Capitalism. Is. Boss.

What's your point? 100% of the medical care purchased through Medicare or Medicaid is provided by private doctors and hospitals, too. Does that make it sufficiently free markety for your tastes? The reality is that government investments (yes, mostly through money funneled into the private sector) have been significant in our history:

Consider the kinds of industries usually associated with the modern economy: jet aviation, semiconductors, computers, the Internet, global positioning systems, laser technology, MRI technologies, high-strength steel alloys, fiber-reinforced plastics, nanotechnologies. Tens of millions of new jobs -- well-paying jobs with good benefits -- were created through these innovative industries.

Each of them arose out of government-funded research, initial development by government, requirements established by regulation, large-scale governmental demand and purchasing to provide initial markets, or some combination of these. Every one of them.​

Life is about balance.

Great. if the government wishes to purchase product from a business owner, then they can be like any other customer. I do not see your point. if the government can buy scalpels from a private company, you are saying the government then has the right to use the scalpels on someone who needs surgery at the expense of a third party via their taxes?

Enlighten me, also, government funded research is unnecessary because if the companies kept more of their money they could fund their own research with their motive being to 1-up the competition and thus increase the standard of living for the population even more! Maybe even robot butlers! cool! (most companies have research divisions ie. apple)

side note: im going to bed ill check on this in the morning! later.

Except government isn't like any other customer. It's wasteful, and gets its money not by providing a good or service to the economy, but by stealing it from those who do.

right, but spending tax money on engines for tanks and porn tapes are two different things. I dont mean spend recklessly but to help do its job as described in the enumerated powers clause. ok im really going to bed now. :)
 
Great. if the government wishes to purchase product from a business owner, then they can be like any other customer. I do not see your point. if the government can buy scalpels from a private company, you are saying the government then has the right to use the scalpels on someone who needs surgery at the expense of a third party via their taxes?

Enlighten me, also, government funded research is unnecessary because if the companies kept more of their money they could fund their own research with their motive being to 1-up the competition and thus increase the standard of living for the population even more! Maybe even robot butlers! cool! (most companies have research divisions ie. apple)

side note: im going to bed ill check on this in the morning! later.

Except government isn't like any other customer. It's wasteful, and gets its money not by providing a good or service to the economy, but by stealing it from those who do.

right, but spending tax money on engines for tanks and porn tapes are two different things. I dont mean spend recklessly but to help do its job as described in the enumerated powers clause. ok im really going to bed now. :)

Actually it's not different. The principle is always the same. Government spending destroys wealth because government takes money out of the private sector, which is where wealth is produced.
 
If you have talent, work hard, you succeed at life
If you don't ave talents, are lazy, and contribute nothing, you fail at life.
Economic darwinism; capitalism is simply the economic manifestation of freedom, liberty, and the rights to the fruit of your own labor. With the sky as the limit, a capitalist society is free to innovate due to open competition, and choices of the customer decides what business ventures succeed or fail.

Capitalism is what made the United States go from a third world back water country, to the moon in less than 200 years.


What exactly is wrong with capitalism?

everything is wrong with this post.

First off you falsely equate "freedom" with laissez faire survival of the fittest morality. Or "I got mine don't worry bout his". A creed antithetical to society of all forms, democracy and republic esp.

Second of all our economic system had almost shit to do with our success. Tho perhaps our patent laws did. We were gifted with at least a half dozen special circumstances which propelled us toward great wealth that had nothing to do with hard work.

1 a continent full of virgin resources to exploit
2 a robust slave economy
3 geographic isolation from european enemies and rivals
4 huge stores of gold and silver
5 a windfall in German intelligencia who fled here pre WWII
an even larger windfall in intelligencia including minds like Tesla simply by virtue of being a net immigration nation
>eventual world reserve currency status
>nuclear hegemony
>world commodity exchange hegemony
>we invented mass production and exited world war two with 60% of the world's gold AND we were the world's greatest creditor nation

Being lucky is much more important than working hard or being good.

We were lucky. Get over yourself. You didn't create your wealth, you inherited it.

haha, you know what. fair enough. i dont agree with you but i cant necessarily refute very much since its all conjecture. interesting though.
 
Except government isn't like any other customer. It's wasteful, and gets its money not by providing a good or service to the economy, but by stealing it from those who do.

right, but spending tax money on engines for tanks and porn tapes are two different things. I dont mean spend recklessly but to help do its job as described in the enumerated powers clause. ok im really going to bed now. :)

Actually it's not different. The principle is always the same. Government spending destroys wealth because government takes money out of the private sector, which is where wealth is produced.

how else would government serve its function as maintaining boarder security and such?
 
if you guys wanna nitpick, 90% of the technology in the military and NASA was developed by private companies and engineer research firms, fyi.

Oh GAWD! If you wanna nit pick most of the technology developed by NASA and NASA contractors ended up as major windfalls gleaned free by the private sector.

Including the internet itself.

Equally true regarding the military technology R & D paid for by the government.

Could you have been more wrong?
 
If you have talent, work hard, you succeed at life
If you don't ave talents, are lazy, and contribute nothing, you fail at life.
Economic darwinism; capitalism is simply the economic manifestation of freedom, liberty, and the rights to the fruit of your own labor. With the sky as the limit, a capitalist society is free to innovate due to open competition, and choices of the customer decides what business ventures succeed or fail.

Capitalism is what made the United States go from a third world back water country, to the moon in less than 200 years.


What exactly is wrong with capitalism?

everything is wrong with this post.

First off you falsely equate "freedom" with laissez faire survival of the fittest morality. Or "I got mine don't worry bout his". A creed antithetical to society of all forms, democracy and republic esp.

Second of all our economic system had almost shit to do with our success. Tho perhaps our patent laws did. We were gifted with at least a half dozen special circumstances which propelled us toward great wealth that had nothing to do with hard work.

1 a continent full of virgin resources to exploit
2 a robust slave economy
3 geographic isolation from european enemies and rivals
4 huge stores of gold and silver
5 a windfall in German intelligencia who fled here pre WWII
an even larger windfall in intelligencia including minds like Tesla simply by virtue of being a net immigration nation
>eventual world reserve currency status
>nuclear hegemony
>world commodity exchange hegemony
>we invented mass production and exited world war two with 60% of the world's gold AND we were the world's greatest creditor nation

Being lucky is much more important than working hard or being good.

We were lucky. Get over yourself. You didn't create your wealth, you inherited it.

haha, you know what. fair enough. i dont agree with you but i cant necessarily refute very much since its all conjecture. interesting though.

ha ha, it's all reality and fact. You just can't see the obvious for your own bias.

But go ahead, make my day, try to refute that even one of those points wasn't a special circumstance that advanced the US toward unprecedented wealth independent of the hard work of folks born years later.
 
If you have talent, work hard, you succeed at life
If you don't ave talents, are lazy, and contribute nothing, you fail at life.

Economic darwinism; capitalism is simply the economic manifestation of freedom, liberty, and the rights to the fruit of your own labor. With the sky as the limit, a capitalist society is free to innovate due to open competition, and choices of the customer decides what business ventures succeed or fail.

Capitalism is what made the United States go from a third world back water country, to the moon in less than 200 years.


What exactly is wrong with capitalism?
Well that certainly explains why Liberals are more financially successful than CON$.
Thank you.

You going to actually make a logical critique of capitalism or just gonna hop in, say something asinine, then hop out?
You must be a less successful CON$ervative! :lol:

Capitalism has nothing to do with success in LIFE. Capitalism has to do with MONEY and business. Success in business does not necessarily equate with success in life.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwqwAy85CgY]YouTube - Richard Cory - Simon & Garfunkel[/ame]
 
right, but spending tax money on engines for tanks and porn tapes are two different things. I dont mean spend recklessly but to help do its job as described in the enumerated powers clause. ok im really going to bed now. :)

Actually it's not different. The principle is always the same. Government spending destroys wealth because government takes money out of the private sector, which is where wealth is produced.

how else would government serve its function as maintaining boarder security and such?

Well since I support open borders that's not a very good example for me, but generally speaking there's no other way for the government to raise revenue for its legitimate functions. However, that's why government should be kept extremely small, so that it's taxation is as little a drag on the economy as possible.
 
Capitalism is what made the United States go from a third world back water country, to the moon in less than 200 years.
Actually it was free enterprise combined with bountiful resources that produced America's phenomenal wealth. Not capitalism.

What exactly is wrong with capitalism?
Laissez faire (unconstrained) capitalism is a ruthless system of controlling collective wealth. It is readily susceptible to the kind of manipulation which has produced the problems America is experiencing today.

The essence of capitalism is economic predation. Its engine is greed. It is a system which, if not rigidly controlled, invites and thrives on manipulative exploitation such as that which is increasingly manifest in many aspects of the contemporary finance industry.

Unconstrained capitalism brought about the Gilded Age, a time when America was a two class society consisting of a wealthy upper class and an impoverished lower class. It was FDR's New Deal that imposed the kind of controls on American capitalism which led to the rise of the middle class and an ensuing period of unprecedented economic growth.

The beginning of the end of that dynamic era of regulated capitalism commenced with the Reagan Revolution which initiated a long series of de-regulations the ultimate effect of which has been the return of laissez faire capitalism in America, the growth of a massive national debt, the looting of our Treasury and the near collapse of our entire economic system.

Bottom line: The only way capitalism can function altruistically and remain compatible with true democracy is when it is held in check by rigidly enforced socialist regulations.
 
[...]Capitalism with a social net to catch the ones who fall through the cracks is the best way to go. Always will be. No other way creates the wealth to sustain such high standards of living.
I agree. Socialistically controlled capitalism, such as existed prior to Ronald Reagan, is a good system.

Greed for profit drives innovation and growth.
It also drives the kind of predatory exploitation which is returning us to the Gilded Age.

You put a cap on what one can make before they are taxed to death and you remove the incentive to make it big that drives our society. You remove the drive to innovate. You remove the major driving factor in wealth creation. No amount of Social Program, socialist government can be sustained with out a vibrant growing Private sector to pay the bills. Push to far to the left and the golden goose will die and all your dreams of a compassionate state where everyone gets the same chance and help if needed with die with it.
Are you aware that the most impressive period of economic growth in America was attended by a progressive tax rate that reached to 94%?

There is nothing wrong with the accumulation of wealth. But excessive wealth is corruptive and cannot be tolerated in a truly free and politically healthy society.
 
This is correct. Capitalism didn't take us to the moon, government did. Capitalism would have kept the money spent by the government to take us to the moon and kept it in the productive part of the economy, the private sector. Though the government wouldn't have been able to use that money to send us to the moon without capitalism largely driving the productive sector.

if you guys wanna nitpick, 90% of the technology in the military and NASA was developed by private companies and engineer research firms, fyi. The only thing that isn't is the specific software programming which the government hires themselves. the government then contracts with the firms and purchases their products. That's how jet fighters are made, for example. Private companies.

And would those "private" companies be producing jet fighters if the government wasn't supplying the demand for them? No, because there'd be no demand for them. They're of no use to the private sector, so those companies would have to start catering to the productive bit of the economy as opposed to the unproductive bit.

There were a lot of spin off technologies that came out of the space program. Same with the Star Wars program. I meet guys on Wall Street who came out of Star Wars who are now working finance. Wall Street is overloaded with these mathematical geniuses. Frankly, I think those guys are far more productive working for the government creating technologies that have commercial applications rather than creating crap like synthetic CDOs on Wall Street.

Jim Simons of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies has bragged about having the best nuclear physics department in the world. I'm not sure how having our best minds trying to figure out how to earn 50% per year in a private shop rather than working on commercial ventures advances us.

Otherwise, capitalism is pretty cool.
 
Where does the social in social Darwinism come in? Mating displays, which all economic activity beyond survival needs is, is Darwinian selection pure and simple. Don't get me wrong as a lifetime libertarian I am in favor of free markets but only because they are free. To call corporatist capitalism a free market is laughable:

Patent monopolies are enforced by men with guns.

Limited liability corporations cannot exist without continuous government interventions. Likewise foundations, endowments and charities as currently constituted need continuous interventions in the market to keep going.

Many activities Defense, military logistics, police and courts exist simply because most of the world does not want freedom for anyone much less themselves.

Much freedom has little if any root in economics.

Liberty is about accepting responsibility not getting rich, getting rich is very nice but not the goal of liberty.
 
There is nothing wrong with the accumulation of wealth. But excessive wealth is corruptive and cannot be tolerated in a truly free and politically healthy society.

I kinda like the Gates/Buffet/Soros idea of making all you want but then giving it all back before you die.

Immortal wealth like immortal corporations is a big aspect of our corruption.

Unless of course you prefer an "everybody is free, but some people are freer than others" society anyway.
 
If you have talent, work hard, you succeed at life
If you don't ave talents, are lazy, and contribute nothing, you fail at life.
Economic darwinism; capitalism is simply the economic manifestation of freedom, liberty, and the rights to the fruit of your own labor. With the sky as the limit, a capitalist society is free to innovate due to open competition, and choices of the customer decides what business ventures succeed or fail.

Capitalism is what made the United States go from a third world back water country, to the moon in less than 200 years.


What exactly is wrong with capitalism?


Nothing.

As long as it is regulated to not endanger We the People's safety and also to encourage the growth of the middle class, for that is where the republican strength of the U.S. comes.
 
If you have talent, work hard, you succeed at life
If you don't ave talents, are lazy, and contribute nothing, you fail at life.
Economic darwinism; capitalism is simply the economic manifestation of freedom, liberty, and the rights to the fruit of your own labor. With the sky as the limit, a capitalist society is free to innovate due to open competition, and choices of the customer decides what business ventures succeed or fail.

Capitalism is what made the United States go from a third world back water country, to the moon in less than 200 years.


What exactly is wrong with capitalism?


Nothing.

As long as it is regulated to not endanger We the People's safety and also to encourage the growth of the middle class, for that is where the republican strength of the U.S. comes.

glad to see captain dumbass weigh in.
 
Nothing in general is wrong with Capitalism until the ultra rich, fortunate and greedy get control of it.

Capitalism, as you mentioned is meant to insure that those who work hard and have talent, reap the benefits of that hard work and talent.

However, it's time to debunk the myth that the most talented and hardest working reap the most success.

The Waltons, owners of Walmart, inherited their fortune and are in no way hard working. They sit back and reap the benefits of underpaid and overworked associates, many of which are illegal immigrants. They are also among the most greedy and stingy people in this world.

George W. Bush made his fortune in part from his father and in part from scamming people with tax shelters and the Texas Rangers, not to mention his "fortunate" investing in Exxon Mobil and BP, two companies that profited heavily from 9/11 and the Iraq war in the case of rising oil prices with which the general public was gouged. He is one of the laziest and untalented "successes" ever.

Sports teams, big corporations are given the most handouts possible and stifle small business growth.

Most of the people in charge of these big corporations did not get to where they were by hard work and talent. They got there through inheritance, scheming, and the hard work of everyone else under them.
 

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