Denmark -Unsustainable Welfare Paradise

[Michael Hardner]

None of them ares sustainable.

...

The state that the whole Eurozone is an example. Social benefits cost more than the gov makes. Not only that, the pensions are nothing more than money invested in things like mutual funds. What are those investments? Are they investments in Denmark itself or are these investments held abroad? If abroad, they are stable as long as the markets are stable with constant growth.

Where the f*** is all the money going?

Do you really think that the Harper government would administer CPP exactly the same as Greece would ?

No - I don't either. So it's not that "none of them are sustainable" it's that the model is sound, but it has to be run responsibly. Part of that is that the populace needs to act like grown-ups when discussing costs and benefits.

[GostHacked]

Do you really think that the Harper government would administer CPP exactly the same as Greece would ?

No - I don't either. So it's not that "none of them are sustainable" it's that the model is sound, but it has to be run responsibly. Part of that is that the populace needs to act like grown-ups when discussing costs and benefits.

Even if the current Canadian government (we should really stop calling it the Harper Government) ... is doing what it can, the CPP is dependent on the investments constantly making a profit return. Given the state of the global economy, I can see it where this can affect us regardless of the government making all the right moves.

What would be good is to know where and what investments are taking place in order for the CPP to remain viable. One stock can tank and that can have an effect on the total money available for CPP.

[Michael Hardner]

Even if the current Canadian government (we should really stop calling it the Harper Government) ... is doing what it can, the CPP is dependent on the investments constantly making a profit return. Given the state of the global economy, I can see it where this can affect us regardless of the government making all the right moves.

Sure, no argument there GhostHacked. (BTW I pointedly used the 'Harper govt' moniker because his reputation is for fiscal responsibility, rightly or wrongly.

[GostHacked]

Michael Hardner, on 25 Apr 2013 - 13:35, said:

Sure, no argument there GhostHacked. (BTW I pointedly used the 'Harper govt' moniker because his reputation is for fiscal responsibility, rightly or wrongly.

I think it's all a charade really in my view.

[-TSS-]

Every time politicians want to dismantle the welfare state they start bigging up stories of people abusing the welfare benefits as if it were something everyone's doing.

[August1991]

Maybe not, but these systems can be designed to be sustainable....

What a quote.

Sorry, MH, but Leftists always want to "design" sustainable systems....

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System? We are people, individuals, with hopes, desires. If you dislike Ayn Rand, here's a quote from Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago:

“Reshaping life! People who can say that have never understood a thing about life  they have never felt its breath, its heartbeat  however much they have seen or done. They look on it as a lump of raw material that needs to be processed by them, to be ennobled by their touch. But life is never a material, a substance to be molded. If you want to know, life is the principle of self-renewal, it is constantly renewing and remaking and changing and transfiguring itself, it is infinitely beyond you or your obtuse theories about it.”

“Переделка жизни! Так могут рассуждать люди, хотя, может быть, и видавшие виды, но ни разу не узнавшие жизни, не почувствовавшие ее духа, души ее. Для них существование это комок грубого, не облагороженного их прикосновением материала, нуждающегося в их обработке. А материалом, веществом, жизнь никогда не бывает. Она сама, если хотите знать, непрерывно себя обновляющее, вечно себя перерабатывающее начало, она сама вечно себя переделывает и претворяет, она сама куда выше наших с вами тупоумных теорий.”

Edited April 27, 2013 by August1991

[eyeball]

As opposed to conservatives who always want to keep using old unsustainable one's.

[Michael Hardner]

What a quote.

Sorry, MH, but Leftists always want to "design" sustainable systems....

Hmmm... not just leftists but the wealthy, who demand that the justice system serve their view, their vision, their design for how society should work.

Laws and a justice system are 'designs' - ie. human creations that are created to help improve our lives. The legal system is the foundation for civic life.

Any human invention is an extension of man, and hence unnatural. It then requires another contrivance to adjust for the first invention, and so on... What is the first invention ? Who knows ? Maybe it's language, maybe it's sex.

[cybercoma]

System? We are people, individuals, with hopes, desires.

This is an insanely radical position: rejecting entirely the notion that social systems exist.

[Michael Hardner]

This is an insanely radical position: rejecting entirely the notion that social systems exist.

Or that humans do not thrive in response to design.

You can describe many ways in which human behavior is planned for, designed for, and therefore controlled. The political response could be "well, of course" or "it's impossible to control human beings !".

Do people realize that such things as language, writing, money, roads are human contrivances to deal with the world ? Sometimes, I wonder.

[cybercoma]

I tried to find it, but I can't.

There was a video I saw one time where they set up some small 6" high cones on a sidewalk in a pattern. People followed the cones and very rarely just stepped over them. They would re-arrange them into different patterns--this was on a very busy strip too--and people would assuredly follow the cones. They were quite short, so it would be nothing at all to step over them or even walk between them. Despite this, people followed them. We're conditioned to comply with systems. We have free will, but we use that free-will to make the choice of following the path that we believe others think we should follow. I know that sentence is hard to unpack, but we follow what we believe other people expect from us for the most part.

[Bonam]

Hmmm... not just leftists but the wealthy, who demand that the justice system serve their view, their vision, their design for how society should work.

Laws and a justice system are 'designs' - ie. human creations that are created to help improve our lives. The legal system is the foundation for civic life.

Any human invention is an extension of man, and hence unnatural. It then requires another contrivance to adjust for the first invention, and so on... What is the first invention ? Who knows ? Maybe it's language, maybe it's sex.

Sex existed long before humans and is most certainly "natural".

[Michael Hardner]

Sex existed long before humans and is most certainly "natural".

But was it the first invention ?

Yes, I'm being cheeky but the point is that technology is a trojan horse that constantly arrives into our society and surprises us.

[GostHacked]

But was it the first invention ?

Yes, I'm being cheeky but the point is that technology is a trojan horse that constantly arrives into our society and surprises us.

Just make sure you are wearing the Trojan and not getting invaded by one.

[August1991]

This is an insanely radical position: rejecting entirely the notion that social systems exist.

"Head-tap". No, social systems exist.

But we are individuals within them.

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Cybercoma, numbers exist. And it's amazing: you can add or subtract two numbers together! Subtract?

Edited May 1, 2013 by August1991

[Michael Hardner]

"Head-tap". No, social systems exist.

But we are individuals within them.

We are individuals, but we often react in predictable ways - which allow us to be 'governed', ie. directed towards options that "they" want us to choose from.

[GostHacked]

We are individuals, but we often react in predictable ways - which allow us to be 'governed', ie. directed towards options that "they" want us to choose from.

I'd argue that we are conditioned to react in those specific ways that they want us to react. We are only given the options they put forth. They don't like it when we react and think outside that box.

[Michael Hardner]

I'd argue that we are conditioned to react in those specific ways that they want us to react. We are only given the options they put forth. They don't like it when we react and think outside that box.

Well, who would ?

[cybercoma]

Cybercoma, numbers exist. And it's amazing: you can add or subtract two numbers together! Subtract?

If you have a point, maybe you should just make it, instead of trying to be clever, because I have no idea whatsover what it is you're driving at here.

[August1991]

There was a video I saw one time where they set up some small 6" high cones on a sidewalk in a pattern. People followed the cones and very rarely just stepped over them. They would re-arrange them into different patterns--this was on a very busy strip too--and people would assuredly follow the cones. They were quite short, so it would be nothing at all to step over them or even walk between them. Despite this, people followed them. We're conditioned to comply with systems.

I beg to differ, and I offer as obvious examples: recycling, and this forum.

If "we're conditioned to comply with systems", why do we disagree here on this forum? Indeed, why do people stop at red lights, or "followed the cones", as you put it?

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If I had an objection to the Left, from Bob Rae and Barack Obama - to even Karl Marx, it would be this simple observation: individuals tend to follow traffic cones, but they don't always recycle.

Cybercoma, you sadly don't understand how a society of individuals co-operates, or doesn't. To understand this grave question: I suggest that you start with Adam Smith, as a first step in understanding why Karl Marx was wrong.

Edited May 8, 2013 by August1991

[GostHacked]

Well, who would ?

This is why propaganda is effective and a useful tool to those in power.

[Michael Hardner]

Cybercoma, you sadly don't understand how a society of individuals co-operates, or doesn't. To understand this grave question: I suggest that you start with Adam Smith, as a first step in understanding why Karl Marx was wrong.

How about this

"Chapters 4-6

In this section of the work, Smith makes a thorough and convincing criticism of special interest groups that seek to influence government policy. Though he attacks tenets of the mercantile system throughout the book, this section focuses more exclusively on how special interest groups unfairly seek to create or defend market advantage by creating government policies that will support their business or branch of trade. These policies are those that create drawbacks, grant subsidies, or establish preferential trade agreements."

Wealth of Nations Study Guide:

http://www.gradesaver.com/the-wealth-of-nations/study-guide/section4/