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[Fniff]

After a walk in the city causing some mild interference, my Bluetooth headphones are now speaking in what sounds like Korean.
Huh.

[Lord Shonus]

I'm not sure why it's a problem if it is, or why people claim it isn't.

in the US, the cold war happened.  Nobody really got over it, so not-capitalist systems are bad no matter what.

Emphasis edited by me.
It's not like the cold war didn't happen in Europe as well. I daresay it affected people in Europe as much as it affected the people of the US. Thinking of East-Germany, for example. With all due respect for US lives lost in the Korean and Vietnam wars.
That didn't stop European countries from labelling themselves 'social democracy'.
I yet fail to understand how many US voters seem to have a distorted worldview where everything involving the word 'social' triggers a communist alert.

Europe had much more familiarity with the socialist bloc as it actually existed than the US did. US perception of the East Bloc countries was built on a combination of reading the theoretical underpinnings of the societies (largely misleading because much of that theoretical work was not put into practice), the reports of defectors (which will show an extremely biased view of any country they come from because they usually wouldn't have defected if they fit in) and government propaganda (which was misleading in so many ways). This resulted in COMMUNISM being presented as an extremely distorted nightmare that poisoned everything associated with it. There was a fair bit of all that in Western Europe, but there was also a lot more "we live right next door to this country, which is made up of people who were just like us ten years ago" involved, which allowed a much more dispassionate analysis of them.

[Reelya]

One of the Soviet "sleeper" spies (An East German) sent to the USA, who later defected, worked for an insurance company while in the USA. He reports that it felt "just like home" because of the company culture. So apparently working for any large bureaucratic organization or company feels a lot like being in the old East Germany.

[overseer05-15]

Can yall keep this to politic threads?
kthxbai

[Tack]

Took me playing that election game realise that socialists are usually poor or dumb or both, because the rich smart ones do well in a capitalist society.

If you have to be rich to do well in a capitalist society, how is it any different from hereditary nobility?

It's a flaw of the system. Elon Musk left South Africa because it didn't have good capitalist opportunities. Any country which attempts communism will probably have the same "brain drain" happen with their emigration as well.

Well the thing is, some societies have high inequality.

The problem is, whilst you make a good point and a lot of sense, those high-inequality places win in GDP. And GDP is all.

[Reelya]

No actually, google it. Places with high inequality are associated with lower overall GDP growth. However they're attractive to people who want to strike it rich. Because someone is raking in the loot.

e.g. America is lucky to get 1% GDP growth per year, but people still come there to "get rich". The average person can only expect to get 1% higher income every year, at averaged national rates. And this is completely discounting population growth.

However ... the "get rich" people flocking to America definitely aren't coming there for a measly 1% per annum increase in income, they're seeing much more income growth than that, which means someone else must logically see less than 1% income increase per year. Basically, the few "top" people are flocking to America to get big returns while the masses are seeing literally zero% growth, or even negative growth, in real terms, to their standard of living. All that 1% national income growth is being sucked up by a tiny happy "elite".

If Elon Musk is seeing higher than 1% growth in his income per year, that's coming at the expense of many people who aren't getting diddly squat, since wage increases are totally eaten away by inflation. Because the average income growth is much less than Elon Musk's share of the income growth. He's getting your share for you.

If you want further evidence, look up median household wealth of many countries. European-style states such as UK, Italy and Australia have median household wealth 2-5 times higher than in the USA. America is doing so well that nobody except the top elite few can save any money. "Economic failures" such as Italy have 3 times the wealth per median family as "land of opportunity" America does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Check the "median" column. America leads in total average wealth (numerical average), but lags badly in the amount that "joe average" has in wealth. This is the end result of unequal income distribution in America. Most of the country renting houses.

[Avarice]

(removed)

[Helgoland]

Are you related to LW in some way?

[hector13]

He's his younger, less-skilled brother.

[overseer05-15]

He's his younger, less-skilled brother.

QuietShouts

[hector13]

SoftlySpeaks

[Helgoland]

SilentScreams

[hector13]

GentleTalks

[Toady One]

With the "Forum Reincarnation" in their location, and some other data...  going with ban dodge.  Tired of the reports, anyway.

[overseer05-15]

Oh. Uhh.
gg no re avarice