Angry Citizen said:
Okay. Please, peruse this article. Let's play a drinking game. Every time Texas is dead last in something (if it's a positive) or first in something (if it's a negative), let's take a drink.
http://texaslsg.org/texasonthebrink/texasonthebrink.pdf
A few things:
1) You're citing a left-leaning research caucus in the Texas house, giving what is in many ways a rather arbitrary ranking IMO.
2) I'm talking more about the economic and fiscal health of the state. That Texas has lots of people moving into it, healthy economic growth, and an unemployment rate below the national average. I think one can very much make the argument perhaps for additional spending, public services and regulations in Texas, but the point is not to overdo it in the way California has.
3) The state that is literally "on-the-brink" I'd say is California right now. Not because of having more public services, or more spending, or higher taxes, or more regulations per se, but because of doing them excessively.
On what basis do you believe Germany is a "right wing nation"? Its economy is heavily protectionist. They have a vast social safety net. They're heavily unionized. They have socialized medicine. Their top tier tax rate is 45%, plus they have a value-added tax. The German government extracts about 40% of GDP in taxes; ours is 26%. Don't tell me Germany is anything remotely close to a right wing nation. They're a smart nation with a massive manufacturing base, and the EU has allowed them to dominate the nations you mentioned.
By European standards, and even by certain American standards, Germany is pretty right-wing IMO. They adhere to a philosophy known as Ordoliberalism, which is a variant of neoliberalism, but one which while having a heavy focus on promoting a market capitalist economy, also has an emphasis on promoting a strong role for the State in making sure that said economy has healthy competition and also a strong safety net. The Germans focus very much on being able to pay for their large safety net (different from America) however and have come under a lot of criticism as of late for engaging in and pushing for austerity measures (also different from America right now). They have high unionization, but their system works where the unions have a much better working relationship with employers in terms of how things get worked out, so that the relationship is not as combative as we see in a country like the U.S. or the U.K pre-Thatcher (a pretty hard-core right-winger who turned around the UK's economy and stopped it from going over a cliff).
Germany does not have socialized medicine. They have a universal healthcare system that is a combination of public and private elements. I would argue that the EU has not allowed them to dominate the other nations, that they have dominated because, unlike the other nations that became very profligate with their spending and did not focus on actually producing things, Germany has focused on building an economy that actually makes lots of things and on being fairly fiscally responsible. The backbone of the German economy is the "Mittelstand," all of the small and medium-sized firms that focus on producing products focused on engineering and craftsmanship, for which Germany is reknowned. Germany is able to get away with levels of protectionism because the United States, one of its biggest customer countries, is not very protectionist (Germany is a major exporter).
The irony is that the EU was created to prevent Germany from becoming dominant, but due to the actions of the other nations, has led to Germany inadverdently becoming the most dominant economy, and hence nation, in the EU.
Also look at Switzerland, which is very free-market-oriented.
A better comparison is between the most left wing nation, Norway, with the rest of Europe. Norway's unemployment rate is 2.6%. Yes, 2.6%. It also features perhaps the best and most comprehensive social safety net in the entire world. Unsurprisingly, it's also not a member of the EU. Imagine that.
A few things:
1) Norway gets 20% of its GDP from oil (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/no.html), as it's one of the largest oil exporters and also a large exporter of gas. When you have nearly one-fourth of your GDP from exporting oil, it's not difficult to have a large safety net and sound finances.
2) It's a small country, with a population of 4.9 million people. There's more than that in New York City.
3) A country that has large fossil fuel revenues and a relatively homogenous, small population, is not that difficult to govern with regards to maintaining a large safety net and sound finances.
4) I don't know if I'd agree that Norway is the most "left-wing" nation in Europe.
It's funny you mention France, incidentally. What is so wrong about their economy, in your estimation?
Excessive spending and terrible business environment.
The one that gave us socialized medicine? The one that closed Gitmo? The one that signed Kyoto? The one that reinstated Glass-Steagal?
Oh wait. None of that happened. If anything, 2010 was a repudiation of the conservative approach that the Democrats have taken since Reagan's triumph. Obama has struck a populist tone this election cycle, one focused on attacking the rich. It's clearly working.
I think it takes a real stretch of the imagination to claim that the Democrats lost in 2010 for being too conservative. Leftists aren't stupid. That would be like conservatives getting mad at the Republican party for being too left-wing, and thus voting in scores of Democrats.
One of the strategies that had been used by the Democrats to win control of the House and Senate in 2006 was to run a lot of conservative Democratic party candidates, as opposed to far-left candidates. And yes, they did give us socialized medicine, via Obamacare, which they had to pull every trick in the book to ram through. I'd say Obama is running on a populist tone for two reasons:
1) He has nothing else to run on
2) He needs to pull his base out for this election (which means the internal polling in his campaign shows him in trouble). Instead of running centrist, he's running hard left right now. He's trying to appeal to his base, not to independent voters.
The reason I can say that, however, is that WASMs are the only demographic that supports the Republicans by a comfortable margin. Women? Democrat. Blacks? Democrat, overwhelmingly. Hispanics? Democrat. Atheists? Democrat. Seculars? Democrat. Romney holds an appeal with white religious males - and that, more than anything, is why he will lose on Tuesday.
Yes, but there is no real reason for Hispanics and blacks to support Democrats overwhelmingly except for reasons of 1) not liking the Republican ideas of limited government and/or 2) perceiving the Republican party as being racist. Women can go either way (they are who got Bush elected). Atheists and seculars, no surprise there, although even those I think would lean more Republican if not for the Republicans seeking to ram religion down people's throats so much.
Which Romney? The one since Denver, the one in 2008, the one in the Republican primaries..?
Since Denver. Obama ran pretty far left during the 2008 Democratic primaries as well, so I don't see what the big deal there is. He's also running very far left-wing now.
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