{"id":529,"date":"2016-11-24T18:38:44","date_gmt":"2016-11-24T18:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.coldstreams.com\/?p=529"},"modified":"2024-12-15T00:22:49","modified_gmt":"2024-12-15T00:22:49","slug":"partial-truth-is-secret-to-successful-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/2016\/11\/24\/partial-truth-is-secret-to-successful-propaganda\/","title":{"rendered":"Partial truth is secret to successful propaganda"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/11701237_907337936025928_8533769290729291104_n.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-530\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-530 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/11701237_907337936025928_8533769290729291104_n.jpg\" alt=\"11701237_907337936025928_8533769290729291104_n\" width=\"407\" height=\"407\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"text_exposed_show\"><strong>TL;DR Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Testimonial from unknown (or &#8220;ordinary&#8221;) person in Belgium<\/li>\n<li>Half true, half logical fallacy.<\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<li>Works in part, on the basis of &#8220;What you see is all there is&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Belgium really does have &#8220;automatic wage indexation&#8221; that requires wages to be adjusted to the &#8220;retail price index&#8221; cost of living calculation.<\/p>\n<p>Belgium and Luxembourg are the only countries in Europe that have this policy. Thus, &#8220;This is the opposite of America&#8221; is true,<em> but it is also true for Europe and most of the world! <\/em>This claim works on the basis of &#8220;What you see is all there is&#8221; &#8211; the target does not know that few countries have &#8220;automatic wage indexation&#8221;.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nThe OECD, the IMF, France and Germany are trying to persuade Belgium to end wage indexation.\u00a0(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.eurofound.europa.eu\/observatories\/eurwork\/articles\/working-conditions\/time-to-end-automatic-wage-indexation\">http:\/\/www.eurofound.europa.eu\/observatories\/eurwork\/articles\/working-conditions\/time-to-end-automatic-wage-indexation<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We also have free healthcare and education. Those things are not really free and are paid by our taxes&#8221; &#8211; which is true.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BELGIUM TAXES<\/strong><br \/>\nBelgium has the highest taxes on labor of the entire European Union according to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/7f911c40-351c-11e5-bdbb-35e55cbae175,Authorised=false.html?siteedition=uk&amp;_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F7f911c40-351c-11e5-bdbb-35e55cbae175.html%3Fsiteedition%3Duk&amp;_i_referer=&amp;classification=conditional_standard&amp;iab=barrier-app\">OECD<\/a>. The chart at the link appears to show national tax rates and excludes local taxes, which in some countries, are 2 to 3 times greater than the national income tax.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BELGIUM IS A TINY COUNTRY<\/strong><br \/>\nThe State of Washington is about 7 times larger in size than the entire country of Belgium. Belgium has a population of 11.2 million, about twice that of the State of Washington. Luxembourg has a land area of less than 1,000 sq miles, or about 33 x 33 miles in size, and a population of about 1\/2 million people. Luxembourg is basically a mid-size city in the United States.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Belgium is a tiny country that is best compared to &#8211; \u00a0<em>Los Angeles<\/em> (about the same population), and about 3x larger in land mass than Los Angeles County.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The above poster came from Occupy Democrats, one of the documented &#8220;fake news&#8221; sites that targets those on the left with provocative posters designed for sharing and click through to their ad supported web site.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TL;DR Summary Testimonial from unknown (or &#8220;ordinary&#8221;) person in Belgium Half true, half logical fallacy. Works in part, on the basis of &#8220;What you see is all there is&#8221;. Belgium really does have &#8220;automatic wage indexation&#8221; that requires wages to be adjusted to the &#8220;retail price index&#8221; cost of living calculation. Belgium and Luxembourg are the only countries in Europe that have this policy. Thus, &#8220;This is the opposite of America&#8221; is true, but it is also true for Europe&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/2016\/11\/24\/partial-truth-is-secret-to-successful-propaganda\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-logical-fallacy","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}