10-23-2008, 05:39 PM | #21 | |
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LOL. The UK has been free of monarchy? I know you have been there....did you happen to look at the coins? the stamps? The palace in the middle of Westminster? Where does the Queen get the dosh to buy all those hats? The entire royal family basically lives off the dole. From a legal perspective, yes I agree that the royals are mere symbols. From a financial perspective, they are the biggest welfare cases in Europe. Next time you run into the Queen, refuse to bow. See how well that goes over with the general population. You will quickly see how far Europe has truly strayed from its dynastic origins.
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10-23-2008, 05:51 PM | #22 | |
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10-23-2008, 05:52 PM | #23 | |
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You can't possibly believe that explanation on why US lenders copped to the disaster before everyone else. Because of the unregulated casino, *they* were the ones deepest in the bog, the ones who excavated the pit for the world economy to dig out of! Paulson & his cronies got together & looked at each other & realized they put the entire economy at risk due to 1) their unbridled greed, and 2) their skill at convincing Greenspan & others that said greed was doing everyone else a massive favor. It was Paulson who had to get up on the political cross and take the heat for most of Wall Street. (The accounts of the "let's all put our cards on the table" meeting between the Wall Street honchos and Paulson are fascinating, namely the revelation that the Lehman chiefs "looked like zombies"). Meanwhile, Bernanke is left to wonder why in the hell he decided to follow Greenspan. Our way of life & core economic vibrancy are not put at risk by moving, in an American way, to the left a couple of notches. |
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10-23-2008, 05:59 PM | #24 | |
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If you were to put them all on a continuum, with Monarchy at the right and Democracy (or republicanism) at the left, Europe has gradually shifted from the far right towards the middle. Given Europe's roots, of course it will tend to be more socialist than the US. The US never really was purely on the left, as I pointed out earlier, because we have always had a system of taxation in place, and welfare/social programs for quite a long time. So we are moving from the left towards the middle. I personally do not believe that we would ever move past the middle because it simply is not in our DNA to do so.
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10-23-2008, 06:11 PM | #25 | |
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WHat does that mean, to say an economy is founded on principles of monarchy? IN terms of the function or structuer of their economies, what ius different becasue they were founded on principles of monarchy?
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10-23-2008, 06:14 PM | #26 | |
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Interesting how Obama unfiltered doesn't taste so great to even his most ardent supporters. I haven't seen anyone here defend socialism, protectionism, isolationism, abandonment of historic commitments, even substantially increased regulation.
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Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be. —Paul Auster Last edited by SeattleUte; 10-23-2008 at 06:48 PM. |
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10-23-2008, 06:26 PM | #27 |
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That's a cheap shot. Sounds just like something Pat Robertson would say.
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10-23-2008, 06:34 PM | #28 | |
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You see faint traces of that in Europe still today, esp with regards to royals living off revenues generated from all their land grabbing. There is still a general deference to royals in all things, despite the fact that in many of those countries, actual leaders are elected and leave office much like in our system. Common defense has morphed into social programs such as medicine. In contrast, our elected officials are out after a period of a few years. Anyone can start a business. Today anyone can own land (although not previously) . We have privatized businsses, but not entirely....we also have government oversight, regulatory committees, SEC reporting requirements...all things that are rooted in socialist principles of government intervention. I think the big difference is simply the degree to which we practice our socialism. But i dont ever think we would get to the point where the average Joe Six Pack would stomach using our tax dollars to support an extravagant lifestyle for the Clintons and all their heirs in perpetuity.
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10-23-2008, 06:48 PM | #29 | |
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Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be. —Paul Auster |
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10-23-2008, 07:24 PM | #30 | |
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There is no risk DDD in moving to the left, no economic risk, no social risk, because we are American and we can combat the perils of this position. Any social change causes harm, but the question is on balance is the harm caused less than the "good" achieved. Proponents of increasing socialism in our economy ignore this discussion, as they seem to assume all government intervention is good and proper. For example, proponents of Obama's new healthcare organization ignore the harm created by the DHHS and how much it had harmed our health care system, but they march naively ahead, let's have another huge government bureaucracy. No poster has addressed this issue. Why? Proponents of increasing our reliance upon goverment to solve social and economic issues seem to take the easy, lazy approach, "make another program, that will fix everything," instead of a way to stimulate natural market forces, provide checks and balances against monopolies and anti-competitive forces and to encourage financial transparency, while increasing liquidity and capital into financial markets. Why no nuance?
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