Actually, you are completely wrong on the effect of progressive taxation. The effect of progressive taxation is that in countries that have the most of it, it becomes easier for the truly resourceful to rise out of poverty, start businesses, etc. Here in the US, we may have the lowest taxes among the developed nations, but poor people almost never get wealthier and the rich people always stay rich, almost nomatter what they do. Middle class mobilty in the USA is increasingly downward. Dozens of studies show this. Click this link:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=social%20stratification%20oecd

Poor people in countries like Denmark, Australia, Norway, Sweden, even Canada are much more likely to be able to get the education and amass the resources they need to climb out of poverty. In those countries, for the most part (except Canada) the wealthy pay FAR more taxes than we do. Also, measures of happiness show that even with the high taxes, the rich are happier there than here. And they feel less stressed.

don, that is complete nonsense. higher progressive taxes act as a marginal tax wall against progress. if the government is giving you credit/subsidies/money, then every $ you make in the real world takes away a dollar of 'goverment income' you get for doing nothing. your marginal tax rate is 100% and people get very comfortable taking, not making. All the countries you mention have completely different demographics and cultures than us. in some countries, like the ones you mention, trusting the government comes a lot easier than it does for the average american. you don't mention if the rich there pay more $$, higher percent or higher percent of total ubcine taxes paid. I don't think it is all three.

Marty Wilson, please read this paper: http://ftp.iza.org/dp1938.pdf You can read the abstract and a lot of links here: http://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1938.html

(Trade entitlements and corporate rule are a very bad omen for the future stability of the US.)

Paper abstract:
We develop methods and employ similar sample restrictions to analyse differences in intergenerational earnings mobility across the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. We examine earnings mobility among pairs of fathers and sons as well as fathers and daughters using both mobility matrices and regression and correlation coefficients. Our results suggest that all countries exhibit substantial earnings persistence across generations, but with statistically significant differences across countries. Mobility is lower in the U.S. than in the U.K., where it is lower again compared to the Nordic countries. Persistence is greatest in the tails of the distributions and tends to be particularly high in the upper tails: though in the U.S. this is reversed with a particularly high likelihood that sons of the poorest fathers will remain in the lowest earnings quintile. This is a challenge to the popular notion of ’American exceptionalism’. The U.S. also differs from the Nordic countries in its very low likelihood that sons of the highest earners will show downward ’longdistance’ mobility into the lowest earnings quintile. In this, the U.K. is more similar to the U.S..

Even though I've benefited from the 99 weeks personally, I believe that 99 weeks is too much. How can the debtor nation that we've become afford to pay people 99 weeks of unemployment benefits? If effective steps had been taken several years ago to actually unleash economic growth instead of restraining and stifling it, few would need these extensions.

Fran - I appreciate that you are laying it on the line here and letting everybody take your pot shots. Some could say - you shouldn't have received any of the 99 weeks since you have the financial means not to need it (per you 1st sentene, 2nd paragraph). Others have noted that 99 weeks is akin to the biggest anti-employment gesture by government ever. if you need a job, are you going to look for it while you are getting paid to sit on your tuchus. maybe, but not as hard as if you 'really' need to find a job. If you can't find a job, lower your expectations and work for less salary. if you can't afford to live where you are with the salary that you can make working in a job where somebody will hire you, you are living above your means. if everybody is living above their means, because the corrupt government is borrowing from our kids, our posterity to keep themselves in office and make us all feel good, well we deserve what we get. you are a whiner and a cheeser. get to work, save some money and stop your belly-aching. it seems like you can write in complete sentences, which puts you ahead of many other job applicants, go out and work, even if you don't have to.

Thats basically Social Darwinism, Marty. And the US, is the birthplace of Social Darwinism, by all accounts.

“The stronger has to rule and must not mate with the weaker” Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf.

"Are you saying it's wrong for government to help those in need?"

BTW, Edwin Black wrote a prize winning expose of the history of Social Darwinism and its roots in the USA. http://waragainsttheweak.com/

He says "It began on Long Island and ended at Auschwitz" (we wish!)

These programs were never intended to create a permanent underclass, but lend a helping hand to those who need it. If the programs have been mismanaged, or some folks cheat, that doesn't negate the principle of helping those in need. Before Social Security, families used to be seen begging on the streets -- some managed before that, it doesn't mean it's not worthwhile to help others. And as a I said before, anti-poverty programs are a tiny portion of the U.S. budget.

Martin Martin Martin, you must never have heard about the law of unintended consequences. of course, a government bureaucrat doesn't say 'let's create a program which will discourage people from working and encourage them to sit on their butt." of course a government corruptocrat, doesn't say "let's encourage people to stop looking for work." but, that is what happens when the federal government tries to help, they inevitably fail. government programs are always mismanaged. name any one, just one that has worked the way it was supposed to. there are none. before social security, people used to save money for their future. after social security, people (suckers?) relied on the government for their retirement savings. the feds ponzied it away into their re-election campaign and lo and behold, Social security is a fiscal disaster. Anti-poverty programs (i.e. entitlements) are what is sinking us. Get the government out of our lives...or at least get the Federal government, the least efficient form of government, out of our lives...I hpe you agree.

Every man for himself, the Social Darwinists argue, is good. But even animals help each other. The smarter they are, the more they help. Otherwise, like the formerly middle class males who suffer in silence and are too macho to even ask for directions, their species vanish.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=altruism%20in%20animals

The huge investment we have each made in our own educations is wasted if an entire nation's workers are allowed to fall off the map simply because of globalisms imperative to shift low skill labor intensive jobs to more profitable nations to allow our companies to offer more services to them in return.

Marty Golan. The biggest entitlements are the trade entitlements that prohibit us from ever having affordable healthcare, that dictate privatization of healthcare and education so US corpos can get high profits overseas in exchange for US jobs.

War takes half the budget.. As much as the next 10 nations combined. But you all already knew this, right?
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
They will even make a killing (literally) on the coming World War III.

http://mineshaftgap.net/script.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(410)

Wow! I've never been called a "partisan hack" before!
I do not respond to tirades and name-calling, except to say this response does not deal with what I said.

401ks were just part of the general move towards trying to eliminate any kind of politician accountability for anything. Its the financial version of healthcare's ERISA. A deal for the financial firms in which they get almost free money in exchange for making it possible for politicians to blame them for everything.

Poiticians dont have much they can change any more. They pretend they can, but our various agreements with the WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA, ASEAN, etc, make it very limited what countries can do. For example, we have already committed long ago to privatize Medicare and other "monopoly service providers" like Social Security are basically against the whole spirit of globalization. They are seen as a taking of the entitlement to serve a market from corporations. Corporations pay good money for rights to our market and the governments steal them when they give poor people something that some of them might pay for.

The concept of public education and affordable healthcare are vestiges of a past before globalization. When workers were powerful and could impact an entire business with a strike.

For the last century and for the next 20 or 30 years at least, machines won't go on strike or ask for wage increases.

let's vote out all incumbents D or R.

CJ, it did come from one party, because there IS only one Party. (Shhhh! Big secret!)

What "problem" am I part of? Am I responsible for the fact that I was laid off? Have I created the conditions that are preventing rather than enabling our economy to recover? Yes, when I lost my job, I initiated a claim under the unemployment insurance program. I file medical claims under my health insurance and auto claims under my car insurance. I don't agree with the implication that my collecting unemployment insurance benefits deprived someone who needed them more.

I agree with hanginthere. the government encouraged you to go on welfare even though you didn't have to. how sick is that? it's sick that you don't feel embarassed being on welfare when you don't have to. I guess we can't blame you because that is what the pols want - they want lemmings like you to suck on the entitlement teat and feel helpless and hopeless and thank those politicians for taking your money and giving it back to you while telling you how good they are. wake up, look in the mirror - there is a sucker looking right back at you. getting laid off is not the problem, we all do that. failure is ok. not everybody can succeed at every job. instead of getting back on your bike, the government says - take a siesta, feel pity for yourself, don't try too hard for the next 99 weeks, enjoy taking money from your kids (you do know that your kids - and all of ours - will be paying for your 99 week siesta, right). you are the problem, sorry if your readers have to break the news to you.

Some people would say that the increasing numbers of unemployed are creating a culture where its permissible to be unemployed for reasons other than extreme wealth. Whenever poverty becomes less humiliating that increases wages and generally makes it harder for some kinds of employers to make money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_(folklore)
A story for OUR TIME. Work harder!

fran - good point. and i agree with w your comment re: federal policies. except the 'insurance' you talk about is government speak for welfare. it is called insurance because of how you describe it. they want you to think it is something besides insurance. same thing with 'social security insurance' - it is a wealth transfer, nothing more. as for don, i'm not sure there are Democrats as well as Republicans who are taking all of our kids money and spending it in ways that gets them elected and leave our kids with an insurmountable burden. Stop being so partisan and realize that it is the Federal Government - both parties - which are harming all of us.

Technology is eliminating unskilled jobs pretty quickly, but many fields still have a few years, maybe even a decade or two, before the jobs for humans are all gone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

Whether its time for us to save enough for all our future decendents in the work-free future, its hard to say.

Maybe our "descendants" will be human on the outside but actually, machines inside?

Regardless, Its time to stop giving US companies tax breaks to ship those remaining jobs overseas. We need to do everything we can to keep people working for as long as possible.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204468004577167003809336394.html

Don, we were in a war in 1993 (maybe earlier - 1979 ?), when al-qaeda attacked the WTC for the first time. Because Clinton didn't acknowledge that and other attacks against our embassies and our warships, we suffered more later. learn your history, it will help your discourse.

Thank you, Portmanteau. I did earn a Master's degree, in Health Communication, during my "between jobs" time. I've continued to do volunteer and freelance writing and PR work to maintain my skills. I'm interviewing now for a position, so wish me luck!