Capitalism Saved The Miners

[Sallow]

If you want to go down the road the Bod is going down, then you can argue that capitalism caused the accident in the first place (unless it is a govt-owned mine, in which case I stand corrected!)...

Without capitalist ventures, there is no productive enterprise for gubmint to leech off of.

You've got that backwards.

 

[MikeK]

The best technology is the product of Capitalist Entrepreneurs, as is the case with the Drill Bit.

Statism kills the human spirit, btw.

And society watches.

Your commentary suggests that pro-Statist, anti-Capitalist sentiments are a common theme in this forum when actually I have never read anything here that would support such an observation.

I am a Socialist but I believe that Capitalism is a good economic system -- provided it is diligently regulated to prevent such things as the sub-prime lending and hedge-fund gambling that took place as soon as the preventive regulations were removed by corporatist puppets like Ronald Reagan. Removal of those regulations are directly responsible for delivering us to the doorstep of a second Great Depression.

I agree that Capitalism promotes ambitious development. But it functions best when the wealth it creates is distributed and deployed in a way that keeps all the parts well lubricated and in good working order.

The opposite of Capitalism is Communism. Socialism is not Communism. Socialism is public education, Social Security, Medicare, infrastructure maintenance, public transportation, essential welfare programs, police and fire protection. Without these things even the most materially productive society will quickly descend into third world status because its wealth will be stolen by a de facto ruling class of financial manipulators such as is presently evolving in America.

 

[Modbert]

You people must be really bored if this is what it's come to for topics on USMB.

 

[Oddball]

If you want to go down the road the Bod is going down, then you can argue that capitalism caused the accident in the first place (unless it is a govt-owned mine, in which case I stand corrected!)...

Without capitalist ventures, there is no productive enterprise for gubmint to leech off of.

You've got that backwards.

I have nothing backwards.

Without risk takers and profiteers in the free economy, politicians and bureaucrats have nobody to loot.


Thanks for playing....Johnny has a case of Bardahl for you as a parting gift.

 

[Sallow]

Without capitalist ventures, there is no productive enterprise for gubmint to leech off of.

You've got that backwards.

I have nothing backwards.

Without risk takers and profiteers in the free economy, politicians and bureaucrats have nobody to loot.


Thanks for playing....Johnny has a case of Bardahl for you as a parting gift.

Without the infrastructure, security, safety and justice that are provided by a stable government, there would be no "risk" takers, profiteers or captains of industry.

 

[Oddball]

Where did the money come from, for infrastructure "investments"....Santa Claus?

 

[L.K.Eder]

yay, capitalism.


one of the more retarded threads.

 

[boedicca]

capitalism didn't save the miners, society, human spirit and technology did.

Of the four, capitalism probably contributed the least.

Somebody is grasping at straws to redeem an ideology that crashed our economy.

B'loney.

The best technology is the product of Capitalist Entrepreneurs, as is the case with the Drill Bit.

Statism kills the human spirit, btw.

And society watches.

society does far more to encourage innovation than does capitalism. In fact there was innovation for gazzillions of years before capitalism was spawned.

Without society capitalism is just another disposable ideology. Without capitalism society prospered for 100,000 years.

You just need to redeem an ideology that crashed the economy.

You sorely misunderstand the ideology that crashed the economy.

It was not Free Market Capitalism.

It was Big Government Cronyist Statism.

 

[boedicca]

NASA saved the miners Capitalism

Oxygen saved the miners A capitalist invention got it to them

Food, water, psychiatric counseling, all saved the miners. A capitalist invention got it to them

The mine saved the miners! A capitalist venture - which Obama hates!

The miners saved each other! They didnt dig themselves out - a bunch of capitalists did

GOD!!!!! saved the miners! OK... I'll give you this one.... but he used CAPITALISTS to do it.

Nasa wasn't a capitalist venture, God is a socialist, The miners did save each other, capitalism didn't invent the drill, people did, the miners survived 15 days with no access to the outside world. How did capitalism deliver them oxygen for those 15 days?

Capitalism did absolutely nothing to save the miners, in fact it got them trapped in the first place!

The technology innovations that made space flight possible were done in Capitalist Companies that received NASA contracts.

 

[boedicca]

You people must be really bored if this is what it's come to for topics on USMB.

Unsurprisingly, Doggie The Bubble Mod doesn't grok that the reason our economy is so moribund is that Statism has ruined Entrepreneurial Capitalism in the U.S.

If we don't reverse course, I hope he enjoys living in a country with peak GDP growth rates below 2% and permanent employment above 10%. That will make his job prospects quite exciting when he finishes school.

 

[Sallow]

Where did the money come from, for infrastructure "investments"....Santa Claus?

Depending on which infrastructure that is being referenced, the type of society, the type of government, the culture...well yeah.

It could come from Santa Claus.

 

[Sallow]

Nasa wasn't a capitalist venture, God is a socialist, The miners did save each other, capitalism didn't invent the drill, people did, the miners survived 15 days with no access to the outside world. How did capitalism deliver them oxygen for those 15 days?

Capitalism did absolutely nothing to save the miners, in fact it got them trapped in the first place!

The technology innovations that made space flight possible were done in Capitalist Companies that received NASA contracts.

Actually..that's part of a larger problem.

Using tax payer money to enrich private industry.

Sort of corporate welfare.

Or um..socialism.

 

[Trajan]

the money shot of the article inho -

snipped out-


Longer answer: The Center Rock drill, heretofore not featured on websites like Engadget or Gizmodo, is in fact a piece of tough technology developed by a small company in it for the money, for profit. That's why they innovated down-the-hole hammer drilling. If they make money, they can do more innovation.

This profit = innovation dynamic was everywhere at that Chilean mine. The high-strength cable winding around the big wheel atop that simple rig is from Germany. Japan supplied the super-flexible, fiber-optic communications cable that linked the miners to the world above.

A remarkable Sept. 30 story about all this by the Journal's Matt Moffett was a compendium of astonishing things that showed up in the Atacama Desert from the distant corners of capitalism.

Samsung of South Korea supplied a cellphone that has its own projector. Jeffrey Gabbay, the founder of Cupron Inc. in Richmond, Va., supplied socks made with copper fiber that consumed foot bacteria, and minimized odor and infection.

Chile's health minister, Jaime Manalich, said, "I never realized that kind of thing actually existed."

That's right. In an open economy, you will never know what is out there on the leading developmental edge of this or that industry. But the reality behind the miracles is the same: Someone innovates something useful, makes money from it, and re-innovates, or someone else trumps their innovation. Most of the time, no one notices. All it does is create jobs, wealth and well-being. But without this system running in the background, without the year-over-year progress embedded in these capitalist innovations, those trapped miners would be dead.

Some will recoil at these triumphalist claims for free-market capitalism. Why make them now?

Here's why. When a catastrophe like this occurs—others that come to mind are the BP well blowout, Hurricane Katrina, various disasters in China—a government has all its chips pushed to the center of the table. Chile succeeds (it rebuilt after the February earthquake with phenomenal speed). China flounders. Two American administrations left the public agog as they stumbled through the mess.


Daniel Henninger: Capitalism Saved the Miners - WSJ.com

 

[Modbert]

Unsurprisingly, Doggie The Bubble Mod doesn't grok that the reason our economy is so moribund is that Statism has ruined Entrepreneurial Capitalism in the U.S.

If we don't reverse course, I hope he enjoys living in a country with peak GDP growth rates below 2% and permanent employment above 10%. That will make his job prospects quite exciting when he finishes school.

I was going to leave my comment be if it got no response but whatever.

Boedicca, have you ever thought about the fact that the mine shouldn't of been open in the first place? Capitalism "saving" the mines is bullshit when in reality the mine shouldn't of even been open in the first place.

Rescued Chilean Miners Greeted as Heroes—but They’re Also Victims - Working In These Times

Néstor Jorquera, president of the Chilean mineworkers union, CONFEMIN, told the Inter Press Service. "They are victims." Many in the international labor movement have complained that news accounts have ignored the poor treatment of workers by the mining company, which intially refused to pay their wages after the miners were trapped underground on August 5.

The government of Chile was forced to pay for a rescue that some say could cost anywhere between $10- $20 million.

As a result, the president of Chile, Sebastian Pinera, vowed to make major changes to the way workers are treated in Chile. "Never again in our country will we permit people to work in conditions so unsafe and inhuman as they worked in the San Jose Mine, and in many other places in our country," he said.

It's important to note that working conditions in Chile are notriously unsafe. There were more than 191,000 workplace accidents, including 443 deaths, in a country with only a population of 17 million people in 2009, an astronomical rate for such a small country

President Pinera set up a commission in August to write a report on workplace safety, which is due to be delivered on November 22. The president also announced the creation of a new mining agency to more strictly enforce mining safety laws and increase funding for safety programs.

This incident is in reality a example of lack of regulation and safety rules. Someone like yourself on any other given day would of been commending Chile for their lack of regulations which I'm sure you'd call a stranglehold on mining businesses in Chile.

 

[Trajan]

Unsurprisingly, Doggie The Bubble Mod doesn't grok that the reason our economy is so moribund is that Statism has ruined Entrepreneurial Capitalism in the U.S.

If we don't reverse course, I hope he enjoys living in a country with peak GDP growth rates below 2% and permanent employment above 10%. That will make his job prospects quite exciting when he finishes school.

I was going to leave my comment be if it got no response but whatever.

Boedicca, have you ever thought about the fact that the mine shouldn't of been open in the first place? Capitalism "saving" the mines is bullshit when in reality the mine shouldn't of even been open in the first place.

Rescued Chilean Miners Greeted as Heroes—but They’re Also Victims - Working In These Times

Néstor Jorquera, president of the Chilean mineworkers union, CONFEMIN, told the Inter Press Service. "They are victims." Many in the international labor movement have complained that news accounts have ignored the poor treatment of workers by the mining company, which intially refused to pay their wages after the miners were trapped underground on August 5.

As a result, the president of Chile, Sebastian Pinera, vowed to make major changes to the way workers are treated in Chile. "Never again in our country will we permit people to work in conditions so unsafe and inhuman as they worked in the San Jose Mine, and in many other places in our country," he said.

It's important to note that working conditions in Chile are notriously unsafe. There were more than 191,000 workplace accidents, including 443 deaths, in a country with only a population of 17 million people in 2009, an astronomical rate for such a small country

President Pinera set up a commission in August to write a report on workplace safety, which is due to be delivered on November 22. The president also announced the creation of a new mining agency to more strictly enforce mining safety laws and increase funding for safety programs.

This incident is in reality a example of lack of regulation and safety rules. Someone like yourself on any other given day would of been commending Chile for their lack of regulations which I'm sure you'd call a stranglehold on mining businesses in Chile.

I agree with your premise, which I believe is, the mine should probably not have been open at all or that is allowed to operate without strong regulatory over watch.

That being true, the sad fact is we and Europe have always practiced something of a strong safety culture, that topic does not envision the same level of intensity world round.

In any event, Chinese have had several mining accidents with numerous deaths over the last several years. I guess the point is yes, capitalism got them into it, BUT it also got them out of it, where as totalitarianism usually leads to disaster on all fronts.


Off hand comment-

Its interesting to fathom or gauge the Chilean get up and go, turn over every orck ( pun intended) attitude and energy while our recent response to the BP issue was, well, other than a local level, lackluster.

 

[The Infidel]

Nasa wasn't a capitalist venture, God is a socialist, The miners did save each other, capitalism didn't invent the drill, people did, the miners survived 15 days with no access to the outside world. How did capitalism deliver them oxygen for those 15 days?

Capitalism did absolutely nothing to save the miners, in fact it got them trapped in the first place!

The technology innovations that made space flight possible were done in Capitalist Companies that received NASA contracts.

Actually..that's part of a larger problem.

Using tax payer money to enrich private industry.

Sort of corporate welfare.

Or um..socialism.

This is so laughable!

So you think that the gov't could've gotten us to the moon by themselves? Shit... they cant even run the Postal service correctly!
Corporate welfare.... HOLY SHIT that is ripe with humor and ignorance!


Those miners would still be down there if it were'nt for capitalist coming together and using their heads to go retrieve them from a sure death. They also did a great job keeping their heads together and not giving up... PROPS TO THE MINERS!

 

[loosecannon]

Crashed the Federal Reserve?

And right, it was the "market capitalists" who created a boom in the economy by keeping interest rates low for too long and flooding the market with easy credit. Oh wait, no, that's the sole province of the Fed.

crashed the economy, and the Fed didn't do it, the private banks did. The fed merely financed the greatest escapade into unbridled fraud that ever occured.

Who enabled the private banks...Lucky the Leprechaun?

Sheesh!

George W Bush.

 

[loosecannon]

As for the Fed being "the quintessential example of a capitalist enterprise," I hope you're joking. The organization created by the federal government, with its head appointed by the President, with a monopoly right to create currency out of thin air is about as far from capitalism as one can get.

Only if you are a purist. In reality the federal reserve is the best example of actual real life capitalism that ever existed. The best example of what capitalist ideologues commonly espouse as capitalism.

And communism by your terms has never existed. Neither has socialism. Neither has democracy, or free markets or liberals, conservatives or even nationalists.

Raise the bar too high and all of your catch phrases die at once.

 

[loosecannon]

You attack me for saying that capitalism saved these miners on one hand, while saying capitalism doesn't exist on the other. You then turn around and say on one hand that capitalism doesn't exist, but that capitalism is to blame for the miners' accident in the first place. You're a hypocrite.

absolutely false, supertard. I merely turned your own illogic upon you and hung you by your own petard.

That you failed to even realize it makes you a pretty simple ton.

YOU began your dialogue by claiming that capitalism didn't exist and that the miners were saved by capitalism(that didn't exist).

Don't you feel like a moron? You should.

 

[loosecannon]

Nasa wasn't a capitalist venture, God is a socialist, The miners did save each other, capitalism didn't invent the drill, people did, the miners survived 15 days with no access to the outside world. How did capitalism deliver them oxygen for those 15 days?

Capitalism did absolutely nothing to save the miners, in fact it got them trapped in the first place!

The technology innovations that made space flight possible were done in Capitalist Companies that received NASA contracts.

No they weren't! The companies that did NASA's footwork were fascist corporate enterprises supported by corporate socialism! You know, wealth distribution and all that!

Are you living in a fishbowl? Or just so drunk on idealism that you lie incessantly?