Since they ain't ready for the latter, perhaps the former shouldn't happen either.

a near impossible thing to regulate. At some point, the countries with higher GDPs HAVE to wind up supporting those with lower ones, especially when the lower GDP countries insist on giving wages and benefits to citizens who contribute nothing.

I made a prediction months ago that while the Eurozone might survive in one form or another, the Euro would cease to exist as a common currency and I'll stand by it.

We have let moral hazard rule the day.

I almost DIED when I read that the other day...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002909745#post2

The walk-back was even BETTER

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002909745#post6

I have to admit though that the socialist types are scaring me towards the middle, much more so than I used to be. Its shaken me as I've always been a Democrat, and a card carrying, donating, volunteering one at that. Now I realize both sides alarm me. What to do?

I just want something that works and makes sense. I always thought that was only to be found in the Democratic party but I don't agree with so many here. It's very distressing.

Are the middle, even to the right of the middle.

You say "Socialist type" as if it were a bad thing?!

These days the definition of "socialist" is loose enough to include the US through most of the Cold War.

How does the iPhone get created in a socialist economy? I don't see how the incentives work.

The assumption that innovation is solely the province of capitalism is pretty silly.

Try this one; you may have recently heard that the Higgs-Boson particle was recently discovered. it was discovered as part of a collaborative (not competitive) effort by many scientists, most of them from socialist or social-democratic countries, working together in another social-democratic country (Switzerland) for the purposes of academic discovery and innovation in physics.

However, what you may not know is that a similar endeavor was attempted here in the US; the US Superconducting Super Collider project. Very similar to the LHC built by CERN in Switzerland, it would have accellerated particles and smacked them together to see what popped out. However... its funding was slashed by congress and the project was cancelled in 1993 because it was expensive and wasn't likely to show a prompt financial return for the investment.

That's socialism vs. capitalism, on innovation.

I'm sure I could point out the difference in film production in nations that subsidize the arts, compared to the US, where capitalism has given us an endless stream of remakes and nostalgia movies. because comfort and familiarity sell more than innovation and new ideas, and so LACK of innovation actually generates MORE profit...

You've kind of made my point. Socialism produces different types of innovation from capitalism. It still takes a profit motive to produce a product for the masses that can employ thousands of people.

Perhaps capitalism DOES create innovation that works mostly to promote capitalism. Which would make it seem more like a religion than an economic system to me. Especially given that whole "finite planet" problem...

I wonder exactly what products a socialist government would decide it wanted to make? Depending on who gets voted in would the availability change?

Sweden's IKEA stores (and their innovative flat packing technology) and L-Dopa, the beta-blocker for Parkinson’s disease, France's Airbus and China's Suntech....

...jayzus, I could go on and on. You are incredibly myopic if you haven't noticed the major international companies from socialist and even communist countries that are OUT-innovating us six ways to Sunday.

Taxes is pretty impressive.

IKEA
Flat-pack accounting
Forget about the Gates Foundation. The world's biggest charity owns IKEA—and is devoted to interior design


FEW tasks are more exasperating than trying to assemble flat-pack furniture from IKEA. But even that is simple compared with piecing together the accounts of the world's largest home-furnishing retailer. Much has been written about IKEA's remarkably effective retail formula. The Economist has investigated the group's no less astonishing finances.

What emerges is an outfit that ingeniously exploits the quirks of different jurisdictions to create a charity, dedicated to a somewhat banal cause, that is not only the world's richest foundation, but is at the moment also one of its least generous. The overall set-up of IKEA minimises tax and disclosure, handsomely rewards the founding Kamprad family and makes IKEA immune to a takeover. And if that seems too good to be true, it is: these arrangements are extremely hard to undo. The benefits from all this ingenuity come at the price of a huge constraint on the successors to Ingvar Kamprad, the store's founder (pictured above), to do with IKEA as they see fit.

Although IKEA is one of Sweden's best-known exports, it has not in a strict legal sense been Swedish since the early 1980s. The store has made its name by supplying Scandinavian designs at Asian prices. Unusually among retailers, it has managed its international expansion without stumbling. Indeed, its brand—which stands for clean, green and attractive design and value for money—is as potent today as it has been at any time in more than 50 years in business.

The parent for all IKEA companies—the operator of 207 of the 235 worldwide IKEA stores—is Ingka Holding, a private Dutch-registered company. Ingka Holding, in turn, belongs entirely to Stichting Ingka Foundation. This is a Dutch-registered, tax-exempt, non-profit-making legal entity, which was given the shares of Mr Kamprad in 1982. Stichtingen, or foundations, are the most common form of not-for-profit organisation in the Netherlands; tens of thousands of them are registered.

http://www.economist.com/node/6919139?story_id=6919139

Demonstrably so. Many of them employing thousands of people generating commerce and profit. I just rattled off the first few that came to mind.

You respond by attacking (only) IKEA's tax avoidance and greed? Like THAT'S something unusual for a major multinational corporation? You didn't seem to stipulate that companies from socialist countries had to act any different than companies headquartered in the US.

You'll never guess who's at the top. http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002912108

...because somehow we managed to be innovative and incentivize work back then,

You've been scared toward the "middle" because of "socialists"? Who? What specific things to they propose that have you so concerned?

And whoever these radicals are, how much support would they get if "capitalism" were working a bit better, if it wasn't the name used by Wall Street and corporate executives to justify squeezing and swindling everybody in their reach in the name of Holy Higher Returns?

If you're worried about radicalism, it's usually a good idea to stop radicalizing people.

Finland is way more socialist than we are. Good God. Do you think they run Nokia for fun?

Same way as in a capitalist economy. Government research agencies, like DARPA and CERN, and non-profit universities invest at a loss in R&D for decades to develop the technologies, which are then privatized to enrich "entrepreneurs" as soon as they can produce a profit. If you don't know the actual history of the Internet and the Apple OS (based on BSD Unix and copyright The Regents of the University of California), you should probably not venture forth to display your ignorance.

...besides, don't you know that "socialist type" is what the Obama campaign uses?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/the-new-obama-typeface-revolution-gothic

All the best RW nut bars tell me so.

I will start using it right away.

It is ALL in the history books.
No need for theory.

SEE: FDR
Those Economic Policies built the largest, wealthiest, and most upwardly mobile Working Class the World has ever seen,
...AND some people STILL got RICH!

Later.

I am a socialist.

to anything but a vulture capitalist position. DKF doesn't even know what dkf is going to say until the markets open, and morals are pretty flexible depending upon what dkf chooses to push, in a "dancing the line" type of way.

dkf is about as much of a Democratic supporter as my bra is the Golden Gate Bridge suspension.

And this needs no magnifying glass to see it. Hell, you could look through the Hubble telescope the wrong way and still see it.

america can be seen as an economic union among 50 states. if each state had its own currency, mississippi's currency would have seriously devalued relative to others, say new jersey's for comparison.

yet the strong states continually and repeatedly "bail out" the weak states through disproportionate federal spending relative to federal receipts.

btw, although there's certainly a red state/blue state aspect to this, the #1 offender in terms of disproportionate federal spending is new mexico.

http://content.ksg.harvard.edu/blog/jeff_frankels_weblog/2010/03/31/red-states-blue-states-and-the-distribution-of-federal-spending/

"especially when the lower GDP countries insist on giving wages and benefits to citizens who contribute nothing"

If you are referring to the high levels of compensation collected by individuals in the financial sector who engage in rent-seeking, then you are on to something, as the crisis has its origins in private banking (the inflation and collapse of an real estate asset bubble). But these activities are by no means confined to "lower GDP countries."

Different attitudes toward debt, different social systems in general.

In Italy, when they say they will handle it tomorrow, it might get handled next week, unless it's urgent, then it will get handled tomorrow.

In Germany, when they say they will handle it tomorrow, it will be handled tomorrow morning, first thing.

At least that is what I found when working with them. I could go on, but those two illustrate my point.

Amazing difference.

a singular currency open to the whims of a bunch of CONFEDERATED (essentially) States isn't going to work. It requires a Federal-type system, where the Nation-STATES do not possess the power of (essentially) Nullification. Europe was so close, too to being a real, unified Geographical and Political superpower...now, it may not happen for another 50 years...

But that's not really true, since Finland, The Netherlands, Denmark and other Northern and Eastern countries of the Eurozone are more aligned with Germany's position.

example for the Finns

A Capacent Gallup poll last month showed that about a quarter of the island’s voters support joining the bloc, or 26.3 percent, while 56.2 percent oppose EU membership.

doing what the people want

about 4 of their 'leaders' rang up for them.

Nokia is Finnish, as is Marimekko (wonderful interior design and furniture), but I don't know of much else that comes from the land of the Sauna and Cloudberry. Finland's exit from the Euro would not really change matters much, would it?

countries of the EU and if they leave it would be Seismic trouble for the EURO

psychological reasons than anything concrete, but I don't know how central Finland by itself is to Euro health.

If Finland exits, then other peripheral (non-German) northern states might also exit, leading to a cascade, such that Germany could not by itself sustain a viable currency.

it is prosperous how much of the countries in the EU are not prosperous and in severe debt

Very good examples to those countries.

Once Finland leaves. If Norway leaves, the Euro is pretty much screwed as a currency of strength. Denmark and Sweden will follow, and it cannot be sustained without them.

they could easily switch back to their own currency

population is very small.

Rec

without fiscal and political union is all but a doomed proposition, and likely always was. Imagine of the Tea Party could get control of a state and by this dictate US economic policy and the terms of our collective fate. Things would not go well. I believe the Euro concept was to be the first step in a larger fiscal and political union. The other steps never happened.

and did not switch to the Euro currency are feeling relieved right now.

Eventually the German population will ensure the same of Germany.

It was pretty dumb to expect Wall Street to give up anything (regulatory concessions)
AFTER they already had the money.

It was only after subsequent hardcore lobbying by banking interests that Congress was able to muster enough votes to pass it.

Tying a first world economy to a third world economy (in reality if not in name) is more likely to drag the first world economy down, rather than build up the third world economy.

The Eurozone isn't a bad concept in the general sense. But they should have started small. With a handful of economically and politically sane countries and then slowly added members as they demonstrated their ability to run a mature economy.

Maybe require each nation to put money (in proportion to their GDP) in to a general rainy day fund that they can draw out of later at need but only to a certain extent. At which point they either have to exit the Euro or start paying back in.

nt

we will see