Government

this is more directed to people in america(just in case anyone outside the states see this) what is everyone's thoughts on our government? i would like to know your thoughts on 2 thing, the system, also the current politicians.

ANARCHY FOR LIFE! -raises fist- Just kidding. I used to think the government was powerful and pure. But I stopped believing in Santa Claus and then the implications of the government's policies followed. I am now aware of how divisive our stupid American populace is over the least important of issues. I mean, sure, there's something to the fact that we are a world power, but it's the means to the ends that people really need to be focusing on. Nowadays, I think that most people who want to become politicians are the least fit for the job, and the ones with the best leadership skills or other traits avoid the bureaucratic BS for a reason.

The government holds very little real power and are basically told what to do by those with money and influence. Business owners, oil barrons, arms manufacturers, religious leaders and so on, and it's creating a sharp swing to the right, ignoring the problems of the working class in favor of those at the top. The Republlican party has adopted far-right fundamentalists as one of it's main audiences, which is real bad, as laws will be dictated not by justice or fairness, but ones which favor a specific religious group. Ultmately, the system is flawed and is not true democracy, because the power will always be in the hands of the few, and the only way to change this is a leveling of the playing field, a redistribution of wealth and pulling back the tatty curtain to reveal that the 'free market' is nothing but a sham where the only freedom it provides is the 'freedom' to chose from seven different brands of bottled tap water. In the UK, we've currently got a government which wants the world to be back in 1700. Their policies are based around the idea of keeping the poor poor, and making the rich richer. They're cutting benefits, slashing the NHS, removing public sector funding all whilst lessening tax on the corporations. Unlike in america, we've got an aristocracy system, where people believe they're better than everyone else, based solely on the circumstance of their birth, and unfortunately those are the people in charge.

Much applause for that Post mr. Ducksfortea. now I know im not an american and as such should stay out of this thread, but since i live in the most recently "colonized" country of Denmark, im beginning to experience a massive "americanizing", ( i know euro-trash should stfu, i dont care ) of our Media. Ever since we became official allies and joined that iraq scam of a war, liberties have been slipping away insanely fast. Biggest issue by far is the fact that we didnt have anything similar to your 2nd amendment so everyone in Denmark is easy pickings for the Academy LLC ( former Blackwater )troopers that are becoming more and more visible as "private security". i Forget where i'm going with this so i'll just GTFO now ^^

I can only shake my head and hope that you guys learn better soon. You have a strange, yet popular, idea of how things work. I won't get further into it than that because I have to deal with this daily as an economist and it gets tiresome. As for the UK... if they didn't start cutting back then they would be the next Greece debating austerity measures and suffering a complete economic collapse. The problem with big government is that eventually you run out of other peoples money, just as Margaret Thatcher said. As to religion... every politician is free to have their own beliefs. If you don't like what those beliefs encourage the politician to do then don't vote for them. "I think that most people who want to become politicians are the least fit for the job, and the ones with the best leadership skills or other traits avoid the bureaucratic BS for a reason." I do have to stop and mention that this is very accurate and a big part of the problem. It is also a major reason why government has grown too large and overeached their authority so much. Sure, there are some powerful fat cats involved.. but they just rent influence, they don't own it. Big government does.

I feel that the system we have is good, however because of all the idiots up top... the system is being shitted on. i guess it all comes down to this, the people up at the top of our government are the ones that just want power, however there are many people at the local levels that do actually want to help. sadly as the case always is moronic people ruin good things.

the cuts they are making are from the areas which directly benefit the working class, whilst leaving those with privilige up where they are. It's not done to benefit the country, but to reinforce the class system (the divide between rich and poor is growing much greater). The way out of a depression is not austerity but counter-intuatively, it's actually increased public spending. Money gets funnelled into large infrastructure works, this creates large amounts of jobs and eases transport for industry, money gets continously pumped back into the economy. It also increases confidence in the currency and the market, while large scale cuts actually do the opposite. This is what several countries have done, and they are also the ones who are less damaged by the current climate. Greece's problem was that there was no confidence, Greece didn't reinvest the money into the infastructure, and kept on regardless, which just escalates the stuation, as businesses pulled out of Greece, that encouraged others to follow, and when a country is so dependant on only the tourism, there is no industry or anything to support it.

Thatcher followed a neo-liberal economic system, which is based on the fallacy that those with money know what's best. She favoured private companies to the point where the country collapsed, we have massive unemployment, and it created a massive cultural shift towards an 'us and them' situation, where as before her term, the class barriers were begining to fall. She believed the rather dumb idea that everything has to make a profit, and so public services which didn't, were privatised. This greatly damaged social mobility as well as the transport infastructure. Unfortunately, this idiotic view is also followed by David Cameron, who fails to understand that the NHS is a public service and is supposed to make a loss, because it's priority is to help people. A politician is free to have their own beliefs, however those religious beliefs should not get in the way of government. Countries should be secular by nature, with no state religion, which would allow whoever to believe whatever they want (believe it or not, the us was actually founded as a secular nation and not a christian one!). When you get a large powerful group of people with their own set beliefs, they use those to dictate what's right and what's wrong based solely on their book of choice. And that ultimately creates a theocracy, which is the way america is going. A large amount of political lobbyists and business owners, as well as many leading republicans follow a very specific set of fundamentalist beliefs, and it's not a simple case of 'don't vote for them', because those are the people with power, and can control large swarths of the population through media and other means.

Just to drop my 2 cents regarding greece... The politician ( i forget his name) that suggested the loan increase (that is commonly accepted as the start of the greek avalanche), was a former Goldman-sachs executive, furthermore the replacement prime minister they brought in to save the country ( in round 1 ) was the head of the Goldman-Sachs greek branch at the time the first loan suggestion hit the table, to me that makes it obvious that it was a planned situation. Furthermore the reports from greece in the beginning of the riots of athen, was concentrated on attacks against Police stations and schools and embassies, while in fact somewhere around 70% of the attacks were directed at banks through-out the city. As a little bonus, Black Block* had been infiltrated by Police and military operatives to incite attacks on non-priority targets. * The black Block is the core of any western riot organized by the Anti-Fascist-Organisations, they are the ones that bring slingshots, paint bullets, molotovs and Caltrops, aswell as planning how to block sidestreets to hinder the advance of hostile forces, normally very proffesional, they had a burst of "recruits" leading up to the riots, bringing the average "experience level" down to where it is just plain trouble makers...