Germany's Refugee Crisis

[iolo]

Wrong! Capitalism works just fine, except the west, especially western Europe, does not have true or even semi capitalism. Western Europe has been socialist since the end of WW2.

Socialism makes reproduction obsolete. Why have kids to take care of one in retirement when the state will do the job? Why have kids as an anchor to one's social life when one could spend all one's earning on entertainment without the need to worry about retirement?

The last examples of socialism were back in 1919, so forget that blather. The USA keeps the madness going on Mexicans, as you know.

[astralis]

gunnut,

man...what country do you know that's -not- socialist? :-)

basically put, those three countries (and/or one renegade province) have pretty much the lowest birth-rates on earth. Singapore and Hong Kong are literally the bottom two.

moreover the places with the highest birthrates are African countries, places like Somalia and Uganda and Mali, shining examples of capitalism...;-) for that matter, the UK, France, and Sweden have higher birthrates than the US.

so you might want to rethink that theory of a connection between capitalism and birthrates, haha.

[Bigfella]

gunnut,

man...what country do you know that's -not- socialist? :-)

basically put, those three countries (and/or one renegade province) have pretty much the lowest birth-rates on earth. Singapore and Hong Kong are literally the bottom two.

moreover the places with the highest birthrates are African countries, places like Somalia and Uganda and Mali, shining examples of capitalism...;-) for that matter, the UK, France, and Sweden have higher birthrates than the US.

so you might want to rethink that theory of a connection between capitalism and birthrates, haha.

Additionally, the European nations with higher birth rates like France & Scandanavian countries are more 'socialist' (using the adolescent definition favoured by US conservatives). Turns out that the major problem in Western countries is that women struggle to combine career & child rearing - a problem that sits squarely at the feet of their capitalist employers. Turns out 'socialist' nations offer better maternity and even paternity (!!!) leave and often better access to affordable child care. In East Asia there seems to be an additional problem with men taking their sweet time ditching an attachment to very conservative views of gender roles. Turns out capable, professional women increasingly expect to be treated equally at home as well.

Of course, that describes what is actually happening, rather than offering a fictional theoretical construct, so it clearly can't be anywhere near the truth.

[troung]

moreover the places with the highest birthrates are African countries, places like Somalia and Uganda and Mali, shining examples of capitalism...;-) for that matter, the UK, France, and Sweden have higher birthrates than the US.

Clearly we should model our society after theirs.

Socialism makes reproduction obsolete. Why have kids to take care of one in retirement when the state will do the job? Why have kids as an anchor to one's social life when one could spend all one's earning on entertainment without the need to worry about retirement?

Children are expensive and time consuming, that's wasteful vacations in expensive hotels I can't take and impulse luxury shit I can't buy. They would get in the way of my capitalist consumption, and based on my colleagues complaints my sleep.

[Parihaka]

Clearly we should model our society after theirs.



Children are expensive and time consuming, that's wasteful vacations in expensive hotels I can't take and impulse luxury shit I can't buy. They would get in the way of my capitalist consumption, and based on my colleagues complaints my sleep.

All of the above. Here in socialist New Zealand we actually provide tax incentives for families with babies, parental leave for both parents etc (taxing childless people more but by stealth, sneaky little communists that we are) and I believe communist Australia goes even further with their housing subsidies on top of what we have.

[Chunder]

....and I believe communist Australia goes even further with their housing subsidies on top of what we have.

It's true, free 'housing' for undocumented Kiwis. Damn I love this country.

[Parihaka]

It's true, free 'housing' for undocumented Kiwis. Damn I love this country.

If only you could make coffee I'd move there meself

[troung]

All of the above. Here in socialist New Zealand we actually provide tax incentives for families with babies, parental leave for both parents etc (taxing childless people more but by stealth, sneaky little communists that we are) and I believe communist Australia goes even further with their housing subsidies on top of what we have.

Tax breaks per kid are to bribe to make more middle and upper class kids for the state. By spending my money on nice dinners, airplane tickets and room service I am helping the economy and protesting socialism.

[tankie]

Welcome to the poor "refugees " my arse . Check out the links the govt controlled media try to suppress

https://youtu.be/JHhOOPSwnMA

[Chunder]

It's a simple fact that the poorest can't afford to travel far, long. Hence the demographics that you see actually making the move are fit & able men. It doesn't actually mean the poor can't seek asylum, they can only join the queue in the camps, a very few outliers brave further. Most countries have a quota it's far better than the inherent bias that does not favour the forgotten in society, and it's not too shabby either, the process is just sloooooow.

Unfortunately you have a political class attaching itself to the cause, and it isn't doing any good. If you were to separate the left, the insulated & the racists out of it - it becomes readily apparent that encouraging people to travel further results in death. I have watched with some disgust at the policies the former govt enacted here that resulted in the deaths of thousands - that we knew of - not counting the ones further afar who have undoubtedly met the same fate. It's become an ideology or political cult so blinkered that it effectively ignores the deaths on such a large scale, It instead brands itself as 'compassionate'. It will do anything under any guise to demand a return to former incentive based scheme that resulted in failed policy where too much is never enough, anything but acknowledge cause and effect. These people actually believe 'death by compassion', is the way to go - death on a scale we haven't witnessed since WW2. If you don't subscribe, you're a racist. It's astounding. You could actually give every psychopath and criminal an automatic weapon and still have a death rate an order of magnitude lower than that shitty 'compassion politics'. Never mind the lives you'd actually be saving by *not* encouraging the migration, hence the money being saved, hence the more being able to spent in the longer run, or how much further our dollar goes over seas, or the fact that those in desperate need of protection go to the camps. It's freaking astounding that in this day an age people would actually subscribe to that.

A dead boy on a beach? We've had them on the rocks. Difference between us and Germany is it doesn't actually have to acknowledge its policies contribute to the anarchy. It's not their servicemen/women dragging bodies from the water or being called derelict of duty because it was unsafe to do so. Meanwhile, a malnourished woman bearing a child of rape & too weak to travel languishes in a camp somewhere, while thousands more die on the Med.

[kato]

A dead boy on a beach?

I find it rather cynical how the picture of that 3-year-old boy is played up in the media.

Why? Because his 5-year-old brother also drowned. And his mother. The only one who survived was his father - who was seeking to unite his family with that of his brother. Which went ahead with his family, with all surviving and is in fact living in Germany (in my town actually). The boy's father is now back in Syria.

Oh, and btw, it is also German servicemen fishing survivors and dead out of the sea. Thousands of them, literally - by the end of September we were at 8,000 people pulled onboard German ships alone since May. The operation is now being renamed to OP Sophia - after a baby born six weeks ago on a German frigate to a Somali woman fished out of the sea - and just got the mandate last week to sink ships too.

[gunnut]

gunnut,

man...what country do you know that's -not- socialist? :-)

basically put, those three countries (and/or one renegade province) have pretty much the lowest birth-rates on earth. Singapore and Hong Kong are literally the bottom two.

Socialism creeps in as the society gets richer and has the spare resources to think about it. It's natural. It's a very human thing to do. But it is also counter productive.

Why are kids so expensive? Because everything else in a socialist society is expensive. Our taxes get higher and higher. We work more and more. Now both parents work to get ahead. Who's taking care of the kids? Gotta hire someone or have a good family support structure. Even then it's still expensive. Then comes to school. Every kid in LAUSD is now supplied with an iPad. A FUCKING IPAD!!!! I don't have an iPad. I have to pay for my own so I bought a Asus tablet (that and I hate Apple products). How much is an iPad? $600? How many thousands of these are needed in LAUSD? The program cost billions. Of course this money grows on trees and we don't have to pay for any of it.

Then comes college (applies to health insurance too). We want to help out people with the spiraling cost of college, so we give out cheap student loans. Of course the education-union complex seizes this opportunity to really milk the system, much like the health insurance and military-industrial complex. What's the student loan at now? A few trillion dollars? Someone has to work to pay this off. Guess they won't have too much time to have kids and care for them.

moreover the places with the highest birthrates are African countries, places like Somalia and Uganda and Mali, shining examples of capitalism...;-) for that matter, the UK, France, and Sweden have higher birthrates than the US.

so you might want to rethink that theory of a connection between capitalism and birthrates, haha.

Don't be obtuse. High birth rate alone does not mean they run on capitalism. But socialism definitely kills birth rate. Name a single socialist country with higher than replacement birth rate. Even with all those lavish incentives, not a single advanced socialist (or even developing) state has higher than replacement birth rate.

By the way, according to this site: http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=25

Rank Country Birth rate (births/1,000 population)
150 United States 13.42
159 France 12.49
160 United Kingdom 12.22
167 Sweden 11.92

Source: CIA World Factbook - Unless otherwise noted, information in this page is accurate as of January 1, 2014

edit: I tend to use "birth rate" interchangeably with "total fertility rate"

[astralis]

gunnut,

Why are kids so expensive? Because everything else in a socialist society is expensive. Our taxes get higher and higher. We work more and more. Now both parents work to get ahead. Who's taking care of the kids? Gotta hire someone or have a good family support structure. Even then it's still expensive. Then comes to school. Every kid in LAUSD is now supplied with an iPad. A FUCKING IPAD!!!! I don't have an iPad. I have to pay for my own so I bought a Asus tablet (that and I hate Apple products). How much is an iPad? $600? How many thousands of these are needed in LAUSD? The program cost billions. Of course this money grows on trees and we don't have to pay for any of it.

Then comes college (applies to health insurance too). We want to help out people with the spiraling cost of college, so we give out cheap student loans. Of course the education-union complex seizes this opportunity to really milk the system, much like the health insurance and military-industrial complex. What's the student loan at now? A few trillion dollars? Someone has to work to pay this off. Guess they won't have too much time to have kids and care for them.

that's not a result of socialism, it's simply a result of increasing living standards. kids are never very "economically worth it", even back when there WAS child labor; now they're very, very expensive.

But socialism definitely kills birth rate. Name a single socialist country with higher than replacement birth rate. Even with all those lavish incentives, not a single advanced socialist (or even developing) state has higher than replacement birth rate.

problem being, I really have no idea what's NOT a socialist country anymore, by your definition...:-)

take a look at your list. how many "capitalist" countries do you see above the US? wouldn't you say that North Korea and Vietnam and Iran are less economically free than the US? then how are they ranked so much higher?

[tantalus]

a rare insight to merkel in regard the refugee crisis...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34474153

[gunnut]

gunnut,

that's not a result of socialism, it's simply a result of increasing living standards. kids are never very "economically worth it", even back when there WAS child labor; now they're very, very expensive.

problem being, I really have no idea what's NOT a socialist country anymore, by your definition...:-)

take a look at your list. how many "capitalist" countries do you see above the US? wouldn't you say that North Korea and Vietnam and Iran are less economically free than the US? then how are they ranked so much higher?

The problem with your comparison of NK, Vietnam, and Iran, with the US is they are in completely different categories. That's like saying with a blanket statement "women only make 70% of what men make." We know that's not true. Adjusted for type of work, time spent working, location,...etc, women make just as much as men.

A more apt comparison would be France, UK, Germany, Canada, and maybe US in the same category. The problem with US is that we have such a huge and diverse population compared to everyone else. Scandinavians have rather homogeneous population and they are all rather low in population. Japan is very socialist and very homogeneous in population make up, with a very different culture than the west, even though it's technologically advanced.

Between UK, France, Germany, Canada, and US, would you say US is the LEAST socialist? Coincidentally, US has the highest birth rate. Would you also say US has the worst government incentives for having kids between these nations?

Of course we can look at central/eastern European nations and their abnormally low birth rates. Most of them have embraced capitalism after the fall of Soviet Union. Yet Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia, all have very low birth rates. It will be interesting if we can compare their current rates with the rates in the 1980s when they were under soviet influence.