Would this be a superior economic system to the US?

[Phony Moderate]

So what's this thread supposed to be about?

[courts]

Yes, health insurance companies spent vast amounts of many lobbying for the public option, and other parts of health care reform to aggressively expand insurance coverage, not to kill or neuter the bill however possible.

It's not exactly a secret the HMOs are trying to keep the GOP from killing Obamacare (not that they actually would) and loved the mandate, which they lobbied for obviously. From the beginning the HMOs had their tentacles all over that thing which is why that proposal was quickly dropped.. Although you could argue the public option would have amounted to corporate welfare anyway given who it would attract and the nature of the bill.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is not really true, groups like SIFMA and the MPAA both were very supportive to name some (bigger) examples. That thing was plagued by regulatory capture from the beginning.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well, after being around me several months I'd like to think he would recognize the reference by now without a link.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

I oppose the individual mandate from the left--it was just an addition from the health lobbies to get more paying customers.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It misses out the most important features of the Soviet economic system (including the ones that guaranteed eventual disaster) and so is just a little on the dishonest side, but then I suppose we should expect that from you.

We all knew this from the moment we saw who was the poll's author.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Are people voting yes to this as a joke? Or is this forum really that leftwing?

Geez.... an 81% income tax on people making over $20k?! Man, I'd quit school tomorrow since there would be no point.

Mostly to annoy Worny, I suspect.

Ding ding!

I imagine Wormy's entire existence on this forum at this point consists of him spending hours trying to think of new and brilliant plans to 'trick' us into voting for things entirely out of context, never proving any point whatsoever, but he thinks it's brilliant, the poor sod.

[Хahar 🤔]

It's the Soviet Union, people.

Congratulations, Mint gets a prize!

(Well not really, because I told him).

Clearly the problems with the Soviet Union were not the absence of any sort of democracy or the total lack of basic freedoms or the arbitrary judicial system or the failure of the system to fulfill the promises that it made. No, the problem with the Soviet Union was that it promised free healthcare and generous pensions.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually, I was counting the amount of time you spent composing your written equivalent of stammering, not the amount of time between my post and yours.  That would be 27 minutes.

You mean you actually checked? Haha! That's both worryingly obsessive and utterly pathetic.

But I'm sure you'll think up some spiteful wisecrack to make it seem otherwise. To you, if to no one else. Probably you don't even see why others might find it weird...

Is it bad that I can now predict exactly what you are going to say before you even say it?

Here's my notes:

• I've won the argument, will snidely offer to stop
• Al doesn't know when to stop, will say how many minutes that post took
• Al does say how many minutes that post took
• *insert appropriately snide response here*
• My response: “Actually, I was counting the amount of time you spent composing your written equivalent of stammering, not the amount of time between my post and yours.  That would be 27 minutes.  Of course, one of the many inefficiencies of the Soviet system was its emphasis on quantity over quality.”
• Al will say that I'm too obsessed because I checked when he started his post
• I could either point out that I was checking what Mint was doing (), point out I'm not the one obsessed enough to spend two years of his life on Atlas (though admittedly it's a time-waster I'm much too fond of), or simply ignore his increasingly childish and stupid responses
• Al does say I'm too obsessed
• I know, I'll post this!
• Al posts how many minutes this post took, or one of his generic muffin posts.  whatev

So you respond to a suggestion that you might be a little on the... er... strange... side with... that.

Fine. Fine. I guess. Fine. Absolutely fine. Everything up top is clearly all in good working order.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Clearly the problems with the Soviet Union were not the absence of any sort of democracy or the total lack of basic freedoms or the arbitrary judicial system or the failure of the system to fulfill the promises that it made. No, the problem with the Soviet Union was that it promised free healthcare and generous pensions.

Makes perfect sense, does it not? And obviously this is utterly and absolutely relevant to today in all ways and forever.

[tpfkaw]

Actually, I was counting the amount of time you spent composing your written equivalent of stammering, not the amount of time between my post and yours.  That would be 27 minutes.

You mean you actually checked? Haha! That's both worryingly obsessive and utterly pathetic.

But I'm sure you'll think up some spiteful wisecrack to make it seem otherwise. To you, if to no one else. Probably you don't even see why others might find it weird...

Is it bad that I can now predict exactly what you are going to say before you even say it?

Here's my notes:

• I've won the argument, will snidely offer to stop
• Al doesn't know when to stop, will say how many minutes that post took
• Al does say how many minutes that post took
• *insert appropriately snide response here*
• My response: “Actually, I was counting the amount of time you spent composing your written equivalent of stammering, not the amount of time between my post and yours.  That would be 27 minutes.  Of course, one of the many inefficiencies of the Soviet system was its emphasis on quantity over quality.”
• Al will say that I'm too obsessed because I checked when he started his post
• I could either point out that I was checking what Mint was doing (), point out I'm not the one obsessed enough to spend two years of his life on Atlas (though admittedly it's a time-waster I'm much too fond of), or simply ignore his increasingly childish and stupid responses
• Al does say I'm too obsessed
• I know, I'll post this!
• Al posts how many minutes this post took, or one of his generic muffin posts.  whatev

So you respond to a suggestion that you might be a little on the... er... strange... side with... that.

Fine. Fine. I guess. Fine. Absolutely fine. Everything up top is clearly all in good working order.

Yes, I write down nearly everything.  Helps me think and also to return to something I've forgot.  Keeps me from writing paragraphs of incoherence.

[Insula Dei]

Shouldn't someone make a thread like this one:

'Is this society inferior to the 1950s US?'

-A society with full gender equality and no racial segregation or discrimination
-A society where everybody has acces to affordable education and health care
-A society with the largest army on the surface of the planet, which has almost single-handedly won the largest single land war in the history of humanity
-A society where poets, writers and artists are greatly valued and which has had a tremendous influence on the history of cinema
-A society which has had major scientific break-troughs like the development of the H-bomb, the first living creature AND the first man in an orbit around the earth, the first transplantation of an animal head
-A society with X Nobel Prize winners*
-A society which has managed to double and triple the size of its economy and food production in a matter of decades
....


*: Actually I checked and the USSR won a grand total of 17 Nobel Prizes in its history (and one of those was for Gorbachov in 1990) the first of which only came in 1933. On the other hand the US won some 330 Nobel Prizes. There's certainly no dodgy ideology involved in the mechanisms of the Nobel Prize,...

And Wormy, no this is not a defense of the USSR

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, I write down nearly everything.  Helps me think and also to return to something I've forgot.  Keeps me from writing paragraphs of incoherence.

I'm glad to hear that. Thinking is fun; you should try it some time.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Shouldn't someone make a thread like this one:

'Is this society inferior to the 1950s US?'

-A society with full gender equality and no racial segregation or discrimination
-A society where everybody has acces to affordable education and health care
-A society with the largest army on the surface of the planet, which has almost single-handedly won the largest single land war in the history of humanity
-A society where poets, writers and artists are greatly valued and which has had a tremendous influence on the history of cinema
-A society which has had major scientific break-troughs like the development of the H-bomb, the first living creature AND the first man in an orbit around the earth, the first transplantation of an animal head
-A society with X Nobel Prize winners*
-A society which has managed to double and triple the size of its economy and food production in a matter of decades
....


*: Actually I checked and the USSR won a grand total of 17 Nobel Prizes in its history (and one of those was for Gorbachov in 1990) the first of which only came in 1933. On the other hand the US won some 330 Nobel Prizes. There's certainly no dodgy ideology involved in the mechanisms of the Nobel Prize,...

And Wormy, no this is not a defense of the USSR

It would be on about the same level (and contains a similar number of distortions even within bullet points; the first two especially), but I don't think there's much need to sink to a certain level.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Well actually, your material is as predictable as it is mundane (1. either "You are a fycking idiot" or "You are trolling, idiot", 2. "Stop that name-calling, muffin!", 3. repeat 1 and 2 as necessary), but occasionally you unintentionally produce something that might prove an ironically appropriate addition to a more diverse repartee.

I don't think I've ever called anyone a 'muffin'. It seems like an odd sort of word to use as an insult. Is it common, in your part of the world, to use the names of baked goods as insults?

As for predictability, I confess, alas, yes. Not really in the way that you seem to think... but then as you are clearly a poor judge of character, I concede that you may be a poor judge of other things as well. They do tend to go together. Anyway... I confess that my material seems mostly to consist of dense paragraphs of alarmingly petty and bitter sarcasm, combined with disguised personal abuse, atrocious irony, and a tendency to use worryingly specific violent figurative language. The hideous suspicion must also exist that I actually find writing such material enjoyable, which would rather ruin the point of any baiting. The thing is though, as a great man once said (and repeatedly), I am not a member of the Liberal Democrats (thank the Lord), but I do believing in recycling old material. For instance, I find your humour (which is nasty in a way that mine isn't; the natural response seems to be the sort of unpleasant sn than comes from self-satisfied - but unselfaware - entitlement) slightly less amusing than sepsis. I have used that line before, and will do again because it perfectly captures a certain specific type of contempt. And because I firmly believe that you are also the by-product of a severe bacterial infection and that you must be flushed out by intravenous fluids and antibiotics.

He got the term "muffin" from me.  And it's because I called Mint a muffin, because he is a muffin.  But I've also called people overgrown earth muffins before. 

[Gustaf]

Shouldn't someone make a thread like this one:

'Is this society inferior to the 1950s US?'

-A society with full gender equality and no racial segregation or discrimination
-A society where everybody has acces to affordable education and health care
-A society with the largest army on the surface of the planet, which has almost single-handedly won the largest single land war in the history of humanity
-A society where poets, writers and artists are greatly valued and which has had a tremendous influence on the history of cinema
-A society which has had major scientific break-troughs like the development of the H-bomb, the first living creature AND the first man in an orbit around the earth, the first transplantation of an animal head
-A society with X Nobel Prize winners*
-A society which has managed to double and triple the size of its economy and food production in a matter of decades
....


*: Actually I checked and the USSR won a grand total of 17 Nobel Prizes in its history (and one of those was for Gorbachov in 1990) the first of which only came in 1933. On the other hand the US won some 330 Nobel Prizes. There's certainly no dodgy ideology involved in the mechanisms of the Nobel Prize,...

And Wormy, no this is not a defense of the USSR

A problem here is that the first one is simply false.
The second is dubious in the sense of quality.
The third one is reasonable but not a huge positive.
The fourth is again, imo, false. This is a society that large restricted what their artist could do and even expelled one of their greatest writers.
The fifth one is again false. The Soviets did not invent the H-bomb from what I know. They built one after the Americans, at least to some extent based on research they stole from the US. And of course they're nowhere near the US in terms of scientific results.
The sixth one does not make much sense since the US has so many more. And that's hardly a result of bias (although it may contribute, I suppose).
The seventh one is quite dishonest since it's not hard to increase food production after you've destroyed it.

-----------------------

I don't know how similarly wrong Wormguy's list was, but I'm also not sure what point this is making. Is it merely a worse version of his list?

Anyway, since the Soviet Union sucked it helps highlight that there is a point at which socialist policy isn't particularly good. That's not very relevant to contemporary US political debate though.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Taxes:

Progressive income tax with a bottom rate of 13% at a yearly income above $3,500 rising to 81% for income above $20,500.  Top tax rate is 69% for income received from wages, and income from pensions are tax-free.

9% flat payroll tax on wages to fund the pension system.

Progressive corporate tax and VAT that combined take 55% of an average business's profits, with lower rates for small businesses and state-owned enterprises and larger rates for big businesses.

40% flat tariff on imported goods.

Welfare state:

Retirement age at 60 for men and 55 for women, pensions equal 70% of pre-retirement earnings.

Disability insurance paying 100% of previous earnings if disability caused by injury on the job prevents the individual from working, or 90% if the disability was caused while not working.

All workers are guaranteed a right to employment, leisure, healthcare, material security, housing, and education including higher education.

Healthcare is run by a nationalized system and citizens are not charged for it.

Higher education is also nationalized and is also provided at no charge.

Housing is also nationalized and is provided at nominal rates, lower for individuals with lower incomes.

Banks are nationalized, deposits are fully guaranteed by the government.

Kind of sounds like what Ernest would propose.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Just admit your love for Ernest, already, Carl. We're an accepting bunch.

[© tweed]

Just admit your love for Ernest, already, Carl. We're an accepting bunch.

Carl gets like this sometimes.  does anyone remember his anti-MODU campaign?

[tpfkaw]

Yes, I write down nearly everything.  Helps me think and also to return to something I've forgot.  Keeps me from writing paragraphs of incoherence.

I'm glad to hear that. Thinking is fun; you should try it some time.

Your brilliance is only exceeded by your originality, sweetums.

[Insula Dei]

Shouldn't someone make a thread like this one:

'Is this society inferior to the 1950s US?'

-A society with full gender equality and no racial segregation or discrimination
-A society where everybody has acces to affordable education and health care
-A society with the largest army on the surface of the planet, which has almost single-handedly won the largest single land war in the history of humanity
-A society where poets, writers and artists are greatly valued and which has had a tremendous influence on the history of cinema
-A society which has had major scientific break-troughs like the development of the H-bomb, the first living creature AND the first man in an orbit around the earth, the first transplantation of an animal head
-A society with X Nobel Prize winners*
-A society which has managed to double and triple the size of its economy and food production in a matter of decades
....


*: Actually I checked and the USSR won a grand total of 17 Nobel Prizes in its history (and one of those was for Gorbachov in 1990) the first of which only came in 1933. On the other hand the US won some 330 Nobel Prizes. There's certainly no dodgy ideology involved in the mechanisms of the Nobel Prize,...

And Wormy, no this is not a defense of the USSR

A problem here is that the first one is simply false.
The second is dubious in the sense of quality.
The third one is reasonable but not a huge positive.
The fourth is again, imo, false. This is a society that large restricted what their artist could do and even expelled one of their greatest writers.
The fifth one is again false. The Soviets did not invent the H-bomb from what I know. They built one after the Americans, at least to some extent based on research they stole from the US. And of course they're nowhere near the US in terms of scientific results.
The sixth one does not make much sense since the US has so many more. And that's hardly a result of bias (although it may contribute, I suppose).
The seventh one is quite dishonest since it's not hard to increase food production after you've destroyed it.

-----------------------

I don't know how similarly wrong Wormguy's list was, but I'm also not sure what point this is making. Is it merely a worse version of his list?

Anyway, since the Soviet Union sucked it helps highlight that there is a point at which socialist policy isn't particularly good. That's not very relevant to contemporary US political debate though.

The point is that it's very easy to give a distorted image of any economical system and/or society, as Wormy seems to have discovered quite a while ago and has been using as his main source for creating threads ever since. All of the things I wrote are, I think, at least formally true. The USSR did have full equality written down in its constitution, etc. etc.

[Gustaf]

Shouldn't someone make a thread like this one:

'Is this society inferior to the 1950s US?'

-A society with full gender equality and no racial segregation or discrimination
-A society where everybody has acces to affordable education and health care
-A society with the largest army on the surface of the planet, which has almost single-handedly won the largest single land war in the history of humanity
-A society where poets, writers and artists are greatly valued and which has had a tremendous influence on the history of cinema
-A society which has had major scientific break-troughs like the development of the H-bomb, the first living creature AND the first man in an orbit around the earth, the first transplantation of an animal head
-A society with X Nobel Prize winners*
-A society which has managed to double and triple the size of its economy and food production in a matter of decades
....


*: Actually I checked and the USSR won a grand total of 17 Nobel Prizes in its history (and one of those was for Gorbachov in 1990) the first of which only came in 1933. On the other hand the US won some 330 Nobel Prizes. There's certainly no dodgy ideology involved in the mechanisms of the Nobel Prize,...

And Wormy, no this is not a defense of the USSR

A problem here is that the first one is simply false.
The second is dubious in the sense of quality.
The third one is reasonable but not a huge positive.
The fourth is again, imo, false. This is a society that large restricted what their artist could do and even expelled one of their greatest writers.
The fifth one is again false. The Soviets did not invent the H-bomb from what I know. They built one after the Americans, at least to some extent based on research they stole from the US. And of course they're nowhere near the US in terms of scientific results.
The sixth one does not make much sense since the US has so many more. And that's hardly a result of bias (although it may contribute, I suppose).
The seventh one is quite dishonest since it's not hard to increase food production after you've destroyed it.

-----------------------

I don't know how similarly wrong Wormguy's list was, but I'm also not sure what point this is making. Is it merely a worse version of his list?

Anyway, since the Soviet Union sucked it helps highlight that there is a point at which socialist policy isn't particularly good. That's not very relevant to contemporary US political debate though.

The point is that it's very easy to give a distorted image of any economical system and/or society, as Wormy seems to have discovered quite a while ago and has been using as his main source for creating threads ever since. All of the things I wrote are, I think, at least formally true. The USSR did have full equality written down in its constitution, etc. etc.

Yes, but it is more that the Soviet Union did not have a free market than to say that it was a beacon of tolerance, equality and scientific progress.

Regardless, it is my belief that on things like racism or gender equality formal law is highly irrelevant.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Taxes:

Progressive income tax with a bottom rate of 13% at a yearly income above $3,500 rising to 81% for income above $20,500.  Top tax rate is 69% for income received from wages, and income from pensions are tax-free.

9% flat payroll tax on wages to fund the pension system.

Progressive corporate tax and VAT that combined take 55% of an average business's profits, with lower rates for small businesses and state-owned enterprises and larger rates for big businesses.

40% flat tariff on imported goods.

Welfare state:

Retirement age at 60 for men and 55 for women, pensions equal 70% of pre-retirement earnings.

Disability insurance paying 100% of previous earnings if disability caused by injury on the job prevents the individual from working, or 90% if the disability was caused while not working.

All workers are guaranteed a right to employment, leisure, healthcare, material security, housing, and education including higher education.

Healthcare is run by a nationalized system and citizens are not charged for it.

Higher education is also nationalized and is also provided at no charge.

Housing is also nationalized and is provided at nominal rates, lower for individuals with lower incomes.

Banks are nationalized, deposits are fully guaranteed by the government.

The highlighted portions gaurantee that such a system wouldn't work in the long run. Please note that while the nominal corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 35%, there are so many deductions that almost no companies actually pay that much.