Re: Socialism

[pyat]

From Time Magazine:
"There is no way that the French government can pay for this lifestyle forever, except that it somehow does. "

Yes. The argument that socialized health care and welfare will somehow bankrupt a country is an odd one, since it often comes from strong proponents of free markets, who firmly believe in society's ability to generate wealth. I also hear it from people who claim the military is underfunded.

Of course, that last point may be legitimate in Canada, where the military budget is just 1% (give or take a few tenths) of the GDP. However, I more commonly hear it from Americans, where military spending represents about 45% of total world military spending, and is at the point where the U.S. could annually fund the construction two dozen space elevators instead, something which, P.S., would generate more wealth rather than simply evaporating into accounting limbo.

In any case, the belief that socialized health care and welfare will eventually bankrupt a nation is similar to the belief that continuing to buy groceries will eventually put you in the poorhouse.

Comments

[hillarygayle.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you what the precise figures are like, but I can give you an example for my area of the country: northeastern Arkansas. Last year, the first group of people who did the accelerated BSN program (1 year) that I'm in now, graduated in the summer. Two months before they graduated, 12 out of the 17 already had jobs to go to immediately, and the remaining 5 had them before graduation. Every single one is employed before they've even taken the boards. Here, "unemployed nurse" is a complete oxymoron.