511–520 of 540 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Man, even the Soviet Union was able to provide free childcare. Really makes you think, doesn't it.
We had it better. We threw that away. Instead of figuring out why and fixing that, you’d apparently prefer that we take a page from the soviets and further embed our social and economic regression into law.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Norway every child has a right to a barnehage place (kindergarten). It's not free unless you are poor but it is very affordable at a maximum of about 3 000 NOK per month, about 300 USD, for five full days a week. Children in barnehage learn to be social and cooperative, resilient and adaptable. They play outside in all weathers, learn to put on and take off their outer clothes, to set tables, help each other and t…
$300 USD per month sounds insanely expensive
Could you get private child care for 300 USD per month?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great. I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Time will tell. I’m still a bit confused about the right-wing remark though. As I mentioned, my only claim here is that I’ve lived for years in various Western countries. I’ve paid taxes, held jobs, bought and sold homes, made friends, volunteered, and so on. I believe my experiences give me an edge over others who just are “traveling” or “spending the summer.” I…
I don't know what you're confused about. Any political scientist will tell you that the American political spectrum is well to the right of the European one, no matter what personal conversations you have in bars. And you're advocating for less social spending -- that's essentially the definition of right-wing on the economic dimension. And there's no need for any "time will tell". Conservatives have been complaining…
Your perspective on the US political spectrum is where I suggest you reconsider. Most Europeans are ethnonationalists, regardless of their political leanings.
Consider the rise of the far right following immigration. While the outcome remains uncertain, I fear it won’t be pretty. It certainly won’t be something to boast about. Europe is on the brink of experiencing its most extreme, fascist, racist, and rightward shift in a long time.
This raises the question of why you’re so certain that Europe is “left-leaning.”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn’t work if all of the productivity gains are captured by the wealthy owners of most of the capital though.
If more of society’s desires can be delivered with fewer people at lower cost, all of society benefits
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily. For example, if most of society's wealth is concentrated with a few people, and the rest can get crumbs from that table only by serving the wealthy, then a situation where something is delivered with fewer people at lower cost translates to more people starving because they are no longer economically useful.
It doesn’t matter if 1 guy has 99.99% of all wealth on earth if everyone’s living standard is high and they can afford all of life’s wants
Little is being done to give them assurances they will be able to provide for themselves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Er… America has universal public education because it started with the “Old Deluder Act”: the state wanted people to be literate so they could read the Bible. The exact opposite of your allegation above: “Think about how few children received an education before the state took ownership. This doesn’t mean I don’t understand why it is the way it is. A large part of it in America is for religious reasons: ‘don’t teach…
Maybe I'm too tired to write clearly. I meant, the reason parents have ownership over their children (at least in America) is primarily for ideological indoctrination.
There is a presumption at law, however, that parents generally want what is best for their children, and the state has a certain standard it must prove if it wants to claim otherwise. So if parents want to teach their children a certain ideology, that is assumed to be in the children's best interest, unless the state can prove otherwise.
Overall, I'd say most parents want what is best for their children and do their best to provide that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Illinois had universal free public school since 1825, so no, you couldn’t find anyone who didn’t have access to that experience (or better).
The world is quite a lot bigger than Illinois though. And it seems I need to spell it out for you, right there in the US during the same times, children of black people in the south didn't get access to education[1]. Serfdom was a thing in Europe until the early 1900, serfs children didn't get access to proper education[2]. I'm giving you a link to Russian education, but the whole of Eastern Europe was at a similar l…
Places like the South that didn't want to do that found themselves on the receiving end of losing a war, and now it's universal across all of America.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking as an immigrant: yes, absolutely! Legal immigrants generally have to be quite privileged in their place of origin to have the education level necessary to clear the bar in most places to be considered for any kind of visa that allows permanent residency, and to be financially well off enough to afford both the paperwork and the move itself.
You added the qualifier “legal”. What about illegal?
I reassert: voting with your feet is a privilege.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The US was founded on individual rights and freedoms ... during the 1800s, scores of millions of people moved up from poverty into the middle class and beyond. Woah! The US was founded on occupation and slavery. How do you think millions of people were able to move up out of poverty? Because the US was abundant in land and natural resources, which during the 1800s we stole from the native Americans and exploited in…
Yes I know about that theory. But it has problems. When the US was founded, half of the states were slavers, the other half free. Guess which half prospered? The free North! Which stagnated? The slave South. Did you know that the Slave South was unable to supply their troops? They were largely barefoot. The reason they were in Pennsylvania was to raid a shoe factory (but got smashed at Gettysburg instead). Towns and…
This is false, and easily disproved by history. I don't have time right now to go through it point by point -- but will try to when I can get to it.
It's indisputable that had the US been resource poor -- in arable land and exploitable resources -- it would have never become a powerhouse able to not only sustain millions of incoming immigrants from Europe, but ultimately make them prosperous. And it got that arable land and exploitable resources by driving out the local inhabitants and stealing their land--that is not a "theory". The fact that much of the early economy needed to catapult the US to the top by cotton and tobacco, which was harvested by slaves and powered the factories in the non-slave states, is not a "theory" either.
> Guess which half prospered? The free North! Which stagnated? The slave South.
The slave owners were very prosperous. The majority of the population was slaves and they indeed were by definition impoverished. No need to build infrastructure for a slave population, no need for much in the way of cities either. The factories in the north were powered by the raw materials from the south. (It's the reason the North accepted the Slave south in the first place and later went to war to keep them in the Union.) The US got rich the same way the European countries became so prosperous in the 1600-1800s: occupying other lands that were resource rich, and extracting their resources, and where possible, using slave labor.
Edit: If you're talking about the _modern_ economy, then yes, I would agree with you to some extend. And you use the example of Taiwan -- which was impoverished by the way until 60 years ago. But remember this conversation is about "the founding the US" -- that's the economy being discussed, not one where TSMC emerges.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Economist is a capitalism cheerleader, so no, they would not care for that study.
Yes, that's why I thought they'd cheer it. When the state provides day care, more Moms work and contribute to capitalism more than the cost of the day care.