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Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

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Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#131

Post by marknutter »

pluma wrote: post #64
dschiptsov wrote: post #3

Why should people trust any government in the first place? Governments nowadays came to replace institutions of organized religions as the way to gain a high social status and security, and hence became as bloated, inefficient and corrupted as old, unreformed churches of the past. No sane people would 'trust' such social formations which sole purpose is self preservation and parasitic growth.

I think governments are still more trustworthy than businesses, though. At least with governments you get to pretend that you elect people into office who have your interests at heart.

Neither are trustworthy and neither should be trusted implicitly. But to pretend that people can't have any effect on businesses like they can on government is just silly. Businesses can't tax the population. They rely on consumers buying their products and services, and if that doesn't happen they fail. People vote with their dollars all the time and businesses are forced to respond or die. The government has no such constraints and can continue forward with whatever terrible policies they want so long as they spend the majority of their time and effort securing re-election.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#132

Post by venomsnake »

kuschku wrote: post #117
venomsnake wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of EU immigration (intra -EU too, but it is a bit subdued) is of great concern to great many people. Since the AfD is the only German party willing to listen about said concerns - you can safely assume they will become more popular.

That's not even true. Not a single German party has been pro out-EU immigration. Not a single one. In fact, the current government even made it harder for asylum seekers to stay, or bring their family, and expects to deport the majority of them in less than 3 years. Please read the official parliamentary protocols, and not the very wrong spin the media put on it.

The thing is only AfD is anti. The other tip toe around the topic from the fear of being labeled racist/phobic.

And if no one is pro out of EU migration - why did you let 1000000+ in last two years?

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#133

Post by aianus »

Throwaway23412 wrote: post #62
retrogradeorbit wrote: post #6

In my opinion this is the inevitable political crisis that unrestrained neoliberalism has lead us to. [ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnes... ] I'd say this is the end of the ideology but I'm too much of a realist and I expect the powers that be to now double down on it and then try and profit from it all going up in flames. (But please don't assume I am some kind of socialist/anti-capitalis…

This coincides with a podcast interview I listened to with a renowned CPA. He said that the existing tax code in the U.S. is set almost entirely to incentivize growth, entrepreneurship, and investment. So, the tax code is full of all kinds of breaks for employers, job creators, investors, owners of assets, etc. The tax rate on most long-term capital gains is significantly less than income tax. Salaried individuals be…

Rich people have lower savings rates than the middle class.

You think billionaires just buy treasuries or CDs and wait for their wealth to evaporate through inflation? That money is invested, including into the VC funds that make the SV startup lifestyle possible.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#134

Post by ppereira »

turnip1979 wrote: post #125
Throwaway23412 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This coincides with a podcast interview I listened to with a renowned CPA. He said that the existing tax code in the U.S. is set almost entirely to incentivize growth, entrepreneurship, and investment. So, the tax code is full of all kinds of breaks for employers, job creators, investors, owners of assets, etc. The tax rate on most long-term capital gains is significantly less than income tax. Salaried individuals be…

I am skeptical about the roofs over people's head argument. This is being used by buyers to rationalize mind boggling home values in Toronto and Vancouver. If the jobs keep being crappy, young people will just move away to better economic environments. Canada is constantly losing a lot of its top talent to the US because of this. I think the true cause of the unaffordable housing is the insanely low interest rates. T…

Lack of construction is certainly a problem in Toronto, which has a default 10 meter height limit for new residential construction. All new buildings taller than a house require municipal buy-in.

Between 2001 and 2011, the number dwellings in Toronto increased 11%, while areas 30km from the downtown core grew about 35%. You can clearly see the effects of the 10m restriction on urban sprawl at p. 11 of the city's census backgrounder:

http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/social_development_fi...

Detached homes and town-homes use twice as much energy as apartments, and people commuting 30km to the city generally drive. There has been an uptick in apartment construction recently, but these units are generally too small for families because developers find it more profitable to sell mini-suites to young bachelors.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#135

Post by gerbilly »

marknutter wrote: post #115
Throwaway23412 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This coincides with a podcast interview I listened to with a renowned CPA. He said that the existing tax code in the U.S. is set almost entirely to incentivize growth, entrepreneurship, and investment. So, the tax code is full of all kinds of breaks for employers, job creators, investors, owners of assets, etc. The tax rate on most long-term capital gains is significantly less than income tax. Salaried individuals be…

But we do want growth. Would you prefer the opposite – stagnation? How's that working out for Europe? "Trickle-down economics" was never an actual concept. It was a silly characterization of policies that favored keeping corporate taxes low in the name of encouraging capital investment and it's been responsible for the strength of our economy over the past 40 years. Everyone loves to rail against wealth inequality (t…

>Asking that the government liberate that money [...] does not seem like a good policy given how incompetent the government has proven itself to be when spending the money it already collects.

So don't ask the government to liberate the existing holdings of the 1%, ask them to change policy to cutoff the supply.

The tax code is so overwhelmingly in favour of the investing class that, if it were re-balanced, you wouldn't have to take anyone's money to achieve a similar outcome in a decade.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#136

Post by tajen »

pjc50 wrote: post #73
tajen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are saying immigration is not preventable. The other camp says it is. They vote against EU - and now they've demonstrated that immigration can be limited, so the first camp was wrong. So which camp was right and which was stubborn? In the meantime, the cost was huge for all parties, so all the pro-immigration camp has succeeded is to increase the cost of stopping immigration. And it's not even about intra-EU migr…

The trouble with putting all "immigration" into a single category is that it conflates so many different things. International visas are currently not harmonised. The UK is and has been free to run a regime that is as liberal or as hostile as it wants. Non-EU migration is not the fault of the EU. Intra-EU migration is tied (politically) to the single market. The EU is currently making this clear to Switzerland. The c…

Your last paragraph is a Godwin point. The first thing that would avoid a war between EU and UK would be tolerance for their point of view with a discussion about immigration without everyone throwing arms in the air and saying "they're all fascists" (which I have heard this week with a lot of anti-british hate).

Yes, immigrants who have been accepted are all UK nationals and they belong there now. Now have we asked the country side UK people whether they want to distribute more visas in 2017 to non-EU, highly skilled, foreign workers, followed by a passport in 10 years? I'm being specific here because liberals tend to conflate xenomurderers with people who want a honest discussion about visa quantities.

Same thing in France. We are still allocating tens of thousands of visas to non-skilled non-refugee immigrants: "Family" visas - aka get your brother in, and all your family can immigrate. We also have the free hospital policy and we've made mistakes with massively accepting people for medical tourism. I have nothing against existing French nationals and I have been the first one to protest aside them against police/administration racism. But we haven't succeeded the battle of the ideas and, as you mention, we have created terrorists out of native French citizen who were exposed to racism. Whether it's the school which isn't free enough, or there university which isn't free enough, or the taxes for the poor which aren't low enough, or specific language/culture classes which don't transmit or values, there is a failure in our integration process. And until we guarantee that we integrate newcomers with our values, I want to postpone non-mandatory immigration as long as there's not enough budget for their teachers.

One of our values is that you, as a French person of 2nd generation, teach your kids to not burn the flag of the country you're in. Another is that we've fought for a century so our women are free, so there will be no sign of submission in women (and the church needs to align too). Another one is, if you're in, don't swap your PhD for smuggling 10k€ of illegal goods after 3 years (which I've seen). Another one is that school is free, so your son better work hard before you complain about racism.

Oh and before you complain more about racism, if I invite you home for programming lessons, don't touch my 8-year old niece (which I've seen). The guy didn't even go to jail, he was merely told off in a police interview with his parents (he's 16). I didn't want to say there's an anti-white movement, but when that happened, in 2015 and together with the two Paris attacks, I started wondering. And it's time we reset equal rules for everyone.

So there is a political question to answer, in every country, about how many visas we issue in each category, how we proceed to integrate everyone, and still make it fair for countryside people. And as long as the liberal answer is "Welcome everyone, all criticizers are racists!", then the answer will be... racism.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#137

Post by internaut »

jacquesm wrote: post #37
tajen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your rant isn't off-topic: Oftentimes the distrust for govt is reworded by socialist persons as "Remove those highly paid CEOs". But sometimes the distrust isn't against corporates. I the English case, a good part of the distrust is that elites are bringing foreigners that compete with the masses without a public debate on immigration quantity. Meanwhile liberals censor the debate by tagging those who speak up as fas…

> lefties Ah, one of those comments. Most of the EU countries where immigration is currently an issue have had 'right wing' parties leading them for a very long time. Immigration is just the easiest populist button to press to get a large number of people to vote against their own interests. One of the problems underlying all this is not immigration per-se, but the rapid and unbounded expansion of the EU to include c…

> Try to imagine a USA where someone from Texas would not be able to move to LA or NYC or the other way around. Border controls against movement on every state-border. If you find that hard to imagine try to come up with a really good argument why it should be any different within the EU.

> The EU made a strategic mistake here, which is that they have been partially (together with the US) responsible for the destabilization of the region just outside of it. That this could lead to a huge influx of refugees was a risk they took knowingly, and that I feel it is only responsible to deal with.

I'm going to put this as bluntly as possible so there is no chance of a miscommunication.

Europeans don't want blacks and arabs in their countries. Nobody cares about being called a racist anymore. They want the blacks and arabs out.

In England and France there is a real threat of civil unrest if it continues. People have had it with their children being bullied in schools and the constant stories, real and unreal, of rapes and murders.

You have to ask yourself what a typical young European thinks of Anders Brevik. The ones I know think he was right on the money. As you probably know he wrote a manifesto which is a sort of prognosis/prediction rant. Since he disseminated that and killed the children on the island he has become very popular on the radical European right, a sort of terrorist version of Nostradamus.

To spell it out: it means they won't primarily be attacking blacks and arabs, they'll be attacking leftists open borders supporters and their fellow travelers. They don't hate the blacks and arabs per se, not in comparison to the contempt they have for the portion of the left which they see as traitorous and treasonous.

Attacking people for being different is a side effect in comparison to the urge to destroy your real competitors, people like you but competing for the same resources.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#138

Post by tajen »

icebraining wrote: post #71
tajen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are saying immigration is not preventable. The other camp says it is. They vote against EU - and now they've demonstrated that immigration can be limited, so the first camp was wrong. So which camp was right and which was stubborn? In the meantime, the cost was huge for all parties, so all the pro-immigration camp has succeeded is to increase the cost of stopping immigration. And it's not even about intra-EU migr…

You are saying immigration is not preventable No, he isn't.

He isn't saying immigration is not preventable, but he's saying:

> In the longer term the only way the EU can work is by giving everybody the right to relocate to wherever they want

and about non-EU immigration:

> I feel it is only responsible [...] to deal with the large influx [associated with] the destabilization of the region just outside it.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#139

Post by internaut »

distances wrote: post #111
douche wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Europe should close the floodgates themselves, rather than bitch about we who have been struck by the lightning bolt of sense.

"Floodgates" isn't really the appropriate terminology when you're talking about refugees escaping a war zone for their lives.

It is when I have people from Malawi and Nigeria wandering around outside my house.

Literally right now. People from Malawi are wandering around outside my house. All illegals of course. I have no idea why the police don't deport them but it must be a political decision by higher-ups. The ones I asked don't even lie about where they are from. They are very confident they won't be deported and I am curious about why that should be.

MENA countries have been troubled for many decades, often centuries. We can't take everybody merely because they are suffering. That would be like importing everybody from Boliva and Brazil because they have a lower standard of living than the USA. That is an extreme political stance to take.

Re: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

#140

Post by naasking »

gerbilly wrote: post #135
marknutter wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we do want growth. Would you prefer the opposite – stagnation? How's that working out for Europe? "Trickle-down economics" was never an actual concept. It was a silly characterization of policies that favored keeping corporate taxes low in the name of encouraging capital investment and it's been responsible for the strength of our economy over the past 40 years. Everyone loves to rail against wealth inequality (t…

>Asking that the government liberate that money [...] does not seem like a good policy given how incompetent the government has proven itself to be when spending the money it already collects. So don't ask the government to liberate the existing holdings of the 1%, ask them to change policy to cutoff the supply. The tax code is so overwhelmingly in favour of the investing class that, if it were re-balanced, you would…

> The tax code is so overwhelmingly in favour of the investing class that, if it were re-balanced, you wouldn't have to take anyone's money to achieve a similar outcome in a decade.

Except this 1% are exactly the sort that have the resources to just leave Canada if it ceases to be financially favourable. It's unfortunately not so cut and dry.

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