Who cares? Shut your yap about hypothetical economic systems that can't be realistically applied to a major country. Your Finnish and frankly that alone means you know jack about the USA, you live in one of the most economically strong European states whose people have some of the best education, health care and purchasing power of the Western world and it's a SOCIALIST country. You're so focused on what's wrong in the USA, you can't even see what's working perfectly well right in front of your face.
Mod Edit: "Shut your yap..." Let's not have stuff like that please.
Last edited by Dacien; 2011-11-23 at 09:26 PM.
Human progress isn't measured by industry. It's measured by the value you place on a life.
Just, be kind.
It just really demonstrates how beholden to special interests many politicians are(I am not excluding Democrats here). If Republicans cannot pull their heads out of their ass and realize that they were elected to represent THEIR CONSTITUENTS as opposed to some rich fat-cat, then they deserve to get the boot and I darn well hope that come the 2012 elections they feel that boot particularly hard.
Human progress isn't measured by industry. It's measured by the value you place on a life.
Just, be kind.
Allow me to present a few of my own theories/opinons in this.
For starters, the debt ceiling. The original deal was made to last until election time. Really? Ends AT election time? So the primary focus of the debate this time around is going to be the debt crisis? Either both sides had no choice, or they set that up to prep their stance on it come crunch time. It's turning from 'fix the nation' into a political mind **** that is doing far more harm than good.
Military spending. The biggest reason why these other countries do not have big military budgets is because they don't have to. We have brave men and women stationed all over the world. Alot of them. So why would these countries spend alot of money on military when they have another country willing to step in?
Both Democrats and Republicans are at fault here. The crap Republicans spit out escapes the field of logic then borderilnes sheer insanity. Democrats are spineless, big-government go getters that are slowly creeping in the same direction as Republicans (albeit they have different view points).
It all boils down to the mighty dollar. Senators can run for office and win as many times as they want, and they will cut spending to things that do not line their pockets nearly as much as something they wouldn't cut. Here's an idea; lead by example. They need to cut their own paygrades and stop accepting lobbyist bids so they can have two more houses to choose from when they want to go on vacation. That goes for any office that does not have limited terms;cut their wages. Not only that, limit the amount of times they can be an office. Add an incentive that makes them want to work for their people by adding something in like 'if your people don't like you GTFO now' versus the next election (I know that last part is a bit unstable, but I'm sure someone here could easily tweak the idea).
Greed is the centerpiece of our current government. Do I call for anarchy? Of course not. I call for accountability, which unfortunately nowadays applies to people of the opposite party that are not liked and mistakes are exploited to gain more power for the first party.
Furthermore, Republicans just blindly voting no to anything that comes to the table is like a child taking their ball and going home because they did not get what they want. A piss poor stonewall tactic that does nothing but let the people suffer. They go in to 'represent and serve' the people of their respective districts, these old coots arent even doing that right! It's a 'well you didnt pass the bill I wanted now I'm going to deny anything and everything you throw up here not because I don't agree with it but because you did not agree with the one idea I had.'
Yeah...pisses me off to say the least.
THat's one of the biggest reasons the Tea Party got started.
---------- Post added 2011-11-23 at 09:37 PM ----------
I was speaking about Friedman, and what he would do. His views are close to those of the Austrian School.
And maybe you shouldn't have started with your random comments?
Believe you can cut the defense budget by 50% and still outspend the next 10 countries of the world.
Course, if they allow that to happen, they'll probably send that freed up money overseas instead of, dunno, improving our infrastructure.
As pointed out earlier, it's easy to outspend countries who spend nothing because we spend it for them.
That aside, I wouldn't care if the money still went into the "defense" budget just so long as it went to projects here at home. Smaller and more stable power grids, better roads, these things are KEY to a strong national defense. I'd be happy to see soldiers out building American roads and power grids instead of blowing up some other country's.
---------- Post added 2011-11-23 at 01:44 PM ----------
You know jack about the US economy. All you talk about is hypothetical extremist economic systems, you lack any sort of historical economic understanding and twist everything that doesn't agree with your personal interpretation to make you look right.
I can't move to Finland because I live in a country where I'm over-worked, under-paid, and poorly educated. Why don't YOU move here and see how you like a system that provides you none of the amenities your armchair-economics rely on?
Last edited by Sunseeker; 2011-11-23 at 09:44 PM.
Human progress isn't measured by industry. It's measured by the value you place on a life.
Just, be kind.
People keep claiming we spend on defense for the rest of the world.
Never quite sure how they figured that one.