3 ways America should be more like Canada

[1958Bassman]

Perhaps that has something to do with our education system not teaching kids financial responsibility. The entire nation operates like an 18 year old with a credit card.

Or, a checkbook and the "I must have money- I still have checks" mentality.

 

[1958Bassman]

perhaps the folks that print the flat currency and borrow all that foreign money prefer that most don't grasp the concept.....back in the 50's/60's it was believed that an educated populace would be necessary to run things.....and for a while that was true....these days about 10% are all that is required.....the rest can busy themselves with tv,sports,dope,booze,jail...more people here are upset about the win loss records of local sports teams than are concerned with how much public money is handed to the team owners,or paid to build stadiums

No government wants the populace to be highly educated. If the level of education reaches a certain point, the government can't pull a fast one as easily.

 

[::::BASSIST::::]

so what social spending would you be willing to give up to make that happen..you can't have it all.......college students here think that free bus passes should be paid by taxpayers....

Don't let the corporations get away with so much. Tax fairly. Close loopholes. Cut military spending. And (gulp) stop spending billions on invading sovereign nations.

Social programs need to be bolstered not cut. Its only thru supporting your people does a country become strong... at least in the ways it needs to be in my opinion.

 

[Jim Campbell]

No government wants the populace to be highly educated. If the level of education reaches a certain point, the government can't pull a fast one as easily.

as long as education is geared to keeping the machine running they're ok with it.....it's the kind of stuff that encouraged the radicals from years ago that they don't like

 

[rickster4003]

Take off ...eh

 

[::::BASSIST::::]

so what social spending would you be willing to give up to make that happen..you can't have it all.......college students here think that free bus passes should be paid by taxpayers....

In certain European countries the government not only plays students tuition but actually pays the students cost of living as well. Those countries tend to have the highest standard of living in the world. Coincidence?

 

[Jim Campbell]

Don't let the corporations get away with so much. Tax fairly. Close loopholes. Cut military spending. And (gulp) stop spending billions on invading sovereign nations.

Social programs need to be bolstered not cut.

social programs and bureaucracy are a big part the reason industry has moved off shore.....rich folks won't pay taxes and poor folks cannot...so that leaves an ever shrinking group in the middle who are tired of footing the entire bill....social programs and the bureaucracy that is created around them are killing us,not helping.....everyone cannot be on the public teat...

 

[Jim Campbell]

In certain European countries the government not only plays students tuition but actually pays the students cost of living as well. Those countries tend to have the highest standard of living in the world. Coincidence?

you cannot compare them.....geography alone would make those models unworkable here...a good percentage of people we educate emigrate as it is....you need to look at a big picture

 

[1958Bassman]

In certain European countries the government not only plays students tuition but actually pays the students cost of living as well. Those countries tend to have the highest standard of living in the world. Coincidence?

And insane tax rates. Denmark is ranked as the place where people are happiest, but the tax rate is very high. Also, it's forbidden to call attention to ones' self or to be very ambitious.

How very adequate. I guess it worked- remove competition from society and people are happy with what they get. All of the Danes I know left because they were ambitious and all have done extremely well.

 

[::::BASSIST::::]

social programs and bureaucracy are a big part the reason industry has moved off shore.....rich folks won't pay taxes and poor folks cannot...so that leaves an ever shrinking group in the middle who are tired of footing the entire bill....social programs and the bureaucracy that is created around them are killing us,not helping.....everyone cannot be on the public teat...

Yet countries who consistently have the highest standard of living in the world have lots of social programs and fairly high taxes.

 

[1958Bassman]

social programs and bureaucracy are a big part the reason industry has moved off shore.....rich folks won't pay taxes and poor folks cannot...so that leaves an ever shrinking group in the middle who are tired of footing the entire bill....social programs and the bureaucracy that is created around them are killing us,not helping.....everyone cannot be on the public teat...

In the '70s, England paid close to 80% to those "on the dole", so there was almost no reason to get a job. Those who were wealthy paid about 100% income tax and if you know the Stone's 'Exile On Main Street', they recorded that in a Carribean country because they were in "tax exile".

 

[Jim Campbell]

Yet countries who consistently have the highest standard of living in the world have lots of social programs and fairly high taxes.

you fail to consider the people who pay those taxes....there are far too many recipients and too few paying.....and you forget who owns what.....too many expect everything provided free and cannot grasp that it is paid for with borrowed money....i hope you're not teaching economics...

 

[::::BASSIST::::]

Obviously, we are not going to agree here. Basically I think its fundamentally important to care for everybody however and wherever possible. If taxes need to be high to do it, so be it. I know that's very un-american, but its my opinion. I will try to extricate myself from this conversation now as its likely not going to be productive.

 

[Jim Campbell]

In the '70s, England paid close to 80% to those "on the dole", so there was almost no reason to get a job. Those who were wealthy paid about 100% income tax and if you know the Stone's 'Exile On Main Street', they recorded that in a Carribean country because they were in "tax exile".

i'm aware.....the beatles wrote a song about it too....it's like that here.....so many people are employed in the dole "industry".....our colleges churn out social science grads like lava..we have a huge pension crisis coming up...every year the exposure grows from an ever larger bureaucracy..... all that money comes from one source,and people just don't see the consequences of cheap borrowing....

 

[Jim Campbell]

Obviously, we are not going to agree here. Basically I think its fundamentally important to care for everybody however and wherever possible. If taxes need to be high to do it, so be it. I know that's very un-american, but its my opinion. I will try to extricate myself from this conversation now as its likely not going to be productive.

sure,everyone wants that stuff.....the problem lies in the fact that we cannot afford it.....and continuing on this path leads to a precipice.....you may not see it,but it's there....

 

[will33]

Obviously, some level of "agree to disagree" has to be employed here to have a productive conversation about this type of stuff.

I don't know many, if any, people who have a problem contributing to help those who genuinely need it. The problem happens when going "on the dole" results in a higher standard of living than working does, for able-bodied people who posses the ability to work at something. One could say reduce welfare and raise minimum wage, but it's not that simple.

In the US, we have a situation where we are subsidising mega corporations in a roundabout way. People do work fulltime for them, yet still get things like rental assistance, foodstamps, medical assistance, etc., because the money still isn't enough. So, we are subsidizing millionaires and billionaires, through providing services to the people they employ when they could be paying people enough to live on while still turning a healthy profit.

A lot of it stems from the short-sighted "more is always better" business mentality that just looks to cut costs and maximize profit as much as possible in the short term while ignoring both the business and societal impact of this practice long term. There is a whole lot more "I'm going to get as much as I can as fast as I can and screw the other guy" mentality and far less of the "we're all in this together" mentality.

It used to be a corporation CEO would take a pay of roughly 40x their average worker bee. Nowdays it's more like 400x and paying themselves bonuses on top of that even if the company is failing.

Nobody's against higher reward for higher risk here, but the old way, those at the top were still living the highlife while the workers could at least live comfortably and even support a family of 4 or even 5 on one, at least semi-skilled, income.

The new way, it takes both parents working, and in some cases still having less, to support that family while the kids are being babysat by gov't institutions/programs the entire time.

I'm not one for letting gov'ts dictate how much one can or can't make, what level they can succeed to, or saying how much is "enough" and we'll take the rest, but common courtesy to your fellow man has fallen and there aren't many other options.

Some of the blame goes to the people themselves and what their idea of a "comfortable living" is. Do they really need that big of a house, do they really need 5 tv's?, all the latest videogame systems and electronic gizmo's?, latest, greatest in fashion?, big, expensive cars and the debt and maintenance costs that come with them?, a $2000 washer and dryer set when a $600 set cleans your clothes just fine?, and on and on and on.

People go into to debt these days for things like appliances, furniture and even vacations. In the old days, you were thought to be not very saavy if you went into debt for an automobile.

 

[Unrepresented]

And insane tax rates. Denmark is ranked as the place where people are happiest, but the tax rate is very high. Also, it's forbidden to call attention to ones' self or to be very ambitious.

How very adequate. I guess it worked- remove competition from society and people are happy with what they get. All of the Danes I know left because they were ambitious and all have done extremely well.

Data compiling 101:

If you're only meeting the ones who left, you've got an incredibly biased sample.

The higher tax rate doesn't seem to make then less happy, or their test scores lower, or their country more hated, or their murder rate higher, or their....

 

[Unrepresented]

In the '70s, England paid close to 80% to those "on the dole", so there was almost no reason to get a job. Those who were wealthy paid about 100% income tax and if you know the Stone's 'Exile On Main Street', they recorded that in a Carribean country because they were in "tax exile".

That "Caribbean country" you mention was, of course, France; bastion of the free market and unfettered capitalism.:|

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exile_on_Main_St.

 

[Jim Campbell]

Obviously, some level of "agree to disagree" has to be employed here to have a productive conversation about this type of stuff.

I don't know many, if any, people who have a problem contributing to help those who genuinely need it. The problem happens when going "on the dole" results in a higher standard of living than working does, for able-bodied people who posses the ability to work at something. One could say reduce welfare and raise minimum wage, but it's not that simple.

In the US, we have a situation where we are subsidising mega corporations in a roundabout way. People do work fulltime for them, yet still get things like rental assistance, foodstamps, medical assistance, etc., because the money still isn't enough. So, we are subsidizing millionaires and billionaires, through providing services to the people they employ when they could be paying people enough to live on while still turning a healthy profit.

A lot of it stems from the short-sighted "more is always better" business mentality that just looks to cut costs and maximize profit as much as possible in the short term while ignoring both the business and societal impact of this practice long term. There is a whole lot more "I'm going to get as much as I can as fast as I can and screw the other guy" mentality and far less of the "we're all in this together" mentality.

It used to be a corporation CEO would take a pay of roughly 40x their average worker bee. Nowdays it's more like 400x and paying themselves bonuses on top of that even if the company is failing.

Nobody's against higher reward for higher risk here, but the old way, those at the top were still living the highlife while the workers could at least live comfortably and even support a family of 4 or even 5 on one, at least semi-skilled, income.

The new way, it takes both parents working, and in some cases still having less, to support that family while the kids are being babysat by gov't institutions/programs the entire time.

I'm not one for letting gov'ts dictate how much one can or can't make, what level they can succeed to, or saying how much is "enough" and we'll take the rest, but common courtesy to your fellow man has fallen and there aren't many other options.

Some of the blame goes to the people themselves and what their idea of a "comfortable living" is. Do they really need that big of a house, do they really need 5 tv's?, all the latest videogame systems and electronic gizmo's?, latest, greatest in fashion?, big, expensive cars and the debt and maintenance costs that come with them?, a $2000 washer and dryer set when a $600 set cleans your clothes just fine?, and on and on and on.

People go into to debt these days for things like appliances, furniture and even vacations. In the old days, you were thought to be not very saavy if you went into debt for an automobile.

here it's not a "need" thing any more,or even a "want" thing,it's an "i'm entitled" thing and i don't care how you pay for it,because that is for "down the road"......the potholed,crumbling road that we can't afford to fix.....we've robbed peter to pay paul,but peter was a tad light, so we hocked our future to china.....

 

[Unrepresented]

here it's not a "need" thing any more,or even a "want" thing,it's an "i'm entitled" thing and i don't care how you pay for it,because that is for "down the road"......the potholed,crumbling road that we can't afford to fix.....we've robbed peter to pay paul,but peter was a tad light, so we hocked our future to china.....

I agree. The most entitled are those who think they're entitled to large, low-percentage-taxed incomes.