pknopp
Diamond Member
- Jul 22, 2019
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We found out that the government was torturing people.
Nobody is arguing for any pure system. Ours is NOT simply a capitalistic system. Ours is a mixture of capitalism and socialism.
Saying pure isn't relevant. There is no such thing as pure anything in this world. I understand the point you are making there.
But it still isn't relevant.
We can see even within our economy, the difference between the socialized aspects, and the capitalist aspects. The difference between private pay-for-service schools, and public schools. The difference between private pay-for-service health care clinics, and the public gov-care ones. The difference between private retirement homes, and gov-retirement homes.
We can even look at more generally, the profitable retirement plans that yield good returns, and social security, which results in object poverty, and is going broke.
It isn't going broke. The retirement plans are only solvent because the taxpayers bailed them out.
Over and over within our own economy, we can see capitalism works, and socialism fails.
You can see this play out in nearly every single aspect of our society.
I watched a documentary about this emergency response center, where they were moving bottled water, electric generators, medical supplies and more into surrounding warehouses, when Katrina was about to hit. Of course that center was run by Walmart, while FEMA wasn't there for months. Or how a company had hired over a 100 people specifically to fan out with GPS systems, and mapping software to locate each and every single house in the disaster zone, and give a damage assessment. They had this setup 4 days before the hurricane hit. Of course this was run by an insurance company, which was getting reports of damaged houses, before the owners even called in. Meanwhile FEMA wasn't there for almost a year.
Every single time, Capitalism wins, and socialism loses. Yeah, it's not a pure system... and it's those impure parts that are having all the problems.
Bail outs.
Ireland bailed no one out. Everyone's retirement in Ireland did not go insolvent.
Wow!!! Really??? We were told we had to bail out the banks or it was going to be worse than the great depression. Are you saying we were lied to?
We really didn't have to bail out Wall Street?
How about 10 years and counting of QE?
That isn't even logical. Are you a moron? How does my stock in Apple computer, go insolvent if the government doesn't give money to some wealthy guy who lost money on Countrywide Financial?
You tell me. That is what the capitalists told us. Did they lie? Why was Trump insisting on more QE and lower interest rates?
Are you retarded?
Bailouts did not stop Countrywide Financial from going out of business, absorbed into BOA, and nor did bailouts allow Walmart to be profitable.
Dumb argument.
It wasn't my argument. I argued to do nothing.
Yeah of course not. Why would we ever need to bailout failing companies? Milton Friedman was famous for saying that capitalism is a profit and loss system. Profit encourages risk taking, and loss encourages prudence.
You can't socialize the loss, and have capitalism. There was never a need to bailout the banks. We didn't bailout Lehman Brothers, and that was the biggest private failure of the entire crash. What happened when Lehman wasn't bailed out?........ they went bankrupt. The assets were sold off, the company was closed. Life went on. Nothing bad happened.... except to the investors who foolishly gave Lehman their money, and then only got... if I remember right 60 cents on the dollars. So they still got most of their money back, and why shouldn't investors lose money when they make bad investments?
The whole thing was a bunch of politicians, buying votes with tax money. I was against it from the start. The Tea Party was a conservative movement against exactly this. Even the Conservative Caucus in the house, proposed a non-bailout alternative, that would have allowed banks to bail out each other, without tax money.
That is what the capitalists told us.
Wrong. That is what government, and business people told you. Why are you listening to business people? What did you expect that banks to say? How dumb is that.
Look, if I want to get paid to not work... and you are in government.... am I going to tell you "if you don't fund welfare and food stamps..... then I'll get a job, and have to feed my kids myself!" or am I going to tell you "Thousands will die, my children will starve, and the nation will collapse!"
Even if a CEO of a company might privately believe that Capitalism is the best system, if his company is tanking, and he's facing bankruptcy... is he going to say "Yeah if you don't bail me out.... Well I'll have to find another job, and sell my stuff" or is he going to say "If you don't bail me out, the economy will crash, and it will spell doom for the country!"
Capitalists like Milton Freidman, and economists from the Library of Economics and Liberty, the Mises Institute, and numerous other proponents of Capitalism.... none of them were saying the economy would crash if we didn't bail them out. I can't think of a respect capitalist anywhere, meaning a person who promoted Capitalism.... not one that supported the bailouts.
Only business people, in the banking system supported the bailout.... again... why would you ever believe anything someone who stands to benefit from the policy would say?
Just like if we planned to cut welfare, why would you ever go talk to a welfare recipient? Or Medicare, or Social Security, or Food stamps, or public housing?
Just absolutely stupid.
So in taking the long way around we agree. We do not practice capitalism. We practice at best crony capitalism propped up with Socialist programs.
With that agreed upon there are two positions for me to take. If we actually wanted to practice actual capitalism that would be great. No bailing out failed businesses. No being forced to get permission from the government to trade with your partners. No Federal Reserve trying to control it all.
That is never going to happen but people are going to pretend we are a capitalist society. With that being the case I am going to do all I can to see that everything doesn't get dumped on the poor.