Capitalism Guarantees Rising Inequality

[georgephillip]

Maybe he was, but not nearly to the extent you do on a regular basis. Not true! It was the crash of the housing industry, which started in 2009 when real estate prices started and continued to rise above the value of that real estate. That Wall street tried to mitigate their losses is understandable. That Clinton and Bush were inobservant at the upcoming problem from housing inflation is their fault. Get your stories straight.http://www.jparsons.net/housingbubble/united_states.png

Your tale needs five years of backstory.
Start with everything you know about control accounting fraud in 2004

"from Terry Frieden
CNN Washington Bureau
Friday, September 17, 2004 Posted: 5:44 PM EDT (2144 GMT)

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rampant fraud in the mortgage industry has increased so sharply that the FBI warned Friday of an 'epidemic' of financial crimes which, if not curtailed, could become 'the next S&L crisis.'

"Assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker said the booming mortgage market, fueled by low interest rates and soaring home values, has attracted unscrupulous professionals and criminal groups whose fraudulent activities could cause multibillion-dollar losses to financial ..."

CNN.com - FBI warns of mortgage fraud 'epidemic' - Sep 17, 2004

Have you ever noticed that ignorance and arrogance is deadly?

Have you noticed that in spite of the fraud, it was the rising price to value which killed the housing industry? Did the fraud help? I suspect it did, but not to the degree you suggest.

Do you believe it was the mortgage fraud driving the rising prices by creating artificial demand?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Let's make sure we're talking about the same Michael Snyder.
Here's mine:

Michael Snyder - Business Insider

I used your link which showed that Business Insider actually wrote that article for another less prestigious publication. You lose!

Not as much as the taxpayers lost on AIG.
Do you think Snyder's example of Joseph Cassano proves my contention of corruption on Wall Street regardless of where it's appeared?

"During his career at AIGFP from 1987 until he was forced to retire in March 2008, Cassano received $315 million: $280 million in cash and an additional $34 million in bonuses.[9]

"An initial $1 million-a-month consulting fee was later canceled.[10]

"According to Matt Taibbi:

"In fact, Cassano remained on the payroll and kept collecting his monthly million through the end of September 2008, even after taxpayers had been forced to hand AIG $85 billion to patch up his mistakes.

"When asked in October why the company still retained Cassano at his $1 million-a-month rate despite his role in the probable downfall of Western civilization, CEO Martin Sullivan told Congress with a straight face that AIG wanted to 'retain the 20-year knowledge that Mr. Cassano had.'"

Joseph Cassano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not as much as the taxpayers lost on AIG.

Taxpayers made billions on AIG.

despite his role in the probable downfall of Western civilization

What was his role? Be specific.

 

[dnsmith35]

Let's make sure we're talking about the same Michael Snyder.
Here's mine:

Michael Snyder - Business Insider

I used your link which showed that Business Insider actually wrote that article for another less prestigious publication. You lose!

Not as much as the taxpayers lost on AIG.
Do you think Snyder's example of Joseph Cassano proves my contention of corruption on Wall Street regardless of where it's appeared?

"During his career at AIGFP from 1987 until he was forced to retire in March 2008, Cassano received $315 million: $280 million in cash and an additional $34 million in bonuses.[9]

"An initial $1 million-a-month consulting fee was later canceled.[10]

"According to Matt Taibbi:

"In fact, Cassano remained on the payroll and kept collecting his monthly million through the end of September 2008, even after taxpayers had been forced to hand AIG $85 billion to patch up his mistakes.

"When asked in October why the company still retained Cassano at his $1 million-a-month rate despite his role in the probable downfall of Western civilization, CEO Martin Sullivan told Congress with a straight face that AIG wanted to 'retain the 20-year knowledge that Mr. Cassano had.'"

Joseph Cassano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Great story, certainly someone in the government made a mistake not putting more strings on the bailout money, BUT IT STILL WAS NOT CORRUPTION, just bad judgment on the governments side.
Did the tax payers get shafted? Of course we were, BUT IT IS STILL NOT CORRUPTION.

Michael Snyder is the editor of the economiccollapseblog.com. He is a typical alarmist and left wing cry baby. Having looked at all of his pessimistic blog comments, it is obvious he is totally devoid of economics knowledge. He dwells on the negative just to get gullible left wingers talking points. The problem is, he is not good at understanding what is going on.

 

[dnsmith35]

Your tale needs five years of backstory.
Start with everything you know about control accounting fraud in 2004

"from Terry Frieden
CNN Washington Bureau
Friday, September 17, 2004 Posted: 5:44 PM EDT (2144 GMT)

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rampant fraud in the mortgage industry has increased so sharply that the FBI warned Friday of an 'epidemic' of financial crimes which, if not curtailed, could become 'the next S&L crisis.'

"Assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker said the booming mortgage market, fueled by low interest rates and soaring home values(Not value, but inflationary price.), has attracted unscrupulous professionals and criminal groups whose fraudulent activities could cause multibillion-dollar losses to financial ..."

CNN.com - FBI warns of mortgage fraud 'epidemic' - Sep 17, 2004

Have you ever noticed that ignorance and arrogance is deadly?

Have you noticed that in spite of the fraud, it was the rising price to value which killed the housing industry? Did the fraud help? I suspect it did, but not to the degree you suggest.

Do you believe it was the mortgage fraud driving the rising prices by creating artificial demand?

Absolutely not! It was stupidity in the fiscal and monetary policy of Clinton and Bush allowing interest levels to be so artificially low allowing buyers to buy when their credit was not good enough; and, allowing those low interest rates to allow people to buy more house than they could afford. It was also the fault of the government in allowing speculators to use ARMs with very low initial rates, hoping to flip their property before interest went up, then making their payment so high they could not pay it before the property could be sold.

BTW you did note that the FBI warning was about the financial loss of banking institutions rather than being aimed at the people buying and selling. You will also have to recognize that when the banks started PROTECTING themselves against loss by bundling many toxic loans they did so to prevent those losses to valuable lending institutions so needed by the government and the people to use to buy homes. (not low credit risks which were solicited by the government through CRA to "give more people the ability to own their home." You do realize that that solicitation brought people scrambling into a hot real estate market when they had no reasonable expectation to actually buy a house.

I blame the left wing extremist administration idiots who thought poor non credit worthy people deserve to own their own home when they really could not pay for them, much more than the investment bankers trying to mitigate their losses.

If you are going to address these issues, you really should educate yourself as to what they are and the impact on the market.

Look at the graph again, maybe you will understand it this time.

 

[dnsmith35]

For the benefit of all the bleeding hearts, ie left wing extremists.

It is important before even thinking about the poor, to ensure that our economy remains strong enough to take care of those poor. What I see is a lot of bleeding heart issues not taking that into account.

 

[georgephillip]

I used your link which showed that Business Insider actually wrote that article for another less prestigious publication. You lose!

Not as much as the taxpayers lost on AIG.
Do you think Snyder's example of Joseph Cassano proves my contention of corruption on Wall Street regardless of where it's appeared?

"During his career at AIGFP from 1987 until he was forced to retire in March 2008, Cassano received $315 million: $280 million in cash and an additional $34 million in bonuses.[9]

"An initial $1 million-a-month consulting fee was later canceled.[10]

"According to Matt Taibbi:

"In fact, Cassano remained on the payroll and kept collecting his monthly million through the end of September 2008, even after taxpayers had been forced to hand AIG $85 billion to patch up his mistakes.

"When asked in October why the company still retained Cassano at his $1 million-a-month rate despite his role in the probable downfall of Western civilization, CEO Martin Sullivan told Congress with a straight face that AIG wanted to 'retain the 20-year knowledge that Mr. Cassano had.'"

Joseph Cassano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not as much as the taxpayers lost on AIG.

Taxpayers made billions on AIG.

despite his role in the probable downfall of Western civilization

What was his role? Be specific.

How many billions did taxpayers make on AIG.
Show your work.

 

[georgephillip]

Nice anecdote, I am sure their are millions of similar stories all over the world. But none of it is relevant today.

You should get our more:

"It was a county formed 19 years before the Civil War.
But in the towns lying between borders in Owsley, in the coal fields of eastern Kentucky, a portrait of Americans shows a community that appears frozen in time, where many still live without water or electricity.

"According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the Appalachian county has the lowest median household income in the states - a staggering 41.5 per cent of residents falling below the poverty line.

Pictured: The modern day poverty of Kentucky where people live with no running water or electricity | Mail Online

Rising rates of inequality coupled with austerity responses to the failures of the private sector guarantee the relevance of "anecdotes" from the last time capitalism nearly destroyed itself.

Back up Phillips! I tend to agree with you about TVA and your suggesting I don't accept that Appalachia contains more poverty because of capitalism. The fact that capitalists have chosen not to invest in Appalachia only means that people have the right to invest money where they choose to invest it. I also accept that people below the poverty line (which is artificially higher than reasonable) should be assisted. But under no circumstances can you blame that on Capitalism.

All of your examples prove nothing more than some people achieve more than others. But you seem to over look the fact that there are myriad reasons for those failures, and capitalism is not near to the most serious cause.

Capitalists are the most serious cause of mountain top removal, aren't they?

"Peer-reviewed studies show that mountaintop mining has serious environmental impacts, including loss of biodiversity and toxification of watersheds, that mitigation practices cannot successfully address.[5]

"There are also adverse human health impacts which result from contact with affected streams or exposure to airborne toxins and dust.[5]

"According to 21 scientific studies there has been major effects on the population in Appalachia where MTM takes place including over 50% higher cancer rates, 42% higher birth defect rates, and $75 billion a year in public health costs from pollution."

Socialize the cost.
Privatize the profits.
That's the problem.

Mountaintop removal mining - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[georgephillip]

Have you noticed that in spite of the fraud, it was the rising price to value which killed the housing industry? Did the fraud help? I suspect it did, but not to the degree you suggest.

Do you believe it was the mortgage fraud driving the rising prices by creating artificial demand?

Absolutely not! It was stupidity in the fiscal and monetary policy of Clinton and Bush allowing interest levels to be so artificially low allowing buyers to buy when their credit was not good enough; and, allowing those low interest rates to allow people to buy more house than they could afford. It was also the fault of the government in allowing speculators to use ARMs with very low initial rates, hoping to flip their property before interest went up, then making their payment so high they could not pay it before the property could be sold.

BTW you did note that the FBI warning was about the financial loss of banking institutions rather than being aimed at the people buying and selling. You will also have to recognize that when the banks started PROTECTING themselves against loss by bundling many toxic loans they did so to prevent those losses to valuable lending institutions so needed by the government and the people to use to buy homes. (not low credit risks which were solicited by the government through CRA to "give more people the ability to own their home." You do realize that that solicitation brought people scrambling into a hot real estate market when they had no reasonable expectation to actually buy a house.

I blame the left wing extremist administration idiots who thought poor non credit worthy people deserve to own their own home when they really could not pay for them, much more than the investment bankers trying to mitigate their losses.

If you are going to address these issues, you really should educate yourself as to what they are and the impact on the market.

Look at the graph again, maybe you will understand it this time.

I couldn't help noticing your "educated" rant against government didn't mention the role of private ratings agencies.

Why is that?

"Fraud is the principal credit risk of nonprime mortgage lending.

"It is impossible to detect fraud without reviewing a sample of the loan files.

"Paper loan files are bulky, so they are photographed and the images are stored on computer tapes.

"Unfortunately, 'most investors' (the large commercial and investment banks that purchased nonprime loans and pooled them to create financial derivatives) did not review the loan files before purchasing nonprime loans and did not even require the lender to provide loan tapes.

"The rating agencies never reviewed samples of loan files before giving AAA ratings to nonprime mortgage financial derivatives.

"The 'AAA' rating is supposed to indicate that there is virtually no credit risk -- the risk is equivalent to U.S. government bonds, which finance refers to as 'risk-free.'

"We know that the rating agencies attained their lucrative profits because they gave AAA ratings to nonprime financial derivatives exposed to staggering default risk.

"A graph of their profits in this era rises like a stairway to heaven [PDF].

"We also know that turning a blind eye to the mortgage fraud epidemic was the only way the rating agencies could hope to attain those profits.

"If they had reviewed even small samples of nonprime loans they would have had only two choices: (1) rating them as toxic waste, which would have made it impossible to sell the nonprime financial derivatives or (2) documenting that they were committing, and aiding and abetting, accounting control fraud."

William K. Black: The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Not as much as the taxpayers lost on AIG.
Do you think Snyder's example of Joseph Cassano proves my contention of corruption on Wall Street regardless of where it's appeared?

"During his career at AIGFP from 1987 until he was forced to retire in March 2008, Cassano received $315 million: $280 million in cash and an additional $34 million in bonuses.[9]

"An initial $1 million-a-month consulting fee was later canceled.[10]

"According to Matt Taibbi:

"In fact, Cassano remained on the payroll and kept collecting his monthly million through the end of September 2008, even after taxpayers had been forced to hand AIG $85 billion to patch up his mistakes.

"When asked in October why the company still retained Cassano at his $1 million-a-month rate despite his role in the probable downfall of Western civilization, CEO Martin Sullivan told Congress with a straight face that AIG wanted to 'retain the 20-year knowledge that Mr. Cassano had.'"

Joseph Cassano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not as much as the taxpayers lost on AIG.

Taxpayers made billions on AIG.

despite his role in the probable downfall of Western civilization

What was his role? Be specific.

How many billions did taxpayers make on AIG.
Show your work.

On Dec. 11, 2012, the Treasury sold its last remaining portion of AIG stock, ultimately earning a profit of about $5 billion. The Federal Reserve ultimately realized a profit of about $17.7 billion from its role in AIG's bailout.

Looks like over $22 billion.

AIG | Eye on the Bailout | ProPublica

Anything else you're confused about?
Glad to help.

 

[bripat9643]

You should get our more:

"It was a county formed 19 years before the Civil War.
But in the towns lying between borders in Owsley, in the coal fields of eastern Kentucky, a portrait of Americans shows a community that appears frozen in time, where many still live without water or electricity.

"According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the Appalachian county has the lowest median household income in the states - a staggering 41.5 per cent of residents falling below the poverty line.

Pictured: The modern day poverty of Kentucky where people live with no running water or electricity | Mail Online

Rising rates of inequality coupled with austerity responses to the failures of the private sector guarantee the relevance of "anecdotes" from the last time capitalism nearly destroyed itself.

Back up Phillips! I tend to agree with you about TVA and your suggesting I don't accept that Appalachia contains more poverty because of capitalism. The fact that capitalists have chosen not to invest in Appalachia only means that people have the right to invest money where they choose to invest it. I also accept that people below the poverty line (which is artificially higher than reasonable) should be assisted. But under no circumstances can you blame that on Capitalism.

All of your examples prove nothing more than some people achieve more than others. But you seem to over look the fact that there are myriad reasons for those failures, and capitalism is not near to the most serious cause.

Capitalists are the most serious cause of mountain top removal, aren't they?

"Peer-reviewed studies show that mountaintop mining has serious environmental impacts, including loss of biodiversity and toxification of watersheds, that mitigation practices cannot successfully address.[5]

"There are also adverse human health impacts which result from contact with affected streams or exposure to airborne toxins and dust.[5]

"According to 21 scientific studies there has been major effects on the population in Appalachia where MTM takes place including over 50% higher cancer rates, 42% higher birth defect rates, and $75 billion a year in public health costs from pollution."

Socialize the cost.
Privatize the profits.
That's the problem.

Mountaintop removal mining - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So you believe only capitalist countries harm the environment? Apparently you aren't familiar with the environmental record of communist countries.


Environmental disaster in eastern Europe - Le Monde diplomatique - English edition

Environmental disaster in eastern Europe

In opting for economic development through all-out industrialisation and intensive agriculture, the Soviet Union and the countries of eastern Europe showed little concern for the natural environment. The Aral Sea basin was turned into a vast cotton plantation and nuclear activities were concentrated in the area of the Barents Sea, despite the vulnerability of the local ecosystems. While the economic recession of the 1990s has made it possible to cut down the emission of pollutants, the lack of administrative controls means there may yet be worse to come. Western aid is distributed case by case, without any overall plan, and is below promised levels and requirements. Yet industrial depollution and reconversion could be a major undertaking crucial for the future of the whole region.

 

[gnarlylove]

So you believe only capitalist countries harm the environment? Apparently you aren't familiar with the environmental record of communist countries.

Bri, two wrongs don't make a right--it's a logical fallacy. Let's stipulate communist countries create 10x worse disasters. Does that mean the disasters created at home are any less meaningful to the people suffering them? Obviously not. And personally, living a stones throw away from mountaintop removal sites, I can tell you all the nearby communities are drastically effected, especially the kids who go to school just a half mile down the road from a coal refinery and sludge dam at Marsh Fork Elementary. A quarter of students are absent each day because of health issues.

Second problem with your fallacious response is no communist country is actually communist in any real sense of the concept of communism. Now if by communism you mean a term of propaganda to distract from the real issues, then I'd agree with your definition. But the problem there is your point lacks substance in addition to being a fallacy.

I'd laugh to tears watching you define communism and demonstrate how it guides public policy in those alleged "communist" states. Let me save you the embarrassment:

Virtually all countries are guided by profit and a tiny sector of their population dictates what is produced and what is done with the profits. The people are not part of the decision. Calling it communist, capitalist or whatever does not change the structure in which it operates. Namely, the workers are not involved in any deliberation about what they produce and spend 1/3rd of their life doing.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

So you believe only capitalist countries harm the environment? Apparently you aren't familiar with the environmental record of communist countries.

Bri, two wrongs don't make a right--it's a logical fallacy. Let's stipulate communist countries create 10x worse disasters. Does that mean the disasters created at home are any less meaningful to the people suffering them? Obviously not.

Second problem with your fallacious response is no communist country is actually communist in any real sense of the concept of communism. Now if by communism you mean a term of propaganda to distract from the real issues, then I'd agree with your definition. But the problem there is your point lacks substance in addition to being a fallacy.

I'd laugh to tears watching you define communism and demonstrate how it guides public policy in those alleged "communist" states. Let me save you the embarrassment:

Virtually all countries are guided by profit and a tiny sector of their population dictates what is produced and what is done with the profits. The people are not part of the decision. Calling it communist, capitalist or whatever does not change the structure in which it operates. Namely, the workers are not involved in any deliberation about what they produce and spend 1/3rd of their life doing.

a tiny sector of their population dictates what is produced and what is done with the profits. The people are not part of the decision.

Exactly! That's why 80% of the cars on the road today are Edsels.

The people have no choice.

 

[bripat9643]

So you believe only capitalist countries harm the environment? Apparently you aren't familiar with the environmental record of communist countries.

Bri, two wrongs don't make a right--it's a logical fallacy. Let's stipulate communist countries create 10x worse disasters. Does that mean the disasters created at home are any less meaningful to the people suffering them? Obviously not.

Second problem with your fallacious response is no communist country is actually communist in any real sense of the concept of communism. Now if by communism you mean a term of propaganda to distract from the real issues, then I'd agree with your definition. But the problem there is your point lacks substance in addition to being a fallacy.

I'd laugh to tears watching you define communism and demonstrate how it guides public policy in those alleged "communist" states. Let me save you the embarrassment:

Virtually all countries are guided by profit and a tiny sector of their population dictates what is produced and what is done with the profits. The people are not part of the decision. Calling it communist, capitalist or whatever does not change the structure in which it operates. Namely, the workers are not involved in any deliberation about what they produce and spend 1/3rd of their life doing.

a tiny sector of their population dictates what is produced and what is done with the profits. The people are not part of the decision.

Exactly! That's why 80% of the cars on the road today are Edsels.

The people have no choice.

I have to have to explain this to you Todster, but they don't get the joke. You have to spell things out for them. They think it's perfect reasonable to believe that Ford forces consumers to buy certain car models.

 

[dnsmith35]

Do you believe it was the mortgage fraud driving the rising prices by creating artificial demand?

Absolutely not! It was stupidity in the fiscal and monetary policy of Clinton and Bush allowing interest levels to be so artificially low allowing buyers to buy when their credit was not good enough; and, allowing those low interest rates to allow people to buy more house than they could afford. It was also the fault of the government in allowing speculators to use ARMs with very low initial rates, hoping to flip their property before interest went up, then making their payment so high they could not pay it before the property could be sold.

BTW you did note that the FBI warning was about the financial loss of banking institutions rather than being aimed at the people buying and selling. You will also have to recognize that when the banks started PROTECTING themselves against loss by bundling many toxic loans they did so to prevent those losses to valuable lending institutions so needed by the government and the people to use to buy homes. (not low credit risks which were solicited by the government through CRA to "give more people the ability to own their home." You do realize that that solicitation brought people scrambling into a hot real estate market when they had no reasonable expectation to actually buy a house.

I blame the left wing extremist administration idiots who thought poor non credit worthy people deserve to own their own home when they really could not pay for them, much more than the investment bankers trying to mitigate their losses.

If you are going to address these issues, you really should educate yourself as to what they are and the impact on the market.

Look at the graph again, maybe you will understand it this time.

I couldn't help noticing your "educated" rant against government didn't mention the role of private ratings agencies.

Why is that?

1. I don't rant.

2. I explained what genuine economists say about the housing crash.

"Fraud is the principal credit risk of nonprime mortgage lending.

"It is impossible to detect fraud without reviewing a sample of the loan files.

"Paper loan files are bulky, so they are photographed and the images are stored on computer tapes.

"Unfortunately, 'most investors' (the large commercial and investment banks that purchased nonprime loans and pooled them to create financial derivatives) did not review the loan files before purchasing nonprime loans and did not even require the lender to provide loan tapes.

"The rating agencies never reviewed samples of loan files before giving AAA ratings to nonprime mortgage financial derivatives.

"The 'AAA' rating is supposed to indicate that there is virtually no credit risk -- the risk is equivalent to U.S. government bonds, which finance refers to as 'risk-free.'

"We know that the rating agencies attained their lucrative profits because they gave AAA ratings to nonprime financial derivatives exposed to staggering default risk.

"A graph of their profits in this era rises like a stairway to heaven [PDF].

"We also know that turning a blind eye to the mortgage fraud epidemic was the only way the rating agencies could hope to attain those profits.

"If they had reviewed even small samples of nonprime loans they would have had only two choices: (1) rating them as toxic waste, which would have made it impossible to sell the nonprime financial derivatives or (2) documenting that they were committing, and aiding and abetting, accounting control fraud."

William K. Black: The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

None of those issues caused the housing crash. How ever unprincipled you think the banks were, their actions were only to mitigate their loses. Why do you think our left wing administration didn't pursue fraud charges? Because as bad as it was, it was not criminal fraud. Wake up to reality. Your attempts to dig for dirt is bullshit. The real "CRIME' which of course is not actionable, was the low and enticing interest rates by the Clinton and Bush Administration. Based on our current interest rates, if the banks are loose with their credit checks we are heading down the same road again.

 

[gnarlylove]

a tiny sector of their population dictates what is produced and what is done with the profits. The people are not part of the decision.

Exactly! That's why 80% of the cars on the road today are Edsels.

The people have no choice.

Does the US have a choice of high speed rail, the most efficient form of transportation like in all other developed and capitalist nations? No, that would undercut the oil market. What a "choice!" Thank you markets for the bringing the only choice we can choose: the least efficient form of transportation where >1% fuel is actually used to power its passenger, 99% is wasted either by burning off before applying power or is simply used to propel the 2 ton+ killing machine the kills about 35,000 people each year injuring 100s of thousands. Yes, praise choice.

 

[dnsmith35]

Does the US have a choice of high speed rail, the most efficient form of transportation like in all other developed and capitalist nations?

In and near large metropolitan ares yes. But obviously we are spread out to the point it is impractical. Even bus service is seriously impacted by the space the US occupies.

No, that would undercut the oil market. What a "choice!" Thank you markets for the bringing the only choice we can choose: the least efficient form of transportation where >1% fuel is actually used to power its passenger, 99% is wasted either by burning off before applying power or is simply used to propel the 2 ton+ killing machine the kills about 35,000 people each year injuring 100s of thousands. Yes, praise choice.

You really don't have a clue.

The total area of Germany is a little larger than Georgia. Even there, most of their suburban public transportation is by bus, not high speed train. Between Germany: 80 million, France: 65 million and Spain: 46 Million, for a population less than 2/3 that of the US. Germany 137,847 sq miles; France occupies 260,558 sq miles; Spain occupies 195,365 sq miles. That totals 593,770 sq miles. The US occupies 3,794,100 sq miles, or almost 6.5 times the area with 1.3 times the population. If you don't see a problem with that, you are not even as intelligent as I have previously given you credit....which was not very.

 

[dnsmith35]

You should get our more:

"It was a county formed 19 years before the Civil War.
But in the towns lying between borders in Owsley, in the coal fields of eastern Kentucky, a portrait of Americans shows a community that appears frozen in time, where many still live without water or electricity.

"According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the Appalachian county has the lowest median household income in the states - a staggering 41.5 per cent of residents falling below the poverty line.

Pictured: The modern day poverty of Kentucky where people live with no running water or electricity | Mail Online

Rising rates of inequality coupled with austerity responses to the failures of the private sector guarantee the relevance of "anecdotes" from the last time capitalism nearly destroyed itself.

Back up Phillips! I tend to agree with you about TVA and your suggesting I don't accept that Appalachia contains more poverty because of capitalism. The fact that capitalists have chosen not to invest in Appalachia only means that people have the right to invest money where they choose to invest it. I also accept that people below the poverty line (which is artificially higher than reasonable) should be assisted. But under no circumstances can you blame that on Capitalism.

All of your examples prove nothing more than some people achieve more than others. But you seem to over look the fact that there are myriad reasons for those failures, and capitalism is not near to the most serious cause.

Capitalists are the most serious cause of mountain top removal, aren't they?

"Peer-reviewed studies show that mountaintop mining has serious environmental impacts, including loss of biodiversity and toxification of watersheds, that mitigation practices cannot successfully address.[5]

"There are also adverse human health impacts which result from contact with affected streams or exposure to airborne toxins and dust.[5]

"According to 21 scientific studies there has been major effects on the population in Appalachia where MTM takes place including over 50% higher cancer rates, 42% higher birth defect rates, and $75 billion a year in public health costs from pollution."

Socialize the cost.
Privatize the profits.
That's the problem.

Mountaintop removal mining - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Are you aware that stream pollution on the Property of the Gore family (Al Gore the green) is about the worst there is in Tennessee?

 

[dnsmith35]

So you believe only capitalist countries harm the environment? Apparently you aren't familiar with the environmental record of communist countries.

BTW Gnarley, why haven't you responded to post http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/336012-capitalism-guarantees-rising-inequality-185.html#post9149761?

You need to answer that simple question.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

a tiny sector of their population dictates what is produced and what is done with the profits. The people are not part of the decision.

Exactly! That's why 80% of the cars on the road today are Edsels.

The people have no choice.

Does the US have a choice of high speed rail, the most efficient form of transportation like in all other developed and capitalist nations? No, that would undercut the oil market. What a "choice!" Thank you markets for the bringing the only choice we can choose: the least efficient form of transportation where >1% fuel is actually used to power its passenger, 99% is wasted either by burning off before applying power or is simply used to propel the 2 ton+ killing machine the kills about 35,000 people each year injuring 100s of thousands. Yes, praise choice.

Does the US have a choice of high speed rail, the most efficient form of transportation like in all other developed and capitalist nations?

High speed rail? Terrible idea. Big money loser.

 

[gnarlylove]

Does the US have a choice of high speed rail, the most efficient form of transportation like in all other developed and capitalist nations?

In and near large metropolitan ares yes. But obviously we are spread out to the point it is impractical. Even bus service is seriously impacted by the space the US occupies.

The most heavily trafficked corridors in the world are Boston to NYC and LA to SD and neither are "too spread out." In fact, a few years ago the US went to Spain poking around at the idea of hiring the Spanish to build the infrastructure instead of Americans who need jobs. Here was the plan:

"Too spread out" is such an uninformed statement I won't waste my time commenting on it.