Regulation is Not a Bad Word | 29 comments (29 topical, 0 hidden)
Exactly (none / 0)
Those people pay what, 50-60% plus in taxes? No one has any incentive to make more money so they're all lazy and everything is going down the tubes.

;)

by Tom Hanc on 07/15/2008 07:53:55 PM EST

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Denmark btw rated best place for business (none / 0)
first number is corporate and second is individual

Spain 30% 24-43%
Norway 28% 28-51.3%
Sweden 28% 0-56%
Denmark 24% 38-59%
Finland 26% 8.5-31.5%

remember is sliding scale, so highest number are only for the very rich

from http://www.worldwide-tax.co m

yeah, lazy bastards, they only need one job, so FDR like :)

by callisto on 07/15/2008 08:13:33 PM EST

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I'm intrigued by these Nordic countries (none / 0)
Thom Hartmann aired his show from Copenhagen(sp) Denmark the other week. It sounds like they've got a lot of good things going on there.

I think we could learn a lot from these progressive countries. That doesn't mean we copy them exactly, but it should mean we borrow some ideas.

If nothing else the biggest no-brainer of all time is to make health care and education as cheap as possible (if not free). And that includes post-secondary education and vocational training for those who can't attend or aren't interested in college.

A healthy, educated society is a more productive, creative and friendly society (i.e. less crime). That's a win-win for everyone, even the greedy rich pricks who resent paying more taxes out of a short-sighted greed instinct.

by Tom Hanc on 07/15/2008 08:49:44 PM EST

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So right (none / 0)
Great point, nobody has it down 100% correct and even if they did, you need to keep adapting, because society keeps evolving.

You don't copy their ideas exactly, you borrow good ideas and adopt hem so they work for you, because the parameters are different from place to place.

You have no idea how much Europeans do refer to the US, not only for bad policies, but for good policies and they don't see it as a contradiction. Some countries are good at that, others at something else, you just take as many good ideas as you can find and try to implement them at home.

by callisto on 07/15/2008 09:14:54 PM EST

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Where do you live again? (none / 0)
In Europe, right?

It's always interesting to get a different perspective.

by Tom Hanc on 07/15/2008 09:19:49 PM EST

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That reminds me (none / 0)
I'd like to see Cenk have more foreign guests on, to have them compare their country to the US in terms of domestic/economic/tax policy/healthcare (pros and cons, etc.).

I can't recall the last time he did that?  I'm sure a lot of other people would find segments like that to be very interesting.

by Tom Hanc on 07/15/2008 09:23:02 PM EST

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Agree (none / 0)
would be great indeed, especially to debunk all the false assumptions many Americans have about foreign countries or systems.

I see how even most of the reporters just take over Repug talking points and state them as fact.

by callisto on 07/15/2008 10:45:03 PM EST

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Jep (none / 0)
Currently Prague, but if the dollar keeps dropping, I'm moving to Manhattan.

by callisto on 07/15/2008 10:41:08 PM EST

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Funny (none / 0)
By the way, Manhattan is the most expensive place to live in the US according to the last numbers I saw.

But you probably knew that which makes your joke funnier.

by Tom Hanc on 07/15/2008 11:45:13 PM EST

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euh... (none / 0)
actually... I wasn't joking, which tells you how down the dollar is.

I get mostly paid in dollars and getting sick of loosing so much in conversion.

looking at some places online and same price per m² isn't there yet compared to Prague, almost, but Manhattan is already cheaper than Barçelona

not the only one who's saying it BTW, many expats here are forced to move back and people who are earning dollars like me are thinking the same thing: NY

by callisto on 07/16/2008 04:27:47 AM EST

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Tom (none / 0)

Ever read Catch-22?

That is about all I think about when I think about Scandanavia

by ProfRich on 07/15/2008 11:52:21 PM EST

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I'm familiar (none / 0)
with the book and the phrase but no, I've never read it.

I've got an enormous back-log of books I should read but haven't (and might not, we'll see).

by Tom Hanc on 07/15/2008 11:55:39 PM EST

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My favorite book (none / 0)

One of the characters is obsessed with running away from the war (WWII) and going to Sweden where he could have all the illegitimate children he wanted with beautiful tall, blond nordic women and the state would support the kids and even pay for their college.

It was his version of heaven.

by ProfRich on 07/16/2008 12:03:34 AM EST

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That's great (none / 0)
Something about that sounds very Vonnegut to me. Maybe it was the way you described it.

My favorite book is either My Life As A Man by Phillip Roth or Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut.

And my favorite short story is The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain (a must read).

by Tom Hanc on 07/16/2008 12:25:52 AM EST

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Heller + Vonnegut (none / 0)
Heller is very similar to Vonnegut in his tone and humor.  Unfortunatly, unlike Vonnegut (who wrote a number of good novels), Hellers other work went down hill after catch-22. 

by alphasigmookie on 07/16/2008 01:50:02 AM EST

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Heller and Vonnegut (none / 0)

Having read quite a bit of both, I have always regarded Vonnegut as more inspired by Heller than the other way around.  I know Vonnegut published two novels before Catch-22(1961) appeared (at least in its entirety, he published just one before Catch-22 was serialized) but his style would not really come into shape until Cat's Cradle (1963) which immediately followed Catch-22 (Heller's first novel).  Slaughterhouse Five (1969) would be six years later and has obvious similarities to Catch-22.

I maybe dead wrong and giving Heller too much credit here but that was always the impression that I got.  One thing I know is they were friends.  When Heller died, Vonnegut exclaimed

"Oh, God, how terrible. This is a calamity for American letters."

As for Heller's other stuff, I really like Picture This a lot. Heller's other novels were actually often good they just never lived up to Catch-22.  Heller explained this when a reporter asked him why he hadn't written anything else that good.  "Who has?", he replied.  I think he was right.

by ProfRich on 07/16/2008 02:27:43 AM EST

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To be fair (none / 0)
Vonnegut also wrote short stories and sci-fi stuff for various magazines and papers before (and after) he hit it big.

by Tom Hanc on 07/16/2008 11:21:34 AM EST

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He did (none / 0)

And, of course, Heller had no element of Sci-fi.  I think what I see similar in the two is irrelevant to genre.  They both tore up chronology, treated the absurd as if it made perfect sense and wrote characters who felt powerless but were really had a good deal of control over their world.

by ProfRich on 07/16/2008 11:44:43 AM EST

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Regulation is Not a Bad Word | 29 comments (29 topical, 0 hidden)