BF2S Forums Presidential Election 2016

Jay wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Jay wrote:

Probably because they're not socialist.

Which countries aren't socialist?

Are we really going to have to explain the difference between communism and social democracy to you again?

Please educate yourself, this is tedious.

I'd suggest you do visit these places but then you'll just come back with "hurr durr they weren't all wearing overalls and clutching a book so clearly they aren't socialist"

What makes scandinavia socialist? Aside from Norway's Statoil, what industries are nationalized?

The fact that they nationalized their energy system is a big deal. That would be the equivalent of 10% of U.S. GDP, 5% of total employment, and $2 trillion dollars.

Jay wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Jay wrote:

What makes scandinavia socialist? Aside from Norway's Statoil, what industries are nationalized?

The fact that they nationalized their energy system is a big deal. That would be the equivalent of 10% of U.S. GDP, 5% of total employment, and $2 trillion dollars.

Ok, and? Government spending is already 34% of GDP in the US.

Government spending as part of GDP in Norway is 50%, probably more now.

https://data.oecd.org/norway.htm

Jay wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Jay wrote:

Ok, and? Government spending is already 34% of GDP in the US.

Government spending as part of GDP in Norway is 50%, probably more now.

https://data.oecd.org/norway.htm

Awesome for them! Too bad the North Sea is running out of oil.

I think they made the right investments in education and infrastructure to mitigate the collapse in oil prices that has been going on for over half a decade already anyway. What has the U.S. done with our oil wealth?

Jay wrote:

Awesome for them! Too bad the North Sea is running out of oil.

America has no real exports apart from debt.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

I don't think you'll find a "leftist" that agrees with regulatory capture.

In the 80's before the breakup of Ma Bell, there was a long running argument that a well regulated monopoly was better than a telecommunication free market free for all.

thats FDR level (forgive me here) liberalism. We can have the discussion about the patches made to the system and the broader results if you want, but those measures are clearly capitalistic corrections and solutions,.

I agree that a regulated monopoly is a type of liberal intervention into the market as opposed to something like a government run telecommunications network which is what a lot of lefties want nowadays. Public run internet and cellphone service would be good for some parts of the market anyway too. Google, Amazon, Facebook, and others would probably be happy for the government to spend tax money upgrading and maintaining the networks they use to sell ads, Chinese products, and data hosting in the case of Amazon Web Services.

FDR's economic position is so complicated. He was born wealthy and obviously didn't believe "billionaires shouldn't exist" or something. But the parts of the New Deal that survived the SCOTUS were far beyond anything that has taken place in a long time. He would have gone farther too if he had managed to stack the SCOTUS like he wanted to. And there is some truth to the fact that the New Deal was fascist/communist like people said. The Soviet Union was the first major western nation to practice central planning. The fascist got the idea from the communist and their success encouraged Americans to follow along.

But this is all too much nuance for Jay who considers FDR to be the worst president we ever had right next to Obama.

Jay wrote:

Anyway, as i said, comparing across the entire country is not a good measure. I would say there are pockets of inequality, but there's nothing preventing people from moving to new opportunities.

erm, you do realise that describes every country on those graphs and statistics, anyway? what, do you think Lapland is a hotbed of opportunity? every country has pockets of inequality and underdevelopment; there's more to social mobility metrics than relocating to the nearest metropolitan centre.

this whole 'nothing preventing people moving to find opportunities' logic of yours never makes rock-solid sense, either: you yourself have said you won't move because of family ties and kin networks. erm, hello?

i guess capitalism works well: look at all those phillipina mothers who travel around the world to be cleaners, leaving behind their children 1,000s of km's away! if you want to improve, just move! it's simples.

glad we established that scandinavia's high tax and high spend model has created far more stability, security and mobility than america's no-safety-net wild west. how many people do you think have been bankrupted by covid in sweden?

Lmao

trump looked very unwell at that address at west point or wherever it was. it took him like 4 minutes to descend a very slight ramp.



that and the not-being-able-to-control-his-arm thing.

https://twitter.com/BandyXLee1/status/1 … wsrc%5Etfw



speculating about the health of presidents and presidential candidates seems to be a new american sport. why are they all so fucking old?

Yeah, I'm sure Xinping will retire next year.

Absolutely crazy

Donald Trump’s niece, his deceased brother’s daughter, is set to publish a tell-all book this summer that will detail “harrowing and salacious” stories about the president, according to people with knowledge of the project.

Mary Trump, 55, the daughter of Fred Trump Jr. and eldest grandchild of Fred Trump Sr., is scheduled to release Too Much And Never Enough on Aug. 11, just weeks before the Republican National Convention.

One of the most explosive revelations Mary will detail in the book, according to people familiar with the matter, is how she played a critical role helping The New York Times print startling revelations about Trump’s taxes, including how he was involved in “fraudulent” tax schemes and had received more than $400 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire.

As she is set to outline in her book, Mary was a primary source for the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation, supplying Fred Trump Sr.’s tax returns and other highly confidential family financial documentation to the paper.

Also she might actually be a transgender person.

Can Donald Trump even hold up an umbrella these days?

Pochsy wrote:

So what's the sense of the Americans on this forum for November? Donald have a shot? I really can't read American politics because what I see by the time news reaches Canada is so divorced from what Joe Dirt in Kansas believes. I get the over-analysed refined sugar that really doesn't reflect what's living in the gut biome of the red bloods.

I think he'll win reelection. Biden sucks too much and is honestly too much like Trump to excite anyone.

Pochsy wrote:

Oh that's new to me--what about Biden reminds you of Trump? I think of Biden as working his hardest to be the safe unoffensive option. His basic strategy is to be as boring as possible and as little like Hilary as possible to secure the win.

You don't know about Creepy Joe Biden? Even some of the left wing press is convinced he has dementia at this point.