That doesn’t even resemble the comment you quoted. Talk about a straw man, holy shit.
You’ll see that my link does indeed point to the inequality adjust HDI.
I think I’m missing the point of the Economic Freedom Index, then. Earlier, you seemed to be arguing that government economic regulations lowered a country’s Economic Freedom Index, yet now you’re giving examples of places with higher taxes, socialized medicine, and more government regulation of the economy ending up higher on the Index.
If your argument is indeed that higher taxes, socialized medicine, and strict regulation of the economy lead to a better society, then I withdraw all of my objections and humbly apologize for the misunderstanding.
Isn’t that the implication there?
The claim that the wealthy people control media to brainwash people by fear to vote against their best interest directly implies that those being brainwashed are unable to find any other media to study, cannot recognize when they’re being fooled/controlled, and can be tricked into thinking that things are not in their best interest.
If nothing else, Evil Captor has a very low opinion of the critical thinking skills of the poor and middle class.
I worry a lot about statements like his - there is a propensity in modern American political discourse that the other side doesn’t just disagree, but it’s that they’ve been fooled/are idiots. It happens on both sides, and it’s troubling because it shuts down any kind of debate on ideas - ideas often become solutions, and shutting that down leaves us just running in place.
Just something I’d thought I’d point out in a debate where the OP asked for “polite discussion”.
It’s got a point. The point is to wear down your opponent - ideally by undermining his argument, but if nothing else, to exhaust him mentally and emotionally. If you can’t win on your merits, you can always “win” by forfeit.
ITR, what led you to believe there is hardly any poverty in Hong Kong?
They bulldozed Kowloon Walled City, obviously there can’t be any destitutes left, QED ! 
Oh, wait.
In addition, Evil Captor’s explanation of why Republicans choose to vote Republican is just plain wrong. Republicans are much more likely to rank the economy as an important issue than abortion or gay marriage, and also more likely than Democrats to rank the economy as important. (Cite) Further, if there’s any evidence that the poor and middle class are more likely to vote based on abortion and gay marriage, he certainly hasn’t shown it to us.
The Gini coefficient also seems to correlate with national prosperity, the poorest countries having the most income inequality.
In post #54, you said, “When you take a look at the Human Development Index, though, you find places with much more reasonable economic policy in the top.” I looked at the Human Development Index and found the United States to be third from the top.
Let me explain. You seem to assume that the United States is a land of uniquely low taxes, unsocialized medicine, and lack of regulation, while all of the countries with Europe as well as Canada and others ranked high on the HCI and IHCI have, by comparison, high taxes, socialized medicine, and strong regulation of the economy. I don’t blame you for believing this. That’s the narrative that you generally hear from the media. But it’s not true.
Let’s look at taxes first. There are many taxes in the US and many in other countries, and many ways to measure tax burden. In corporate taxes, for instance, the USA has one of the world’s highest rates, not one of the world’s lowest. In personal income taxes, American taxpayers may pay less than those in many European countries, but when averaged out it’s hardly a huge advantage for Americans.
Socialized medicine? As we all know, the United States has long had a socialized health care system for the poor (called Medicaid), and for the old (Medicare), and in certain states (one is commonly called Romneycare), and for government employees and pensioners, and so forth. Even before PPACA, the government covered about half of all health care expenses. There is no country in Europe or anywhere in the free world where the government covers all health care expenses. Wherever people are free, they demand some ability to make their own health care choices and spend money on them. In many European countries the percentage of health care spending controlled by government is well below 60%, barely higher than the USA’s.
Government regulation? A wide field, but the Heritage Foundation listings make the best attempt to objectively measure the amount of regulation. The numbers show that Europe is not vastly more regulated than America. Many European countries equal or slightly lead the United States when it comes to freedom from regulation. As I showed in my opening post, government regulation has soared in the US over the past few years by several measures. If strong government regulation helps the poor, then the poor in the USA should be doing excellently right now.
Forget about class distinctions. AFAICT, critical thinking skills are seriously lacking in something like 90% of the population. My cite is a few years of teaching critical thinking at the college level.
The narrative you are proposing is that the United States is about as socialist as Europe and Canada, which is absurd.
On paper. In reality, corporations don’t pay anywhere near the paper rate. American corporations pay less actual tax than most of their European counterparts, despite the high rate advertised by the tax code. Nobody actually pays that. America protects its corporations quite nicely.
Correct. We pay a lower personal tax rate, and in exchange we pay more for health care, get worse health services for it, have lower wages, higher productivity, longer hours, and fewer vacations.
You are arguing that America’s health care system is as socialized as Europe’s. You are wrong. There are 91 million people covered by government health insurance like medicare, or state initiatives like Romneycare, which turns out to be about 30% of the population. In virtually all of the places with a higher inequality adjusted Human Development Index, the government ensures universal health coverage. In America, 16% of the population has no insurance at all. 60% of the personal bankruptcies in America are caused by medical bills, and most of those people HAD INSURANCE when they got sick! You’re absolutely out of your mind to suggest the USA has a health care distribution system anywhere nearly as progressive and socialized as our peers.
You are misleading in the extreme when you say “There is no country in Europe or anywhere in the free world where the government covers all health care expenses.” You are trying to imply with this statement that there is no government in the world which guarantees a reasonable standard of health care at no personal cost, to all of its citizens. You used weasel words to argue that socialized medicine isn’t really socialized medicine, but it doesn’t fool anyone.
A more honest way to phrase that information would have been to say, “There is no country in the world in which a particularly rich person is not permitted to spend his own money for medical treatment beyond what the government guarantees.” Yes, we know that even in Canada, a very rich person can hire a private doctor to live in his guest house and be available for private medical consultation at any time. That doesn’t mean Canada’s health care distribution system isn’t actually socialized, as you dishonestly implied.
Also, *which *European countries have a percentage of all health care costs which are controlled by the government similar to the figures for the USA? Europe’s a diverse place, and it would be important to know whether you’re talking about Belarus or Norway when you make that claim.
I’m willing to concede this point. I don’t actually know whether American economic regulations are out of line when compared to nations with a higher inequality adjusted HDI. What I do know is that in places where people have better lives than Americans do, wealth disparity tends to be much smaller.
The United States was already the economic leader in 1900 and 1913. Before the world wars. Liberals lie but the facts don’t.
Sure, civility is just wonderful. But if you want a substantive discussion, you should avoid including Friedman and other hacks in the discussion.
The liberals in this thread are missing a very important point.
From 2000 to 2010 American manufacturing output per hour worked grew by 66%.
For the United Kingdom it only grew by 35%, Japan 38%, Germany 20%, France 29% and Canada only 9%.
American worker productivity is increasing much faster than Europe, Japan and Canada.
Capitalism >>> Socialism
Hooray for labor power!
I have mentioned that Americans are more productive than their more socialist counterparts. The problem is how the fruit of that labor is being distributed.
Can you offer any reasoned arguments against Friedman’s ideas, or is calling him a “hack” the best you can do? As you no doubt know, Friedman had just about the strongest credentials of any economist who ever lived. He had a sterling academic record including a Ph.D. from Columbia University and many years of teaching at top universities. He won the Nobel Prize, the National Medal of Science, and countless other prizes. He wrote scores of scholarly papers, some of which have been cited an hundreds of times. His influence on countless prominent people is indisputable, and his ideas are in use in countless places. To give just one example, many governments auction treasury bills according to a new form of auction which he first proposed. If Milton Friedman is a hack then who isn’t a hack?
So what?
Your point is what?
Economic inequality is associated with shorter lifespans, worse mental health, more alcohol and drug abuse, greater homicide rates, higher infant mortality, more teenage pregnancy, obesity, poorer educational performance, lower “trust” (the percentage of the population that say that most people can be trusted) and lower social mobility.
My citations: Richard G Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, authors of the book "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better". Here is a 17 minute video by Wilkinson explaining his research. Much of the evidence is available for free online.
What’s interesting is that GDP per capita is basically irrelevant when it comes to the social indicators listed above (except for the very poorest countries). It’s the relative degree of inequality within the societies that make the difference. The implications here are pretty straightforward. It seems we’re at a point now where we need to share the economic pie instead of just expand it.
I don’t think he is a hack but I do think that his views have become almost a religious text for true believers. He has many valid points about keeping capital free but what is missing is how this effects the lowest in our society and also how we do stop concentration of wealth in a few people. Perfect markets work perfectly but we do not live in a perfect world.