And the 6th largest economy in the world.  And no doubt falling.  But what do you expect when its people believe the greatest thing that happened to them in the past 10 years was the reduction of the work week from 39 to 35 hours?

"Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy."  -Sir Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965)

bk1955 - you have no idea what you are talking about, huh?

The setting of a minimum wage is not a reasonable government regulatory role in the free market.  I direct your attention to the post below that I put up.  Any assertion justifying the minimum wage on this idea is not only dangerous in the power ceded to the government for wage controls, but is poorly thought out and destroys work ethic and incentive.

You demonstrate a complete ignorance on the setting of unemployment numbers criteria and its history in this country (the USA).  Your definition is off by a number of years and further has changed more times than a 2-year-old's diaper.  The numbers are spurious at best and misleading at worst.  By all administrations, Democrat and Republican.

You grasp of economics is more than weak when you talk about government incentives for companies to concentrate their capital investment in areas that are otherwise not very profitable.  I personally think the govenment should stop this behavior, but if they did stop it, we wouldn't have a lot of 'minority' illness medicines or Oil exploration since the Democrats screwed that pooch with their anti-drilling rules and anti-refinary rules.

You seem to believe that the government can meddle with the free market with no unintended or bad consequences, but history and current realities show that the bad consequences of nearly every effort by the government far outweigh the benefits.

I am against the Federal Government taking my money and spending it on poorly educated social agenda (read engineers) NGO activities that I would never support in a million years privately.

Your humanitarian approach has cost this country over $7 Trillion dollars (called the War on Poverty - LBJ - remember it) since 1965.  There are the same number of poor people today as there were then, but of course the definition of poor is a moving goal post.  The War on Poverty is a quagmire, a failure, has cost several millions of lives, is the reason we have a budget deficit and is immoral and illegal.

So your constant reference to a so-called poverty level is a relative measurement that changes like a snake's skin every time the snake gets a little bigger.

You have no idea how you are looked at in this argument by people who have studied these issues and understand business and economics.

If I were you, I'd stick to supporting loony ideas like changing the rules in the House as important stuff.

ACA

...

Acaiguana says:  "Which city is next?"

And how many of these countries have a birth rate sufficient to at least sustain their populations? 

Exactly one.  The United States.  Source.  The rest of them are headed to extinction.

Explain the paradox:  If life is so great in these other 7 countries, why do the people who live in them lack the will to procreate enough children for their societies to survive?  Could it be that high minimum wages and all these other socialist meddlings in private markets and lives destroy a society's collective will to survive?  Could it be government wage and price fixing is a BAD thing for society?

I just looked at the list again and see Ireland ranked in 4th place. That makes me even more suspicious as to how these rankings are derived.

The longest stretch I've ever been in Ireland was 6 weeks in the summer of 2005, but I've been there at least 10 times (certainly more, but at least 10) in the last 10 years.

It a dull, boring place with bad food. Was that taken into consideration? Having experienced both, Japan should certainly be higher up than Ireland. And the US is still more desirable than Japan as a place to live, as immigration rates clearly show.

This list is useless.

While Jimbo, most employers are paying far more than the minimum. You go look at the mwage stats. 5%, about.

You want to go lower, good luck. Yer already at the bottom of the barrel.

Oh, so sorry Jimbo, I've overestimated those unwilling to better themselves.

US DEPT of LABOR

[ According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2004, some 73.9 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.8 percent of all wage and salary workers.1 Of those paid by the hour, 520,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15, the prevailing Federal minimum wage, and another 1.5 million were reported earning wages below the minimum.2 Together, these 2.0 million workers with wages at or below the minimum made up 2.7 percent of all hourly-paid workers.]

Ok, so 5 percent is too high, it's half that, including below minimum. So, the bottom of the barrel comment was a mistake, as well. LOL

Hey Jimbo, really, good luck.

Unsane...

Your last sentence should be edited out. Why you may ask, well it's because you and I both know that bk is a Socialist at the very least, and these types never learn.