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<p>Would you rather be the government of a rich productive country, or a poor unproductive one?</p>
<p>Of course, you would do well to read carefully enough to distinguish between that someone (like a government) wants, versus whether it is competent enough (in policy decisions and such) to actually get it.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus,
"Originally Posted by MiamiDAP
Just your opinion, not supported by any historical facts. </p>
<p>Would you rather be the government of a rich productive country, or a poor unproductive one?"</p>
<p>-You seem not to get what I am saying. It does not work on “would you rather”, certain economic systems do not work, they do not benefit society and has been historically proven many times over. Specifically, the more centralized (government run) society are POOR AND UNPRODUCTIVE, your preferences and desires have nothing to do with it, CENTRALIZED system does not work, period. Maybe you need to look back into last century with this in mind and try to find one example when it worked well. Government competence has absolutely nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP writes “You seem not to get what I am saying. It does not work on “would you rather”, certain economic systems do not work, they do not benefit society and has been historically proven many times over. Specifically, the more centralized (government run) society are POOR AND UNPRODUCTIVE, your preferences and desires have nothing to do with it, CENTRALIZED system does not work, period.”</p>
<p>You may be confusing communism with the more common successful run-of-the-mill social liberal economies in the world. The IMF reports that US GDP per capita was recently $48,147. You may be aware that Sweden is far more liberal than the US (their tax burdens are also significantly higher) yet their GDP is 61,098. There are many other examples of productive economies that have far greater government intervention than the U.S. The facts do not support your general proposition.</p>
<p>“You may be confusing communism with the more common successful run-of-the-mill social liberal economies in the world.”
-Just various degrees of the same thing. None of these economies are working. Are you up to date with what is going on?
Communism (or social liberal economy, which is close enough and moving closer as more and more people demand more from their respective governments) is working only in Heaven where they do not need it and in Hell where they already have it (quoting person who is much more intelligent than me, you might guess easily who)</p>
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<p>That’s not what you said. You said before that:</p>
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<p>which is a lot different from saying that a lot of governments have botched the job, resulting in unproductive societies. In other words, there is a big distinction between the goal, and whether one actually meets it doing whatever one is doing. Obviously, the communist governments did poorly in getting their societies to be productive, but that does not mean that they did not want their societies to be productive.</p>
<p>I am sticking to what I said, “Government is never ever ever has a goal of more productive society” even the one that is in Utopia. Government has only one goal - collect taxes and control. So, the smaller it is, the better it is for the rest of us and the higher chance that it is taking care of it’s primary functions, the only ones that it should focus on. It will mess up anything else, it will never ever even attempt to make it better, it just wants control over it to insure its own higher power and higher chance of re-election.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP “Just various degrees of the same thing. None of these economies are working. Are you up to date with what is going on?
Communism (or social liberal economy, which is close enough and moving closer as more and more people demand more from their respective governments)”</p>
<p>No they are not various degrees of the same thing and the economic results are profoundly different. Sweden has a GDP higher than the US (very liberal but not communist) and Russia (formerly communist) failed miserably. Social liberalism is not moving closer toward communism. If anything, social liberalism is adapting to be more conservative as conditions change. </p>
<p>I’m definitely up to date on what’s going on. Do you know the difference between what’s going on in a country like Greece versus Spain/Ireland? Do you know that not all countries over there have economic issues? Germany is not Greece nor for that matter is Sweden. Both Germany and Sweden have a highly educated populace and very productive economies AND are considerably more liberal than the US. Your entire premise is false.</p>
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<p>You do not realize that a more productive society means more taxes to the government, which is obviously in the government’s self interest?</p>
<p>Of course, the government’s self interest is often not the same as that of the people, but is it not always opposed either, as you appear to believe.</p>
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<p>Of course, not everyone agrees on what its “primary functions” should be. Or even when people do agree on a given function of the government, they may not agree on how the government should go about it or how much it should spend on it.</p>
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<p>But if it is incompetent enough to mess up everything else, wouldn’t it also be incompetent enough to mess up whatever its “primary functions” are?</p>
<p>I was talking about real countries, Utopia is imaginary.
Student loans do not exist in Utopia either, why bother to go to college, you can have everything you wish in Utopia, including brainwash.</p>
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<p>One thing I’ve learned is that any point can be made to sound valid if you have the right ‘research’ to back you up! Yes, admitting ignorance is often hard to do… especially at an age when you’re always right. ;)</p>
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<p>Oh, God, not the [insert Scandinavian country here] is infinitely superior by the numbers argument again…</p>
<p>Yes, they have a greater GDP per capita. But they also have a much smaller population (living off of IKEA and ABBA earnings). </p>
<p>Sweden is also facing a declining birth rate among the local population, but a large one (oftentimes with percent increases in the thousands) for immigrants. Should the economic crisis kick off, immigration will torpedo, leaving an aging population without a continuing supply of workers to support the holy grail of social welfare systems. And then what? Even higher taxes?</p>
<p>Sweden’s a great place to visit, BTW. I’m not hating.</p>
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<p>Utopia is an ironic choice of words here. Thanks to double entendre, not only does it mean ‘the perfect place,’ but also the place that can never be. To get philosophical, does this mean we cannot survive without student loans and brainwashing?</p>
<p>OK, I am responding to this thread very late, and it may have changed direction by now, but. . .</p>
<p>my short answer is ‘yes’, it is a big exaggeration. </p>
<p>The max we are willing to incur is $20K over 4 years, which we think is reasonable for our S to be able to pay back. I’m concerned that, if there is a student loan crisis, it’s because people took out way more loans than they should have. </p>
<p>Somehow this sounds like the housing ‘crisis’. In general, if all of us would stay away from borrowing more than we should, there would be no crisis.</p>
<p>It seems reasonable to me that if people voted with their money, ie don’t go to a college where the loan amount would be exorbitant, that the colleges would have to reconsider what they are charging students to attend there.</p>
<p>Smorgasbord “Oh, God, not the [insert Scandinavian country here] is infinitely superior by the numbers argument again…”</p>
<p>I’m not saying that they are infinitely superior but MiamiDap’s blanket statement that liberal economies around the world are complete failures is demonstrably false. </p>
<p>Crizello “my short answer is ‘yes’, it is a big exaggeration.”</p>
<p>I agree that you won’t have a crisis personally if you don’t take on excessive debt. But, for the country as a whole there is excessive debt for student loans. Students do need to understand that they aren’t going to earn enough to pay off large debts within a reasonable period. I am not, however, in favor of the national goverment subsidizing student loans. Easy access to loans encourages students to take on too much debt without fully understanding the consequences. Also, there are too many “education providers” that exist solely for the purpose of feeding off that supply of education loans. I’d rather local/state governments fund state colleges and local cc’s.</p>
<p>I do think there is a big issue with student loans. I went to college at 17 yrs old. The financial aid office (at Iowa State, a school known for high student loans) convinced me that these loans were so minor, no problem paying them off, and so on. I had no parents so, I had a huge financial aid package of loans. No parents meant no financial support from them so I had a lot of financial aid, but it also meant no one to tell me not to take all those loans. I also still had to work 30+ hours a week so I only took 12 credits a term. I was burned out after 3 years and only had just over 2 years worth of credit. I knew nothing about clep exams and even though I took AP classes in high school, I also knew never knew to take an AP test (this was back in the 80’s and my teachers never even mentioned the tests). I was burned out so I went and worked full time for the next two years and then returned to a different university where I was actually given grants and such to go to school. I had earned a scholarship the second time around. I was much more wise. Didn’t matter. I was already strapped with $30,000 in student loans from 3 years at Iowa State. Then, to top it off, when I graduated college, I married and right away, had a baby who was born with serious medical problems and could not work. Yeah. Now, 17 years of interest, which was over 8% in the late 80’s, I owe $90,000 even though I have been paying near $1000 a month at this point. I am in my 40’s. </p>
<p>I plan to do all I can to reduce the debt my children have to take. They will make their own final choices, but hopefully, they will do better than I did with our guidance and help.</p>
<p>Socialist governments are all crashing. The UK is broke. Canada is struggling. And the more this country pours in to other countries trying to support the rest of the world, and the more we pour in to “social programs” the more broke we get. If financial status were the deciding factor, this country is failing. We are broke and the more we spend, the worse it gets.</p>
<p>But college students are the ones who pay MORE in taxes later so it benefits the country to help college students get through college. It does not benefit us to pay for “green” buildings in China or any other country when we still have needs here. We need to take care of our own before we save the rest of the world. But our government is run by a bunch of wealthy chumps with no connections to reality in this country so they like to tax the hard workers here to give the money away elsewhere. Or to give to people who don’t feel like working here. I am all for programs that support the disabled, homeless children, even sick people. I am NOT for programs that support the able, yet unwilling, which is the majority of people on welfare programs.</p>
<p>"Socialist governments are all crashing. "
-Socialism works until they run out of somebody else’s money…quote by another very intelligent person.</p>
<p>Imkh70 - you are for social programs when they benefit you! You want the government to support students through college but then object to government spending money. The irony.</p>
<p>^I would love the government to support my desire to own very expansive diamond ring. I can afford it, but why should I spend money myself? If government is supporting other’s college education and these others are NOT paying their debt off but rather go on fansy vacations, buying new houses, cars and…yes, jewelry, what is a difference? I have been paying for my D’s school so that she does not have debt, it is time for my law obeying, tax paying family to demand something from government just like others do. I should have a great support here on this thread, since it is for government paying all kind of people for all kind of expanses (the actual reason is to buy votes), then maybe current government should try to buy my vote also?</p>
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<p>Nonsense.</p>
<p>I work for a federal agency that has the goal of managing our nation’s forests to improve and sustain their ecological health and economic productivity - including logging, recreation, grazing land, wildlife habitat and watershed protection. Because of our work, we have a legacy of public lands that provide benefits for all Americans.</p>
<p>Caring for the Land and Serving People.</p>
<p>I know it’s a nice, easy stereotype to throw out there, but it’s completely wrong.</p>
<p>^you have a right to your opinion, I have a right to reflect on facts, you have a right to shut me up, I have a right to continue contributing,…but all of it is very hard to absorb as government do not support our freedoms…and never ever ever Serve people, government serves only people working for government and those that it wants to vote for it.</p>
<p>As a uniformed ranger/interpreter, the 2,500 forest visitors I talk to on an average day in the Tongass National Forest would disagree with your assertion that I’m not serving them.</p>
<p>I’ll leave it at that.</p>