I try not to affiliate myself with political parties, mostly because they all seem to find a way to fail. My political ideology would be rather liberal, though, I’m sure.
my point was that almost no one in today’s world has a car or can afford to pay other people to mow their lawns, or has access to food for that matter.
The “developed” world is, what? 5% of the world? And there’s a lot of poverty there too.
About the belgian government, beats me, it’s just a big fucking circus around here.
Kind of pissed that US minimum wage is barely enough to live on, even without luxuries
Glad I have skills
And I’d say that the main causes of the developed world’s poverty is their own corrupted governments as well as the “well-intentioned” aid of foreign governments, which ruin the development of the poor areas.
I recall an article I read about recently, that you might find interesting.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html
yeah, i was just refuting what you were stating: “Bob and Steve are regular people, and have insurance, like most everyone in today’s world that have cars and can afford to pay other people to mow their lawns.”
You misunderstand me. I didn’t mean that most everyone in today’s world has cars and insurance and can pay people to mow their lawns. I meant that most everyone in today’s world that have cars and can pay people to mow their lawns, very likely can also afford and are smart enough to buy insurance. Understand?
Excuse me for a moment, but why should the insurance company be required to pay money?
We’re managing just fine.
We have nationalists and leftist wankers bickering and arguing over shit that nobody cares about, makes for some pretty good TV.
I’m expecting wedgies, tacks and “kick me” notes soon.
not to mention paper planes (or whatever you call them) and shooting paper balls through straws
I’m not sure what you’re point is. The insurance company would pay the money for the same reason, well, insurance companies pay the money. That’s how the business works.
If you’re implying that, because of the lack of government, the company could somehow rip off its customers, then you’re mistaken. The company could pull that off with about one of their customers, but when the word gets out, would you or any other reasonable person become/remain a customer? I don’t think so. If they did such a thing, they’d be signing their own death warrant.
I was asking because I thought (and Burb said) that Belgium didn’t have a government. I think I was told by someone once that it was ran by the EU, or something to that nature.
I’m just asking out of curiosity. How does it actually work?
Belgium isn’t run by the EU. We merely have a guy that has the “honor” of calling himself “President of the European Council” (Van Rompuy, our former prime minister).
And to answer your second question: we have the resigning government that is handling everything that was set in motion before the elections, but nothing new is proposed or discussed. So in theory, we have a government.
So for the citizens of Belgium, there really isn’t any noticeable difference with how it was before the elections. We could very well head for another 5 years like this, but the problem is that there won’t be any changes (taxes, immigration, economy, ecology, etc), so nothing positive would come from it.
And as a personal opinion: not looking forward to the next few years, as my personal ideas lean closely towards the leftist wanker side (green party), while the biggest party of the Flemish region (my region) is a right-wing party, so completely the opposite of what I’d like to see happen. Though if we ever get a new government, it’ll probably be a mix of the nationalist party and socialist party (they won the election for the French region). I don’t see how that can ever work, but ah well. It’s either that or split Belgium in to two countries, or make it a union, much like the US.
What about King Albert II?
It seems his intentions are good, but he doesn’t have the powers to solve this crisis, yet he is quite active in these days.
Aw, damn, this trashtop sent my comment twice, and I cant delete this one, 
The Belgian monarchs merely have a ceremonial job. Albert has no control over what happens in the political landscape of Belgium. All he can do is appoint a negotiator etc to solve the current political crisis, but he has no power to create a government.
The last time a Belgian king tried to have a say in politics, the government dethroned him for a few days or weeks (king Boudewijn refused to sign the abortion law).
Except, no. You’re assuming that if they rip off one customer, that the word would get out and people would believe what that one customer says is gospel.
If a person protests a business that you patronize, do you stop patronizing said business?
Right, King Bauduin asked the goverment to declare him unable to reign, which the goverment did on April 4, 1990. After that, all members of the parliament signed that law, and the next day they declared Bauduin capable to reign once again.
What I’m saying is that they wouldn’t get away with it for long. How could word NOT get out? And rational people WOULD trust the customer, when he presents the fact that he is a customer and shows that his damage was not repaid, and discontinues being a customer… can it get any more obvious? This would bring pressure on the company, and they would have to explain why the customer is a liar, or deal with the highly negative notoriety if they did not. All this would be bad for business, so they would have a strong incentive not to rip people off. The last thing an insurance (of all firms) company wants to promote, even from one man, is the idea that they are not absolutely reliable.
What more can government do to ratify the situation? Force the insurance company to pay the man? Based on what evidence? Any evidence available to the government would be the same available to the people, and a multitude of customers discontinuing their patronage of the company would hurt it far more than having to fork out your hypothetical $5000.
Depends on what they’re “protesting” it for, naturally.
Exactly. You’re assuming that people would listen to that disgruntled customer, when even you admit that there’s a possibility that you wouldn’t.
But now my question is: What is to stop people from doing as you suggest now?
@Bolteh, tbh NVA isn’t really right-wing. The only thing that could be considered right-wing is that they want Flanders to be a nation. Of course I may be sorely mistaken due to my limited knowledge of Belgian derpatics.
I “admitted” nothing except that it whether or not I would stop patronizing a business depends on what people have grievances with it about, and nothing more, so don’t twist my words. Especially after I already explained to you clearly how it would work, and you ignored that explanation…
Stop people from doing what?