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Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

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Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#131

Post by blumkvist »

amirouche wrote: post #119
chii wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> look around at all the suffering and think this system's working great? i dont think anyone is saying the system is working great. Capitalism the worst system, except for every other system tried. What do you suggest?

There is parecon http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Participatory_economics

>Participatory decision-making involves the participation of all persons in decision-making on issues in proportion to the impact such decisions have on their lives.

I live in a country in the EU. 90% of the population does not understand supply and demand. Even more people do not understand the notion if "rhetorics".

You want those people to participated in making decisions? Do you really believe that?

I am so fed up with this vain anarcho bullshit. WAKE UP. People are dumb. Dumb as a brick. If you want to help them, you have to drag their body over to the finish line.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#132

Post by upofadown »

There seems to be an almost religious belief that capitalism has to work in all circumstances. But you can't just keep pumping credit into an economy with the hope that it will continue to expand. People only have so many needs. After a while there is no real point in building either new factories or houses.

Why isn't that fact that interest rates are zero not interpreted to mean that we are simply at capacity? Capitalism isn't broken, it's just full...

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#133

Post by lazyjones »

Htsthbjig wrote: post #85

When central banks like Japan's or US print money it is called "Capitalism" or it is called "central planning"? When in places like Spain they create a bubble in real state but then try to support the prices by any means, including the creation of "bad banks" so prices don't sink it is called Capitalism or central planning? When States do not control what they spend and the increase the debt by 10x it is called Capit…

This is the most appropriate reply currently.

We bemoan capitalism, but what we are really seeing is corrupt administrations with ex-banker moles everywhere supporting the financial industry's black sheep at all costs, against all rules of capitalism and the free market.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#134

Post by rayiner »

harshreality wrote: post #19
rayiner wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the richest and most technologically advanced societies in the world, consisting of the most educated and most productive free people in the world, people who through democratic institutions can shape their societies as they see fit, are converging to the same basic model, and you want me to believe that this isn't a ringing endorsement of that model?

> ...the most educated and most productive free people in the world, people who through democratic institutions can shape their societies as they see fit... I don't accept this premise. Voting is only a small input into the colossal self-propelling machinery of bureaucracy (and the government-to-corporations-and-back chain of what could be called pay-offs or bribes... ie campaign donations, to profit-increasing chang…

True in the small stuff, but it's pretty ridiculous to say that the modern welfare state is the product of bureaucracy rather than democratic will. Look at polls of what voters say they actually care about.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#135

Post by seanmcdirmid »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #107
rattray wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been traveling in SE Asia for the past 4 months, including China (not yet India). I've been in urban slums and poor rural villages. I also went to university in West Philadelphia, so I've spent a bit of time in an American "inner city". I'd take the rural village or even the urban slum over the American inner city any day. It might look from the outside that life "is entirely in the control of most poor American…

I'd argue you have a much better chance at moving up in the world as a poor person in Vietnam than America. Your argument would be wrong, at least as of the last time we ran this experiment. Back in the 80's we took a bunch of Vietnamese and turned them into poor Americans. Now they are not poor. In contrast, the Vietnamese who stayed behind are still very poor. That includes the ones who started small businesses lik…

There are plenty of Vietnamese/Hmong/chinese viet poverty in the states. And why San Jose gangs are mostly asian.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#136

Post by deong »

Erwin wrote: post #97
SwellJoe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, in some of the most egregious examples (Walmart), management and/or owners are paid enough to make a real difference in what workers are paid. The six Walton heirs hold as much money as the entire bottom 42% of Americans combined. A pay raise of $2/hour for every non-management Walmart worker (raising hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty), and/or giving them reasonable benefits, would not change t…

According to the wikipedia 2013 stats, WMT has 2.2 million employees and and Walmart family owns "over 50%" of Walmart (let's assume 50%). 2014 net was 16 billion but 6 billion was paid in dividends to shareholders. Assuming a 2000 hour work-year, if ALL of the non-dividend was spent on wage increases, that's a $2.27 extra per hour all 2.2 million employees could get. Well, boards often approve costly "incentive plan…

You don't have to single out Wal-Mart specifically. Just put in sensible inheritance taxes, raise the marginal tax rates on high-income brackets across the board, and raise the capital gains rate.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#137

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

tsotha wrote: post #113

Capitalism works just fine. The problem is throughout Europe and the US we have this weird kind of corporate socialism where governments are more and more involved in their respective economies and then blame "capitalism" when things don't work out. You can't call it capitalism if companies aren't allowed to fail. And banks are so heavily regulated they're de facto agents of the state. The banking crisis isn't an ind…

The banking crisis was a result of de-regulation, caused by neo-liberal government agendas. After the great depression, the banking sector was stable and only became problematic again when the laws that were introduced after the great depression started to be dismantled.

Are you saying thats not what happened?

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#139

Post by amelius »

blumkvist wrote: post #131
amirouche wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is parecon http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Participatory_economics

>Participatory decision-making involves the participation of all persons in decision-making on issues in proportion to the impact such decisions have on their lives. I live in a country in the EU. 90% of the population does not understand supply and demand. Even more people do not understand the notion if "rhetorics". You want those people to participated in making decisions? Do you really believe that? I am so fed u…

Perhaps we should fix democracy before we try to fix capitalism.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#140

Post by Cthulhu_ »

wooter wrote: post #92
zanny wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is tremendous long run psychological and physical harm associated with living paycheck to paycheck in perpetual debt having to eat subpar foodstuffs because fruits and vegetables cost way more than dollar menu cheeseburgers per calorie. And if you don't have a working kitchen you can't cook farmers market produce. And that is at best. A lot of us are unemployed, and families are collapsing in on themselves as y…

> subpar foodstuffs because fruits and vegetables cost way more than dollar menu cheeseburgers per calorie. what? not even remotely true. i frequently buy 6 lb bags of frozen broccoli/cauliflower/carrot for 8 bucks. There is cheap, healthy food out there, some people just aren't buying it.

6 lbs of broccoli at 23 kcal / 100 grams is about 621 kcal for $8, or 77kcal / dollar. A $1 cheeseburger is 350 kcal, so $8 would buy you 2800 kcal - and I'm sure there's products with even higher calories per dollar. (note this is off a random website, may be inaccurate)

You have to remember that for a nontrivial percentage of people - like the homeless - this is a survival situation, where 'healthy' has a much lower priority than 'calories per dollar'.

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