Quote from: JA37 on June 06, 2011, 11:50:51 AM

Quote from: realnowhereman on June 05, 2011, 11:35:19 PM

We have more debt, less education, worse health, less freedom and lower social mobility than before the socialists got control of the chequebook. By which criteria would this not be counted as a failure?

While I don't doubt your numbers I fail to see what socialism has to do with it. It seems that it has more to do with a lack of financial responsibility, which is common everywhere. Greece, Italy and Ireland were controlled by the right and still managed to screw up royally, while socialist Norway have a very good

Financial irresponsibility and socialism go hand in hand.

Whatever the parties in these countries said they were, they certainly did not behave in a right wing manner. They all have large public sectors, with huge benefits, massive pensions, and early retirement ages.

Just as in the UK: currently the "right wing" party is in power; and yet is spending at a higher rate than their "left wing" predecessors.

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track record of keeping its finances in order. I do believe that Norway is the only European country that has financed it's pensions, despite several attempts to use the oil funds to pay for other things.
Meanwhile I think it's the socialists who are spearheading Greek return to fiscal responsibility.

Just as the "right" politicians can behave in a "left" manner; the converse is true. I suspect that it is more the case that the opposition simply disagrees with everything the incumbants do.

Again: in the UK the opposition now pop up regularly arguing against policies they themselves had announced before the election. Once in power there is no difference between right or left.

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Now I don't think that it has anything to do with being socialist, conservative or libertarian, or what have you. I think that certain people are responsible and some are not.
Clinton was responsible and even tried to make a law that all tax cuts had to be financed before they could be implemented. Bush, not so much. Obama, well, not sure really.

I don't disagree that financial irresponsibility is more important. But most financial irresponsibility is done in the name of socialist policies (even by right wing politicians). Taking money from the productive and giving it to the unproductive is socialist. It's not that I am uncaring, it is that I believe those who are helped with free gifts are actually weakened, our modern welfare states have become not a safety net, but a harness. Rather than being cushioned from a fall, welfare aims to ensure people cannot fall. That is a recipe for creating a population who can't walk the high wire.

As I have said though, there is no significant difference between the actions of current politicians and their opponents. Let's say I travelled back in time to before the election and told you that the winner of the American presidency would have allowed American citizens to be murdered by the state, increased surveillance, kept Gitmo open, given huge tax cuts to the wealthy, and started a new war in Libya. Would you then conclude that (a) John McCain was going to win (b) Barrack Obama was going to win?

George Bush increased the size of government massively. That doesn't sound right wing to me.

On the subject of Clinton: it is arguable that he is responsible for the financial crisis, since it was he who set up the scheme were banks were forced to lend to people that they otherwise wouldn't have (i.e. people who couldn't afford the payments), often called "sub-prime" borrowers. It's well known that house prices will expand to take the credit offered to the buyers. Should we be shocked then that house prices shot up as more credit was offered? Should we then be shocked when the ever increasing house prices formed a bubble that made the payments unsustainable?

The best solution would have been for government to stay out of it.