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Thread: Capitalism Fails

  1. #31
    News Correspondent flutterby's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Killthemall View Post
    Flutterby I am from the great state of Missouri from the sticks. I can shot and live off the land without any trouble.
    I don't live in the sticks, I live in the suburbs but you know what... I can fish and hunt (and can grow almost anything) as well as anyone from the sticks. My grandfather made sure he taught me.
    Quote Originally Posted by VT2
    I should get a medal for all the common sense I highlight on a daily basis.
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  2. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lead Pipe View Post
    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.
    The US isn't really capitalist in the sense that it was capitalist in the 18th and 19th centuries. What you're describing is stuff that happened with capitalism in place... the US wasn't mercantilist and definitely not a planned economy during the period of manifest destiny. What we have now is a (badly) planned economy without the pretenses of Marxism.

    The country doesn't need a "fair tax" - a quote-unquote fair tax is pretty damn close to what the country already has, since the maximum bracket for income taxes is set at a (relatively) low level, whether you earn $1mil or $10mil. Most of the Bush-era tax cuts had more effect for people at that level than anyone else... poor people don't care about capital gains tax or estate taxes.

    Fees and sales taxes are known to affect the poor far more dramatically than the middle class or the wealthy. Why aren't the fair tax advocates asking for those to be cut, but outraged at a 1% property tax hike? You could just as well make the argument that putting such taxes on the poor stifles their spending, and in the case of fees leads to more people dropping out of the system entirely, if they don't want to pay to renew their license plates or whatever.

    The thing about the quote-unquote fair tax people is that they're appealing to personal, short-term greed to induce people to vote and act against their own interests, and creating a narrative that has no bearing on reality. When is the last time a rich man has been attacked with the threat of death or maiming by an angry mob demanding social justice in this country? It certainly isn't an everyday occurance... but there is plenty of example of police brutality and economic violence against the poor.

    If it were my call, I would have abandoned the free market as much as possible. Unfortunately planned economies will fail when the people involved are irrevocably at odds with each other. It is in the interests of the people who would make the plan to make sure that scarcity is a stick that can be used to bully people into accepting longer hours, going to war, and all sorts of things which are completely unnecessary save for the preservation of the social order. The only difference between capitalism and communism in this regard is the means and rationale the people in charge use to do this... in quasi-capitalist America, we're treated to an endless parade of bull**** propaganda appealing to petty greed so that people act like ****ing animals; while in Maoist China, party cadres beat the **** out of anyone who questioned the Great Leap Forward and used the economy as an excuse for purging undesirables and reducing the population in general. The reasons why Maoist China killed so many of their own people, and the US very few, has little to do with the economic systems either purported, but the political and social conditions involved...

  3. #33
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    A fellow brit moaning about capitalism. I can't stand the political model.

    Success = reward. < This part is good.
    Success = ****ting on other people. < This part is not good. (Cutting down rain forests for profit, creating wars for military contracts etc)

    Also who the hell needs to earn millions (or billions) of dollars. It is such a waste of resources that could be spent elsewhere. We need a cap on it somewhere. 95% tax on earnings over ?100k. No one needs that much money...

    Capitalism is a social prison. We don't have much choice about working 9-5. If I don't work, I am going to freeze/starve to death on the streets. I live in London, supposedly the wealthiest city in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet we have really high numbers of poverty. The resources need to have a much more even distribution. Not communism, but certainly not the system it is now. Its the greed of a few ruining the lives of many.

    Capitalism makes humans parasitic.

    End of my rant.

  4. #34
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    Here are my thoughts:

    1) Lower Full Time Hours

    a) It will reduce unemployment and give younger generations more of a chance. Atm, everyone wants to burden the guy with tons of experience with 50 hours a week instead of giving the guy who has no experience a chance so that he can get the experience.

    b) It will make raising a family more viable in the case where both parents are working (which is standard now) and improve society by giving parents more time to raise their children properly.

    c) It will give people who are so inclined more time to get politically involved, think about how our society work and think about how it can be made better. This will improve our politics.

    People who work longer hours tend to be dumber. Hardworking, but dumb. Keep in mind that there are exceptions, but this is a tendency.

    d) I think that after 6 hours of work or after working a certain amount of days back to back, the quality of your work deteriorates noticeably.

    Humans evolved as hunters. We didn't evolved working 8 hours in front of a desk.

    Companies would actually see an increase in efficiency per dollar they spend on manpower if they took our evolutionary roots into account instead of trying to make us into something we're not.

    2) Guaranteed Minimum Income

    a) It won't change much in terms of public spending

    Welfare recipient will still get welfare under another name.

    Income earners will pay for their own minimum guaranteed income through taxes.

    b) It will encourage people getting off welfare

    One of the critical weaknesses of welfare atm is that it rely on pride alone.

    Minimum wage earners are not on welfare, because they are too proud for it.

    Financially, the difference between a minimum wage job and welfare is not that great so if you throw your pride and sense of civic duty aside for a second, you'll realize that there isn't much of an incentive to work full time to make only marginally more than a welfare recipient would earn.

    If what welfare recipients earn is a given to everyone and anything you earn working is on top of it, then people who are off work have a real financial incentive to find work, even minimum wage work.

    c) When maximizing efficiency, it's the humane thing to do

    Our society is stuck on the "creating job" rhetoric to the point where we don't create the job we need, but we try to create jobs just to give people a living.

    This is welfare in disguise, so we might as well cut the crap and some of the inefficiencies that come with this whole charade as its holding us back, especially in the public sector.

    The private sector never worked on that model (they just fire the people they don't need) and this is considered inhumane only because the people that get fired are deprived of a mean to eat or put a roof over their head.

    By guaranteeing people food and a place to stay, we can reorganize and reshuffle our workforce as needed much more efficiently.
    Last edited by Magn; 19-11-2012 at 17:11.

  5. #35
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    What really needs to happen the goverment needs to be more like a business not a parasite. if they would cut the time you can have in office. and at the end of their terms hold them accountable for their actions while in office that could help cut down on all the mess. or just make things worse cause then we still have to pay them while they are living in jail on us anyhow... the main thing is the goverment has to quit spending money and start using it wisely and not on bull**** bailouts that most of the money goes to someones pocket book.
    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...

  6. #36
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    flutterby no offence was made towards you. not saying that all of the city slickers out their cant hold their own. just most of the ones i have met cant. with out electricity. althought do i hint a bit of Hank running thought your veins.
    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...

  7. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by Araqiel View Post
    A fellow brit moaning about capitalism. I can't stand the political model.

    Success = reward. < This part is good.
    Success = ****ting on other people. < This part is not good. (Cutting down rain forests for profit, creating wars for military contracts etc)

    Also who the hell needs to earn millions (or billions) of dollars. It is such a waste of resources that could be spent elsewhere. We need a cap on it somewhere. 95% tax on earnings over ?100k. No one needs that much money...

    Capitalism is a social prison. We don't have much choice about working 9-5. If I don't work, I am going to freeze/starve to death on the streets. I live in London, supposedly the wealthiest city in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet we have really high numbers of poverty. The resources need to have a much more even distribution. Not communism, but certainly not the system it is now. Its the greed of a few ruining the lives of many.

    Capitalism makes humans parasitic.

    End of my rant.
    haha I live in Bromley mate. Travel into London a lot. A nice city but poilitically ****. A train is 15 seconds late in Japan and the CEO of the rail network has to make a public apology and gets sacked. A Train in london is delayed for 15 minutes and we hope the next one will come, the CEO gets a bonus and they raise our fares every January to some ridiculous amount.

    BULLSH*T Starbucks and Amazon has not made a profit in the UK since operating here. It is comapnies like this avoiding paying any taxes to maximise profits that really pisses me off, not just in London but world wide. My mate works for Aviva and there profits dipped from $42mill to $39 mill and they made redundancies... same everywhere, they get rid of the workforce even if the profits are still decent!

    It's a shame we live in a country that is broken as I do not know what a fix could be... people say the young generation are lazy and growing up on benefits but at the same time if they earn x amount and pushed out of the benefit bracket and they make more money on benefits than they would in a job you cant blame people for taking advantage and staying on benefits. This is why i feel the minimum wages need to raise so that the rewards for working are higher than being on benefits. We can not scrap benefits altogether as people need them to live.

    They eed to ty and find a balance somehow.

  8. #38
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    London employment for young unskilled workers is high. Pushing the minimum wage to a higher level may cause employers to stop hiring unskilled workers.
    With an excess of demand you'd want higher supply of jobs, not lower.

  9. #39
    Forum Fanatic freemehul's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bishop View Post
    A higher minimum wage is not a solution to anything, its a complete fallacy. You'd just push up inflation.
    actually higher minimum wages decrease unemployment... as for inflation, the price of oil is by far a bigger influence to inflation, than the minimum wage

    the main reason why minimum wage works and has positive effects is due to the negative effects of monopsony

    There are only two efffective ways to combat the effects of monopsony on the labour market:
    1- labour unions
    2- mimimum wage

    Monopsony causes higher unemployment, lower wages, higher and often obscene profits for large companies, and hence larger income differences, and hence weaker social fabric and greater unhappiness amongst the population. It needs to be stressed though that the biggest monopsonist on the labour market is the government.

    Monopsony is why communism fails (see solidarity labour union vs former communist polish government), monopsony is why banana republics fail (no rule of law, means minimum wage and labour unions are ineffective), and is why certain political conservative parties fail (because they want to maintain status quo and hence maintain their own privileged lives at the expense of others)


    Of course there are still some economists that say that minimum wage increases unemployment. That's only true in the rare case that minimum wage is higher than the market wage, had it been an open and fair market, which is rarely the case in practice. It also needs to be stressed that many of these economist are definitely not neutral and unbiased, often they have links with governments or said large monopsonist corporations, so their socalled scientific findings should be seen in that light.
    Corruption is a serious impediment to civil liberties.

  10. #40
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    Capitalism has worked well when it existed. For the few decades between bank monopoly you can see the rise of prosperity in America for all whom it defined as "citizens" (racism+sexism not good....). However most of our history we have been dominated by the hegemony of private banking which by its very nature prevents capitalism to exist.

    I shall now quote Thomas Jefferson.

    "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

  11. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by thephatman View Post

    "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
    Here is a thought, no matter what you do, the world isn't going to be perfect. New legislation is like new game rules at the age change in Utopia. You just have to adjust how you play a little. If banks deprive everyone of their property, they would have less power then then they do now. Who is going to evict the Sheriff? The Mayor?

    In fact, banks are failing now because too many people have failed to pay mortgages and had to be "deprived" of their property. Banks prosper when the people prosper. THats why the system works! Just because Thomas Jefferson said it, doesn't mean that it is true, especially now.

  12. #42
    Member Fungi's Avatar
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    Capitalism is a flawed concept. It's all about making the most money and as with most games there can only be a few people in the winners circle. So the masses, under Capitalism, will lose out

    However, Socialism is not the answer. Capitalism with all its flaws is still the best solution we have right now. It pushes people and drives people to be better, to make it to the winners circle. It's a hopeless endeavour for most but we're all going to try never the less. With Socialism, there is no drive, no push or pull. If I'm going to be well off doing next to nothing then why try?

    Unfortunately Capitalism is the best of a bad bunch.
    Ever stop to think, then forget to start again?

  13. #43
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    Home from chuch now :-)

    Its been said Capitalism does not work - that is ? true - The generel wealth is prob. bigger in a capitalist place(US style with no limits or VERY few) , but the large corperations also own the govement and the idea that wealth goes down thou the contry is a big lie as well, as is the "american Dream/lie).

    Commonist goes not work ether, well unless there is an incoptoble man/female in charge. And even if you get someone like that, the odds for someone else with no morrals are huge(when the Current dictator dies).

    Ofc there is Fasism back, and given that its very unpopular for clear reasons, it does still have some strong sides. Not that I am saying it the way to go thou.


    But IF you mix Communist and Capitalism like its done in scandianvia you get a real strong economy and it will benefet all. Its a shame that most only ses 2 options. Since there are 4(might be more, I have just noot seen them jet).

    This model builds apon strong unions that are only allowed to stricke once eavery 4th year. The govement have no interest in min. pay or alike as others has allready commeted.
    This model will give all alot more wealth and generel be good too all, exept the ultra rich! but they do not neeeeeeed that much wealth in the first place ether.

    The less you earn(IE no job, bad job pay) the less tax you pay - but with the same rights to get fixed becourse you get hurt/get children og just pure unlucky from fired and get appendicitis..


    A few links that explains it alot better then I do with my non perfect english.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Denmark
    http://www.tradingeconomics.com/denm...mployment-rate
    http://www.evm.dk/resources/oem/publ..._UK/kap13.html


    Ofc the big companyes and alike will tell its all lies and we are the soons of the devil becourse the will get taxed harder and will loose their ability to live like Kings & Barrons in the middel ages.

    PS: And as Fungi says - its all about haveing the biggest winning circle.
    And no denmark is not Perfect in any way - we have huge problems as well - but they are tiny alot of other contries, even thou we are smaler.
    Last edited by chalsdk; 06-01-2013 at 13:54.

  14. #44
    Newbie zombie jesus's Avatar
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    Ain't nothing better than a little capitalism.

  15. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crazyguy View Post
    Here is a thought, no matter what you do, the world isn't going to be perfect. New legislation is like new game rules at the age change in Utopia. You just have to adjust how you play a little. If banks deprive everyone of their property, they would have less power then then they do now. Who is going to evict the Sheriff? The Mayor?

    In fact, banks are failing now because too many people have failed to pay mortgages and had to be "deprived" of their property. Banks prosper when the people prosper. THats why the system works! Just because Thomas Jefferson said it, doesn't mean that it is true, especially now.
    I think you will need more than a dismissive and poorly reasoned one liner to disprove the reasoned mind of Thomas Jefferson. I suspect he has read and written more on the subject than you and that your opinion is based on nothing, Feel free to correct me. I doubt Thomas Jefferson theories are about to be credibly challenged by the likes of you. Also You seem to think that the bank has lost something in this transaction. 1st off the bank generated the loan electronically and depending on the bank is guaranteed repayment by a larger bank connected to the FED in the event the loan goes bad. 2nd the bank likely collected monthly payments for years. 3rd Now they have the house and money, and the money they "lost"(even though they didnt have this sum prior to the creation of the loan and unless they are a small non-federally backed bank they will get the "lost" money back).... it seems they pressed a button, collected some fees and are now up a house. Not only will they sell it but likely loan the money for its purchase as well. What you seem to not be aware of is that many banks are "federally insured" banks. Which means they can never fail. Even if they commit fraud and hand out loans they know that will never be repaid the Gov't is obligated legally to step in and cover the losses of the bank through the federal reserve system. Essentially what happens is smaller banks are consumed into larger banks. In the event a large bank fails it is consumed by the fed more directly. This system was set up to prevent a run on the bank as used to happen preww2. However this system has simply delayed the inevitable failure of it's fiat currency and ensured the crash will be a global crisis when it arrives.

    Maybe you should get a fact straight b4 you form such strong opinions. Like I and many others have stated w/ evidence. We live in a planned economy. The banks and most other profitable institutions rely heavily on grants, subsidy, bail out, cost + contract etc. These are not capitalistic practices. Also Mr. "Fungi" Capitalism is clearly not a flawed system at least by comparison to all other systems its the best for the most. In America capitalize functioned admirably for about 100 years. Corporations were limited to specific charters the average man was rich enough to own land w.o loans/mortgage. It would be extremely difficult for you to find a period in history when the prosperity and social mobility of the common man was higher. This i believe is mostly thanks to the capitalist system. I'm sure many of you are fans of television and Micheal Moore and believe that we live in a capitalistic system today, or even that most of the world lives under capitalism. This is patently and demonstrably untrue. We and most of the world have had a socialist economy since the fall of WW2. The Gov't simply grew too large and expanded into too much of the market. Previously the Fed Gov't had made up a very small % of the workplace/market. Today it is difficult to find any major national institution who is not paid or subsidized in some way by the fed.

    As far as the world goes the World Bank, the WTO and the IMF manage the funding for most of the worlds infrastructure and public property. Just like banks in the US they have made it a practice to loan out huge sums to people who cannot pay it back. Not only do these countries end up hiring western construction firms to build the roads, power-plants, skyscrapers etc.. but when they can't pay back the IMF or World Bank they are forced to sell off and privatize all that infrastructure they got the loans to build to begin with. This is how most 3rd world municipal services have been privatized. Since 2008 and the collapse in the US this same model of privatizing public property is underway.

    I think the both of you should do some basic reading on the subject and stop taking ppl like Micheal Moore and Bill Oriely's opinion as truth. There is no capitalism in the world today. If you think otherwise you are too stupid to match reality with definitions.

    I see The world as ruled by a divided empire or sorts, not too dissimilar from Rome. Instead of powerful senators and protectors of Rome there are powerful corporations. The Eastern empire is ruled mostly by Russia/China and some what Japan and India. In the West the Empire is mostly controlled by USA England and Germany. All these nations and their friendly neighbors in the northern hemisphere are more or less allied and have agreed to plunder the southern hemisphere some what equally through the international banks and their own transnational corps. Though Ideologically unique East and West are slowly merging into one. Communism and Capitalism have already merged into the state planned economies shared by all nations even Moscow and Washington. Television and culture are becoming more and more similar, The Office for example was translated and recast into 13 different languages in different countries world wide. Im not sure what the word is for the governance of such a system. Maybe The Corptocratic Empire of Fascism or The Fascist Imperial Corptocracy? After all fascism is just socialism for corporations.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_B..._United_States
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Tre..._of_Government
    http://www.wju.edu/academics/bus/iscm/dbiondi.pdf
    Last edited by thephatman; 11-01-2013 at 21:30.

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