CDZ redistribution of wealth

[Asclepias]

I don't know about the tiresome "socialism vs. capitalism" standbys, but it seems apparent that production (laborers) have created a vast amount of wealth that is inappropriately confiscated by firms. Wages should increase so that the source of the profits (laborers) are equitably compensated for their success and productivity.

Workers are everything and the source of all capital.

That's not true.

If workers are everything and source of all capital, prove it by starting your own auto factory, by yourselves. Good luck with that.

One has to work in order to acquire capital. or at the very least obtain the resources someone would exchange for capital. Every business goes through the cycle of the original owner also being a worker. As more capital is created the owner can hire more workers.

 

[jasonnfree]

Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?

Because socialism always fails which is the top down model.

-Geaux

How can you say socialism always fails? There are Scandinavian countries and European countries that have socialism. Denmark, Finland, for a couple of examples.
Then of course, there's socialist social security here in USA which has been successful for about eighty years.

 

[Andylusion]

I don't know about the tiresome "socialism vs. capitalism" standbys, but it seems apparent that production (laborers) have created a vast amount of wealth that is inappropriately confiscated by firms. Wages should increase so that the source of the profits (laborers) are equitably compensated for their success and productivity.

Workers are everything and the source of all capital.

Tell that to Bill Gates. He (and his employees) obviously needs your valuable insight.

Bill gates counts as a 'worker' when he actually added value to something; he long since ceased being one, and turn to financial piracy instead to maintain a market monopoly over a set of technical innovations invented by others. In any case, without the American government paying for the expenses of research and development, he would never had an industry to play in in the first place.

Gates is fond of suing and/or intimidating smaller firms with 'patent suits' and the like, knowing new firms can't afford toe legal expenses, regardless of the merits of the suits. He's not alone in this tactic. A large reason why the motherboard industry and other computer related industries off-shored was because of the Intel-MS cartel doing this. Apple is no prize either; Jobs and co. did, and still do, the exact same type of harassment and legal extortions.

This has more to do with the patent system, which I am in favor of getting rid of.

But since we have a patent system, you have no right to complain about someone defending their own patents. Especially since if you held the patent, and had the money to defend it, you absolutely would do so yourself. You are lying to claim otherwise.

Remember, the way that the system works as it is, is that if you do not defend your patent, then you can't defend it at all.

If someone does something relatively similar, and you do not defend your patent, then if someone directly rips off your patent, when you go to court, they'll point out that you didn't have problem with the previous guy, and that will cause you to lose the case.

So the way the system is setup, it encourages lawsuit and litigation of all patent infringements, small and large. I suggest the system needs reformed, but given the current system, I don't blame people for doing what they must to defend their property under the current system.

That said...

Whether or not Gates "counts" as a worker or not, doesn't matter. And owning property is not "financial piracy" anymore than renting out your spare bedroom is "financial piracy".

Also, about off shoring.

Whether you like it or not, foriegn companies are going to build stuff. When they do, and they find cheaper methods of doing it, that is going to put market pressure on the computer companies. In fact, just having more supply alone, will drive down prices.

Market supply of motherboards in a global market goes up.... price of motherboards goes down.

When the price drops, you can't afford to pay the expensive wages anymore. Economics 101.

So what do you do? Keep paying them, and go out of business? Or move off shore where the cost of production is lower? Answer... off shore. My company just did this. Just last year. We had a product that simply was not going to sell at a high price. Result? We had to sign a contract with a Chinese company to build the product. The other option was to simply not sell the product.

Which would you suggest?

If you want stuff to be built here in the US, with US labor... the way to get that to happen, is to make investment in the US profitable. Cut taxes. Cut regulations. Cut the minimum wage. Cut the costly mandates. Everything you do, that makes it more profitable to build stuff here, will cause more stuff to be built here. There will never be a time, where you can tax the snot out of companies, regulate the snot out of companies, and magically have them want to invest here. That shouldn't be a hard concept to grasp.

Lastly, it really really bugs me when people complain that government paying for innovation and research.

Because it's not us on the right-wing that are pushing government grants, and research grants, and all this crap.

A bunch of left-winger running around demanding funding for green-energy research, and everything else, and then a lefty comes on here and complain that someone is taking advantage of the research they demanded be funded?

Look.... if you demand government fund the research, then get used to someone taking advantage of it. Now perhaps you specifically did not demand it.... but the leftists did. I'm tired of leftists complaining about the results of the policies they themselves push.

Years ago I was working for a company, and the CEO got up and was talking about a project to build a power supply system specifically for Hybrid Busses. This was 2008. In 2009, we had another company meeting, and the Hybrid Bus system was put on indefinite hold. I ask why. The CEO explained that given recent changes in government, the company determined they could get the government to fund them with Grants, because the power supply was deemed "renewable energy" related.

Now understand what just happened..... We *WERE* going to fund this project with our own money. But we *DID NOT* because the government was going to pay for it. *THE LEFT* created a system where we didn't have to pay for our own research to design our own product.

I'm sure if some leftard on the internet had known about it, they would have said "without the American government paying for the expenses of research and development, (we) would never had an industry to play in in the first place."

Well you are wrong. We would have invested in, and made the product ourselves. We didn't because the leftists in the government offered to pay for it. Now you want to complain we're getting rich off of the stupidity of paying for our research? That's on you, not us.

 

[danielpalos]

Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?

sure; as long as we solve for some simple social dilemma like poverty or a Natural Rate of Unemployment, to keep the "engine" of capitalism, not Only well regulated, but also, well lubricated.

 

[danielpalos]

Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?

Because socialism always fails which is the top down model.

-Geaux

no it doesn't; it is capitalism that always fails to deliver as promised without a profit motive; socialism only needs a social motive.

 

[danielpalos]

I don't know about the tiresome "socialism vs. capitalism" standbys, but it seems apparent that production (laborers) have created a vast amount of wealth that is inappropriately confiscated by firms. Wages should increase so that the source of the profits (laborers) are equitably compensated for their success and productivity.

Workers are everything and the source of all capital.

that is a social concept; the right likes to declaim social concepts in favor of capital concepts.

 

[Andylusion]

Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?

Because socialism always fails which is the top down model.

-Geaux

How can you say socialism always fails? There are Scandinavian countries and European countries that have socialism. Denmark, Finland, for a couple of examples.
Then of course, there's socialist social security here in USA which has been successful for about eighty years.

They are not socialist. That's a myth.

Denmark is actually higher on the economic freedom index, than the US. And Finland is just a tad below.
Country Rankings World Global Economy Rankings on Economic Freedom

They are not the socialist utopias that some think. They are highly capitalist based economy.

 

[Andylusion]

Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?

Because socialism always fails which is the top down model.

-Geaux

no it doesn't; it is capitalism that always fails to deliver as promised without a profit motive; socialism only needs a social motive.

Yeah... which is why it fails. You don't see people swimming to Cuba from here, but rather the reverse. Argentina is not a utopia, and Venezuela has lost over a million people who fled the "social motive" you talk about.

Which socialist based country would you suggest is better than capitalism?

 

[Freemason9]

I don't know about the tiresome "socialism vs. capitalism" standbys, but it seems apparent that production (laborers) have created a vast amount of wealth that is inappropriately confiscated by firms. Wages should increase so that the source of the profits (laborers) are equitably compensated for their success and productivity.

Workers are everything and the source of all capital.

That's not true.

If workers are everything and source of all capital, prove it by starting your own auto factory, by yourselves. Good luck with that.

Sure. Build a car, sell it, make the money. The difference between the cost of the material and the selling price is the value created by LABOR.

I didn't realize that was tough for people to understand.

I sort of get what you're saying, because you base value creation on the existence of capitalists to initiate activity. In fact, though, necessity and need initiate activity, and labor responds. That has always been the law of economics.

Fail?

Let's try that again. If workers are everything and source of all capital, prove it by starting your own auto factory, by yourselves.

I want to see you actually live out your claim. Start with no capital. Build a auto factory, and produce and sell cars.

You and spew all the blaw blaw blaw blaw you want. But until I actually see you build an auto manufacturing plant with no capitalist backers.... it's all just words. blaw blaw blaw blaw blaw. Back up your words with verifiable action.

I want to see an auto manufacturing plant, built without any capitalists. Let's see you do it. Start with just the engine. How exactly are you planning to even DESIGN your cars engine without capital? Who pays the engineers? Fail?

Perhaps you should read my response again; you are correct, in this economy capitalists control virtually everything. That only affirms the power of aristocracy and lords, though. It doesn't change the supply/demand relationship; capitalism only controls it and profits from the work of others.

 

[danielpalos]

Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?

Because socialism always fails which is the top down model.

-Geaux

no it doesn't; it is capitalism that always fails to deliver as promised without a profit motive; socialism only needs a social motive.

Yeah... which is why it fails. You don't see people swimming to Cuba from here, but rather the reverse. Argentina is not a utopia, and Venezuela has lost over a million people who fled the "social motive" you talk about.

Which socialist based country would you suggest is better than capitalism?

It may be a matter of balance. Our Founding Fathers were wise enough to limit our Socialism, to paying the debts, and providing for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, not any Thing and every Thing, as the right would have us believe.

 

[regent]

Is it only called socialism when government helps people, if so, what is it called when government helps private industry?

 

[Andylusion]

Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?

Because socialism always fails which is the top down model.

-Geaux

no it doesn't; it is capitalism that always fails to deliver as promised without a profit motive; socialism only needs a social motive.

Yeah... which is why it fails. You don't see people swimming to Cuba from here, but rather the reverse. Argentina is not a utopia, and Venezuela has lost over a million people who fled the "social motive" you talk about.

Which socialist based country would you suggest is better than capitalism?

It may be a matter of balance. Our Founding Fathers were wise enough to limit our Socialism, to paying the debts, and providing for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, not any Thing and every Thing, as the right would have us believe.

I'm confused.... the 'right' is trying to get you to believe what?

 

[Andylusion]

Is it only called socialism when government helps people, if so, what is it called when government helps private industry?

Private industry is people. The owners of businesses are just as much 'people' as some pot smoking lazy butt who wants to sit at home collecting food stamps.

Both are socialism. Socialism is taking money from any group, and giving it to any other group.

 

[Andylusion]

I don't know about the tiresome "socialism vs. capitalism" standbys, but it seems apparent that production (laborers) have created a vast amount of wealth that is inappropriately confiscated by firms. Wages should increase so that the source of the profits (laborers) are equitably compensated for their success and productivity.

Workers are everything and the source of all capital.

That's not true.

If workers are everything and source of all capital, prove it by starting your own auto factory, by yourselves. Good luck with that.

Sure. Build a car, sell it, make the money. The difference between the cost of the material and the selling price is the value created by LABOR.

I didn't realize that was tough for people to understand.

I sort of get what you're saying, because you base value creation on the existence of capitalists to initiate activity. In fact, though, necessity and need initiate activity, and labor responds. That has always been the law of economics.

Fail?

Let's try that again. If workers are everything and source of all capital, prove it by starting your own auto factory, by yourselves.

I want to see you actually live out your claim. Start with no capital. Build a auto factory, and produce and sell cars.

You and spew all the blaw blaw blaw blaw you want. But until I actually see you build an auto manufacturing plant with no capitalist backers.... it's all just words. blaw blaw blaw blaw blaw. Back up your words with verifiable action.

I want to see an auto manufacturing plant, built without any capitalists. Let's see you do it. Start with just the engine. How exactly are you planning to even DESIGN your cars engine without capital? Who pays the engineers? Fail?

Perhaps you should read my response again; you are correct, in this economy capitalists control virtually everything. That only affirms the power of aristocracy and lords, though. It doesn't change the supply/demand relationship; capitalism only controls it and profits from the work of others.

Capitalists do not control everything. If they did, it would be impossible for people to become wealthy, and yet they do.

Let us even say they do... Now let's magically go to the mythical world where they do not exist. Still.... how do you propose to build an auto manufacturing plant without them? Do tell. Again, do you expect engineers to work for free?

Regardless, it is possible for people to become wealthy.
Wealth, is created. It is created when people create or build something that has value.

Absolutely anyone can create wealth.

And anyone can, and does consume, and destroy wealth.

More people get rich in the US, than anywhere else in the world. The majority of the rich are first generation rich.

Clearly there is more opportunity to grow wealthier in the US, than elsewhere.

If what you claim is true, and the evil capitalists own and control everything, then again... why are people not swimming to Cuba, where the lack of ultra-wealthy capitalists, should (by your logic), allow the average person to become more wealthy than the oppressed Americans people?

 

[Picaro]

Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?

Because socialism always fails which is the top down model.

-Geaux

no it doesn't; it is capitalism that always fails to deliver as promised without a profit motive; socialism only needs a social motive.

Yeah... which is why it fails. You don't see people swimming to Cuba from here, but rather the reverse. Argentina is not a utopia, and Venezuela has lost over a million people who fled the "social motive" you talk about.

Which socialist based country would you suggest is better than capitalism?

It may be a matter of balance. Our Founding Fathers were wise enough to limit our Socialism, to paying the debts, and providing for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, not any Thing and every Thing, as the right would have us believe.

They also limited the charters of corporations, including their profit margins, in granting them limited liability privileges. The 'corporate personhood' scam was a post-Civil War laissez faire scam.

 

[Andylusion]

Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?

Because socialism always fails which is the top down model.

-Geaux

no it doesn't; it is capitalism that always fails to deliver as promised without a profit motive; socialism only needs a social motive.

Yeah... which is why it fails. You don't see people swimming to Cuba from here, but rather the reverse. Argentina is not a utopia, and Venezuela has lost over a million people who fled the "social motive" you talk about.

Which socialist based country would you suggest is better than capitalism?

It may be a matter of balance. Our Founding Fathers were wise enough to limit our Socialism, to paying the debts, and providing for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, not any Thing and every Thing, as the right would have us believe.

They also limited the charters of corporations, including their profit margins, in granting them limited liability privileges. The 'corporate personhood' scam was a post-Civil War laissez faire scam.

That doesn't even make logical sense.

Laissez faire, generally means less involvement in the economy.

Legislating that corporations have limited liability privileges, is greater government involvement.

It's always entertaining to watch the government pass policies of expanding regulation, and then see the left try and portray them as being something an ideology of 'less government' would come up with.

 

[Picaro]

That doesn't even make logical sense.

Laissez faire, generally means less involvement in the economy.

Legislating that corporations have limited liability privileges, is greater government involvement.

It's always entertaining to watch the government pass policies of expanding regulation, and then see the left try and portray them as being something an ideology of 'less government' would come up with.

Of course it makes sense; that was the propaganda meme used to justify removing the limitiations and restrictive conditions on big business in the 1870's and later, along with 'social Darwinism' and other nonsense of the day.

You really don't understand what you're saying, and just confusing and conflating things; that's what happens when you don't understand the ideological platitudes you read somewhere and then try to argue such points elsewhere. Until you get that all sorted out accurately and intelligently, please don't keep tripping my Alert flags.

 

[jasonnfree]

Because socialism always fails which is the top down model.

-Geaux

no it doesn't; it is capitalism that always fails to deliver as promised without a profit motive; socialism only needs a social motive.

Yeah... which is why it fails. You don't see people swimming to Cuba from here, but rather the reverse. Argentina is not a utopia, and Venezuela has lost over a million people who fled the "social motive" you talk about.

Which socialist based country would you suggest is better than capitalism?

It may be a matter of balance. Our Founding Fathers were wise enough to limit our Socialism, to paying the debts, and providing for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, not any Thing and every Thing, as the right would have us believe.

They also limited the charters of corporations, including their profit margins, in granting them limited liability privileges. The 'corporate personhood' scam was a post-Civil War laissez faire scam.

That doesn't even make logical sense.

Laissez faire, generally means less involvement in the economy.

Legislating that corporations have limited liability privileges, is greater government involvement.

It's always entertaining to watch the government pass policies of expanding regulation, and then see the left try and portray them as being something an ideology of 'less government' would come up with.

The Boston tea party was about protesting an international corporation flooding the market with cheap tea and putting small tea shops out of business. The founders didn't much trust corporations even after the war.

 

[there4eyeM]

What about the tax situations that transfered the burden from the top to the bottom (as under Reagan)?

 

[CultureCitizen]

Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?

The purpose of an economy is not producing GDP it's increasing the welfare of most citizens.
Joseph Stiglitz