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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Dec 7, 2019 15:12:06 GMT
There's a lot of flaws with your thinking here. For one, just because one is not part of the 10% hardly means one is necessarily suffering. I--and I imagine most every American posting on this forum--am not part of that 10% and I'm most certainly not suffering. I don't even like the notion that having a lot of money necessarily means no suffering or vice versa; there are plenty of ways people suffer that have nothing to do with money. Second, just because one is not part of the 10% also doesn't mean one doesn't benefit from Capitalism. One can be a small business owner making a decent or good living without being part of the 10%. Aside from my playing online poker I've also bought-and-sold items on eBay and Amazon since I was 18, and it's always been a nice secondary source of income. So, yeah, I've benefited from owning my own little business under Capitalism. The rest of your points I can agree that to varying degrees need to be fixed; taxation system, low minimum wage, welfare, and especially healthcare. I've seen our poor healthcare system bankrupt members of my family and it's a disgrace that a necessity like healthcare is still primarily run by for-profit businesses. Still, I don't think it's fair you paint American "suffering" with such a broad brush. There are plenty of places in the world where suffering is far more rampant under very different economic systems. Congratulations you won the battle of semantics by taking what someone said 100% literally. I don't know how you want me to figuratively interpret what she said that would come out any way except "the vast majority of people in America are suffering because a small percentage owns most of the wealth." There's no way to interpret that to make it true.
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The Lost One
Junior Member
@lostkiera
Posts: 2,668
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Post by The Lost One on Dec 7, 2019 15:18:17 GMT
I think though the Democrats need to shoulder some of the blame there. Obama was elected after a campaign promising hope and change and didn't really deliver much. Then Clinton promised more of the same. Small wonder many preferred the guy offering to make America great again and providing some handy scapegoats (Muslims, Mexicans, transpeople, deadbeats, bleeding hearts) to blame for all their ills. They're making the same mistake with Biden, thankfully every time he opens his mouth he says something silly and goofy and goes down in the polls. Buttigieg seems to be their backup Biden.
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Post by lowtacks86 on Dec 7, 2019 15:21:36 GMT
They're making the same mistake with Biden, thankfully every time he opens his mouth he says something silly and goofy and goes down in the polls. Buttigieg seems to be their backup Biden. Yeah but Bloomberg is running, that should hopefully suck some votes away from Centrist Dems like Biden and Buttigieg and pave the way for Sanders or Warren (preferably Sanders)
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Post by amyghost on Dec 7, 2019 15:39:24 GMT
The older I get, the less surprise I have that a bastard like Trump is in office, and getting even the level of approval he is; he's simply tapped into something that's indestructibly selfish, narrow and mean in the national psyche, and many people in this nation love the fact that he's daily validating it. I think though the Democrats need to shoulder some of the blame there. Obama was elected after a campaign promising hope and change and didn't really deliver much. Then Clinton promised more of the same. Small wonder many preferred the guy offering to make America great again and providing some handy scapegoats (Muslims, Mexicans, transpeople, deadbeats, bleeding hearts) to blame for all their ills. Sadly, I'd have to agree with most of that. Until the Democrats show signs of wanting to move in a much more radical direction than they've shown willingness to do, 'hope and change' will remain only a slogan. I liked Obama, supported him, but at heart he was the typical DNC Democrat, addicted to compromise and centrism, and as you say, Hillary simply offered up more of that. America isn't alone in liking the idea of a national scapegoat or two, on which all social ills can be handily thrown; and as long as the Republican strategy continues to hold good--particularly in the face of a clearly uncommitted left--Trump will certainly not be the last office holder to successfully appeal to the baser attitudes and prejudices of the country. It's to be hoped that these attitudes gain no greater traction abroad than what they somewhat appear to be doing.
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Post by Rodney Farber on Dec 7, 2019 15:54:31 GMT
Socialism is like perpetual motion. Many believe both can be done. Lots of people believe that they can perfect socialism if they are put in control of the economy. Fidel Castor, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren come to mind. With capitalism, 10% of the population lives in poverty. There is more equality with socialism where 90% of the population lives in poverty.
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Post by lowtacks86 on Dec 7, 2019 16:10:46 GMT
Socialism is like perpetual motion. Many believe both can be done. Lots of people believe that they can perfect socialism if they are put in control of the economy. Fidel Castor, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren come to mind. With capitalism, 10% of the population lives in poverty. There is more equality with socialism where 90% of the population lives in poverty. Really depends on what you mean by "socialism". AOC and Sanders aren't really socialists, they're more like social democrats, and the policies they support have already been succuesffully implemented in the Nordic region (they have some of the lowest poverty rates in the world). Sanders main campaign promise (universal healthcare) isn't some crazy, radical idea, pretty much every other industrialized nation has it.
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Post by Arlon10 on Dec 7, 2019 21:45:18 GMT
it is not the optimum use of resources that a well tempered free market can be. The free market can be very wasteful of resources. Think of the fossil fuel industry. It's too expensive for consumers to switch to more renewable energy sources for their home so they don't. It's more profitable for fossil fuel companies to keep providing fossil fuels than to switch to alternatives so that's what they do. The result is supplies of fossil fuels dwindle (pushing prices up) and the planet continues to be damaged by fossil fuel emissions and extraction. It would be better if there were a massive government project to kit homes with renewable energy systems via a combination of retrofitting and building new houses. Would completely interfere with the free market of course. Another problem with free market economics is that the less regulated the market, the more it suits those who already have a lot of capital (who can afford to drop prices against competitors then buy them out) - ending in oligoplisation of the economy which kills competition making the free market not very efficient at all. It also gives these oligarchs the influence over governments to protect their interests - free market capitalism naturally evolving into crony capitalism. And when applied to labour, the free market is disastrous. Forcing workers to compete with one another drives down wages. Companies competing with one another cut wages and job security to maximise profits. This means demand dwindles. How do capitalists get round this? Offering credit and making money off the debt. Then when the market becomes open to debt speculation, we end up with a massive debt bubble as profit seekers see a way to make easy money without having to actually produce anything. The bubble burst in 2008, but a new one has formed and will burst again. This is what happens with a free market and why its supposed efficiency is a myth. The free market system is not perfect and does require some minimal government regulation for peak performance. Some examples are when transactions have positive or negative externalities. Another example is a natural monopoly. Air pollution is a negative externality that has been regulated for decades. Natural gas is usually a natural monopoly because of the pipeline system. At one time the telephone company was a natural monopoly. A command market is also not perfect. Competent people have to follow the direction of incompetent leadership, for example using curly fluorescent light bulbs. When everyone agrees they want to build a bird house, science can help build one. When people cannot decide whether to build a bird house, a lawn sprinkler, or a badminton court science is useless. In some such cases a free market is the best solution. A command market is not, usually because being fond of science doesn't always make anyone good at science. Your concerns about the immediate need for renewable energy are possibly somewhat misplaced. Chemical and mechanical engineering graduates are fully aware of the problems. When there is a real need for renewable energy the free market can implement it just fine. Some of the popular opinions about climate change are obviously not founded on real science, and socialism cannot help with that.
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Post by goz on Dec 7, 2019 23:09:19 GMT
I specifically picked that figure and intentionally left it vague in a general sense of 90% of the wealth being in the hands of 10% of the people in the capitalist system that is America.(no it is probably not an accurate statistic at any one time add your own if you wish as it merely makes the point) It was obviously an inverse statement making a connection between the vast majority of people who don't really benefit from a capitalist system, when they think that they do. I am thinking here in the inherently unfair and inequitable taxation system and other economic mechanisms such as low minimum wage, low welfare, expensive health care etc when I mention the majority who are either low income or middle class wage earners and the general myth of land of the free and place of opportunity for all that enslaves and hushes the masses. There's a lot of flaws with your thinking here. For one, just because one is not part of the 10% hardly means one is necessarily suffering. I--and I imagine most every American posting on this forum--am not part of that 10% and I'm most certainly not suffering. I don't even like the notion that having a lot of money necessarily means no suffering or vice versa; there are plenty of ways people suffer that have nothing to do with money. Second, just because one is not part of the 10% also doesn't mean one doesn't benefit from Capitalism. One can be a small business owner making a decent or good living without being part of the 10%. Aside from my playing online poker I've also bought-and-sold items on eBay and Amazon since I was 18, and it's always been a nice secondary source of income. So, yeah, I've benefited from owning my own little business under Capitalism. The rest of your points I can agree that to varying degrees need to be fixed; taxation system, low minimum wage, welfare, and especially healthcare. I've seen our poor healthcare system bankrupt members of my family and it's a disgrace that a necessity like healthcare is still primarily run by for-profit businesses. Still, I don't think it's fair you paint American "suffering" with such a broad brush. There are plenty of places in the world where suffering is far more rampant under very different economic systems. 'Suffering' is not a competition.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Dec 8, 2019 12:07:33 GMT
There's a lot of flaws with your thinking here. For one, just because one is not part of the 10% hardly means one is necessarily suffering. I--and I imagine most every American posting on this forum--am not part of that 10% and I'm most certainly not suffering. I don't even like the notion that having a lot of money necessarily means no suffering or vice versa; there are plenty of ways people suffer that have nothing to do with money. Second, just because one is not part of the 10% also doesn't mean one doesn't benefit from Capitalism. One can be a small business owner making a decent or good living without being part of the 10%. Aside from my playing online poker I've also bought-and-sold items on eBay and Amazon since I was 18, and it's always been a nice secondary source of income. So, yeah, I've benefited from owning my own little business under Capitalism. The rest of your points I can agree that to varying degrees need to be fixed; taxation system, low minimum wage, welfare, and especially healthcare. I've seen our poor healthcare system bankrupt members of my family and it's a disgrace that a necessity like healthcare is still primarily run by for-profit businesses. Still, I don't think it's fair you paint American "suffering" with such a broad brush. There are plenty of places in the world where suffering is far more rampant under very different economic systems. 'Suffering' is not a competition. I have no idea what you think that has to do with what I said, or even what it has to do with what you'd said that I was responding to.
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