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ORIGINAL: Moonhead

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ORIGINAL: MrRodgers

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ORIGINAL: JeffBC

I'll take Sweden thank. And the guy who wrote that article is deliberately spinning numbers in obvious ways.

Well of course because for one aspect...age is irrelevant.

Look, the sociologist asks the same question...does modern civil society exist to serve economy or does economy exist to serve society. One builds a society with few certain incentives that are organic...always there. If the masses or the bulk of labor do not share in the wealth of production, only govt, can mitigate that influence just as govt. empowers business.

Efficient production as performed by labor creates wealth and expects a reasonable division of that wealth. In the US there has been a sea shift for over 30 years, that ever increasing efficient production has not served (being shared with) those doing the producing.

The taxes in Sweden also represent a division of wealth to spread the risk of health care just as a bank spreads the risk on lending. That the top 20% has only 12% less wealth than the same quintile in the US is testimony to the success in Sweden of balancing the needs of society and the incentives necessary to produce.

.....and BTW, this question has nothing at all to do with socialism (govt. ownership of the means of production) and the continued ignorance around that subject shows the success of capitalist propaganda.

Fascist propaganda.
If the rightists refuse to use accurate descriptions for people whose ideology they find distasteful, why should you?

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ORIGINAL: Zonie63

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

Which would you prefer?

I would prefer to stay in the United States, however we've been known to borrow certain concepts and ideas from Europe on occasion.

I don't think it's simply a matter of taking a political, economic, or social system of one country and just plugging it into another country and expecting the same results. That's why all this fervent devotion to ideological systems never really made sense to me.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

Which would you prefer?

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ORIGINAL: SadistDave

For those who like to pay extremely high taxes and live in small homes among anti-social racists while enduring a high cost of living,

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ORIGINAL: SadistDave

Jantelagen pretty much sums up why America should not try to be like Sweden. For those who like to pay extremely high taxes and live in small homes among anti-social racists while enduring a high cost of living, I would suggest Googling the term and decide if maybe you really do want to live there or not.

Don't get me wrong, I like Sweden. It's a wonderful place to visit if you're white, and I recommend it to anyone interested in European history. IMHO, their culture is really one that you have to be raised in to appreciate though.

-SD-

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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Efficient production as performed by labor creates wealth and expects a reasonable division of that wealth. In the US there has been a sea shift for over 30 years, that ever increasing efficient production has not served (being shared with) those doing the producing.

Over the last 30 years efficient production has been performed by outsourcing manufacturing and using robots stateside. We have lost some 30,000 manufacturing plants. Maybe more. So, Labor is no longer so important a factor here. Besides, disparity of wealth is good for the nation. It fuels the Corrections industry, the drug industry, growth of police forces, growth of the gun industry, and enriches slum landlords. What's not to like?

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ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam

Sweden has hotter chicks.

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ORIGINAL: tj444

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ORIGINAL: SadistDave

Jantelagen pretty much sums up why America should not try to be like Sweden. For those who like to pay extremely high taxes and live in small homes among anti-social racists while enduring a high cost of living, I would suggest Googling the term and decide if maybe you really do want to live there or not.

Don't get me wrong, I like Sweden. It's a wonderful place to visit if you're white, and I recommend it to anyone interested in European history. IMHO, their culture is really one that you have to be raised in to appreciate though.

-SD-

high cost of living? for too many people the US has a pretty high cost of living.. 25% of Americans pay 50% or more of their income just for rent.. then there is that tax bite of course.. and costs like utilities, car costs/transportation, medical costs, etc.. doesnt leave much for necessities like.. food.. so the cost of living really depends on where you live and what you earn (for however long your supposedly "secure" job lasts)..

I have to say, coming to Houston.. seeing 600 or so people lined up around the block at a downtown shelter and people literally sleeping on the concrete street was shocking to me..

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ORIGINAL: SadistDave

Sounds like 25% or more of Americans are living beyond their means. I've never paid more than 1/3 of my income for rent and utilities combined in my life. It's called being responsible. And you hit the nail on the head when you said this: so the cost of living really depends on where you live and what you earn . Maybe 25% of Americans need to learn to live within their means if they want to be able to afford nice things. Cost of housing aside, I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who have the latest phones and home theater systems, but need to be on food stamps.

Of course, the other side of that coin is that some people pay that much in housing because their home puts their children in better schools, or they expect to have better job opportunities, or even just want to live in a better neighborhood. For those people, it's a choice and I applaud them for it!

The homeless problem is not really a good standard. The Obama administration has brought the number of homeless to record highs in 2011,2012, & 2013. As much as I love pointing that out though, I bet if given the choice between job opportunities in another city or staying homeless in Houston, not very many of Houston's great unwashed would be willing to move. I invite you to clean up Houston's streets and prove me wrong. By all accounts, there are excellent job opportunities in the Dakotas right now. I bet that if you go to that shelter and tell them they can regain the American Dream by moving there you'll be laughed out of the place.

-SD-

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ORIGINAL: tj444

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ORIGINAL: SadistDave

Sounds like 25% or more of Americans are living beyond their means. I've never paid more than 1/3 of my income for rent and utilities combined in my life. It's called being responsible. And you hit the nail on the head when you said this: so the cost of living really depends on where you live and what you earn . Maybe 25% of Americans need to learn to live within their means if they want to be able to afford nice things. Cost of housing aside, I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who have the latest phones and home theater systems, but need to be on food stamps.

Of course, the other side of that coin is that some people pay that much in housing because their home puts their children in better schools, or they expect to have better job opportunities, or even just want to live in a better neighborhood. For those people, it's a choice and I applaud them for it!

The homeless problem is not really a good standard. The Obama administration has brought the number of homeless to record highs in 2011,2012, & 2013. As much as I love pointing that out though, I bet if given the choice between job opportunities in another city or staying homeless in Houston, not very many of Houston's great unwashed would be willing to move. I invite you to clean up Houston's streets and prove me wrong. By all accounts, there are excellent job opportunities in the Dakotas right now. I bet that if you go to that shelter and tell them they can regain the American Dream by moving there you'll be laughed out of the place.

-SD-

I dont really consider a roof over your head as a "nice thing".. these people are not usually living in fancy houses, they are living in very basic places, frequently poorly maintained cuz too many landlords dont do repairs and maintenance they should do.. that is if they even have a roof over their head.. a certain segment of the homeless do have jobs, they just dont earn enough (minimum wage and not enough hours thanks to govt regs that encourage companies to hire part time with under 30 hours/wk) to be able to pay rent for a doghouse.. like I said, the poorest here have to choose between food or rent.

Why should it be my job to clean up your streets? Shouldnt it be Americans like you that help each other? I disagree, I think if they were given bus fare and temporary place to stay in those states to get a job many would go.. but there is no guarantee that they will be hired there either & getting stuck there is a huge risk.. Some homeless have kids which makes doing that harder and then there are some homeless that are alcoholics or addicted.. who is gonna hire them, even in the Dakota oil fields? oh, and by the way, there are lots of homeless in N Dakota too, they have good paying jobs but trying to get a rental there is hard and even if you do get one, most landlords are gouging due to the shortage (I have looked at the rents charged there- pretty high for what you get).. So you want to send homeless people to someplace where there are already too many homeless and the winters are extremely cold?.. that really makes no sense.. So really, for the majority of homeless, shipping them elsewhere isnt an answer (since there are homeless in every city)..

but what Utah has been doing seems to have been the best success (that I have ever heard of).. the answer is giving them a home for free and when they get a job, keeping their rent to no more than 30% of their income (30% of your income is considered "affordable" housing).. Houston has started doing that (thru a few non-profits that build efficiency studio suites) but there are many more homeless than there are places for them..

"In eight years, Utah has quietly reduced homelessness by 78 percent, and is on track to end homelessness by 2015.
Utah figured out that the annual cost of E.R. visits and jail stays for homeless people was about $16,670 per person, compared to $11,000 to provide each homeless person with an apartment and a social worker. "
http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/17/pf/north-dakota-homeless/ North Dakota sees surge in homeless population
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/11/pf/boomtown-homeless/index.html?iid=EL Boomtown charity buys homeless one-way ticket out

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ORIGINAL: SadistDave

I don't give a fuck about Houston one way or another. I live in a city that has plenty of government and private organizations to help the homeless who want to be helped. You said you were shocked when you moved there. So.... You live there. That makes 'em your streets and your homeless people. Or you can just continue to bitch about things and say it's not your responsibility. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other. I don't live there.

The links were a hoot. Thanks for sharing them. I was actually just being flip about the Dakota thing, but I always get a chuckle when people think they have to research a response to a smart-ass comment.

As for the rest, I can only say that reading is fundamental.

-SD-

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ORIGINAL: MrRodgers
Because while it does seem we are heading there, I still hold out that we will not have SS and Gestapo on the streets. Unlike Mussolini, I think that while it seems very logical and may be on the way, there is a way to make free enterprise, free markets working to serve society, rather than we suffer the oxymoronic operations of and the power structure created by, so-called free market capitalism...working to serve only the investor class.