And yet another free-market theory failure

tonton I am not a cheerleader for "social democracies" nor the "american system" but I can tell you that piece was not very informative. The graph was nice but that does not take make for the argument that you seem to imply. I look around and I see america failing to be fiscally sound. This is our downfall if we don't do something about it. We have schools in california that are brand new but not opened / used because the school district does not have the money to fund it. http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theloo...ol-sits-unused

We have saab from sweeden with factories idle due to the company facing a funding crisis an unable to pay wages to it's employees. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d1a78c26-9...#axzz1QAla14s8

As for the stocks and stock markets.. These are manipulated by the globalists to the nth degree.

America / Europe what have you.

Horrible thread.

Fellows

Since the rates before Reagan were much higher, wouldn't the stock returns also be much higher? Why start with Reagan? If the United States had the confiscatory tax rates before Reagan then the study should begin there and the change in the rate of return should be noted.

I'm pretty sure there's a reason they didn't do that. BTW, this bit I noted is not attacking the messenger, it is a discussion of methodology. When you draw an arbitrary line in the sand, you have to state why. Good studies also attempt to mitigate outside influences when drawing conclusions. This study does not appear to do that.

No one is stopping you from moving there, Oh, wait yes they are, The Swedish Government is.

What is this based on? I have been to places like Paris France and I can tell you that social paradise has a huge social problem despite the things about Paris I love to death. Sweden is mostly swedes and does not have unskilled undereducated immigrants from "third world" economies across the border from it flooding it with kids in the public schools there and ER rooms and other social benefits. Especially not at the scale that places California and France deal with.

Socialism can work if everyone pays in enough of a "premium" to fund what is being collectively paid for. Roads / bridges, Schools, etc.

Socialism is an utter cespool of a failure when more than half of those who benefit from the benefits don't pay even 10% of the costs to fund the benefits.

Take an immigrant family here in Fort Worth who lives in a home where they pay in Property tax on a junky run down home a tax of about $ 800 - 1,200. These folks have say 4 children. It costs about $9,000 per year to educate one of these 4 kids so for all four kids we are looking at close to $36,000 per year.

As you can see this is not the guest at the hotel paying their fair share to support all the elements of the hotel.

In Sweden where most are educated and they have fewer kids per capita. It is likely that their socialized services like education don't have upside down funding issues like in certain areas where MANY don't pay diddly towards what it is they benefit from.

Paris has many immigrants from north africa who live horrible lives in Paris.

So I think when you take a place like Sweden you have a very special situation that is seemingly immune from the complications in life. Almost like Leave it to Beaver in the 50's America.

Fellows

More succinctly: One* of the reasons that socialism inevitably fails is that, eventually, you run out of other people's money.

It seems a quote is in order here:

"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." -- Frédéric Bastiat


*Another, of course, is that it can't calculate.

If Reagan was the change to suboptimal stock performance, then it makes perfect sense that in the era before him, stocks performed in an optimal manner. You have a dozen Democratic presidents, their tax rates and their policies to show what optimal should have been.

[/QUOTE]Stock markets in socialized democracies have outperformed the US since the Reagan era. Scaremongers say socialism has the opposite effect, and they are obviously wrong. Can we address the point, or shall we carry on with hyperbole (socialism is a cesspool of failure!) non-sequitur (but it's not fair, we have to educate those illegal immigrants!) or excuses (but... But... Sweden doesn't have immigrants! Sweden has oil... Canada has er... Nevermind.)?[/QUOTE]

Stock markets relate to GDP how exactly? They relate to average income how? They relate to progress how? You do this often Tonton. You grab something and with no explanation declare it has proven something. I can post a picture of a unicorn and declare a point proven. That doesn't mean it explains anything.

Gross Domestic Product is the total worth of all economic activity within a given time-frame.

That would indeed be important to determining how one economy has outperformed another. In fact it is a the most common measure to determine such things.

Also what is meant by outperform?

One last thing. I've looked at this article and tried to even find several other mentions of it. They mention a paper but they never actually mention the title of the paper, author or who published it. They list several people commenting on it, but not the actual paper itself. It is only referred to generically as "a paper".

You have no idea what you're talking about. Canada has had a conservative economic policy since Jean Chretien decided to slay the deficit after being elected in 1993. They cut budgets far further than the preceding Conservative government and got Canada's budgetary deficit eliminated due to the national sales tax the Conservatives had implemented.

Furthermore, Canada's banking system was "bailed out" not by Obama-and-Europe-style blank cheques to the wealthy but by a brilliant Tax Free Savings Account scheme concocted by our Conservative PM (who happens to be an Economist.)

The only parts of our economy that are really giving trouble are the heavily unionized sectors, like the postal service, which is currently on strike because they want to continue to retire at 55, get 7 weeks of vacation a year and 'bank' sick days.

Since Christianity plays a major aspect in your life, (according to your posts), and also supposedly the lives and outlook of a large proportion of the American public, which system would you think Jesus would approve the more?

(a) Predatory jungle-law capitalism, or (b) a European style mixed economy with social safety nets?

When liberals pose insane questions like that, it actually does make Fox News look fair and balanced.

I'm sorry but, frankly, that's totally ludicrous. I think here we've discovered a fundamental problem in your view of the world if you believe what you said there is actually true.

Well it sure as hell relates much more than a stock market index does.

Don't mix my words. I said above the cesspool statement that socialism can work when everyone pays in a "premuim" which will sustain and ensure that which is being socialized. (roads, bridges, schools, hospitals etc.) When you fail to have everyone pay in a decent portion of a "premium" then the programs start to have cracks in the funding and you see stories of teachers being laid off and entire schools that have been built not able to be opened due to funding shortages. California in the US anyway has higher taxes than most of the US yet they have so many funding problems. Higher taxes does not solve all problems in fact sometimes higher taxes only drives people out of the state. I just read a story I think from the NYTimes that said "Blacks" are leaving New York for the south because the cost of living is too high in NY. The New York Times mind you....


It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with economics. If you want to make it racial than you are being intellectually lazy. I stated facts.

If I did not live in the US I could see myself living in France thank you very much. This said. I have never had so many street people harrass me and my wife as I have in Paris France. I have been to many large US cities and yes there are poor and homeless. But with your argument about how wonderful things are in "socialized" countries I would expect Paris France to be a bit less congested with so many people that are in hard times on the street. Yet they are there and it is a very sad way to live and I feel bad for them.


Europe has many SOLID companies. I could compile a list of all of the very high quality companies that are within Europe and it does not surprise me that their stocks have done well. Siemens, BMW, Total / Fina, Novartis, Alcatel, Vivendi, VW, Pernod-Ricard Where to stop?

I am not surprised that Europe has quality stocks and stock performance. The european country that I am most impressed with for economic reasons is Germany. They have low unemployment. They export well that which they produce. This builds their prosperiety and is why I argue that America needs to do more to export more of a percentage of our overall GDP.

I never said America was better than Europe. I just think we have different situations and problems to work through.

I am not against socialism that works. I am for it. I am against socialism that is doomed to fail.

I would rather pay taxes to drive on roads than pay a toll on every damn road I drive on.

etc.

One thing I am SICK of subsidizing however are all of the military ventures that the US has decided to embark on over the last soooo many years....

It is overkill pardon the pun.

Fellows

I would rather have a european style mixed economy with social safety nets.

I think that some safety net kinds of things can be administered with intelligence and oversight to prevent an overabundance of fraud and abuse.

In the us we have so many who abuse the system "medicare fraud" etc. but this is not to say I am against safety nets for the down and out.

FRANKLY I would rather see the money spent on prisons go to education. I think education is the key to a future of prosperity.

The us has some imbalances.

Fellows

Listen to this exchange,

Click the play button.

http://mcalvanyweeklycommentary.com/06-22/

Fellows

I think single-payer is a decent system overall, but unions are pulling it apart. Costs are unsustainable and everybody knows it. You can't announce funding increases of 6% a year forever and expect the math to work.

Again, you're 20 years too late. The Feds largely withdrew from socialized housing under the 1993 Liberals, and right now Toronto is in the process of selling off major parts of its social housing. That housing is in a terrible state of disrepair, not to mention the crime and other problems plaguing those neighbourhoods.

With taxes, Canada replaced an excise tax with a national sales tax two decades back, and recently melded the national tax with the provincial tax to create the HST. We tax consumption primarily, and personal and corporate taxes are being reduced as much as possible.

Federal corporate taxes in Canada have a max rate of 16.5%, in the U.S., the max rate is 35%.
Federal personal taxes in Canada have a max rate of 29%. In the U.S., the max rate is 35%.

tonton could you please document all the free market successes for comparison?

This is an example of freedom how exactly?

*While you are not specific on what you mean by "human rights atrocities and other criminal abuse" (and some on the left think it's a human rights violation if you don't have 6 weeks of paid vacation ) this would also not square with true liberty.


Here's one index that says you're wrong about that. According to them, there are 134 that are freer economically-speaking than China, and the most free, economically-speaking is where you live.

Oh, by the way, two of the countries mentioned (Canada and Denmark) in the article you linked to are actually ranked higher in economic freedom than the US (6th and 8th to the US at 9th.) Both of those actually increasing freedom over the 10 year period measured while the US has remained stable or gone down.

Let's see so if you're comparing us to them and our lost freedom that means 10 years for us as well. 8 of those were Bush and republican rule. 6 were total republican rule.

You're hilarious, tonton.

What's your point?

Ummm...but you seem to have glossed over the putting someone in jail piece. That's not about freedom. Governments do that.



You say that like these two concepts are easily separable. Perhaps this is a key to our communication disconnects. Freedom is freedom. There isn't "economic freedom" or "political freedom" or "some other kind of freedom." There is freedom.

So, I ask, how is the government putting people in jail at the behest or bribe of someone else freedom? How is violating someone's basic right of life, liberty and property freedom? How is stealing someone's property freedom?

You wish to make the claim that China is some kind of free-market nirvana, but what I see is something very different. I see some new freedoms being granted (by the government) but a great many still being abridged or limited completely.

Yes, it is true that as it has shifted more toward market economy approaches, many, many more people in China have started to climb out of grinding poverty and sustenance living. But China is only an example of a true free-market in your imagination.

China is not a representation of freedom.



Relative to what or who?

Freedom is about more than just taxes and regulation.

In context to your statement I thought it was a necessary clarification. But I think you knew that.

How many times have I heard that response from SDW to various people?

I think that by itself is hilarious.

Clarification of what?!?! You are the one bringing partisanship into this discussion. I'm discussing freedom and liberty.