Why can't the US adopt European-Style Social Systems?

  • Thread starter Thread starter RCIAGraduate
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
True I think most in the U.K. accept that we are going to need to pay more.
 
My Irish born and bred husband asks me this nearly every day.
He just can’t fathom why we can’t do it.
I keep reminding him that Ireland has a very small population and they hardly tax for anything.
Living there is relatively cheap and wholesome. No preservatives, no chemicals on crops, fresh veggies, fresh fish daily, fresh everything!
You can live to be 100 easily in Ireland.
But…they don’t have NEAR the drug problems, near the company interference with anything, near the illnesses, near the unwed mothers, near the social problems, etc.
Sure they have free healthcare, but you go when they tell you to go, and you may have to wait months to take your turn for an operation. They put his father into a convalescent place for 3 weeks, simply because they thought he wouldn’t be able to change his own bandages.
Heck, the police in the villages don’t even carry guns! And their military is pretty much non-existent.
It’s totally different. Apples to watermelons. 😉
Totally.

I agree, GREAT answers here.
 
Depends what for really. Most of our problems are far more deep rooted than a simple lack of cash, our NHS is unsustainable in its current form, the vast majority of cost is in end of life care so there’s a debate that needs to happen. We have the fattest population in Europe (which itself is the fattest continent in the world) because people don’t think they need to take care of their own health when the NHS is ‘free’. We have the third highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe because people think the state owes them a flat and an income, although 41.8% of those pregnancies are aborted so the state bails them out either way.

So personally i’m not paying more tax to fund bad lifestyle choices.
 
Last edited:
Dacinom said:
God bless, pocaracas I noticed you used the word “invest” in your post about the Europeans. I’m afraid this has become a replacement buzzword that really means TAX and I find the repeated use of it misleading, although I believe you probably didn’t mean it that way it’s simply popular. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts.
Click to expand...
Well, as I said earlier, it’s more to do with prioritizing your expenses.
Clearly, the US has traditionally prioritized the military.

Compare this for the US:
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
(from https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_detail_2018bs22018n)

With this for the UK:
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
(from https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_total_spending_pie_chart)

The cool thing about those sites is that we can go back in time! 😉
(I wonder how many images I can put in a single post…)
US@2000:
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

UK@2000:
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
Further…
US@1985:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

UK@1985:
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

oh… I just learned a new thing… the US spends a ton of money on healthcare… Apparently, inefficiently… Could it have to do with how healthcare mostly revolves around privately owned, for-profit hospitals?
In Europe, many local clinics and even major hospitals are public services on state-owned buildings, fully funded by the expense in healthcare and, obviously, not-for-profit.
 
And the Pentagon has yet to be audited.

And because the US is not Europe. We’re the biggest bullies/combatants on the block too. Uh, I mean we’re doing our best to keep the peace in global hot spots and make sure we drop inventory… uh, bombs… only on threats.
 
I don’t know much about policy, but, whenever I see threads like this, I think to myself, “Why ask that the U.S. turn into country X? If I liked the way things are done better in country X, I would go to country X.” You do you, I do me. Personally, I like the way things are done in the U.S. and I think it is good that the U.S. exists as an option for those who want more individual freedom even if it means more work on their end. We have our problems, but, there is no place I would rather live.

I speak as someone whose parents immigrated here from Europe. We are not rich, but, I reaped the benefits of private education. It meant that I had to work harder than a lot of my peers for scholarships, but, it was okay as I had access to really quality teachers that made the burden easier.
 
I believe U.S. is much more socialistic in nature than the average American believes that it is.

Just look at employment… Employment agencies have to be licensed in the state, and they have to fill out regular reports which are sent to the government. The State Labor Departments are partially funded by the Federal Labor Department, etc…

This country has private business that does the work of government, yet the private businesses really aren’t all that private due to the laws and regulations that require them to report to the government. In effect, many private businesses are nothing more than tentacles of the government under the guise of private business. Futher, the government has the power to look at business records, government employees can go undercover as employees to investigate business, etc…

The government has lots of power in the country; all you have to do is read the laws.
 
Last edited:
Yes, by all means, let’s just cut military spending to the level of the average European country. That’d be great! I can think of some other folks who would like that too! Let’s see, leaders in Russia, North Korea, China, and most of the Middle East. Wouldn’t that be great? And, oh yeah, You’re Welcome Europe, for defending you during the Cold War, and now against dirty nukes, etc.
 
Two things about US “military spending”:
  1. “Military spending” is actually funding a huge amount of research and keeping a lot of companies afloat that develop technologies which have peacetime as well as military applications. “Military spending” also includes a lot of things that we end up using for homeland security. If “military spending” went away, so would thousands of US tech jobs…and it’s worth noting that many if not most of those tech jobs are restricted to US citizens with security clearances, so the US person is not competing with the entire rest of the world for the job like they are at private companies. Many universities benefit from “military spending” on research, and many large companies and institutions that make money off “military spending” are sending their employees to get advanced college degrees for cheap or free - in other words, the company or institution benefiting from the “military spending” is paying their employee’s tuition.
  2. The reason why countries like UK can get away with not having a lot of “military spending” is because they rely on their big buddy the US to help them out if they get in a serious jam, like we already did twice before.
 
Last edited:
There is also vast amounts of waste that could be curtailed. Military spending is probably the second most important spending item after infrastructure,but there does need to better oversight.
 
I agree with you on the oversight and in some cases, on the waste.

Much of the so-called “waste” (as in stuff costing much more than it needs to) is due to either the extreme specs that an otherwise ordinary item must meet, which means a lot of government-mandated testing, often in special facilities, that is not cheap (I used to run around doing this type of thing in a past career) and/or the contract being grossly underbid for some reason in the first place just to get the work in the house.

I was on a job once that had gone on for way longer and way more money than originally planned because the original plan was shall we say unrealistic. The program was cancelled just when we got the widget to work. When I expressed sorrow to the contracts manager that a whole bunch of us now had to look for other work due to the early end, the contracts guy gleefully told me that this was a good thing because the company would make a lot more money in the legal settlement for termination of the contract than by actually building and delivering the widgets as planned. That’s about when I decided the whole thing was fubar and I was getting out of the business.
 
No doubt. But even now the army is once again considering changing up its uniform for the what, 4th time in 10 years? Ridiculous.
 
redbaron162 said:
Most countries don’t support a military like we do and instead spend huge amounts of their GDP on health care instead.
Click to expand...
Spending less on killing machines and weapons of war in order to spend more on things which increase quality of life and give people extra life to live… seems like a pretty Catholic thing to do.
 
It sounds nice.

Until another global conflict arises and huge amounts of people die because we have to waste time gearing up to counter the threat.

Si vis pacem, para bellum
 
I do want to say that I’m fairly new here and love it. Lots of diverse opinion, good topics, and respectful conversation even when people disagree.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top