Greece, sad

You have to wonder about a government that can put you in jail for a year for commercially transporting dentures made by an unlicensed practitioner over state lines..

I guess nobody within the FDA's grasp is going to be doing a Zenni on dentures.

James always skis in shorts. His metabolism must be nuclear, not biological.

He's an awfully good singer.

It's not my fault if you can't get serious about the topic here. We do have a topic, you know. What you call getting on top of the heap, some people think is normal conversation.

You mean, "spending *other people's* money" - and usually on some pointless white elephant that a meddling committee of unemployable layabout blowhards (in their infinite ignorance) has deemed worthy.

But that's the thing with Socialism. All Socialists are interested in is spending. Spending whether or not it can be afforded - and almost always on outrageously pointless, undeserving causes.

Societies are sufficiently complex that nobody, especially socalists, can predict the consequences of social engineering. They do like to spend money and, when things get worse, spend more. We have a homelessness problem in San Francisco. We now spend about $170 million per year on homeless services, and the number of homeless keeps increasing. The answer? Spend more!

Whan causalities are unknown, what works is diversity and competition. Some people call that "evolution."

So, if the Greeks became as productive as the Swedes, Greece wouldn't be approaching bankruptcy? Could be true. And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

I lived in Sweden for a year in the 1970s. Something like 75% of the population worked, and very few of those who I met worked for the government. Although they did complain about people on the dole.

War story: I was at a party in the Stockholm area, and heard the details of some particularly egregious social program (the details of which I no longer recall). I ventured to the hostess that the Swedes must be *very* rich. She was somewhat taken aback (we are all equal here), but said well no not really, but why do you say that? She had no reply to my answer that only a very rich country could afford such a system.

It is literally true. But I must say that the Swedes like it that way

- the then government won elections 60-40 year after year - and it's their money. Next time I'm in Sweden, I'll have to see what the story is now. Winning 60-40 is a thing of the past - it dropped to 50-50 after I left, and I have no idea where it is now.

Joe Gwinn

That's a description of every government that ever existed. Socialist diffe r by concentrating some of the expenditure on getting everybody a more or l ess equal chance to perform up to their capabilities - "to each according t o their needs, form each according to their capabilities". They don't do it perfectly, but in Scandinavia and Germany they come a lot closer to doing it well than anybody in the US.

As opposed to right-wing nitwits like Dubbya, who spent hugely on a pointle ss invasion of Irak.

All governments are about spending - it's their purpose in life to collect protection money from the rest of society and spend it in ways that make th em look good to their supporters. Dubbya invaded Irak, Angela Merkel presid es over the country that has a higher proportion of tertiary-educated citiz ens than any other.

I'd tell you to think about it, if I thought that you could.

I noticed that, but figured George's in the big time. :-)

Cheers, James Arthur

They can for some things, but it takes a long time. For example, our bulk food production system is highly ... hybrid - subsidies and commodities markets, two far poles, I think.

It works breathtakingly well. But that's after 50, 100 years of tweaking all the trimpots. And it's semi-market oriented to boot. so there's some control/feedback elements in it.

That's signalling. "Don't you *care* about the homeless??"

Hmmmmm... Volcker made a hard turn in policy and it took less than a decade. Depends on the element under control.

We love the homeless so much, we make more of them!

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All governments are interested in spending. Socialist want to direct the mo ney to improving society, Dubbya spent it on invading Irak. Your choice.

Why "especially socialists"? Granting the John Larkin doesn't think for him self, it's probably the impression he has gleaned from the right-wing owned US media, who also tell him that socialism and communism are the same thin g - a mistake no communist would make since the socialists threw out the pr oto-communist faction in 1870 for being undemocratic and potentially dictat orial (which was foresighted of them).

Predicting social outcomes can be tricky, but choosing between what isn't w orking in the US and what is working in Scandinavia and Germany isn't all t hat demanding - even John Larkin could manage it if he got his information from reliable sources, rather than right-wing propaganda machines like Jame s Arthur and the US media.

ve a

The US approach to social security is to spend much less than is needed to have any kind of effect, then to point out that what they are doing isn't w orking.

It's a win-win situation for the right-wing taxpayers (if they don't mind h aving their streets littered with homeless people suffering from infectious diseases, but gated communities don't have that problem). They lose in the long term because the pool of local working class people for them to explo it does tend to shrink, and importing Mexicans can get you into trouble wit h the anti-immigration faction, but right-wing nitwits don't think all that far ahead.

Ask John Larkin about the consequences of anthropogenic global warming - an d he'll tell you that they wiil all be good ....

Social Darwinism has been around for long enough that we know that Darwin h imself thought that it was rubbish. John Larkin doesn't know much history, and understands little of what he knows. Having James Arthur for a friend c an't help.

Or get the US banking system to do it for you. The GFC injected quite a few homeless into the system.

I really don't know where you get that. John's a perfectly decent fellow, smarter than most, and not pretentious at all.

What I see is talk about electronics, mixed with various levels of water-cooler chit-chat.

Maybe there's something wrong with your newsreader?

Cheers, James Arthur

You're getting crazier and crazier. That's not a good sign.

Very interesting. On what evidence do you base this remarkable claim?

In other words he doesn't object to your foolish ideas about politics and anthropogenic global warming. That may strike you as making him "smarter than most" but some would differ.

More likely something wrong with James Arthur's perceptions ...