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USA Ranking on Adult Literacy Scale: #9
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- OECD

USA Ranking on Healthcare Quality Index: #37
(#1 France and #2 Italy)- World Health Organization 2003

USA Ranking of Student Reading Ability: #12
(#1 Finland and #2 South Korea)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking of Student Problem Solving Ability: #26
(#1 South Korea and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking on Student Mathematics Ability: # 24
(#1 Hong Kong and #2 Finland)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking of Student Science Ability: #19
(#1 Finland and #2 Japan)- OECD PISA 2003

USA Ranking on Women's Rights Scale: #17
(#1 Sweden and #2 Norway)- World Economic Forum Report

USA Position on Timeline of Gay Rights Progress: # 6 (1997)
(#1 Sweden 1987 and #2 Norway 1993)- Vexen

USA Ranking on Life Expectancy: #29
(#1 Japan and #2 Hong Kong)- UN Human Development Report 2005

USA Ranking on Journalistic Press Freedom Index: #32
(#1 Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands tied)- Reporters Without Borders 2005

USA Ranking on Political Corruption Index: #17
(#1 Iceland and #2 Finland)- Transparency International 2005

USA Ranking on Quality of Life Survey: #13
(#1 Ireland and #2 Switzerland)- The Economist Magazine ...Wikipedia "Celtic Tiger" if you still have your doubts.

USA Ranking on Environmental Sustainability Index: #45
(#1 Finland and #2 Norway)- Yale University ESI 2005

USA Ranking on Overall Currency Strength: #3 (US Dollar)
(#1 UK pound sterling and #2 European Union euro)- FTSE 2006....the dollar is now a liability, so many banks worldwide have planned to switch to euro

USA Ranking on Infant Mortality Rate: #32
(#1 Sweden and #2 Finland)- Save the Children Report 2006

USA Ranking on Human Development Index (GDP, education, etc.): #10
(#1 Norway and #2 Iceland)- UN Human Development Report 2005

Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden.... all social democracies. Even on the democracy scale, USA ranked 15th, whereas six of the top seven countires are European. Freedom of the press, USA ranks 14th behind those same countires. Civil liberties, the USA is on par with more than 25 other countires.

At what point do we throw down our pride, look at the data and admit to ourselves that maybe, just maybe, European systems work better than ours?

Myth 1. Europe has a lower standard of living than the United States.

FACT. In the United States nearly 14% of Americans live in poverty – about 40 million people -- compared to 6% in France, 8% in Britain, and 5% or less in Germany, Sweden and Belgium. Twenty percent of American children live below the poverty line, as do nearly 23% of the elderly, the highest figure by far in the west with the exceptions of Russia and Mexico. The U.S. is ranked 29th in infant mortality, tied with Poland and Slovakia (in 1960 the U.S. was ranked twelfth) and 37th in health care (France is ranked first). The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans now owns 70 percent of the wealth but in Germany the top 10 percent owns 44 percent.


The claim that Americans have a higher standard of living is based on the U.S. having a higher ‘average income’ than most European countries. But average income doesn’t convey much about income distribution; if Bill Gates walked into a bar the ‘average income’ of everyone in the bar would increase by about a billion dollars! Besides, Europeans invest their wealth into other important things besides income that benefit everyone equally, such as quality health care, child care, more vacations, more generous retirement pensions, paid parental leave after childbirth, free or nearly free college education, affordable housing, supportive senior care, better parks and more. In today's economically insecure age, quality of life is not only about income levels but also about adequate support institutions for families and individuals. If the average American has more income than a European, how come Europeans have a much higher savings rate than Americans?


Myth 2. Europe has a weak, sclerotic and noncompetitive economy.

FACT. Europe has the largest economy in the world, producing nearly a third of the world’s economy, almost as large as the United States and China combined. It has more Fortune 500 companies than the U.S. and China combined, and some of the most competitive national economies in the world, according to the World Economic Forum. From 1998 through 2008 (until the global economic collapse), Europe had a higher per capita GDP growth rate than the U.S., and currently the continent previously known as the “land of high unemployment” has a lower unemployment rate than the U.S. (U.S. 10%, European Union, 9.5%, Germany 7.5%, France 10%).


Europe is the largest trading partner both of the United States and China. Europe’s stocks and investment returns have out-performed those in the U.S., making Europe an international investment magnet. In fact, Europe is corporate America’s biggest target for foreign investment, U.S. businesses make far more profits there than anywhere else in the world, over twenty times more than what they have made in China. But Europe’s economy is not just powered by Fortune 500 companies and big corporations. It has more small businesses than the U.S. that provide two-thirds of Europe’s jobs, compared to about half the jobs in the United States.


Myth 3. The European "welfare state" hamstrings its businesses.

FACT. Hardly a welfare state, Europe's economy and comprehensive social system are two halves of a well-designed "social capitalism" that is better geared than America's "Wall Street capitalism" to support families and individuals, and keep them healthy and productive. Europeans are supported with quality health care, more job training, child care, paid sick leave, a comfortable retirement pension, more vacation time and more. This is more “workfare” than “welfare,” since it keeps workers in good health and able to work. And it reveals real family values, as it provides families the support structure they need in this economically insecure age. The overwhelming evidence shows this has been good for the economy, producing highly productive workers who have sufficient wages to be active consumers.


Myth 4. Europe is a socialist nest of government interference and intervention.

FACT: Europe is completely capitalist, not socialist, with more Fortune 500 companies and more small businesses than in the U.S. But Europe has figured out how to harness capitalism's tremendous wealth-creating capacity so that its prosperity is broadly shared. Practices of economic democracy known as “codetermination,” “supervisory boards,” “works councils” and “flexicurity” are crucial to that harnessing. Codetermination allows workers to elect representatives to corporate boards of directors (known as supervisory boards). Fully half of the board members for the largest corporations in Germany — Siemens, BMW, Daimler and others — are elected by the workers. In Sweden, one-third of a company’s directors are worker-elected. Imagine Wal-Mart’s board of directors having anywhere from a third to half of its directors elected directly by its workers – that certainly would change Wal-Mart’s behavior towards its workers, and probably toward the world. It’s hard for Americans to even conceive of such a notion. Yet, most European nations employ some version of this. The impact has been immensely significant, and research shows it has fostered a healthy degree of consultation and cooperation between management and workers.


Works councils are the other twin pillar of codetermination. Elected works councils at individual companies allow workers to gain significant input into their working conditions. Works councils, which are separate from labor unions, have real clout. They enjoy veto power over certain management decisions such as deployment or dismissal of individual employees. They also have “co-decision rights” to meet with management to discuss the firm’s finances, daily work schedules, scheduling of holidays, work organization and other operating procedures; and “consultation rights” for the introduction of new technologies, mergers and layoffs.


Codetermination fosters the right balance of workers’ rights and consultation with robust commerce and entrepreneurship. It is one of the keys to how Europe’s brand of “social capitalism” has managed to harness its economic engine.


Myth 5. Europeans pay more taxes than Americans.

FACT: For their taxes, Europeans receive a seemingly endless list of benefits and services for which Americans must pay extra via out-of-pocket fees, premiums, deductibles, tuition and other charges, in addition to our taxes. For example, many Americans who have health care coverage are paying escalating premiums and deductibles, while Europeans receive health care in return for a modest amount deducted from their paycheck. Other Americans are saving a hundred thousand dollars per child for their college education, yet European children attend for free or nearly so. Millions of Americans are scraping to save the amount they will need for retirement beyond Social Security, but the European retirement system is much more generous. Many Americans pay extra for child care, or self-finance their own sick leave or parental leave after a birth, but Europeans receive all of these and more -- in return for paying their taxes. When you sum up the total balance sheet, it turns out that many Americans pay out as much as or more than Europeans -- but we receive a lot less for our money.


Myth 6. Europe’s economy will be hurt by its inadequate domestic energy supply and its dependence on Russia for its energy needs.

FACT: Europe’s energy efficiency is the best in the world. As a result of widespread implementation of conservation and renewable technologies, Europe’s ecological “footprint” (the amount of the earth’s capacity that a population consumes) is about half that of the United States for the same standard of living. The European landscape is being transformed slowly by giant high-tech windmills, vast solar arrays, underwater seamills, hydrogen-powered vehicles, “sea snakes,” and other renewable energy technologies. Europe is implementing conservation and “green” design in everything from skyscrapers to fuel-efficient automobiles, high speed trains, low wattage light bulbs, and low flush toilets. Europe has gone both high- and low-tech: it has also developed thousands of kilometers of bicycle and pedestrian paths that are used by people of all ages. In the process, Europeans are creating entire new industries and tens of thousands of new jobs.


As a result of this activity, Europe has reduced its energy reliance on Russia (Russian gas now supplies only 6.5 percent of the overall E.U. primary energy supply) and the Middle East, diversifying its foreign sources of oil and natural gas. The heads of all 27 E.U. nations have agreed to make renewable energy sources 20 percent of the union's energy mix and to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020. For all these reasons, BusinessWeek has stated that Europe is better prepared than the United States for this era of energy uncertainty.


Myth 7. Europe is not as innovative or as technologically advanced as it needs to be.

FACT: While Europe’s technological prowess has been compared unfavorably with the U.S., more than anywhere else Europe is the place of high speed trains, vast solar arrays, high tech windmills, hydrogen and electric cars and power from the sea. Europe is populated by high tech companies and projects such as Airbus, BMW, Mercedes, Nokia, Siemens, Alston, the world’s largest particle accelerator at CERN, the largest fusion power project at ITER, and more. Its high tech manufacturing base has made many European countries into high export nations -- China and India hunger for European technology. Indeed, the World Economic Forum’s “Global Information Technology Report 2008–2009” ranked European nations in the top two spots and in seven of the top ten; the U.S. was ranked third. Europe also has more people on the internet, and its internet speeds are faster and less expensive than in the U.S.


Myth 8. Europe is weak on the global stage, lacking military power or continental unity.

FACT: Europe has achieved some impressive foreign policy accomplishments that force us to reevaluate of how we define “power” in the 21st century. America’s aggressive brand of unilateralism and military “hard power” has suffered unexpected setbacks in recent years. But Europe’s “smart power,” which is based on multilateral diplomacy and regional networks of investment, trade, and Marshall Plan–like foreign aid, has produced more concrete results than its critics will admit. For starters, this velvet diplomacy has been instrumental in bringing greater peace, democracy, and prosperity to the former communist dictatorships of eastern and central Europe, as well as to neighbors such as Turkey, Ukraine, and others in its periphery. All told, this “Eurosphere” links two billion people -- one-third of the world, including many Arab countries -- to the European Union and its way of doing things. Europe’s smart power also shows the right temperament for slowly nudging Russia, China, the Middle East, and other hot spots toward rapprochement with the West.


Contrary to its reputation as a military weakling that “punches below its weight,” Europe has the second largest military budget in the world after the United States (larger than China’s), with two countries possessing nuclear weapons (France and Britain), over two million European soldiers in uniform (more than the U.S.), and many boots on the ground in peacekeeping missions and hot spots around the globe in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Kosovo, Bosnia, the Congo, and elsewhere. But Europe’s real strength is that the European Union has had lots of practice at forging consensus among dozens of players, and that gives it a skill set that is more effective than America’s hard power at bringing large segments of the world together over the many challenges we collectively face. Indeed, the top analyst in the U.S. intelligence community wrote in September 2008 that U.S. superiority in military power will “be the least significant” asset in the era that is unfolding. In an emerging, multipolar world, Europe is transforming our very notions of “effective power.”


Because Europe has the largest economy in the world, its reach is global. When the economic collapse occurred in the fall of 2008, Europe drafted the most effective bank stabilization plan, which the U.S. later copied. And Europe had its economic stimulus plan in place two months before the U.S. did. Europe has drafted a comprehensive plan for the re-regulation of the global financial system, while the Obama administration continues to drag its feet. While Europe’s initial attempts to forge continent-wide plans to deal with any particular crisis can look contentious and noisy, at the end of the day Europe has risen to the occasion for decades. Today, Europe enjoys many of the advantages of a single nation, such as a vast common market of five hundred million people and a single, supranational government led by the European Parliament (representing the second largest democratic electorate in the world, after India). But it also enjoys the advantages of “more heads than one” -- having so many powerful nation-states that act as a laboratory for each other, learning from one another’s successes and shortcomings. And when it’s time to cast votes in global institutions such as the U.N., the World Trade Organization and G-20, Europe suddenly splits into separate countries with multiple votes to cast on behalf of the European position

This is simply too easy to eviscerate, but it would take some time and a great deal of tapping of keys, and I've already done enough of that today.

Anyone with some degree of intellectual honesty and a pittance of respect for the importance of truth could dismantle this kind of Goebbles "big lie" approach to argument at at glance.

Graham has not the slightest, faintest idea what he is talking about, and since he will only pursue sources that already agree with his own views and rigorously avoids alternative arguments, he is doomed to his leftism, as that's what leftism is, as I pointed out earlier, an unending war against reality.

As someone who has, throughout his adult lifetime, vigorously perused sources, arguments, and viewpoints from both Right and Left, and who actually understands the substance and implications of both, Graham appears to me, despite all of his fuming insults and intellectual posturing, to be just another Keith Olbermann - type leftist, flailing and splashing impotently in the deep end of the pool without facts, without evidence, without critical reasoning abilities, and with precious little love for that elusive butterfly called "truth".

Another bluff as usual. Just Dafty's way of responding to arguments he can not respond to by telling us over and over again how his opponents are wrong because they are liars, and how he is an old fart who after a billion years of experience, is the smartest man he knows, and according to himself, has weighed all the pro and con evidence for every debate toipic known to man.

Just take his word for it, because he won't even pretend to respond with an intellectual rebuttal based on anything less than a link from his beloved Heritage clan of Right Wing hacks.

Kevin Graham wrote:Another bluff as usual. Just Dafty's way of responding to arguments he can not respond to by telling us over and over again how his opponents are wrong because they are liars, and how he is an old fart who after a billion years of experience, is the smartest man he knows, and according to himself, has weighed all the pro and con evidence for every debate toipic known to man.

Just take his word for it, because he won't even pretend to respond with an intellectual rebuttal based on anything less than a link from his beloved Heritage clan of Right Wing hacks.

Ever lived in Europe? I knew a guy who moved to Sweden to be with his boyfriend. He said that when he left NY he was a commited socialist, but after seeing the way things really were in Sweden he changed to a libertarian.

Believe me, once you see the system from the inside you can see the truth as opposed to simple stats on a paper derived with about as much criteria as one of those music TV days where they tell you the most popular videos of all time based on...well, their word for it.

You once knew a gay guy in Sweden huh?

Well, for starters, I think it is bogus that anyone from New York was ever truly a "commited socialist." Few people who throw that word around actually know what it means. Secondly, I lived in Spain two years, Germany four years, Holland a year, and Brazil now five years.

So, I think I am in a pretty good position to judge what other systems offer compared to that in the US. I don't rely on stats alone, but the stats don't lie as the RIght Wingers need to assume. Seriously, what is it you think the USA has that I can't get in a supposedly third-world country like Brazil? Or a social deomcracy like France?

Graham has not the slightest, faintest idea what he is talking about,

With a Pol Pot-like view of economics, he doesn't. He also doesn't care agency and responsibility which is part of the gospel. It doesn't matter to him that socialism can look like it works in small relatively rich countries but whose principles are disproven in the typical world. Already, these countries are falling to the reality of the cost and inefficiency of these programs.

Military and global power? Give me a break! Europe has done nothing without the help of the US (think Bosnia for example) and continues to do nothing without our help. We found out real early that they couldn't help us in Iraq or Afghanistan. Impressive weaponry, but no money for maintainance or training and now they balk at paying for the cost of building really effective and evolving militarys like ours (and that Obama will soon dismantle like Carter did).

bcspace wrote:...agency and responsibility which is part of the gospel...

The gospel according to Joseph Smith. This trumps everything especially thinking.

bcspace wrote:Europe has done nothing without the help of the US

Because US get its dirty finger into everything around the world, without request.

bcspace wrote:...and continues to do nothing without our help....

The help nobody except ...

bcspace wrote:...they couldn't help us in Iraq or Afghanistan...

...because they didn't want to...

bcspace wrote:...really effective and evolving militarys like ours...

Something you can be proud of. For example of the nuclear weapons which able to destroy the whole word twelve times, or twenty times, or maybe two hundred times.
It is compelling, isn't it?


You know, there are distorted pictures. They should be contemplated through special mirrors to look like real objects.



Sorry for the harsh style, if you think it was !

Fiannan wrote:

Kevin Graham wrote:Another bluff as usual. Just Dafty's way of responding to arguments he can not respond to by telling us over and over again how his opponents are wrong because they are liars, and how he is an old fart who after a billion years of experience, is the smartest man he knows, and according to himself, has weighed all the pro and con evidence for every debate toipic known to man.

Just take his word for it, because he won't even pretend to respond with an intellectual rebuttal based on anything less than a link from his beloved Heritage clan of Right Wing hacks.

Ever lived in Europe? I knew a guy who moved to Sweden to be with his boyfriend. He said that when he left NY he was a commited socialist, but after seeing the way things really were in Sweden he changed to a libertarian.

Believe me, once you see the system from the inside you can see the truth as opposed to simple stats on a paper derived with about as much criteria as one of those music TV days where they tell you the most popular videos of all time based on...well, their word for it.

If he found Swedish society so bad why did the Swedes keep voting them in?

If he found Swedish society so bad why did the Swedes keep voting them in?

Why did the children of Israel want to return to Egypt? Why all the pro-communist rallies in Russia years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the old Soviet system?

If one lived in a society in which much of what he had was had at the expense of others, and who, given the Fall (that is, the tendencies of the "natural man") could expect to be "taken care of" by the state at those citizen's expense, regardless of his own contributions, or lack thereof, to his society, wouldn't he be partial to such a system (at least so long as that state didn't overtly beat up on its own people, and the circuses are to be had at high enough levels to mask the relative lack and lower quality of the bread)?