And except for blaming me for supporting socialist politics of Obama, I did not see any constructive proposition, actually no propositions at all.
You all accepted the idea that socialism is bad, and capitalism is great. however both had been change. combination of both seems to be necessary. If not, say what else to do (except blaming government or me, for supporting it)

Валентин -, Marx, Engels, Lenin were also from the wealthy, educated, well travelled families..so what? The people you spoke to may support it because of their upbringing and surronding..doesn't prove anything.. are their countries better off than the USA? are their poor or working people have more than the poor here? They can support anything they wish, but for some reason they came to study and work here.. not in their countries or even Europe..
The recent crisis was not caused by the social programs?? Have you heard of the Freddie and Fannie, subprime mortgages, CIA.. all these encouraged irresponsible behavior and government guarantee to be bailed out by both bankers and homebuyers.. all the states who have LOTS of social programs, generous pensions for the government workers have NO MONEY and VERY HIGH TAXES - IL, NJ, CA, NY.. check it out..

There IS a way to reduce government programs - Clinton and the republicans did in the 90s with the welfare reform, and Obama, using the present situation, is undoing it.. growing government, pushing the country more into debt, which we can never pay back - 14 trillion already... and the projected one will be over 20 tln by 2020 if we don't adjust the spendings.. funny how people don't realize it and support more spendings.. or maybe they just fall into the 50% category of Americans who don't pay any federal income tax.. that's why higher taxes don't scare them..

And I was very surprised speaking with French, Algerian and Americanguys working on their PhD here (they are getting their littlescholarship here for doing research and teaching). All from wealthyfamilies. All had studied politics and had read Marx and Lenin. Allwell traveled. All support socialism.
This just proves once again that academia is a magnet for leftists and statists. :-|
There is a mental disorder component to all these liberal academicians with PhDs. It may by sense of guilt for being wealthy. It may be something else. But they are irrational people.
If you decide to try to hit your head on a concrete wall, and discover that it hurts, you will not do it again. That is a normal human response. But for liberals, this feedback loop is broken. The history proved over and over that socialism is bad, it does not work, it eventually leads to tyranny and misery. But the good liberals keep trying to impose it on yet another society. (md)

I also find it funny that Maria derisively refers to Valentina&39; accounts of life in Europe as cute "anectdotes from girlfriends who got there from some crappy place, and were able to milk the system for a whole year", while sheherself frequently cites her husband's European doctor friends as authoritativesources.
If life in Europe was as bad as some here would like to lead us to believe, Europeans would be coming here in droves...

There is a mental disorder component to all these liberal academicians with PhDs. It may by sense of guilt for being wealthy. It may be something else. But they are irrational people.
Маша, i disagree with you here.. the academia is very rational about it.. they like their own place in the socialistic society where they have all the prestige paid by other people forcefully and their ideas advanced and imposed on people by the government.. where in a free society, they have trouble convincing free people to do anything they wish..
we already discussed it many time in the topic on intellectuals..

Fannie Mae mortgages... almost right, but not exactly.
Fannie mae mortgages were giving to poor and mostly for houses in a very bad areas, or to these who could develop the bad areas. Most of these houses very boarding houses that attracted criminal activities. Fannie Mae did not rule the economy. all americans banks were giving loans to those, who actually could not effort buying the house. They supported growing in price real estate. Kind of the pyramid (just upside down), that finally collapsed.

FNM and FRE mortgages have basically been the "standard".. currently over 90% of all new issued mortgages are issued thru FRE and FNM, and as government keeps buying the GSE papers they support mortgage rates to be artificially low and keep housing market afloat.
The problem is they have been doing this more and more over the last 20 years or so..
This is only only of the things that caused the housing market bubble..

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Человек, который почувствовал ветер перемен, должен построить не щит от ветра, а ветряную мельницу

bankers were giving sub-prime mortgages to people "who couldn't afford it" because F/F were buying those mortgages.. thus, they wouldn't carry the responsibility for them, but the government would.. btw, there is no talk of reforming F/F from the current administration, only the wall street, like there is no problem with them.. don't remember the exact number .. is it over a trillion in unfunded guarantees from F/F

The history proved over and over that socialism is bad, it does notwork, it eventually leads to tyranny and misery. But the good liberalskeep trying to impose it on yet another society.
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again with the extremes... introducing socialist elements into an otherwise capitalist system is not the same as striving for an entirely socialist state. these elements create a necessary balance in a system that has the potential of being just as evil and destructive.