Uffff... if nothing is done UK is long term screwed realnowhereman and most of Europe along with it.
UK used to have a rigorous education system which proved to be efficient, now has a wreck of it but, the worse part, even turned into a wreck it is still taken as an "example to follow" due to the education of British elder generations.
I recall a debate around to set whether students may flunk due to poor performance, the argument of the socialist Education Minister at the time was that "in UK they found it to be counter-productive, may cause traumas (trauma of dumbness?!) and still without flunks UK has high qualified workers"...

What she forgot is that you'll only see the results of education (or poor education) policies a few years after those policies are set, as the "flunk-less" students will not enter the labor market next year, and most likely not within the next 5 years or more.
Maybe in the next 10 years nobody will take UK as a standard for education anymore, but for now it's doing some damage.

Actually that's nothing British aren't seeing themselves: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/0-what-this-years-top-science-pupils-would-have-got-in-1965-1036889.html

Other than that is the immigration. There're several kinds of immigration and not all of them are bad, but lately Europe is experiencing too much of parasite-immigration to flood welfare expecting to get free meals.

Still this detours from Democracy. As always there're folks pretty happy expecting the next "Socialist/Communist/Leftist-parrot-promiser" to go pay his lunch, and others not so happy who knows that will pay those folks' open buffet. Within a realist population, isn't expected to see a major rise of those "free meals give aways"... even if they show up for a while, even most of them will come to realize that the system will not work that way.

Meanwhile, today's election results at Portugal start to come out.
Previous government: PS (Socialists) 2004~2011
Results so far:
Winner: PSD (Social-Democrats - Right Wing) 41,35%
2nd: PS (Socialists - Left Wing) 28,87%
3rd: CDS (Christian-Democrats - Right Wing) 10,79%
4th: CDU (Communists - Left Wing) 6,73%
5th: BE (Leftist Block - Left Wing) 4,37%

Contradicting unspy's theory, the PSD program isn't about "give aways", actually is one of the harsh programs. People isn't any longer buying "easy promises" that end up naturally void and under overwhelming debt.

So what? Everything in this planet is about force... from wildlife to humanity.


Oversizing in public services, notorious corruption in public construction (say, if you would spend 1000 to do something, the government spends 1 million) - this extends to local administration as well, "Institutes of nobody knows what for", subsidies, "partnership with privates", oversizing in governmental infrastructure: too many ministers and staff... health care is also an expense, obviously, but so far more disastrous in the "Singapore-like" experience, those hospitals jumped from like 10 to 100 million debt.

You can access 2011 budget here: http://static.publico.clix.pt/docs/economia/PropOERel2011.pdf (it's in Portuguese)

Those cars are just a part of the issue, now multiply that kind of abusive behavior by several public-ran infrastructure along those years...

unspy...
1929 is after Marx's corpse was long rotten and the Soviets were already on power.

It's nice to look into History for a reason: Avoid mistakes of the past to happen again.
But don't mess it up by jumping dates and thereby reasons. The "global conspiracy" is the "Nationalism", all countries will seek for more income to themselves; I wouldn't say that's quite a conspiracy however... more of a "greed".

I wonder why everyone seams to take people as freeloaders, expecting only to scratch the coffers a bit and see what can still be taken from there...  
The need for action is to prevent us from work to pay the debt, get it done and after we stay with the same "enter poor and get richer than rich" sort of guys in the power... which would mean; if we don't get it done, we will have the same parasites generating endless debt.

i.e.;

Here in Portugal, at a time everybody was already speaking of the overwhelming government debt, the state-running water company decide to expend several millions to buy new cars for the management (no, not working fleet or trucks, "nice cars" like top-edge BMW, Mercedes and so on).
If we don't do nothing what we will expect after pay the debt?! More of the same?! No way! If it doesn't go by improving Democracy, then we rather start thinking about hanging some bastards.

unspy... you're a bit too "Amerocenter" in your arguments, like if the entire World was in conspiracy against USA or if there were a rule "who gets USA wins the World".
By the time of Marx and up to the end of WW2, USA wasn't more important than, for an instance, Brazil, nor by the time of the Soviet Revolution. Calm your horses... the "ages of the American Empire" will eventually come to an end; nothing is eternal.

Democracy is a way to choose, not a form of state by itself, and not "mob-rule". It's the only way to choose and where Pluralism (more than one idea/ideology) can live together. All currently Democrat countries are Constitutional.

Also to note that, unless uneducated people, everyone can understand that if you go get "your freeload" at treasury someone else's paying.

Democracy is like an "Operating System", the culture of the people where it is is like the computer. There's a demand for culture in order for Democracy to can be a good form of government.
You can't install Democracy (say Windows 7) in Afghanistan, for an instance, because currently that population is more or less a 486DX33 computer when it comes to culture. OTH, if you consider Dictatorships as Win 95, you'll have a lot of nags to run it in a system equipped with an i7 CPU.

World War III already ended... the next one would be WW IV.

WW III is the correct term to define the US vs USSR by-proxy wars. Actually they caused more havoc and victims than WW 2...

speeder,

That where my "theory of Aristos" kicks in.
I consider Aristos those "able to rule", obviously uneducated people is unable to rule, they can't be considered "Aristos".
The trend of power is then relying on the amount of Aristos as society has, if a society has many people with education enough to rule, then Democracy is the right way, Democracy alone doesn't imply "more" or "less" state, implies more participation of the population in common issues.
Democracy can also work under stages, the first stage, to a society with less "Aristos", the Representative Democracy. People just choose who will take the decisions but don't take any decision themselves.
As the second stage, the one Spain is now trying to go to, and which is already ongoing at Switzerland and Iceland, is the "Participative Democracy". In this model people not only choose the rulers but also is heard over more decisions through referendums and can vote directly into representatives rather than parties. This model assumes that more people is actually able to rule, or even a majority of the population is able to do it.

Achieve the third stage, "Direct Democracy"... I really don't think I'll live to see it around.

There's a correlation between "Power abuses" and "Aristos", the fewer the "Aristos" the bigger the edge of the "Power" to commit abuses, as they're harder to replace for that population, on the opposite situation, a population has no need to "eat Power abuses" as who's in charge can be easily replaced.

Singapore is a rather small town-country, which manages to be independent only because it is under UK protectorate. Leave that alone and Malaysia will occupy that in seconds, same for Brunei and Indonesia. So it actually exists due to a big country-empire...
Singapore is small, but still not THAT small, Sg is small in the countries context, the communities you're referring and where an idea such as yours can work, are villages.

«The Singapore health system is universal and is state funded, but is provided 100% by private contractors.» = This isn't even near US's reality, which is both private and non-state funded.
We've however those too, "Private State Funded Hospitals" around, and the result so far is a disgrace... we're not under Fascism, the Fascist State of Singapore has that advantage of being more repressive... also its size allows more repression with less expense. For a "libertarian" you're taking examples of the opposite...

We had mutuals on the past too, and still have, also cooperatives and all sorts of community-assets.
Singapore is a Fascist state, I wonder what can be "more state" than that. Health prices and savings are enforced by the government. To not mention it's quite small.

However we're 6 billion humans, that view is just valid for really small communities where everybody knows everyone. More Democracy doesn't quite means more or less state, but to input more of cooperation into society and less "ownership of few". Small communities are naturally Democratic, btw.

Name one...

BTW, There's no Social Security crisis at Europe, the crisis came from credit disorder and sequent bailing out of banking by states...


Ignore the others' ain't either... morale keeps bouncing and has no ground at all. «I don't want to pay taxes», but probably you want roads, infrastructures... because some folks don't know how to behave in a social environment it takes some measures to teach them. Nothing out of the ordinary, all sorts of primates, from monkey to man, now and then have to kick some butt.

This is a short of what went on Spain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWrbAmtZuGc

Raphy,

Lack of regulation was how most of it went down. Will you tell me that when the Bitcoin bubble blasts? Or you really think one thing can trend up for eternity? There're lots of fallacies around neo-liberalism, a reason why it tends to fail after a while... only governments can actually stop or control those "tricks" before further damage.

We need more Government to restrict the financial World; I guess none would like to live in a World "bitcoin-like", taken the behavior of the highly speculator-infested up to so far...
We DO NOT need more gvnmt however to impose services nobody wants, "give a hand to the godsons", and alike.

Why everyone just insist to see "US as Israel's best and only chump"?!

Israel was actually formed by the Zionists + USA and, more important, actually the "first Israel" was made by this one alone - ending up in failure, with the returning Jews to be executed in 1937... communists, they're so alike with nazis -, USSR.
The turning point for the soviets, and why you see so many "leftists" waging for the Palestinians (who actually kills communists, Islam and Communism can't possibly get along either) is because those retards suffer from the syndrome of "Love at First Blast". Want to gain the commies love? Easy! Just put a bomb somewhere and they will love you... and that's what Palestinians did in the Munich Olympics of 1972.

There will always be "someone's tyranny", everyone wants to be the tyrant himself and call such as "freedom" (to himself that is). Democracy has the advantage that no one in particular is the tyrant, thus also not give that "one-side-only freedom".
As we're a social animal, I'm ok with Democracy...

Under the theory of the "Aristos", nowadays those claiming for strong authoritarianism (dictatorships) are having a hard time...
The shifts on power depends on how many are entitle and capable to have it; a society of ignorants rather go to authoritarian paternalistic figures, as they will have a hard time either to rule or even to find a ruler, a society where almost anyone is suitable to rule however doesn't need political abuses as they've no real issue on replace abusive rulers.

Just like a "market", the more "merchandise" you've, the cheaper it gets.

@Findeton:

Saludos y fuerza desde Portugal. Ya escribí sobre la Democracia Participativa/Semi-Directa (la directa no es practica, no te puedes seguir votando a todo el momento ya que así ningun@ hacia nada más que votar) en el 12 de Marzo, fue una idea que gaño fuerza en Portugal también. A ver, se Iberia se mueve! 

The more I read about this project, the more it looks to suffer of too narrow view. It's like it assumes we all interact constantly with each others on daily life.

The examples resume to small towns possibilities.
Bob has a grocery, John a hardware store, so John goes "freeloading" at Bob's by paying back with Bob's debt on his hardware store. Sounds ok?

Now let's transfer this to the internet reality:

Bob has a grocery... in LA... and John a hardware store... in NY... John is visiting his ant at LA and drops by Bob's, as they probably never met and unless Bob is supplying from really far, John either has cash or is most likely big "F" up to get his groceries.
But even within small towns we can have issues, say that Anne own a hotel, as mostly of the towns' population doesn't use her services (as they already have a place to stay there), too bad! She rather move away as has no way to get supplies there.

jcannon;

Same thing here. Late developments they got a "name"; Political Hooligans. They wave flags, make noise, but barely or not all know what that "party" really stands for or supports. 

Been watching that.
However a credit-exchange may be more of an issue than any solution.

* Say you're at US and need to pay someone at Russia... you'll need a huge load of "trust-nodes" to forward the debt to your payee. Within a Credit system the more indirect it is the more you're up to find a "rotten node" or a "hanging node".

* Credit implies interest. This ain't usury or anything alike. If I pay you now something for 1 USD and you pay me back 1 year from now, I shall be able to, at least, buy the same thing you bough now with what I'm about to receive. Otherwise you're getting "a discount" out of your friends' wallet.
And this to be "linear", within the Capitalist system you've to pay for the time and risk of your creditor, means he would probably be able to buy twice of what you'd just bough now with his credit.
But bottom end, the value of the money keeps changing. 1 USD today may worth X, tomorrow Y. The explanatory video shows well the lack of awareness of "what money is" in the first place. Credit has to be dealt from A to B directly, trading debt is like selling little shit bags (analogy used during the subprime crisis).

You know Vandroiy, maybe I'm too hopeful, but I start to see some changes.
It's no longer "issue X" to be addressed, people is expanding towards a new shape of Democracy. Maybe this one will fail, but it's a seed.
I don't see any longer people to go like sheep after party X or Y, falling to the old "Split to conquer" political plot. Those old "brainless" folks are now less in numbers - those who wear a political party as a football jersey, not even knowing what it stands for and using political positions as adjectives; like the "commies" calling anyone as "fascists" whereas 99% of them clearly doesn't even know what fascism is all about.

Maybe not yet, but in due time this may lead to shifts in power.