Save us, Wealth-Creator Man!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

and money given as wages rather than given as alms is still given... of course, you get more value for your buck on the former case, as you get the guy's work as well as the money back when he buys your product..

Labor exchanged for wages, not "given".

Money out of pocket is "given", it's just not necessarily GIFTED.

You quibble like a libotardian.

[Svartalf]

and proud of it !

[Gawdzilla Sama]

See what I mean?

[Seth]

I certainly hope so. Don't try to steal what's mine because I'll defend my property against such theft. And I'll do the same to crowds of thugs who seek to steal and destroy what does not belong to them, and I'll sleep just fine.

Yep. I've had two discussions with you, and both of them ended with you resorting to "I'll shoot you". Very revealing.

Simple minds produce simple solutions...

Simple solutions are often the best ones. Shooting burglars and thieves reduces their numbers and acts as a deterrent to others.

Chopping off hands also works pretty well. Just ask the Saudis.

[Rum]

I certainly hope so. Don't try to steal what's mine because I'll defend my property against such theft. And I'll do the same to crowds of thugs who seek to steal and destroy what does not belong to them, and I'll sleep just fine.

Yep. I've had two discussions with you, and both of them ended with you resorting to "I'll shoot you". Very revealing.

Simple minds produce simple solutions...

Simple solutions are often the best ones. Shooting burglars and thieves reduces their numbers and acts as a deterrent to others.

Chopping off hands also works pretty well. Just ask the Saudis.

America: the land of mass capital punishment. Coming soon - hand chopping too! Yay!

And their crime rate is soo loowww!

[Seth]

Again, that's not what the research showed. It showed that people favor a more equitable wealth distribution and are not well informed on the present level of disparity. It does NOT suggest that people want to live in a country "more like Sweden." It ONLY says that the wealth distribution structure in Sweden is, in their opinion, better than it is in the US.

Dear gee-bus. In the context of wealth distribution, the results show that when asked "if you were placed randomly in one of the distributions, which one would you prefer", Americans from all political stripes picked the distribution from Sweden. Thus in that context, Americans indeed prefer Sweden.

No, they prefer a wealth distribution curve that looks like Sweden's. They didn't say they preferred Sweden.

The authors made an invalid conclusion based on the data. The fact that a number of respondents favor a wealth distribution that looks like Sweden's does NOT imply that they want our country to look more like Sweden.

In terms of a wealth distribution structure, they do.

No, they don't. They prefer a wealth distribution curve that LOOKS LIKE that of Sweden's.

It means that of the choices given, the Swedish wealth distribution seemed "fairest" to them, NOT that they want to change the present wealth distribution, and particularly NOT change it through redistributive taxation.

No, they were specifically asked which one they would rather be placed in, and 92% of respondents picked the (unlabeled) Swedish structure.

Right, the wealth distribution structure that looks like Sweden's, not Sweden.

The proper way to form such a question would be to remove the inevitable bias built in to naming the countries associated with wealth distribution and label them "Country A, Country B, and Country C." That's valid science, not the Progressive/socialist propaganda that they produced.

Which they did. That's why in the second paragraph on pg. 10, it states, "As can be seen in Figure 1, the (unlabeled) United States distribution was far less desirable than both the (unlabeled) Sweden distribution and the equal distribution, with some 92% of Americans preferring the Sweden distribution to the United States."

WTF did you think "unlabeled" meant?

And then they falsely concluded that Americans prefer Sweden. Fuckwits.

That DOES NOT mean that they want to achieve that distribution using Sweden's political and social models. That was not asked, and it's gross misconduct for the authors to infer that because respondents favor Sweden's wealth distribution that this means that they favor Sweden or Sweden's socioeconomic system or policies or even that Sweden's policies are either necessary or desirable in order to reach the desired wealth distribution. That's an erroneous and indeed mendacious inference that the authors drew deliberately in order to falsely imply that Sweden's political and social model is superior to that of the US by making the unstated argument that the only way a Sweden-like wealth distribution could occur is through Sweden-like public policies.

That's complete bullshit and what proves how biased the researchers were.

Arguing against positions that exist only in your head is getting boring.

They are the ones who made the statement in re Sweden, not me.

The flaws in the methodology are perfectly clear to the intelligent and discerning rational mind based on the formation of the questions and the "conclusions" stated by the authors. Their bias and mendacious intent is perfectly obvious.

Ah yes...the creationist, "It's obvious" response to a demand for specifics. Well done.

I've explained in detail where the flaws lie. That you can't see them points to your own bias.

That paragraph epitomizes the built in bias of the study because it presumes that a concern over the inequality of wealth distribution translates into a "policy perspective." That's the fatal flaw that proves the agenda of the researchers. They were seeking data that confirmed their pre-determined policy perspectives that a more equal distribution of wealth is "desired."

Assuming that's true...so what? Fossil hunters seek fossils that confirm their pre-determined views every day. Again, how does any of this change the resulting data? You're still just stamping your feet because you don't like the results.

I'm objecting to the assertion that Americans prefer Sweden. They don't. I'm also objecting to the silly notion that you can determine public policy (which is, by implication, that America's sociopolitical system should be more like Sweden's) simply because the respondents preferred a more level wealth distribution curve. That's not what the survey asked and it's not a valid conclusion to state that Americans would like to live in a country more like Sweden because there is no data that suggests this.

As I said, you cannot draw a valid conclusion about the motives of the respondents and say "desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo" when you completely ignore the policy perspectives that would be required to achieve that state.

Ok, let's grant that for the sake of argument. The data still stands. Americans intuitively recognize that our current wealth distribution structure is unfair and skewed, they greatly underestimate just how skewed to the uber-wealthy it is, and when given an (unlabeled) choice of which structure they would prefer to live in, they choose Sweden's.

No, they choose a wealth distribution model that looks like the one Sweden has. That says nothing about whether they would prefer to live in Sweden. You are conflating a narrow question of preference for wealth distribution with a much larger issue of sociopolitical policy. The survey says NOTHING about how they would prefer the Sweden-like balance should be achieved, so saying they prefer Sweden is an unwarranted conclusion. It's a conclusion falsely drawn by the authors specifically BECAUSE they are leftists who favor Sweden's sociopolitical model, which they imply is responsible for Sweden's wealth distribution curve, and which you imply is a better sociopolitical model than the US's.

But there is no data in the survey that indicates what sociopolitical model results in the preferred wealth distribution curve because that was NOT part of the study, so it's improper to say that respondents preferred one country over another. The AUTHORS are drawing this inference based on their own biases.

It's easy to say in the abstract that a more equal wealth distribution is a good thing, but to infer from the data that the consensus about the positive benefits of a more equal wealth distribution equates "from a policy perspective" into a "desire" for change is simply a false and erroneous conclusion because they DID NOT ASK the question "Do you favor policy changes in the US that would lead to a more Sweden-like distribution of wealth.

So your position is that even though people were asked to construct the wealth distribution structure they desired, what they ended up drawing isn't what they really want?

No, I'm saying that they did not consider or respond to questions about HOW THAT DISTRIBUTION CAN BE ACHIEVED. The implication of saying that Americans prefer the Swedish model is that they prefer the socioeconomic model of Sweden. But that's not what they said, they said ONLY that they would prefer a wealth distribution model that looks like the one Sweden has.

They simply asked if a more equal distribution is desirable and whether the respondent was aware of the magnitude of the wealth inequality in the United States. By framing it that way, they tainted the data and made the conclusions invalid from the get-go because by identifying the nations involved, they were inherently, and deliberately, front-loading the questions with lots of other subjective opinions.

Again, you're arguing from a state of ignorance. The countries' structures weren't labeled, and the respondents were asked to construct a structure that they wanted.

The wealth distribution structure, not the sociopolitical model. Therefore it's error to state, in the conclusion, that Americans prefer the Swedish system. They don't. They prefer a wealth distribution model that just happens to look like the one Sweden has. That's the error.

Again, it's difficult to debate things that only exist in your head.

It's difficult to debate things that are not in your head, like an understanding of a valid scientific conclusion.]

If they had asked "Country A has a wealth distribution of X, which is less even than Y of Country B" they would likely get the same sort of answer but without the inherent bias involved in naming the countries involved. But even then they could not infer from the data that merely because respondents favored distribution X over Y, that this translates into agreement with unstated policy perspectives or changes in order to make X more like Y. Without stating what policy changes would be necessary to make the change, no valid inference in that regard can be drawn, and all that can be legitimately said is that respondents favored X over Y.

That's it.

And that's why the paper is invalid, bogus propaganda. It's junk science of the worst sort.

Given the fact that you've been shown to be completely wrong on this, your post is hilarious.

Why then did they insert the assertion about Sweden into the conclusion? If neither Sweden nor America were included in the survey, it's inherently invalid to mention them in the conclusion. A proper conclusion would state that they preferred wealth distribution B over wealth distribution A. Inserting the names of nations has no other purpose than to bias the conclusion in favor of Sweden, which is an improper inference for all the reasons I've previously stated.

I didn't say it did. I said that SOCIALISTS are attempting to use it as a rationalization for income equalization through forcible redistribution of wealth.

Sorry. I'm bored of debating your paranoid fantasies.

And I'm bored with listening to your blind leftist idiocy.

[Seth]

I certainly hope so. Don't try to steal what's mine because I'll defend my property against such theft. And I'll do the same to crowds of thugs who seek to steal and destroy what does not belong to them, and I'll sleep just fine.

Yep. I've had two discussions with you, and both of them ended with you resorting to "I'll shoot you". Very revealing.

Simple minds produce simple solutions...

Simple solutions are often the best ones. Shooting burglars and thieves reduces their numbers and acts as a deterrent to others.

Chopping off hands also works pretty well. Just ask the Saudis.

America: the land of mass capital punishment. Coming soon - hand chopping too! Yay!

And their crime rate is soo loowww!

It will be. Two strikes and you're out. Hard to burgle and rob without hands.

[Tero]

Plus all these guys with no hands won't be able to masturbate. So you could access porn but...And ..then imagine..Sweden would then hire female (over 18) masturbation helpers.

But the Swedes would not chop off the hands.

[Gerald McGrew]

Seth,

So your entire argument is this: "they prefer a wealth distribution curve that looks like Sweden's. They didn't say they preferred Sweden", plus your own paranoid fantasy about the authors secret plans for a communist state.

IOW, your argument is nitpicking and delusion.

Well done.

[Seth]

Seth,

So your entire argument is this: "they prefer a wealth distribution curve that looks like Sweden's. They didn't say they preferred Sweden", plus your own paranoid fantasy about the authors secret plans for a communist state.

IOW, your argument is nitpicking and delusion.

Well done.

It's not nitpicking to reveal a bias and agenda in a "research" paper. There is no other reason that anyone would use the results of this study other than to suggest that Sweden's sociopolitical model is superior to that of the US, which is a false inference, but an inference fully intended by the authors, which makes their research junk science and socialist propaganda.

[Rum]

It will be. Two strikes and you're out. Hard to burgle and rob without hands.

You iz funny guys sometimes.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Seth,

So your entire argument is this: "they prefer a wealth distribution curve that looks like Sweden's. They didn't say they preferred Sweden", plus your own paranoid fantasy about the authors secret plans for a communist state.

IOW, your argument is nitpicking and delusion.

Well done.

It won't get any better.

[Svartalf]

It will be. Two strikes and you're out. Hard to burgle and rob without hands.

You iz funny guys sometimes.

A great achievement, hard to be witty without pre frontal lobes.

[Gerald McGrew]

It's not nitpicking to reveal a bias and agenda in a "research" paper. There is no other reason that anyone would use the results of this study other than to suggest that Sweden's sociopolitical model is superior to that of the US, which is a false inference, but an inference fully intended by the authors, which makes their research junk science and socialist propaganda.

Yup, like I said. You impose your own paranoia onto the paper.