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Thread: Capitalism Fails

  1. #16
    Forum Addict John Snowstorm's Avatar
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    Incomplete analysis bishop, if workers don't have enough to buy your product, that's also bad for business. It's called educated self interest.

    The reason for inflation is far more to do with the fact that there is always more debt than money so it needs to be printed constantly.

    There are plenty of countries in the world without minimum wages, you're free to compare and contrast if you like, you won't win the argument based on your findings though.
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  2. #17
    News Correspondent flutterby's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bishop View Post
    You are only looking at it from the workers perspective, what do you think happens to the employers when you push their wage bill up - they pass it on to you. Now stuff costs more and your minimum wage doesn't buy you what it used to. Its a temp "fix".
    In order for a company to make up for lost wages they raise the cost of their product and lay off workers. Which means across the board products cost more and there is not enough money circulating because people are not working.
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    I should get a medal for all the common sense I highlight on a daily basis.
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    <Bishop> I don't dislike Ezzerland
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  3. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bishop View Post
    You are only looking at it from the workers perspective, what do you think happens to the employers when you push their wage bill up - they pass it on to you. Now stuff costs more and your minimum wage doesn't buy you what it used to. Its a temp "fix".
    IMO, this is *less* of a factor than the tendency to fire workers. Higher wages will cause more incentive for greater efficiency, pushing up productivity but dropping jobs.

    Some of the cost will definitely be passed on, but not all of it. For many items, not even most of it, since items costs are a fairly major cost as well. Imagining doubling minimum wage (for an extreme) - this is not going to double the cost of your pizza. The milk for the cheese at the farm goes up to pay the farmer more (in theory, over time), but the cows don't cost too much more. Nor the barn. The truck to ship the milk to the cheese factory will raise it's price to pay the driver more, but the truck won't cost much more, so that only goes up a bit too. Same at the cheese factory - the workers cost more, but the equipment and electricity stay fairly close to their current costs. Then more trucking, same deal.

    Finally, your pizza is being made. The cook is getting paid double, but the rent is close to the same, the oven is close to the same, and the milk didn't go up anywhere near 2x, even though it definitely goes up. So even if you can't gain efficient anywhere, only some of the costs go up significantly, and so the pizza definitely starts to cost more, but not a huge amount more.


    I'm sure there are predictions/studies about how much of a min wage gain is real wage gains, and how much is lost to inflation. I frankly have no good idea how much, precisely, though if forced to guess I'd hazard between 25-50% of the wage gains get eaten by inflation effects. I am sure it isn't 100% though - raising the nominal minimum wage will produce purchasing power gains for those making the minimum wage.
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  4. #19
    Game Support Bishop's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by John Snowstorm View Post
    Incomplete analysis bishop, if workers don't have enough to buy your product, that's also bad for business. It's called educated self interest.

    The reason for inflation is far more to do with the fact that there is always more debt than money so it needs to be printed constantly.

    There are plenty of countries in the world without minimum wages, you're free to compare and contrast if you like, you won't win the argument based on your findings though.
    I dont disagree with this.

    Quote Originally Posted by John Snowstorm View Post
    Incomplete analysis
    This bit is very true. I'm still saying that raising minimum wage by itself isn't a solution though.
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  5. #20
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    I read somewhere about hours / pay. For most workers if they work 8 hours in a day, the product they have made, the profit of that will cover 4 hours of there wage and the rest is extra profit for the company. So say you have a worker working 40 hours. They've given you basically 20 hours "free labour" and most of the time if they want to buy that product back, it works out they only pay you 2/3 hours out of the 8 hours... if you follow me.

    Confusing but I think they could maybe cap "PROFIT" and fat cat pay outs. Maybe they should cap what "profit" can be to amount the company turned over or something to encourage company growth and employment. If a company could only declare 10% of turnover as profit they would be encouraged to expand to keep the money in the company but in different ways.

    I am not really to sure. I just find it interesting to see the state of the world and how different capitalism is to Marxism. Everyone said Marxism is bad but the more and more the world is how it is, the more Karl Marx seems to be right.

    Working class now, dare I say it is just "wealthier" slaves. Still working for nothing whilst there is a clear divide from the mega rich to working class.

    I agree, people are greedy.

    I've always thought goverments should offer tax relieves to companies recruiting x% of workers... in the long run it relieves strains on benefits and gets people spending again / paying taxes in the economy...

    Obviously not 100% accurate but I bet it is not far off :

    http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...anies/profits/

  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ethan View Post
    IMO, this is *less* of a factor than the tendency to fire workers. Higher wages will cause more incentive for greater efficiency, pushing up productivity but dropping jobs.

    Some of the cost will definitely be passed on, but not all of it. For many items, not even most of it, since items costs are a fairly major cost as well. Imagining doubling minimum wage (for an extreme) - this is not going to double the cost of your pizza. The milk for the cheese at the farm goes up to pay the farmer more (in theory, over time), but the cows don't cost too much more. Nor the barn. The truck to ship the milk to the cheese factory will raise it's price to pay the driver more, but the truck won't cost much more, so that only goes up a bit too. Same at the cheese factory - the workers cost more, but the equipment and electricity stay fairly close to their current costs. Then more trucking, same deal.

    Finally, your pizza is being made. The cook is getting paid double, but the rent is close to the same, the oven is close to the same, and the milk didn't go up anywhere near 2x, even though it definitely goes up. So even if you can't gain efficient anywhere, only some of the costs go up significantly, and so the pizza definitely starts to cost more, but not a huge amount more.


    I'm sure there are predictions/studies about how much of a min wage gain is real wage gains, and how much is lost to inflation. I frankly have no good idea how much, precisely, though if forced to guess I'd hazard between 25-50% of the wage gains get eaten by inflation effects. I am sure it isn't 100% though - raising the nominal minimum wage will produce purchasing power gains for those making the minimum wage.
    I love your analogy of it!

    I see it as a way of trying to take the money from these billion dollar companies to the work force who can then spend it. They only reason why they would sack is to keep/aintain prfits. A copany such as Apple who has $3billion profit would still maintain crazy profits should the wages be increased and the profit would be split amongst the workers more. It is disgraceful how Apple can use sweat shops in China basically to maintain these profits.

  7. #22
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    Political Science for Dummies

    DEMOCRAT

    You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful.
    You push for higher taxes so the government can provide cows for everyone.



    REPUBLICAN

    You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So?



    SOCIALISM

    You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
    You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.



    COMMUNISM

    You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
    You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.



    CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE

    You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.



    BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE

    You have two cows. Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one,
    milk the other, and then pour the milk down the drain.



    AMERICAN CORPORATION

    You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses. Your stock goes up.



    FRENCH CORPORATION

    You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.
    You go to lunch and drink wine. Life is good.



    JAPANESE CORPORATION

    You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
    Most are at the top of their class at cow school.



    GERMAN CORPORATION

    You have two cows. You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.



    ITALIAN CORPORATION

    You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
    You break for lunch. Life is good.



    RUSSIAN CORPORATION

    You have two cows. You drink some vodka. You count them and learn you have five cows. You drink some more vodka. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. The Mafia shows up and takes over all cows you really have.



    TALIBAN CORPORATION

    You have all the cows in Afghanistan . Exactly two. You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts. You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.



    IRAQI CORPORATION

    You have two cows. They go into hiding. They send radio tapes of their mooing.



    POLISH CORPORATION

    You have two bulls. Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.



    BELGIAN CORPORATION

    You have one cow. The cow is schizophrenic. Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish. The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow. The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk. The cow asks permission to be cut in half. The cow dies happy.



    FLORIDA CORPORATION

    You have a black cow and a brown cow. Everyone votes for the best looking one. Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one. Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can't figure out how to vote at all. Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best looking cow.



    CALIFORNIA CORPORATION

    You have millions of cows. They make real California cheese.
    Only five speak English. Most are illegal.


    Our Tax System Explained Using the 'Beer' Language


    When pondering the question of mining super taxes and the structure of our tax system in general please refer to this explanation using the language of Beer!

    Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

    If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this;

    The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
    The fifth would pay $1
    The sixth would pay $3
    The seventh would pay $7
    The eighth would pay $12
    The ninth would pay $18
    The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59

    So, that's what they decided to do.

    The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball.

    "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

    The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

    So the first four men were unaffected.

    They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers?

    How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

    They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.
    But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

    So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using,
    and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

    And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).

    The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).

    The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).

    The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).

    The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).

    The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

    Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

    "I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving," declared the sixth man.

    He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!"

    "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!"

    "That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

    "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!"

    The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

    The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

    And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works.

    The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction..

    Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.

    In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.




    For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
    For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.


    some of things if found that explain alot in terms i understand better.
    Last edited by Killthemall; 16-11-2012 at 20:21.
    To avoid being bottom fead on.... be number one... if you can't do that then just expect it.. and plan for it build more offence... and kick their teeth in...

  8. #23
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    That was a very interesting read. If taxes was explained more like that I'd get it more!

  9. #24
    News Correspondent flutterby's Avatar
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    No you wouldn't.
    Quote Originally Posted by VT2
    I should get a medal for all the common sense I highlight on a daily basis.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    <Bishop> I don't dislike Ezzerland
    <Bishop> We are just incompatible

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    <~Palem> I read that as "snuffleupegas gropes Palem" twice lol

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  10. #25
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    That's the most moronic lowtax argument I've read in a while. Typical pattern of the bootlickers of the wealthy is to frame everything in short-sighted, selfish reasoning to appeal to people who can't do their own math.

    The super rich in America, and most of the world, don't pay taxes because they can get away with it, not because taxes become this insurmountable burden to them, or because all of the poor people beat them up (lol!). Bribe the right people and government looks the other way.

    The very poor don't pay taxes because they don't have anything worth taking... and if those very poor are working any kind of legitimate job, they're paying taxes anyway.

  11. #26
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    Try again nooblet you think the rich don't pay taxes you have listen to the liberals for way to long. Try making money the honest way and not off of someone's back. I make good money and pay my tax percent like everyone else.
    To avoid being bottom fead on.... be number one... if you can't do that then just expect it.. and plan for it build more offence... and kick their teeth in...

  12. #27
    News Correspondent flutterby's Avatar
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    Killthemall... where are you from?
    Quote Originally Posted by VT2
    I should get a medal for all the common sense I highlight on a daily basis.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    <Bishop> I don't dislike Ezzerland
    <Bishop> We are just incompatible

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    <~Palem> I read that as "snuffleupegas gropes Palem" twice lol

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  13. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Killthemall View Post
    Try again nooblet you think the rich don't pay taxes you have listen to the liberals for way to long. Try making money the honest way and not off of someone's back. I make good money and pay my tax percent like everyone else.
    I don't listen to the liberal talking heads. I know a bit about how taxes and the government work, and where that money goes. I do have to think about these things to get by.

    The idea of the mean vicious poor people beating up the well-meaning rich guy is such a ludicrous joke. You forgot the part where the rich guy beat the **** out of the really poor guys repeatedly, and hired the fifth guy to beat up the first guy for good measure. The very poor in this country don't even rail against the independent wealth of rich people, so much as the gross amount of corporate welfare that has been horribly mismanaged by the owners of said corporations, with their workers being cut. Funny how no blowhards seriously start demanding that CEOs be drug tested and degraded through various bureaucratic hoops and hurdles, or the rich be so harassed as much as people who individually receive far less in government benefits.

    For what it's worth - I don't necessarily believe that the rich deserve to be taxed more than anyone else, either. I think the way the world economy is structured as a whole is horrible, and the greatest reason for that is purely because of the people who lead the world and their intentions regardless of what economic system they use.
    Last edited by nooblet; 18-11-2012 at 05:26.

  14. #29
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    Capitalism works, but it's not perfect.

    For society to advance we need people that can dream big things and then make them dreams a reality, and capitalism is a tool for that process. A capitalist will create wealth, and after awhile that wealth will get redistributed to the masses. Of course the capitalist will resist the redistribution, but it's inevitable. When the capitalist hoards too much wealth, the masses will revolt. So there is usually a give and take.

    Before capitalism, society advanced through imperialism and expansionism. In those days, people killed others whom stood in there way (ie. killing off the native americans). At least with capitalism there's a lot less violence, and the masses in general are much better off.

  15. #30
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    Ok nooblet I have made a mistake you know more than your post I read entails. What our country needs is a fair tax. I think it has been tried to be passed by one party but the other party doesn't like it cause it will Actually work. If you pay attention to how thing s go in our government if one party has something that will Actually help the people it gets demonized. Flutterby I am from the great state of Missouri from the sticks. I can shot and live off the land without any trouble.
    To avoid being bottom fead on.... be number one... if you can't do that then just expect it.. and plan for it build more offence... and kick their teeth in...

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