Again, you miss the point -- having claimed that Bush was president in 2000,
that the attacks of 9/11 did not effect the economy seriously enough to cause
unemployment, and that current unemployment numbers somehow have nothing to do
with a recession which started eight months before Bush took office and which we
are only pulling out of now, you have shown yourself as someone who simply makes
wild assertions without the most rudimentary concern for truth (I mean really -- Bush
president in 2000? Did you think no one here would notice that one?)
There is simply no point in arguing with such a person, so I bid you, once again, good day.
To repeat -- by claiming that Bush was president in 2000, and
that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'', you've
already squandered any credibility which might have caused anything further you say in this thread
to be taken seriously.
Sorry to disappoint you, but Swedes can stay in unemployment-benefit
training programs as long as they want -- they're really a form of
workfare, and this is clearly indicated in the report I linked earlier.
So, in other words, you're talking out your posterior, just as you were
when you said that Bush was president in 2000, and
that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment''.
After gaffes like those, you really shouldn't be expecting to be taken seriously, or to have
flat-out assertions you make taken at face value.
Well, for starters, I'd say that your confusing per capita GDP and mean income
is rather more of a gaffe than is captured by the word `minutae', but it's nice,
at least, to see you backing away from such a claim.
Now that you've acknowledged the salary differential between Swedes and Americans,
you are trying to tell us that the cost of living is so much lower in Sweden as
to make up for salaries being less than half what they are here. But what evidence
do you bring of this? A single anecdotal comparison of apartment prices in one of
the highest-priced and most over-inflated real estate markets in the US (the San
Francisco Bay Area) with an allegedly `typical' swedish apartment cost.
I'd say that doesn't really count as evidence -- so if you want to bring some numbers
to back your claim that the Swedish cost of living is one third of that here,
you should do so. I'll get the ball rolling by offering the counter-example that gasoline prices in
the scandinavian countries average over four dollars per gallon.
Likewise, it is a very strange argument to make that US taxes, where the
bottom 50 percent of society take on only four percent of the income
tax burden, while the top one percent take on thirty-six percent are
somehow `regressive' merely because there are other nations which tax their rich
more (and have suffered economic stagnation as a result -- note, for instance, that the ``excellent'' growth
record Sweden is boasting of in that report is two percent growth -- little more
than a quarter of the current US growth rate. Likewise, Sweden's ``greatly
improved'' employment situation is a level of unemployment about 35% above
the US level.
And finally, given that the bottom thirty-five percent or so of Americans pay no income tax
at all, you'd be pretty hard pressed to claim that the rich pay less of their income
in such taxes than the poor do.
So I think you're grasping at straws here, and may indeed want to focus on the other
half of this thread.:-)
While it would be easy enough to point out that no matter which side does it, attempting to take
a few Biblical passages and interpret them without reference to the rest of the Bible or to what
Christians have actually believed down through the ages is, theologically speaking, a gaffe at least as
serious as confusing per capita GDP and per capita income, or thinking that gubernatorial elections
occur in March, I'll take it that you have in mind a larger question, which is whether the Christian ideal
of caritas implies, or even allows, some form of socialism. With this in mind, I'd like to speak
very quickly to the passages you cite, and then move on to that implied larger question.
Now, the two passages you cite both represent instructions of Christ to specific of his apostles, and thus
should hardly be understood as the correct way to live in general -- especially in the context of a Biblical
tradition which values property rights highly, and especially in view of how incompatible an oath of poverty
would be with other Biblical virtues, including properly caring for and providing for one's family, and
safeguarding one's children's legacy.
However, even if we were to take these statements as a declaration that Christ expected his followers not
to own property -- and through history, only a few violent fringe movements such as the levellers have held
this -- this is a very different statement from claiming that some earthly authority should have the
power to thus take and redistribute anyone's property. Virtue compelled is not virtue at all, and charity
not given willingly is not in any way a fulfillment of the virtue of caritas, as Aquinas and others
have pointed out.
Now, if you would like to make an argument that socialism in general is compatible with
Christian doctrine on the subject of economics, you have a long road ahead of you -- in particular
while you are correct in believing that Christian doctrine believes in the virtue of charity, and
of helping those who are worse off, this does not amount to a Christian embrace of socialism -- to get
there, you would have to answer the following questions:
Is socialism actually a good way to help the poor?
If socialism does not help the poor, it cannot possibly be the case that the Christian virtue
of caritas, or charity, implies socialism. While most people will agree that socialism
has discredited itself, and is unlikely to re-emerge from the dustbin of history anytime soon,
I'd like to point out why it's a bad idea.
First off, let's look at the historical record -- in the twentieth century alone, socialist
systems of various stripes killed off about 100 million people around the world, from the artificial
starvations and labor camps of the Soviet Union to the killing fields of Cambodia, to the disastrous
mass starvations of China's waves of collectivization. The vast majority of these victims were
peasants and other poor -- exactly the people socialism claims to benefit, and exactly the people
we agree the Bible says we should help.
Now, you're undoubtedly huffing and puffing, and getting ready to write a post which says ``but THOSE
weren't REAL socialists''. Save your breath -- of course you say that, but each of these movements
has in its turn declared that those who went before were not REALLY socialists, and that they were.
The Bolsheviks said that the german socialists were not real, but they were. The Chinese socialists
said that the Bolsheviks were not real, but they were. The Vietnamese socialists said that
none of these were `real', and set out to prove how real they were by killing more Vietnamese
in the first three years of `peace' after the war's end than had died in the entire previous
twenty-five years of fighting. And the Khmer Rouge declared even these were not `real socialists',
and filled the killing fields with the skulls of the `bourgeois enemies of the working cla
I'm afraid you're reading selectively again. To quote the same report
you link, a few para's later:
In November 2000, registered
unemployment was 170,000 people, or
3.9 percent of the labor force. Two
years ago the corresponding figures
were 230,000, or 5.4 percent. The
number of people enrolled in
government-financed or subsidized
training and employment ("labor
market policy") programs has also
fallen sharply, from 185,000 in
November 1998 (4.4 percent) to
142,000 (3.3 percent) in November
2000. In 1999, the total imbalance
(percentage of the labor force that
were unemployed or in labor market
policy programs) was 8.9 percent. By
2000, the imbalance had shrunk to 7.9
percent.
In other words, the ``registered unemployed'' are merely those who are receiving unemployment (as opposed to social welfare)
benefits but are not in workfare programs. You'll note, of course, that the quote you pasted in no way contradicts this. As in the US, those not applying for benefits are not counted at all.
On income levels you're even more confused, inasmuch as you are quoting Per Capita GDP and describing it as income.
In comparison, the report I linked above gives actual
and specific income figures, broken down by professional area no less -- and in each area, a Swede earns between 25 and 45
percent of the salary of an American similarly employed.
And finally, you make much of the fact that the bottom tax bracket in Sweden and Denmark pay zero percent income tax, yet
this is true in the US as well -- and in fact 35% or so of American workers pay no income tax at all! In contrast, the top
one percent of Americans pay 36% of all income taxes -- and this is the system you describe as `regressive'. (Source: Associated Press -- you can find the article online here or via Lexis/Nexis).
Finally, it's clear that you're not on the popular side of the upcoming election. I'd also argue that you're not on the correct side.:-) If you indeed wish for the more civil tone we discussed, you might argue why you're right, not dismiss those who disagree with you as `brainwashed', `hubristic', or `complacent'.
No, the document makes clear (and a friend at luth.se confirms) total unemployment is those looking for work, including those in Sweden's sub-minimum
wage workfare program.
`Registered' unemployed are those who are receiving unemployment benefits, but are not in workfare programs.
This is largely the unemployable and the very-short-term unemployed.
Either class would count as `unemployed' in the US, and as in the US, Sweden does not officially
track those who don't apply for either type of benefit -- so it's reasonable to compare 7.9% to
5.9%, or (7.9% - 3.3%) to a number for the US which would have to be dug for on BLS's site, but is
arguably much less relevant.
Yes, yes, I think we can leave it to the readers to decide
how seriously to take someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and
that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment''.
As we've already pointed out, when Clinton left office (in 2001, not 1999 as you claimed),
the US was 8 months into a recession which would get a lot worse before Bush was able to
turn it around. So your argument only holds if we take your word on when Bush took office.:-)
But again, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and
that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth
taking seriously (and may be a troll).
Go read it again. Those in the government training programs are exactly
equivalent to Americans receiving workfare benefits, and would be counted
as unemployed in the US.
So you either need to compare 5.9% (US) with 7.9% (Sweden), or you need to
find a lower number for the US.
But of course you won't -- I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and
that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth
taking seriously (and may be a troll).
I think you missed the point: with your rate of really laughable misstatements,
you've completely discredited yourself as someone worth debating.
After all, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and
that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth
taking seriously (and may be a troll).
As for Sweden, I've already responded to you in that thread, but for anyone who's curious,
`js7a' seems to have a problem with reading comprehension. He quotes Sweden's level of `registered
unemployed' (the permanently unemployable), and ignores the following, a mere two paragraphs later:
In 1999, the total imbalance
(percentage of the labor force that
were unemployed or in labor market
policy programs) was 8.9 percent. By
2000, the imbalance had shrunk to 7.9
percent.
I understand that reading comprehension has not been your stron point in this thread, but had you, oh, I
don't know, actually read the article, you would have seen that it says the following but two
paragraphs after the quote you copied and pasted:
In 1999, the total imbalance
(percentage of the labor force that
were unemployed or in labor market
policy programs) was 8.9 percent. By
2000, the imbalance had shrunk to 7.9
percent.
This is because the `registered unemployed' in Sweden are the permanently unemployable -- the total level of
unemployment is as just pasted.
Likewise, you try to tell us that Sweden has a lower `cost of living' than the US, but it's cost of living
would have to be about a third of that in the US to compensate for how drastically lower their own
government admits salaries are there. Are you really claiming that this is the case?
Really?
And then you go off the rhetorical deep end. I'd say that the rest of your post is far enough off to the left
of the American mainstream that it is sufficient to say this in response:
If you agree with `js7a' that America is fascist, and socialism is the only answer, then vote for Howard Dean.
But no one else should.:-)
Okay, at this point, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and
that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth
taking seriously (and may be a troll).
Of course, if you consider that Bush was not in fact, president in May of 2000, when the current
recession began, you'd find it harder to blame him for the job loss which that recession caused, now
wouldn't you -- you'd also have to credit him for the fact that the recession turned around on his watch
and the country is now seeing record growth.
You've made the same mistake `js7a' made -- not reading the report. In Sweden, `registered' unemployed are
the unemployable. A scant two
paragraphs later, the report states:
In 1999, the total imbalance
(percentage of the labor force that
were unemployed or in labor market
policy programs) was 8.9 percent. By
2000, the imbalance had shrunk to 7.9
percent.
You then quote raw numbers of unemployed when comparing two countries which differ by an order of magnitude in
size.
And this is just par for the course in your posts so far.
At this point, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and
that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth
taking seriously (and may be a troll).
We've all seen what ``khasim'' considers a verifiable ``fact''.
At this point, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and
that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth
taking seriously (and may be a troll).
Okay, at this point, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and
that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth
taking seriously (and may be a troll).
If you, like `js7a', believe that Medicare, Social Security, and the Income Tax Code are the best parts of our government,
and want the rest of the government to work as `well' as they do, vote for Dean.
If you, like `js7a', believe that more socialism is what America needs, vote for Dean.
If you believe you're too `brainwashed' to decide, and need `js7a' to tell you who to vote for, vote for Dean.
If you, like `js7a', believe that Sweden is a worker's paradise, even though the government of Sweden says their people are poor
and their economy is stagnant, vote for Dean.
If you, like `js7a', believe that Bush should be blamed for a recession which started in May of 2000, vote for Dean.
If you, like `js7a', don't believe that Bush's tax cuts had anything to do with the economic recovery which followed
them, vote for Dean.
And finally, if you, like `js7a' believe that you don't pay enough taxes, vote for Dean.
But if you don't want America's economy to tank, or if you can think for yourself, well, pick your own candidate.:-)
Which, as less than.5% of the voting population, is the statistical equivalent of a dead tie.
Even more interesting, the 2002 elections handed Bush the largest mid-term electoral victory
of any president's party in the history of the union, with major gains in the House, the Senate,
and several statehouses around the nation.
And even more interestingly, this year's off-year gubernatorial elections saw major Republican
victories, including in states which haven't had a Republican governor for 130 years.
Now, we can argue whether this is a trend or not, but I don't think I'll bother, since this
November should answer that question conclusively. Care to place a friendly bet? I'm
betting Bush by a landslide.:-)
Not quite the `workers paradise' you wish us to believe in, eh?
More interestingly, these numbers have held steady in Sweden for decades, since exactly the feature you praise there (high tax rates which
drain investment capital from the economy) prevent the type of growth which benefits Americans at all levels of society. In contrast, in
1990, the bottom twenty percent of American society had, earned, and spent as much (adjusted for inflation) as the middle
twenty percent had in 1950.
That's the promise of growth -- and its something which only capitalism has to offer.
In any statistically useful sense, the country was a dead tie in 2000. That was three
years ago, however -- 2002 saw the best electoral win for a president's party in the
history of the US, with major Republican gains in the House and Senate, and even the
off year election in 2003 saw a major Republican slant in gubernatorial wins.
That sure looks like a trend to me, but let's see this November, eh?
In addition, both these facts and the maps (including yours) sure don't seem to support your idea that
the areas supporting Republicans add up to less than those supporting Democrats
Well, there we have it ladies and gentlemen. Not only does `khasim' think that Bush took office
in 2000, he also believes that 9/11 had no economic impact on the US.
I think that's quite enough information for those reading this thread to decide how seriously to
take his position. Don't you?
With all due respect, points you may choose to make about whether the left or
right position are correct are completely tangential to this discussion, and
at least in your posts made on an emotional/irrational level which is not worth
debate.
It is enough to resolve the topic at hand (is Dean `conservative') that you
have ascribed to Dean the left/liberal side of every issue you have mentioned,
and thus made clear that he is, in fact, not `conservative' at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Again, you miss the point -- having claimed that Bush was president in 2000, that the attacks of 9/11 did not effect the economy seriously enough to cause unemployment, and that current unemployment numbers somehow have nothing to do with a recession which started eight months before Bush took office and which we are only pulling out of now, you have shown yourself as someone who simply makes wild assertions without the most rudimentary concern for truth (I mean really -- Bush president in 2000? Did you think no one here would notice that one?)
There is simply no point in arguing with such a person, so I bid you, once again, good day.
To repeat -- by claiming that Bush was president in 2000, and that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'', you've already squandered any credibility which might have caused anything further you say in this thread to be taken seriously.
A good day to you, ``khasim''.
Sorry to disappoint you, but Swedes can stay in unemployment-benefit training programs as long as they want -- they're really a form of workfare, and this is clearly indicated in the report I linked earlier.
So, in other words, you're talking out your posterior, just as you were when you said that Bush was president in 2000, and that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment''.
After gaffes like those, you really shouldn't be expecting to be taken seriously, or to have flat-out assertions you make taken at face value.
Good day.
Well, for starters, I'd say that your confusing per capita GDP and mean income is rather more of a gaffe than is captured by the word `minutae', but it's nice, at least, to see you backing away from such a claim.
Now that you've acknowledged the salary differential between Swedes and Americans, you are trying to tell us that the cost of living is so much lower in Sweden as to make up for salaries being less than half what they are here. But what evidence do you bring of this? A single anecdotal comparison of apartment prices in one of the highest-priced and most over-inflated real estate markets in the US (the San Francisco Bay Area) with an allegedly `typical' swedish apartment cost.
I'd say that doesn't really count as evidence -- so if you want to bring some numbers to back your claim that the Swedish cost of living is one third of that here, you should do so. I'll get the ball rolling by offering the counter-example that gasoline prices in the scandinavian countries average over four dollars per gallon.
Likewise, it is a very strange argument to make that US taxes, where the bottom 50 percent of society take on only four percent of the income tax burden, while the top one percent take on thirty-six percent are somehow `regressive' merely because there are other nations which tax their rich more (and have suffered economic stagnation as a result -- note, for instance, that the ``excellent'' growth record Sweden is boasting of in that report is two percent growth -- little more than a quarter of the current US growth rate. Likewise, Sweden's ``greatly improved'' employment situation is a level of unemployment about 35% above the US level.
And finally, given that the bottom thirty-five percent or so of Americans pay no income tax at all, you'd be pretty hard pressed to claim that the rich pay less of their income in such taxes than the poor do.
So I think you're grasping at straws here, and may indeed want to focus on the other half of this thread. :-)
While it would be easy enough to point out that no matter which side does it, attempting to take a few Biblical passages and interpret them without reference to the rest of the Bible or to what Christians have actually believed down through the ages is, theologically speaking, a gaffe at least as serious as confusing per capita GDP and per capita income, or thinking that gubernatorial elections occur in March, I'll take it that you have in mind a larger question, which is whether the Christian ideal of caritas implies, or even allows, some form of socialism. With this in mind, I'd like to speak very quickly to the passages you cite, and then move on to that implied larger question.
Now, the two passages you cite both represent instructions of Christ to specific of his apostles, and thus should hardly be understood as the correct way to live in general -- especially in the context of a Biblical tradition which values property rights highly, and especially in view of how incompatible an oath of poverty would be with other Biblical virtues, including properly caring for and providing for one's family, and safeguarding one's children's legacy.
However, even if we were to take these statements as a declaration that Christ expected his followers not to own property -- and through history, only a few violent fringe movements such as the levellers have held this -- this is a very different statement from claiming that some earthly authority should have the power to thus take and redistribute anyone's property. Virtue compelled is not virtue at all, and charity not given willingly is not in any way a fulfillment of the virtue of caritas, as Aquinas and others have pointed out.
Now, if you would like to make an argument that socialism in general is compatible with Christian doctrine on the subject of economics, you have a long road ahead of you -- in particular while you are correct in believing that Christian doctrine believes in the virtue of charity, and of helping those who are worse off, this does not amount to a Christian embrace of socialism -- to get there, you would have to answer the following questions:
If socialism does not help the poor, it cannot possibly be the case that the Christian virtue of caritas, or charity, implies socialism. While most people will agree that socialism has discredited itself, and is unlikely to re-emerge from the dustbin of history anytime soon, I'd like to point out why it's a bad idea.
First off, let's look at the historical record -- in the twentieth century alone, socialist systems of various stripes killed off about 100 million people around the world, from the artificial starvations and labor camps of the Soviet Union to the killing fields of Cambodia, to the disastrous mass starvations of China's waves of collectivization. The vast majority of these victims were peasants and other poor -- exactly the people socialism claims to benefit, and exactly the people we agree the Bible says we should help.
Now, you're undoubtedly huffing and puffing, and getting ready to write a post which says ``but THOSE weren't REAL socialists''. Save your breath -- of course you say that, but each of these movements has in its turn declared that those who went before were not REALLY socialists, and that they were. The Bolsheviks said that the german socialists were not real, but they were. The Chinese socialists said that the Bolsheviks were not real, but they were. The Vietnamese socialists said that none of these were `real', and set out to prove how real they were by killing more Vietnamese in the first three years of `peace' after the war's end than had died in the entire previous twenty-five years of fighting. And the Khmer Rouge declared even these were not `real socialists', and filled the killing fields with the skulls of the `bourgeois enemies of the working cla
I'm afraid you're reading selectively again. To quote the same report you link, a few para's later:
In other words, the ``registered unemployed'' are merely those who are receiving unemployment (as opposed to social welfare) benefits but are not in workfare programs. You'll note, of course, that the quote you pasted in no way contradicts this. As in the US, those not applying for benefits are not counted at all.On income levels you're even more confused, inasmuch as you are quoting Per Capita GDP and describing it as income. In comparison, the report I linked above gives actual and specific income figures, broken down by professional area no less -- and in each area, a Swede earns between 25 and 45 percent of the salary of an American similarly employed.
And finally, you make much of the fact that the bottom tax bracket in Sweden and Denmark pay zero percent income tax, yet this is true in the US as well -- and in fact 35% or so of American workers pay no income tax at all! In contrast, the top one percent of Americans pay 36% of all income taxes -- and this is the system you describe as `regressive'. (Source: Associated Press -- you can find the article online here or via Lexis/Nexis).
Finally, it's clear that you're not on the popular side of the upcoming election. I'd also argue that you're not on the correct side. :-) If you indeed wish for the more civil tone we discussed, you might argue why you're right, not dismiss those who disagree with you as `brainwashed', `hubristic', or `complacent'.
That's fair enough. :-)
I look forward to future discussions in a more civil tone. :-)
No, the document makes clear (and a friend at luth.se confirms) total unemployment is those looking for work, including those in Sweden's sub-minimum wage workfare program.
`Registered' unemployed are those who are receiving unemployment benefits, but are not in workfare programs. This is largely the unemployable and the very-short-term unemployed.
Either class would count as `unemployed' in the US, and as in the US, Sweden does not officially track those who don't apply for either type of benefit -- so it's reasonable to compare 7.9% to 5.9%, or (7.9% - 3.3%) to a number for the US which would have to be dug for on BLS's site, but is arguably much less relevant.
Yes, yes, I think we can leave it to the readers to decide how seriously to take someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment''.
A good day to you, ``khasim''.
As we've already pointed out, when Clinton left office (in 2001, not 1999 as you claimed), the US was 8 months into a recession which would get a lot worse before Bush was able to turn it around. So your argument only holds if we take your word on when Bush took office. :-)
But again, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth taking seriously (and may be a troll).
A good day to you, ``khasim''.
Go read it again. Those in the government training programs are exactly equivalent to Americans receiving workfare benefits, and would be counted as unemployed in the US.
So you either need to compare 5.9% (US) with 7.9% (Sweden), or you need to find a lower number for the US.
But of course you won't -- I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth taking seriously (and may be a troll).
A good day to you, ``khasim''.
I think you missed the point: with your rate of really laughable misstatements, you've completely discredited yourself as someone worth debating.
After all, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth taking seriously (and may be a troll).
A good day to you, ``khasim''.
As for Sweden, I've already responded to you in that thread, but for anyone who's curious, `js7a' seems to have a problem with reading comprehension. He quotes Sweden's level of `registered unemployed' (the permanently unemployable), and ignores the following, a mere two paragraphs later:
So nice try, but no cigar.I understand that reading comprehension has not been your stron point in this thread, but had you, oh, I don't know, actually read the article, you would have seen that it says the following but two paragraphs after the quote you copied and pasted:
This is because the `registered unemployed' in Sweden are the permanently unemployable -- the total level of unemployment is as just pasted.
Likewise, you try to tell us that Sweden has a lower `cost of living' than the US, but it's cost of living would have to be about a third of that in the US to compensate for how drastically lower their own government admits salaries are there. Are you really claiming that this is the case?
Really?
And then you go off the rhetorical deep end. I'd say that the rest of your post is far enough off to the left of the American mainstream that it is sufficient to say this in response:
If you agree with `js7a' that America is fascist, and socialism is the only answer, then vote for Howard Dean. But no one else should. :-)
Let's see how that serves you in November. :-)
Okay, at this point, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth taking seriously (and may be a troll).
Of course, if you consider that Bush was not in fact, president in May of 2000, when the current recession began, you'd find it harder to blame him for the job loss which that recession caused, now wouldn't you -- you'd also have to credit him for the fact that the recession turned around on his watch and the country is now seeing record growth.
A good day to you, ``khasim''.
You've made the same mistake `js7a' made -- not reading the report. In Sweden, `registered' unemployed are the unemployable. A scant two paragraphs later, the report states:
You then quote raw numbers of unemployed when comparing two countries which differ by an order of magnitude in size.And this is just par for the course in your posts so far.
At this point, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth taking seriously (and may be a troll).
A good day to you, ``khasim''.
We've all seen what ``khasim'' considers a verifiable ``fact''.
At this point, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth taking seriously (and may be a troll).
A good day to you, ``khasim''.
Okay, at this point, I think we can all agree that someone who thinks Bush was president in 2000, and that the attacks of 9/11 ``had an impact on the economy'' but ``didn't affect unemployment'' isn't worth taking seriously (and may be a troll).
A good day to you, ``khasim''.
``Back in March''? You think the 2003 gubernatorial elections were held in March?
Are you khasim under another nick? :-P
Well, there we have it ladies and gentlemen:
If you, like `js7a', believe that Medicare, Social Security, and the Income Tax Code are the best parts of our government, and want the rest of the government to work as `well' as they do, vote for Dean.
If you, like `js7a', believe that more socialism is what America needs, vote for Dean.
If you believe you're too `brainwashed' to decide, and need `js7a' to tell you who to vote for, vote for Dean.
If you, like `js7a', believe that Sweden is a worker's paradise, even though the government of Sweden says their people are poor and their economy is stagnant, vote for Dean.
If you, like `js7a', believe that Bush should be blamed for a recession which started in May of 2000, vote for Dean.
If you, like `js7a', don't believe that Bush's tax cuts had anything to do with the economic recovery which followed them, vote for Dean.
And finally, if you, like `js7a' believe that you don't pay enough taxes, vote for Dean.
But if you don't want America's economy to tank, or if you can think for yourself, well, pick your own candidate. :-)
Which, as less than .5% of the voting population, is the statistical equivalent of a dead tie.
Even more interesting, the 2002 elections handed Bush the largest mid-term electoral victory of any president's party in the history of the union, with major gains in the House, the Senate, and several statehouses around the nation.
And even more interestingly, this year's off-year gubernatorial elections saw major Republican victories, including in states which haven't had a Republican governor for 130 years.
Now, we can argue whether this is a trend or not, but I don't think I'll bother, since this November should answer that question conclusively. Care to place a friendly bet? I'm betting Bush by a landslide. :-)
Let's look at the Swedish government's own numbers, shall we:
Not quite the `workers paradise' you wish us to believe in, eh?
More interestingly, these numbers have held steady in Sweden for decades, since exactly the feature you praise there (high tax rates which drain investment capital from the economy) prevent the type of growth which benefits Americans at all levels of society. In contrast, in 1990, the bottom twenty percent of American society had, earned, and spent as much (adjusted for inflation) as the middle twenty percent had in 1950.
That's the promise of growth -- and its something which only capitalism has to offer.
In any statistically useful sense, the country was a dead tie in 2000. That was three years ago, however -- 2002 saw the best electoral win for a president's party in the history of the US, with major Republican gains in the House and Senate, and even the off year election in 2003 saw a major Republican slant in gubernatorial wins.
That sure looks like a trend to me, but let's see this November, eh?
In addition, both these facts and the maps (including yours) sure don't seem to support your idea that the areas supporting Republicans add up to less than those supporting Democrats
Well, there we have it ladies and gentlemen. Not only does `khasim' think that Bush took office in 2000, he also believes that 9/11 had no economic impact on the US.
I think that's quite enough information for those reading this thread to decide how seriously to take his position. Don't you?
With all due respect, points you may choose to make about whether the left or right position are correct are completely tangential to this discussion, and at least in your posts made on an emotional/irrational level which is not worth debate.
It is enough to resolve the topic at hand (is Dean `conservative') that you have ascribed to Dean the left/liberal side of every issue you have mentioned, and thus made clear that he is, in fact, not `conservative' at all.