President Donald Trump

Right, with you guys it's always "they were great ideas, just implemented badly". The problem is, every time they've been implemented, it's been badly, there is not one example of them being implemented well. So, maybe not such great ideas after all?

d2,

I have a friend who snuck out of Soviet Union with her family in the mid to late 1980s when she was a teenager. Real cloak and dagger stuff. She now has a daughter who is applying to college. She said that her daughter told her with a straight face that "she (my friend) had it much easier because she had a sob story to tell colleges about how she had snuck out of the Soviet Union with her family."

The Diet Coke versions of my ideas are working just fine in Scandinavia! These nations crush standard-of-life metrics and they're far closer to my preferred society than the US, that's for damn sure.

Cuba would likely be a massive success story if it weren't for the giant capitalist behemoth right next door obliterating it for decades on end with severe economic sanctions. I feel comfortable in asserting this because Cuba has achieved some excellent things DESPITE that (better healthcare than maybe every other developing nation, for one)

Scandinavia isn't particularly close to Marxism imo.

And cuba wasn't "just fine except sanctions". It was a dystopian, repressive, totalitarian dictatorship built on the Soviet model. But hey, at least the doctors' appointments ran on time. Just as well, so they could treat all the malnutrition due to starvation and disease outbreaks due to lack of soap on the store shelves.

I agree. However, much of their economic platform could be, and is, readily described as socialist.

I and the ghost of Karl Marx would prefer a society in which industry is truly worker-owned and society eventually becomes effectively class-less. In lieu of that, I advocate strongly for things like universal healthcare, universal childcare, removing the profit motive from universities (thus making college massively cheaper), etc., etc., which I gotta say, seems quite a bit apart from stanning for bread lines and all the other evils people associate with the USSR.

Sweden and Norway until recently (before norway implemented a wealth tax) had more billionaires per million people than the USA.

Finland and denmark have a bit more than half the foreign born % of the population the USA has (drastically tighter extra-EU immigration, given EU citizens can enter at will).

Corporate income tax rate is 20% in Finland, 20.6% in Sweden, 22% in Denmark.

Denmark mandates language courses and takes your kid from you as an immigrant if you don't send your kids to those free courses.

Only approx 50% of finnish people would agree with their son or daughter marrying a black person.

Denmark a while ago paid fullpage ads on northern african newspaper to tell people not to come because they aren't wanted.

Yeah dog, those economic problems were CAUSED BY OVERWHELMING ECONOMIC SANCTIONS FROM THE UNITED STATES. Like I said. Pretty hard to engage in international trade when the US is blocking both your imports and exports, eh?

This is accepted, confirmed, and catalogued fact by those in the know.

Ok. And North Korea? Sanctions too? Man, these sanctions sure get around huh?

If I assume you are representing these things accurately and fairly, which I don't, most of your points have nothing to do with the economic platform of the places of which I speak. I distinctly refrained from referring to cultural issues like racism and the use of official languages. I mean, I GUESS me pointing to their high standard-of-living metrics can be tangentially related to cultural issues, if you squint hard enough.

Nobody "stans for bread lines". People are telling you that your ideas are ****, unworkable and cause bread lines. But you're not mong, you understand the difference.

My analysis is only for the average citizen once they reach age 18. I think there’s good reason to prevent anyone from voting who is not a citizen.

No. Did I say anything about North Korea? Have I ever?

NK is a hereditary dictatorship. Just because it uses some of the language of Communism doesn't mean it acts that way in nature. That place is closer to a monarchy than any government I would ever support

ok which reason(s) is it and why don't they apply to criminal citizens or mentally disabled citizens or IQ < 80 citizens?

but their arguments are so pathetic. Usually nothing more than ~no data proves it dont work

I'm speaking casually. If this forum stopped every time you and the others use imprecise or colloquial language, nobody could ever post anything else. You know what I'm saying.

just an fyi

objectively speaking, this can be a strong positive - not saying it is in this situation, i'm not well versed enough in us monetary policy to know

a lot of countries manipulate their currencies to make it artificially weak because that is good for exports and it wouldn't be outlandish for us to have intentionally engaged down that path since we're now so focused on trade and it would probably make paying off debt easier

just saying that in a vacuum, this isn't the pwnge you think it is - maybe it is, i don't think the current admin is at all competent, just that this could be a desired feature and not a bug

I love it when "Cuba is a great place! Health care! Nice old cars!" makes an appearance.

The economic platform of those places is that you can build a startup and become a billionaire (klarna, spotify). So you are in favor of a system where people can become billionaires? you just want a pretty solid welfare state but you are ok with capitalism being the main engine of all domestic prosperity outside healthcare and education? not that they don't make money with healthcare, novonordisk at a time (danish company) was the most valuable european company by market cap, profiting of the stupidity and fatness of american taxpayers.

Hereditary dictatorships are bad, got it. Could you give me the last names of Cuba's leaders between 1959 and 2019, thanks.

Not to defend Marxism here, but the capitalist nations in the Caribbean aren't doing super great at healthcare and prosperity, and they don't even have the sanctions to deal with.

At least people can leave if they don't like it. And they just generally don't have that whole, you know, totalitarian dictatorship / secret police thing to contend with.

I didn't say it was a great place. In fact I implied it is NOT a great place, AND I gave the reason why (U.S. economic sanctions, confirmed fact). Really wonderful post otherwise, you really tore up that moronic strawman in your head, please keep it up with the zero-content one-liners that we all are very desperate to read.

No. I'm making a point that the Scandinavian countries' economic platform is closer to what I would prefer than the economic platform of other currently existing countries. I'm in favor of a system in which billionaires don't exist, but, and I'm gonna all-caps this as I keep saying this stuff and I think it's important, I UNDERSTAND WE LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD, IN WHICH THE POWERS-THAT-BE HAVE RENDERED THE ELIMINATION OF BILLIONAIRES IMPOSSIBLE. Since that is the case, I would prefer a system of universal health-care/child care (and countless other social programs which I won't list now because I've already been posting too much), and the Scandi countries are closer to that than anywhere else, as far as I know.

I'm all for the worldwide Marxist revolution, but I understand it's not coming today or tomorrow, or probably in my lifetime, and possibly not ever. So here I am, just advocating for stuff that will improve material conditions for all of Earth's citizens. That's what I care about.

The reasons would be that they already get a benefit from immigration so it’s a fair trade to them, and before they become citizens we are still vetting them to get the rest of the benefits.