Everyone should be in favor of reducing taxes on the "rich"

[Bern80]

yea, time IS telling, isn't it cum guzzler?


Is America Losing At Globalization?

Free trade used to seem like a good thing for U.S. businesses and consumers. Now we're not so sure.
By Daniel Gross | NEWSWEEK
Published Aug 30, 2008
Free Trade: Is Globalization Hurting the U.S? | Newsweek Inside Business | Newsweek.com

As a result, Americans are now more inclined to see themselves as victims of globalization—rather than as beneficiaries of it. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll this spring found that 50 percent of respondents said free trade hurt the economy, while only 26 percent said it helped.


yea.. your "proof" is about as convincing as your economic theories while another America Auto plant closes it's doors just because YOU are too fucking stupid to admit that free trade with japan is refelctive of both nations workforces. Take your bullshit to wal mart and tell me more about how scary mediocrity is, motherfucker.

I freely admit it. How you feel about the treatment of their workforce compared to ours is not the point. Whether it's fair to their respective workers or not, the fact is those countries have a competitive advantage in labor.

Are you for freedom or not? I'm sure you think you are, but I doubt it. Typically you want the benefits but not the risk. Tough shit. Freedom has risks. If you're too much of pussy to accept that you are the one that should move. This country was founded on the concept of haveing the opportunity to excel and to choose what you want to do, it is you and your ilk that want to change it and make something different then what and why this country was founded. It isn't something you can have both ways. You can't have prosperity and have government babysit you at the same time. If you're okay with taking away opportunity, just say so. But if so it is you that should move to China, they already are communists, I'm sure they would welcome you with open arms.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

Shogun, it's a bit too much for me to try and respond to most of your points, so let's just go back to the two articles you posted.

Worker productivity jumped by a record 20% between 2000 and 2006, yet real wages (pay adjusted for inflation) edged up an anemic 2%. Meanwhile, fewer workers are getting employer-based health insurance or pensions. Even Alan Greenspan, before retiring as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, told Congress in 2005 that he found growing inequality of income and wealth in the U.S. "very disturbing."

From the first article.

The supreme irony here of course is Alan Greenspan's statement. "Very disturbing" indeed. He's either lying, or jaw-droppingly ignorant for a man of such a high position.

What happened from 2000-2006 is, our crooked banking system, aided and abetted by the federal reserve, blew a huge credit bubble. Do a google image search for MZM or M2 or M3.

People seem to have this strange idea that inflation hurts the rich, while the debts of the poor are wiped out. Nothing could be further from the truth. Inflated assets mean that rich people are receiving the bulk of the gains. Meanwhile, the inflationary effect of the credit bubble insures that wage gains by workers are negated.

As Labor Day approaches, it's time for an honest assessment of where working people are. Wages, even for college graduates, are falling behind inflation. The number of families in poverty is growing. The middle-class debt load is off the charts and the personal savings rate is below zero. The costs of a college education, of health insurance, of energy for heating and driving, and of pharmaceuticals grow out of reach for more Americans with each passing day.

Yes, this is exactly right. Wages will typically be the last price to go up during a period of monetary inflation. And the reason we had monetary inflation so badly from 2000-2006 is because Alan Greenspan and co. were willing to accomodate a government whose spending was wildly out of control, far more than the democrats ever dreamed of. It turns out that wars are expensive and are always a drain on the economy.

Also: note what he lists. College education, health insurance, energy, drugs. Hmm. What do they have in common? Things which are not easily outsourced to china.

That's the other problem. We don't recognize what's happening as good old 70's style inflation. Mainly because the prices of things at Walmart and Home Depot have stayed steady. We're content because the stuff we buy has remained steady in price; in fact it would have gone way down if we had a sane money policy.

What economists call the "income distribution" is, from a middle class perspective, as bad as it has been since the Great Depression. During the Roaring '20s, the split between rich and poor grew exceptionally large, leaving relatively few in the middle class. In the decades following the Depression, things began to change for the better as income and wealth became more evenly distributed. But now we are back to where we were as the nation stood on the brink of its greatest economic catastrophe ever. The very rich are richer than ever, but the rest of us are falling behind at an increasingly rapid pace.

The boom of the roaring 20's was largely caused by a credit bubble, just like the housing bubble! And of course, the benefits flowed largely to those who held stocks. Again, this is due to the federal reserve. Not an ill-defined group of "rich", who apparently are greedy for a while, and then not.

I don't have any problem with unions. I believe that actions between consenting adults should not be forbidden by law. Lots of liberals say that but don't mean it. If unions want to go on strike, let them. If a company wants to fire them all, fine. If they can't find replacements, then they'll have to give in.

I'm sure they are fine for insuring that safety issues are brought up, voicing employee concerns and so forth. But you simply cannot give the good life to millions and millions of ordinary people without improvements in output per worker and output per unit of raw material!

Everybody in america could join a union tomorrow, and it would not increase living standards for americans as a whole, because everything would be more expensive, or companies would go under. If there were a modern-day Henry Ford of the solar panel industry, someone who could do to solar panel prices what Ford did for car prices, they would do more for our living standards than all the unions in america combined. But inventions and production advances don't happen without investment.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

Also, let's hear from the most famous economist of the 20th century again, John Keynes (not a laissez-faire guy by any means):

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.

Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers," who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.

Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.

In the latter stages of the war all the belligerent governments practiced, from necessity or incompetence, what a Bolshevist might have done from design. Even now, when the war is over, most of them continue out of weakness the same malpractices. But further, the governments of Europe, being many of them at this moment reckless in their methods as well as weak, seek to direct on to a class known as "profiteers" the popular indignation against the more obvious consequences of their vicious methods.

These "profiteers" are, broadly speaking, the entrepreneur class of capitalists, that is to say, the active and constructive element in the whole capitalist society, who in a period of rapidly rising prices cannot but get rich quick whether they wish it or desire it or not. If prices are continually rising, every trader who has purchased for stock or owns property and plant inevitably makes profits. By directing hatred against this class, therefore, the European governments are carrying a step further the fatal process which the subtle mind of Lenin had consciously conceived. The profiteers are a consequence and not a cause of rising prices.

Commanding Heights : Keynes on Inflation | on PBS

 

[editec]

Why would it do that?

Because it would force the already poor and marginally poor to pay taxes they don't now.

Because it would give the already rich even more disposable money to buy up the assets they don't already own.

This is a patently false statement. Society doesn't make people wealthy.

I did not say that society makes people weathy.

I said having a fuctional society provides the conditions for wealth to be made. A subtle difference apparently nobody who is of a libertarian mindset can fathom.

Our society already works very well. Where we differ is in the people that have not been able to make it in society and why. You believe they are by in large victims.

You are not qualified to tell me what I believe, sport.

If you want to debate with a strawman, stop addressing your posts to me.

I believe they aren't being accountable to themselves and simply haven't chosen to realize their potential.

There is some truth to that certainly.

Likewise there is some truth to the fact that it takes money to make money. The answer to why people are or are not making it in America is complex, and not easy stated in one sentence.

And I ask the same question of you, you honeslty beleive that $2 out of $10 to the poor is going to break them.

Yes, I do.


Unless, of course, your plan means that 20% is the TOTAL combination of ALL TAXES that anyone would EVER PAY.

No sales, state, income, SSI and so forth.

Is that you plan?

Or is you plan merely your proposed modification of FICA taxes?

Because the poor already pay far more than 20% of their incomes as taxes, you know...only they do not pay 20% of the gross incomes as a FICA tax.

So please define your tax plan in some detail, so that we both know what it is we are discussing.

 

[Shogun]

I freely admit it. How you feel about the treatment of their workforce compared to ours is not the point. Whether it's fair to their respective workers or not, the fact is those countries have a competitive advantage in labor.

Are you for freedom or not? I'm sure you think you are, but I doubt it. Typically you want the benefits but not the risk. Tough shit. Freedom has risks. If you're too much of pussy to accept that you are the one that should move. This country was founded on the concept of haveing the opportunity to excel and to choose what you want to do, it is you and your ilk that want to change it and make something different then what and why this country was founded. It isn't something you can have both ways. You can't have prosperity and have government babysit you at the same time. If you're okay with taking away opportunity, just say so. But if so it is you that should move to China, they already are communists, I'm sure they would welcome you with open arms.

No what IS the point is how you'd sacrifice the AMERICAN standard of living in order to maximize profits despite having to make OUR lifestyles decrease to the levels of the average fucking Japanese "work myself to death" employee or China's slummy slave labour standards. COMPETITIVE ADVANATGE FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR POCKET BOOK IS NOT OUR STANDARD, you fucking INDENTURED SERVANT MASTER WANNABE.


And, Freedom does not validate monopolies, economic manipulation OR any other bullshit product of capitalism that you'd wrap of in a wookie defense of your retarded fucking opinion, dude. YOU want slaves? Take your fucking ass to a nation that allows you the "FREEDOM" of owning them. You feel free to come getcha some, motherfucker. The LAST time your kind told the masses to eat cake you got your asses handed to you. Again, there are more of us than there are of your pet top 1%.

And, given China's willingness to exploit workers for the sake of profit, it sounds like you'd be right at home. Anything for the allmighty pocketbook, right fuckwad? AGAIN, FUNNY how you backed right the fuck away from a comparison between japanese auto workers and Americans! FUNNY how you have nothing but blathering tripe to offer when I post an article from NEWSWEEK about the disillusionment of free market capitalism. But, hey, thats pretty much par for the fucking course with your bullshit capitalists.


Enjoy the ride, pussy. Or, take your bitch ass to a nation that enjoys pretending that an american standard of living is not as valuable as your latest silver spoon toy.

 

[KMAN]

Anti-Obamanomics: Why Everyone Should Be in Favor of Reducing Taxes on the "Rich" - George Reisman - Mises Institute



Contrary to popular belief, high taxes are not passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. Businesses are already charging as much as they can, on average. However, taxes will have a crippling effect on businesses' ability to invest in the future, hire more people, and expand.



Translation: don't eat your seed corn.





Translation: you can't have higher living standards without higher productivity! There is no way around this. The prices of things--manufactured goods at least--should be going down over time, if production output grows faster than the population.






Supply-siders, pay attention. Tax cuts without spending cuts aren't really a cut. Instead of bleeding the economy dry via taxes, the government bleeds the economy dry by soaking up funds that could have been loaned to businesses.



Cliffs Notes: If governments want businesses to remain somewhat competitive, they'll have to avoid taxing them, just like Sweden did. If they refuse to cut spending, like Sweden, they will have to put big taxes on ordinary working people. Which is kind of pointless--taking money from John Q. Public only to turn around and give it right back to him (minus handling fees of course).





No wonder so many people have a distaste for "free" market economics.

George Reisman, Ph.D., is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics. His web site is Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics. His blog is at George Reisman's Blog on Economics, Politics, Society, and Culture.

The problem is you are asking people to use common sense instead of just listening to what other people tell them... if they don't understand it they will deny it.

 

[Shogun]

Shogun, it's a bit too much for me to try and respond to most of your points, so let's just go back to the two articles you posted.

I don't have any problem with unions. I believe that actions between consenting adults should not be forbidden by law. Lots of liberals say that but don't mean it. If unions want to go on strike, let them. If a company wants to fire them all, fine. If they can't find replacements, then they'll have to give in.

I'm sure they are fine for insuring that safety issues are brought up, voicing employee concerns and so forth. But you simply cannot give the good life to millions and millions of ordinary people without improvements in output per worker and output per unit of raw material!

Everybody in america could join a union tomorrow, and it would not increase living standards for americans as a whole, because everything would be more expensive, or companies would go under. If there were a modern-day Henry Ford of the solar panel industry, someone who could do to solar panel prices what Ford did for car prices, they would do more for our living standards than all the unions in america combined. But inventions and production advances don't happen without investment.

Listen, dude.. we can ALL blame someone else. Wanna see that video of Greenspan having his ass handed to him in the early 90s again BECAUSE OF HIS FREE MARKET OPINIONS? Unions protect a standard of living in the US. THAT is the fact. Greedy capitalist pieces of shit are not even remotely interested in an American standard of living. THEIR concern is profit. plain and simple. You can't pretend that there would be NO companies if the fat of the land were snatched out from the hands of a fucking capitalist. People still have needs. America STILL has resources. LOOK AT JAPAN. How well do THEY operate with THEIR protectionist policies? Indeed, it is EXACTLY the fault of capitalism that we see multinational conglomerates monopolizinig markets. WHO CAN BE A HENRY FUCKING FORD OF SOLAR PANELS when we are DOMINATED by a handful of oil companies? Who, lets be honest, rule their own monopolized market?


By restricting the flow of imported goods to actually compete with a standard of living that OUR AMERICAN producers enjoy not only do we invest in the US but give other slave labor nations a reason to raise THEIR SOL. Now, China has no incentive to do anything more than provide cheap plastic shit at wal mart to the complete detriment of AMERICAN businesses and producers. THIS might be OK with your average pig fucker capitalist but not me. AMERICA is hungry. And we are about to tell you to go eat your import.

 

[Shogun]

Also, let's hear from the most famous economist of the 20th century again, John Keynes (not a laissez-faire guy by any means):



Commanding Heights : Keynes on Inflation | on PBS

wow. profound. Wanna talk about the most popular theorist in psychiatry and tell me about how you secretly want to fuck your mother while competing with your father? I hate to break it to you but Keynes is not the standard by which we all take our economic direction.

 

[sealybobo]

I'm sorry, but it seems the GOP want it both ways. They say if Democrats get into office, they'll raise taxes and/or the cost of goods and services because if we raise taxes on companies, then they'll pass those costs on to us.

Well why did the cost of everything go up under the GOP's rule? In other words, why didn't the tax breaks to the rich work?

I guess gas would be $10 a gallon if we didn't give the rich that unfair tax break?

And if we don't make those unfair tax breaks permenant, gas will go up to $10 a gallon?

The GOP can't lose with this kind of spin.

They're right even when they are dead wrong.

 

[Bern80]

Because it would force the already poor and marginally poor to pay taxes they don't now.

Not if income tax were removed as well.

Because it would give the already rich even more disposable money to buy up the assets they don't already own.

How will it give the rich more disposable income but the wealthy less? And so what if they want to buy more assetts. It's a free fucking country. No other statement proves more that you would rather have mediocrity than incure the risk of the current system. On one hand you complain about the plight of the poor and on the other your arguing that people should not be allowed to attain a certain level of wealth.

I did not say that society makes people weathy.

I said having a fuctional society provides the conditions for wealth to be made. A subtle difference apparently nobody who is of a libertarian mindset can fathom.

Okay that is half true, our system allows for large amounts of wealth to be made as oppossed to some form of more socialistic economy. It does not however come without risks. It seems to be you and people of your mindset that somehow believe risk is a bad thing and should be legislated out of our lives. If you want to be able to make sure everyone is at the standard you set, just say so. If you want a system you are allowed to say this as much as we are going to allow you to have, just say so. If you want socialism, just say so. You are either tiptoeing around or don't realize that is essentially what you are arguing for.

You are not qualified to tell me what I believe, sport.

If you want to debate with a strawman, stop addressing your posts to me.

What else is their to believe about your position. If you believe as I believe that people have a considerable deal of control over their destiny, then you really can't argue what you're arguing. You would have to believe as I believe that by in large the burden to succeed in this type of society and economy fall by in large on the individual. That being the case you should the rich as examples of people that were able to successfully compete in this type of society.

There is some truth to that certainly.

Likewise there is some truth to the fact that it takes money to make money. The answer to why people are or are not making it in America is complex, and not easy stated in one sentence.

But a lot of those reasons you can see everyday. A lot of it goes to the mentality of our society and the things we think we need or poor choices we make. Look at the number of poor people that smoke and think of the money they could save if they didn't. Or simply haveing bills they don't need to have at the moment if their really interested in improveing themselves (internet, cable, etc.).

Unless, of course, your plan means that 20% is the TOTAL combination of ALL TAXES that anyone would EVER PAY.

No sales, state, income, SSI and so forth.

Is that you plan?

Or is you plan merely your proposed modification of FICA taxes?

Because the poor already pay far more than 20% of their incomes as taxes, you know...only they do not pay 20% of the gross incomes as a FICA tax.

So please define your tax plan in some detail, so that we both know what it is we are discussing.

Part of it would be repeal of income tax all together. 20% would be the total between state and federal income tax just as an example.

 

[Shogun]

Hey Bern.. when you stop jacking off to the memory of Bell Labs maybe you will comprehend a few things about how capitalism, especially the bullshit free market theories, do not benefit the US. I suggest you stop trying to tell us how your overprices company store for your indentured fuckin slaves is how FREEDOM works.

 

[Paulie]

Shogun have you ever considered that much of the regulation in place BENEFITS the multi-nationals?

You don't think the oil companies, for instance, lobby for energy regulation that strangles new competition? Without much of that regulation, there would be 100's of small oil companies instead of about 5 big ones controlling everything.

 

[Shogun]

Shogun have you ever considered that much of the regulation in place BENEFITS the multi-nationals?

You don't think the oil companies, for instance, lobby for energy regulation that strangles new competition? Without much of that regulation, there would be 100's of small oil companies instead of about 5 big ones controlling everything.

Im not against reconfiguring regulations. But, to pretend that a free market with NO regulations helps anyone but the silver spooners and their cash cult is a giant misnomer. Without regulation those same oil companies would be dumping their factory waste into our water supplies. Humans are not altruistic. And, be sure, capitalists are exponentially worse.

 

[Paulie]

Im not against reconfiguring regulations. But, to pretend that a free market with NO regulations helps anyone but the silver spooners and their cash cult is a giant misnomer. Without regulation those same oil companies would be dumping their factory waste into our water supplies. Humans are not altruistic. And, be sure, capitalists are exponentially worse.

I don't have a problem with environmental regs. But there are many stipulations in energy regs, and most other sector regs for that matter, that make it almost impossible for fledgling companies to compete with the multi-nationals. The regs are designed by, and pushed by the lobbyists for those corps. And then they're helped through by the bought and paid for congresspeople, and stringently enforced by the bought and paid for bureaucrats.

If you're lucky enough to have ample capital, perhaps you can fly under the radar while you develop your fledgling company, but that's certainly the exception to today's rule.

I'm not so much a de-regger, really. I agree with you, the regs need to be seriously reconfigured for the sake of market fairness.

 

[sealybobo]

shogun and paulitics are both making good points.

one other thing. Mccain voted against giving tax credits to alternative energy companies but did vote for tax breaks to oil companies.

The question isn't zero regulations vs regulations. the isue is too many vs not enough.

The talking heads act like all regulations are bad. That's silly. But they don't talk specifics because then they lose the argument. Should the housing market have been deregulated? How about the S&L industry during the 80's when doing so almost crashed that industry and they too got bailed out by taxpayers?

So the gop are for NOT ENOUGH regulations.

So to me, mccain is the bigger risk, especially when he was involved in the S&L scandal.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

Greedy capitalist pieces of shit are not even remotely interested in an American standard of living. THEIR concern is profit. plain and simple.

Of course. They are looking to maximize profits.

You're forgetting the part where workers are also consumers. Companies that charge too much for their products get undercut by competition and go out of business. Look at a list of "unstoppable" businesses that progressives were railing against 100 years ago. Guess what, almost none of them exist anymore, they were put out of business by other businesse who offered customers a better deal.

LOOK AT JAPAN. How well do THEY operate with THEIR protectionist policies?

They were in an economic funk for the better part of two decades. Then they were doing better for a couple of years, and now it's back to recession for them, most likely. They also pay exhorbitant prices for consumer goods, many Japanese people under the age of 40 have to live with their parents, etc.

WHO CAN BE A HENRY FUCKING FORD OF SOLAR PANELS when we are DOMINATED by a handful of oil companies? Who, lets be honest, rule their own monopolized market?

The private oil companies don't have anywhere near the market share that state oil companies do. Also they aren't a monopoly. And they aren't interfering with solar panel companies. (Hint: there already is a Henry Ford style solar panel revolution going on, google Konarka or Nanosolar. A somewhat free market has responded to supply and demand. They could ramp up production a lot faster and probably could have brought this technology to fruition years sooner, with more capital.)

Speaking of oil monopolies, did you know that when Standard Oil went to court, their market share was 87%? And not 100%? Did you know that, by the time the company was broken up by our government, their market share was at 60% and falling? Even though they were relentlessly dropping prices on Kerosene and gasoline? Did you know that Rockefeller got tired of paying for insurance on his refineries, and pushed through a safety program so that he could stop paying it?

By restricting the flow of imported goods to actually compete with a standard of living that OUR AMERICAN producers enjoy not only do we invest in the US but give other slave labor nations a reason to raise THEIR SOL. Now, China has no incentive to do anything more than provide cheap plastic shit at wal mart to the complete detriment of AMERICAN businesses and producers. THIS might be OK with your average pig fucker capitalist but not me. AMERICA is hungry. And we are about to tell you to go eat your import.

We had cheap labor competition during the 50's and 60's, and we prospered. Sure, there were tariffs. But the price of labor in 3rd world countries more than makes up for it. So why wasn't our industrial base hollowed out?

It didn't start until Nixon took us off the last remnant of the gold standard in 1971. Not only did we immediately see inflation, but american industry went into decline. Thus we see the familiar statistics that it takes two incomes to provide what one income once did. Or the familiar lament that incomes for people without college degrees has stalled or declined. Or the huge trade deficit, which was like an elephant that appeared out of nowhere. You can thank the government and the quasi-private federal reserve for all of this.

Professor Antal E. Fekete - Articles

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

wow. profound. Wanna talk about the most popular theorist in psychiatry and tell me about how you secretly want to fuck your mother while competing with your father? I hate to break it to you but Keynes is not the standard by which we all take our economic direction.

Not quite as much anymore, but he was. (Not that it was a good thing or that I agree with everything he said.) As Nixon famously said, "We're all Keynesians now". He was as mainstream as mainstream gets, his ideas were behind much of the New Deal, and if you disagreed with him you were probably considered a crank. He's still well-regarded in leftish economics, just as Milton Friedman is the figurehead of most (but not all) on the right.

I'm sorry, but it seems the GOP want it both ways. They say if Democrats get into office, they'll raise taxes and/or the cost of goods and services because if we raise taxes on companies, then they'll pass those costs on to us.

Well why did the cost of everything go up under the GOP's rule? In other words, why didn't the tax breaks to the rich work?

Because they replaced direct income taxes with the stealth tax of borrowing and inflation. Make no mistake, the GOP is not a fan of lowering the government's burden. Government spending went up even faster than the democrats. Military spending is every bit as economically wasteful and harmful to the economy as social programs. Probably moreso, at least some forms of social spending are actually capital improvements (roads, education) which can help productivity (though the government often will provide them at a boondoggle cost).

 

[Bern80]

Im not against reconfiguring regulations. But, to pretend that a free market with NO regulations helps anyone but the silver spooners and their cash cult is a giant misnomer. Without regulation those same oil companies would be dumping their factory waste into our water supplies. Humans are not altruistic. And, be sure, capitalists are exponentially worse.

I have never argued there should be no regulation. I have never said our system is perfect. I have never said it is going to be all things to all people. I have said it is competition and in competition not everyone is gonna make it. it isn't perfect but it is the best system there is so far and as far as improving behavior it aqt the very least encourages personal responsiblity as oppossed to apathy by another system. Please point to another country that has a higher standard of living then we do.

 

[Chris]

I have never argued there should be no regulation. I have never said our system is perfect. I have never said it is going to be all things to all people. I have said it is competition and in competition not everyone is gonna make it. it isn't perfect but it is the best system there is so far and as far as improving behavior it aqt the very least encourages personal responsiblity as oppossed to apathy by another system. Please point to another country that has a higher standard of living then we do.

There about 9 of them, but we are trying harder....

STANDARD OF LIVING WORLD STATS, the revealing measurement

 

[Bern80]

There about 9 of them, but we are trying harder....

STANDARD OF LIVING WORLD STATS, the revealing measurement

What a wonderfully unbiased source. There definition of quality of life is rather interesting in the absence of any financial or economic factors. It is also based on averages. The fact remains that our upper eschelon in terms of wealth accumulation is higher than any other country and the opportunity - a word some of you whiners don't seem to quite understand - to become so is better than most any other country as well.