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Oh, you need more? How about asking Hillary what this magical "Fair Share" is that she keeps telling everyone we should be paying. Here is a hint, if she does not give you a number and we already pay the highest taxes in the world it's probably 100%. She want's fossil fuels to become stranded resources. How do we power a country with no assets exactly?

Since when does the US pay the highest personal taxes in the world? Not even close...

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org...
http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

If you are referring to the corporate tax rate, it may be around the 2nd highest but I guarantee you that not one company pays that rate due to write offs, tax deductions, and loopholes.

http://taxfoundation.org/artic...

By what measure have the last 8 years sucked? Just curious, but please be objective and stick to the facts.

Stock market did well: http://www.macrotrends.net/135...
GDP slowly rising: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...
Unemployment steadily decreasing http://data.bls.gov/timeseries...
Steadily decreasing gas prices: https://blog.gasbuddy.com/Reta...
Believe it or not, decreasing crime rate: http://www.nationalreview.com/...
No major new gun control laws or other major trampling of the constitution
Many additional safeguards on disadvantaged segments of the population
And finally a reasonable record of kept campaign promises: http://www.politifact.com/trut...

To be sure not a perfect record; for example:
Middle East and Syria in particular - probably would have happened regardless
Relations with Russia and China - hard to say what could have been done differently
"Affordable" Health Care Act - although we couldn't live with what we had we should have done better. At least children are covered now...
Education - we owe our children and future more
Care for the environment - oils spills and global warming
Race relations and policing - Black Lives Matter

If you want to pin a failure on Barack Obama, blame him for not finding a way to reach out to congress - let's face it that situation is f'd up. Barack can't get an A on his report card because he failed that test. While maybe the most powerful person around, the president of the US certainly is not omnipotent. I challenge anybody to say they could have really done better.

The number I took is from:
http://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fak...
"In recent years the tax burden in Sweden dropped slightly , but we are still above the OECD average. The tax burden or tax ratio , calculated as the ratio of total tax revenues and GDP."

I would assume it counted everything and _I_ don't count anything it's a number which already existed.

Government spending per GDP says 38.10% here:
http://www.tradingeconomics.co...
Don't you have any public taxes and spending beyond what the government spend? No state taxes and spending? As far as taxation goes I think VAT should be included?

This number is _SPENDING_ though, not _TAXATION_, and as we know the US budget is running at a huge national deficit.

Debt as percent of GDP 2015
USA - 104.17% (76% in 2008.)
Finland - 63.1% (32.7% in 2008.)
Sweden - 43.4% (36.8% in 2008.)
Denmark - 40.2% (33.4% in 2008.)
(This site was used: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...)

So even if the US spend 41% of the GDP it doesn't _TAX_ that much. Though the difference between 2010-2015 relative GDP is very low, from 2007 to 2010 the debt increased from 64.8% to 95.2% of the GDP (which most likely fell during the same period though..), USA may have at-least some of it back with their strong and growing economy now though.

Quite a difference in the amount of debt. The Swedish house-holds have lots in debt though.

https://data.oecd.org/hha/hous...:
Household debt - Total, % of net disposable income, 2014:
Denmark - 308%
Sweden - 174%
Finland - 127%
United states - 113%

(Hopefully you own something worth it for all that debt ..)

Estonia household debt sat at 83%, they have a governmental debt of just 9.7%, complete tax pressure (above) of 32.9% and spent their 2% of GDP on the military just like NATO wishes. They are the only country which follow both the Euro zone rules for their public debt and the NATO rule for military spending.
May be a very well run country. What Sweden should have been (I doubt they look up at Sweden now any longer.. Or Estonian friends :))

The number I took is from:
http://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fak...
"In recent years the tax burden in Sweden dropped slightly , but we are still above the OECD average. The tax burden or tax ratio , calculated as the ratio of total tax revenues and GDP."

I would assume it counted everything and _I_ don't count anything it's a number which already existed.

Government spending per GDP says 38.10% here:
http://www.tradingeconomics.co...
Don't you have any public taxes and spending beyond what the government spend? No state taxes and spending? As far as taxation goes I think VAT should be included?

This number is _SPENDING_ though, not _TAXATION_, and as we know the US budget is running at a huge national deficit.

Debt as percent of GDP 2015
USA - 104.17% (76% in 2008.)
Finland - 63.1% (32.7% in 2008.)
Sweden - 43.4% (36.8% in 2008.)
Denmark - 40.2% (33.4% in 2008.)
(This site was used: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...)

So even if the US spend 41% of the GDP it doesn't _TAX_ that much. Though the difference between 2010-2015 relative GDP is very low, from 2007 to 2010 the debt increased from 64.8% to 95.2% of the GDP (which most likely fell during the same period though..), USA may have at-least some of it back with their strong and growing economy now though.

Quite a difference in the amount of debt. The Swedish house-holds have lots in debt though.

https://data.oecd.org/hha/hous...:
Household debt - Total, % of net disposable income, 2014:
Denmark - 308%
Sweden - 174%
Finland - 127%
United states - 113%

(Hopefully you own something worth it for all that debt ..)

Estonia household debt sat at 83%, they have a governmental debt of just 9.7%, complete tax pressure (above) of 32.9% and spent their 2% of GDP on the military just like NATO wishes. They are the only country which follow both the Euro zone rules for their public debt and the NATO rule for military spending.
May be a very well run country. What Sweden should have been (I doubt they look up at Sweden now any longer.. Or Estonian friends :))

Yes and absolutely no foreign capital never ever comes into this country /sarcasm

Ever heard of the Trade Deficit? http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

You really have no idea how horribly funny you are. Do you think the Chinese are sitting on a giant pile of dollars ?

Here's our capital account surplus

https://www.fin.gc.ca/budget05...

I eagerly await your reply on how either the lizard men or the underpants gnomes are stealing our capital inflows.

Yes and absolutely no foreign capital never ever comes into this country /sarcasm

Ever heard of the Trade Deficit? http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

I really don't argue religion with people.

That's nice, but back to the topic at hand, in a globalised economy, trickle down invariably ends up as trickle out, since the rich will find cheaper suppliers abroad (Why build a house in my neighbourhood if I can build 10 houses in China for the same price, and get better returns?)
If you are going to give handouts to stimulate the local economy, give it to the people who will spend it locally.

Sure, but as the other response (regarding empty houses, just demolish them and return the land to forest) conflated shrinking with small, I think I need to reiterate:

If your population is massive, then what is the problem with allowing it to shrink to a smaller size?

Economics aside: does our social structure only work when we have a typical demographic curve? If that is the case, then shrinking itself is not a problem, but the rate of shrinking. The end-member case of a sudden end to reproduction would indeed cause major issues once the remaining population reaches old age. But a more gradual reduction in population should not be a problem. If the demand is there for geriatric arse-wiping then wages will go up and more young people can fill that role, rather than make coffee.

You are right that it's interesting to keep an eye on China and their change to family planning. From these data it is hard to be convinced that the growth rate is slowing down by a significant amount. maybe the ruling party in China has decided to out-breed the rest of the world? Or they are planning to stage a hand-to-hand land-war with India?

Sure, Corporate rates are highest in the U.S. But do you realize that the U.S. has a lower personal income tax rate?

For example, Ireland has a 48% personal income tax rate and only a 12.5% corporate tax rate. While Japan is sitting at near 51% personal and 32% corporate tax rates. While Canada is 26% and 29%. Chad has a 60% personal income tax rate.

The U.S. has a higher value on personal wealth than common wealth, while many developed countries do the opposite.

Sure, Corporate rates are highest in the U.S. But do you realize that the U.S. has a lower personal income tax rate?

For example, Ireland has a 48% personal income tax rate and only a 12.5% corporate tax rate. While Japan is sitting at near 51% personal and 32% corporate tax rates. While Canada is 26% and 29%. Chad has a 60% personal income tax rate.

The U.S. has a higher value on personal wealth than common wealth, while many developed countries do the opposite.

You're assuming everyone is unemployed? http://www.tradingeconomics.co... suggests a 5% unemployment rate for 2016. That's 16 million unemployed people, or $160b/year. That wouldn't even cause a dent in the defense budget. Actually, according to wikipedia, it would cost about the same as a war on Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Better? Nope.
Lots of inflation of consumer prices...
13.5% increase in incomes vs. 15+% increase in consumer prices over 10 years
But hey, what about unemployment?
Still over 10%...
Why is the US' rate under 6%?

But yeah, Europe is doing great. Really. The acid truth of the numbers and the failure of the blue state model is antithetical to you, but true.

Better? Nope.
Lots of inflation of consumer prices...
13.5% increase in incomes vs. 15+% increase in consumer prices over 10 years
But hey, what about unemployment?
Still over 10%...
Why is the US' rate under 6%?

But yeah, Europe is doing great. Really. The acid truth of the numbers and the failure of the blue state model is antithetical to you, but true.

Perhaps they will.

The 10 year chart is pretty damning though:

http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

That's a lot of free money floating around.

You do realize our unemployment rate (U3) is at 5%, right?

You might say, "but what about the people who are underemployed or who have dropped out of the labor force? They aren't counted, so the real unemployment rate is much much, higher."

That's measured, also. It's called U6, and it's at 10%. The lowest U6 has been in the last 40 years was 9%.

When Obama took office, 66+% of the US population worked.

Now, almost 8 years later, 62+% of the US population has a job.

Thanks, Obama.

If the EU won't have free trade with the UK, at least the UK can now arrange free trade agreements with the rest of the world (which is still experiencing growth, unlike the EU), which wasn't possible inside the EU, so I don't think it's that bad. I can't imagine us having worse trade deals than Iceland and Iceland despite being a fairly small and insignificant country in the grand scheme of things manages to have some very nice deals. It's ridiculous to say that the UK wouldn't have more influence.

I might be convinced that it's somehow earth's method of population control, that if lifespans are shortened so the overall population is more manageable or something along those lines;

Doesn't really work that way, if people reproduce at 30 and die at 50 or 100 or 200 that only adds a constant factor to the total population. It might lead to one-time "fill-up" effects where new children are born and old people die later because of longer lifespan adjusting that factor, but the only long term control on population is the reproduction rate. And during reproductive growth the young outnumber the old simply because there's more in this generation than in the last.

This is why people are no longer so extremely worried about population explosion, birth rates are way down and trending down but due to an aging population and advances in healthcare we will become closer to 10 billion. Europe and North America is below replacement fertility but still growing because of this, Asia and Latin American spot on, Oceania slightly above and then there's Africa which is still way high but below the world average from 1950-1970.

High reproduction is also related to extreme poverty, basically if you need many children to support you when you grow older it is "necessary" to have many. Sure most people still like to have kids but only a few and not a whole bunch. China and India seem to be pulling people out of extreme poverty quite quick, so I think they're moving into "safer" territory there. Africa is again challenging, you have countries like Nigera still in explosive growth and GDP per capita barely increasing, only 60% of the population is even literate.

That said, they're seeing a communications revolution in the last decade in Africa, from almost nobody having a cell phone almost everyone has one, smartphone penetration is low but not absent. I think that'll have a big effect on education and literacy but it'll take a few decades to really show net results. With the exception of certain retards in the Middle East that want to bring us back to the Dark Ages, things are actually progressing quite well. A bit worried about mass surveillance and authoritarian states, but not overpopulation and lack of basic necessities.

As mean-spirited as some people will interpret this statement, it must be said that the human population has outstripped the resources and as such a massive correction will eventually restore the natural balance. Meddling by developed countries has exacerbated the problem. The low morality and barbaric societies plaguing the planet will be purged by nature and it would be better if we allowed death to swallow the weak, the stupid, the over reproducing.

I might be convinced that it's somehow earth's method of population control, that if lifespans are shortened so the overall population is more manageable or something along those lines;

Doesn't really work that way, if people reproduce at 30 and die at 50 or 100 or 200 that only adds a constant factor to the total population. It might lead to one-time "fill-up" effects where new children are born and old people die later because of longer lifespan adjusting that factor, but the only long term control on population is the reproduction rate. And during reproductive growth the young outnumber the old simply because there's more in this generation than in the last.

This is why people are no longer so extremely worried about population explosion, birth rates are way down and trending down but due to an aging population and advances in healthcare we will become closer to 10 billion. Europe and North America is below replacement fertility but still growing because of this, Asia and Latin American spot on, Oceania slightly above and then there's Africa which is still way high but below the world average from 1950-1970.

High reproduction is also related to extreme poverty, basically if you need many children to support you when you grow older it is "necessary" to have many. Sure most people still like to have kids but only a few and not a whole bunch. China and India seem to be pulling people out of extreme poverty quite quick, so I think they're moving into "safer" territory there. Africa is again challenging, you have countries like Nigera still in explosive growth and GDP per capita barely increasing, only 60% of the population is even literate.

That said, they're seeing a communications revolution in the last decade in Africa, from almost nobody having a cell phone almost everyone has one, smartphone penetration is low but not absent. I think that'll have a big effect on education and literacy but it'll take a few decades to really show net results. With the exception of certain retards in the Middle East that want to bring us back to the Dark Ages, things are actually progressing quite well. A bit worried about mass surveillance and authoritarian states, but not overpopulation and lack of basic necessities.

82% unemployment rate? Only 41 million Americans employed? What stats are you looking at? According to the ones I'm looking at, there was an unemployment rate of 5% in April 2016 (Source). Stretching those stats as far back and they'll go, the highest the unemployment rate hit was 10.8% (around 1983). Another page from the same website shows 151 million people employed (Source). The lowest number of employed people since 1950 was still over 57 million.

So just how are you assuming that only 41 million Americans have jobs and 300 million Americans are on welfare? (Note that you can't count children as "unemployed Americans on welfare" since they aren't part of the job force.) Or are you assuming that anyone who isn't working in a farm job must be somehow "unemployed"?

82% unemployment rate? Only 41 million Americans employed? What stats are you looking at? According to the ones I'm looking at, there was an unemployment rate of 5% in April 2016 (Source). Stretching those stats as far back and they'll go, the highest the unemployment rate hit was 10.8% (around 1983). Another page from the same website shows 151 million people employed (Source). The lowest number of employed people since 1950 was still over 57 million.

So just how are you assuming that only 41 million Americans have jobs and 300 million Americans are on welfare? (Note that you can't count children as "unemployed Americans on welfare" since they aren't part of the job force.) Or are you assuming that anyone who isn't working in a farm job must be somehow "unemployed"?

Where is the debt? There is no debt

China is running at 43% Debt-to-GDP ratio. Only about half as bad as the US's 100%.

once prices drop due to the dollar collapse

Can you point to a single economy whose prices dropped when the currency "collapsed"? Weimar? Zimbabwe? If the US dollar "collapsed" do you think China's not going to finish cutting the yuan free to save itself (a process they've already started)?

Define "not insignificant".

http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

Shows a fairly smooth and stable population for Canada, with no spikes in the 60's or 70's.

Could it be that your idea of "significant" is pretty insignificant?

Not too hard to look up Germany too:
http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

We see that Germany's per gdp (production per person) is about 18% lower than the US. Of that, government consumption per capita is higher by a similar amount. So the country has a bit less, and the government takes a bit more.

> In the USSR everybody had a job (it was actually mandatory for adults who are not studying),

Mandatory via the government, you say? Meaning the police would show up and drag you to work if you didn't show up on time? Sounds awesome!

> which means that 1) there was less time for drinking (showing up drunk at work was not OK)

Yeah NOBODY drinks in Russia. They don't have a HUGE problem with alcoholism.

> and 2) everybody had some money

1/9th as much as their peers in the USA, to be exact. (About $400/month)

http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

You're seriously suggesting that cutting average income by over 85% is a good idea? You REALLY want to live on $400 per month? You can do that already, if that's what you really want.

> In the USSR everybody had a job (it was actually mandatory for adults who are not studying),

Mandatory via the government, you say? Meaning the police would show up and drag you to work if you didn't show up on time? Sounds awesome!

> which means that 1) there was less time for drinking (showing up drunk at work was not OK)

Yeah NOBODY drinks in Russia. They don't have a HUGE problem with alcoholism.

> and 2) everybody had some money

1/9th as much as their peers in the USA, to be exact. (About $400/month)

http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

You're seriously suggesting that cutting average income by over 85% is a good idea? You REALLY want to live on $400 per month? You can do that already, if that's what you really want.

That's an interesting point. One can talk fairness but the goal is to have money to pay for services. Let's say we were to tax all of the multi-billion dollar corporations on their earnings both overseas and domestically.

According to http://www.tradingeconomics.co... that $1.3T in Q1 of 2016. In 2015, we're looking at roughly $6T in profits (not revenue). And that's publicly traded companies (which have to report profit and revenue).

Now I, personally, find 50% to be a bit ridiculous as a corporate income tax so let's say, oh, 25%, but on all profits made.

That's $1.5T/year in tax revenue. In 2015, the Federal government collected ~$3.25T in taxes (http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/3248723000000-federal-taxes-set-record-fy-2015-21833-worker-feds-0)

So by levying a 25% flat tax on corporate profits, we've increased overall tax revenue by ~46%.

Your point about it being hard to levy taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals is valid. But that doesn't necessarily mean we should just throw up our hands and give up on the idea.

Sure, that's probably why Icelandic government bonds' yields went above 12% (TWELVE percent) in 2008: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

Correct. And the chart that you linked actually underestimates how bad it was. My g/f worked at the FICC desk at a major IB, some days she was terrified, icelandic treasuries couldn't even be priced because the bid side of the trading book was empty, which technically means that there's no one buying at any price (!). She didn't know how to value clients' portfolios, let alone what to tell them, basically the theoretical value of their investments was... zero! After that crazy period she happily left the financial industry.

There was essentially nothing in common between the economies of the two countries....Iceland was not going bankrupt 6 years ago....The markets have never considered the banks' debts to be government debts....

Sure, that's probably why Icelandic government bonds' yields went above 12% (TWELVE percent) in 2008:

http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

Not sure what kind of job you do, but for the sake of Icelandic investors I sincerely hope you don't work in the banking industry. And for your own sake, I also hope that someone else prevents you from investing your own money.

at no time in the history of labor in industrialized nations has the minimum wage risen on its own.

You're full of shit. Here's China's wages. A meteoric rise since they stepped back from full state control of the economy.

We're approaching 20 trillion in debt, that is going to kill us sooner or later...

Why? Its not enough to point at the debt and say "scary, disaster is coming". By what mechanism do you assume our debt will kill us? Everyone's debt is someone else's asset, in the federal government's case about 2/3 is held domestically (http://www.factcheck.org/2013/11/who-holds-our-debt/). That means the majority of that debt is held by US institutions or individuals. Once you understand that, you realize most of our debt is just another form of wealth transfer, and is not more inherently dangerous than taxes, social security, or other wealth transfer mechanisms.

Just look at Japan - a much more heavily indebted country (but crucially also with its own currency). They have been piling on debt far larger in relation to their economy than ours for 30 years, and it hasn't "killed" them yet, how would ours? http://cdn.tradingeconomics.co....

Wage trends in China indicate the "race to the bottom" is actually a race to the middle.

It's a race to the lowest common denominator which is higher than the very poorest have but way, way, way lower than we want our children to have to compete with.

Low labor cost countries tend to have no labor protection, unsafe working conditions, borderline (or outright) slavery working conditions, zero benefits whatsoever and get paid jack shit anyway it's a losing proposition for anyone but the richest who benefit from globally lower resource rates and arguably the very poorest who had nothing to start with.

Wage trends in China indicate the "race to the bottom" is actually a race to the middle.

No, it's a race to as low as tolerably practical. Overlay that graph on the growth of South African / South American manufacturing due to their even lower rates and you'll see they aren't winning anything, infact they are losing business as margins get ever tighter and consumers fall over themselves to buy the latest and greatest shit for a little as possible.

Wage trends in China indicate the "race to the bottom" is actually a race to the middle.

That's only if you define "the middle" as being really close to the bottom. According to the article that you linked, the average income in China has risen from 21001 CNY in 2011 to 57361 CNY in 2014. But 57361 CNY is less than $9000. Do you consider a wage of $9000 per year as "the middle"? The official definition of poverty in the United States is $11770 for a single person living alone. See

https://aspe.hhs.gov/2015-poverty-guidelines

Wage trends in China indicate the "race to the bottom" is actually a race to the middle.

Explain how NAFTA was bad?

If you look at a graph of employment rate of the US you can see no difference in the pattern of employment. Actually, the employment rate was already in decline 4 years before implementation of NAFTA. If anything, NAFTA has allow the US to remain competitive on the world market. As for growth, NAFTA didn't reduce growth and may have allowed it to stabilize at a time where it was in decline.
Employment rate: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...
Growth: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

When talking TPP most people fear China. China is already everywhere in our economy but that's not true of the US in China. Their tariffs are protecting their local interest. TPP will help with remove those restrictions. So at least we will be able to sell to China a competitive prices.

Explain how NAFTA was bad?

If you look at a graph of employment rate of the US you can see no difference in the pattern of employment. Actually, the employment rate was already in decline 4 years before implementation of NAFTA. If anything, NAFTA has allow the US to remain competitive on the world market. As for growth, NAFTA didn't reduce growth and may have allowed it to stabilize at a time where it was in decline.
Employment rate: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...
Growth: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

When talking TPP most people fear China. China is already everywhere in our economy but that's not true of the US in China. Their tariffs are protecting their local interest. TPP will help with remove those restrictions. So at least we will be able to sell to China a competitive prices.

Stop working for shitty salaries in overpriced cities and the executives running these corporations will stop expecting people to ruin themselves in order to bloat the executive bonuses.

When you're staring at the want ads, on line job sites, the newspaper jobs section and anything else you can think of to find a job because you graduated 5 months ago and you're still looking for something that pays more than minimum wage, you notice something very disturbing. There are literally thousands of job postings for minimum wage jobs, and almost no postings for anything that would be considered middle class or up (maybe 1 listing in 20). Just because we have low unemployment doesn't mean that underemployment isn't rampant as hell. Sure there are plenty of other places to work, but they all pay the same crap starvation wages. Starbucks still pays the same crappy wage so that those fortunate enough to have found a solid job don't have to pay too $4 for a latte (ohhhhh, never mind, they charge that much anyways). So, all of these employees on the bottom decide to collectively have themselves a strike. What would it accomplish? The powers that be just ride it out and wait 3 weeks. Those employees will be back, and willing to do absolutely anything because, as this person so ineloquently stated, no money, no eat.

The basic trouble with the labor market, is that workers do not have the luxury of simply not engaging in the market if the terms are unfair. The employer can file chapter 11 and shut their doors, or can wait out a strike, or can simply fire the employee and get another one. In short, they have options. The employees however are stuck with the tyranny of having a stomach and an undeniable need to put food in it with shocking regularly. In short, they have no options.

What happens at the negotiating table when one party A needs party B, but party B doesn't need party A? Party A gets hosed. The free market theory requires that all parties have the option not to take part if the deal is not in their best interest. With the labor market, that is not the case. Workers must earn money or die. Whether the employers know that when they set wages is irrelevant, as they take advantage of it to offer minimum wage jobs nonetheless.

12.7% of American workers make less than $10 per hour. 51% of American workers make less than $14.50 per hour. That means that the average American employee will not earn more than $14.50 per hour until they are 40 years old.

Since 1980, median individual income has risen from $20,500 per year to $27,000 per year, an annual increase of about 0.8% per year. Over that same period, inflation has averaged 3.37%. after 35 years of that, buying power is only 28% of what it used to be, and wages are only up 31%. This means that the total buying power of the median wage today is only 36% of the median buying power in 1980. In effect, wages have fallen to 1/3 of what they were in 1980. This is partly offset by a massive increase in the number of women who are working (2 income households), as well as a marked increase in the number of hours that individual employees are working.

As if that wasn't enough, we are fast approaching a debt crisis, as our debt to GDP is quickly approaching the highest in American history. We have been giving out massive tax break to the wealthy for almost 40 years, and financing it by going into nati

Of course, Europe is "an economy", that's the point of the EU: freedom of movement, freedom of goods, and a common currency. And "an economy" is all it is, since it hardly is a common culture, a common language, or common politics.

That's a common market, but it's not a single economy -- it has quite different fiscal policies across the various different countries, and outside of the Eurozone different monetary policies too.

Some countries are doing fairly well. Annual GDP growth in the UK in 2015 was 2.2% (0.5% quarter-on-quarter, which is very close to the 0.6% average since 1955). According to the GDP growth chart here, it's pretty much bobbling along with trend, and GDP per capita is approaching the 2007 highs again (see this chart)

.1-.2% for American growth? Not even close. Try 2-5% with an average around high 3's.

And as to CHina's numbers, keep in mind that those that are coming up with the CHinese numbers say that it is, AT BEST, 3-5% growth. Many of those that are following CHina, say that they are already in recession.

Go fuck yourself, shill.

Ouch, that is so hateful, so sad...

The only "reason" Sanders has for being allegedly-unelectable is that Hillary shills like you repeatedly assert that it's so

No, he is unelectable, because his rhetoric is indistinguishable from that of Hugo Chavez. And, though Americans are often accused of neither knowing nor caring, what is happening outside their country, the sorry fate of Venezuela is infamous enough.

Don't take my word for it — when I asked the good Senator's fans here on Slashdot, all I got was the customary avalanche of hate, but no discernible differences. The most useful response pointed out that, unlike the late El Presidente, Bernie Sanders is not an anti-Semite. But nothing relevant to the economy or foreign policy was identified...

That is in NO WAY a scientific position, it is 100% a POLITICAL position.

Bullshit. Just because it's not phrased in scientific-journal-language doesn't mean its contents aren't scientific. Sure, saying "death" instead of using clean, nice scientific terminology is a different way of putting it, but it is a scientific position, because continuing the thought from the immediate effects to the consequences is necessary.

Coal power plants also provide very cheap electricity.

You might want to double-check it. In my country, coal is only cheap because of hidden government subsidies.

Citation required. To get energy from coal the steps are trivial. Pick up lump of coal from the ground, light lump of coal on fire, done. Sorry to burst your bubble, but developing nations aren't running on coal because of a deep seeded desire to subsidize the coal industry or something. It is the cheapest and easiest way to produce energy right now. I'm all in favour of switching over to nuclear power as France already did years ago. Truth be told, if anybody was taking climate change seriously 30 years ago we'd have already switched over to nuclear on a large scale. The environmental movement though made sure to exhaust themselves crushing that idea, Greenpeace is still trying to crush nuclear for that matter :(.

We aren't talking about the seas rising by metres in our kids life times

According to the WHO, we are talking about five million additional deaths from the health side effects of climate change alone.

The UN is talking about seven million premature deaths per year due to pollution.

Google a little for youself and you will find much, much more.

"Your children will die from this shit" is quite an adequate summary, IMHO.

You seem a bit confused on what your sources are saying. Your WHO report, which they acknowledge is very approximate spreads out the 5 million deaths you quote over 20 years. The UN report you cite is NOT deaths from CO2 or climate change, it is deaths from all the other toxic crap that gets burned up from coal. It does cite 7 million per year, but if that's what the non-CO2 pollution is causing today, I'm thinking the priority should be on that part. Focusing on the very approximate 5 million that might die over a span of 20 years sometime after 2030 seems the wrong focus.

If we want to get off coal, climate change is the least of the reasons to do so. As you've already referenced, 7 million die each year to air pollution, and WHO's estimates expect climate change to kill less than that over a span of 20.

China is probably the biggest body count for excess deaths to air pollution. That said, the crazy amount of coal they are burning has also allowed them to move their economy forward. Since the 30-40 million that died in China leading into 1960, the per capita GDP has come from a 1962 low of $83.33 to a 2014 all time high of $3865.88.

But abject poverty doesn't kill anybody does it? If only they knew that using coal was worse for them than dying penniless in a ditch.

Probably not going to complain about "the descendants of the same ones that crucified Christ" dominating the world as Chavez did.

Probably. And he may even be nicer to Israel than Chavez was and than his own core constituency are. But that's not something, that has much bearing on economic and other internal policies... And it is those policies — not the anti-Semitism and not the anti-Israel denunciations — that stalled Venezuela's economy (even while oil was still expensive), destroyed its infrastructure, and quintupled the murder rate and other violent crime.

Without employment laws, minimum wage in the US would resemble minimum wage in the far East.

Growing about 14% a year? Gosh, that sounds awful.

I wasn't referring to US participation rate. Japanese participation rate is climbing. Not quite back to it's 2007 levels but a long way up from the trough.

http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

Why would you single out software ?

The whole world has lost their mind (with the US being one of the countries at the front).

Let's take the economy as an example.

You think this interest rate is normal ?:
http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

You think quantitative easing is the new normal ?

Even if you agree that these are necessary measures you'd have to agree they should only be temporarily.

like the labor participation rate, average annual income

Huh, weird, pay what you paid in the 1970's and get what you got in the 1970's. The President doesn't have the power to make everyone pay more.

effective tax rate

I can't find this PDF on cbo.gov now, but google has a scrambled version of it on http://webcache.googleusercont... which looks like effective tax rates went up about 3% since 2009.

average growth rate

http://www.tradingeconomics.co... looks like it's currently around +2%, which isn't very good, but it's a damn sight better than -8% at 2009.

percentage of income allocated to healthcare

Which has been growing every year for decades. Obamacare failed to stop it.

percentage of population receiving government payments

Pay 1970's equivalent salaries after 40 years of inflation, get welfare.

The liberal Obama's been terrible, but the only thing worse would be another George W Bush. I'm sure when the Republicans beat Hillary, we'll have an amazing postwar recovery after the Iran war.

It would require a massive shift for that to happen. As a general rule we have consumed more each year than we did the year before with minor exceptions around major economic traumas.

http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

What people fail to understand is that the Greeks aren't living beyond their means any longer. They had a primary surplus last year. The size of their debt has barely increased since mid-2013:

http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

Greece is being forced to turn over its sovereignty simply to rollover existing debt, even though the creditors know it is impossible for Greece to pay down its debt and they've known this for years.

It's disgusting. Economically they'd have been far better off going for Grexit within ten years then continuing in this charade. Also, Syriza and Tsipras wouldn't have had to make a mockery of their democracy too.

My guess of they they'll turn in desperation to Putin, thinking he's going to help them (as he's going to promise). And he's going to screw them in ways they can't even imagine.

There seems to be this common misconception that the Russia of today is in any way equivalent to the USSR of old... and Putin exploits this relentlessly. But it's simply not true, economically, politically, or militarily.

The USA is far ahead of any other part of the world by every every measure: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...
And to think of Russia as some kind of equal power to the US like they were back in the 60's is totally misleading.
Despite its size, its ruthless lack of environmental and labor laws, and clear ambivalence to financial regulation, it's economy is 11th, on par with Canada. This is mostly due to rampant corruption that leads to Oligarchs bleeding the economy so dry it can't grow.

Russia can't afford to help Greece. Greeces debt was $317 billion last I checked. That's 17% of Russia's entire GDP. Further, Greeces problems have nothing to do with the EU. Every year they fail to collect 90% of taxes. Let me say that again, 90% of taxes in Greece are never collected. THAT is their main problem. And that's before we get into the rampant government overspending on social programs, borrowing and so-on.

Greece is doomed, the best thing for them was to follow the troika's advice, barring that? The need to find out what real 3rd world poverty feels like, so they can teach their children to never let this sort of thing happen again. Unfortunately that seems to be exactly what's going to happen. I feel a lot of empathy for the children of the people that voted for the governments they've had for the past 20yrs. Those children will suffer the most.

Coming from you, that carries no weight at all.

Unlike you, I actually understand the economy. How that hyperinflation that you predicted is going so far, by the way?

All enabled by the Fed. You really weren't paying attention, were you?

No. It was not 'enabled by the Fed' in any way. Not even in the 'it failed to regulate them' way.

Without the Fed holding down the interest rates by inflating the currency, rising rates would have limited the pyramiding of debt on debt.

Dude, if you had at least two brain cells you could have checked this hypothesis easily. The only way Fed could 'keep rates low' is by buying securities using newly created money. This kind of intervention should be easy to check.

So let's check the evidence: http://www.tradingeconomics.co... - there was no explosive increase in the M1 aggregate until the QE policies started post-2008. And even M2 aggregate shows nothing unusual: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

Actually, I believe that you caused the 2008 crisis by raping little children in a DC kindergarten. That theory has about the same connection to reality as your ramblings.

Coming from you, that carries no weight at all.

Unlike you, I actually understand the economy. How that hyperinflation that you predicted is going so far, by the way?

All enabled by the Fed. You really weren't paying attention, were you?

No. It was not 'enabled by the Fed' in any way. Not even in the 'it failed to regulate them' way.

Without the Fed holding down the interest rates by inflating the currency, rising rates would have limited the pyramiding of debt on debt.

Dude, if you had at least two brain cells you could have checked this hypothesis easily. The only way Fed could 'keep rates low' is by buying securities using newly created money. This kind of intervention should be easy to check.

So let's check the evidence: http://www.tradingeconomics.co... - there was no explosive increase in the M1 aggregate until the QE policies started post-2008. And even M2 aggregate shows nothing unusual: http://www.tradingeconomics.co...

Actually, I believe that you caused the 2008 crisis by raping little children in a DC kindergarten. That theory has about the same connection to reality as your ramblings.