Oh yeah, right. He turned Spain into such a shining example of how the modern world should work. Let's all follow his lead & take a giant step backward. Maybe in another century or so, we could invent the electric light.
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Oh yeah, right. He turned Spain into such a shining example of how the modern world should work. Let's all follow his lead & take a giant step backward. Maybe in another century or so, we could invent the electric light.
Me... a commie -- ha!ha!
Yes! Libertarian socialism did thrive for 2 months in Spain. Isn't that a long time in capitalist circles -- ha!ha!
I'd call myself a conservative. Meaning I believe in morality and traditional values and don't believe in centralized control. And, well, I like Ron Paul. Albeit some of his ideas are wacky -- ha!ha! (I think you'd agree that capitalism isn't bailing out the ZOMBIE banks and using taxpayer or tax-sucker money to build sports stadiums. Investors, that is private, should assume the COST and the RISK. Not the taxpayers.)
Obama was never in favor of the public option. The public option would've injected competition into the so-called capitalist system. Again, give people the option. (But the last thing ya want when running a company is competition. Ya wanna crush/demolish the competition.
Monopolies are great from a rational mindset, to accrue profit. And corporations HAVE TO increase their profits. No choice. CEOs are obligated -- by law. I feel empathy for a CEO. Because HE or SHE or the T-GIRL CAN'T act from a moral or ethical standpoint. Sad really. But that isn't the corporate goal. It's understandable. Because it's rational.)
Obama isn't left-leaning. Never has been. (His mom was a neoliberal. Not sure about his economist dad. But that's beside the point.) Obama doesn't care about issues and has no core beliefs. That's my viewpoint. One should disagree with that... cause I'm a commie -- ha!ha! (Commie is the new fag. It's pointless, I think, to put people into a box. T-Girls reject labelling. As do most guys on this site.
Communism was and is the opposite of democracy. I'm talking about democracy.
Lenin created a labor army. It was totally top-down control, state control. I find that disgusting. Again, state communism isn't democracy. Capitalism isn't democracy. Now, one can either favor democracy or not. Your choice. If you're against it, well, that's fine.) BUT I prefer Obama to Bush. (And Bush was NOT a conservative from a spending standpoint.) But he's more hawkish than Bush. And, too, his robot war is coming along nicely -- ha!ha!
I believe in, well, deep democracy. I'm against centralized control, whether it be state or corporate. (I thought capitalism was about competition. Isn't it?) And bailing out the banks, again, is not capitalism. And corporatism is not capitalism. Read Ron Paul. (Oil companies having absolute control is not capitalism. It's a monopoly. MONOPOLY capitalism is not capitalism.)
Capitalism doesn't address the issue of externalities. An externality is the cost to others. Milton Friedman described it as the effect of a transaction between two individuals. Whereby a third party hasn't consented to or played any role in. It's a big problem. Take, say, a car. I and the person selling me a car are looking to get the best deal possible. What doesn't factor into the transaction is you. You have to deal with the ramifications of that transaction: pollution, a rise in gas prices etc.
Capitalism is about the state NOT intervening... except in enforcing contracts. (Or are there varying degrees of so-called capitalism. If so, well, there's no succinct definition of capitalism.) Meaning practically everything should be private. We've state capitalism. Meaning the state plays a pretty big part. Meaning the state/corporate nexus control what gets planned, produced and invested. (Again, what does corporate power have to do with democracy? And some people say: in a market economy ya vote with your dollars. But that isn't democracy. Democracy is one person, one vote. Not one dollar, one vote.)
Capitalism is about investing money to make money by those who have money. It's antithetical to democracy.
Democracy can be a frightening thing. I mean, the majority of people on the planet are women. That means women would rule. Pretty frightening. (Milton Friedman pointed out the downside of democracy. What if 51 percent agreed that the other 49 percent should be killed -- ha!ha!ha! I think people, by and large, are decent and moral. Caring. And this would reshape our institutions..)
And Reagan changed the notion of the American Dream. The American Dream was to be middle class. Reagan said, Yes! You, too, can be rich. What's the justification for, say, Britney Spears making gobs of cash? Well, rationality. (Yes! One's sole pursuit, and it's very rational, is wealth maximization. That should be your sole goal. I mean, why should I care about anybody else? That certainly isn't rational. It isn't. But gaining wealth is. It's very rational. Love, sex is extremely irrational. But gaining wealth is rational. As a rational being you should maximize your own wealth.)
I do not believe that everyone should be paid the same salary. (Sorry, ain't a commie.) But, then, again, what should a soldier be paid? Hmmm... quite a lot if ya ask me.
I think it's important for you to recognize that this perspective arises from your specific cultural context: You simply happen to have been socialized in a political, economic, and cultural milieu that places a high value on the accumulation of wealth. There are and have been many successful human societies that do not value the accumulation of wealth. From the perspective of, say, an indigenous Amazonian, wealth/surplus has no value, so wealth maximization would be irrational. From a biological perspective, love is an adaptive trait that maximizes procreative sex, thus propagating the species: a highly rational behavior.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
And the dichotomy between communism and democracy is not as stark as you state. Marxist theory predicts that the consolidation that occurs under state socialism will eradicate class divisions, then the state will "wither away" because it's redundant, and direct rule by the people, or communism, will result. Therefore, according to theory, "communist state" is a contradiction in terms, and Lenin/Stalin/etc. did not preside over the implementation of communism, but rather of state socialism.
The accuracy, success, and ultimate desirability of Marx's theory is certainly problematic, but it's not accurate to say that communism is the opposite of democracy. Marx would argue that communism is pure democracy.
thoughts on Obama?
YouTube - Fall of the Republic HQ full length version
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Too bad they didn't wait for some actual data before making that "documentary."
TARP More Profitable Than Treasury Bonds
Ben,
Capitalism is about financing. It's not a design & it's not a social system. It evolved to replace the feudal system of having everything controlled by hereditary power. The reality of evolution is that it never stops & produces more failure than success. This holds true with any kind of system, whether it's social, economic, biological, or whatever. There's only 2 kinds of things that ever get done. The kind that you can do all by yourself & the kind that you need help with. The bigger the project, the more help you need. Unless somebody can come up with a way to get labor & materials for free (& we've pretty much rejected the use of slavery & having all the gold sitting in the king's vault), you need a way to put the financing together.
Capitalism isn't about competition. It's just about gathering money, without regard to who's doing what or why, or how many people are trying to do the same thing. The free market system is really a separate conversation, but it fits well with with the private finance system. None of it's about social systems, although everything's interconnected. It's all democracy because people can vote with their purse. People get too hung up on trying to equate varying isms. There's no reason why you can't mix & match any way you like. In the grand socio-economic evolutionary scheme of things, that's exactly what happens.
In a perfect world, the government would never have to interfere with financing. Nice pipe dream, but far from reality. The purpose of our government is stated in the preamble to the Constitution. The rest is details. Capitalism is the pooling of financial resources, so by default, it's all other people's money. The very idea that you can turn that many people loose with all that cash & trust them all to be honest is just crazy, or naive at best. Yet that's what we've been doing, & the purist ideologues still argue that we should continue in that vein, Meanwhile, we have the purist ideologues from another part of the political-economic sphere arguing that we should scrap the private system in favor of who knows what. & here I sit, glassy eyed, while all the purists insipidly decry the centralization of power. I just want the government to enforce the rules to protect most of the population that has some kind of skin in this game, even if it's just a Christmas club account at the local credit union. Hell, damn near everybody with a job relies on the system for their paycheck when you think about it. I don't want to be forced to trust people I don't know & have no way of controlling. The government is all I have.
If you want to see an interesting take on the 2008 bank panic & resulting collapse, check out this interview with Maria Bartiromo:
http://www.booktv.org/Watch/11843/Af...apitalism.aspx
There's some real interesting information on TARP starting at about the 21 or 22 minute mark.
I really think the "left" (& I include you) has President Obama pegged wrong. In fact, I can't really tell the difference between the "left" & the "right" when I listen to the vitriol aimed his way. This gives me hope. The way I figure it; If the whole loud shrieking fringe of the political sphere is pissed off at the same focal point, then that must be the center & doing fine.
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-mone...-help-run-tarp
Tarp and fannie and Freddy
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I wish I had time to watch this, but I don't. But from the little I saw, I think the "new world order" fears, are entirely unfounded. I don't see failing suburbs megering with other entities, let alone a nation, giving up any of its power to another entity. And even if there was theorectically some government official who wanted this, would people really just go along and accept it? No.Quote:
Originally Posted by south ov da border
south ov da border Do you have time to say something on what this movie is about? Looks to me like it is a fear-mongering fest. Then fear does seem to be the major tatic of conservatives. Someone here posted a pic of Obama with darkened skin, in Arab garb. Straight BS. Nothing to do with any real issues. Comparing Obama to Hitler, like I saw on vids about Limbaugh and Beck, straight BS. Obama met separately with Republicans, to try to get their input on the healthcare bill. Obama is basically a mdoerate, for God's sake.
I did get a chance to watch a segement related to credit default swaps. I do think they are disasterous. However, I saw they are only talking about Democrats, when the the bill that made them legal was written, by Republican Phil Gramm. It passed in 1999 Unaminously in the Republican controlled Senate. According to Wikipedia, he lead a fight in 2001, to keep derivatives unregulated. And it is an official Republican stance to seek less regulation, and smaller government.
Also according the source in Hippifried's video, the reason why they did not reveal who needed bailout, to prevent a run on those needing it the most.
Republican...Democrat all the same, 2 sides of the same coin. I feel the next prez willbe even worse...
It's just more rambling bullshit from Alex Jones.