The Empire Strikes Back: 1998 Obama Video: ZOMG REDISTRIBUTION!!!1111onesy

[Tamas]

Wtf are you babbling about tamas.

welfare spending inevitably results in a spending spiral leading to failure.

And don't give me the crap about Germany. Sure, Germany works. Right. Germany profited a lot from the EU, and the others fucked up economies which got dominated by Germany. The bill for the fuckups is theirs too in the sense that they have tied their fate to the fuckups without requiring them to be non-fuckups.

[Grey Fox]

It's only fuckups when you lose the ability to print more money.

[Tamas]

It's only fuckups when you lose the ability to print more money.

So the amount of money in circulation can be increased ad infinitum with no negative consequence. Okay, good to know. Now all I need is a timemachine to tell Weimar it's ok to have inflation.

[Grey Fox]

It is. Public debt doesn't matter.

[Tamas]

It is. Public debt doesn't matter.

Good then.

[DGuller]

Tamas reminds me of young Russians in 1990ies.  Communism failed, so obviously the system to replace it is the one thought up deep in the bowels of von Mises, human suffering be damned.  The one lesson they didn't seem to learn was the danger of extreme reforms, and how extreme measures foster extreme blowback.

[The Brain]

Socialism must be rooted out. That is the main task of the Holy Ordos.

[Sheilbh]

That quote CdM highlighted is positively Blairite

[Tamas]

Tamas reminds me of young Russians in 1990ies.  Communism failed, so obviously the system to replace it is the one thought up deep in the bowels of von Mises, human suffering be damned.  The one lesson they didn't seem to learn was the danger of extreme reforms, and how extreme measures foster extreme blowback.

I dream of a United States of Europe with low taxes and sustainable budgets.

[The Brain]

Tamas reminds me of young Russians in 1990ies.  Communism failed, so obviously the system to replace it is the one thought up deep in the bowels of von Mises, human suffering be damned.  The one lesson they didn't seem to learn was the danger of extreme reforms, and how extreme measures foster extreme blowback.

I dream of a United States of Europe

The fuck?

[grumbler]

That's sort of my point.  Social Democracy is not about giving anybody a fair shot at anything, it's about providing the necessities of life.

To quote Admiral Yi: "I think you just made that up and don't have a clue what it means."

[Eddie Teach]

The USE is a much greater danger than China and its potential existence calls for us to preemptively invade Canada and secure their resources. 

[dps]

However today, you can't really go to a place where there's no one and build your own cabin in the wood. 

We were wrong to get rid of the Homestead Act.  The Republican Party should make it part of their platform to bring it back.  Well, so should the Democratic Party, but I see zero chance of the Democratic Party endorsing anything that gives something the government owns to a private individual.  Not that there's much chance that the Republicans will endorse bringing back the Homestead Act, either.

Socialism is the future.

I a bit more optimistic than that--the future doesn't have to be dystopian.

[viper37]

How does any of what you described change if we tax the rich more?

A) The government needs money to fund some social programs that helps the poor compete on a more equal foot: education (kinda necessary if you want to improve your condition today), access to health care (an healthy workforce is a benefit to all of society, and on an individual basis, having access to healthcare means you're less likely to suffer from unemployment period due to diseases), access to decent roads to travel, welfare coverage for the needy (people with physical or mental disabililities) & non restricted public access (ramps, bathrooms, etc), minimal welfare coverage for people unable to find a job on a temporary basis, and maybe a few other things.  This costs money, and you need to take it somewhere.  If you tax the poor or the middle class, you take away what little money they have and screw their chances of climbing the social ladder.  Especially if you then give their money to the rich in form of tax breaks, grants, subsidies, guaranteed loans, bailout and various other measures associated with corporate wellfare.  Due to the way the tax system is structured, taxing the rich simply equals the fields by having the very rich pay just as much taxes, in %of their income to the middle class whose currently supporting everyone above&below.

B) Taxing the very rich a little higher, you will curb the natural tendancies of clans/aristocracy/dynasties to form itself and take all the power over the rest of the society.  It will help fund the programs of A and make them a tad little poorer wich may induce them in watching more carefully over their money and throw less of it at politicians in the hope of having the elevator returned when they screw themselves in the ass.

[viper37]

I tell you again what I keep telling you: Obama is a social democrat, and social democracies are in their final phases of dying out in Europe.
To have him switch the US into a welfare state when welfare states have been proved a bad idea would be catastrophic.

What is worse, however, is tha the only present alternative to him is Romney, who appears to be an evil twisted mofo.

the US is very far from a social democratic state.