patrick.net

Three workers find themselves locked up, and they ask each other what they’re in for. The first man says: “I was always ten minutes late to work, so I was accused of sabotage.” The second man says: “I was always ten minutes early to work, so I was accused of espionage.” The third man says: “I always got to work on time, so I was accused of having a Western watch.”

gsr says

ob2356 says

Does that include very socialist economies like Germany?

What a goofball statement, are you really this dense? I am sure that "very socialist" country is forcing Greece to practice more socialism through rapid privatization. We might as well say up is down from today.

No more goofball than your random intermixing of the concepts of capitalism, democracy,socialism, and communism into some kind of super simplistic catch all sound bite. There are countries with a high degree of what would be traditional socialism (not communism you seem to be very fuzzy on the difference) that are very well off. There are countries with a great deal of democratic freedom that are very poor. Countries need a good legal system and low corruption, a good financial system, a stable non wasteful government, good resources, and a lot of luck to have the potential to become wealthy. Most don't even with all the ingredients. The bullshit about add more democracy (does that mean people vote more often?) and add more capitlalism (the most capitalistic place on earth was post fall russia) wealth will flow, is just that, bullshit.

Strategist says

Show me an example of a non capitalistic country ever succeeding.

Feudalism and communism, the only other two economic systems ever tried. The first lasted hundreds of years and the second is the basis of the largest production in the world. Everything we buy is from Communist China.

Of course, your question presupposes a definition of success. If merely letting the world continue to scrap by is your criteria for success, then all three of those economic systems are resounding successes. If your definition of success is allowing every willing person to be a productive member of society, free from poverty, then none of those three economic systems are remotely successful.

More importantly, it is a lie that we must choose only between those three, almost identical systems. There are an infinite number of unnamed possibilities. You are simply too small minded to consider that there may be alternatives. Your religion doesn't allow for innovation.

bob2356 says

No more goofball than your random intermixing of the concepts of capitalism, democracy,socialism, and communism into some kind of super simplistic catch all sound bite. There are countries with a high degree of what would be traditional socialism (not communism you seem to be very fuzzy on the difference) that are very well off. There are countries with a great deal of democratic freedom that are very poor. Countries need a good legal system and low corruption, a good financial system, a stable non wasteful government, good resources, and a lot of luck to have the potential to become wealthy. Most don't even with all the ingredients. The bullshit about add more democracy (does that mean people vote more often?) and add more capitlalism (the most capitalistic place on earth was post fall russia) wealth will flow, is just that, bullshit.

There is a short answer to your jibber jabber with absolutely no data.

First, from http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
The economic freedom index lists USA at 12, and Germany at 16. So they are quite close in terms of degree of socialism, while the USA is slightly less socialistic. So please don't call the current Germany as a socialist country. You may as well call our country socialist as well.

Second, be careful what you wish for. Germany may have additional centrally planned government programs, but unlike California, they are very FRUGAL by nature.
I remember 100F with high humidity days in Frankfurt where public Buses were running with NO air conditioning only two years ago. I am sure they are like that even today. And very hot summer days in Frankfurt or Berlin are not uncommon.
And, you whine about lack of good Internet bandwidth here, remember German Internet and mobile Deutsche Telekom are far worse in terms of bandwidth. So not everything is paved with milk and honey under the German system.

gsr says

There is a short answer to your jibber jabber with absolutely no data.

First, from http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

The economic freedom index lists USA at 12, and Germany at 16. So they are quite close in terms of degree of socialism, while the USA is slightly less socialistic. So please don't call the current Germany as a socialist country. You may as well call our country socialist as well.

gsr says

Second, be careful what you wish for. Germany may have additional centrally planned government programs, but unlike California, they are very FRUGAL by nature.

I remember 100F with high humidity days in Frankfurt where public Buses were running with NO air conditioning only two years ago. I am sure they are like that even today. And very hot summer days in Frankfurt or Berlin are not uncommon.

And, you whine about lack of good Internet bandwidth here, remember German Internet and mobile Deutsche Telekom are far worse in terms of bandwidth. So not everything is paved with milk and honey under the German system.

So no ac on buses and low bandwidth trumps public health care and free universities. Who's talking jibber jabber here? Sorry, but I'll take a hot bus over 1000 a month premium with 50 copay 5000 a year deductable for health insurance and 25k a year for public university. That's a pretty big socialist step up over the US. Where did you get the bandwidth thing anyway, I've hosted hundreds of german students over the years and have never heard a single complaint about bandwidth in germany.

Be careful what data you use and who compiled it. I note that New Zealand is #3 on the heritage hit parade. That means NZ is a lot less socialist and has a lot more economic freedom than the US. Bullshit. I lived there a long time and am a citizen. Business is much more regulated than the US, labor is more unionized and more regulated, there are far more social programs, land use is much much more regulated, construction is ridiculously regulated and hugely expensive. In NZ tradesman can't legally go up on any type of ladder, not even 1 rung, without a safety harness. You can't do any electrical work, plumbing work, foundation work, roofing work, masonary work, or structural carpentry without being licensed. Not even on your own house. Get caught and you are out on your ass for insurance and the council will force the work to be redone and fine you heavily. The town councils actually have aerial survey's done looking for unpermitted work. Roofing can only be done with a scaffold entirely around the building, even for 1 story house. There are 9 structural grades of lumber with essentially a bible about where each grade can be used. There are specific very detailed regulations on what type of fasteners can be used and where, framing, flashing, window installation, ties, the list goes on and on. My building permit (120 pages long) for remodeling was 8000 dollars and plans had to be submitted by a licensed architect who charged 9000 to draw up the blueprints and submit the application. I had to contribute 20k to the town parks and infrastructure to subdivide my lot into 2 lots. All businesses and people pay heavily into the governments accident compensation commission (no fault accident insurance) with a sliding scale depending on the hazards involved. My annual rego for my hiace van had 330 acc levy, a motorcycle would be 1000. It cost my friends tons of money and over a year to convert their sheep farm to dairy. The fees and paperwork were huge with hundreds of pages of detail on every aspect of the conversion, especially water and waste. Heritage.org says NZ banks avoided the worst effects of the financial crises. That's interesting, NZ doesn't have any banks, they are all Australian banks with NZ branches. Heritage.org says you can start a business in one day. Unless you are a fishing guide or kitesurf instructor this is total nonsense. Here's a primer http://www.business.govt.nz/starting-and-stopping/entering-a-business/starting-a-business . Workers at almost any type of business must have certifications. If you work at mcdonalds for example you have to take a course (classroom, online is not acceptable) and get a food handling certification. Delivery drivers and couriers using vans need a National Certificate in Commercial Road Transport (Courier Driver) which is a real course taking a pretty good number of classroom hours. Over 8k gross weight and you need a commercial license (also means no uhaul type operations). The list goes on and on. It's always nice to know what you are talking about. Heritage.org doesn't have a clue.

Call it Crazy says

Hey Bob, there's this thing called paragraphs..... Go ask your 10 year old to help you format your posts...

Punctuation lessons from the person who is patnets standing joke on the subject...................................................... Perfect........................................................

Maybe.......................................................... Just once,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, you should try adding content to the discussion.........................................................

bob2356 says

So no ac on buses and low bandwidth trumps public health care and free universities. Who's talking jibber jabber here? Sorry, but I'll take a hot bus over 1000 a month premium with 50 copay 5000 a year deductable for health insurance and 25k a year for public university. That's a pretty big socialist step up over the US. Where did you get the bandwidth thing anyway, I've hosted hundreds of german students over the years and have never heard a single complaint about bandwidth in germany.

There is a big difference in believing that the grass is green on the other side and living on it. Please go live there at least experimentally as a real resident. The average wait time for doctors is 4 months.
And like I said, irrespective of their few centrally planned programs, Germans are FRUGAL in many other respects, unlike the West Coast socialists. Check out down-payment requirements on their mortgages. You have to see why Germany does not have housing bubble while every other neighboring country does.
Their internal monetary policy is always quite tight.There is no such thing called a free lunch. I don't know why we have to repeat this all the time.

Read the Akamai state of the Internet report. USA is at a pretty good place in terms of the internet speed given the size and the sparseness of the country.BTW, it is also a fact they have started investing on it quite a bit since 2011. Deutsche Telekom has also started offering decent deals since then due to competition.

bob2356 says

Be careful what data you use and who compiled it. I note that New Zealand is #3 on the heritage hit parade. That means NZ is a lot less socialist and has a lot more economic freedom than the US. Bullshit.

You are disputing the data from Heritage based on your anecdotes. There are many aspects of economic freedom. In some aspects, New Zealand is indeed more free. If you want a detailed balanced view, you can read this. http://www.westga.edu/~bquest/2000/nzealand.html

But pretty please, thinking that the entire western world excluding the US is a socialist paradise is extremely naive at best.This could be expected from a west coast SJW, but not from a Patnet reader.

gsr says

Check out down-payment requirements on their mortgages.

Yes, more regulations = less capitalistic. So, you're actually making Bob's point. It was the free market that brought you zero down payment and negative amortization.

Not exactly, @Tatupu
The free market would never have brought such unqualified and risky loans without being able to pawn such loans off on government entities like FNMA and eliminate its investor risk. So government actually enabled free market excesses, as it has done with globalism and free trade, favored trade partner status with China's predatory industries, and NAFTA. Capitalism can only take the greed so far before market forces kick in to stabilize things. It takes government intervention to create the kind of clusterfuck responsible for the housing crash and following "Great Recession."

Quigley says

The free market would never have brought such unqualified and risky loans without being able to pawn such loans off on government entities like FNMA and eliminate its investor risk. So government actually enabled free market excesses, as it has done with globalism and free trade, favored trade partner status with China's predatory industries, and NAFTA. Capitalism can only take the greed so far before market forces kick in to stabilize things. It takes government intervention to create the kind of clusterfuck responsible for the housing crash and following "Great Recession."

Come on---they would and did. Otherwise we wouldn't have had the financial crisis. It would have simply been a FNMA problem. The fact is almost all TBTF banks, Wall St., insurance agencies were all eye deep in it. The government agencies were actually very late to the party and had less exposure than private industry. Government had NOTHING to do with it save reducing regulation and allowing the free market to do what it does.

Call it Crazy says

bob2356 says

Maybe.......................................................... Just once,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, you should try adding content to the discussion.........................................................

Why????

You NEVER do!!!!

My you are cranky. Are the sheep having PMS and won't let you have any nooky? Why don't you see if your neighbors will wife swap with their 11 year old daughters/wives?

gsr says

There is a big difference in believing that the grass is green on the other side and living on it. Please go live there at least experimentally as a real resident. The average wait time for doctors is 4 months.

And like I said, irrespective of their few centrally planned programs, Germans are FRUGAL in many other respects, unlike the West Coast socialists. Check out down-payment requirements on their mortgages. You have to see why Germany does not have housing bubble while every other neighboring country does.

WTF is the grass is greener on the other side bullshit? I have zero interest in living in germany, france is much more my style. The point was germany was considerably more socialist than the US. It is. Period. No question. There are 2 huge major social programs healthcare and education in germany that US doesn't have. Unions are strong and protected. Unions are represented by law in corporate boards. Down payment requirements and doctors waits have zero relevance to the level of socialism. Where did you get the doctors waits crap from anyway? Want to document that? Look up International Profiles of Health Care Systems 2013. The US has worse waiting times than germany in every category. Germany has 0% waiting 4 months or more for elective surgery, the US has 7%. Don't let facts confuse you.

gsr says

You are disputing the data from Heritage based on your anecdotes. There are many aspects of economic freedom. In some aspects, New Zealand is indeed more free. If you want a detailed balanced view, you can read this. http://www.westga.edu/~bquest/2000/nzealand.html

You give me a detailed balanced view of one of my countries of citizenship based on a 15 year old article by a University of Guatamala professor working for a libertarian think tank in south dakota who spent 2 weeks in NZ? Is this a joke? I like to think almost a decade living, working and doing business in the country would give me just a tiny little bit more in depth knowledge than someone on a 2 week vacation. I could be wrong. This is the idiot who said you could build a house in NZ with no license? No visible poverty? There's no visible poverty anywhere if you stay away from it. He should have taken a night walk in places like south auckland, ruatoria, or kaiti in gisborne, except for the small problem that as a pakeha in a really bad maori neighborhood he wouldn't have survived to write the article. That is not a joke, you can get dead in the maori gang area's really quick. People have been killed walking around with the wrong color bandana for the gang's turf. Even someone with as limited knowledge as your professor agrees with me the heritage.org ranking is wrong. If you had bothered to read far enough you would have come across this sentence "If New Zealand was really the 3rd freest place on earth, then, in my opinion, we would be in truly sad shape. It is interesting that the Heritage index is now used in part to decide who gets USA aid, which makes one wonder how objective results can remain. In my opinion, the Heritage Fountation has the rankings quite wrong"

I'm disputing heritage.org based on things like they state you can start a business in 1 day so NZ is economically free (an assertion repeated ad nauseam by every libertarian blogger on earth) without ever bothering to take 2 minutes to check that this is totally false except for some trivial hobby types of businesses. That makes heritage.org's credibility pretty much shit in my book. My "anecdotal" experiences are the result of personally dealing with the actual laws and regulations on a day to day basis. I know this might be hard to grasp, but those same laws and regulations apply to every single person in the country, not just my "anecdotal" case.

The only place I've found the NZ is more economically free is lawsuits. Almost everything is done with mediation. There are no lawsuits for accidents. The public medical system takes care of injuries and the accident compensation commission (ACC) takes care of lost wages for all accidents. The concept of suing someone because you got hurt just doesn't exist. There are very few lawyers in NZ. They do business transactions, wills, trusts, divorces criminal,etc.. The general feeling is if you busted your ass then you should have known better. So there is no problem setting up businesses that would have prohibative (like the insurance company saying NO WAY) insurance costs anywhere else. Like the free fall off the sky tower in downtown auckland. Insurance is quite cheap and isn't even required for auto or business, but there would be a mandatory ACC levy. You would be a fool not to have insurance of some kind, but it's not required. Playgrounds in NZ would terrify the average american parent.

I bet a lot of problems will start to be addressed when next generation that doesn't have benefits starts to retire.

Strategist says

The more a country practices capitalism and democracy, the greater will be it's economic success.

Is there any socialist or communist country that could have produced one of these?

P N Dr Lo R says

Is there any socialist or communist country that could have produced one of these?

Is there anyone arguing in favor of socialism? I think the point is that completely free, unregulated capitalism is bad too. Both ends of the spectrum are not ideal, so implying that the more capitalistic a country is the better, is incorrect.

Even Hong Kong has some socialism, as well as Singapore. It would be impossible for people to function in those places without heavy government subsidy and involvement in Housing, just for starters.

I'm pretty darn sure everything will get a whole lot worse first before it gets any better. Politicians aren't really solving problems, they are just growing their own pocket books. Selling us off to China, cost of living have been going up, benefits down... not a good recipe.

tatupu70 says

Is there anyone arguing in favor of socialism? I think the point is that completely free, unregulated capitalism is bad too. Both ends of the spectrum are not ideal, so implying that the more capitalistic a country is the better, is incorrect.

thunderlips11 says

Even Hong Kong has some socialism, as well as Singapore. It would be impossible for people to function in those places without heavy government subsidy and involvement in Housing, just for starters.

No society can have 100% of either socialism or capitalism. Someone has to feed the orphans, and someone has to create the wealth.
The right balance to create wealth, and provide a minimum standard of living is absolutely necessary. Where to draw that line is the question.

tatupu70 says

Is there anyone arguing in favor of socialism?

Anyone who says the military should be funded is arguing in favor of socialism. As is anyone who likes Social Security, the most popular policy in the United States.

Oh, and there is Jesus Christ, the mother of all socialists.

Dan8267 says

tatupu70 says

2015 Jul 25, 12:00am
Is there anyone arguing in favor of socialism?

hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahwhoooohoooohooohooohooohooohooo

Only a top tier Democratic Nominee - both in 2016 AND in 2020!

www.youtube.com/embed/QThknQs-gIc

(and most of the rest are calling for UBI, Open Borders, and Nationalized Health Care)

Is taking care of orphans socialism?

bob2356 says

Capitalism is defined as when trade, industries, and the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned.

Close, very close; one word change would illustrate the difference between Capitalism vs. Socialism/Slavery much more clearly: "privately owned" => "Competitively Owned." An absolute monarch or an all-powerful dictator "privately owns" the entire country but that is not Capitalism. The Kim family and the Castro family have de facto private ownership (but not "Competitive Ownership") of their respective countries, despite their "Socialism" labels. Competitive Ownership (and letting the public make choices individually instead collectively, and letting the individuals bear the result/fruit of their own choices) is what makes Capitalism work.

Dan8267 says

Anyone who says the military should be funded is arguing in favor of socialism. As is anyone who likes Social Security, the most popular policy in the United States.

Oh, and there is Jesus Christ, the mother of all socialists.

First of all, Dan, aren't you supposed to be an atheist? God/gods (and including Jesus Christ) in religions can theoretically be successful central planners because the thesis is usually/always based on the axiom that God/gods (and including Jesus Christ) is/are all-knowing (Omniscient). When we can find someone who is Omniscient (and Omnipotent), I'd gladly embrace socialism managed by him; however, as far as we know, all living human beings make mistakes, so socialism (i.e. central planning monopoly) will always fail miserably after a while. Socialistic central planning can seem to work for a short time period (lasting a few years to 2-3 decades) in a backwards country precisely because their central planning agent already has the template of more advanced economies laid out in front of them. That's precisely why Japan could develop rapidly in the 1950's through 1970's, and China from 1970's to early 2000's, by making goods and services according to American consumer demands (the out-sourcing corporations translating those consumer demands to feasible work-orders). As soon as they have mostly caught up technologically (in hardware), they lost their ways and wasted their accumulated capital on capital destruction such as extreme luxury cars and real estate speculation.

Military, in the absence of breakthrough technology, faces the N-squared law (which drastically penalizes individualism). What fundamentally transpires in military action is not socialism as you think of it, but slavery: to the subjugated first and ultimately also to the population that furnishes the all-conquering military in the long run (as the manager/owner of such a military would have no use for its domestic population when it can enslave foreign populations for higher profit). However, given human nature bowing to that which is more powerful, not having a military powerful enough to defend oneself (and beat down rising threat overseas if one is already in a dominant position) would be suicidal! The post-WWII condition of one country having the most powerful military at least theoretically embracing the ideals of liberty and individual self-ownership, and incurring huge domestic political cost when waging wars overseas, is about as good as it has ever been for humanity. The usual condition in human history was a country that could not internally feed itself (due to despotism) fanning out and looting and destroying all the wealthier neighbors that had manged to find a workable economic system (getting rich, but facing demographic programs due to girls raised in wealth tend to be more reluctant to reproduce, and boys raised in wealth tend to avoid fighting).

Reality says

Competitive Ownership (and letting the public make choices individually instead collectively, and letting the individuals bear the result/fruit of their own choices) is what makes Capitalism work.

Bingo bango

theoakman says

Is taking care of orphans socialism?

Private charities competing against each other to get funds from individual third-party donors is not socialism.

Socialist "orphanages" funded by governments all over the world may well be engaged in the business of harvesting organs and tissue from lost children and adults. Many refugee agencies in Europe funded by governments and NGO's most likely do (may well be the real reason behind the promotion of the refugee waves). Planned Parenthood getting government funding and NGO funding also do the harvesting.

Just because someone works for a "non-profit" or even the government doesn't mean he/she stops being selfish or stop having self-interest or even stop having ever-growing greed. It's only consumer choice switching to some other vendor that can keep greed in check. That requires Decentralization and Competitive Ownership, not centralized government-sponsored agencies monopolizing aspects of the economy.