Continued -

The rich GOP are afraid of Socialist practices because they think Socialism is Communism. The evangelicals fear it because the rich tell them so. Yet historically the United States has been able to remain a free republic while still incorporating socialist practices to ensure the stability of the economy and the middle class that supports it.

So tell me /r9k/, are you afraid of socialism working in the United States again? Eurofriends can provide insight as well seeing as when Wall Street is healthy it tends to help the European and Nikkei exchange as well.

bump for common sense

and because it's something a lot of people need to think about

fuck year socialism. though, if you try to tell any old person that ss is socialism, they turn purple with rage. believe me, i tried. granted, when it came about, it was billed as an investment thing, but we all know thats not what it really is. if it were, id have thousands of dollars tucked away in a social security account.

I think you're right, OP.
I'm curious to see if Obama and the Democrats in congress come through on their campaign promises, and if they do, whether people in the US see the change toward a more regulated economy and publicly funded social programs as a good thing or not.

ukfag here

I don't understand why americans loathe socialized healthcare

Why?

In the UK we have worse hospitals than US. I concede this.

But in the UK, EVERYONE (unless there is a cancer patient in for a cut thumb and you only have your limbs ripped off) gets the care they need in a good time frame (from my experience anyway).

America, it is simply: healthcare? no? fuck off.

now you tell me which helps more people to a better degree

Bullshit. Governmental interference was precisely what brought the crisis on. The same applies to 29.

Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae - founded in the Depression - were responsible for more than half of mortgage loans in the US. It's Keynesian economics that's behind all the crap going on.

lrn2Austrian School of Economics

oldfag southerner here, the government needs to stay the fuck out of business/healthcare/etc

>>2077658
Try Reagan Economics and the trickle down effect. That's what hurt the American Economy more than anything was the idea that money would trickle down from the rich and help the middle class flourish. Even Clinton practiced it to a degree, but lesser so than Bush Sr. and far less than Bush Jr.

>>2077680
So, you prefer not being able to afford anything at all? Bloated medical bills that can't be paid on your current income, bloated mortgage rates due to banks trying to make a million dollar investment out of a two hundred thousand dollar house, rising food prices, and jobs being shipped overseas because it's cheaper for the 20% of America that controls the wealth?

OP, you have just echoed my every sentiment since I heard that Obama was labeled a socialist.

WIC
Welfare
Medicare
Medicaid
Social Security
Public Schools
Police force
Fire departments
FAFSA

If you any of these things has ever aided you, then guy what, you have been helped by socialism.

Free market democratic socialism is the new standart of the parties affiliated with the international socialist.
Socialism is one of the mainstream choices in almost every single free country outside the US.
A socialist(blair) was Bush's best ally.
A conservative(Chirac) one of his most staunt oponents.
In Portugal the Socialist Party helped stop the rise of communism after the fall of our pseudo fascist dictatorship.

>>2077658
austrian school economics is based on purely a priori reasoning. It resists using empirical data and as a result has no basis in reality. Keynesian and Neo-Keynesian economics uses empirical data and is therefore a science. Keynesian should be used because it has predictive import, Austrian economics should be ignored because its just as much baseless speculation as Marxist economics.

also, in b4 CapitalistBastard

>>2077682
Bullshit those are the policies that led to such a great economy in the time of Clinton.

Socialized healthcare will suck, its probably the worst fucking thing Obama will do in office And heres what I dont fucking get. ITS NOT HARD OR THAT FUCKIGN EXPENSIVE TO HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE

I work at wal mart for Christs sake and their healthcare plans covers damn near everything Ill ever need, the dental aint great but dentists arent that expensive anyways

>>2077658

Bullshit. Freddy/Fannie were massively deregulated, and if you go by the CRA, only 1/4th of the defaulted loans were given by banks under the CRA regulations.

>>2077701
yes, but unlike most people i dont spend a gazillon dollars on useless shit that i dont particularly need

oh and i've never had medical insurance and i support globalization (job losses and all)

>>2077725
And for the record

WIC
Welfare
Medicare
Medicaid
Social Security
and
FAFSA

And part of the damn fucking problem.

Welfare and social security both had a tiem and place and its long gone, we need to do away with both

>>2077705
yeah, though especially in these modern days where data is alot easier to handle and we have much more of it, the divide seems less strong. i mean sure you could completely resist using data, but no matter what your theory is, you can test it using some sort of data, and if you have the ability to test it why wouldn't you?

other than because "all data is wrong", but meh, who can use that for anything?

>>2077738
Troll and/or idiot.

Thank you for that clarification.

>>2077739
What are you smoking?

Free market society does not work. Reaganomics has proven this time and time again. The current economic crisis is littered with the ghost of Reaganomics.

Those programs aren't the problem. The people that abuse them are. You know how they're abusing them? Think about it. It wasn't a problem until Bush Sr. and his economic policies.

>>2077739

What the fuck are you on boy? You really want to criticize WIC? I suppose those single mothers can fucking support themselves and their three children or starve with no support from people who have the extra resources to support them.

And before you even bring up the bull argument of them not having children out of wedlock, many single mothers were married when their children were born and their husband either divorced them or died.

>>2077750
namecalling ftw

>>2077764
bullshit welfare and the like have been abused since day one.. I get hating Bush but not every fucking thing is his damn fault

>>2077764
true free market works completely, it's the people who try to execute who DO IT WRONG. Look at Hong Kong for example, their economy is great.

>>2077775
We can't forget that the unemployed rate is so high partially because all of the jobs are overseas even though the corporations keep their base of operations here. Tax breaks, avoiding health care, amongst other things.

>>2077803
Hong Kong is a product of corporatism/neo-mercantilism. If anything went wrong, China would take things over in a second.

>>2077795
Since when is job losses a good thing? Or people that want medical insurance because, oh jeez, they don't want to have to pay $600 for a regular check up for their kids?

>>2077740
Austrian school economics probably resists data because data would falsify their claims. People often assert the rightness of certain political/ economic policies dogmatically without any recourse to the facts.
Austrian school economics is considered heterodox by mainstream economists. Even Keynesian economics is slightly outdated, hence the move to neo-Keynesian economics.
Mainstream economics is somewhere between a science and a pseudo-science. When they defend a political position without recourse to facts, it's a pseudo-science, but when predictions and prescriptions are based on data, economics is scientific.
Right now deregulation has failed. This doesn't mean it always will fail, or that regulation is always the answer, but it does mean all of us who wanted to remove all government control of the market were wrong and we should reconsider our views.

>>2077701
Bloated medical costs come from HMOs and government intervention on behalf of tying individuals to company protection plans.

Bloated mortgage rates due to the CRA and the Fed fucking around with interest rates.


You're telling us that the government is the answer to the problems the fucking government caused to begin with.

>>2077775
damn right I do.

The government shouldnt have to give anyone shit.

I came from a lower middle class family I am paying my damn way through college. Its hard but people just need to suck it up and deal.

You dont need a damn car every few years, you dont need tv and you dont need alot of crap people buy. I buy food, internet, and teh stuff I need for class and I enjoy the hell out of my life. Dont through that single mother crap in my face. You dont want kids wear a condom or get an abortion dont come cryin to the government cause you fucked up

>>2077832
>>2077705

Austrian School does not resist data and has a lot of empirical evidence. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Take a look at Business Cycle theory and see if it doesn't resemble recent events. Spoiler: if it doesn't, you're an idiot

>>2077847
>>2077849
I sense a lot of emotional language in these posts. I find when people dogmatically assert things without good support they get emotional. e.g. most political discussions.

Economics should be as disinterested as any other science. Justification for an economic policy should be based on a wide sample of empirical data, not a priori reasoning or individual cases and justification should be stated in a way that eschews emotional language.

>>2077849

Wow, surprise surprise, I too come from a lower middle class family. I'm not paying my way through college, the government is (woo military). But the problem with your argument is not everyone is smart enough to go through college. Not everyone is skilled enough to hold a high paying job. They can get these skills, but in the interim they cannot support themselves without financial assistance. This is where social programs come into play, like food stamps and the such. There are people who abuse the system, but the vast majority of people would gladly take a higher paying job over a low paying one or none with welfare. Most people I know who are on welfare are just scraping by as it is.

If you don't support things like welfare and WIC and such, then you are a greedy elitist piece of shit.

Fuck FDR and fuck universal medicare

I don't want the government picking what car I drive (and I do drive a car, eurofags), what shoes I wear or what house I live in. Why would I want them to pick my medical coverage?


Fuck that, and by the way FDR stole from people who saw the depression coming and forwent massive gains on the stock market by investing in gold. He illegalized ownership of gold, "nationalized" (read: stole) a ton of people's commodities because he needed them for his massive make work projects.

And by the way, the problem isn't capitalism, it's fractional reserve banking.

>>2077867
When Austrian school economists say a theory fits data they mean they took a historical event and interpreted it in light of their theory. It's ad hoc and not how science works. Real economists gather large samples of quantitative data and make falsifiable predictions based off the data. If their predictions were wrong their theory is disconfirmed. If their predictions were right, their theory gets some support.

The Austrian school is not something they teach in an economics classroom. Not where I'm at anyway. All my classes and studies have depicted Austrian school as outdated. It's like phrenology to psychology, or the four humors to medicine.

>>2077960
angry, passionate tone + argument by false analogy = support for >>2077909

>>2077960
You sound more like a conspiracy theorist than anyone with an ounce of credibility.

What's wrong with universal basic health care? If you want a better healthcare, buy one. Otherwise, basic health care would be fine so that people don't lose their job or life to something small because of money problems.

It seems more like the people that freak out over socialism are the same people that freaked out over the 250k tax plan Obama proposed. Namely, the people that do not understand what it actually means or people that will be unaffected and/or benefit from it.

>>2077960

If it's universal they're not picking it, you faggot, they're paying for it. It's not like a health plan you get at work where you can only go to participating practices.

Oh, and yes, everyone pays under universal health care. But everyone pays insurance anyway so this way there's no money wasted on advertising and everyone's covered.

>>2078041
>What's wrong with universal basic health care? If you want a better healthcare, buy one.
because it will raise costs on the better plan and force more people to be dependent on the government plan. which means less customers on the better plan... which leads to higher costs... i think you get the picture

FDR was such a fucking socialist. Should have gone with Hoover.

>>2077984

Austrian School is closer to political economy than it is to mainstream economics, much in the same manner as marxian economics. Which does not mean it is outdated, nor obsolete, nor useless. If you try reading up on it instead of just taking your teacher's word for everything you might discover interesting things.

>>2078108
You've never heard of lowest bidder have you? A universal system will force competitive rates other wise the medical insurance companies will have no business.

>>2078149
sure works for private schools amirite?

>>2078108
If you're saying a universal health care option will mean there is no private health care I think you're mistaken. Fedex does fine even though the US Postal service exists. There are private security firms even though we have publicly funded police. There are many instances where a government program and a private program compete without one driving the other out of the market. I guess I'm not sure why you're certain private health care won't last with a public option around?

ITT: americans who equals taxes to socialism

>>2078149

I live in a country with free universal healthcare and it happens exactly like >>2078108 said. The public healthcare system is absolute garbage, millions of people die thanks to innefficiency. Yet the private healthcare plans prefered to move to the elite markets and became more and more expensive.

>>2078187
not that it wont last, just that it will get even more prohibitively expensive.

>>2078181
You might as well start talking about the rich creating private hospitals to serve only the rich now. That's where you're heading.

>>2078195
Which one you seem to be lying.

I don't get why Rural residents and Republicans freak out so much. Metropolitan areas and liberal ares pay more taxes anyways.

lol the closest we shall get in America to Universal Health Care is Universal Healthcare insurance, which is Obama's plan.

>>2078261
Actually, red state rely on the federal government more than blue states. That's why they're called "red" states. Red as in SOCIALISM.

>>2078261
let them have city or statewide universal health care then and fuck the hell off about the rest of us.

>>2078234

Brazil. I think if the public healthcare system got gradually privatized it'd be better for the majority of the population. Public healthcare only works in tiny European countries. Also, fuck you for saying I'm lying. Stop buying all the shit you heard in Economics 101

>>2078219
Then I guess if you're right its this trade off where we have tons of uncovered people on one hand and health insurance if you can pay for it, or everyone's covered with a probably shitty health insurance plan and a prohibitively expensive but better insurance plan for those who can afford it.

I guess one problem with our system is how a system driven by profit is motivated to reject as many insurance claims as possible, which means a lot of people with coverage can't actually get health care.

Everyone who supports these socialist programs; go and give every person in Africa living on <$10 a month money until you have the same amount of money. Until then, get off your fucking high horse and stop being such a hypocrite.

>>2078388
You know nothing about socialism

>>2077658
>Austrian School

Austrian School of Economics is to Economics as Creation Science is to Science.

It's good to see some Austrian Bashing for a change.
Are the Paultards all sleeping?

>>2078428

How the fuck did it predict the current crisis then?

Marx advocated killing welfare bums.

True story.

>>2078483
By making a predition that was as vague as possible and then waiting for the first crisis to jump and claim to have predicted.
Economic crisis are inevitable, if there was another kind of crisis the Paultards would have adopted their theory to claim preddiction of that specific crisis.

Meh. To be honest, I'll probably never act on this idea in real life, just because in today's society it's morally unacceptable.. but here I am anyway.

Basically, socialism doesn't allow anyone to fail. In theory, amirite? It means everyone gets the healthcare they need, the food they need, the shelter they need, and the jobs they need.

However, this allows the individuals who are unfit and unsuccessful to be forcedly "successful". Now, this is assuming we're believers in evolution.. which I think it's safe to do, as most, I believe, are.

So, when we give the alcoholic money, when we give the person on welfare their check because they refuse to contribute, we weaken society, not only immediately, but also for the future. As people, we have effectively stopped natural selection from happening.

I suppose this is social Darwinism, in its purest. But the competition is what makes things better.

Both socialism and communism work best in small, tight-knit communities, where the people CARE about each other. This is simply not true on a large scale: how many people do you really care about? Do you really give a flying fuck about people starving around the world? I doubt it, even if you won't admit it.

This is not to say these magnanimous souls don't exist; they do, and they are amazing people. But the overwhelming majority of people want only what is good for them and their immediate relations.

Thus, any sort of communal society where wealth, or "success", is redistributed leads to the stagnation of that society.

>>2078493
Yeah, it's really sad that the modern "socialist" defends the lumpenproletariat instead of giving them what they deserve.

>>2078372
well if congress didnt pass that HMO act in the 70s we wouldnt have so many people whos full time job is to reject claims

>>2078541
its not like he said "guys bad things ar gonna happen trust me"

he said "here's whats going to happen, and here's what's going to cause it."

>>2078567
I like the ideas of socialism, but that doesn't include giving money to shiftless alcoholic bums who aren't doing their part.

There always needs to be a reward for innovation, and that can only come from an intrinsic motivation. Which is another way of saying FUCK YEAH ENTREPRENEURSHIP

>>2077658
Someone who actually has it correct for once.

The Auto Labor Union is one of the biggest reasons GM/Chrysler are going out of business without government help.

Good job socialism, you really do work...
LOL.

>>2078567

Social darwinism is retarded because it doesn't understand evolution. Evolution does not produce "better" organisms, it produces organisms that are fit to their environment. If the environment changes, they are no longer suited to it.

Likewise, competition does not always bring out the best in people or the best product. Cooperation is a major skill that you shouldn't overlook as much as you do.

Just because you don't care about someone doesn't mean you shouldn't help them out. If you meet someone, chances are you'll care about them once you spend more time with them. Or perhaps not. The people you care about have people they care about that you don't care about, and they have people that they care about and so on.

Alcoholics and substance abusers are that way because of ill-informed choices and social circumstances. You will never be completely rid of them, but they are people as much as you are and no, they should not "fail" because they can produce more good for the system when they don't. You need someone to purchase your product, you need someont to make the product, and if they're functioning they do good. When you ostracize them they make more negative choices because they have little else to choose besides death. In short, drop the misanthropy and review all your ideas.

>To this day the New Deal has had a positive outcome.

This is what morons actually believe.

Read some Amity Shlaes.

>>2078795
And you need to read a history book

I always find it so lulzy when people scream "wealth redistribution" when he wants to provide social services. Roads are wealth redistribution, so are schools and sewers, police and literally everything the government does. It is so beside the point it is ridiculous :/ People need to prove that with government providing whatever service people will be worse off than if they don't. I wouldn't want my firemen privatized but I sure as hell don't want my computer built by the government.

>>2078804
Neoconservatives don't believe in history. You anti-semite.

>>2078857
"Fuck you socialist Government! Don't fix my road! I like those pot holes and broken signs thank you very much!"

However, American socialism has always been about the basics. By basics, it literally mean basics. The opportunity to get housing, the opportunity for a job, the opportunity to get yourself better instead of being blindly turned away because you might not figure into someone's profit margin.

>>2078804
show me a history book that says the New Deal wasn't a failure and i'll show you a history book editor that needs to get fired

>>2080653
So you think all history books are wrong?

>>2080687
nope. every one that i've had said that the new deal did more to prolong the depression than fix it. what kind of clown show are your history classes running?

>>2078857
meh, much of that could be privatized and it would be better if not cheaper

The problem with socialism is that it puts power in government hands. More power to the government means less personal liberty, and in turn it leads down the long road to totalitarianism.

>>2080716
Hahaha, privatizing roads, schools, police, sewers? No, that would not be better.

>>2080762
Why is power in the hands of private corporations better?

>>2080762
The slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy.

>>2080762
Democracy is kool lets talk bout them

>>2079249
>>2077960

I honestly don't like socialism, but I do think that social programs are a good idea. They just need to be organized from the bottom up rather than from the top down. The government shouldn't force you to do anything. It should be completely voluntary and community-based.

>>2080808

At this point they are one in the same.

>>2080712
Well all of my history classes New Deal policies got us out of the depression. Where did you go to college sir?

>>2080784
After the bailout bill, government won't have the money to do public programs. Thats when infrastructure like roads will be privatized. Prisons will be privatized. Prisoners will be used to build our roads.

Unless if the president-elect takes it down or spends those hundred billions the right way--bottom up. Otherwise, have fun.

Just here to say that Communism > Socialism.

>>2080873

The bailout bill was blackmail. If the government didn't pay it, we would have ended up with a tanked economy and a dictatorship, although it seems we are heading that way already.

>>2080856
Except we have even less control over a private corporation than we do over the Federal government. And corporations aren't bound by a constitution.

>>2080873
ooookkkaaayyyy

>>2080862
Listen, there are people that want evolution thrown out of schools or only taught if creationism is as well. These are usually the same people that believe the New Deal was bad and that Reaganomics works.

>>2080862
world war 2 got us out of depression...

The OP is one of the big reasons why FDR was one of the worst presidents we ever had (WWII being the other major reason). He created an entitlement generation, which had the ripple effect of turning all subsequent generations into mindless dependents waiting for a handout. I used to think that things would improve once the "Greatest Generation" and the Boomers all bit the dust, but from the looks of things that won't be the case; we just elected another FDR.

>>2081014
I think it was your mothers vagina that got us out of the Great Depression. ZING!

>>2080987
Cute. I normally only hang out on /g/ and /jp/, but is /r9k/ always a smug circlejerk like this?

>>2081038
please GTFO and go back to /b/

>>2081059
>/g/
>/jp/
>smug circlejerk

>>2081014
Sure. WW2 destroyed most of the worlds economy, while magically helping America.

>>2081029
So we'll have a great economy, tones of job opportunities, and a boom of creative talent only to have it all wither away thanks to the kids that were born during that era and a resurgence of the Evangelical GOP or crazed Libertarians?

>>2081097
that is exactly what happened, as sad as that may be.

>>2081060
GTFO, and get a sense of humor.

>>2081134
if you call that humor then you REALLY need to GTFO.