Cyprus-Forum.com

[erolz66]

Perhaps the US can do with a little more social security. It's probably not the best but certainly not the worst either.

As for the UK, Canada, Australia and NZ, well there is already a lot of social security in place already. How far are we suppose to go with it? Pay for everything and tax the working more and more? That isn't the answer either as that only drives the economy down.

Social Security is thgere to only give people a leg up when needed, and not become an incentive for people not to work.

What is civilisation if not the idea that the strong have a a degree of duty to the weak ? The rich to the poor ? The able to the less able ?

Are we really saying that innovators will only innovate, creators only create, builders only build, if that means they can accrue wealth for themselves of 1000 times the average, or 10,000 times but not if they can only accrue 100 times the average ? Is that what we are saying ?

[Maximus]

what are you saying Erolz, that the poor should be funded by the rich. To equalize everything?

The great performer should be handicapped so the not so great under performer can win a medal?

Capitalism and democracy is the only system in the history of mankind that has proven to work.

it gives you the freedom to do whatever you want.

if you dont put anything in, you get nothing out. if you put everything in and provide value to others, it can and will reward you.

systems that are not meritocratic, that dont incentive or reward productivity and to better yourself end up failing.

social security should just be there as a safety net, to catch you when you fall.

It should not be that comfortable where people can consider it as a permanent thing and abuse it.

[Londonrake]

And yet, huge numbers travel vast distances at great risk, paying tens of thousands to come from the likes of Vietnam (some only to be frozen to death in the backs of lorries) in order to live there. A situation I doubt the likes of Turkey, Romania and Poland have concerns over.

It’s a mystery. Why they would do that, just to live in abject “poverty”?

Anybody else here spent time in India?

Are the levels of poverty greater in countries Vietnam and India than they are in the UK ? Yes they are. Is this a reason for people who live and work and are citizens of the UK to therefore not worry about poverty in the UK ? Not in my book. Who has said anything, other than you, about people living in 'abject' poverty in the UK ? We have been talking about two distinct technical definitions of poverty in regards to the UK. Poverty defined as wealth relative to the UK national average and poverty defined as ability to provide basic necessities like food, shelter and warmth.

(btw Turkey today has the largest immigrant population relative to total population size of any country in the world, by a long long way.)

But perhaps time for a bit of honesty. What you're actually pitching for here is "Vote for Corbyn" and it will all be sorted. For "free" of course.

Noted that you evade the fact a vast number of people, many of whom have crossed the breadth of Europe, want nothing more than the chance to live in the UK. I believe the net migration figure has been running at about a quarter of a million a year. It's recently surfaced that there are some 1.2 million illegal immigrants in the UK. AFAIUI that's a quarter of the total for the whole EU.

Ohh - do stop obfuscating with "relative poverty". If you've been to India then you will realise what real poverty actually is. The richer a country becomes the more the poverty threshold rises. In the US of course "poverty" is endemic but nevertheless they're arguing about building a wall, to keep millions more illegal immigrants from flooding in to seize the opportunity of living there.

As far as Turkish immigrants are concerned. Is that not because the EU are paying them a fortune to coral 4 million Syrians? Those attempting to escape Assad's benevolent rule? It seems Ms Abbot might wish to offer them "safe passage" to the UK. That's a lot of Labour voters of course.

[cyprusgrump]

what are you saying Erolz, that the poor should be funded by the rich. To equalize everything?

The great performer should be handicapped so the not so great under performer can win a medal?

Capitalism and democracy is the only system in the history of mankind that has proven to work.

it gives you the freedom to do whatever you want.

if you dont put anything in, you get nothing out. if you put everything in and provide value to others, it can and will reward you.

systems that are not meritocratic, that dont incentive or reward productivity and to better yourself end up failing.

social security should just be there as a safety net, to catch you when you fall.

It should not be that comfortable where people can consider it as a permanent thing and abuse it.

Precisely this!

Social security should absolutely be there for you if you fall on hard times or unforeseen circumstances...

...not a lifestyle choice for the feckless.

[Maximus]

if you want to provide duty to the poor,

start an organization, and donate everything you believe you don't need.

Attract other like minded members that think the same. Have them also donate everything they believe they dont need.

All the excess "wealth" you dont need, give it away....

Equalize yourselves with the recipients by giving away your excess wealth, to the poor and bring them up.

You can do that in a democratic capitalist system.

You can do this if you believe this is the way to go.

What is stopping you?

[Kikapu]

I believe most people are good at at least in one thing to make a living if the opportunity exists, who then from that point, they can move onto bettering themselves financially with other opportunities. One needs to start working somewhere to develop the working skills in making a living, which then becomes the driving force to move onto other things to make more money as we want more material things to makes us happy, especially true to young males in our society. Most people in all developed countries do succeed in taking care of themselves and their families financially, so the capitalist system does work, but not for all at all times. For those who fall through the cracks for whatever reasons, the state must be prepared to help get these people back on their feet, which does not always happen.

It is said, that in the USA, the king of capitalism, most wage earners are one pay cheque away from being homeless. There are homeless people all over California, which if it were a country, it would have the 5th largest economy in the world. Total disgrace that homelessness exists in the USA, let alone in California. Therefore, a little “socialism” is needed in developed countries to balance the books with capitalism for the good of that nation and it’s citizens. It should not be seen as throwing good money after the “losers” of our society, but investment into the future of our society. Communism and socialism had the right idea, but unworkable in practice, but too much capitalism is too unworkable for a health society in any country, especially the developed ones.

Perhaps the US can do with a little more social security. It's probably not the best but certainly not the worst either.

As for the UK, Canada, Australia and NZ, well there is already a lot of social security in place already. How far are we suppose to go with it? Pay for everything and tax the working more and more? That isn't the answer either as that only drives the economy down.

Social Security is thgere to only give people a leg up when needed, and not become an incentive for people not to work.

No, the answer is not to tax the people more, but to better distribution of the taxes already collected. Spending so much money on unnecessary wars and weapons is a good place to start cutting to funding more social programs. Putting less people in prisons for petty crimes where more prisons are being built and more prison guards are hired to hold them is another way to cut to fund more social programs. Many people turn to crime because of desperation as they feel that they are no better off outside than being on the inside. Children growing up in broken homes may well follow examples set in their bad neighbourhoods versus kids growing up in better neighbourhoods. In the end, we all pay the price one way or the other, regardless how successful one may well be in their own lives.

[cyprusgrump]

if you want to provide duty to the poor,

start an organization, and donate everything you believe you don't need.

Attract other like minded members that think the same. Have them also donate everything they believe they dont need.

All the excess "wealth" you dont need, give it away....

Equalize yourselves with the recipients by giving away your excess wealth, to the poor and bring them up.

You can do that in a democratic capitalist system.

You can do this if you believe this is the way to go.

What is stopping you?

Indeed, I've mentioned this on here before.

There are even systems in place to allow people to pay more tax than they are legally required.

But surprisingly, very few do so...

[erolz66]

what are you saying Erolz, that the poor should be funded by the rich. To equalize everything?

No absolutely not. I am talking about degrees. I am not seeking an objective of total equality of everything for everyone. I am talking about degrees and scale of equality in various areas.

Capitalism and democracy is the only system in the history of mankind that has proven to work.

So many things here. First of all what does 'work' mean in your statement above ? Are we saying that back in there day monarchies did not 'work' ? Work for whom ? Anyway leaving all that aside.

For me this is a classic example of this phenomenon of how we polarise and triabalise our view of the world / universe and in doing so limit potential futures and create conflict that is not a function of disagreement as much as it is a function of the process we use to view the universe, to understand it.

I do not think there is a system of government anywhere or over any time period that does not or did not have a degree of what I think you mean by 'capitalism' and a degree of what I mean by 'socialism'. I think that is a fundamental 'reality' not a matter of opinion. No system is or can be entirely 'capitalist' or 'socialist'. The universe does not work that way. Yet we spend so much of our time and effort in our heads dividing things up in to these two binary 'camps', these two 'tribes' and then placing ourselves and others in to these two tribes and arguing that this camp is 'right' and the other camp is 'wrong' as absolutes as if this is some kind of reflection of an underlying reality of the universe. I think we need to spend less time dividing the world up in to binary camps and tribes and then arguing why this camp is 'right' and the other camp is 'wrong' and spend more time on first trying to understand what our objectives really are, individually and communally and then having got a grip on that looking at different systems and seeking to wheedle out what aspects of that system are working in terms of progress towards the objective and which are not in a continual ongoing process.

Are the nordic countries 'capitalist' or 'socialist' ? Are they more capitalist than the UK or less ? Are they more socialist than the UK or less ? Are anti trust regulations and laws 'communist' or 'socialist' or 'capitalist'.

To what degree is your statement above akin to someone in 1900 stating 'travelling on the surface of the land or sea is the only system of travel that in the history of mankind has proven to work' ?

it gives you the freedom to do whatever you want.

The freedom I personally want is the freedom to spend my limited time doing things that interest me, that matter to me, regardless of how economically productive they may be. Is 'capitalism', whatever that actually means in such a binary sense, really the only or best way of providing as much as such freedom to me and others as possible ?

if you dont put anything in, you get nothing out. if you put everything in and provide value to others, it can and will reward you.

Again this is all about degrees for me. Is the degree to which the Duke of Westminster 'puts in' justification as to the amount he 'takes out' ? Compared with how much say a nurse or teacher 'puts in' vs what they get to 'take out' as a result ?

systems that are not meritocratic, that dont incentive or reward productivity and to better yourself end up failing.

Are the Nordic countries more or less meritocratic than the UK ? Was the system of government in say roman times more or less meritocratic than the UK is today ? I have no problem with the concept of meritocracy at all. I do question how much, to what degree, our current systems really are meritocratic and I do have an aversion to the concept that we have now reach the limit and pinnacle of how meritocratic any system could ever be.

social security should just be there as a safety net, to catch you when you fall.

It should not be that comfortable where people can consider it as a permanent thing and abuse it.

I am a 'believer' in the ideas espoused by the likes of Epicurus. That there are basic needs and there is a direct linear correlation between the degree of fulfilment of these needs and 'happiness' or lack of 'discomfort' if you prefer. That once these needs are met there is no longer any direct correlation between having more over this basic need and 'happiness'. Provide a house to someone who has no house and the 'return' in happiness is substantial. Provide a second or third or fourth or fifth house to someone who already has a house and the returns in 'happiness' are diminishing returns. With such a philosophy , such a view of the how the universe works I therefore look to systems that best prioritise and seek to fist achieve the meeting of such basic needs for the most people over ones that prioritise allowing people to accumulate more over these basic needs. I am not saying we should seek to proscribe anyone from being able to accumulate more than these basic needs, more than one house, more than enough food to avoid hunger, even vastly more and obscenely more. Just that we should imo seek systems that firstly addresses these basic needs for all or as close to all as possible and then as a secondary objective allows individuals to accumulate more beyond these basic needs.

[Maximus]

well if you want to spend your limited time doing the things that interest you, no matter how economically viable or productive they may be.

You can do it in a democratic, capitalist system.

You just have to earn the right to do that. Who do you expect to pay for it?

If enough people choose to do that, there will be a huge economic problem.

Then everyone will be living in poverty.



Governments should just print money and give it to the people. The perfect system.

[Maximus]

You cant run the 100 meters fast enough, here is $100, well done.

Here is a mansion, we got you covered. The cinema is in the basement.

Dont know basic arithmetic? Dont worry about it, take a grand.

You from a third world country? forget that, come on over. Here is a Mercedes and a pair of snazzy Nike air trainers....