Hey Barack, why so socialist?

[rightwinger]

Definitions of socialism:

•a political theory advocating state ownership of industry
•an economic system based on state ownership of capital

Does the government now own all industry? No. Did it attempt to prop up important industries (financial institutions and automobile) in order for it to survive IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR? Yes.

Does the government now "own" all capital? Hardly. Or did you miss those big bonuses the Wall Street fat cats want to pocket. Again.

Wealth "redistribution" works both ways. It's time that some of the windfall from the last eight years that did NOT trickle down according to Econ 101 but was pocketed by the already wealthy, start being redistributed to those who were pissed on instead.

First, Maggie...look at post #3. Second, they do have control of some auto industries, some lending institutions, and working on the healthcare industry. This isn't going to happen overnight, Maggie. But, the foot is in the door.

I still don't understand why seemingly smart people don't get WHY the so-called "bailouts" were necessary. It wasn't for "Socialist" nationalization to begin, it was to save the private sector from complete destruction. You may not agree with how it was handled at the outset, but emergency surgery was necessary. Now we need to go in and clean out the cancer. But there isn't a THINKING economist alive who doesn't believe that (the blame game notwithstanding), propping up the two most influential industries in our entire economy (the financial institutions and the auto industry) was absolutely essential.

As for health care reform, I think that should have been tabled. But it still would have meant that health care costs would continue to rise sharply in spite of massive unemployment only adding to the list of uninsured or a further reliance by the unemployed on Medicaid for assistance. However, that problem was not quite as runaway as the tsunami of the potential global financial collapse which was upon us, THIS side of the horizon.

I just love these rationalizations of why Obama is a Socialist

Socialists are not stupid. When they nationalize a business they do not take over businesses that are LOSING money........they take businesses that make money.

Obama stepped in and saved businesses that were deemed critical to the US economy. In doing so, he stopped a pending economic collapse and saved hundreds of thousands of jobs. Unlike republicans, who just threw money at the problem, Obama demanded accountability and control over how the money would be spent. That is not nationalization, it is just common sense

 

[Oddball]

I see you two have conveniently glossed over the definition of Fabian Socialist

 

[MaggieMae]

First, Maggie...look at post #3. Second, they do have control of some auto industries, some lending institutions, and working on the healthcare industry. This isn't going to happen overnight, Maggie. But, the foot is in the door.

It's nothing but fearmongering. First it was OMG we gotta blow up everything in the Mideast before they blow us up!!! Now it's Socialism is Coming to Town. Bullshit. We are so far away from a true Socialist state, it would boggle your mind if you actually sat down and read some serious information on it.

Obama's No Socialist. I Should Know. - washingtonpost.com

Couple of excerpts:

The first clear indication that Obama is not, in fact, a socialist, is the way his administration is avoiding structural changes to the financial system. Nationalization is simply not in the playbook of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his team. They favor costly, temporary measures that can easily be dismantled should the economy stabilize. Socialists support nationalization and see it as a means of creating a banking system that acts like a highly regulated public utility. The banks would then cease to be sinkholes for public funds or financial versions of casinos and would become essential to reenergizing productive sectors of the economy.

The same holds true for health care. A national health insurance system as embodied in the single-payer health plan reintroduced in legislation this year by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), makes perfect sense to us. That bill would provide comprehensive coverage, offer a full range of choice of doctors and services and eliminate the primary cause of personal bankruptcy -- health-care bills. Obama's plan would do the opposite. By mandating that every person be insured, ObamaCare would give private health insurance companies license to systematically underinsure policyholders while cashing in on the moral currency of universal coverage. If Obama is a socialist, then on health care, he's doing a fairly good job of concealing it.

Maggie, what you posted is bullshit. I don't know if you truely believe that, or you think that I'm that stupid. The government had no legal right to intervene in the manner that they did with the lending, and auto industry....but they did, and what do you call that?In 20 years with the healthcare industry....or there abouts, you will see a total takeover of the industry....the free market just won't be able to compete with the government. The government does not have to worry about a bottom line, they just have to tax more, and still carry a negative sum...as in Medicare, SS. So don't shove that crap at me. I'm not fearmongering...I'm looking at reality. I'm a conservative, and your a liberal...that's the way it is.

Of course they had a "right" to intervene.

U.S. Constitution - Article 1 Section 8

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

 

[MaggieMae]

Those quotes sure do sound like a socialist ideologue. How can anyone say otherwise?

Definitions of socialism:

•a political theory advocating state ownership of industry
•an economic system based on state ownership of capital

Does the government now own all industry? No. Did it attempt to prop up important industries (financial institutions and automobile) in order for it to survive IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR? Yes.

Does the government now "own" all capital? Hardly. Or did you miss those big bonuses the Wall Street fat cats want to pocket. Again.

Wealth "redistribution" works both ways. It's time that some of the windfall from the last eight years that did NOT trickle down according to Econ 101 but was pocketed by the already wealthy, start being redistributed to those who were pissed on instead.

Maggie, I been looking at a bit of the wealth distribution going down at Welcome to USAspending.gov and Recovery.gov

I cannot say I am terribly impressed after looking closer into where all the money is going. Twenty two million plus of ARRA money for few select bio industry and energy type projects here with only a few jobs to show for the ARRA monies alone, that does not include other grants they have received and are scheduling to receive. Although from what I have been reading Iowa does have a new energy department to oversee all this purported clean energy with new a three year college grad overseeing it too. From the quick search I did this morning it looks like a possibility daddy is a corporate attorney that moved here in recent years from Chicago.

Sorry by the looks of this so far it does not sound like the kind of things that are going to get people back working.

New energy businesses will not get up and running until investors start putting their money where their mouths are. Some have, and some are highly successful. But it's the same story everywhere. The credit crunch and lack of consumer confidence, which translates into skittish investors. It's already been proven that "energy" (and fuel) can be produced using just about anything, and I believe there are thousands of entrepreneurs with proven prototypes just waiting for the money in order to get moving. We subsidized Big Oil for years, why can't we subsidize alternative energy producers which would be the confidence catalyst for private money to start rolling in?

 

[Ame®icano]

Excellent MaggieMae. Let's explain what that actually means.

In order to invoke the "Necessary and Proper Clause" (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18 of the US Constitution), one must first demonstrate that the law in question is being directly applied to "the foregoing powers" specifically enumerated in Article 1 Section 8, or elsewhere in the Constitution. As bailout or healthcare are not specifically enumerated anywhere in the Constitution (at this time), the necessary and proper clause cannot be applied.

The same applies to the "general welfare clause". In order for something to be considered part of the "general welfare", it must first be shown to be a part of one of the specifically enumerated powers in Article 1 Section 8 or elsewhere in the Constitution.

As Obama himself has stated, the Constitution is a list of "negative rights" that tell us what the federal government and the states cannot do unless We The People have previously specifically authorized them to do so in the Constitution. Regardless of what it is, or how popular the "cause du jour" may be, lacking such specifically enumerated authorization, the government may not constitutionally do it. Period.

 

[MaggieMae]

People are saying Obama is the same thing. And Joker's lips were supposedly cut open by his father. Though I want to see Joker's Birth Certificate.

Which is why I didn't get it. What evidence is there that Obama is deliberately plotting to take down the country? It's a stupid analogy. I could've sworn the Joker said it was his mother in The Dark Knight though...

The Joker told two different stories about his face. He is a LIAR, no one knows when he is being serious. He says one thing, then turns around and does the opposite.

Those are the things the Hussein has in common with him.

Um, boys, "The Joker" isn't real. And neither are the childish comparisons.

 

[PixieStix]

Those quotes sure do sound like a socialist ideologue. How can anyone say otherwise?

By cynically trying to parse on the semantics of the term "socialist".

 

[MaggieMae]

Government regulation is not socialism, I agree.

Redistribution of wealth, bailouts, nationalizing banks and auto industry is.

Socialism is a form of economics, where the government owns and manages the industry (that includes micro-managing, administering, running payroll with everyone on the payroll). Please show me where that is happening.

The "micromanaging" etc. will come a step at a time....first socialism must insert its fat foot into the free market....thru more and more government "administration"....Obama is definitely an advocate of that....

Socialism: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

How about Obama's advocating a national health care system? Isn't that government administration in the free market?

How about Obama's advocating the cap and trade system? Isn't that government administration in the free market?

How about Obama's advocating the government administration of communications in the free market?

How about Obama's advocating the nationalization of the banks? Government administration once again.

How about Obama's advocating the national takeover of the auto industry? Here's a quick summary of that particular administration where you could see some real "micromanaging" occurring:

Obama's takeover of the American auto industry is so breathtaking in scope and power that it proves all the RNC's accusations about socialism. The takeover was followed by orders to close 789 local Chrysler dealers, notices to 1,100 General Motors franchises that they will be shut down by next year and estimates that total dealer shutdowns will rise to 3,000.

Some of these local dealerships have been family-owned for generations. The Chrysler and GM dealership closings are estimated to eliminate 187,000 jobs, which is more than the number of people who work for the two automakers.

Now we can see the icing on the cake for the politicians who use economic dictatorship to punish those who resist socialist planners. Nearly every one of the closed local dealerships had donated to Republican candidates, almost none was an Obama contributor, and some dealerships owned by Democrats are not getting the ax.

These closings come after Obama's extraordinary cash and stock favoritism to one of his principal campaign supporters, the United Auto Workers union. The car czar, Steve Rattner, was a top Democratic fundraiser (surprise, surprise!).

Obama Is Remaking America Into Socialism - HUMAN EVENTS

Why do you liberals refuse to admit what is happening right in front of you?

The same type of bailouts happened in the 80's, with the S&L's and Chrysler, yet the country didn't turn "socialist" then, and we won't now, either.

The arguments about the mechanisms for saving the industry are valid; it's the stupid projections that are not.

 

[Contumacious]

Hitler was not a socialist. He was smart enough to know that socialism does not work. He adopted an FDR type fascism. He placed private industry under heavy state control.

.

 

[MaggieMae]

Right...The people who have endlessly meddled in the marketplace, to the point that they were active partners in the crash, had to come riding in on the white chargers to "save the day".

Yer killin' me!

The problem was not enough "meddling" --
Greenspan Admits Errors to Hostile House Panel - WSJ.com

The 82-year-old Mr. Greenspan said he made "a mistake" in his hands-off regulatory philosophy, which many now blame in part for sparking the global economic troubles. He quoted something he had written in March: "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief."

He conceded that he has "found a flaw" in his ideology and said he was "distressed by that." Yet Mr. Greenspan maintained that no regulator was smart enough to foresee the "once-in-a-century credit tsunami."

Christopher Cox, Chairman of the SEC at the time, made a similar comment. That agency, although warned many times that the derivatives and packaged securities didn't pass the smell test, chose to ignore the problem.

 

[Oddball]

Hitler was not a socialist. He was smart enough to know that socialism does not work. He adopted an FDR type fascism. He placed private industry under heavy state control.

.

Socialism and fascism are so structurally closely related that the differences are hardly worth mentioning, except for chin-stroking academic pinhead types who make thir livings picking flecks of pepper out of piles of manure.

That Willy Messerschmitt got to hang his shingle on his airplane factories and Mikoyan and Gurevich didn't is of extremely little consequence.

 

[Oddball]

Right...The people who have endlessly meddled in the marketplace, to the point that they were active partners in the crash, had to come riding in on the white chargers to "save the day".

Yer killin' me!

The problem was not enough "meddling" --
Greenspan Admits Errors to Hostile House Panel - WSJ.com

The 82-year-old Mr. Greenspan said he made "a mistake" in his hands-off regulatory philosophy, which many now blame in part for sparking the global economic troubles. He quoted something he had written in March: "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief."

He conceded that he has "found a flaw" in his ideology and said he was "distressed by that." Yet Mr. Greenspan maintained that no regulator was smart enough to foresee the "once-in-a-century credit tsunami."

Christopher Cox, Chairman of the SEC at the time, made a similar comment. That agency, although warned many times that the derivatives and packaged securities didn't pass the smell test, chose to ignore the problem.

You can't possibly be serious!

 

[MaggieMae]

I see you two have conveniently glossed over the definition of Fabian Socialist

No democracy (okay, democratic REPUBLIC) can survive without some measure of social justice. It's that simple. You can call it anything you want. Great Britain has more socialist policies than does the US, but I wouldn't exactly call it a failed nation either. Therefore, your attempt at proving that "Socialism" aka "Fabian Socialism" is inherently evil is dumb.

 

[Oddball]

"Social justice" is a myth. The only justice that matters is justice justice.

Expropriating resources from the productive and giving them to those who did nothing to earn them is theft. Period.

 

[JakeStarkey]

You whackos better go back to school if you think Obama's program is socialistic. What a bunch of toidistic thinking.

 

[Contumacious]

Hitler was not a socialist. He was smart enough to know that socialism does not work. He adopted an FDR type fascism. He placed private industry under heavy state control.

.

Socialism and fascism are so structurally closely related that the differences are hardly worth mentioning, except for chin-stroking academic pinhead types who make thir livings picking flecks of pepper out of piles of manure.

That Willy Messerschmitt got to hang his shingle on his airplane factories and Mikoyan and Gurevich didn't is of extremely little consequence.

They are both a form of statism. But under fascism the state does not own the means of production. It merely regulates businesses.

But according to Marx, fascism is merely an interim process - a stepping stone - towards communism.


"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state…"

Karl Marx

.

 

[MaggieMae]

Excellent MaggieMae. Let's explain what that actually means.

In order to invoke the "Necessary and Proper Clause" (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18 of the US Constitution), one must first demonstrate that the law in question is being directly applied to "the foregoing powers" specifically enumerated in Article 1 Section 8, or elsewhere in the Constitution. As bailout or healthcare are not specifically enumerated anywhere in the Constitution (at this time), the necessary and proper clause cannot be applied.

The same applies to the "general welfare clause". In order for something to be considered part of the "general welfare", it must first be shown to be a part of one of the specifically enumerated powers in Article 1 Section 8 or elsewhere in the Constitution.

As Obama himself has stated, the Constitution is a list of "negative rights" that tell us what the federal government and the states cannot do unless We The People have previously specifically authorized them to do so in the Constitution. Regardless of what it is, or how popular the "cause du jour" may be, lacking such specifically enumerated authorization, the government may not constitutionally do it. Period.

Where does it say that?

The bailouts had the "authorization" of Congress.

If the bailouts were illegal, why haven't they been challenged before the USSC?

 

[Oddball]

Hitler was not a socialist. He was smart enough to know that socialism does not work. He adopted an FDR type fascism. He placed private industry under heavy state control.

.

Socialism and fascism are so structurally closely related that the differences are hardly worth mentioning, except for chin-stroking academic pinhead types who make thir livings picking flecks of pepper out of piles of manure.

That Willy Messerschmitt got to hang his shingle on his airplane factories and Mikoyan and Gurevich didn't is of extremely little consequence.

They are both a form of statism. But under fascism the state does not own the means of production. It merely regulates businesses.

Right...And if you choose not to cultivate the right political connections, you get "regulated" out of business.

A distinction with no difference in substance.

 

[MaggieMae]

Right...The people who have endlessly meddled in the marketplace, to the point that they were active partners in the crash, had to come riding in on the white chargers to "save the day".

Yer killin' me!

The problem was not enough "meddling" --
Greenspan Admits Errors to Hostile House Panel - WSJ.com

The 82-year-old Mr. Greenspan said he made "a mistake" in his hands-off regulatory philosophy, which many now blame in part for sparking the global economic troubles. He quoted something he had written in March: "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief."

He conceded that he has "found a flaw" in his ideology and said he was "distressed by that." Yet Mr. Greenspan maintained that no regulator was smart enough to foresee the "once-in-a-century credit tsunami."

Christopher Cox, Chairman of the SEC at the time, made a similar comment. That agency, although warned many times that the derivatives and packaged securities didn't pass the smell test, chose to ignore the problem.

You can't possibly be serious!

A typical retort from you when you know I'm right.

 

[Oddball]

The problem was not enough "meddling" --
Greenspan Admits Errors to Hostile House Panel - WSJ.com

The 82-year-old Mr. Greenspan said he made "a mistake" in his hands-off regulatory philosophy, which many now blame in part for sparking the global economic troubles. He quoted something he had written in March: "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief."

He conceded that he has "found a flaw" in his ideology and said he was "distressed by that." Yet Mr. Greenspan maintained that no regulator was smart enough to foresee the "once-in-a-century credit tsunami."

Christopher Cox, Chairman of the SEC at the time, made a similar comment. That agency, although warned many times that the derivatives and packaged securities didn't pass the smell test, chose to ignore the problem.

You can't possibly be serious!

A typical retort from you when you know I'm right.

No, it's an indication that you're naïve and intellectually pedantic beyond repair.