Debt is Pushing the US Into Fascism

[easyt65]

'Debt is Pushing the US Into Fascism'

Remember that time 'debt' barricaded those policeman in that building then set it on fire? Or that time 'debt' killed that ex-police commissioner and then looted his store?

 

[georgephillip]

And as far as exploiting... do you exploit people when they fix your car, repair your house, or add on a deck?

Yes you do, so you don't care about exploiting.

Haven't had a car repaired in decades.
Never paid for home repairs.
Never needed a deck.

 

[georgephillip]

One thing that cracked me up, was the staff at Bernie Sanders campaign was complaining they were not paid $15/hour. So they raised their pay, and then cut back on their hours, to reduce the cost of higher pay.

How does Bernie's net worth compare to Bezos?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

One thing that cracked me up, was the staff at Bernie Sanders campaign was complaining they were not paid $15/hour. So they raised their pay, and then cut back on their hours, to reduce the cost of higher pay.

How does Bernie's net worth compare to Bezos?

How many $1.5 Trillion companies has Bernie built?

 

[Pilate]

Is the US borrowing its way to Fascism?

20th century versions of the merger of state and corporate power (Germany, Japan, Italy, and Spain) interacted differently in each country's particular history and conditions.

If it comes here, the Federal Reserve will play a key role:

Richard D. Wolff - The U.S. Is Borrowing Its Way to Fascism | Brave New Europe

"Today’s crisis-ridden capitalist economy is more dependent on credit than at any time in the system’s history.

"More than ever, credit sustains the purchasing power of consumers and of government programs.

"Capitalists depend on that purchasing power..."

"Once it was mostly private entities—rich families, banks, insurance companies, and pension funds—that were the chief lenders to corporations. They bought and held the corporate bonds and IOUs.

"Now those private lenders increasingly sell their corporate bonds to the Federal Reserve.

"That happens when the corporate loans get packaged into asset-backed securities sold to the Federal Reserve.

"More recently, the Fed has undertaken the market purchase of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) composed of corporate bonds and of corporate bonds direct from their private issuers."

Some Things Never Change
View attachment 387406
Renegade Inc - Michael Hudson: He died for our debts, not our sins | Brave New Europe

That’s what you get when you switch over to commodity based money to Monopoly money that can be printed infinitely.

 

[Andylusion]

This by the way, is evidence in your post above, where you talked about people not paying enough taxes. As if, their money was "owed" to you. You view the money they rightfully earned, as yours. That's is proof of a slave-mentality view of the public. They exist for the benefit of the state, in left-wing ideology.

The key phrase is "their money."
Conservatives have a gut instinct that tells them they have a moral right to their pre-tax income.
You don't.
View attachment 391241
Convince us the "free" market distributes pre-tax income in a perfectly just manner; how is it a Wall Street speculator earns thousands of times the pre-tax income of a scientist working on a cure for cancer?

No it’s not your money: why taxation isn’t theft

First, markets do not 'distribute' anything. The only time that money, or wealth, or property, is ever "distributed" is when government puts a gun to your head, and takes what you earned, and gives it to someone who didn't earn it.

Other than that, the only other time is when the government allows people to break into your property, take everything they want, and set what they don't want on fire, and call it a peaceful protest.

So when you say "prove the markets distribute income" fairly or perfectly... well logically that is impossible to prove since the market never distributes anything.

Second, I would argue that your question is a logical impossibility because the word moral, or fair, or the definition of "distributes perfectly", are all subjective.

My definition of all those things, is entirely different than yours.

For example, you mentioned "Wall Street speculator".

Well that in itself, is a subjective label. Because everyone is a speculator at some point.

Would you buy a house that is going to drop in value? For 99.9% of the planet, people will never buy a house for $100,000, today, if it was going to be worth $50,000 tomorrow.

Yet we all know that sometimes houses go down in value.

So what are you doing? You are speculating. Speculating that the house will go up in value, or at least maintain value. But you don't that for certain.

And every single person on the entire planet does speculating at some point in their life.

Third, people have a goofy definitions of value.

You mentioned comparing a Wall Street (I would say investor), compared to a Scientist working on a cure for cancer.

Well I would ask you, which one has a larger benefit to society?

You would say the scientist. But is that actually true? No it is not.

The investor creates investments, that creates millions of jobs, of billions of dollars of wealth for the entire country.

The scientist might be working on a cure for cancer, but right now he has produced nothing, and it is entirely possible that the scientist may never create a cure for cancer. Remember, cancer research has been going on since the 1800s, and especially since 1920s. Dozens of scientists have spent dozens of years trying to find a cure for cancer, and never produced any.

How much benefit did they provide to society? Zero.

Meanwhile investors in computer technology, have been providing hundreds of millions of jobs, and incalculable wealth.

Further, your complaint isn't even all that valid. I know a scientist who went to my church, who is in the bio-tech field. He found a way to instantly test for genetic caused illnesses, including cancer, but other things as well.

He's a multi-millionaire today. So when scientists do create something of high value, they tend to get fabulously wealthy. You may not know it.... because you can't see them the way you can see a Wall Street investor like Buffet.... but I actually know three such researchers and scientists, that have enough money to buy and island, and disappear for life.

This goofy idea that all scientists are paid 15¢ an hour, hiding in the basement of a some large company, while all the fat cat CEOs are smoking cigars and swimming through vaults of money.... You guys have smoked too much pot, and watched too many dumb Hollywood movies.

And lastly, yeah, your pre-tax money, is in fact rightfully yours, and mine is mine. You are just wrong, to suggest otherwise. By your dumb logic, we should be able to confiscate your house, because "You didn't build that". Required roads to get the trucks to build your house, and so we'll just take it from you, because you don't have a rights to what you earned.

Dumb argument. Completely wrong.

 

[Andylusion]

Charity existed before profit? You are crazy. Profit existed the moment the first man, traded the first lamb for the first vegetable.

For 90% of human history individuals who attempted a private surplus were banned? You are crazy. Not true.

Profit comes from surplus, and there was no surplus prior to the formation of the first cities.

During the time when humans lived in hunter-gatherer tribes surplus was virtually impossible to obtain, and anyone attempting to hoard more than he or she needed for survival was ostracized; the economy was based on gift giving, not on debt.

Palaces and temples dispensed credit based on agricultural cycles. Debts were regularly forgiven for "acts of god" and other disasters in Bronze Age societies.

It wasn't until Greek and Roman times when creditors assumed control of governments that humans began practicing the sort of venal zero-sum economics that capitalists worship today.

No, that's a retarded statement.

Profits have existed since human beings walked the Earth. When the first farmer, plowed the first field, and planted more food than he and his family could consume.... and traded the surplus food, for gold, or whatever.... that was profit.

That's what profit is.

The first woodworker, or blacksmith, that produced a plow, or a wagon, that he could then sell, or trade, for a greater amount of value, than what was consumed in creating those things... was profiting.

So, no dumb statement.

There is no "zero-sum economics". Wealth is never static. It is growing, or shrinking.

Ridiculous to even say that. How could America possibly start from scratch, and end up in 200 years, more wealthy than 99% of the planet, which includes dozens on dozens of civilizations that existed thousands of years before us?

If the economy was zero-sum... that should have been impossible. Unless you think the British have become impoverished as we imported all their wealth here?

No. Ridiculous. Just flat out ridiculous.

 

[Andylusion]

If you own a car, you own a luxury good. If you have air conditioning, you own a luxury good. If you have internet, you have a luxury good. If you have a cell phone, you have a luxury good.

Luxury goods are goods whose demand increases more than proportionally as income rises. Necessity good have demand which increases proportionally less than income. All your examples are necessities not luxuries in this country.

Luxury comes from the Latin word luxus which means indulgence of the senses regardless of cost.

Ridiculous. I didn't have a cell phone until I was in my late 20s. I didn't have Air Conditioning until I was in my 20s. There were some years, I didn't have a car, because it broke down, and I didn't have the money to fix it. I didn't have internet until I was in my late 20s.

Those are luxury goods.

There were a few years, I had no phone at all. As in no phone. I still went to work. I still bought food. I still had pants and socks and shirts.

A luxury good, is a good that you do not need to survive.

To call any of those things necessities, is ridiculous.

By definition, I should not be able to exist without these "necessities". Yet I did. If those were necessities, then I should have died 30 years ago.

There are dozens of people in this country, that shockingly are living without necessities (according to you). Who knew their existance was a miracle.

 

[Andylusion]

It's Jeff's employees job to feed themselves and their families. They could do that if they cared about their job and their employer and had a good attitude. Why it is on their employer to care more about their families than they do?

Amazon has over 800,000 employees with most earning between $13 to $30 dollars an hour. Greedy Jeff is worth $180 billion. There's no reason why US taxpayers should have to subsidize that level of exploitation.

Amazon.com Inc Hourly Pay | PayScale

"Amazon.com Inc pays its employees an average of $16.55 an hour. Hourly pay at Amazon.com Inc ranges from an average of $12.36 to $29.01 an hour. Amazon.com Inc employees with the job title Technical Recruiter make the most with an average hourly rate of $32.59, while employees with the title Security Officer make the least with an average hourly rate of $12.00."

If Jeff didn't exist, there would be 800,000 fewer employees. How much better off will people be, if their income drops from "$13 to $30 /hour" to say.... zero?

Because honestly, Jeff could just shut Amazon down, and go live on an island somewhere.

Then he won't be paying people $13 to $30 an hour, and I guess based on your complain, he wouldn't be greedy then.... right?

 

[Andylusion]

Is that what Microsoft did? Tell me more!!!

Why?

You're just another greedy capitalist.

The U.S. Occupation of Haiti — Woodrow Wilson

It's ironic that you mention Haiti, when the biggest problem in Haiti, is a lack of capitalism.

Yes, I am just another Capitalist, and we provide all the jobs, we provide all the wealth... and socialists destroy every country they have ever gained control of.

IF that's "greedy" in your book, then I'm proud to be greedy, and we need more greedy people, and fewer like you.

 

[Andylusion]

Would they need more assistance, or less, if they quit Amazon? Pussy.

That would depend on the color of their parachute, Pinocchio.

That's not relevant to the question. How much someone else has, doesn't make any difference to whether or not the employees would be better off, if they earned zero.

All those people you mentioned, could pack their wealth, and leave the country. They could close down their companies, move out of US, and disappear, living a life of luxury until they die.

Meanwhile, the loss of millions on millions on millions of jobs, would leave a massive part of the population without income.

Again, the question we have for you is... would those employees be better off earning ZERO? Would the amount of government assistance go UP or DOWN, if they were all completely unemployed?

How much money so and so has, somewhere,.... does not matter to this question.

Would those employees be better off earning NOTHING? Yes or no?

 

[Andylusion]

One thing that cracked me up, was the staff at Bernie Sanders campaign was complaining they were not paid $15/hour. So they raised their pay, and then cut back on their hours, to reduce the cost of higher pay.

How does Bernie's net worth compare to Bezos?

Doesn't matter. Bezos never claimed to be a socialist. Bezos never said he thought capitalism was wrong, while engaging in it. Bezos never promised equality. Bezos never said everyone should earn $15/hour minimum wage.

Bezos is honest and true to who he is.

Bernie is a lying pile of human trash.

 

[Andylusion]

And as far as exploiting... do you exploit people when they fix your car, repair your house, or add on a deck?

Yes you do, so you don't care about exploiting.

Haven't had a car repaired in decades.
Never paid for home repairs.
Never needed a deck.

Really... you have never hired anyone to do anything, ever in your entire life?

A: Don't believe you.
B: If that is true, then you are worse than even the smallest business on the planet.

How can you even attempt to complain about people who create millions of jobs, when you have never created a single job, for anyone ever?

 

[kaz]

It's Jeff's employees job to feed themselves and their families. They could do that if they cared about their job and their employer and had a good attitude. Why it is on their employer to care more about their families than they do?

Amazon has over 800,000 employees with most earning between $13 to $30 dollars an hour. Greedy Jeff is worth $180 billion. There's no reason why US taxpayers should have to subsidize that level of exploitation.

Amazon.com Inc Hourly Pay | PayScale

"Amazon.com Inc pays its employees an average of $16.55 an hour. Hourly pay at Amazon.com Inc ranges from an average of $12.36 to $29.01 an hour. Amazon.com Inc employees with the job title Technical Recruiter make the most with an average hourly rate of $32.59, while employees with the title Security Officer make the least with an average hourly rate of $12.00."

If Jeff didn't exist, there would be 800,000 fewer employees. How much better off will people be, if their income drops from "$13 to $30 /hour" to say.... zero?

Because honestly, Jeff could just shut Amazon down, and go live on an island somewhere.

Then he won't be paying people $13 to $30 an hour, and I guess based on your complain, he wouldn't be greedy then.... right?

Bam! You'll never get a real answer to that question.

Before I sold my business I had two employees on "public assistance." I asked georgephillip if I should fire them since I was not willing to pay them enough to not need it. They had low pay because they were marginal employees. If they were better employees, I'd have been glad to pay them more.

No answer, of course.

I also asked how I was exploiting them since they took my job, which means I offered them their best paying opportunity. How is paying them more than anyone else is willing to pay them "exploiting" them? I don't know.

Neither did georgephillip, no answer again

 

[georgephillip]

Is it my responsibility to pay your bills? Or is it your responsibility?

It is society's responsibility to ensure every worker receives a living wage

Capitalism ensures those who "own" the means of production decide what gets produced, where the production takes place, and how any surplus is divided.

Since owners are a small percentage of the total number of workers who produce ALL value, any surplus is often distributed in ways that reward those who do no work (Apple shareholders) over those being exploited to produce iPhones, for example.

Living wage - Wikipedia

"In the United Kingdom and New Zealand, advocates define a living wage to mean that a person working 40 hours a week, with no additional income, should be able to afford the basics for a modest but decent life, such as, food, shelter, utilities, transport, health care, and child care."

 

[georgephillip]

You realize, that Greedy Jeff, could if he wanted to, close Amazon down, take all his money and move to island somewhere, and never hire another person for the rest of his life, and live in luxury until he dies.

How would Greedy Jeff accomplish that without exploiting someone else's labor?

 

[georgephillip]

That's not what we say. That's fact. Your existence, doesn't mean I owe you some of my labor.
Moreover, the claim that we owe each other, doesn't work.

Your sentiments are those of a gangster:

Capitalism is Organized Crime

"Here’s a more philosophical conception of a criminal moral philosophy from Norman Bucklew, serving a life-sentence for murder and armed robbery in Leavenworth:

"'I'm a thief. I don't think robbing a bank is wrong. If I want to take the money in a bank, then I'm going to take it, and if you catch me and put me in prison, I'm not going to sniffle about being in the pen. But don't try to tell me what I did was wrong…'"

When human beings agree to accept the benefits that come from exchanging some small part of their individual freedom for the security that comes from living in a society, they are acknowledging a responsibility to provide for the general welfare of that collective.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Is it my responsibility to pay your bills? Or is it your responsibility?

It is society's responsibility to ensure every worker receives a living wage

Capitalism ensures those who "own" the means of production decide what gets produced, where the production takes place, and how any surplus is divided.

Since owners are a small percentage of the total number of workers who produce ALL value, any surplus is often distributed in ways that reward those who do no work (Apple shareholders) over those being exploited to produce iPhones, for example.

Living wage - Wikipedia

"In the United Kingdom and New Zealand, advocates define a living wage to mean that a person working 40 hours a week, with no additional income, should be able to afford the basics for a modest but decent life, such as, food, shelter, utilities, transport, health care, and child care."

It is society's responsibility to ensure every worker receives a living wage

Liar.

Capitalism ensures those who "own" the means of production decide what gets produced, where the production takes place, and how any surplus is divided.

Finally, you got one right.

Since owners are a small percentage of the total number of workers who produce ALL value, any surplus is often distributed in ways that reward those who do no work

Stop whining about owners getting too much.....become an owner.
Save your money, buy some shares.

 

[Andylusion]

Is it my responsibility to pay your bills? Or is it your responsibility?

It is society's responsibility to ensure every worker receives a living wage

Capitalism ensures those who "own" the means of production decide what gets produced, where the production takes place, and how any surplus is divided.

Since owners are a small percentage of the total number of workers who produce ALL value, any surplus is often distributed in ways that reward those who do no work (Apple shareholders) over those being exploited to produce iPhones, for example.

Living wage - Wikipedia

"In the United Kingdom and New Zealand, advocates define a living wage to mean that a person working 40 hours a week, with no additional income, should be able to afford the basics for a modest but decent life, such as, food, shelter, utilities, transport, health care, and child care."

It is society's responsibility to ensure every worker receives a living wage

False.

If I choose to only work 20 hours, a part time job... how is it societies job to make sure that barely working, earns me enough money to live on?

Further, what is a living wages is entirely subjective.

What is a living wage in New York City, is different than what is a living wage in Dayton Ohio.

In fact, what is considered a living wage is entirely different than even within New York.

Moreover, there is absolutely nothing society can do to ensure every worker receives a living wage.

Because the value of all labor, is not whatever definition of living wage you come up with.

For example, if you decided that a living wage was $50,000 a year. That would make the cost of a burger at a fast food joint, would be up around $25 for a burger.

Tell me... would you buy a cheap fast food burger, if it cost $25? That's just for the burger.

And the answer is, no. You would eat at home, before shelling out $25 for a cheap burger.

And that's true of everyone. So as result, McDonald's would lay off millions of workers.

Workers that would earn $10/hour today, will earn $0/hour tomorrow.

Because the fact remains that no one ever pays employees more money, than the value of their labor. Doing that results in bankruptcy.

So whatever arbitrary wage you think is "a living wage", would result in everyone whose labor value is below that, would end up not having a job.

Moreover, it was never societies job to make you earn a living wage. You are responsible for you. I am responsible for me.

And by the way, you yourself know this. You just don't admit it. If we confiscated your retirement, in order to pay for "society ensuring everyone has a living wage", you would be freaking out right now.

Capitalism ensures those who "own" the means of production decide what gets produced, where the production takes place, and how any surplus is divided.

No that is false. Capitalists have virtually zero control over how the surplus is divided. If you don't pay enough for advertising, then your companies falls into obscurity and disappears.

If you don't pay for R&D, your competitors will improve their products over yours, and you will fall into obscurity and disappear.

If you don't change how you operating your business to fit the market, the market will leave you, and you will fall into obscurity and disappear.

If you don't pay the engineers and scientists enough money to do what you need, they will leave your company, and many times join your competitors, and you will fall into obscurity and disappear.

Now ultimately, you might have the ability to determine what production is done. But you don't any control over what production is profitable.

Various CEOs and capitalists might determine what production they try.... but trying it, and having it work, are not the same. This is, by the way, why Capitalism always triumphs over socialism 100% of the time.

Trabant - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

When you have government, instead of capitalists and the public, deciding what products succeed, and which fail... you end up with 34 year long disaster. The Trabant was a disaster of a car.

Which of course, is why exactly one year after East and West Berlin was united under capitalism, the Trabant ceased to exist, in favor of vastly superior cars.

Do you think the CEOs of VEB Sachsenring, to keep selling the highly profit, and unbelievably cheap to produce car, to buyers who had no other choice under socialism?

Of course they would. Of course. No question about it. Pretend you owned a business. Do you want to spend millions trying to come up with a new product that may or may not sell, or would you rather have a captive market controlled by the government, where you could spend zero dollars on risky future investments, and keep selling cheap crap cars?

Of course you would rather sit on your butt, and collect money under a socialist government market, where buyers had no other option.

Which by the way, is why they eventually ended up in bankruptcy, and no longer exist as a independent company.

 

[Andylusion]

That's not what we say. That's fact. Your existence, doesn't mean I owe you some of my labor.
Moreover, the claim that we owe each other, doesn't work.

Your sentiments are those of a gangster:

Capitalism is Organized Crime

"Here’s a more philosophical conception of a criminal moral philosophy from Norman Bucklew, serving a life-sentence for murder and armed robbery in Leavenworth:

"'I'm a thief. I don't think robbing a bank is wrong. If I want to take the money in a bank, then I'm going to take it, and if you catch me and put me in prison, I'm not going to sniffle about being in the pen. But don't try to tell me what I did was wrong…'"

When human beings agree to accept the benefits that come from exchanging some small part of their individual freedom for the security that comes from living in a society, they are acknowledging a responsibility to provide for the general welfare of that collective.

When human beings agree to accept the benefits that come from exchanging some small part of their individual freedom for the security that comes from living in a society

Well yeah I would agree with that... such as giving up my friend to come and steal your stuff in the name of "fairness", means you don't get to come steal my stuff in the name of "taxes".

That's the agreement. The constitution *IS* that agreement. We all agreed that this would be a free society, where everyone had the right to pursue happiness, not a guarantee of it, and in exchange for that limitation, we agreed that what you go out and earn with your investments, or hard work, or you diligence.... is your property, and mine is my property, and you don't get to confiscate it, and give it to people who have not earned it.

That *IS* the agreement we human beings made in this country.