No, even the busts are not equal with france though, because france still enjoys a higher overall standadrd of living, due to the social welfare, you may have people unemployed, but they aren't on the street and losing their homes and healthcare, sure they are out of work, but its not as bad as it is here, really it takes a boom for things here to be that nice, beause here you have to be emplyed or you are in trouble

Not.... really no.  They're both pretty close... it really depends on which measures you use... a lot of which involve actual socialist measures in their calculations... as in... you get a higher score for having more equally distributed wealth... just for having more equally distributed wealth.

Besides, France has scored below us in a lot of measures.

Besides long term unemployment in the US is .04%.  There are very very few people in the US who are unemployed for long periods of time.

Pretty much those who have serious disabilties.... who are taken care of by the government.

Actually the long term unemployment rate (15 weeks or more) is at 4.5% according to the government

http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/long-term-unemployment-rate-hits-record/?hp

That's a lot of people being out of work for a very long time, and heck that doesn't even include people who have stopped looking or those who are underemployed

And like my point has been, in nations with stronger safety nets, even being unemployed for long stretches is not the concern that it would be here

Actually Long Term Unemployment = 12 months or more.  Internationally speaking anyway.

.4 in the US vs France 4.1

The problem with long-term is it can be defined in so many ways, 15 weeks, 12 months, which is why I ascribe to Keynes who said in the long run we are all dead.

Also it doesn't really change my point regardless of what measure you use for long term, since either way in france the govt bankrolls the unemployed

And it works out very poorly.

Why?  The system gives the poor a lot for free.... but the poor don't really end up owning anything.  Families on welfare STAY on welfare, because they can't dig themselves out of the hole... because they get welfare and they can't get jobs to build up money to build up wealth to get out of their holes.

There is too great of a stigma to being out of employment for even a lot of the smaller jobs out there. 

Nevermind the fact that their budget deficit makes ours look great... outside of possibly this stimulus spending.  Not sure what that'll due to our debt vs GDP.  They should technically be kicked out of the EU.  But then again countries like Belgium were let in.

(Oh and before you throw back numbers without knowing the meanings... the US actually measures it's government debt different then France.)

Public debt in France is 63.9% of GDP as of 2007 ours was 60.8% as of 2007 this is using the CIA sourcebook as reference, to avoid the comparison issues you brought up, not a huge size difference considering.

Even in the US, the poor tend to stay poor, even without welfare assistance, its not like most are able to pull themselves out of being poor, so I fail to see what support you have to your argument that if we don't keep them on Welfare, things will improve for them, more than likely it will probably worsen during economic downturns and not get much better during upturns

The situation isn't nearly as bad upword mobility wise in the US. 

The proof is in... well france.  If you think France is a country that's doing AOK... I don't know what to tell you... it's not.  It's got tons of problems stemming from it's political dealings, including it's racial problems.

Additional as External Debt is concerned

Frances's External Debt: 4 Trillion, 

France's GDP, 2.56 Trillion.

US External Debt: 12.25 Trillion

US GDP: 13.84 Trillion.

See the difference now?

We rarely go that overbudget... only in times of war and economic crisis.  They do regularly.

Additionally we'd have to go even more overbudget to put into effect the France stuff... afterall France just shows how socialised Saftey nets as currently designed do not work on large scale nation.

Imagine the scale of the US.  I'd be even worse.

Actually no france shows that Socialized safety nets do work, so far you haven't disproved my points, all you've done is brought in other issues, many of which have nothing to do with the socialized safety nets, like the issue of race, also, saying that france has problems, doesn't change the fact that US has problems as well, we have issues with uninsured (over the last two years, 86.7 million have at one point or another been uninsured) , much higher poverty, decaying infrastructure, and we have our own social issues and bigotry problems to deal with, like with the right wing trying to attack gay people, not to mention the severe economic downturn and how to deal with the two wars we are in and its not like we don't have debt issues as well even without our extensive socail net, our debt is going to exceed our GDp very soon (also your dbet figures are a little outdated, you're using 2007 numbers for the US).

So far your relevant arguments have been that one, socialized safety nets lead to problems with employment, economic growth and debt, but you have not addressed the counter points, stronger safety nets also lead to higher standards of living, higher life expectancy, lower poverty rates, better schools (prior to college).

@TheRealMafoo: Are you sure no public funding went into phone or power networks?