was completely (or significantly) lacking in socialist ideology, then clearly vast numbers of the poor were simply *not getting healthcare*.

Clearly only having a rich minority going into hospitals is going to make the system look efficient. Firstly, it is a fact that the wealthy have healthier diets and lifestyles. The very poor are exposed to all manner of unhealthy conditions (such as malnutrition, damp, dusty housing, unsanitary water / sewerage supplies, lack of heating / refridgeration, etc etc etc) and thus a rich playboy's ingrowing toe-nail is only going to look good on the stats, whereas a family of chronically ill poor people will not.

I find it extremely likely (in no small part due to the fact that I know precisely how changing diagnostic principles and statistical representation effect older data samples) that for these reasons and more (including cultural reasons, such as 'the poor don't count if they can't even be bothered to get themselves out of the gutter' and 'them nigger-hospitals don't count. White-only hospitals are all that matter') your understanding of this "golden age" is very skewed.

"They weren't ALL Happy Days" - Homer Simpson.

and then this 'socialist thinking' is foisted upon our CEOs (And they laugh all the way to the bank), our system got worse.

Alternatively, "and then, due to the ongoing capitalist process of centralisation, all the medical corporations expanded into big faceless corporations and the capitalist ideals of the "greedy 80s" (Wall Street, et al.) spread to what was previously the dominion of friendly local clinics run by the doctors themselves"

I don't know if there was a direct correlation

I very very much doubt there is. Even if (unlikely) there was a causal link [not that I am saying there is] it would be too well masked by confounding variables.

That is true.

So labor denotes production? If you worker harder, you deserve more? The guy who digs a big hole in the ground's labor is worth more than the poem a guy writes?

Ok... Let's organise a strike of artists, and see how that effects production, and then a strike of manual labourers.

Which do you think will paralyse the country's economy first?

Personally, I think the value of art cannot be expressed in money. Putting a dollar sign on art merely cheapens it. Where do you think the term "sell-out" comes from? It is not the manual labourers who are "selling out" - it is the artists. And of course, everyone knows that the term "sell-out" is used to denote an artist who has gone on to produce superior music thanks to the benefits a mainstream financially motivated ideology can bring...

Oh wait, that's stupid. The amount of labor in no way reflects the relative value of that labor. That would be Marxist metaphysical garbage.

You can live without a hand, but you cannot live without an arsehole. And yet everyone would rather be the hand than the arsehole.

Of course, if lowely production is so worthless - let's see what happens when all of the people baking bread and building houses go into management.

Well... Hmmm... No houses being built, but the complete lack of productivity is really well managed...

Now let's see the inverse. Well, production is chaotic, but the increase in people and assets being put into it help to outweigh this. While unmoderated, production still increases.

Therefore,the system should be 'Who can please consumers the best', not 'Who can bribe politicians the best'.

Therefore, the system should be 'socialistic' (Pleasing / serving society) not 'capitalistic' (who can use their capital to gain the most leverage)

Congratulations on finally agreeing with me, despite trying every possible method of not doing so.

No, I'm not a capitalist.

cap·i·tal·ist Audio pronunciation of "capitalist" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kp-tl-st)
n.

1. A supporter of capitalism.

You have and do advocate capitalism over all other alternatives in an almost 'rabid' manner. You are a capitalist, even though you are now trying to shy away from it. Do you not recall the numerous pro-capitalist rants you went on in previous threads?

Don't mansions need to built?

Certainly not. Even the most klaustrophobic individual can make do with a decently sized detatched house.

Don't they pay people to build them?

A disproportionately small amount. And those people could be paid the same amount of money to:

Build a sensibly sized house for the capitalist, and use the surplus to:
Improve healthcare; build more houses for people living in dilapidated housing, the homeless; restore national treasures; provide poverty-relief to the needy.

The same amount of money could benefit more people, without substantially limiting the mansion owner's quality of life.

Don't Mercs need to built?

Certainly not. There are plenty of more fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly alternatives available that cost less.

Aren't people payed to build them?

Cars are built by robots, young one.

Don't leer jets need to be built?

Of course they do. How else would John Travolta manage to get around the US?

It's almost like the CEO's expenditures are other people's wages!

Actually, they are!

Precisely. CEOs have massive personal fortunes which could be better spent on social benefit, rather than ridiculous luxuries that they will seldom need or use.

They are expensive for the people whose money is taken away

And yet, at the end of the day, those people end up no more poor than the vast vast vast majority of the population who work harder for longer in worse conditions. Also, technically, it is not *their* money, and more than tax owed by poor people is *their* money. That is ignoring the fact that merely sitting in an office pretending to be a captain of industry while practicing your putting does not in any pragmatic sense entitle you to any money whatsoever. Indeed, it is no more *their* money, than the criminal proceeds extorted by a racketeer.

I seriously doubt the government would be anything like the moneymaking giant MS currently is.[/;quote]

Why not? If the US government were to "Inherit" MS today, lock stock and barrel, but instead of the money going to Billy G's private bank accout, it went to the US treasury, why would M$ suddenly crumble?

Because the face of weedy geek Bill G instills consumer confidence? Hah. Nationalisation doesn't necessarily mean that you get rid off all the department heads and managerial positions, and executives and then you replace them with unqualified politicians. That is not any more true than saying that having a nationalised health system means that the politicians don rubber gloves and are the ones cutting you open.

[quote]I really doubt government could maintain the same profits.

Totally irrational. There is no reason why having government appointed people in charge should be any less efficient than having share holder appointed people.

As such, they really couldn't keep pace with production.

Ridiculous. There is no correlation between the amount of money that is eaten up by the black-hole of Bill Gate's bank account, and a subsequent effect on productivity.

Furthermore, it benefits government just to say "Screw Microsoft, we can get free money!" and just take a bunch.

It benefits CEOs just as much and in exactly the same way.

A CEO can't really do this because he'll be out of a job and have no more money.

CEOs don't need a job when they have just squeezed a company for billions of dollars, nimrod. And they do it all the time.

Government has no reason to show caution, it can fuck the company up and go take over another.

Like George W Bush before he became President? And no, it cannot "fuck the company up and go take over another" - Nationalised industries cost. If the government fouls up its assets, it cannot buy industries. In the same way, a failing company cannot aquire other assets. The government has as much reason to show caution as CEOs. Infact, more so, as CEOs 'can't take it with them' whereas a government (although not in its temorary incarnation) will last generations.

It is precisely in the Government's best interest to make a nationalised industry as efficient as possible, as that will produce the best sustainable revenue, and over a lot longer period than one CEO's "get rich quick, take the money and run"'s tenure.

Me and my friends actually do use 'twat' quite often.

Read the thread again, Sparky. You using the word 'twat' has nothing to do with claiming that 100% of the Swiss adult males have guns.

And how is the free-market an oxymoron?

Tried buying any Plutonium recently? Would it be a good thing if it were freely available? What about slaves? Always a high demand for cheap labour, and slaves are as cheap as you can get.

And that is leaving aside the more philosophical concerns - IE a man cannot be free when he is is bound by financial chains. Ergo, a "free market" is merely a market in which the numerous and permeated chains are *internal* and thus ignored. To think that *external* restrictions are therefore more socially damaging or inequitable / unworkable than the internal ones is specious reasoning.

"Most cruel joke of all, however, has been played by Hitler & Co.

We've been through this before. I could say I was an Islamic imam, that wouldn't make me one, and certainly wouldn't mean that I could effectively bless people and help them get to heaven.

Likewise, Kim Il Jong claims to be a communist, and yet rulership of North Korea is hereditary.

Clearly making *claims* does not equate to definitive proof. After all, Hitler had a non-aggression pact with the USSR. Look how far that lasted.

Well, ain't that some shit.

Proves nothing. I prefaced my statement with "He merely said he was a national socialist" - clearly having a manifesto that laid claim to some principles which share facets with socialism doesn't make him any more a socialist than calling his subordinates "comrade" made Stalin a communist.

I find it mildly amusing that you are arguing with Harry Truman. If it were Dubyah, then I would not raise an eyebrow. But Harry T? Heh.

but the fact remains they same, they WERE ready to nuke our asses (Even if we did goad them on).

Which renders your point moot. As the US would clearly not be goading the USSR on, due to not having spent vast amounts of money on its military complex, that would never have occured anyway. Thus totally irrlevant to the argument.

Except there WERE communists in the State Department.

And in coffee-shops and park-rallies. And in the water-board and in ice-cream parlours.

Ice-cream, Mandrake, Children's ice-cream!

Believe it or not, I have learned something.

We can but hope...

[EN[i]GMA]

40% said they would consider it, of that 40% the majority were more affluent.

Of the unfixed percentage of poorer people, only 1 in 3 said they would consider it. Depending on how you interpret the phraseology, that could even mean less than 13%.

No, it means just that: one third of the poor would consider getting private care.


And a strawman constructed by you. There is always room for improvement in any system. You seem to be under the naive belief that perfection in a healthcare system is attainable. Frankly, that is impossible. By your argument (whether you know it or not) all healthcare systems are doomed to failure, as it is a field in which 100% success rates are clearly impossible.

Of course.

But pointing out the obvious flaws in a system constitutes being 'naive'?

I think a free-market system could do the job better, that's my point.



The NHS is adequet for the majority of individuals. A small percentage of the population require surgery at any given time, and of them only a small percentage are in an area which has insufficient resources at a time when there is a backlog, in the field which this backlog has occured.



Which is precisely what the article I cited said, and which is precisely the defacto result of capitalism. Think about it, this is the optimum level of profit for the private companies - they make more and do less. This is *precisely* the 'most efficient' way of making profit that you extoll as the cost-cutting virtue of capitalism.

As I have stated time and again, what benefits the corporation seldom benefits the customer. Customers are like cows being transported to an abattoir, or slaves shipped from Africa. Without them, your busines is scuppered, but whether you treat them well to improve quality, of whether you cram them in like sardines and hope more survive than die is not a matter of social conscience, and it will not turn out to be the former "just as much as the latter."

You think consumers have no say in how they're treated?

Equating with with slaves is just ignorant.

If anything, corporations are slaves to consumers. Sony with their Betamax had a better product in all ways, than the VHS, and we saw how that turned out.

The Dvorak keyboard is better than Qwerty.

The corporation can only succeed if it meets the demands of the customers.

Surely it benefits them to make less and sell more, but that just isn't possible when the consumer wants more and wants to spend less.



Of course they are not ideal, but we do not live in an ideal world where excess specialist surgeons (highly paid proffessionals, incase you didn't know) can be paid to sit on their hands just in the off-chance that there is an influx of patients at any given day. Likewise operating theatres sitting unused is hardly efficient. And saying "we have fewer people die" is not fallacious - it is (a grossly over-simplified) the bottom line. What better method than the success-rate do you propose for judging medical care? How nice the wall paper was while the patient was waiting a pleasantly brief time for a *failed* operation? Or no waiting time at all because the patient doesn't have the medical insurance to cover the operation?

Both clearly vastly superior methods of analysis.

Are you saying quality of care during surgery is worse in the U.S.?


Zonealarm (Non-commercial) is still *free*, even though it is paid for by commerical users.

Likewise, if a charity organisation is paid for by donations, and I (out of the goodness of my heart) make a donation, then decades later have use of this organisation, I have not *paid* for what I receive. The fact that without donations such as my own this hypothetical service would not be available is irrelevant.

Semantics.


No-one is ever charged for NHS covered healthcare. While they may be funding it relatively *indirectly* through taxes, they are not *paying for* it.

Semantics.


You mean it is not a Platonic 'ideal' ? Colour me surprised. There are *no* perfect systems, and it is insane that you'd imagine a healthcare system could ever be one.

As such there are only degrees of quality, and these are only relevant through inter-service comparison. You freely admit you "could have swore I wasn't comparing this to other nations."

No, it wouldn't be a Platonic ideal (Plato's ideal Republic was quite socialistic though, wasn't it? Fitting).

What is causing these waits? To much demand, not enough doctors.

They need to either reduce demand (Not likely), or hire more doctors. Except many doctors are leaving...

I fail to see how 'hire more doctors' is some idealistic idea.


I don't see any mention of money or funding there. Unless you argue that being a faceless cog in a capitalist corporation is somehow personally rewarding more than helping the unfortunate through a public service.

Or being a face-less cog in a government machination where your 'patients' are assigned to you by a buearacrat as opposed to having the freedom to work with patients in a manner both of you enjoy.

But yeah, like that.


Can you think of anything more obnoxious than being told you don't deserve the fruits of your labour because someone on a golf course signed on your behalf? Or that because you and your colleagues worked extra-specially hard, you do not deserve (or get) a bonus for the increase in production, the guy who was sitting behind a big glass desk with his executive stress-relief dartboard on it deserves a new car instead?

Well, probably, but it is still pretty obnoxious.

You don't get raises for increasing your efficiency?

Tell that to my father who managed to increase his production and was given a raise for it, he should probably give that money back!

Do you deal in anything other than stereotypes?


Firstly, it wasn't. Socialism is concerned with getting adequet healthcare to the poor and the needy. If you are truly arguing that in its "glory days" (which I am going to take your word for, solely for the sake of argument. Normally I would treat your claims with the greatest of skepticism. As others have pointed out, your historical knowledge is far from reliable) the US system was completely (or significantly) lacking in socialist ideology, then clearly vast numbers of the poor were simply *not getting healthcare*.

Clearly only having a rich minority going into hospitals is going to make the system look efficient. Firstly, it is a fact that the wealthy have healthier diets and lifestyles. The very poor are exposed to all manner of unhealthy conditions (such as malnutrition, damp, dusty housing, unsanitary water / sewerage supplies, lack of heating / refridgeration, etc etc etc) and thus a rich playboy's ingrowing toe-nail is only going to look good on the stats, whereas a family of chronically ill poor people will not.

I find it extremely likely (in no small part due to the fact that I know precisely how changing diagnostic principles and statistical representation effect older data samples) that for these reasons and more (including cultural reasons, such as 'the poor don't count if they can't even be bothered to get themselves out of the gutter' and 'them nigger-hospitals don't count. White-only hospitals are all that matter') your understanding of this "golden age" is very skewed.

"They weren't ALL Happy Days" - Homer Simpson.

America's health care system has always been good in quality, America has always been at the front in terms of technological advancements, but as you've stated, the problem has always been getting that care to the poor.

But the system was never as broken as it was made out to be. The poor always got adequate care, and in most cases, still do (Albeit to a lesser degree).


Alternatively, "and then, due to the ongoing capitalist process of centralisation, all the medical corporations expanded into big faceless corporations and the capitalist ideals of the "greedy 80s" (Wall Street, et al.) spread to what was previously the dominion of friendly local clinics run by the doctors themselves"

Did you know charitable giving went up drastically during 'the decade of greed', from 77.5 billion annually in 1980 to 121 billion in 1989.

Both personal and corporate giving increased.

And the rate of giving increased faster than the rate of purchase for any 'extravagant' items.


Ok.. Let's organise a strike of artists, and see how that effects production, and then a strike of manual labourers.

Which do you think will paralyse the country's economy first?

Personally, I think the value of art cannot be expressed in money. Putting a dollar sign on art merely cheapens it. Where do you think the term "sell-out" comes from? It is not the manual labourers who are "selling out" - it is the artists. And of course, everyone knows that the term "sell-out" is used to denote an artist who has gone on to produce superior music thanks to the benefits a mainstream financially motivated ideology can bring...

I said hole diggers.

And not like ditch diggers or hole diggers with a purpose, just people out there digging holes.

You said this: "Capitalists do not "earn" money, as they do not *produce* anything. Their wealth comes from their *capital* not their work."

Your statement was that people should get payed in regards to their labor NOT that people should get paid in regards to how 'valuable' that labor is (Determined by some arbitrary measure or another).

Since people 'earn' their money through production, is the person who produces the most the person who should be payed the most, even though what he produces might have no value, intrinsic or otherwise?



You can live without a hand, but you cannot live without an arsehole. And yet everyone would rather be the hand than the arsehole.

Of course, if lowely production is so worthless - let's see what happens when all of the people baking bread and building houses go into management.

Well... Hmmm... No houses being built, but the complete lack of productivity is really well managed...

Now let's see the inverse. Well, production is chaotic, but the increase in people and assets being put into it help to outweigh this. While unmoderated, production still increases.

Obviously you need people working.

But your statement is facile. Instead of taking ALL laborers away (Very many people) and taking ALL management away (Very few people), let's be fair here and take one laborer away, or one person in management away (In which many cases, there is one manager).

Now look at the effects. A house can be built with 8 workers instead of 9, or 2 workers instead 3, to a relatively easy degree.

But take that manager away, and any number of calamities could occur. Perhaps the house would be built more quickly, but it would likely suffer any number of defects.

You misguided hatred for management is absurd. Yes, they seemingly do less work, but their positions would not exist if they were not invaluable.

Why would a system designed only to make money, keep people around that in no way beneffited the company? Obviously management makes enough of a contribution to be worth the pay.



Therefore, the system should be 'socialistic' (Pleasing / serving society) not 'capitalistic' (who can use their capital to gain the most leverage)

Congratulations on finally agreeing with me, despite trying every possible method of not doing so.

We're agreeable on many points, namely, we want the best health care system possible.

We just disagree on implementation.



cap·i·tal·ist Audio pronunciation of "capitalist" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kp-tl-st)
n.

1. A supporter of capitalism.

You have and do advocate capitalism over all other alternatives in an almost 'rabid' manner. You are a capitalist, even though you are now trying to shy away from it. Do you not recall the numerous pro-capitalist rants you went on in previous threads?

I meant that I'm not a capitalist in the sense that I own any real capital or control any capital.

I support capitalism, but that hardly makes me a capitalist in the sense that I would be good at running a company or something.


Certainly not. Even the most klaustrophobic individual can make do with a decently sized detatched house.

Surely.


A disproportionately small amount. And those people could be paid the same amount of money to:

Build a sensibly sized house for the capitalist, and use the surplus to:
Improve healthcare; build more houses for people living in dilapidated housing, the homeless; restore national treasures; provide poverty-relief to the needy.

The same amount of money could benefit more people, without substantially limiting the mansion owner's quality of life.

Could it really?

Obviously the CEO wants this house, whether he needs it or not.

He ascribes some value to it. Perhaps me makes his contribution to society just he can come home to his house. Without that incentive, why would he work to make new and better products, slaving away at the office, when he could come home to his modest house, knowing that no matter what he does, he will never get a better house?

Not everyone is a Jesus-like figure who does things out of kindness. Some people are greedy fucks that want big houses. Sometimes these people are also brilliant, and would benefit society immensely if their ideas were implemented.


Certainly not. There are plenty of more fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly alternatives available that cost less.

That is true. And he doesn't want one of those.


Cars are built by robots, young one.

And robots are built by (Other robots, I know, but at some point, humans created them and humans have to control them).

You've seen the Matrix. You know what happens when robots get to powerful.


Precisely. CEOs have massive personal fortunes which could be better spent on social benefit, rather than ridiculous luxuries that they will seldom need or use.

I rather agree.

I would like Bill Gates to buy me a nice, affordable car than for him to go galavanting off in his BMW.

But what makes my want or need better than his? Simply because I have less? Because I haven't worked as hard as Bill Gates, in any real terms, I deserve his car?


And yet, at the end of the day, those people end up no more poor than the vast vast vast majority of the population who work harder for longer in worse conditions. Also, technically, it is not *their* money, and more than tax owed by poor people is *their* money. That is ignoring the fact that merely sitting in an office pretending to be a captain of industry while practicing your putting does not in any pragmatic sense entitle you to any money whatsoever. Indeed, it is no more *their* money, than the criminal proceeds extorted by a racketeer.

I seriously doubt the government would be anything like the moneymaking giant MS currently is.

Why not? If the US government were to "Inherit" MS today, lock stock and barrel, but instead of the money going to Billy G's private bank accout, it went to the US treasury, why would M$ suddenly crumble?

Because the face of weedy geek Bill G instills consumer confidence? Hah. Nationalisation doesn't necessarily mean that you get rid off all the department heads and managerial positions, and executives and then you replace them with unqualified politicians. That is not any more true than saying that having a nationalised health system means that the politicians don rubber gloves and are the ones cutting you open.

I don't mean in day one.

But obviously Bill Gates is a very adept leader. Saying some buaroucrat could run it more efficiently is ignorant. If someone can run a software company more effectively than Bill Gates, they would be the CEO of Micrsoft or another such firm.

Obviously Bill Gates is a valuable asset to the company because he took it from a garage to those offices in Redmond.


Totally irrational. There is no reason why having government appointed people in charge should be any less efficient than having share holder appointed people.

Like George W. Bush? When has democracy ever been effective at running complex organizations?

Joe Blow doesn't know how to vote for the CEO of Microsoft or whatever.

And what incentive is there to succeed?

Do it or starve is gone, it's now, do it or get assigned somewhere else.


Ridiculous. There is no correlation between the amount of money that is eaten up by the black-hole of Bill Gate's bank account, and a subsequent effect on productivity.

Would Microsoft be where it is today with Bill Gates?


CEOs don't need a job when they have just squeezed a company for billions of dollars, nimrod. And they do it all the time.

Hmm, that would be commiting fraud I do believe, which is theft.

If you mean getting huge raises and the like, they are voted on by the board of directors and in turn, by shareholders.

How money can be 'squeezed' in this setup is beyond me.

Why would the shareholders allow themselves to be robbed?



Like George W Bush before he became President? And no, it cannot "fuck the company up and go take over another" - Nationalised industries cost. If the government fouls up its assets, it cannot buy industries. In the same way, a failing company cannot aquire other assets. The government has as much reason to show caution as CEOs. Infact, more so, as CEOs 'can't take it with them' whereas a government (although not in its temorary incarnation) will last generations.

It is precisely in the Government's best interest to make a nationalised industry as efficient as possible, as that will produce the best sustainable revenue, and over a lot longer period than one CEO's "get rich quick, take the money and run"'s tenure.

The government can just print money. It doesn't need to worry about things like revenue.

Look at our fucking deficit. They just imagine more money exists and POOF, so it does.

We're currently a few trillion in debt and you advocate giving the government control of more?

It can't run ITSELF let alone Microsoft. Just imagine it's business model "Microsoft Windows BS, available for FREE!!!" and then 3 generations down the line, a tax hike to pay 3 times what Windows BS originally cost.

Where do I sign up?


Tried buying any Plutonium recently? Would it be a good thing if it were freely available? What about slaves? Always a high demand for cheap labour, and slaves are as cheap as you can get.

And that is leaving aside the more philosophical concerns - IE a man cannot be free when he is is bound by financial chains. Ergo, a "free market" is merely a market in which the numerous and permeated chains are *internal* and thus ignored. To think that *external* restrictions are therefore more socially damaging or inequitable / unworkable than the internal ones is specious reasoning.

Actually, is possession of plutonium illegal? I'm not certain it is...

Anywho, how can you possibly be free of financial concerns? If everyone was 'free of financial concerns' and just sat on their asses all day, we would starve to death.

Being free from concern sounds great, until you equate concern with responsibility and see that without it, we're all going to die.



We've been through this before. I could say I was an Islamic imam, that wouldn't make me one, and certainly wouldn't mean that I could effectively bless people and help them get to heaven.

Likewise, Kim Il Jong claims to be a communist, and yet rulership of North Korea is hereditary.

Clearly making *claims* does not equate to definitive proof. After all, Hitler had a non-aggression pact with the USSR. Look how far that lasted.

You could do that. And if you made your wife wear a Burka, started up a mosque, changed your name to Mohommad Mohomat, killed a few infidels and swore fealty to Allah, would you then be an Imam?

It was more than simple rhetoric because he took over industries, redistrubuted wealth and pretty much did what his platform stated.

Did you even read this? These are things he actually did: "Most cruel joke of all, however, has been played by Hitler & Co. on those German capitalists and small businessmen who once backed National Socialism as a means of saving Germany's bourgeois economic structure from radicalism. The Nazi credo that the individual belongs to the state also applies to business. Some businesses have been confiscated outright, on other what amounts to a capital tax has been levied. Profits have been strictly controlled. Some idea of the increasing Governmental control and interference in business could be deduced from the fact that 80% of all building and 50% of all industrial orders in Germany originated last year with the Government. Hard-pressed for food- stuffs as well as funds, the Nazi regime has taken over large estates and in many instances collectivized agriculture, a procedure fundamentally similar to Russian Communism."


Proves nothing. I prefaced my statement with "He merely said he was a national socialist" - clearly having a manifesto that laid claim to some principles which share facets with socialism doesn't make him any more a socialist than calling his subordinates "comrade" made Stalin a communist.

I find it mildly amusing that you are arguing with Harry Truman. If it were Dubyah, then I would not raise an eyebrow. But Harry T? Heh.

Stick your head farther in the sand Ace, eventually you'll come through the other side.


Which renders your point moot. As the US would clearly not be goading the USSR on, due to not having spent vast amounts of money on its military complex, that would never have occured anyway. Thus totally irrlevant to the argument.

It was war. What can I say?

It never would have started had the Soviets not taken over eastern Europe.

The ball was in their court.



And in coffee-shops and park-rallies. And in the water-board and in ice-cream parlours.

Ice-cream, Mandrake, Children's ice-cream!

So the mother says "Quit STALIN and answer your father".

"Tell us your MARX",

So the son says, "Do I KHRUSHCHEV?",


Two bucks if you can find the reference.

[Ace42]

GMA']No, it means just that: one third of the poor would consider getting private care.

No. It said:

The Consumers' Association found that four in 10 people would consider going private (...)Most of these were the more affluent, but one in three of the less well-off said they would also consider it.

Most of *these* 4/10 were affluent. That means that the 4/10 people that WOULD consider private were *mostly* affluent. That means > 2/10 people were affluent. Now, even if we accept that 100% of the remaining 1.9/10 people are not just "Not affluent" but actively poor, that is still a very small percentage.

Not the same as "a significant 40%"

But pointing out the obvious flaws in a system constitutes being 'naive'?

In places, as your expectations do not meet what is realistically possible, nor is the most cost effective. And this to one side, they certainly have no bearing whatsoever on your argument.

I think a free-market system could do the job better, that's my point.

And you are wrong. Private Finance Initiatives and "Trust Hospitals" have been introduced, and the private sector has managed spend more on less. Increasing costs, and reducing the capabilities.

Once again, your theory is totally divorced from how it actually works in reality.

You think consumers have no say in how they're treated?

Yah, which is why the consumers in America have managed to get themselves such a great deal on their private medical care, by simply punishing the medical authorities by refusing treatment!

Equating with with slaves is just ignorant.

Because it doesn't suit your naive and contrived (and totally unrealistic) view of consumer / commercial / capitalism..

If anything, corporations are slaves to consumers.

Yeah, because the customers always get precisely what they want. Which is why corporations treat their customers with such profound contempt.

The corporation can only succeed if it meets the demands of the customers.

Bullshit. The demands of the US citizenry is for cheap and effective healthcare. These demands haven't been met. The demands of the British public are for reliable mass-transit systems. These demands haven't been met.

Put down your mantra, as it is broke. Corporations have consumers over a barrel, and thus they use this leverage to behave unreasonably.

This is not because of interference in the free market, it is precisely because there is nothing stopping companies engineering this sort of dependancy.

Surely it benefits them to make less and sell more, but that just isn't possible when the consumer wants more and wants to spend less.

What the consumer wants, and what they are given are very very different. The consumer takes what he / she can get, and that is invariably sub-standard.

Your principle would apply to drug-dealers - junkies would go to the most courteous and easy to do business with dealer. By your argument, all "difficult" dealers would go out of business. That doesn't happen. As Bill Burroughs will tell you, dealers always keep junkies waiting to keep them precisely where they want them.

This is exactly the same with corporations - if they can't hold 'em, they fold 'em. Good services (which make less profit than crooked ones) fold, and the dodgy ones get raised. Dodgy one becomes untendable? Do you invest money and time and effort while people realise the con and enter a price-war which you might not win? Nuts to that, time for a rebrand, or a new product, or buying out the competition - anything but getting your hands dirty.

Are you saying quality of care during surgery is worse in the U.S.?

I'm saying you do not know what the relative care of surgery, or other qualitative factors are involved with. Thus your citations do not actually prove your point.

Semantics.

Indeed, as was you saying "100% of male Swiss adults have guns" when you actually meant "14% of households".

If you say something which is factually wrong, then that is "semantics".

Forgive me using the words in their literal sense, as opposed to your strictly private sense. I am afraid I cannot read your mind, and thus make allowances for your misuse of the language.

However, if for you communicating your point literally and clearly is "irrelevant semantic wrangling" then it would certainly explain why your opinion is so divorced from reality.

Actually, whenever you are disagreeing with our posts, you are actually agreeing, but due to a confusion about "semantics" it comes out as tripe.

What is causing these waits? To much demand, not enough doctors.

And yet there are private healthcare systems in the UK. By your argument then, there can be *no* problem, as there is a cost-effective and perfectly acceptable free-market system available for all, that will have costs driven down to the bear minimum by stiff competition!

They need to either reduce demand (Not likely),

But surely the demand will go down when the superior free-market privatised system that is currently in place in the UK is so much better than the nationalised service, and so affordable?

Oh wait, once again your undeveloped beliefs about capitalism do not bear out in real life whatsoever.

I fail to see how 'hire more doctors' is some idealistic idea.

You are under the mistaken and simplistic misconception that "more doctors mean more efficiency".

"Hiring more doctors" and reducing waiting lists to 0 (even if it were possible, it isn't) would be no more likely under a capitalist / privatised system.

where your 'patients' are assigned to you by a buearacrat

Doctors in privatised edifices have their patients assigned by bureaucrats just as much so as in the NHS. More so, infact, as these patients have to have their financial details taken care of before hand too, adding additional bureaucracy.

as opposed to having the freedom to work with patients in a manner both of you enjoy.

Privatised doctors have no greater degree of freedom of how they conduct their job than doctors in the NHS. Doctors in privatised healthcare can't just treat their patients in a field because they both like the fresh air.

But yeah, like that.

You don't get raises for increasing your efficiency?

Why not get a job and answer that for yourself. I have never ever heard of bonuses given to BK, Maccy Ds, KFC flippers for flipping burgers faster than they did formerly.

I have never heard of a bonus awarded to bar-staff for pints pulled faster.

I have never heard of a bonus awarded to bin-men for doing their round quicker.

I have never heard of a bonus awarded to data-entry technicians (typers) for entering more sheets.

All of these people are paid for their *TIME* not their productivity, and in a flat rate.

Of course, there are clearly more people in whatever line of work your father has (clearly your father is a labourer / manual worker, and thus you are not misrepresenting the argument, I take it? What with you having a habit of making shit up and all) than in all the above industries combined?

Do you deal in anything other than stereotypes?

Menial jobs are not paid for by the hour in America? It is all paid for on a linear productivity basis? Bullshit, William Brown.

Keep that wheel a'turnin' and do a little more each day.

America's health care system has always been good in quality, America has always been at the front in terms of technological advancements,

And if you ask any American who hasn't read the article at the top of this thread, they'd say the same is true today. I'd wager that (as usual) you are arguing based on how you "feel" rather than how it actually was.

The poor always got adequate care, and in most cases, still do

The article in the first post says otherwise.

Did you know charitable giving went up drastically during 'the decade of greed', from 77.5 billion annually in 1980 to 121 billion in 1989.

So did net wealth. That doesn't mean people were more charitable.

And the rate of giving increased faster than the rate of purchase for any 'extravagant' items.

Yes, and 100% of the swiss male adults have guns.

I said hole diggers.

And not like ditch diggers or hole diggers with a purpose, just people out there digging holes.

So you were constructing a straw-man then, by purposely replacing "labour" with 'people who are specifically unproductive'?

Well, what a surprise, the hypothetical worthless labour force who are performing contrived and worthless jobs without purpose are unproductive...

Meanwhile, in the real world...

You said this: "Capitalists do not "earn" money, as they do not *produce* anything. Their wealth comes from their *capital* not their work."

Your statement was that people should get payed in regards to their labor NOT that people should get paid in regards to how 'valuable' that labor is (Determined by some arbitrary measure or another).

I said in regards to their *productivity*. If I said merely "labour" then simply putting CEOs on a running mill whilst filling in their paper or watching TV would thus increase their labour and make them viable. This is clearly nonsense.

Try to argue with what I am saying, not some feeble misrepresentation you have drummed up.

Since people 'earn' their money through production, is the person who produces the most the person who should be payed the most, even though what he produces might have no value, intrinsic or otherwise?

As CEOs do not actually produce anything of any intrinsic value, this point is moot. And there are numerous factors which are taken into account when determining productivity. I am surprised that you, a self-styled economic know-it-all, does not know that productivity is equated with output per unit of labour.

Clearly the output is not measured solely in "units of item produced". It's value is taken into account, I never said it shouldn't be.

It is at present the value is not taken into account. The person who packs life-saving medicines does not get paid any more than the person who packs health-care costing sweets.

Eitherway, CEOs are not labour, and thus they cannot be 'productive'.

Obviously you need people working.

And obviously you do not need a CEO.

QED.

But your statement is facile. Instead of taking ALL laborers away (Very many people) and taking ALL management away (Very few people), let's be fair here and take one laborer away, or one person in management away (In which many cases, there is one manager).

That is not fair, as the CEO gets paid substantially more than labourers. What would be fair is to take away a number of labourers with a total salary equal to that of the CEO. In Bill Gates's case, that would be millions.

But take that manager away, and any number of calamities could occur. Perhaps the house would be built more quickly, but it would likely suffer any number of defects.

Nonsense. Managers all delegate. You are proposing removing a foreman level position, which is, defacto, labour. By your argument, Bill Gates spends his time in the labs coding software. Absolute bullcrap of the first order.

Yes, they seemingly do less work, but their positions would not exist if they were not invaluable.

That is the most insipid and specious reasoning I have heard yet. That is like saying bums would not exist if they were not invaluable, or parasites would not exist if they were not invaluable.

Clearly you do not know the job descriptions of many CEOs or directors.

Why would a system designed only to make money, keep people around that in no way beneffited the company?

That is totally illogical. You mean "why would a company designed to make money keep people around that in no way benefited that company." which is equally wrong-headed.

The company is designed to make that individual money. They are the recipient. You might as well say "if someone made a machine that automated food production, why would it give food to the person who created it if they no-longer do anything for the machine."

Obviously management makes enough of a contribution to be worth the pay.

Bullshit. Your argument to show that management must be necessary is "they must be, otherwise they'd be unnecessary"

Well done Sparky, I fail to see how I could punch a hole through that circular argument.

We're agreeable on many points, namely, we want the best health care system possible.

That isn't a "point." No-one wants a really really bad healthcare system.

I meant that I'm not a capitalist in the sense that I own any real capital or control any capital.

You meant that you don't even have self-interest to excuse your regurgitation of capitalist propoganda.

I support capitalism, but that hardly makes me a capitalist in the sense...

That the dictionary defines it?

Obviously the CEO wants this house, whether he needs it or not.

He ascribes some value to it. Perhaps me makes his contribution to society just he can come home to his house. Without that incentive, why would he work to make new and better products, slaving away at the office, when he could come home to his modest house, knowing that no matter what he does, he will never get a better house?

CEOs don't make new and better products, that is the "R&D department" - and they all have their own divisional managers over seeing their productivity, and all make a helluva lot less than the CEOs. And CEOs don't "slave" at their office, they have PAs, secretaries, junior execs, division heads, etc etc to do that. They spend time in their mansions and on golf courses.

Sometimes these people are also brilliant, and would benefit society immensely if their ideas were implemented.

Yes, but much more often they are dumbass mcfucks who inherited their directorship along with their inherited controlling shares.

That is true. And he doesn't want one of those.

And everyone else doesn't want to make do and have less just so he can afford one of those. And yet, by virtue of wealth and nothing else, he deserves more than everyone else.

Very fair.

(Other robots, I know, but at some point, humans created them and humans have to control them).

And that person is not a CEO.

But what makes my want or need better than his?

Common sense should tell you that needs supercede wants. Anyone who thinks their want of a nice shiny car supercedes the life of death need of food for the poor does not deserve a car, nor an industry, nor a workforce, nor any form of power.

Furthermore, the wants or needs of the poor far outweigh the wants and the needs of one very rich individual. Are you arguing HIS want or need is better than yours? Well maybe, because you are an ass (not that Billy G isn't) but that to one side for a moment - even if you accept that your wants and needs are directly equal to his - his wealth and assets could cover the wants and needs of many many more poor people such as you.

So the maths is simple: wants and needs * population > the wants and needs of one person in the population.

Simply because I have less? Because I haven't worked as hard as Bill Gates, in any real terms, I deserve his car?

How hard you work is irrelevant. The amount of work Bill Gates does in no way shape or form correlates to the wealth he has.

But obviously Bill Gates is a very adept leader.

Were you dropped on your head as a baby? Do you have how many interests MS has? And you think Bill G has his hand on the tiller for them all?

Bill Gates is not and could not be in charge of every aspect of MS. He delegates. These people who do the *REAL* managing get paid a lot less. The divisional managers under them get paid infinitly less. The office managers, etc that actually do tangible work get paid a pittance. And at the bottom of the pile you get the labour, without whom nothing would get made.

Saying some buaroucrat could run it more efficiently is ignorant.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=bureaucracy

1. Management or administration marked by hierarchical authority among numerous offices and by fixed procedures: The new department head did not know much about bureaucracy.
2. The administrative structure of a large or complex organization: a midlevel manager in a corporate bureaucracy.

Clearly, all companies are run by bureaucrats. Of course, if you weren't ignorant, you'd know this and be able to see the shit you are shovelling.

Furthermore, numerous UK MPs are CEOs, as was Tricky Dick Cheney to name but one. Condi was in top level management also, if you remember.

If someone can run a software company more effectively than Bill Gates, they would be the CEO of Micrsoft or another such firm.

Yes they would. If you neglected logic and common sense. That argument makes no sense whatever. By your argument, if some junky on a council estate had superior business sense to Bill Gates, he would magically overcome all other factors and be a CEO. Bullshit.

Obviously Bill Gates is a valuable asset to the company because he took it from a garage to those offices in Redmond.

And every night Microsoft sinks back to a garage business, and Bill Gates builds it back up single-handidly. And we all know that Bill Gates designed and coded windows XP single-handidly.

You talk so much shit...

Like George W. Bush? When has democracy ever been effective at running complex organizations?

Since when has "government appointed" meant that the people were selected by the electorate? Furthermore, numerous politicians are / were CEOs. Furthermore you are under the misapprehension that people with courtesy titles actually have a hands-on control over the business they are the figurehead for.

You seem to be arguing that when you nationalise an industry, you automatically remove every position of authority right down the command chain. This is totally mistaken. There is no reason why a nationalised industry need have ANY government interference, other than reaping the rewards that would otherwise go to a private rather than institutionalised majority share holder.

Besides, many companies operate from a board of directors with no de facto leader. These operate on a democratic principle.

And what incentive is there to succeed?

Use your brain... And use it to think about the subject, not just how to avoid being pragmatic.

Would Microsoft be where it is today with Bill Gates?

Most definitly. Since before 95 the company has been too big to have its operations co-ordinated by one man. Bill Gates has done nothing tangible since long before then. All aspects of the company operate independantly of Bill Gates. He does no "hands-on" work whatsoever. You really think he does some coding, thinks up an advertising jingle, manages the portfolios, etc etc himself?

And the millions of people in the departments under him are just moochers, right? Living off the back of all his hard work? HAH HAH HAH.

If you mean getting huge raises and the like, they are voted on by the board of directors and in turn, by shareholders.

But:
Joe Blow doesn't know how to vote for the CEO of Microsoft or whatever.

Depending on the company's make up, minority shareholders do not get a say in the matter. It depends on whether the company is publicly limited, etc etc.

How money can be 'squeezed' in this setup is beyond me.

That is because you are a naive kid, who operates under a series of assumptions rather than an understanding of real-life procedures.

Why would the shareholders allow themselves to be robbed?

Because they do not know about it, or do not get a say in the matter. For any number of reasons. And it is only being "robbed" in the sense that the labour are "robbed" by management. I am more than happy to agree on the term, although you have been arguing against the assertion that such manipulation of the system is "robbing" - as it is totally in line with capitalist principles.

The government can just print money. It doesn't need to worry about things like revenue.

Look at our fucking deficit. They just imagine more money exists and POOF, so it does.[/quote]

That's what happens when you live in hicksville and vote in scurvy shysters. Thank your rich power capitalist CEOs like Cheney and Condi for that one. Clearly their understanding of economics and business is invaluable...

We're currently a few trillion in debt and you advocate giving the government control of more?

I advocate sensible spending rather than more spending.

It can't run ITSELF let alone Microsoft.

So Halliburton and Exxon aren't doing too well then?

Actually, is possession of plutonium illegal? I'm not certain it is...

Yah, trading uranium centrifuges is prohibited, but plutonium? Splash it about...

Anywho, how can you possibly be free of financial concerns? If everyone was 'free of financial concerns' and just sat on their asses all day, we would starve to death.

In the words of Martin Luther King, I have a dream. However, I am not going to share it with you. You'd not understand.

would you then be an Imam?

No. Which totally undermines your whole argument. But that's what happens when you base an argument on a faulty first premiss.

Did you even read this?

I seldom read anything you cite. It is invariably irrelevant or unsupportive of your argument. Then we get into even more long-winded and convaluted posts with you desperately trying to support an untenable position, until I finally nail you down, and you end up going...

"oh... Well, it was merely semantics..." When the dictionary proves that you are actually and tangibly wrong.

Needless to say, you are wrong and Me and Harry Truman are right. Talk to the hand.

Stick your head farther in the sand Ace, eventually you'll come through the other side.

And I'll be with my good friend (and former president) Harry Truman when I do. And, best of all, you'll be miles and miles and miles away, all on your own.

It never would have started had the Soviets not taken over eastern Europe.

And it would never've started if the settlers didn't steal the continent of North America from the Injuns. When we are done talking a load of irrelevant codshit, perhaps you could address the point? Actually don't, as you can't and as usual it will only end in you losing point after point after point, and redefining your argument again and again and again, until I end up bringing us all the way back to the start and you go obstinatly silent on the point.


Two bucks if you can find the reference.

Family Guy.

[EN[i]GMA]

I was about half way through my hour long reply when, while fucking around with my mp3s, accidently clicked out of the window.

Since this debate is almost verbatim our last one, I don't really see the need to respond, and I have a feeling any future debates will play out in a somewhat similair manner.

And take note, I may seem like brick wall, but that's my ego speaking, not my brain. I think I actually did learn a lot about health care.

But I still think I'm right.

Sort of.