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Thread: Capitalism Fails

  1. #76
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    Quote Originally Posted by Korp View Post
    I guess I forgot USA is a utterly retarded country in that aspect. That you can sue anyone and their moms. Here in Sweden the Lasagne that contained horse meat was donted to the homeless people and people applauded that. (Not exactly the same situation I know but I am very sure that nobody would raise any word if someone donated meat for 8k dollars either)
    GTA 3 the fictitious commercial on the in game radio station "The great thing about this country, you can sue just about anybody, for pretty much anything, and you'll probably win, or at least get a settlement!"

    Edit: I'm dating myself here, posting about GTA 3. :P

  2. #77
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    Trey Parkers "America" song sais it best.

  3. #78
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dolgil View Post
    Greed does not work whether it is capitalism or socialism or anything else.
    I agree with this!

  4. #79
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    I agree. As I've said before: capitalism is the branch of a healthy tree and the trunk of an ailing tree. Beyond absolutes, never put faith in institutions. Love is the only rule. ;-)

  5. #80
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    Thumbs up

    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.
    ! bishop call the white house! You solved the depression!

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    We have the 7th highest minimum wage in the world, even now.
    Support email: utopiasupport@utopia-game.com <- please use this and don't just PM me| Account Deleted/Inactive | Utopia Facebook Page | #tactics <-- click to join IRC|
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  7. #82
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    The issue doesn't lie with one government/government type. Where the issue happens to be is that top 1% or so keep breaking the cycle.

    The following things need to be maintained to not ruin an economy anywhere.
    - The products/goods that are being sold need to be kept within reasonable cost to what people make
    - Businesses won't sell many products/goods if the public can't afford them
    - Governments and businesses have to properly allocate funds to prevent mismanagement of finances
    - As the cost of living increase the daily wages need to increase aswell for compensation

    If this cycle is broken then the average person won't have money to spend on the products/goods. This means less items that get sold. The less items that are sold the less money businesses make and the less businesses make the easier for them to go bankrupt and whatnot. Governments and businesses need to properly allocate their funds so there isn't any mismanagement of finances that leads to wasted money. For example the United States makes up approximately 50% of the world's military science/technology cost. Wouldn't some of this money go to better use supporting education? Maybe I am thinking too logical when I view education being more important than a top notch weapon. The reason being is if you get someone who can't understand how to use the top notch weapon then they could cause a disaster.
    T/Ms apparently = black sheep of Utopia.

  8. #83
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    Quote Originally Posted by Natsu View Post
    The issue doesn't lie with one government/government type. Where the issue happens to be is that top 1% or so keep breaking the cycle.

    The following things need to be maintained to not ruin an economy anywhere.
    - The products/goods that are being sold need to be kept within reasonable cost to what people make
    - Businesses won't sell many products/goods if the public can't afford them
    - Governments and businesses have to properly allocate funds to prevent mismanagement of finances
    - As the cost of living increase the daily wages need to increase aswell for compensation

    If this cycle is broken then the average person won't have money to spend on the products/goods. This means less items that get sold. The less items that are sold the less money businesses make and the less businesses make the easier for them to go bankrupt and whatnot. Governments and businesses need to properly allocate their funds so there isn't any mismanagement of finances that leads to wasted money. For example the United States makes up approximately 50% of the world's military science/technology cost. Wouldn't some of this money go to better use supporting education? Maybe I am thinking too logical when I view education being more important than a top notch weapon. The reason being is if you get someone who can't understand how to use the top notch weapon then they could cause a disaster.
    But the USA has invented basically everything I like in the world. If anything they should invest more in science

  9. #84
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    One word: incentive.

    I used to be a communist till my professor forgot to grade one of my friends' tests and knocked him up three grade levels for no reason. If that happened institutionally, why would I study in the first place?

  10. #85
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    Quote Originally Posted by NemesisOfUtopia View Post
    One word: incentive.

    I used to be a communist till my professor forgot to grade one of my friends' tests and knocked him up three grade levels for no reason. If that happened institutionally, why would I study in the first place?
    He should have knocked yours down too: communism is not a system without incentives, neither are capital incentives the only ones or necessarily the best ones.

  11. #86
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    Quote Originally Posted by JustinSane View Post
    He should have knocked yours down too: communism is not a system without incentives, neither are capital incentives the only ones or necessarily the best ones.
    I agree. I see the wealthiest elements of society parading their decadent wealth and I see nothing worth aspiring to there.

    Greed will inspire more greed, but it won't inspire people to be what they need to be for society to thrive.

    Look at all the people trying to make an easy buck with as little work as possible whenever they can... how is that conductive to a better society?

    Russian brand of Communism fails, but North American brand of Capitalism fails as well: It's just as unstable, it simply degrades more slowly.

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    The problem with the economy isn't capitalism, minimum wage, cost of goods... it is with our own morals. Most Americans today rather have something given to them instead of earning it. There is no problem with capitalism only with our own neglect. Most people live pay check to paycheck... but why? Because they live out side their means. Capitalism works! You just have to be the smarter party of the two. Be the one creating and saving instead of being the one using and begging. Socialism is definitely not the answer because we already see how our own government cant even spend and budget properly. They already giving this whole country away to people who chose not to work because they are above a certain jobs. Roll up your sleeves and get to work and you will see capitalism work.

  13. #88
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    Quote Originally Posted by jshaver0209 View Post
    The problem with the economy isn't capitalism, minimum wage, cost of goods... it is with our own morals. Most Americans today rather have something given to them instead of earning it. There is no problem with capitalism only with our own neglect. Most people live pay check to paycheck... but why? Because they live out side their means. Capitalism works! You just have to be the smarter party of the two. Be the one creating and saving instead of being the one using and begging. Socialism is definitely not the answer because we already see how our own government cant even spend and budget properly. They already giving this whole country away to people who chose not to work because they are above a certain jobs. Roll up your sleeves and get to work and you will see capitalism work.
    The problem is uncontrolled greed.

    For the state, this translate into state employees not giving their 100%, thinking they deserve a fat salary even as their operation operates heavily in the red and generally not caring about minimizing the expenditures the taxpayers pay for. This also translates into public officials being addicted to power and ideology (even when the ideology is simply the current system with all it's flaws which they refuse to acknowledge... they don't look at the facts, they just keep repeating the same rhetorics like drones) rather than solutions that work. You don't want extremists or power-mongers at the head of the state, you want moderates who will look at all the possibilities with an open mind.

    For everyone, this translates into excessive materialism. The idea that you can have anything you want if you just work hard enough as an individual without any upper limit. The reality is that nobody should own a mansion or a private jet and that even the western middle class lifestyle a greater portion of the population live under is unsustainable for the entire planet. It needs tweaking which won't happen if we keep our entitled mentality (ie, "Nevermind that most of the planet cannot have this even if they work, I work and I deserve this!").

    For the private sector, this translates into a total disconnect between their goal and overall prosperity or stability. Basically, the wealthy trying to always increase their material wealth past any boundary is a totally insane unsustainable concept. In terms of contribution, past a certain threshold: the wealthier you are, the less you contribute per dollar made. There are finite ressources and a single individual should be entitled to only so much of it.

    Pure capitalism is not the way to go, because it drives people to the rampant excesses just like Communism.

    Greed is the problem and we need a system that keeps it in check.
    Last edited by Magn; 16-08-2013 at 20:09.

  14. #89
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    The main reason for the failure of capitalism is blind greed. The free market has been shoved aside by state sanctioned en enforced monopolies based on the abuse of copyright and patent laws to kill the competition.
    This is my province. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    My province is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
    My province, without me, is useless. Without my province, I am useless.
    I must attack hard with my province. I must attack harder than my enemy who is trying to pk me. I must pk him before he pk's me. I will...

  15. #90
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    Communism's main failure in practice comes from the failure of a centralized economy to function. Though socialists often attribute it to problems elsewhere, the simple reason behind this occurrence is the mathematic and physical impossibility of managing an economy from a centralized form. One of communism's main ideals is complete control over industries. In order to efficiently plan industries, communism must simultaneously account for all industries (there are billions of different industries) and their relationship with each other at the same time. Within each specific industry certain goods are internally consumed to produce more of a certain product. An example of this occurrence, which is true in any economic system, is the market for oil. For instance, to drill more oil requires the use of gasoline for transportation, generators, machinery operation, refinery operation, and a dozen other things. Therefore to get more gasoline and drill more oil wells, some existing gasoline must be used up in the process, or internally consumed. This occurrence exists in every industry to varying extents resulting in a massive structure of interlining and constantly changing relationships between all industries. Further, if production in one industry changes, this change effects all other industries in one way or another due to inter linking relationships and internal consumption. On top of these complex internal relations exists a tendency of change relating to substitute and complementary goods effecting related markets and further entangling the complex relationship between industries of a large economy.

    This great complexity provides the root of the problem that inherently dooms communism and socialism from the start. To efficiently manage a centralized economy, all variables of that economy must be accounted for mathematically. This means that internal consumption must be fully compensated for and tightly controlled at optimal level by the government. In that case a centralized government would have to develop methods to accurately calculate the internal consumption rate of all other goods by any one particular industry. The only non free market way to do this is through the form of Leontief input-output equationing where detraction rate relations for one particular industry to all other goods are calculated. Taken that an economy can often have several hundred thousand distinct industries, businesses, and goods, a great deal of information must be accumulated to form an equation for one single industry. This would then have to be repeated for every other industry in the economy. Your result: a million distinct equations with a million distinct internal consumption relationship figures within each of these equations (in other words a million large polynomial equations each with a million variables to be solved for i.e.. 0.3x+2y+0.6z+.....=X, large X being the optimal level of production for that particular industry X as desired by the centralized government). Therefore at any given time the centralized economy could require 1 million squared pieces of information, or 1,000,000,000,000 distinct relationships between specified goods in an economy.
    The greater problem arises as things are complicated more. Not only must these trillion figures of information be researches and related, but this must be done simultaneously. In other words, the established input-output equations for each industry must be solved in a simultaneous multiplication of matrices incorporating the equations of each and every distinct industry at once (remember solving 3 equations together with 3 variables, x y z, in high school algebra? Imagine that only with 1 million equations and 1 million variables). On top of that, this process must be repeated constantly as relationships change due to external conditions (i.e.. a bad crop or striking a new oil well). Since all markets are tied together in varying degrees of relationships, a change in the corn market due to a bad crop necessarily changes each and every other market on varying degrees. Therefore when one market changes in even the slightest form, the entire process of equationing must be repeated and adjusted.
    Taken that such massively complex mathematical relationships are far beyond the capabilities of even the strongest and most modern super computers, it is practically impossible to manage an economy through a centralized government and succeed in doing so (for as has always and will always happen, a non accounted for variable destroys any attempt to manage an economy).
    Last edited by greaps; 09-09-2013 at 19:57.

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