Socialsim built the middle class in America

[Ideologue]

If my employment is controlled by a law firm instead, they can't destroy my life?

If your employment really were controlled by a law firm

Certainly seems to be the case given what happens to my resumes otherwise.

Ok I will bite. If your law firm fires you, they cannot actually deny your right to be considered to other positions across the job market. Even the state can only limit your options by giving you a criminal record.
Whereas if the state controls the economy across the board, you CAN be denied of employment everywhere except where the state wants to put you in. As I said, this happened to countless educated people in communism. If they talked out of the line, they soon found themselves working at assembly lines.

In America, if you're laid off for no reason, you soon find yourself not working and in the unemployment line.  Advantage: communism.

[Ed Anger]

Oh, we have reasons to lay people off.

[Eddie Teach]

Shareholder Value

[Tamas]

If my employment is controlled by a law firm instead, they can't destroy my life?

If your employment really were controlled by a law firm

Certainly seems to be the case given what happens to my resumes otherwise.

Ok I will bite. If your law firm fires you, they cannot actually deny your right to be considered to other positions across the job market. Even the state can only limit your options by giving you a criminal record.
Whereas if the state controls the economy across the board, you CAN be denied of employment everywhere except where the state wants to put you in. As I said, this happened to countless educated people in communism. If they talked out of the line, they soon found themselves working at assembly lines.

In America, if you're laid off for no reason, you soon find yourself not working and in the unemployment line.  Advantage: communism.

Yes, mandatory employment no matter what worked wonders with the economies of the eastern bloc. Absolutely no working morale, abysmal performance, rampant workplace thievery are just a few among the benefits society enjoyed due to 0% unemployment.

[The Minsky Moment]

I thought you were being ironic/sarcastic about Quantitive Easing. Which have driven at least a good portion of that growth and its cancellation has been the scare-talk of the year.

The Fed has been tapering since December.  The S&P 500 has responded by going up.

[Zanza]

I would need to read up on the inequality indexes because I don't really know much about how they calculated.

Doesn't really matter. You just need to pick a statistic that supports your argument. So if I was arguing in favor of more socialist policies in the US, that's the index I would use. I am sure that no matter what criteria go into such an index, they will always be subjective as there is no obvious objective way to measure "human development".

But I guess it must be true that it is better to be dirt poor in a welfare state than in a non-welfare one. Unfortunately, the number of content poor people is not an indicator of a country's general nicety when it comes to advances and opportunity for individuals.
I mean, surely there must be a reason why almost all innovative big shot companies are in the US, for example.

As far as I can tell, those indexes typically measure averages or medians or so, not extremes. Would be interesting to see if there is an index that measures chances for extreme positions. It's just a guess based on e.g. the way incomes are distributed or what you say about innovation and other anecdotal evidence, but I could imagine that the US is still by far the country that offers the biggest chances when you are among the elite in something, be it science, finance, technology etc.

[Tamas]

I thought you were being ironic/sarcastic about Quantitive Easing. Which have driven at least a good portion of that growth and its cancellation has been the scare-talk of the year.

The Fed has been tapering since December.  The S&P 500 has responded by going up.

Are you arguing that the QE was not one of the major factors behind the stock market upward move since 2009? I will believe you if you say so, but I thought that it being so was an accepted conclusion.

[The Minsky Moment]

My opinion is that the Fed's influence on asset prices, while potentially significant, is mostly negative.  If the Fed screws up by being overly restrictive that will hit stock prices.  If it screws up by letting inflation get out of control that will also hit stocks (differentially).  So yes QE had an effect - the effect was that by pursuing the correct policy, the Fed faciliated recovery and allowed stock prices to rise from the fire sale prices of 2009.

[grumbler]

I thought you were being ironic/sarcastic about Quantitive Easing. Which have driven at least a good portion of that growth and its cancellation has been the scare-talk of the year.

Quantitative easing started in 2008.  Sunspots have a better correlation to stock market performance than QE does.

[Tamas]

My opinion is that the Fed's influence on asset prices, while potentially significant, is mostly negative.  If the Fed screws up by being overly restrictive that will hit stock prices.  If it screws up by letting inflation get out of control that will also hit stocks (differentially).  So yes QE had an effect - the effect was that by pursuing the correct policy, the Fed faciliated recovery and allowed stock prices to rise from the fire sale prices of 2009.

So "assets" granted by QE were not used then?

[Razgovory]

I have argued before that social democracy can only be successful in small, homogenous countries, like Scandistan.

I've heard that from many a libertarian, but I don't why it can only work there.

You guys.... The country you live in and what you believe has not had enough socialism still is the most advanced of the world. All the countries that have had the kind of socialism you desire have failed to have less problems than evilcapitalistUSA (except maybe Scandistan), and the countries that have had more socialism than that have failed utterly.

Yet you cannot stop the "we need more socialism" mantra. Lame.

This in no way answers my question.

[Razgovory]

Ok I will bite. If your law firm fires you, they cannot actually deny your right to be considered to other positions across the job market. Even the state can only limit your options by giving you a criminal record.
Whereas if the state controls the economy across the board, you CAN be denied of employment everywhere except where the state wants to put you in. As I said, this happened to countless educated people in communism. If they talked out of the line, they soon found themselves working at assembly lines.

I can certainly think of a way to be denied positions without state intervention.

[crazy canuck]

I have argued before that social democracy can only be successful in small, homogenous countries, like Scandistan.

I've heard that from many a libertarian, but I don't why it can only work there.

You guys.... The country you live in and what you believe has not had enough socialism still is the most advanced of the world. All the countries that have had the kind of socialism you desire have failed to have less problems than evilcapitalistUSA (except maybe Scandistan), and the countries that have had more socialism than that have failed utterly.

It depends on what one means by "socialism".  If you mean state control of the means of production then I think you are correct.   If you mean social democracy, which is the meaning given to the term in the OP, then I disagree with you.  Although Canada has its share of problems I would not want to trade them for those experienced by the US.

[Razgovory]

Why? Because that is what makes it worthwile for humans to invest energy into bettering the lot of themselves and by turn others. Because at the end of the day, everything ends up as somebody's de facto property. The only difference is that in some unfortunate cultures these owners are called kings, sultans, presidents, or premieres.
And the degree your livelihood and existence depends on the goodwill and handouts of others  (private or state), is also the degree your freedom is restricted.

I'm sure glad I'm not the defacto property of the government!

[Tamas]

You know if the best counterargument you can give is to pretend I was advocating slavery, then it just pretty much proves you have no counterargument to give.