Tag Archives: socialism
Thursday, 4/19/12, Public Square
Click on the image so it’s big enough to read!
Filed under The Public Square
The Iggy Donnelly Disease: Socialistic Capitalism
Iggy Donnelly and Son practicing "Here comes the Sun" by Geo. Harrison
On Monday morning, NPR broadcast a story about how the U.S. Economy is drifting toward European styled socialism. NPR interviewed a German couple, the wife/mom from New York had married a German man and the couple now live in Germany. The couple have a five month old child for whom the family receives from the German government two-thirds of the mom’s salary for one year after the child’s birth. Like the U.S., Germany has an aging population, and thus they are interested in incentifizing the birth of babies. The tax rate reflects the generous German program – the couple pay about half of their income in taxes. I had an email friend who lived in Germany who worked for a community college that offered all types of education absolutely free. This program sounded like a for real “free university”.
Revealing my potential biases, I work in, and have for several years, a health care field that is heavily subsidized by the U.S. Government. Even though he had some distracters ( See: Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man), I believe that FDR was able to leverage the power of the U.S. Government to reverse a crushing economic depression in the 1930’s. I think there were academic and artistic advances in the 1930’s that would have been impossible without the New Deal.
Regarding the points that he U.S. Economy may be moving toward European socialism, a bigger safety net sounds good to me. So does greater regulation that protects the public from the reckless capitalism that hurt people who did not contribute to the problem, nor had any way of benefiting from the risks. But as we have seen from the very end of the Bush administration, these same marginalized people had much to lose from the reckless speculating of the wealthy.
Filed under Ethics, History, Populists, The Economy
Monday, 08/03/09, Public Square
Congress is all home telling their constuiency we will, or we won’t, have health care reform. The Republicans are telling their supporters, with a straight face, that they aren’t worthy of what the person they elected to represent them is worthy of (s/he doesn’t come out and say these words and their supporters have bought into the hate mongering so they don’t realize it). Then they’ll all nod their heads and everyone will yell, “socialism,” and go on with no clue at all.
fnord
Filed under The Public Square
Sunday, 07/26/09, Public Square
Sometimes the world makes less sense than other times. Am I the only one who thinks this? How is everyone?
fnord
Filed under The Public Square
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 