LOL. Finally, European "soft power" is showing itself to be useless. We Americans know what's best. Hard power baby!

STAY STRONG BROTHERS AND SISTERS

America sends our best good vibes!!1!

KOOMBAYA MY LORD
KOOMBAYA

You can't stop socialism.

Scandinavia begs to differ.

Sadly how far is the US from this fate?  Where we at... 12....13 trillion in debt?  Perhaps we shouldn't be playing the fiddle while Rome (France, Greece, Spain) burns.

Just shy of $16 trillion, BeoWolfe. We're on track for a $1.2 trillion deficit this year.

I can stop socialism. The only good communist is a dead communist.

Okay, seriously: There are a lot of reasons why poor people across the globe turn to socialism. Many of the systems they live under are awful (and they're uneducated), so I can hardly blame them for wanting something better.

Socialism promises something better. So it's obvious why ignorant people in poverty can, at a glance, see it as a desirable alternative. The problem is that it doesn't live up to its promises--not even close. It needs to be fought with education and academic data. About 50 studies have been done on the link between economic freedom and standard of living; 100% of them found a positive correlation.

The simple fact is that freer peoples have better lives--even the poor among them. Someone can have the notion that government can control everything and ensure it's fair and wonderful, but that's just a ignorant notion. The fact is that government is inefficient and wasteful, and that government harms the free market, productivity and innovation; it reduces standards of living, the larger it gets. It doesn't raise them.

And also seriously, the only good communist is a dead communist. Majority or not, nobody has the right to my freedom.

I love the bullshit rankings used. "human development index" and crazy nonsense indicating whatever the NWO UN bureaucrats want them to. Gini coefficient references, which indicate nothing of standard of living, because greed and whining are important? Give me a break.

The USA would be doing much better if socialists hadn't dragged us down to the level of those you praise. Half of the USA doesn't pay income taxes (they don't work or work mega low skilled/low hours jobs). Because of many of our socialist policies--poorly implemented to buy votes, I grant you--Our work ethic and productivity has plummeted drastically. Many just wait for government checks. For housing. For food. For entertainment money. They have cell phones, air conditioning, cable TV, and the internet. What's left to work for? Not much.

Imagining the US population under a more socialist government is horrifying given current cultural values. We're not a bunch of culturally unified hard workers striving to achieve economic success under decent leadership. We're a bunch of fragmented people, half of whom have no cultural values and vote 100% for handouts, under corrupt leadership.

I can appreciate GNI per capita and PPP per capita measures, but there are some caveats to that.

Where's your accounting for cultural values (such as those associated with work ethic and productivity)(we're losing ours quickly!) and favorable trade circumstances? You cannot implement these as you can socialist policies. Nobody champions Qatar's economic system because it's not responsible for their PPP/GNI per capita.

My point being that, I'm glad you're happy with socialism in their small, not particularly diverse countries. I'm glad you're satisfied with their sub-par healthcare. I'm glad you're satisfied with their high tax rates. I'm glad you're satisfied with their sub-par incomes. But to pretend that it could be so much of only a half-failure as it is in those 2 countries across the rest of the globe is laughable.

Of course, I'm giving your examples too much credit based on income per capita. You didn't mention their extremely high tax rates, requiring them to achieve higher average incomes to achieve the same standards of living.

Those dirty, dirty socialists. I'm tired of people ignoring real costs. Healthcare quality matters. Tax rates matter. Cost of living matters. Standard of living matters.

Ignoring tax rates and their impact on cost of living and how these drastically reduce [standard of living] / [per capita income] is ignorant.

East said ->"We tried to warn you, we tried to show the mistakes you were making"

Stupid World leaders not taking advice from an internet politics forum X(.  That's right Emperor of China - do as we IC'ers say or you might be next!

Seriously... bad East!  X(

They has 10 figs and 15 soldiers. Best (after all bonuses, including 90% mil and war bonus) send 10 figs, 2 trannies, and 10 droids.

Remember they has an octo bonus there (and clearly they smoke a lot of it) so you will want to be close to their NW to keep infra.

Well, a divided Europe is good for the US politically.

> Einstein wrote:

> I want you guys to move to the right.

Figurative or literal "right?"