Aielyn said:
The housing bubble bursting in America caused the GFC. It was the aftershocks of the burst bubble that went around the world. The reason why Australia's housing prices didn't drop the way others did was because we didn't go into recession. In other words, you have the cause and effect backwards. And I never claimed that increased inequality caused crashes. I said that inequality increases in the leadup to a crash. Did you notice the downturn in inequality after 2008? That happened because, between 1996 and 2007, the Australian equivalent of the Republicans held government. In 2007, the Australian equivalent of the Democrats took power, stopping a pattern of rising inequality. Notice that, in America, when Democrats take power, inequality still rises? Your system is screwed up. It's true that there are other factors in why Australia avoided the GFC-triggered recessions. But the point I was making wasn't that higher taxes saved us, but that they didn't make us more vulnerable. We were able to survive, despite the higher taxes that modern conservative thinking claims causes economic instability. You bring up lobbying groups. That's quite a bag of worms, so I won't go into it too much, but it's one of the biggest problems with the American system as it currently stands. By the way, your system of having states be nearly independent entities is another part of America's problem. I understand the reasoning - each state then has to compete, etc, etc... but government is not, and should not be, like a private company. State governments should be complementary to the federal government. Indeed, America's insistence on competition at every level is a MAJOR issue. Consider, for instance, that Australia doesn't have local "school boards". We have a national curriculum, to ensure that all students are taught to a certain minimum level (they can go beyond the curriculum, it sets the minimum). And if it costs a lot of money to become a doctor in America, then maybe that's a failing of your system, right there? Education costs in Australia are much lower, you get automatic loans from the government while studying that you don't have to pay off until you're earning more than a certain amount, and to be honest, even that's too expensive. Tertiary education should be free to the student (within reason - say, the first undergraduate course plus the first postgraduate course should be free), because they earned their right to study through their efforts at school. But that's neither here nor there. You may have noticed, by now, a common thread running through my entire argument - America's system is screwed up, it needs to be fixed, not just shrunk. |
1) No, you still have the cause and effect wrong... what prevented the housing collapse in australia was housing scarcity. Unlike most western nations who have more then enough houses.
2) You mean... the downturn 1 year after the downturn in the US.
3) Modern conservatives don't think high taxes on the risk bring instability. They think it slows growth.
4) It's not that States need to compete that states are split up. They're split up because of how huge the US is. The United States is more like the Europeon Union then it is Australia.
As for a National Curriculiam. That's one of those edges against the middle fights. A lot of people argue that such curriculums hurt racial minorities by putting them in classes they can't succeed in or ones not tailored towards getting them up to speed with everybody else. Bush was actually the first president to push for it. Obama is the second.
5) American Education is expensive... but it's mostly worth it. Unlike public schools... the universites are still top notch. You have your top notch foreign schools that can compete... but there is a reason why the US is still so dominante in journal publications, and only being caught up with by the Chinese.
Really the problem is more length then it is cost, most other countries let you become a doctor long before you can in the US. (Well and forth rate schools who still charge an arm and a leg.)
The problem with free college for all is... well everybody will want to go to college, will go to college, then will be depressed as hell when the reality hits them their degree is worthless and they're working back at a wendys.
6) Shrinking is the first way to fixing. In an ideal world... a Libretarian would come in and knock EVERTHIYNG down. Then everything could be rebuilt from the bottom up.
It's impossible to reform anything in the US government... because reform would require those who support to programs to admit they're flawed.
The only way to get reform is to remove and replace... or have a GIANT disaster that can't be ignored anymore. Like why the VA hosptials got reformed.
