|
|
| |||||||
| From | Message | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
dmaestro 29-Apr-21, 09:12 |
 Trickle Down Economics We’ve had almost half a century of right wing, trickle down economics. Somehow they claim, if the rich just get richer we are supposed to get fat and richer ourselves off the crumbs and leftovers. That so many, objectively looking at human history, which clearly shows under such a system, economically those who have get more and those who don’t have lose what they have, would believe such counterintuitive fables, is what is most disturbing and shows how fundamentally different we are. Predictably and obviously, thanks to conservatives, the ultra rich few now own and control more than everyone else combined and it’s getting more so. So it’s past time to declare right wing trickle down economics the stupidity and disaster it always was. But we already know conservatives are just too different, and will send the country off the cliff before admitting they were ever wrong. There will never be “unity” again in our lifetimes, we are and always will be too fundamentally different and as we segregate into our tribes it’s clear why. All those of us who see that the conservative experiment was self refuting as history predicted can do is align a majority to oppose such nonsense; true believer conservatives are immune to reason and will fight tooth and nail to the end. Why bother pretending otherwise? Biden’s brilliant state of the Union speech www.cnn.com clearly outlined how different we are without attacking anyone other than Trump whose damage we are still digging our way out from. He is the President so he has to try and unify. But it’s obvious conservatives won’t ever compromise based on reality and will sabotage anyway they can to conserve their quaint illusions, so it’s more a manifesto outlining what we need to prepare to do as we wait for the majority of the failed generation that created this mess from what progress they were given to just fade away: www.yahoo.com. I know, “yawn”. No reply needed. It’s just for the record so when it all goes down you can’t say you were not told. |
||||||
|
dmaestro 30-Apr-21, 12:02 |
Even 4 of 10 Republicans now agree, after 40 years, their signature “trickle down economics” failed. History will show it was one of the most absurd cons ever foisted on America and new generations will marvel at the sheer gullibility of an entire generation or two of conservatives. As Bush 41 said before he had to defend GOP dogma, it was always voodoo economics. |
||||||
|
DM I have money to buy that tractor I've been wanting/needing. I buy the tractor from the dealership and they make money. The people who ship the tractor make money. The people who build the tractor make money. The people who make the parts incorporated into the tractor's construction make money... etc., etc. They all get to put food on the table and keep a roof over their family's heads. Additionally, the operation of the tractor itself has it's own spin-off 'make money' chain. Fuel, transportation, replacement parts, etc. The produce from the tractor's labor also has it's own spin-off 'make money' chain. Transportation, produce to go on other's tables, etc. The tractor is a stone tossed in the pond that sends ripples in every direction. |
||||||
|
dmaestro 30-Apr-21, 13:29 |
Thumper Overtaxing the middle class is bad. I know well, I make just enough to pay high tax rates but too much for all the stuff coming down; Trump’s “cuts” cost those like me in high cost areas money and I am very far from rich; just fortunate in my career choice. And I realize business taxes are pass through and customer paid. The issue is ultra wealthy who primarily benefit from trickle down don’t invest or spend the same way. The Laffer curve only works well at reducing her high tax rates. At the current range of rates tax cuts only increase the wealth gap; you don’t get the increased revenue needed to cover the losses. Because actual corporate taxes are low and paid for by the customer and because the ultra rich wisely make and invest for maximum profit not shared redistribution. Thanks to 40 years of trickledown the wealth gap is the highest in a century and the ultra rich now own more than the rest of us combined. As I have said, the way I simplify complex economics to avoid getting in the weeds is to point out just in our lifetime it now takes two average wage earners to support an upwardly mobile homeowner and then retirement lifestyle despite smaller families which one typical father in the mid 1960s could support by himself with larger families and middle America actually owned the bulk of America. No you don’t just soak the rich and yes you can copy them to a point but the actual results prove the basic point. Most economists reject trickledown economics. What we need to do is rethink the sweet spot for middle America. That’s how we ended the Robber Baron era and grew middle America a century ago now. |
||||||
|
Voters Remorse Growing Faster Than the American Debt "Taking a look at Biden’s 7 deadly economic sins" No. 1: The most significant tax increase in the history of America. Biden would raise taxes by some $4 trillion over the next decade. The plan clobbers small businesses with a maximum corporate income tax rate from 21% now to 28%. The capital gains tax would skyrocket from 24% to 40% for those making more than $1 million per year, thus threatening to tank the stock market and reduce every family’s retirement savings in America. No. 2: The end of right-to-work laws in America. Biden’s plan forces millions of workers to join a union and pay union dues, whether they want to or not. Today, 27 states have right-to-work laws that give workers the right to choose to join the union. The National Right to Work Association warns that these state laws are effectively repealed under the Biden plan. Big Labor bosses could snatch away thousands of dollars right out of workers’ paychecks without their consent. No. 3: The end of U.S. energy independence. Under Trump, America has become energy independent for the first time in at least 50 years. Biden insists he won’t ban fracking, but his radical energy agenda requires zero fossil fuels by 2035, which means hundreds of high-paying jobs lost in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. Saudi oil sheikhs and Russia will love that plan, but it sure isn’t good for America. No. 4: Higher death taxes. The death tax is one of the most unfair taxes because the public already pays a lifetime of income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes and property taxes. The Biden tax scheme of taxing 45% of a family farm, ranch or family-owned business could require these legacy businesses to break up to pay the taxes. That’s un-American. No. 5: Say hello again to the corrupt Paris climate treaty. Trump wisely pulled the United States out because almost none of the countries has come close to meeting their pollution targets. They want America to pay all the bills, which Biden seems willing to do. We are already reducing carbon emissions more than virtually any other nation. China and India are adding multiple times as much pollution into the atmosphere as America is. No . 6: A $400 billion blue-state bailout. Biden wants states that have already balanced their budgets, such as Arizona, Tennessee and Florida, to bail out bankrupt blue states such as California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York. That isn’t fair. It only rewards bad behavior and government lockdowns imposed by incompetent Democratic mayors and governors. 7. . 7: A $15-an-hour minimum wage. This will destroy millions of jobs for young people and low-skilled workers. It will severely damage poorer states with lower costs of living, such as Mississippi, Arkansas and South Carolina. Can you think of a worse time to saddle small businesses and restaurants with higher costs when so many firms are already facing bankruptcy due to the virus? Is it any wonder that socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and radical leftist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have enthusiastically embraced the Biden plan? Some economists, myself included, worry that we could be looking at a second Great Depression with the Biden policies. Something to think about over the next two weeks. www.bostonherald.com SOCIALISM BANKRUPTS COUNTRIES 100 PERCENT OF THE TIME |
||||||
|
dmaestro 30-Apr-21, 13:51 |
And yes the opinion of Steven Moore, Trumper Economist, www.npr.org cannot be questioned! |
||||||
|
Not SO FAST, DM! fee.org Scandinavia Isn't A Socialist Paradise' If you’re looking for a prosperous European country to emulate, don’t look to the high-tax social democracies of Scandinavia. Check out Switzerland, instead. thefederalist.com "Fact Check: Are The Scandinavian Countries Socialist?" The world is full of opinions, but some things are just facts – so well established that no sensible person would argue against them. The Earth isn’t flat. You can’t get more energy out of a system than you put into it. And socialism has never worked. Highlights Over the past 120 years or so, socialism has been tried in a wide range of countries, from advanced industrial nations like East Germany to emerging former colonies in Africa and Asia. It’s failed every time, inevitably leading to poverty, repression and violence. Many on the left won’t accept this though. They insist on pointing to “socialist success stories,” and the ones they always come up with are the Scandinavian countries – Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. That’s what real socialism looks like, they say; we should be aiming for that, not some disintegrating hellhole like Maduro’s Venezuela. The problem with this argument is that it relies on the Scandinavian countries actually being socialist – and they’re not. In fact they’re some of the most capitalist economies on Earth. Norway is currently ruled by a coalition of the center-right Conservative Party, the libertarian Progress Party and the Liberal Party (in Europe, liberals are what we’d call libertarians). It does not have a socialist government. Sweden’s government is dominated by the Social Democratic Worker’s Party, which is on the center-left – but it isn’t socialist. Its policies are based on a capitalist economy generating wealth, which is then taxed to redistribute income. The SDWP has always rejected socialist policies like state ownership of the means of production. Sweden doesn’t have a socialist government either. Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, is an independent, but he’s backed by the center-right Christian Democratic Party. Niinistö himself is socially conservative on issues like gay marriage. His parliament is a coalition of two conservative parties and the Greens. FInland, which relies on the wealth created by private companies like Nokia, does not have a socialist government. The largest party in Denmark is the left-wing Social Democrats, but the country’s actually run by a coalition of the right-wing Venstre, Liberal Alliance, Conservative and Christian Democrat parties, led by the very right-wing Danish People’s Party. Non-socialist Norway, Sweden and Finland see Denmark as dangerously right-wing. All these countries have high taxes and generous social programs – but that’s not socialism. Socialism is where the government owns the factories and decides what they make. Scandinavians hate that idea; they’re proud of their successful private companies, like IKEA, Nokia and Volvo. Corporation tax levels in Scandinavia are low – much lower than in the USA. All four countries are good places to run a business, and that’s a deliberate policy to encourage private companies. Norway, Sweden and Denmark don’t even have a minimum wage – an idea that would horrify Democrats. The Scandinavian countries all have far-left parties. Almost nobody votes for them. At the last Norwegian election the Socialist Left party got 6% of the vote. Denmark’s Socialist Party got 4.2%. The Finnish Communists received 0.25%, while Sweden’s Communists only managed 0.1%. Scandinavians don’t want to try Marx’s ideas. www.rightwing.org |
||||||
|
dmaestro 30-Apr-21, 15:21 |
|
||||||
|
HOWL! LOL October 12, 2020 To say that the 2020 presidential election will be the most contentious in recent memory is the understatement of the century. President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have relentlessly attacked each other on their campaign trails and in the presidential debates. Trump has accused Biden of being a “socialist,” while Biden has firmly denied these claims. But we cannot take Trump’s word that Biden is a socialist, but we must look at Biden’s record on major political issues and see if Biden truly is a socialist. Merriam-Webster defines socialism as a “political theory advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.” If Biden’s policies reflect this definition, he has socialist leanings. Biden has been an adamant supporter of the vile act of abortion. Earlier this month, he stated that he would make Roe v. Wade “the law of the land,” which would guarantee that the practice of abortion would stay legal for years to come. While supporting abortion does not automatically make someone a socialist, Biden has taken his stance on abortion to a level that reflects socialist thinking. Biden stated that he no longer supports the Hyde Amendment, which prevents the use of government funds to pay for abortion services except in certain circumstances. Through this statement, Biden has implied that he believes that the government should oversee providing what he calls “healthcare” to women seeking an abortion. This is one of the core principles of socialism: “individuals rely on the state for everything from food to healthcare.” So not only does Biden believe that abortion is acceptable, he believes that the government should start paying for it, which is a basic principle of socialism. Furthermore, Biden’s stance on Obamacare further reflects his desire for all demographics to rely on the government for their well-being. Biden’s plan for Black Americans includes expanding Obamacare to address the “systematic racism” within healthcare. Many agree that expanding Obamacare will assist in improving the health care situation for Black Americans. Once again, Biden is showing his true colors with his stance on this position. If the government can simply provide more money to Black Americans, he pushes them into the cycle of relying on the government for their well-being and never truly escaping poverty. This school of thought gave Bernie Sanders trouble on his campaigns, because he said the answer to fixing racism was economic reform (which does not yield long term benefits). Biden further upholds socialist thinking in other areas as well: • The Green New Deal Racial Equity • Economic Reform In each of these areas, Biden relies on the government to fix the problem by redistribution of funds from one area to another. Biden has stated that he is not a socialist several times and he has tried to mask his socialist leaning in his policies. This would likely mean he would lean toward the socialist school of thought on numerous other issues. After examining his stances on issues, it is safe to say that Biden is a socialist. www.liberty.edu "Biden’s “American Families Plan” Is a Socialist Boondoggle" April 29, 2021 On Thursday, the Biden administration released a fact sheet on the American Families Plan. The White House calls it “an investment in our children and our families — helping families cover the basic expenses that so many struggle with now, lowering health insurance premiums, and continuing the American Rescue Plan’s historic reductions in child poverty.” This plan is all about expanding the public-education system, unemployment insurance, and involving government in childcare. The Biden administration claims that the American Families Plan will provide at least four years of “free” education, direct support to children and families, and offer relief to hundreds of millions of Americans. While this might all sound good to many people, one should keep in mind that every “free” government program that has ever been implemented has come with a price tag, including Biden’s new boondoggle. Biden’s plan for the government to offer an additional four years of “free education” will cost $200 billion dollars for free universal pre-school for three- and four-year-olds, $109 billion for two years of community college, and over $80 billion in Pell Grant investments. An additional $62 billion will be granted to serve students in disadvantaged communities. As if this weren’t enough, $9 billion will be utilized to train, equip, and “diversify” teachers. Biden’s focus on Critical Race Theory and equity will most likely be included in this aspect of the plan. Under the American Families Plan, the public-education system ─ which is already failing students in favor of identity politics ─ will be receiving more government support to indoctrinate as many children as possible at younger ages. In some states, kindergarten isn’t even required, but this plan overlooks that fact to pull three- and four-year-olds into the system at no up-front charge to parents. This plan also hopes to transform college into yet another government-run institution. It will deliver “free community college and other postsecondary education investments.” The price tag of this “free” schooling is not listed. But there will be an additional $1,400 per person offered through the Pell Grant, and a focus on giving DREAMers access to these funds. A $62 billion grant program will be spent to increase the rate of college completion. How this will be specifically achieved is unclear. One may wonder if students who do not complete their degree programs will be required to pay back money spent on their education, or if they will be penalized in other ways. Teachers are also not forgotten in this expensive government plan. $9 billion will be used to address shortages in the number of “teachers of color,” and “boost teacher diversity.” Critical Race Theory won’t just be a part of the curriculum being taught to students; it will be used to determine who teaches the curriculum. The plan will spend $225 billion dollars to subsidize childcare so parents can leave their children to government-funded, government-approved babysitters while they go to work. But at least the American Families Plan does delegate $64 billion for paid leave so families can welcome new additions to their homes before being encouraged to re-enter the workforce. Families will see an increase in EBT access and free-lunch programs, as well as programs to “ensure the nutritional needs of families are met.” This leads to the question of what the government considers nutritious food, seeing as how Congress once declared that pizza can be considered a vegetable in order to meet nutrition regulations placed on school lunches. Echoing Democrat Party talking points, the plan declares that “Health care should be a right, not a privilege.” Using this philosophy, it extends the expanded ObamaCare tax credits with $200 billion dollars, extends the Child Tax Credit increases of the American Rescue Plan through 2025, and makes the Earned Income Tax Credit for childless workers permanent. How this last act helps American families raise their children without costing them anything not addressed. As if these expansions to big government programs weren’t enough, Biden’s American Families Plan also grants the IRS authority to regulate who prepares tax returns. This small addition has nothing to do with American families, but plenty to do with increased government involvement in the lives of Americans. To finalize the proposed spending, increased tax rates on the wealthy are added by restoring the top tax bracket to what it was before 2017. This destroys all the economic growth that was created before the pandemic, and as economist Thomas Sowell said, it “penalizes those who are producing wealth in order to subsidize those who are only consuming it.” The American Families Plan is government overreach that will drive America further into socialism. It expands big government and government spending, while American families will very well be footing the bill for generations to come. thenewamerican.com |
||||||
|
DM Biden got into the Senate when I was in middle school. I've now been retired for 5 years. |
||||||
|
pawntificator 30-Apr-21, 20:49 |
There is a finite amount of water in existence on Earth. It runs through the cycle and purifies itself, and humans have even finally figured out how to purify it themselves. Thinking of wealth as water is an incomplete analogy. The amount of wealth is increasing as a whole. There may be an ultimate final amount of wealth on Earth, but we are nowhere near that limit yet. You can create wealth in your life if you are focused and you want to. If you just want a welfare check and some food stamps you probably aren't going to create your dream life. Wait, isn't the welfare system trickle down economics? No wonder they are dissatisfied. |
||||||
|
colognehornet 01-May-21, 12:12 |
Trickle Up Economics |
||||||
|
CH "Call it socialism if you like but you cannot have healthy stability in an economy unless the masses at the base of the societal pyramid have money to spend." While I agree with that, you cannot have healthy stability in an economy unless the masses at the base have jobs that generate wealth which will trickle in all directions... shared and distributed just as you say. Giving the masses a billion dollars to spend allows the economy to continue on healthy for a very limited amount of time. Giving a billion dollars to the man who creates a factory and jobs for the masses will allow the economy to endure for a long time. That is stability. You can also call it capitalism. |
||||||
|
www.bing.com |
||||||
|
stalhandske 02-May-21, 01:17 |
|
||||||
|
stalhandske 02-May-21, 01:20 |
Government I hear this in this club all the time. Away with Government. But I have not a single time heard even a whisper of what the proposed alternative would be! |
||||||
|
Stalh Congress accepts money from lobbyists on behalf of individuals, companies, and NGO's as campaign contribution for re-election. They will also accept promises from these contributors to do some thing, in their name, in order to gain public or other private name recognition, influence, or political advantage. Congress accepts these in return for passing legislation that benefits the lobbyists clients to the disadvantage of somebody else. Everything Congress does is for the advantage of somebody and the disadvantage of somebody else. We have the best congress that money can buy. Branches, bureaus, departments, and divisions of government agencies (from the military to the legislative, judicial, and executive all have bureaucratic administrators that oversee and direct the making of rules and regulations which determine how businesses can be run, how to do it, and what may or may not be done in the course of conducting business. These are mandates with the force of law that all businesses must comply with. They are usually costly, cumbersome, and inhibiting. The costs are always passed on to the consumer in order for the company to survive and maintain a profit. The alternative (as Stalh asks) IS EXACTLY what the Trump administration was doing. They had reduced costly regulations. This spurred business into expansions and job creations that lowered the unemployment to all time lows, especially for minorities and women. The low income and middle class were increasing their mean incomes and the wealth gap was shrinking... they had gained increases more and faster than the top income earners. Here’s How Much Red Tape Trump Has Cut (as of 2018 only) www.heritage.org Tracking deregulation in the Trump era www.brookings.edu |
||||||
|
stalhandske 02-May-21, 07:48 |
Softaire |
||||||
|
Stalh You point that politicians should NOT be able to accept money (these lobbyists contributions) is a good one. I agree. They are conducive to poor and unfair legislation, creating an UNEQUAL playing field for business, and bribery. Also, as an aside, this is a great reason for term limits on legislative politicians... the need for re-election money is significant and also leads to those same problems. Eliminating the ability to be re-elected would eliminate to raise re-election campaign money. |
||||||
|
stalhandske 02-May-21, 09:56 |
softaire Here I don't agree in full. Certain offices (such as President of the nation) should be limited. In my country it is limited to two terms just like in USA, except that in Finland the term for the President is 6 years. However, our President has far less power than a US President! In our case the real power is with the Prime Minister (i.e. head of government). And governments (including the PM) sit for exactly the time they have mre than 50% support of our Parliament, which is elected every 4 years. No, I think members of Parliament should be allowed multiple terms. This is to make possible political careers of really good people (=i.e. they are re-elected by the people!). But they MUST NOT be allowed to take financial support, except completely transparently and to limited amounts. |
||||||
|
colognehornet 02-May-21, 10:18 |
stalhandske |
||||||
|
stalhandske 02-May-21, 10:58 |
Cologne |
||||||
|
colognehornet 04-May-21, 10:38 |
inhis_service Socialism (in a Marxist context) was never meant to be an end in itself but to pave the way for the development of a Communist society. Communism does not mean state ownership of everything - if that were the case it would be called 'Statism'. In fact the end goal of Communism is that the state whithers away leaving the means of production (and also political organization) in the hands of the commune (hence the word) and directly by the workers in the form of the workers cooperative. Things like the Green New Deal or Racial issues do not belong on the traditional left-right spectrum. The theme of decentralization of power is central to Marxism - but only actually happened in the Anarcho Communist areas of Spain during the civil war. Marx was also not the inventor of Communism - the roots of this idea go back to the Bible, and the way it was said that Christians should live - which holds collective ownership as a Christian ideal and totally forbids interest. By today's terminolgy Jesus was a Socialist. At any rate it should be absolutely impossible for a country to be Capitalist and also call itself Christian. When the first man put a fence around something and called it 'his property' somehow his neighbours were naive enough to believe this. To quote Rousseau - 'The fruits of the Earth belong to all, and the Earth itself to nobody'. |
||||||
|
CH How did that Communist thing work out for the Soviet Union? I seem to remember that communism caused hundreds of millions of deaths in the 20th century. When it collapsed and the West could see what it had done to the environment in the Eastern Block countries, it was a scared, terrible polluted mess. The information I have seen is that it cost people their individual freedoms and to receive anything above meager provisions or housing you had to be a member of the Communist Party. There were always shortages for the people. The chant of the workers was "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us." Didn't the Soviet Union fall apart because they went broke and the people revolted? |
||||||
|
colognehornet 04-May-21, 12:50 |
softaire |
||||||
|
colognehornet 04-May-21, 13:31 |
softaire |
||||||
|
@ Colognehornet First off, we need to back up and fully let the readers understand that the East Germany you're referring to was before the Soviet Union's invasion under the control of one Adolf Hitler. And all of Germany during this time was under attack by the rest of the free world - wasn't it? The fact that the Soviet Union helped lift up East Germany and helped to modernize was not by any altruistic motive. If the East Germans were go to enter the modern world they were going to begin to do so under the direction of the Soviet Union weren't they? Had all of Germany "fallen" under control of the West it would have been the same. So what, that Communism helped the Warsay Pact countries to become industrialized! At what cost to their national sovereignty? At what cost to their national heritage? Communist United Soviet Russian Republic consolidated the Warsaw Pact countries - or else! Yugoslavia tried to revolt, and Russian tanks rolled in. Remember that? www.globalsecurity.org So, it was with the Warsaw Pact. "The Warsaw Pact: Late Twentieth Century Russian Tool" Then the alliance fell apart. Stalin's USSR now had its military spread across Eastern Europe, and he decided to keep control, creating what was in effect communist client states who would do what the USSR told them. There was opposition and it didn't go smoothly, but overall Eastern Europe became a communist-dominated bloc. The democratic nations of the West ended the war in an alliance which was worried about Soviet expansion, and they turned their military alliance into a new form NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The USSR maneuvered around the threat of a western alliance, making proposals for European alliances which would include both the West and the Soviets; they even applied to become members of NATO. www.thoughtco.com << In other cases Cuba was little more than an American run casino/brothel before Castro's revolution. The USSR was also an improvement on what had preceded it. You say that Socialism doesn't work - implying that Capitalism does - but for who ? >> You sure have made quiet a bit of braggadocio comments in support of Communism and against Capitalism ( Which I am sure you mean to infer - America and our way of life )! Speaking of Cuba, how many people have tried to escape that little hell hole Castro set up after kicking out the bad 'ol Americans? "Cuba: Fidel Castro's Record of Repression" (Washington, DC) – During his nearly five decades of rule in Cuba, Fidel Castro built a repressive system that punished virtually all forms of dissent, a dark legacy that lives on even after his death. During Castro's rule, thousands of Cubans were incarcerated in abysmal prisons, thousands more were harassed and intimidated, and entire generations were denied basic political freedoms. Cuba made improvements in health and education, though many of these gains were undermined by extended periods of economic hardship and by repressive policies. www.hrw.org www.breitbart.com "Russia and the Truth About Communism" sites.psu.edu "Communism in Russia | Communist Russia | Communist Crimes" The communist coup of 1917 and power consolidation during the civil war destroyed the existing Russian way of life, wiped away the thin layer of intelligentsia that had kept the country on the path of civilization and rendered the Russian people in the hands of communists who exploited them to spread war and destruction to other countries. communistcrimes.org << - implying that Capitalism does - but for who ? >> "America Has Capitalism to Thank for Its Wealth, Prosperity" America enjoys levels of wealth and prosperity never before experienced in world history. For that, we can thank capitalism. But capitalism is not doing so hot among the young. According to the latest Gallup survey on views about capitalism and socialism, more Americans aged 18 to 29 are positive about socialism (51 percent) than about capitalism (45 percent). Part of the problem may be ignorance. According to Merriam-Webster, socialism is "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods." Yet the youthful adherents of "socialism" typically claim to want something different, specifically a large cradle-to-grave welfare state. Whatever the content of the creed, unfortunately, the attachment of young Americans to the label under which Stalin, Mao, and Castro marched is disturbing, to say the least. www.cnsnews.com "Ten Reasons Why Capitalism Is Morally Superior" 1 Capitalism Promotes Freedom The most basic freedom is the freedom to make choices. Capitalism promotes choice. It promotes the ability of people to decide what they want to buy, how much they want to buy, where they want to live, where they want to work, and so on. With statism, choices are limited. The government decides, for example, what kind of light bulb is available, how much water a toilet can use, the minimum factory efficiency of an air conditioning system, and more. 2 Capitalism Promotes Cooperation If I want a new air conditioning system installed in my home, I call a contractor. We have to agree on a price where I consider it better to own the new comfort system than to keep the money it costs. Likewise, the contractor considers it better to take the money paid than to keep the equipment in inventory (or pick it up from the supply house) and perform the installation. We have to voluntarily cooperate and agree on the price. 3 Capitalism is More Optimistic Capitalists live in a world of opportunity. They constantly survey the landscape looking for possibilities to gain, to build, to expand, to create. Statists, on the other hand, focus on scarcity. They see a world of limited resources, which gives them reason to ration and allocate. 4 Capitalism Believes in People The capitalist believes that people can make their own best decisions. This is the basis of the free market with millions of people making individual choices. Statists believe the common man is incapable of making good choices, so an elite must intervene and make choices for people. 5 Capitalism Promotes Equality Income inequality is the cry of the statist. Equality of opportunity is the anthem of capitalism. People will never be wholly equal. Because of my four inch vertical leap, I will never be able to dunk a basketball. In a basketball game against Michael Jordan, I will lose ten times out of ten. Even if I practice hard and improve my game significantly, I will probably never be able to overcome Jordan’s inherent athletic gifts. 6 Capitalism Promotes Emulation The income inequality talk stirs up envy. Statists want us to envy and resent the wealthy and high income earners. Capitalists want us to emulate them. Do not resent those more successful than you. Emulate them. 7 Winners Under Capitalism Deliver Value Your income and wealth are a direct reflection of the value you generate for others. Deliver more value under capitalism and you will ultimately receive commensurate rewards. Statists, on the other hand, reward connections and political power. The wealthy in a statist system exploit position and connections to prosper. 8 Capitalism Results in Better Outcomes The smartest guy in the room is not smarter than the collected intelligence of everyone else in the room. Markets are always smarter than government planners. In the free market, millions of individual decisions are made, which result in a more optimum outcome than the smartest guy in the country planning for everyone. This is why socialist countries tend to be economic basket cases. The more the state controls decisions through top down autocracy, the worse the outcomes. 9 Capitalism is Consistent With the Human Condition Incentives matter. If a full commission salesperson is put on salary, what happens to his performance? It declines, of course. Tell anyone he will make the same amount of money no matter how hard he works and most will not work very hard. This is human nature. 10 Capitalism Protects the Planet Statists love to moan about the environment. However, environmental conditions are best where wealth is greatest. Wealth correlates closely with capitalism. www.contractingbusiness.com I strongly suspect you have spent too much time in Socialist/ Communist indoctrination class rooms, respectfully saying, you know? |
||||||
|
CH However you categorize them, they caused millions of people to be killed and more were injured or made sick over the years of deprivation and starvation. They severely degraded the environment in most of Eastern Europe. And, the Party minimized personal liberties, unless you were a member of the Party. That was just in Eastern Europe and Russia. Now consider what Communism did for China under Mao, North Korea, Africa, Cuba, and many South American countries. Communism is NOT a workable government model. |
||||||
|
stalhandske 04-May-21, 20:10 |
Softaire I agree with you about this. But as CH points out, the reason for that is not the killing of people (atrocities carried out during the regimes of Stalin and Mao, for example). It is another quite interesting matter to ask oneself whether a communistic societal system somehow induces or stimulates the system to eventually evolve into a totalitarian dictatorship. And, whether such systems promote excessively cruel dictators. Another point that is often forgotten. I think it is historically clear that Marxism (principles of communism) and the related socialism, after their development since the late 19th century, have either directly or indirectly had several positive effects on today's societies. Effects that are quite visible also in 'purely capitalistic' countries such as USA if you go for the origins! Perhaps I should not give examples here, but make it a quiz: do you recognise such in USA today? |
||||||
|
pawntificator 04-May-21, 20:10 |
|
||||||
| |||||||
