Debunked: Socialism has never worked

[Starlight]

All the countries with a more equitable distribution of wealth, high social welfare benefits and generous universal health care. Australia is an example. Furthermore, Australia has a highly regulated financial sector...it didn't deregulate when Reaganomics was the vogue. Consequently, it escaped the 2008 financial crash brought about by the greedy oligarchs running the Banks and Insurance companies...the very companies that Trump is seeking to deregulate again.

Yeah, Canada is similar in that regard. They survived the 2008 crash pretty well because their banks were heavily regulated.

Nearly all the banks here in NZ are Australian-owned, which while it means they didn't crash, it's an ongoing sore-point in the country because every year they each make billion-dollar profits and that money effectively gets taken out of the country and transferred to the pockets of their owners in Aus, which makes them a giant money-siphon sucking money out of NZ and into Aus.

[Raphael]

The US has always been dominated politically by the wealthy. Oz isn't all that different, as even Left/Green members see it:

Source: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/labor-and-australian-oligarchy

A tiny group dominates Australian politics and Labor leader Kevin Rudd recently met them. He knows very well that the key to Labor's electoral success later this year is an accommodation with the Australian oligarchy.

© Copyright Original Source

I would just like to point out, aside from anything else and nothing to do with the current topic, but it needs to be said that Kevin Rudd is an ass.

[Mountain Man]

In today's headlines:


You might get a job offer from the Trump administration soon Sparko, since you've apparently got the qualities they look for.

As the late Paul Harvey used to say, "And now... the rest of the story!"

Mr Putin was referring to a 2007 gaffe by former US President George W Bush, when he thanked then-Australian leader John Howard for visiting Austrian troops in Iraq. [...] Mr Putin refrained from making any criticism of current President Donald Trump. He dismissed a question about whether Mr Trump was "naive."

Looks like Dimbulb is one of those low-information voters who reads the headline without bothering to read the actual story.

The liberal media loves people like you. You're so gullible.

[seer]

Australia is not an oligarchy it is a democracy, the commonwealth is a weak confederation, and the queen is a mere guidon figure head with little to do with the affairs of state in Australia.

The empire has not existed for many years replaced by the Commonwealth.

Sheesh Shuny, when was the last time you took a bath?

[Joel]

Furthermore, Australia has a highly regulated financial sector...it didn't deregulate when Reaganomics was the vogue. Consequently, it escaped the 2008 financial crash brought about by the greedy oligarchs running the Banks and Insurance companies...the very companies that Trump is seeking to deregulate again.

...when the US was deregulating...to the near disaster of the world economy.

The U.S. financial sector did not deregulate. Regulation of the financial sector grew over the 10 years prior to the 2008 financial crash (https://www.mercatus.org/publication...ion-dodd-frank)
The financial sector was and has continued to be the most heavily regulated industry. The crash was not due to a lack of regulation.

The only specific thing I've seen pointed out is the repeal of a particular provision of the Glass-Steagall Act which separated commercial banking from investment banking. My understanding is that most countries do not separate the two. I think Japan is the only other country to have separated them. And my understanding is that the 2008 financial crash did not have to do with this.

[Tassman]

The U.S. financial sector did not deregulate. Regulation of the financial sector grew over the 10 years prior to the 2008 financial crash (https://www.mercatus.org/publication...ion-dodd-frank)
The financial sector was and has continued to be the most heavily regulated industry. The crash was not due to a lack of regulation.

The only specific thing I've seen pointed out is the repeal of a particular provision of the Glass-Steagall Act which separated commercial banking from investment banking. My understanding is that most countries do not separate the two. I think Japan is the only other country to have separated them. And my understanding is that the 2008 financial crash did not have to do with this.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-s...rise-of-trump/

[Tassman]

What the heck are you talking about? Australia is run by an oligarchy. Heck it is part of the UK empire. You have a freaking Queen!

I don't think you know what an oligarchy is. Please define the word for me.

Being rich doesn't make you an oligarch. An oligarchy is government by the few for their own benefit...as we have in say the US or Russia. Not in Australia. The parliamentary system of government obtaining in most Commonwealth countries does not encourage it.

The British Empire effectively ended with the hand-over of India in 1947 and Australia has been self-governing since 1901, with the queen merely occupying the position of Head of State. And she's represented by a Governor General selected by the Government of the day. The same applies to Canada and NZ and most of the Commonwealth countries.

[Starlight]

with the queen merely occupying the position of Head of State.

Since the US head of state is the President, and he's rather active in US politics, I dunno if that observation translates well into American.

Americans seem to struggle to understand that the Queen is a convenient political fiction who serves as a theoretical head of state and in practice does literally nothing at all. She's on our money in the same way that Benjamin Franklin is on US money, and is equally irrelevant to the running of the country as Franklin is to the US. We don't pay taxes to her, she doesn't comment on or interfere in politics in any way, on average she presumably spends 0% of her day thinking about Australia or NZ or Canada and takes no actions whatsoever related to them. We could label a blue whale as our head of state rather than the Queen of England for all the practical difference it would make.

[Tassman]

Since the US head of state is the President, and he's rather active in US politics, I dunno if that observation translates well into American.

Americans seem to struggle to understand that the Queen is a convenient political fiction who serves as a theoretical head of state and in practice does literally nothing at all. She's on our money in the same way that Benjamin Franklin is on US money, and is equally irrelevant to the running of the country as Franklin is to the US. We don't pay taxes to her, she doesn't comment on or interfere in politics in any way, on average she presumably spends 0% of her day thinking about Australia or NZ or Canada and takes no actions whatsoever related to them. We could label a blue whale as our head of state rather than the Queen of England for all the practical difference it would make.

All true, but it's the system that make the difference not the person of the queen per se. The Governor General, representing the queen, has the primary duty of ensuring that the government can function. If it cannot for whatever reason (e.g. the blocking of supply during the Whitlam government) he/she has the power to dissolve parliament and call for a new election...as indeed Governor General Kerr did at the time.

[Starlight]

All true, but it's the system that make the difference not the person of the queen per se. The Governor General, representing the queen, has the primary duty of ensuring that the government can function. If it cannot for whatever reason (e.g. the blocking of supply during the Whitlam government) he/she has the power to dissolve parliament and call for a new election...as indeed Governor General Kerr did at the time.

Indeed, the parliamentary system of democratic government has proven itself over the last couple of centuries to be far superior to the US system in multiple different ways. And a couple of its many positive features that the US lacks, is the ability to have immediate elections if something goes wonky with the government (including an official known as the Governor General who's only real role is that he has a "new election now" button he can push in case of emergency - not that that has ever happened in NZ history, but it's happened once in Australian history), and the ability of parties to replace their own leaders when they feel the need (which happens reasonably often).

[Sparko]

Australia is not an oligarchy it is a democracy, the commonwealth is a weak confederation, and the queen is a mere guidon figure head with little to do with the affairs of state in Australia.

The empire has not existed for many years replaced by the Commonwealth.

The US is not an oligarchy, it is a Federal Republic.

The point Tassman was making is that the US is an oligarchy because it is run by a few rich men. That is what Tassman means by Oligarchy. Well, guess what? Every freaking country on Earth is run by a few rich men/women. Whether they are elected there, or took power, or were born into it. A group of rich people run each and every country on Earth, including Australia, New Zealand, Russia, China, Cuba, Germany, the UK etc.

So to accuse the US of being an oligarchy is meaningless. At least here in the USA, the possibility exists for anyone to rise to the government. If the US is an oligarchy so is Australia, and every other country.


Here is an interesting video about the various forms of government:

[Joel]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-s...rise-of-trump/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garn%E...stitutions_Act), which removed some regulations on savings-and-loan associations. "It is disputed whether the act was a mitigating or contributing factor in the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s." But in response to that crisis, Congress piled regulations back on. (E.g. in the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989).

As seen in the graph in the article I linked to in my previous post, the amount of financial regulation continued to increase, through your "Commodity Futures Modernization Act" of 2000.

As for your reference to bailouts, that is indeed a big part of the problem. The reason why too much risk was taken on was not because of some (unspecified) tendency for risk to "accumulate", but because the government was actively subsidizing risk, and because people believed (correctly) that there would be bailouts. Bailouts are built into the massive structure of financial regulation.

[Tassman]

The US is not an oligarchy, it is a Federal Republic.

The point Tassman was making is that the US is an oligarchy because it is run by a few rich men. That is what Tassman means by Oligarchy. Well, guess what? Every freaking country on Earth is run by a few rich men/women. Whether they are elected there, or took power, or were born into it. A group of rich people run each and every country on Earth, including Australia, New Zealand, Russia, China, Cuba, Germany, the UK etc.

So to accuse the US of being an oligarchy is meaningless. At least here in the USA, the possibility exists for anyone to rise to the government. If the US is an oligarchy so is Australia, and every other country.

[Tassman]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garn%E...stitutions_Act), which removed some regulations on savings-and-loan associations. "It is disputed whether the act was a mitigating or contributing factor in the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s." But in response to that crisis, Congress piled regulations back on. (E.g. in the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989).

As seen in the graph in the article I linked to in my previous post, the amount of financial regulation continued to increase, through your "Commodity Futures Modernization Act" of 2000.

As for your reference to bailouts, that is indeed a big part of the problem. The reason why too much risk was taken on was not because of some (unspecified) tendency for risk to "accumulate", but because the government was actively subsidizing risk, and because people believed (correctly) that there would be bailouts. Bailouts are built into the massive structure of financial regulation.

In broad terms Reagan's economic policy (so-called Reaganomics) was to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation, and tighten the money supply in order to reduce inflation. The ultimate outcome was the market crash in 2008, from which the US is still recovering. Australia, my home country, did not adopt such policies and neither did it suffer a similar market crash. Read into it what you will.

[Bill the Cat]

In broad terms Reagan's economic policy (so-called Reaganomics) was to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation, and tighten the money supply in order to reduce inflation. The ultimate outcome was the market crash in 2008, from which the US is still recovering. Australia, my home country, did not adopt such policies and neither did it suffer a similar market crash. Read into it what you will.

I'm sorry, but the market crash in 2008 was caused by the housing sub-prime mortgage collapse, than you Barney Frank...