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APIs should be non-discriminatory (other than usage caps of course).

I guess you mean that it's unfair to refuse to sell (uncapped) API rights to your competitors. This is known as refusal to deal and is an uncompetitive practice.

From TFA:

Unfortunately, Google has refused to allow Microsoft’s new Windows Phones to access this YouTube metadata in the same way that Android phones and iPhones do. As a result, Microsoft’s YouTube “app” on Windows Phones is basically just a browser displaying YouTube’s mobile Web site, without the rich functionality offered on competing phones. Microsoft is ready to release a high quality YouTube app for Windows Phone. We just need permission to access YouTube in the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to provide

So it seems that Google is refusing to give its competitors an equal level of access to the YouTube APIs.

Of course, this is a lawyer representing Microsoft talking, and we haven't heard what Google has to say about all this. But they could be treading on dangerous waters here, given that YouTube is such a crucial and powerful online service (whether it has monopoly or near-monopoly on IPTV is debateable.)

It's pretty easy to account, since government finances are mostly public. It doesn't really matter what a typical UK resident pays in taxes in total - you just look at the size of UK health budget, and divide it by the number of people.

Studies on the topic are numerous and easy to find online. Here is a commonly referenced aggregation of numbers from OECD, where the numbers come from their own more detailed study (OECD Health Data).

The OECD is not the UN, it is an international body http://www.oecd.org/about/membersandpartners/ The situation is that the OECD monitors elections all over the world, now they come to the US, a nation which set it up with the Europeans and tasked the OECD to monitor third world elections, and uneducated rednecks bully the diplomates and damage the international reputation of the United States, undermine their credibility and diplomatic weight. That is quite embarassing for the US.

The obesity rate for the United States is around 30% whereas it is 23% for the UK. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity. Other metrics tell a similar story. See e.g http://www.oecd.org/els/healthpoliciesanddata/theeconomicsofprevention.htm. This puts Great Britain as one of the highest obesity rates of any country in the world but still not nearly as bad as the United States.

Roads were not designed for cars - they were designed for horse and carts (think Roman times).

Then go back to the roman times and ride your bicycle.

Roads are designed for automobiles, but CAN be used by other types of traffic when allowed.

From the OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms:

Definition:
Line of communication (travelled way) using a stabilized base other than rails or air strips open to public traffic, primarily for the use of road motor vehicles running on their own wheels.

So once again, you're being arrogant and are just plain wrong. Roads are primary for motored vehicles and are not specifically designed for use by other traffic, but can be used by other traffic depending on the local area rules. AND when used by other forms of traffic, the other forms of traffic must adhere to the local motor vehicle regulations unless otherwise specified.

Where I'm from, cyclists in general ignore all motor vehicle rules and cause head aches for others that are following the rules. However, cyclists have one special rule stating that motor vehicles must give them a 1 metre berth, which was only enacted this year, that automatically make their stupidity the fault of the motor vehicle drivers. As our city councilors have discovered the 1 metre rule is falling apart because when a car is stopped, it cannot move to make room for cyclists who are ignoring traffic when they should also be stopped. It seems to be a big topic of debate right now as there's a municipal election October 10, and several candidates have promised to overturn the bylaw if elected. Not to sound cynical, but we all know what a politicians promise is worth and I'm sure the second they're elected they'll forget all about the issue.

They get exactly these.

Scientists have an interest in continued funding. They are also in the best position to justify the work that they do. If you actually want to argue about whether these are good cuts are bad, you need to address the substantive arguments they make: not throw around sweeping generalizations.

Intelligent managament is about adjusting and reallocating, not cutting across the board. The programs you list are not all equivalent: not in net economic cost (or benefit), not in social cost (or benefit), not in terms of efficiency, or any number of other things. The idea that no one wants to give up anything so "everyone has to give up something" is ideological claptrap that tars some programs with the perceptions of others. (In any case, the easiest way to achieve it is to raise taxes.)

If you actually look at the context of these cuts in Canada, it's pretty clear that they are not all motivated by cost-savings. They coincide with elimination of the manditory long-form census, seriously damaging the government's ability to masure the impacts of social programs. There are huge cuts in environmental science, including climate change monitoring and a unique experimental lakes study area. The amounts involved are small, but the targets line up perfectly with the politics of a governing party that depicts environmentalists as terrorists and whose economic priority is oil exports. And as it happens, Canada - one of the countries under discussion - does not have "massive" debt - at least not compared to other OECD countries.

For a "blue skies" project, consider the packet switching research carried out in the late 1950s at the National Physics Laboratory in the U.K. The government decided that every project should have a "customer" with an application. Packet switching didn't. It was cut back. The U.S. invented the Internet.

Per-capita has nothing to do with it, because that's not the pool Nobel candidates are drawn from. At least for the sciences, it might be reasonable to equate that pool with holders of doctoral degrees. Even that is probably too broad, but I'm not going to spend the time researching the number of researchers in each Nobel prize field in each country.

The OECD says "the share of doctorate holders in the population or labour force is two or three times larger in Germany and Switzerland than in Australia, Canada and the United States." Specifically, there are 8.4 doctorates/1000 in the US, and 23.0/1000 in Switzerland. Adjusting the GP's figures,

US 0.102/1000 doctorates
Switzerland 0.120/1000 doctorates

Which in turn, also needs adjustment for the rate of population change over the past century (mentioned in another post).

Someone else can dig for the other countries, but given the small sample size of Nobel prize winners, I don't see any significant difference between the US and Switzerland, and I don't think it's anything except a pissing contest, anyway.

Microwave? Really? I guess to assholes like this, you're not "poor" unless you're cooking your dinner over a trash fire while living in a box under the overpass.

OECD defines poverty line as An income level that is considered minimally sufficient to sustain a family in terms of food, housing, clothing, medical needs, and so on.

That's a bullshit definition, and I can prove it in two words: welfare recipients. How many welfare recipients do you know who can afford, solely on their own income without government assistance, any of those items listed by the OECD? The correct answer is, "not a damn one," since if they could afford food, and housing, and clothing, and medical needs, and "so on," whatever the hell that's supposed to mean, they wouldn't be on government assistance.

I could mention how the majority of foodstuffs in the price range available to the impoverished is designed to be prepared in a microwave (one I disagree with but is fact nonetheless), but something tells me that little factoid would fall on deaf ears.

Microwave? Really? I guess to assholes like this, you're not "poor" unless you're cooking your dinner over a trash fire while living in a box under the overpass.

OECD defines poverty line as An income level that is considered minimally sufficient to sustain a family in terms of food, housing, clothing, medical needs, and so on. I don't see there TV, cable, cell phone and car. And microwave neither.

That's right. Defect from the country that provided you with outstanding developers who were the end product of the best k-12 (and 12- 16 AND into adulthood) educational systems in the world

http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,3343,en_2649_201185_39700732_1_1_1_1,00.html

and who were willing to work for start-up wages and take risks because they weren't burdened with student loan debt:

From Wikipedia:

The Finnish education system is an egalitarian system, with no tuition fees and with free meals served to full-time students.

The present Finnish education system consists of well-funded and carefully thought out daycare programs (for babies and toddlers) and a one-year "pre-school" (or kindergarten for six-year olds); a nine-year compulsory basic comprehensive school (starting at age seven and ending at the age of sixteen); post-compulsory secondary general academic and vocational education; higher education (University and Polytechnical); and adult (lifelong, continuing) education.

The Nordic strategy for achieving equality and excellence in education has been based on constructing a publicly funded comprehensive school system without selecting, tracking, or streaming students during their common basic education.[1]

Part of the strategy has been to spread the school network so that pupils have a school near their homes whenever possible or, if this is not feasible, e.g. in rural areas, to provide free transportation to more widely dispersed schools. Inclusive special education within the classroom and instructional efforts to minimize low achievement are also typical of Nordic educational systems.[1]

Yes defect from that system you benefited from so you can save a measly 12.5% on taxes :

FTA:

The corporation tax rate in Finland is 24.5 per cent, while Ireland's rate is 12.5 per cent.

Yes do defect . Because that's coke n' whore money you could be putting up your fucking nose instead of giving it to the most effective and civic minded governments the world has ever known and supporting one of the most egalitarian societies the world has ever achieved. .

In truth, this happens all to time to Finland . Sports stars, recording stars etc etc defect to a low taxation country. They know about it and build in an allowance for it. They STILL like their society better , and as far as the loss of "talent" goes, they know how to print that shit on demand:

"Finland has reached number 1 or number 2, with very high rankings in reading literacy, mathematics and science. If one could make a calculation of the total, comparing different fields, Finland would be number 1. The country received very high marks in this international comparison of students," Finnish Ambassador to Thailand Sirpa Maenpaa told The Nation recently.

"Furthermore, the results that come from Finland are uniform. They do not come from some top students, but from the performance of all of the students," she said.

from:

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/09/28/national/national_30113177.php

For anyone interested in how the Scandinavians think about taxes, this is a great listen from Planet Money:

Quotable quote- an incredulous interviewer asks a woman "would you like your taxes to be even higher??" to which she replies "...mmmm .. what will I get for my money?"

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/01/podcast_tax_me_please.html

benefit by being situated in a country where (I presume is like the average European country) where good education and healthcare is quite accessible.

I don't know about healthcare in particular (although this being a Nordic Economic Model country, it's most likely good) but Finland's education is the best, even beating Fellow Nordics.[1]

It's level[2] is frequently top three, if not the first. And that's a country with NO private schools, and with system that does *not* urge absolute competition between students.

Got to admit, despite their other possible faults, Finns got this education shit covered.

Links:
[1]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8601207.stm
[2]: http://stats.oecd.org/PISA2009Profiles/

"But currently the problems in the other countries devalue the euro, meaning Germany gets to export at great prices."

Which means that greece could also export at great prices if they actually bothered to produce anything that anyone wanted.

Kind of. The point is that a single currency exacerbates differences in competitiveness, in a way which helps strong economies and hurts weak ones. In the case of the Euro, that means the Germans benefit and the Greeks get screwed.

"Basically, Germany gets a huge boost for free and pretends it's all due to working hard"

Rubbish - it is due to working hard.

Actually, according to the OECD the average Greek works 2109 hours per year and the average German only works 1419 (cite). Greece's problems have nothing to do with laziness, and Germany's strength has nothing to do with working hard. The problem is that a German worker produces far more per hour work than a Greek worker, without receiving proportionally greater compensation. Before the Euro, that kind of imbalance lead to the Drachma falling against the Deutschmark, which had the side-effect of making Greek exports cheaper and German exports more expensive, and hence at the very least ameliorating the current account deficit. Inside the Euro, that mechanism doesn't work, and you instead end up with a currency which is too cheap for the Germans and too dear for the Greeks. That acts as a subsidy for German exports, in the same way that the Chinese government's old policy of holding their currency down relative to the dollar makes it easier for their exporters to compete against American companies (or did, until the yuan started rising).

Meanwhile the greeks don't bother to pay their taxes then whine abd bitch like little children when finally it all goes t1ts up.

True, but a fiscal deficit is only mildly correlated with a current account deficit, or with competitiveness problems. If the only problem with the Greek economy was excessive government borrowing then it'd be a much easier thing to fix; a year or two of austerity and everything would be peachy again. The real problem is much more fundamental than that, and just burning the place to the ground won't actually help.

No sympathy. The greeks made their bed , well its time to lie down.

Because of course the aim of macroeconomics is to ensure that virtue is rewarded and sin is punished. Making useful stuff is entirely optional.

Less snarkily, anyone more than about ten years old will remember the Maastricht Stability and Growth Pact, which was the Eurozone's original chosen implement for preventing excessive government debts. It didn't work, in part because when the German economy got into trouble in ~2005 they responded with a stimulus package (admittedly, a modest one by today's standards, but still), and when the EC pointed out that that was a violation of the pact the German government (rightly) responded that cutting spending in the middle of a recession would destroy their economy and told the EC to go fuck themselves. After that, nobody really paid much attention to the deficit limits any more.

Admittedly, the S&G pact was a bloody stupid idea to begin with and everyone's better off now that it's dead, but the fact that even five years ago the Germans couldn't manage austerity during a much milder recession does rather undermine the theory that the Greeks are in trouble because they're sinful and the Germans are doing well because they're virtuous.

It's also kind of interesting to go back and look at press coverage around the time the currency was launched. I can't speak for the continent, but, at least in Britain, the most common opinion seemed to be that it was doomed because of government debt issues. Which you'd think would have been impressively prescient, except that the government with the dangerous debts back then was German.

Some relevant data here (per pupil spending):
US average - $10499
Alabama - $8870
California - $9657
Mississippi - $8075

You'd be surprised, but California is really not spending a lot on their kids either. The places that are spending a lot:
DC - $16408
New Jersey - $16271
New York - $18126
Alaska - $15552
Vermont - $15175

For comparison to your 2008-2009 data, here's the 2008 data for OECD countries (PPP so local cost of living is taken into account, data is from this page):

Australia - $7814
Canada - $8388
France - $8559
Germany - $7859
Italy - $9071
Japan - $8301
S. Korea - $6723
Poland - $4682 (the U.S. educational results are closest to Poland's)
Spain - $8522
Sweden - $9524
U.K. - $9169

Denmark - $10429
Austria - $10994
U.S. - $10995
Norway - $12070
Switzerland - $13775
Luxembourg - $16909

As for how the students perform in school vs. amount spent, refer to chart B7.2 on this spreadsheet. Basically, only Italy gets worse test results per dollar spent on each student. So yeah by U.S. standards California is "really not spending a lot on their kids". But compared to other OECD countries, California's spending is well above average. These results suck any way you cut them.

According to the OECD, U.S. tax revenues (federal, state and local combined) were 24.1% of GDP in 2009. Of the 34 countries they track, only Chile and Mexico collected a lower % of GDP in taxes.

In the UK it was 34.3% of GDP.

In Germany it was 37.3% of GDP.

In Switzerland it was 29.7% of GDP.

Everyone else in the developed world is paying MORE taxes than we are.

Source:
Spreadsheet: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/13/38/46721091.xls
Other OECD data: http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,3746,en_2649_34533_1942460_1_1_1_1,00.html

According to the OECD, U.S. tax revenues (federal, state and local combined) were 24.1% of GDP in 2009. Of the 34 countries they track, only Chile and Mexico collected a lower % of GDP in taxes.

In the UK it was 34.3% of GDP.

In Germany it was 37.3% of GDP.

In Switzerland it was 29.7% of GDP.

Everyone else in the developed world is paying MORE taxes than we are.

Source:
Spreadsheet: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/13/38/46721091.xls
Other OECD data: http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,3746,en_2649_34533_1942460_1_1_1_1,00.html

OECD data for Germany with it's "superb high speed, world class rail network" shows that less than 10% of passenger miles are by train, for example.
The story of superb European mass transit networks saving the planet from big oil/ greenhouse gases/traffic congestion is nothing more than a childish myth. The networks couldn't cope with a substantial move from the car to mass transit.
Germans like their cars, as do the French, Italians, British ... Like Americans, you will get their cars off of them over Iranians cold dead bodies.

Don't believe me? Go look it up yourself:
http://www.oecd.org/document/0,3746,en_2649_201185_46462759_1_1_1_1,00.html

Lots of handy stats there.

You keep saying "real prices," "real money," and "real value." As if what the market chooses to pay for things isn't the actual value of those items. What is your benchmark for "real" exactly?

and they are not producing anything, because manufacturing left the country

The U.S. is a mixed economy. Manufacturing hasn't been the dominant economic sector in a long time and it's only going to fall further behind. We will never be a significant world power in terms of making physical things again. We would do better to focus our efforts on sectors which are growing, like information (technology), finance, and services.

and manufacturing left because money is not good

No, manufacturing left because Americans demanded lower and lower prices on physical goods and the businesses were (rightfully) more than happy to shift production overseas so they could meet those lower price points and keep more profit at the same time.

inflation is killing savings and investment

Inflation is basically lower than it's been historically and it's trending downward. (source)

and taxes are historic high.

For the past few decades, the average effective tax rate has waffled between 20-25%. (source) The U.S. has lower tax revenue as a percentage of GDP than many (most?) other first-world nations. (source)

I live in Germany.
Where they have spent tens of billions upon tens of billions on what is a superb rail network which is still completely unable to compete with the car.

Rail in Germany has a tiny fraction (10%) of the passenger miles as the car. In fact it couldn't even cope with the traffic levels the car is capable of handling.

Stats available at:
http://www.oecd.org/

40% of Median Income:
=======================
14.9% Mexico
13.2% Israel
11.3% United States
11.2% Chile
10.1% Japan
10.0% Turkey
=======================
7.0% Canada
5.9% UK
4.9% Switzerland
4.2% Germany
3.4% France

Thanks for reinforcing the stereotype that Americans don't think about facts before they start screaming "We're #1!"

In this case, we are 33rd out of 36.

Even more productive Germans? My God...

Germans are #8

They also some 25% unemployment, most of it camouflaged by one of the Hartz-es, complain that the standards of living are going down, sold their some of the industrial sector ... and some of the banks, too ... to the Russians and the Chinese, and their banks did not crash yet only because the Greeks did not declare bankruptcy.

Oh, and the health care is not all-inclusive since the 80s ... their media blames the decline on the money spent on integrating East Germany, but the decline began some 10 years before that.

Spiegel was writing about whether Germany will enter recession or not as early as 2005 ...

find a German expat and ask him or her ... might change your mind about the european paradise. You don't have a "German problem" in the US like you thought you had in the 1850s only because it's a lot harder to emigrate if the only training you have is fit for the 1950s, and wasted 3 years or more pretending to be an "apprentice carpenter" or "bread salesman" or something similar ... There are two Germanies: a high tech corporate one that you see boozing in Thailand and the other, working dodgy jobs when not in a "retraining program", and blaming the dirty foreigners for everything.

About the 60%: http://www.oecd.org/document/45/0,3746,en_21571361_44315115_47822637_1_1_1_1,00.html ... (this OECD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_for_Economic_Co-operation_and_Development ) and that is only the taxes paid directly, you have to add the other contributions that pay for the "free" health care etc. and who are not considered taxes, VAT, the fuel tax (0.85 USD per _litre_ , that is, roughly speaking 3.5 USD for a gallon only in taxes). Most of the money go on agricultural subsidies, "export compensations" (that is the EU word for dumping), infrastructure subsidies for companies etc. ... and of course keeping the army of long term unemployed relatively healthy, fed, clothed and entertained with work training programs.

Germany had an average growth rate of under 2% during the last 30 years, compared with the over 3% for US, for example. The larger German corporations grew a lot more, but guess who paid for that ... the 1% you complain in US is a lot smaller in EU.

From the Economist, Female Labor Markets, http://www.economist.com/node/21539932
"In Sweden, Finland and Denmark, where women make up roughly half the labour force, their share in public-sector employment is a remarkable 70%."
&
"Women are concentrated in teaching, health care, clerical work, social care and sales; they are underrepresented in manual and production jobs, maths, physics, science and engineering and in managerial jobs, particularly at the senior end. They are also much more concentrated than men in just a few job categories. Half the employed women in rich countries work in just 12 of the 110 main occupations listed by the International Labour Office (ILO). The jobs in which men work are spread far more widely, from construction workers to top managers."

and

"Rich World" = ODBC
Cite: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/7/5/48111145.pdf
      See page 47 for more details.
Correction: 12 of the 110, not 120

hummm

http://www.oecd.org/document/58/0,3746,en_2649_201185_1889402_1_1_1_1,00.html

from the list - a lot ..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_charitable_countries (US = 19th).

Breakdown of US foreign aid by country (Warning this makes for confronting reading):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid

The top three recipients of US foreign aid: Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel. Remove the aid for these countries, and total US foreign aid contributions are easily outstripped by any number of OECD countries.

Notably, most reliable data does not include the breakdown of 'devleopment' relief versus humanitarian relief: see here: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/47/25/41724314.pdf

Note that 'bilateral development relief' means that the donor country attaches specific requirements to the aid, e.g. this aid is for a bridge, or power station, and it must be built by contractors from the donor country. Also not mentioned is the other purpose, which is simply to purchase influence. Which brings us to China. Why is China spending so much money in Africa?

http://www.cgdev.org/files/13953_file_Chinese_aid.pdf They are not being charitable, they are just purchasing votes from those countries in key contests. Consider what happened at the Copenhagen round of climate discussions - a major diplomatic loss for the west, and a major win for China. Why? Because China (or more accurately BRIC (Brazil/Russia/India/China) ) bought Africa.

By the relatively paucity of it's foreign aid budget, the US is effectively eating it's own young.

U.S. spending on public education per pupil is the 7th highest in the world (PDF warning), and above the OECD average as a percentage of GDP. We're spending more than enough money on education. As OP said, the problem is too much administrative overhead.

Let me rephrase: you are wasting money in the administration of the education and not enough on the education itself. And when budget-cutting is needed, you choose to cut from education (the benefit) instead of administration (cost).

Is the rewording correct?

U.S. spending on public education per pupil is the 7th highest in the world (PDF warning), and above the OECD average as a percentage of GDP. We're spending more than enough money on education. As OP said, the problem is too much administrative overhead. Every time teachers complain about being underpaid, the administration points the finger at Congress and says they need more money. Every time Congress suggests cuts to Education, the administration dumps the cuts on the teachers making them rise up in furious opposition. The problem is the people who need to be cut are in charge of what to cut, so they make sure that they themselves are never cut.

Here, this'll discourage you :

"Belgium is the OECD country that levies the highest tax and social security burden on the labour income of single taxpayers, whether they have low, average or high earnings."

Now you know why we produce so much beer, it's to drown our sorrows.

Last I checked, Austria's economy was going quite well. They weathered the financial crisis while keeping the unemployment rate at 4.3%. Their debt to GPD ratio is at 72%, which is a bit high but still not as high as the US's 96%.

Of course, Austrian Economics is a bit of an odd way of looking at things but it does explain in part why the markets collapsed even though inflation was in check. Basically, the inflation is maintained artificially low due to the monetary policies of the Fed; the cash injections and lending practices in place keep the inflation rate in check but doesn't stop the factors leading to financial collapse. This in turn tricks Keynesian economists into thinking that the economy is going well, because according to their models, it is... until it implodes on itself, like we've just seen.

Three of those 4 languages are of very little use unless you don't mind being confined to western Europe.

French is useful outside of Western Europe too.

While Dutch kids spend those 12+ hours a week learning geographically confined languages like Dutch, French and German, native English speaking kids have 12+ extra hours a week to learn more useful things, and still be able to communicate more effectively and with more people than someone who is fluent in Dutch and speaks some French, German and English. American kids can take classes like art, drama, debating, literature etc. and play in the school band. Do you think kids who are forced to study three foreign languages have time for this?

In the last PISA ranking, Dutch kids outscored American kids in all categories, despite being disadvantaged with 12+ hours a week of "learning less useful things" (i.e. languages). To be fair, PISA checked only reading, maths, and science, which, like language learning, are typical "left brain" subjects.

Worse still, try to find an adult who still knows those foreign languages (other than the same basic English half the world speaks) a few years after their graduation.

I work with Dutch adults who are equally fluent in English, German|French, and Dutch. They're in their 40s and 50s, and have graduated from school for more than a few years. I didn't even have to try to find them.

from the NATO document: http://www.nato-pa.int/default.asp?SHORTCUT=2443

[37] Reducing Systemic Cybersecurity Risk, OECD/IFP Project on “Future Global Shocks”. ”. By Peter Sommer and Ian Brown. January 2011.

“Reducing Systemic Cybersecurity Risk”

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/44/46889922.pdf

I think the NATO paragraph is supposed to paraphrase this quote on p32:

"The main practical limitations to hacktivism are that the longer the attack persists the more likely it is that counter-measures are developed and put in place, perpetrators identified, and groups penetrated by law enforcement investigators."

That's pretty much poppycock. The US global tax rate is currently something like 15% of GDP right now, which is the lowest it has been since the days of Hoover. Economic measurements generally suggest that revenues increase up to about a 50% tax rate.

See Hauser's Law for a refutation of your claim. Actual economic data from the US shows that the Federal Government typically gets ~20% of the GDP as tax receipts, and it's independent of marginal tax rates. Recessions tend to damp the GDP, and massive deficit spending further retards private-sector GDP (typically a dollar spent by the Government for stimulus will gain you about $0.60 in actual GDP growth), meaning lowering to the tax rate. But over the longer term (3+ year periods) it tends to be 20% - in high or low tax rate times.

However, there is strong evidence that cutting the top marginal and corporate tax rates will stimulate GDP growth, meaning more absolute dollars flow to the Federal Government (Hauser's Law applied to the larger GDP from the tax cuts).

I guess that made the Soviet Union not a government, then. The Soviet Union owned every enterprise and so "produced" a lot of stuff, and its tax (turnover tax, to be precise) was just an accounting measure, no different than the administrative department of a corporation acquiring money from the other departments.

Oh, and since we're talking about the Soviet Union: you know the delightful free market? The shock doctrine to implement it cut Russia's GDP in half in an instant. The market you so praise needed 17 years to get back to zero. The competition provided by the market provided great incentives to asset-strip in the face of a destabilizing state: those who did ended up with stable money abroad, and those who didn't got bought up by the oligarchs who did.

You'll probably say that since the USSR produced stuff inefficiently, it didn't actually produce anything, but by the same reasoning, I could say that since the productivity (GDP/work hour) of certain Scandinavian mixed economies (and Belgium) are much greater than the US, mixed economy is more effective than a mostly free economy and so your conclusion doesn't hold. Or I could take it even further and say that by that reasoning, it's impossible to know whether a certain mode of production actually produces anything, because there might be some yet-unknown feasible method that would do better, which would mean the method already in use isn't productive at all.

We are not pushing our ethics, a number of other countries, representing 80% of the world's trade, see bribery as a problem as well. The US signed a treaty with 33 other countries of the OECD and has "arrangements" with others covering bribery. Our statutes covering this are in International Anti-Bribery Act of 1998 Fines of up to $100,000 and terms of up to 5 years are applicable to individuals found guilty of bribery of officials. If the company you work for does international business your sales department has probably been trained in the personal and corporate consequences of violations.

They generally finish with the corporation before they go after the individuals, hopefully we will be hearing about them in a few years.

This is called socialism and has been tried the world over many many times and NEVER works. Technology usually leads to more different forms of work.

Spoken like a true Anonymous Coward! At least you have enough education to read your talking point card.

As the OP argued in his post spending Government money on long-term research (not something considered by most corporations these days, with quarterly profits to attend to) has been proven to provide powerful benefits (like this little ARPA project that you are using to disseminate your opinion).

The problem with just trusting in American corporations and unregulated capitalism to provide jobs, and a decent standard of living, to Americans is the technology does lead to different forms of work, but technology plus low wages leads to bigger corporate profits, so the jobs go overseas.

Socialist policies (by American standards) never, ever work - except of course in every other industrialized country in the world. These policies aren't in the interest of the Murdochs and Kochs of the world, so constant demonization is required to hide the fact that alternatives to the American corporatist approach do work better for the workers.

BTW - did you realize that Americans now work longer hours than even the Japanese? Only emerging economies work longer hours than the U.S. - check the OECD stats . There are already several industrialized nations (Netherlands, Denmark for example) that work shorter hours and have higher real wages than the U.S. Too small to count? Well Sweden and France, those cesspools of socialism, work shorter hours and have real wages almost exactly the same as the U.S. and the trend is going against America.

Constantly shouting "We're number one!" while already in the number three or four slot ensures we will meet numbers 5,6,7, etc. going up as we go farther and farther down.

I'm a native born American, and I'm here to tell you that we have much less social mobility then we like to pretend we do. There was a recent report done on social mobility in industrialized western nations. The U.S. ranks well below Denmark, Australia, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany and Spain in terms of societal mobility. Sorry to burst your American Dream bubble, but we do have an aristocracy. While they willingly absorb the occasional genius commoner, they have a social network that keeps the established positions of power and influence for those within the aristocracy. That's why over 2/3rds of congress are millionaires. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/2/7/45002641.pdf

I'd much rather see a comparison and insight into why Asian countries are so far ahead of the relatively small and well off European nations. There must be some key cultural differences.

The Netherlands has the highest broadband penetration in the European Union. According to the OECD, in 2009 DSL was available to approximately 100 % of the population.

That means Asia isn't ahead of us - we beat South Korea (and all other Asian countries) with our figures from 2008; we probably have an even higher percentage now.

Hey that topspot is shared with Denmark =), but in fact, according to the OECD numbers from june 2010, the top 30 broadband per inhabitant list, have 22 european and only 2 asian nations (Japan and Korea). Japan and Korea does however have some of the fastest and cheapest internet (advertised, not actual measurements) http://www.oecd.org/document/54/0,3343,en_2649_34225_38690102_1_1_1_1,00.html#Penetration

...best this, best that, best educated population (on average)...

*screeech*

OECD ranked the US dead last in reading, maths and science in 2009.

I see you failed to comment or notice the fact that a great many of the countries with the highest income and longest life expectancy are in fact European countries with heavy market regulation (social-democracies). Some of the richest and most productive nations happen to be the Northern European countries which are very "socialist" [in American terms]. In Scandinavia we tend to see ourselves as the "third way", a balanced mix of both systems.

I'm not advocating any ideology or economic system but I think your conclusion is a bit one sided and not in line with the facts.

P.S. I'm a citizen of a wealthy, social-democratic, Scandinavian nation, according to the OECD the citizens of my country are more productive than the average US citizen (127%). You can look up the data yourself at http://stats.oecd.org/ and the report "Productivity levels and GDP per capita".

I see you failed to comment or notice the fact that a great many of the countries with the highest income and longest life expectancy are in fact European countries with heavy market regulation (social-democracies). Some of the richest and most productive nations happen to be the Northern European countries which are very "socialist" [in American terms]. In Scandinavia we tend to see ourselves as the "third way", a balanced mix of both systems.

I'm not advocating any ideology or economic system but I think your conclusion is a bit one sided and not in line with the facts.

P.S. I'm a citizen of a wealthy, social-democratic, Scandinavian nation, according to the OECD the citizens of my country are more productive than the average US citizen (127%). You can look up the data yourself at http://stats.oecd.org/ and the report "Productivity levels and GDP per capita".

You guys love tax cuts for the rich, you will note Republicans want to repeal the tax cuts for the middle class.

As for AIDS funding, our paltry donations were hardly enough to have bankrupted Vanuatu. Nine billion? Chump change. And Bush did it? Wow, amazing how congress was to blame for going to war and ruining the economy, but for THIS, Bush gets credit. Did we come close to meeting the UN goals for aid to Africa of 0.7% of GNI? No. Did other countries? Yes, they did.

http://www.oecd.org/document/49/0,2340,en_2649_201185_38341265_1_1_1_1,00.html

Letting business keep more money would only help if business invested it in creating new jobs in America, but there is no demand here, and so despite record profits for Wall Street this year, we have seen no real increase in job creation. The rich hoard the money, spend it on luxuries manufactured overseas, or invest it overseas where desperate workers are ready for the slaughter.

It is ALL about giving the filthy rich the wealth created by the productive class, that is, the working class that creates all real tangible value. All Republican policies have the same goal: making the poor more desperate so they will accept even worse mistreatment from their bosses. Republicans are "cheap labor conservatives" as their policies are designed to provide the rich with cheap labor, be it here or overseas.

You gonna offer up evidence for that accusation?

Perhaps it is no longer enforced, but it appears to be on the books:

Injury to religious sentiment
173. If a person does any of the following, then he is liable to one year imprisonment:
(1) he publishes a publication that is liable crudely to offend the religious faith or sentiment of others;
(2) he voices in a public place and in the hearing of another person any word or sound that is liable crudely to offend the religious faith or sentiment of others.

Taken from this PDF document.
Am I misunderstanding something? That seems to be pretty close to a blasphemy law. "Any word or sound" is pretty strong language. I was surprised to see it.

Article 170: PENAL LAW 5737-1977 - SIXTH EDITION
Article Seven: Offenses against Religious Sentiment and Tradition

Insult to religion
170. If a person destroys, damages or desecrates a place of worship or any object which is held sacred by a group of persons, with the intention of to reviling their religion, or in the knowledge that they are liable to deem that act an insult to their religion, then he is liable to three years imprisonment.

Injury to religious sentiment
173. If a person does any of the following, then he is liable to one year imprisonment:
(1) he publishes a publication that is liable crudely to offend the religious faith or sentiment of others;
(2) he voices in a public place and in the hearing of another person any word or sound that is liable crudely to offend the religious faith or sentiment of others.

Penal Law 5737-1977.

So, it looks like blasphemy IS illegal, but not really enforced. Which is fine. The US has a lot of ridiculous laws from the 18th and 19th centuries that have never really been repealed.

In Israel, blasphemy is covered by Articles 170 and 173 of the penal code.

Blasphemy Laws: Israel.

So let's go straight to the source and check Articles 170 and 173!

Article 170: PENAL LAW 5737-1977 - SIXTH EDITION

Article Seven: Offenses against Religious Sentiment and Tradition
Insult to religion
170. If a person destroys, damages or desecrates a place of worship or any object which is held sacred by a group of persons, with the intention of to reviling their religion, or in the knowledge that they are liable to deem that act an insult to their religion, then he is liable to three years imprisonment.

Injury to religious sentiment
173. If a person does any of the following, then he is liable to one year imprisonment:
(1) he publishes a publication that is liable crudely to offend the religious faith or sentiment of others;
(2) he voices in a public place and in the hearing of another person any word or sound that is liable crudely to offend the religious faith or sentiment of others.

Penal Law 5737-1977. (Link goes to a PDF file)

United States L= 78.0, im= 6.4, cost $7290, 16.0% of GDP
Canada L= 80.3, im= 4.6, cost $3895, 10.1% of GDP
.
Austria L= 79.2, im= 4.5, cost $3763, 10.1% of GDP
United Kingdom L= 78.7, im= 5.0, cost $2992, 8.4% of GDP
Denmark L= 78.0, im= 4.5, cost $3362, 10.4% of GDP
Finland L= 78.7, im= 3.5, cost $2840, 8.2% of GDP
France L= 79.9, im= 4.2, cost $4763, 11.0% of GDP
Germany L= 79.0, im= 4.1, cost $3527, 10.4% of GDP
Greece L= 79.4, im= 5.3, cost $2727, 9.6% of GDP
Italy L= 79.9, im= 5.7, cost $2686, 8.7% of GDP
Norway L= 79.7, im= 3.6, cost $4763, 8.9% of GDP
Spain L= 79.8, im= 4.3, cost $2671, 8.5% of GDP
Sweden L= 80.6, im= 2.8, cost $3323, 9.1% of GDP
Switzerland L= 80.6, im= 4.3, cost $4417, 10.8% of GDP
Ireland L= 77.9, im= 5.2, cost $3424, 7.6% of GDP
Portugal L= 77.9, im= 4.9, cost $2150, 9.9% of GDP

USA is not worst in class; Ireland and Portugal both have slightly lower life expectancy.

The study cited in TFA only discusses US citizens 65 and above, i.e. those benefiting from nationalized public health care in the form of Medicare. I think the data unequivocally says that people with life-long national health care almost always live longer, and get much more bang for their health care buck.

Canadian life expectancy = 80.3 years, UK ife expectancy = 78.7 years, and US life expectancy = 78.0 years (in 2007) according to http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html and that's because Canada and the UK have life-long public health care.

But when medicare starts to cover US citizens at age 65, suddenly US citizens have a much better outlook. US citizens lucky enough to survive until age 65 and receive medicare coverage have a longer life expectancy than their British peers.

Actually, if you go back and study the data at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html and http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/33/38979719.pdf you'll discover that the US has both higher infant mortality and lower life expectancy than Canada and almost every developed European democracy (even Germany who absorbed the disaster known as East Germany a few decades back). For what its worth, the US also pays much more per capita for their lower life expectancies. I wonder if this data would change anyone's mind about the benefits of health care reform...

I hate to break it to you but there is no such agreement.

The exact scope of the Western world is somewhat subjective in nature, depending on whether cultural, economic, spiritual or political criteria are employed.

From a cultural point of view Brazil could very well belong to the West, however that is not what is being challenged here [in my opinion].

The obvious cultural, economic and political differences between Brazil and what is known today as described by the term "the West" (Western Europe, North America, Israel, Australia and New Zealand) are clear. Corruption is endemic, the justice system incapable, crime rates sky high, racial discrimination heavy, wealth distribution skewed.

It would perhaps be more pertinent to discuss this in light of Brazil's present and future economic situation.

As of today Brazil is not a developed country according to the IMF, OECD or the UN.

It is perhaps most clear when considering the unequal nature of Brazilian society and Brazil's ranking according to the Human Development index. Brazil is ranked far below the average OECD country (Figure #1).

I think the report speaks for itself: "By looking at some of the most fundamental aspects of people’s lives and opportunities the HDI provides a much more complete picture of a country's development than other indicators, such as GDP per capita."

The first poll is crap. The popularity of a university's web page have no bearing on the quality of its education and research performed. Until recently most German universities added their web pages as an afterthought and they were maintained by some IT admin sitting in a basement. I know that from first hand source having a friend working as IT admin at the University of Heidelberg. Having graduated there I always found its abysmally bad web presence a constant source of embarrassment.

There are some objective polls measuring research effectiveness using solid and well defined measures. And as one would expect the top tier well funded US research universities have a strong showing.

Yet, there is no strict correlation between good research and good education. Scanning the rankings listed in the related wikipedia entry does not show anything equivalent to the PISA effort for college level education.

The US does dismal in the PISA rankings despite of course the existence of some outstanding private and public high schools. In the same vein the fact that the US hosts a good dozen of the best research universities tells us little to nothing of how the gross of the US colleges are holding up in international comparison. The only thing we can be certain off is that it costs much more than in many other places to get an advanced degree (i.e. Canada, Europe).

Everyone who responds to the density debate seems to have glossed over it without much thought, and Copponex here seems to have done just that.

Instead of focusing on averages, let's take a look at how many metropolitan MARKETS are in each nation. To do this, let's look at only HALF of the country's population. Why half? Because if I did 70% or 80%, the numbers would be so unfair to the US that most of those against the density argument would cry foul. So, I'll water down the debate.

Here's a chart, listing country by total population, number of metropolitan areas to make up 50% of population and sorted by Broadband penetration rates (OECD).

Netherlands - 16.6 Million - 6 - 38%
Denmark - 5.5 Million - 2 - 37%
Norway - 4.8 Million - 4 - 35%
Switzerland - 7.8 Million - 6 - 34%
Iceland - 0.3 Million - 1 - 33%
Sweden - 9.3 Million - 7 - 32%
Luxembourg - 0.5 Million - 3 - 31%
France - 65.4 Million - 19 - 30%
United Kingdom - 62 Million - 23 - 30%
Belgium - 10.8 Million - 4 - 28%
United States - 309 Million - 58 - 27%

The number of markets seems to correlate with lower penetration, according to OECD numbers. Even more interesting is what happens when you look at the amount of area represented by this 50%. A quick comparison between the US and Sweden, show's more perspective.

Half of Sweden's population lives on 10.08% of the country's land (according to OECD) while it's 13.91% in the USA. Doesn't seem like much when looking at the percentages, but that 3.82% difference is actually 375,378 square kilometers (9,826,675 * 0.0382) of US soil. Sweden is only 449,964 square kilometers, so the Swedish 50% network is only 48,596 square kilometers.

That makes the difference nearly 8 Swedens represented (375,378/48,596=7.72) and the entire USA network is equal to 28 Swedens.

Now, there are 7 metropolitans for Sweden's 50%, which means the average metropolitan size is around 7000 square kms (48596/7=6942). USA has 58 metropolitans for it's 50%, which means the average metropolitan size is around 24,000 square kms (1366890/58=23567).

Comparing countries with average city sizes less than a third smaller (6942/23567=0.2945) is incredibly unfair. Building a physical network across areas three times the size AND still on par with the rest makes the USA the leader in my opinion.

Source of most statistics: http://www.oecd.org/document/54/0,3343,en_2649_34225_38690102_1_1_1_1,00.html

OECD data that shows countries with universal healthcare spend less and have better outcomes in quite a few important metrics.

Here's a summary for the US: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/2/38980580.pdf

Not to put too fine a point on it, but libertarians live in a fantasy land. They talk theory, when hard data has been available for years. Empiricism > Wankery.