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To: GraceZ who wrote (30554)	5/2/2005 5:07:36 PM
From: Moominoid	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

That's communism, which is a form of socialism. No, communists believe in revolution to achieve socialism. Socialists believe in achieving it democratically. This is the rational used to take personal freedoms from individuals all over the world, I agree. So why are you against legalizing marijuana, heroin etc.? We have three alternatives: 1. Let people be poor when they are old. 2. Tax the population to pay those old people. 3. Force people to save for their old age. Which is least bad, assuming that as we can observe many people otherwise seem to save too little? Society doesn't seem to agree to 1. in most of these countries. When you spend your money you have weighed the cost as well as the price. I don't understand where you are going here. Zero price health care is inefficient. Australia tries to use a mix of private and public which seems to work better than the extremes seen in the US or in the most public oriented systems. Britain's problem is spending too little of GDP on healthcare.

To: GraceZ who wrote (30554)	5/2/2005 6:00:59 PM
From: Crony	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Re: socialism Let me disagree with you: socialism has nothing to do with the way it can be achieved. Revolution or no revolution. And communism has nothing to do with what people called communists believe. Socialism (and communism) is about the government having possesion of means of production (pure socialism , ex> Soviet Union). Or in case of Western Europe, socialism takes form of redistribution of profits made by private owners that possess means of production. If a private person owns means of production , but the government is taking away 100% of profits , it is no different than government owning those means of production. As for you points: there should be personal responsibility for one's future. But this is not the case anymore. Everyone is to blame, but that person. Why someone should work hard when half of his earnings goes to another guys who does nothing? Why work hard when government promises you decent living regardless of your contribution? This is the problem with liberal thinking: by taking from those who want and can work hard and produce a lot and giving to those who don't want to work hard, the message is sent that working hard is not necessary to get a decent living. And more and more people start work less hard and produce less. And more and more people start depending on government to provide them with everything. And they will demand more and more so the government would take more and more from those who want to work hard. Until the latter realize that it doesn't make sense to work hard anymore. And they won't. This is what happened to Soviet Union. As for your questions about savings: if people are told that the rules of the game are the following: you are the only one responsible for your wellbeing at old age they might start working harder and save part of their earnings. Which will be great for the country in general. It is much better when a lot of people work harder to save for the future, than to have people hardly working thinking that someone else is going to share with them. You are going to hear a lot of crying when this bubble bursts. From those poor people who got cheated into buying overpriced houses or condos. They will tell you that it is not their job to think ahead, but it was governments fault that nobody stopped them from buying the house they couln'd afford.