Next time you hear someone criticizing socialism...

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

using the term socialism merely to appeal to emotion instead of discussing the actual issues is nothing but right wing bigotry. rejection is not refutation. you need a superior argument for that.

How is this:

Government owning the means of production will force me to be a slave. Therefore, I reject anything that gives Government the ownership of the means of production.

Now you can call what I described above whatever the fuck you want.

.

 

[francoHFW]

So your argument is a picture of a book you never read which is probably Rockefeller or Carnegie propaganda
. Congratulations.

I've read both it and the sources cited in its end notes.

But you feel free to move the fuck to Cuba, tovarich.

Cuba is communist.

So are you.

so he believes in a dictatorship that owns all business and industry? You are a brainwashed functional moron.

 

[the other mike]

Bernie will explain it to whoever's still confused.
( Bill Maher is a total pecker-head now, btw)

 

[Aponi]

Ask them how well capitalism was doing in 1929.
View attachment 245504 View attachment 245506 View attachment 245505

To the extent that capitalism’s problems – inequality, instability (cycles/crises), etc. – stem in part from its production relationships, reforms focused exclusively on regulating or supplanting markets will not succeed in solving them. For example, Keynesian monetary policies (focused on raising or lowering the quantity of money in circulation and, correspondingly, interest rates) do not touch the employer-employee relationship, however much their variations redistribute wealth, regulate markets, or displace markets in favor of state-administered investment decisions. Likewise, Keynesian fiscal policies (raising or lowering taxes and government spending) do not address the employer-employee relationship.

Keynesian policies also never ended the cyclical instability of capitalism. The New Deal and European social democracy left capitalism in place in both state and private units (enterprises) of production notwithstanding their massive reform agendas and programs. They thereby left capitalist employers facing the incentives and receiving the resources (profits) to evade, weaken and eventually dissolve most of those programs.

It is far better not to distribute wealth unequally in the first place than to re-distribute it after to undo the inequality. For example, FDR proposed in 1944 that the government establish a maximum income alongside a minimum wage; that is one among the various ways inequality could be limited and thereby redistribution avoided. Efforts to redistribute encounter evasions, oppositions, and failures that compound the effects of unequal distribution itself. Social peace and cohesion are the victims of redistribution sooner or later. Reforming markets while leaving the relations/organization of capitalist production unchanged is like redistribution. Just as redistribution schemes fail to solve the problems rooted in distribution, market-focused reforms fail to solve the problems rooted in production.

Since 2008, capitalism has showed us all yet again its deep and unsolved problems of cyclical instability, deepening inequality and the injustices they both entail. Their persistence mirrors that of the capitalist organization of production. To successfully confront and solve the problems of economic cycles, income and wealth inequality, and so on, we need to go beyond the capitalist employer-employee system of production. The democratization of enterprises – transitioning from employer-employee hierarchies to worker cooperatives – is a key way available here and now to realize the change we need.

Worker coops democratically decide the distribution of income (wages, bonuses, benefits, profit shares, etc.) among their members. No small group of owners and the boards of directors they choose would, as in capitalist corporations, make such decisions. Thus, for example, it would be far less likely that a few individuals in a worker coop would earn millions while most others could not afford to send children to college. A democratic worker coop decision on the distribution of enterprise income would be far less unequal than what typifies capitalist enterprises. A socialism for the 21st century could and should include the transition from a capitalist to a worker-coop-based economic system as central to its commitments to less inequality and less social conflict over redistribution.

Capitalism Is Not the “Market System”

7

Ask them how well capitalism was doing in 1929.
View attachment 245504 View attachment 245506 View attachment 245505

To the extent that capitalism’s problems – inequality, instability (cycles/crises), etc. – stem in part from its production relationships, reforms focused exclusively on regulating or supplanting markets will not succeed in solving them. For example, Keynesian monetary policies (focused on raising or lowering the quantity of money in circulation and, correspondingly, interest rates) do not touch the employer-employee relationship, however much their variations redistribute wealth, regulate markets, or displace markets in favor of state-administered investment decisions. Likewise, Keynesian fiscal policies (raising or lowering taxes and government spending) do not address the employer-employee relationship.

Keynesian policies also never ended the cyclical instability of capitalism. The New Deal and European social democracy left capitalism in place in both state and private units (enterprises) of production notwithstanding their massive reform agendas and programs. They thereby left capitalist employers facing the incentives and receiving the resources (profits) to evade, weaken and eventually dissolve most of those programs.

It is far better not to distribute wealth unequally in the first place than to re-distribute it after to undo the inequality. For example, FDR proposed in 1944 that the government establish a maximum income alongside a minimum wage; that is one among the various ways inequality could be limited and thereby redistribution avoided. Efforts to redistribute encounter evasions, oppositions, and failures that compound the effects of unequal distribution itself. Social peace and cohesion are the victims of redistribution sooner or later. Reforming markets while leaving the relations/organization of capitalist production unchanged is like redistribution. Just as redistribution schemes fail to solve the problems rooted in distribution, market-focused reforms fail to solve the problems rooted in production.

Since 2008, capitalism has showed us all yet again its deep and unsolved problems of cyclical instability, deepening inequality and the injustices they both entail. Their persistence mirrors that of the capitalist organization of production. To successfully confront and solve the problems of economic cycles, income and wealth inequality, and so on, we need to go beyond the capitalist employer-employee system of production. The democratization of enterprises – transitioning from employer-employee hierarchies to worker cooperatives – is a key way available here and now to realize the change we need.

Worker coops democratically decide the distribution of income (wages, bonuses, benefits, profit shares, etc.) among their members. No small group of owners and the boards of directors they choose would, as in capitalist corporations, make such decisions. Thus, for example, it would be far less likely that a few individuals in a worker coop would earn millions while most others could not afford to send children to college. A democratic worker coop decision on the distribution of enterprise income would be far less unequal than what typifies capitalist enterprises. A socialism for the 21st century could and should include the transition from a capitalist to a worker-coop-based economic system as central to its commitments to less inequality and less social conflict over redistribution.

Capitalism Is Not the “Market System”

You copy and paste a nice line but the atock market was a very small part of the great recession which was a WORLD WIDE EVEN CAUSED BY WORLD WIDE EVENTS NOT JUST THE STOCK MARKET.
WHICH WAS PART OF THE PROBLEM BUT NOT THE MAJOR MALFUNCTION.

by the way hows socialist goverments working out like Venezuela Cuba Russia Germany and so many others

 

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

Bernie will explain it to whoever's still confused.
( Bill Maher is a total pecker-head now, btw)

So, they admit that there MUST be controls on heath care choices and prices for socialist health care to work.

Which means, there is no longer an incentive to spend years in school to become a doctor. Government will kill it by paying chicken feed. The best and brightest will do something else.

It's one extreme to the other.

ALL health insurance has driven up the cost of health care, because there has been no price competition among doctors. But, now they want to take it to the other extreme, where competition doesn't drive down the cost. Government force does.

The free market has not been allowed to thrive, so the costs continue to rise, and anyone with no insurance is totally hosed.

On solution is to outlaw ALL health insurance and make providers compete for business.

 

[the other mike]

The free market has not been allowed to thrive, .

I would make the exact same argument about socialism.

 

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

I would make the exact same argument about socialism.

But, for socialism to thrive, freedom must die.

That's the problem.

 

[Yarddog]

So your argument is a picture of a book you never read which is probably Rockefeller or Carnegie propaganda
. Congratulations.

I've read both it and the sources cited in its end notes.

But you feel free to move the fuck to Cuba, tovarich.

Cuba is communist.

And the radicals within the party never stop pushing towards a goal of Communism. It's the need to control everything, we call them progressives.

 

[the other mike]

I would make the exact same argument about socialism.

But, for socialism to thrive, freedom must die.

That's the problem.

No my point was European and then American imperialism ( ours is in the name of corporations instead of monarchies).
Chile', Honduras, Cuba, Guatemala, Venezuela....anytime they try socialism some mysterious
opposition Dictatorship pops up out of nowhere. Now Europe is finally succeeding and they're crippled with our war refugees.

 

[Deplorable Yankee]

after reading all the pro socialism threads on USMB i have now scooped out my brains and declare my self a socialist

Chairman Mao Chairman MAO when do we get Purge the intellectuals ?

 

[Yarddog]

after reading all the pro socialism threads on USMB i have now scooped out my brains and declare my self a socialist

Chairman Mao Chairman MAO when do we get Purge the intellectuals ?

Meet Chairman Meow

 

[the other mike]

Welfare for the wealthy is the problem.

 

[Markle]

Ask them how well capitalism was doing in 1929.
View attachment 245504 View attachment 245506 View attachment 245505

To the extent that capitalism’s problems – inequality, instability (cycles/crises), etc. – stem in part from its production relationships, reforms focused exclusively on regulating or supplanting markets will not succeed in solving them. For example, Keynesian monetary policies (focused on raising or lowering the quantity of money in circulation and, correspondingly, interest rates) do not touch the employer-employee relationship, however much their variations redistribute wealth, regulate markets, or displace markets in favor of state-administered investment decisions. Likewise, Keynesian fiscal policies (raising or lowering taxes and government spending) do not address the employer-employee relationship.

Keynesian policies also never ended the cyclical instability of capitalism. The New Deal and European social democracy left capitalism in place in both state and private units (enterprises) of production notwithstanding their massive reform agendas and programs. They thereby left capitalist employers facing the incentives and receiving the resources (profits) to evade, weaken and eventually dissolve most of those programs.

It is far better not to distribute wealth unequally in the first place than to re-distribute it after to undo the inequality. For example, FDR proposed in 1944 that the government establish a maximum income alongside a minimum wage; that is one among the various ways inequality could be limited and thereby redistribution avoided. Efforts to redistribute encounter evasions, oppositions, and failures that compound the effects of unequal distribution itself. Social peace and cohesion are the victims of redistribution sooner or later. Reforming markets while leaving the relations/organization of capitalist production unchanged is like redistribution. Just as redistribution schemes fail to solve the problems rooted in distribution, market-focused reforms fail to solve the problems rooted in production.

Since 2008, capitalism has showed us all yet again its deep and unsolved problems of cyclical instability, deepening inequality and the injustices they both entail. Their persistence mirrors that of the capitalist organization of production. To successfully confront and solve the problems of economic cycles, income and wealth inequality, and so on, we need to go beyond the capitalist employer-employee system of production. The democratization of enterprises – transitioning from employer-employee hierarchies to worker cooperatives – is a key way available here and now to realize the change we need.

Worker coops democratically decide the distribution of income (wages, bonuses, benefits, profit shares, etc.) among their members. No small group of owners and the boards of directors they choose would, as in capitalist corporations, make such decisions. Thus, for example, it would be far less likely that a few individuals in a worker coop would earn millions while most others could not afford to send children to college. A democratic worker coop decision on the distribution of enterprise income would be far less unequal than what typifies capitalist enterprises. A socialism for the 21st century could and should include the transition from a capitalist to a worker-coop-based economic system as central to its commitments to less inequality and less social conflict over redistribution.

Capitalism Is Not the “Market System”

What was done to end the Depression of 1920-1921? It was deeper and lasted 18 months.

How long was the Great Depression beginning in 1929 and how long did it last? Why?

From that bastion of Conservatism, UCLA

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate
By Meg Sullivan August 10, 2004

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."

Pay particular attention to that last line, written FOURTEEN YEARS AGO!

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate

 

[Markle]

The top 1 percent pay 3.2 percent of their total wealth in taxes.
The rest of us pay 7.2 percent of our total wealth in taxes.

We don't have a wealth tax.

We have an INCOME tax. Using a percentage of their total income makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Markle]

One of our lowest Trolls here wants to revise history and have us believe that other than President Bill Clinton getting a Lewinski in the Oval Office, the Clintons are pure as the driven snow.

Well, except for...

William Jefferson Clinton, Former President of the United States and Democrat

Sexual Assault
Rape

Gennifer Flowers (Unknown settlement)

Paula Jones ($850,000 settlement)

Kathleen Willey (Unknown settlement)

Juanita Broaddrick (Unknown settlement)

Monica Lewinsky….(“I did not have sex with THAT woman”)

Perjury
Impeachment

Loss of Law License

$50,000 fine

Whitewater

Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker - fraud felony convictions - 3 counts (Tucker
resigned facing impeachment)

Jim McDougal - fraud and conspiracy felony convictions - 18 counts

Susan McDougal - felony - 4 counts (pardoned during Clinton's last minute
pardongate payoffs)

William J. Marks Sr - conspiracy

Stephen Smith - conspiracy

Larry Kuca - Fraud

Neal Ainley - 2 misdemeanors for embezzlement

David Hale - guilty plea - conspiracy

Chris Wade - felony

Whitewater real-estate investor John Haley - recent!

1998 on fraud Robert Palmer - felony for conspiracy Charles Matthews - guilty
plea for bribery Eugene Fitzhugh -

Whitewater - bribery Webster Hubbell - #2 ranking Justice Dept. Official -
felony for embezzlement and fraud

John Latham - CEO of Madison Bank - bank fraud Campaign

Finance: Johnny Chung - Clinton cronie - felony guilty plea - funneling money from China

Gene Lum - convicted - felony for money laundering for the DNC

Nora Lum - convicted - felony for money laundering for the DNC

Howard Glicken - guilty plea - 2 misdemeanors - funneling foreign donations

Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie - guilty plea - illegal Clinton campaign donations

John Huang - Clinton cronie - felony guilty plea - funneling money from China

Paula Jonesgate: William Jefferson Clinton - found guilty - civil contempt of court - lying under oath about material facts. The Office of the Independent

Council further presented Clinton with an agreement that had him disbarred from practicing law for 5 years and made him sign a statement admitting to his deception.

Post Administration

Sandy Bergergate Sandy Berger – Clinton National Security Adviser -- found guilty of stealing highly class documents from the National Archive and destroying them.

 

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

No my point was European and then American imperialism ( ours is in the name of corporations instead of monarchies).
Chile', Honduras, Cuba, Guatemala, Venezuela....anytime they try socialism some mysterious
opposition Dictatorship pops up out of nowhere. Now Europe is finally succeeding and they're crippled with our war refugees.

That is what we have always said. You are GETTING the result of socialism. It is cancer. It can never succeed. All it does is kill human rights.

Socialism is the antithesis of Liberty. People who are not free eventually stagnate and fail to thrive.

Prison for all would prevent a lot of societal problems, but who wants to live like that?

With freedom comes risk. The risk is worth the freedom.

 

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

What was done to end the Depression of 1920-1921? It was deeper and lasted 18 months.

How long was the Great Depression beginning in 1929 and how long did it last? Why?

From that bastion of Conservatism, UCLA

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate
By Meg Sullivan August 10, 2004

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."

Pay particular attention to that last line, written FOURTEEN YEARS AGO!

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate

This should be required reading.

 

[Deplorable Yankee]

if youre worth that welcome to the 1 %

if you do it globally all Americans with 46 dollars in their checking accounts are in the 1%
600 grand does not make a bill gates nor does mr and mrs half a million deserve to be taxed at 70% to expand the government over feelz

 

[Blues Man]

I had already provided a link, but i suppose is par for the course for the reading impaired.
The average tax refund is down 8 percent this year, meaning that people are paying more tax overall. There is no tax cut for normal people.
It doesn't mean that necessarily

If less taxes were taken out of a person's pay then they overpaid a smaller amount therefore the refund will be smaller

A tax refund is the poorest of all ways to determine the total tax paid as all a refund reflects is the over payment of taxes due.

And it doesn't account for what should be the high-dollar taxes ( at this point ) like capital gains and estate
and all the loopholes around those. If Koch Industries profits $10 billion a year it doesn't matter-- Charles and David can set their income levels low in order to pay less, and have a team of full-time lawyers to pull it off..

It isn't a "loophole". Anyone that does any worth while investing, can take advantage of the lower tax rates on capital gains.

Doesn't matter if you earn $20,000 a year, or $20 Billion a year. Everyone can enjoy the benefits of lower taxes on capital gains.

Moreover, this is what is known as "wise". People that are not greed driven envy filled scum, understand that investment is a benefit to absolutely everyone. Investment is why everything exists. Investment is the defacto driving force behind every economy that exists.

Investment being such an important, if not vital part of every economy, should be supported and promoted, and lowering the taxes on returns from investment is an important part of motivating investment.

Therefore, this is a good thing.

Instead of whining and crying about lower taxes on investment... how about you do some investing yourself.

So you're suggesting anyone can get rich in this rigged system where the already wealthy are driving up their own stock prices in share buy-backs ?

That wasn't claimed at all

You don't have to be rich to invest and take advantage of the capital gains tax rate

I will say that systematic investments of modest amounts over a lifetime is the best way for average people to build some measure of financial security.

As little as 100 a month saved from the age of 18 to the age of 65 with a 8% return will be worth 625000

That will provide 4000 a month in income for 20 years in retirement

I know people who spend more than 25 a week ordering lunch and coffees at work and even more who spend way more than 25 a week on cigarettes

 

[Blues Man]

"In the conservative mind, socialism means getting something for doing nothing. That pretty much describes the $21bn saved by the nation’s largest banks last year thanks to Trump’s tax cuts, some of which went into massive bonuses for bank executives. On the other hand, more than 4,000 lower-level bank employees got a big dose of harsh capitalism. They lost their jobs."

We get to pay for that, now that our tax refund is 8 percent less.

socialism for the wealthy, capitalism for the rest of us.

Why is it you think huge tax refunds are a good thing?

If people paid less in taxes then there refunds will be less because they overpaid less.

I haven't gotten a tax refund in 20 years so I guess you think that'd a bad thing right?

I agree tax refunds arent good, or especially bad either. The point is that middle class is paying more to subsidize the ultra wealthy.

How? Explain precisely how that happens.

The top 1 percent pay 3.2 percent of their total wealth in taxes.
The rest of us pay 7.2 percent of our total wealth in taxes.

On top of that, when services are cut, its effectively a tax increase because we're paying for nothing.

The top 1 percent pay 3.2 percent of their total wealth in taxes.
The rest of us pay 7.2 percent of our total wealth in taxes.

We don't have a wealth tax.

Define wealth

and FYI income is not wealth