Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (158074)	1/15/2003 7:11:40 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1580053

It could be imposed by force from a minority or it could win support from people who don't have to live with and don't understand the consequences and then be maintained by force. I was assuming a democracy. The 2nd possiblity could happen in a democracy. If it came back strong it would cause suffering whatever the mindset of its proponents. Only those people with your mindset. Someone's mindset certainly helps determine how bad they will feel about a situation but things would objectivly be tougher for the majority of people in a heavily socialist system. Re Mpls St Paul First of all, the taxes I was referring to do not go to the state or the Feds. Yes the taxes you talked about do not go to the feds but most of the tax burden for the people and businesses in the area does go to the feds. Most of the rest probably goes to the state. The local taxes could be double that of another juristiction without making the overall tax burden much greater. Countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark have some socialistic components in their economy and do very well economically. China has more socialistic components then many countries, and is doing well for a second tier economy still in development. Parts of Israel...the kibbutzim are very successfully socialistic entities. The Scandinavian countries might be the highest achieving socialist countries but they still are not the richest countries overall. Also they have become less socialist then they used to be. China has started to grow as it has started to become more capitalist. If the process of becoming more capitalist stops I don't think China's higher then normal economic growth would long continue. China was held back by its socialism, when the socialism was relaxed there was a boom. The kibutzzim are a shrinking part of Israel's economy. They are slowly fading away and some of them that are still sucessfull are also more capitalist then they used to be. In any case a kibbutz is a small voluntary socialst entitity. They can possibly be successfull my point was mainly directed at socialist countries or at least large non-voluntary socialst political entities. "Most people would define "a decent life" to be a level beyond prevention of starvation and homelessness." Then too many people in this country fall way short of a decent life I can agree with that, but the long run trend has been positive. Poverty may always be a problem when it is measured in a relative sense becuase some people will have less then others. But in an absolute sense people are getting richer. A person at the bottom in today's America has more resources available then 99+% of people throughout history have had. Its not wrong; its the law. "Something can't be wrong if it is the law?!?" It takes more than one person posting on a thread to determine if a law is wrong......sorry. In my opinion it is wrong. Yours obviously differs, but beyond stating that you don't think it is wrong or even flat out "its not wrong", you said "its not wrong; its the law". That implies that something can not be wrong if it is the law. Thats nonsense. That something is a law has little bearing on whether ir is right or wrong. There are good laws, bad laws, and inbetween, indifferent, and or uncertain laws. but there are many people who work their asses off and barely have enough to survive. Mostlikely, they have worked harder than many people on this thread and have much less to show for it. They know its wrong to riot but sometimes people get desperate.. I don't think that most of the rioters where people who worked their asses off on a regular basis. Most people who are willing to work their asses off and who do not have servere emotional or mental problems eventually achieve a decent life. A lot of them move out of poverty but you can be poor and still have a decent life. Tim