Kimiko,

Didn't you know that anyone that is in disagreement with the Republican point of view must be a liar, a socialist, a marxist, a fascist, a terrorist, on welfare, uneducated, evil, stupid, etc.

The latest predictions coming out from the right is that the world is going to end because of President Barack Obama. If not that, at least the USA will come to pass as a result of it.

 

Iceland is bankrupt.

Is that you goal for the US?

 

Norway

Originally Posted by Distant Lover
Norway would be nice.

"Norway not only has no national debt, it has a $210bn surplus in its State Petroleum Fund (now known as the Government Pension Fund). It is a country that will never be poor."

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/5523,news-comment,news-politics,we-could-have-been-as-rich-as-norway

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The reason the United States is so badly in debt is because Ronald Reagan popularized the notion that, contrary to what Milton Friedman said, there really is a free lunch, and it is always a good idea to cut taxes, even when military spending is mushrooming.

 

Tenguy needs to be continually reminded that Reagan popularized the myth, which is now deeply imbedded in conservative DNA, that:

1. Taxes are ALWAYS too high,
2. You can ALWAYS cut them more, while relentlessly increasing military spending, and
3. Revenue will increase, and
4. If it doesn't, deficits don't matter anyway.

 

Republicans agree with Dick Cheney that, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter," as long as those deficits cause rich people to get richer, and the defense budget to get bigger.

If during the 1980's a Democrat president had tripled the national debt, like Reagan did, in a successful effort to end poverty and racial inequality in the United States, Republicans would have been talking openly about a political assassination.

 

But you did post Iceland as being an idyllic country to emulate.

Norway's great financial shape is at the expense of those forced to buy her oil. Plus, with almost no participation in the international social and military needs, she saves a bundle through isolation.

We unfortunately are a consuming nation of oil and a highly involved one in social and military needs internationally.

 

I listed Iceland as a country that has a higher standard of living then the United States. Ireland is also in trouble economically. Several years ago libertarians were holding Ireland up as an ideal because the government sharply cut taxes.

The obvious solution to America's dependence on oil is for Americans to stop consuming so much. I favor a high tax on gasoline, and want the money to be spent exclusively on non automobile means of transportation.

The obvious solution to America's bloated military budget is for the United States to leave other countries alone. The United States has been harmed by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. If Bill Clinton had cut the defense budget more than he did, the United States would have been weaker, and George W. Bush would not have been tempted to invade. A weaker United States would be a better world citizen.

 

Historically American leaders have warned about large standing armies. The United States spends nearly as much on the military as the rest of the world combined. After 9/11 Osama bin Laded said, "We did not attack America because America was weak. If we wanted to attack a weak country we would have attacked Iceland."

If the United States was weaker during the 1960's the United States would not have been involved in Vietnam. The United States has frequently been the aggressor. There is much in American history Americans should be ashamed of. Decent Americans are ashamed.

 

We just don't want it

The longer the American people think about it, the more they're convinced they don't want government managing healthcare:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124253/Say-Health-Coverage-Not-Gov-Responsibility.aspx

Like most socialists, once the Obama regime realized the majority of Americans were against them, they started lying, manipulating, and scheming to install socialist health care, just a part of their overall desire to change the constitution to read "We the Government" rather than "We the People". It always happens this way, as they believe their superior intellects and utopian vision justify any means. Never mind that socialism has never been a long-term success anywhere on the planet.

But as I've said since this debate started, the American people know a shell game when they see it, and they aren't buying.

Give it up, lefties. Pelosi's pyrrhic victory in the house is the high water mark for this campaign. All that's left to decide is who to blame.

 

On a number of occasions I have pointed out that Americans spend more per capita on health care than people in any other country, that the results are inferior to those of countries with universal health care, that the U.S. health system is less popular than systems in countries with universal health care, and that 45,000 people die every year because they do not have health coverage. Those are not lies. They are facts that I have documented.

 

What you call "socialism" works fine in Western Europe and the British Commonwealth. I have documented that too.

 

I'm a decent American and I'm not ashamed. I'm proud of my country. Is it perfect? No. Has it made mistakes? Yes. Does it still have the overall best record on the planet of acting in the interests of freedom, human dignity, and decency? YES. Show me another country so willing to shed blood and treasure in defense of these most important of human values. Show me another country that's done more to spread and defend them.

Those of you who spit on the values of western culture, of which the United States is the ultimate example, make me want to vomit. Your expressions of moral and cultural equivalence between the west and its enemies are an act of cowardice, and a denial of your birhright of freedom. When you denigrate your own culture for being imperfect and raise up the mass murderers of communism as a better example, you spit on your forebears and a thousand years of struggle in search of human freedom, and show yourself an ingrate to those who endured centuries of darkness to give you the very fundamental freedom of speech you exercise so recklessly.

 

No, it's crap, and a twisting of real facts. Figures don't lie, but liars figure, and it's these cooked books you socialists are relying upon to convince the American people to give away more of their freedom. It's a shell game, and we ain't buying.

Here's a couple examples:

1. It's often cited that America has a higher rate of infant mortality. This is a fallacy. The numbers work out that way because we do more to try to save infant lives than anyone else in the world. Premature babies who die are counted as miscarriages in most places, while in the US they're counted as live births, and enter the child mortality statistics when they, sadly, don't make it.

2. It's also often cited that Americans have a lower survival rate in cancer cases. This is another case of cooking the books. You can see the actual data here:

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/se...l-rates-in-usa-better-than-europe-and-canada/

Attached is a graph from that study. Here's another one:

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/08/5-yr-cancer-survival-rates-us-dominates.html

Bottom line is that Americans have a higher incidence of cancer, due to what some would say is our extravagant lifestyle. But those who are diagnosed with cancer have a higher survival rate than nearly any other country in the world. You need to stop getting your "facts" from the socialist structure and start thinking for yourself.

 

For those on the right, "freedom" is nothing more than a euphemism for greed and selfishness. Where was the human dignity when Americans killed the Indians and took their land? The West was not won. It was lost.

What happened to decency when the United States crushed the Philippine Insurrection, overthrew democratic governments in Iran and Guatemala, and prevented an election that was scheduled for July 1956 to unify Vietnam? The United States provoked a war that devastated Vietnam and killed two million Vietnamese in order to prevent an election that Dwight Eisenhower admitted in his memoirs, Mandate for Change Ho Chi Minh would have won in a blow out.

Now sure, European countries have behaved badly in the past too, but they know it, and that knowledge keeps them from behaving badly in the present.

 

44 countries have lower infant mortality rates than the United States. Don't argue with me about that. Argue with the Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publica...ates&countryCode=us&regionCode=na&rank=180#us

When millions of American women cannot afford free prenatal care more babies die. It is just that simple.

 

That superior standard of living you cite for Iceland is about to go tits up. The nation is bankrupt due to its welfare state proclivities. As the Iron Lady said, "the problem with socialisim is you eventually run out of other people's money to spend."

A weaker United States would no longer be there to defend freedom the next time it's endangered. Believe it or not, there are people out there who are restrained in their greed and desire for empire by the existence of a force they know will resist. A weaker United States would make for a much more dangerous world.

You also don't take into account the ability of the US military to help. After the tsunami disaster in south Asia, it was the US military who stepped in and saved thousands of lives through the provision of medical aid and rescue services. No one else on earth has that level of capability. It's also generally forgotten that the US military saved more people in New Orleans during Katrina than any other organization. Without the US military, that all goes away too.

 

According to a study done in Harvard, 45,000 people die every year because they cannot afford health care. You don't have to cook the books in order to figure out that when people cannot afford regular medical check ups they will not get preventive treatment for cancer and heart disease.

 

Again, you're looking only at the surface number. You need to look more deeply into how it was generated. As I said, we in the US count as live births children who would be counted as miscarriages elsewhere. Plus, I see nowhere in that report the explanation for the number that you provide. You're inventing a rationale for a number whose origin you do not understand. Stop listening to your masters and start thinking for yourself. It's called intellectual freedom. You should try it.

 

The New Yorker, "Iceland’s Deep Freeze," by James Surowiecki

Until last year, Iceland’s economic track record in this decade had been phenomenal—its annual growth rate averaged close to four per cent over the past decade, and its per-capita gross national income is now higher than that of the U.S. This year, though, the country’s currency, the króna, has fallen twenty-two per cent against the euro; the economy has stagnated; and a global rating agency has put the nation’s three major banks on a credit watch. Now analysts are wondering whether the new Nordic Tiger will end up, instead, as “the Bear Stearns of the North Atlantic.”

So how did Iceland get in so much trouble? That’s the odd part of the story: it isn’t because its banks gambled on the worthless subprime securities that helped undo Bear Stearns and so many others. Iceland’s banks prudently avoided the subprime market, even as they embarked on a lending boom at home and expanded abroad. What got Iceland in trouble was something more subtle: its banks got their money primarily from international investors, making the Icelandic miracle heavily dependent on foreign capital.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2008/04/21/080421ta_talk_surowiecki#ixzz0WrLiCgmV