Who's Afraid of Socialism?

[basquebromance]

the left has vastly expanded state control over the private sector...this state directed capitalism is exactly what the Nazis did, my friends

be very afraid!

but of course i'm a nationalist not a socialist, folks! i'm a basquebromancist. i put myself and my family first. and you should too.

 

[Rustic]

 

[francoHFW]

Socialism is a form of slavery.
Liberals are dangerous idiots.

What do you call socialism? LOL
"We are all socialists now!" -Finland prime minister when ObamaCare passed.

He was talkin about communism, super duper.

 

[georgephillip]

I want nothing to do with that shit, you guys can keep that to yourselves... don’t expect the rest of us to want anything to do with it...

The nanny state has no appeal to me

The nanny state has a great deal of appeal to FIRE sector parasites like Trump, for example:

https://deanbaker.net/images/stories/documents/Rigged.pdf (P. 53)

"Tax shelters have long been a mechanism for corporations and wealthy individuals to escape tax liability. But often overlooked is the tax shelter industry itself, where the individuals and corporations that engineer the tax shelters receive large rents.

"This is a major source of profits for the private equity industry, which has great expertise in gaming the tax code.

"Before getting into more detail on these sources of rent and possible remedies, it is worth pointing out that many of the people who have gotten extremely rich in the last four decades have been in the financial sector.

"If their fortunes corresponded to great benefits they provided to the economy there would be little grounds for complaint, but for most of the very rich people in finance, this does not seem to be the case."

Rich people become rich (and richer) by using the nanny state for their benefit.

 

[georgephillip]

"'The biggest mistake that libertarians make is the way they view government and private sectors. Government is the root of all evil, and the private sector is the source of all good. Libertarians have never figured out that people are the same whether in the government or in the private sector.' --Paul Craig Roberts"

The biggest mistake Paul Craig Roberts makes (at least in this quote), is assuming that anyone who self identifies as a libertarian is a valid representation of the actual ideology. Libertarians don't think that government is always bad and the private sector is always good. But they don't buy the reverse either.

And libertarians are all too aware that people are the same whether working for government or for private interests. That's why we think giving them too much power is a very bad idea.

How would Libertarians end limited liability without using government?

Libertarian Party on Corporations

 

[danielpalos]

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lousy right wing management does that. Thank Goodness, FDR was a left winger.

 

[georgephillip]

Who’s Afraid of Socialism? | Open Media Boston

"Capitalism’s incompatibility with majority interests has been reaffirmed by the current economic crisis.

"Earlier, the most severe effects of capitalism had been offset, within the US, by the progressive reforms of the 1930s.

"But capital’s political power was less restrained in this country than it was in the other rich countries.

"Flush with military might and bolstered by a mass right-wing culture of arrogant self-righteousness, US capital launched a withering counterattack against the New Deal legacy, culminating in an almost three-decade orgy of anti-welfare legislation, imperialist aggression, privatization, and deregulation."

Unrestrained profit maximization results in concentrating an enormous amount of surplus capital which can find few safe investments.

"Free market" capitalists turn to highly speculative scams which generate financial bubbles as the real economy continues to be hollowed out and the working class is driven deeper into debt.

Socialism would turn to government for an alternative, but US government is Goldman Sachs regardless of which major party is in control.

Who's Afraid of Socialism?
That's a good question for everyone fleeing socialism.

Most of today's refugees are fleeing capitalism.

"The world is witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record.

"An unprecedented 65.6 million people around the world have been forced from home by conflict and persecution at the end of 2016.

"Among them are nearly 22.5 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18.

"There are also 10 million stateless people, who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement."

Refugees | United Nations

 

[danielpalos]

Our alleged wars on crime, drugs, and terror only create anarchy and chaos.

 

[georgephillip]

What "current economic crisis"? The DOW is around 24000 and the GDP is around 4.1% while unemployment is at a historic low. One symptom that seems to be common in idiotic socialists is living in the past and hoping for bad news.

Why is consumer debt continuing to rise?

10 Years Later: How Has America's Consumer Debt Changed Since the Financial Crisis? -- The Motley Fool

Why is consumer debt continuing to rise?

Because we have more consumers making more money in a larger economy.

A majority of consumers making more money would be paying down their historic levels of debt not adding to them.

Who gets rich from that?

https://deanbaker.net/images/stories/documents/Rigged.pdf (P. 53)

"4) The financial industry is able to take advantage of consumers through complex and deceptive contracts. At one time many debit card issuers charged large overdraft fees without telling customers they faced these charges.

"Though this practice has since been banned by the Federal Reserve Board (customers must now opt for overdraft coverage, knowing the fees they face), there are many other areas where the industry imposes terms that most consumers would likely not agree to if they understood them.

"5) Tax shelters have long been a mechanism for corporations and wealthy individuals to escape tax liability. But often overlooked is the tax shelter industry itself, where the individuals and corporations that engineer the tax shelters receive large rents.

"This is a major source of profits for the private equity industry, which has great expertise in gaming the tax code.

"Before getting into more detail on these sources of rent and possible remedies, it is worth pointing out that many of the people who have gotten extremely rich in the last four decades have been in the financial sector.

"If their fortunes corresponded to great benefits they provided to the economy there would be little grounds for complaint, but for most of the very rich people in finance, this does not seem to be the case."

 

[Rustic]

Socialism is a form of slavery.
Liberals are dangerous idiots.

What do you call socialism? LOL
"We are all socialists now!" -Finland prime minister when ObamaCare passed.

He was talkin about communism, super duper.

Actually socialism is worse than communism, because fools dumbass progressives into thinking it’s a good thing

 

[Rustic]

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Who’s Afraid of Socialism? | Open Media Boston

"Capitalism’s incompatibility with majority interests has been reaffirmed by the current economic crisis.

"Earlier, the most severe effects of capitalism had been offset, within the US, by the progressive reforms of the 1930s.

"But capital’s political power was less restrained in this country than it was in the other rich countries.

"Flush with military might and bolstered by a mass right-wing culture of arrogant self-righteousness, US capital launched a withering counterattack against the New Deal legacy, culminating in an almost three-decade orgy of anti-welfare legislation, imperialist aggression, privatization, and deregulation."

Unrestrained profit maximization results in concentrating an enormous amount of surplus capital which can find few safe investments.

"Free market" capitalists turn to highly speculative scams which generate financial bubbles as the real economy continues to be hollowed out and the working class is driven deeper into debt.

Socialism would turn to government for an alternative, but US government is Goldman Sachs regardless of which major party is in control.

Who's Afraid of Socialism?
That's a good question for everyone fleeing socialism.

Most of today's refugees are fleeing capitalism.

"The world is witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record.

"An unprecedented 65.6 million people around the world have been forced from home by conflict and persecution at the end of 2016.

"Among them are nearly 22.5 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18.

"There are also 10 million stateless people, who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement."

Refugees | United Nations

Most of today's refugees are fleeing capitalism.

Those 3 examples are Muslim shitholes.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

What "current economic crisis"? The DOW is around 24000 and the GDP is around 4.1% while unemployment is at a historic low. One symptom that seems to be common in idiotic socialists is living in the past and hoping for bad news.

Why is consumer debt continuing to rise?

10 Years Later: How Has America's Consumer Debt Changed Since the Financial Crisis? -- The Motley Fool

Why is consumer debt continuing to rise?

Because we have more consumers making more money in a larger economy.

A majority of consumers making more money would be paying down their historic levels of debt not adding to them.

Who gets rich from that?

https://deanbaker.net/images/stories/documents/Rigged.pdf (P. 53)

"4) The financial industry is able to take advantage of consumers through complex and deceptive contracts. At one time many debit card issuers charged large overdraft fees without telling customers they faced these charges.

"Though this practice has since been banned by the Federal Reserve Board (customers must now opt for overdraft coverage, knowing the fees they face), there are many other areas where the industry imposes terms that most consumers would likely not agree to if they understood them.

"5) Tax shelters have long been a mechanism for corporations and wealthy individuals to escape tax liability. But often overlooked is the tax shelter industry itself, where the individuals and corporations that engineer the tax shelters receive large rents.

"This is a major source of profits for the private equity industry, which has great expertise in gaming the tax code.

"Before getting into more detail on these sources of rent and possible remedies, it is worth pointing out that many of the people who have gotten extremely rich in the last four decades have been in the financial sector.

"If their fortunes corresponded to great benefits they provided to the economy there would be little grounds for complaint, but for most of the very rich people in finance, this does not seem to be the case."

A majority of consumers making more money would be paying down their historic levels of debt not adding to them.

Why?

Who is Dean Baker? Is he another Commie you admire?

 

[danielpalos]

Socialism is a form of slavery.
Liberals are dangerous idiots.

What do you call socialism? LOL
"We are all socialists now!" -Finland prime minister when ObamaCare passed.

He was talkin about communism, super duper.

Actually socialism is worse than communism, because fools dumbass progressives into thinking it’s a good thing

Communism would be free, if we were moral enough for free to obey Ten simple Commandments from a God to avoid the Expense of Government.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

What "current economic crisis"? The DOW is around 24000 and the GDP is around 4.1% while unemployment is at a historic low. One symptom that seems to be common in idiotic socialists is living in the past and hoping for bad news.

Why is consumer debt continuing to rise?

10 Years Later: How Has America's Consumer Debt Changed Since the Financial Crisis? -- The Motley Fool

Why is consumer debt continuing to rise?

Because we have more consumers making more money in a larger economy.

A majority of consumers making more money would be paying down their historic levels of debt not adding to them.

Who gets rich from that?

https://deanbaker.net/images/stories/documents/Rigged.pdf (P. 53)

"4) The financial industry is able to take advantage of consumers through complex and deceptive contracts. At one time many debit card issuers charged large overdraft fees without telling customers they faced these charges.

"Though this practice has since been banned by the Federal Reserve Board (customers must now opt for overdraft coverage, knowing the fees they face), there are many other areas where the industry imposes terms that most consumers would likely not agree to if they understood them.

"5) Tax shelters have long been a mechanism for corporations and wealthy individuals to escape tax liability. But often overlooked is the tax shelter industry itself, where the individuals and corporations that engineer the tax shelters receive large rents.

"This is a major source of profits for the private equity industry, which has great expertise in gaming the tax code.

"Before getting into more detail on these sources of rent and possible remedies, it is worth pointing out that many of the people who have gotten extremely rich in the last four decades have been in the financial sector.

"If their fortunes corresponded to great benefits they provided to the economy there would be little grounds for complaint, but for most of the very rich people in finance, this does not seem to be the case."

"If their fortunes corresponded to great benefits they provided to the economy there would be little grounds for complaint, but for most of the very rich people in finance, this does not seem to be the case."

If you don't like the financial sector, feel free not to use their services.
Unlike under Communism, you're free to choose, eh comrade?

 

[georgephillip]

Who’s Afraid of Socialism? | Open Media Boston

I fear socialism for the same reasons I fear theocracy. It simply gives government too much power.

Democratic socialism - Wikipedia

"Democratic socialism is a political philosophy that advocates political democracy alongside social ownership of the means of production[1]with an emphasis on self-management and democratic management of economic institutions within a market or some form of decentralized planned socialist economy.[2]"

In a best case scenario, socialism would bring democracy to the workplace where most Americans spend one-third of their adult lives.

Richard Wolff is probably the most widely quoted economist on this aspect of social ownership.

Richard D. Wolff on The Worker Co-Op Solution | Grassroots Economic Organizing

"The frustration of the left, given this exhaustion of traditional socialisms' appeal, arose from having no other broadly agreed-upon vision of an attractive alternative to capitalism.

"The left could not provide what mass audiences craved as they deepened their criticisms of capitalism's longer-term decline and short-term crisis.

"Enter the notion of workers' cooperatives or, better, the awkward but more specific term: workers self-directed enterprises (WSDEs).

"This centuries-old idea has been revived, redesigned and applied to go well beyond traditional socialism.

"The result is a new vision of an alternative to capitalism that could help to mobilize a new left."

One example of self-directed enterprises occurs when the founders of a family business retire and their children are not interested in taking over the firm.

Professor Wolff and his team can provide a way for the retiring capitalists to sell their business to their employees (instead of BlackRock).

Richard Wolff is probably the most widely quoted economist on this aspect of social ownership.

Commies are cool, eh comrade?

Capitalists are prophets, right?

RED DAWN (1984) was a PROPHECY of the RED DON of 2016

 

[georgephillip]

Who would control production in your system?

No one.

Production doesn't need to be controlled.

If production is uncontrolled, who owns the means of production?

 

[danielpalos]

Would it matter, if Labor could command fifty dollars an hour and pay half of it in tax.

 

[Rustic]

Socialism is a form of slavery.
Liberals are dangerous idiots.

What do you call socialism? LOL
"We are all socialists now!" -Finland prime minister when ObamaCare passed.

He was talkin about communism, super duper.

Actually socialism is worse than communism, because fools dumbass progressives into thinking it’s a good thing

Communism would be free, if we were moral enough for free to obey Ten simple Commandments from a God to avoid the Expense of Government.

Never trust the collective

 

[dblack]

"'The biggest mistake that libertarians make is the way they view government and private sectors. Government is the root of all evil, and the private sector is the source of all good. Libertarians have never figured out that people are the same whether in the government or in the private sector.' --Paul Craig Roberts"

The biggest mistake Paul Craig Roberts makes (at least in this quote), is assuming that anyone who self identifies as a libertarian is a valid representation of the actual ideology. Libertarians don't think that government is always bad and the private sector is always good. But they don't buy the reverse either.

And libertarians are all too aware that people are the same whether working for government or for private interests. That's why we think giving them too much power is a very bad idea.

How would Libertarians end limited liability without using government?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'without using government'. Limited liability is a perk, granted by government - a special privilege ordinary business or citizens don't get. To end it, we simply stop doing it. Treat corporations like anyone else, like any other business.