United States Run Amok (again)

[MoltenRock III]

boston.

95% of the world does not agree with american exceptionalism.

yours is the path to ruin, for your own country. americans are going to get steamrollered if your attitudes prevail, because the rest of us won't put up with it. the united states is a tiny country, and in the short term (30-40 years) it cannot remain the tail that wags the dog. you're not asking the other 95% of us to acknowledge the US as a good place and a friendly neighbour. you're asking us to believe it is the best place, and that the rest of us should pay fealty to america as though we were under the thumb of ancient rome. it's not going to happen.

good luck to you.

Agreed. The problem with this attitude is it can blind one from reality, and instead color it with rose tinted glasses. If one doesn't acknowledge or accept how a situation truly is, then how can any fixes, solutions, proposals, or answers be found? As an Asian proverb says, "True words are not fine-sounding, fine-sounding words are not true". Cheap platitudes like "Support the Troops" (while cutting their healthcare funding) or "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" (while cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs and cutting off unemployment benefits), are easy to say and may even make people feel better about themselves and / or their situation as Reagan was so good with. But I think it's better to actually make people's lives better vs. selling them a slogan while doing nothing.

*shrug*

 

[BostonPirate]

oh yeah..

Thats me

I never say anything is wrong with america or its policies... HA!!!

I just offer solutions instead of blind negativity

 

[bankside]

Thanks

I just wanted to remind everyone that I have been clear and consistent.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

The reason it is rejected by the rest of the world is because everyone else tends to think the nation they are in is the most exceptional.

I have always believed that if you think america is a bad place, but you aren't really willing to stick it out and stick around to fix it, then rescind your citizenship and live in that NEW "shiny city on a hill" you have found.

IF you are not american and you don't feel that your nation is exceptional and above the others? I suggest you find one that is.

IF you, like the vast majority in the world, believe that your home nation is the the best, then bravo. Loving your home is a good thing.

People automatically think that because I have progressive social ideas, that I ought to not believe that america is still the best place to be on the planet. It reinforces the idea that liberals hate america.

It is foolish.

I've emphasized one bit of your text.

The alternative to "american exceptionalism" or "french exceptionalism" or "singaporean exceptionalism" is internationalism.

In fact that's the only alternative to this parochial, "chauvinist" (in the original French sense), isolationist delusion that any one country has it right. No country has it right. We all bring a piece of the puzzle to the table. And regardless of whether one country did have it right or not, that doesn't give it jurisdiction over business transactions outside its own borders. For it to pretend otherwise will be costly, first for others, but then for the arrogant country which finds itself increasingly isolated and outpaced by a world that is not only determined to get by without the United States, but which is determined to contain it and subdue it.

 

[Kulindahr]

What do you do about off-shoreing of billionaires?

For instance, most countries in the world can now accommodate billionaires in the style to which they imagine themselves to be entitled.

If you tax them too much, they could leave too. Take a business like Apple; it's intellectual capital is in the US, but that could move overnight, literally on the next jet out. Given the right tax rate, they could afford to move every last one of them, and no one would notice a reduction in their quality of life at all. They have to build a new headquarters compound anyway. The production is already in China. Why not the headquarters too? <cough>lenovo</cough>

What do you do about off-shoreing of intellectual capital that feels under too much pressure?

(not that I'm broadly opposed to your plan, and I'm certainly not saying roll over.... just pointing out times have changed and it might not be that simple....)

How many of Apple's people are in the upper 1%?

I tow no party line.

T O E​

 

[bankside]

As an Asian proverb says, "True words are not fine-sounding, fine-sounding words are not true".

*shrug*

I've never heard a more eloquent or finer-sounding proverb.








(sorry; couldn't resist...)

 

[BostonPirate]

The E. U. has shown us all that merging globally is WAY far off the map. Just merging the economies of those nations is not an easy process. I think they will not give the idea up, and they may in the end provide a more reasonable road map to internationalist endeavors and globalism.

In the worlds current economic state, it's my opinion that the best thing some of these nations can do for themselves and the other nations is to extract the global tentacles a bit, protect their nations economy, and reach back out again when they are healthier and have healed economically.

 

[BostonPirate]

T O E​

LOL

I do that on purpose when when speaking of party affiliation. It always riles you and two other people up.

I prefer to think of voters with registered party affiliations as tethered, not standing on the line of salute... long tethers dragging a mammoth stone toward some overlords commanded place, only obeying, never questioning.

its a little inside (party of one) joke that I enjoy

 

[MoltenRock III]

What does that include? Are there other payroll deductions (either mandated, private, etc.) such as pension, employment insurance, health care...?

There are other deductions. For the vast majority of citizens and permanent residents there is an additional 20% taken from your paycheck, but is only on income above S$1,500 per month up to S$5,000 of income per month. (S$1 to S$1,499 per month are exempted from deduction.) The 20% is matched with 16% by employers. As a person gets older slightly less will be deducted.

There are three components to it; the first is for pension / social security, the 2nd is for healthcare, and the 3rd is "ordinary savings". Each component is your own personal set of savings accounts.

Obviously, the pension portion is easy to understand. The healthcare account I described earlier. And the 3rd portion is usable for things like purchasing a house, and / or paying housing expenses, paying for education, investments or purchasing a small business, etc...

On the downside, some people complain about being "forced" to save, although it's quite easy to spend the money if you so desire in the ordinary fund.

 

[bankside]

How many of Apple's people are in the upper 1%?

A few. But they can afford to bring an "entourage" with them when they travel, or resettle; in this case enough to clear out Cupertino entirely. People will go where their jobs are. I went to school with dozens of kids whose parents had previously gone on foreign postings for work, or who were foreigners posted here to work, just because it paid a decent salary and that's where the opportunity was, even without taxation being an issue.

Apple would have no problem recruiting top talent to work abroad, including US talent. If Steve said "We're leaving Cupertino for China" they'd be fully staffed before the building opened, and a lot of them would be people willing to transfer, just for the cool experience. If not China, Ireland.

Boeing moved its HQ to Chicago, to mixed reviews. But it is not hard to imagine the moves being made further and further afield.

 

[MoltenRock III]

How many of Apple's people are in the upper 1%?

At Google over 1,000 became millionaires a few years ago. In 2007 someone who had only been there one year was worth $276,000 in stocks. Source

At Apple it was around 5% of their employees had made millions in stock options. Not sure what that figure is today as that figure was from 3 or 4 years ago. There was a similar phenom at Microsoft and Adobe.