If only Americans were this motivated....

[X5rolls]

Entitlement vs. pride in earning what you have.

I don't feel entitled to anything. Working hard and earning what I have gives me pride and I had to sacrifice to get where I am.

[StumpyPete]

Originally Posted by Eric5273

What is wrong with someone who works hard believing that they are entitled to have good working conditions and to earn a decent wage? I'm not sure I understand why that is bad.

I would agree, however there are many people who believe that the French wouldn't recognise hard work if it walked up to them in the street. Don't forget this is the country with the 35 hr week enshrined in law.

[Eric5273]

Originally Posted by StumpyPete

I would agree, however there are many people who believe that the French wouldn't recognise hard work if it walked up to them in the street. Don't forget this is the country with the 35 hr week enshrined in law.

There used to be similar laws here in the US with a 40 hour work week. It used to be required of companies to pay time and a half for overtime. But those laws were all eliminated in the 1980s and 1990s. Just a coincidence that wages declined over that same period?

Capitalism, by design, causes the upward flow of money. If you were to have the perfect capitalist system, it would fail by its own merrits as eventually there would be no middle class, and every industry would develop a monopoly or trust. By theory, eventually one individual would own the entire world, although who knows how long it would take to reach that stage.

The reason there has never been such a failure is that people revolt long before they all starve to death. In countries where the government has kept a complete 100% hands-off approach, the wealth inequality has reached a point where the people have revolted. Most of your socialist revolutions were in countries where such was the case -- huge wealth inequality where a few were rich and everyone else poor.

In the US, between 1900 and 1980, steps were taken by the government to balance the capitalist system with socialist policies in order to keep a steady and healthy middle class. Examples of these socialist policies are a progressive income tax, welfare, labor laws including a minimum wage, bankruptcy laws, social security, etc. But since 1980, the trend has been for these laws to slowly be repealed or weakened.

The progressive income tax that used to be 91% for the top tax bracket, was lowered to 75%, and then 70%, and then 50%, and then 35%. The current president wants to raise it to 39%, and he is being called a socialist and this is being presented to the American people as if the progressive income tax is a new socialist policy. America has traditionally had a progressive income tax that was much more progressive than it was today. And if memory serves me right, our economy and middle class was extremely healthy between 1946 and 1962 when the top tax bracket was 91%.

If you are in favor of darwinism and believe that a few select individuals should be extremely wealthy and everyone else poor, then pure 100% capitalism is indeed for you -- the kind Adam Smith wrote about. But know that there is no political democracy without economic democracy, and we might as well go back to a monarchy and live like the peasants did in the 16th century when there was pure hands-off capitalism.

[Wagner]

Originally Posted by Eric5273

There used to be similar laws here in the US with a 40 hour work week. It used to be required of companies to pay time and a half for overtime. But those laws were all eliminated in the 1980s and 1990s. Just a coincidence that wages declined over that same period?

Capitalism, by design, causes the upward flow of money. If you were to have the perfect capitalist system, it would fail by its own merrits as eventually there would be no middle class, and every industry would develop a monopoly or trust. By theory, eventually one individual would own the entire world, although who knows how long it would take to reach that stage.

The reason there has never been such a failure is that people revolt long before they all starve to death. In countries where the government has kept a complete 100% hands-off approach, the wealth inequality has reached a point where the people have revolted. Most of your socialist revolutions were in countries where such was the case -- huge wealth inequality where a few were rich and everyone else poor.

In the US, between 1900 and 1980, steps were taken by the government to balance the capitalist system with socialist policies in order to keep a steady and healthy middle class. Examples of these socialist policies are a progressive income tax, welfare, labor laws including a minimum wage, bankruptcy laws, social security, etc. But since 1980, the trend has been for these laws to slowly be repealed or weakened.

The progressive income tax that used to be 91% for the top tax bracket, was lowered to 75%, and then 70%, and then 50%, and then 35%. The current president wants to raise it to 39%, and he is being called a socialist and this is being presented to the American people as if the progressive income tax is a new socialist policy. America has traditionally had a progressive income tax that was much more progressive than it was today. And if memory serves me right, our economy and middle class was extremely healthy between 1946 and 1962 when the top tax bracket was 91%.

If you are in favor of darwinism and believe that a few select individuals should be extremely wealthy and everyone else poor, then pure 100% capitalism is indeed for you -- the kind Adam Smith wrote about. But know that there is no political democracy without economic democracy, and we might as well go back to a monarchy and live like the peasants did in the 16th century when there was pure hands-off capitalism.

Your capitalism and "monopolies" ever here about trust busting laws and monopoly laws? Theory was wrong on so many levels there isn't time to correct it. Long winded logic... Oh and wasn't there that period in the 1990's where the Clinton's ruled the world, establishing NAFTA and other things for 8 years. They couldn't be more socialist if they tried, Clinton was key to making the Euro take hold for crying out loud?

Now the long winded find...
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/feat...ialism-failed/

Socialism is the Big Lie of the twentieth century. While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery.

In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses, socialism may show early signs of success. But any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies of central planning emerge. It is the initial illusion of success that gives government intervention its pernicious, seductive appeal. In the long run, socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery.

A pyramid scheme is ultimately unsustainable because it is based on faulty principles. Likewise, collectivism is unsustainable in the long run because it is a flawed theory. Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives.

In a capitalist economy, incentives are of the utmost importance. Market prices, the profit-and-loss system of accounting, and private property rights provide an efficient, interrelated system of incentives to guide and direct economic behavior. Capitalism is based on the theory that incentives matter!

Under socialism, incentives either play a minimal role or are ignored totally. A centrally planned economy without market prices or profits, where property is owned by the state, is a system without an effective incentive mechanism to direct economic activity. By failing to emphasize incentives, socialism is a theory inconsistent with human nature and is therefore doomed to fail. Socialism is based on the theory that incentives don’t matter!

[Wagner]

YouTube - Capitalism vs Socialism <-- my version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTyJi...eature=related <-- someone elses

[Eric5273]

Originally Posted by Wagner

Your capitalism and "monopolies" ever here about trust busting laws and monopoly laws?

Yes. They were first propsed by Karl Marx in Europe, and were adopted here in the early part of the 20th century. I should have added them to my list of socialist reforms above. They are part of the socialist ideas that helped to equalize capitalism during most of the 20th century.

Originally Posted by Wagner

Theory was wrong on so many levels there isn't time to correct it. Long winded logic...

It's all stuff Karl Marx wrote about before there was ever such a thing as socialism.

Originally Posted by Wagner

Oh and wasn't there that period in the 1990's where the Clinton's ruled the world, establishing NAFTA and other things for 8 years. They couldn't be more socialist if they tried, Clinton was key to making the Euro take hold for crying out loud?

NAFTA is socailist? Are you nuts? In case you have noticed, the people that are always protesting in mass outside the World Trade Organization meetings are socialist liberals. Socialists are certainly not in favor of these so called "free trade" agreements as they exploit the poor in the third world and cost jobs to the middle class in industrialized countries. There is absoultely nothing socialist about them.

[Wagner]

Originally Posted by Eric5273

Yes. They were first propsed by Karl Marx in Europe, and were adopted here in the early part of the 20th century. I should have added them to my list of socialist reforms above. They are part of the socialist ideas that helped to equalize capitalism during most of the 20th century.




It's all stuff Karl Marx wrote about before there was ever such a thing as socialism.




NAFTA is socailist? Are you nuts? In case you have noticed, the people that are always protesting in mass outside the World Trade Organization meetings are socialist liberals. Socialists are certainly not in favor of these so called "free trade" agreements as they exploit the poor in the third world and cost jobs to the middle class in industrialized countries. There is absoultely nothing socialist about them.

For someone who proclaims "it isn't black and white" you sure do label things that way with the "socialism is the cure for capitalist ales" nonsense. I never said NAFTA was socialist, simply said a socialist style leader installed it.

[Eric5273]

Originally Posted by Wagner

For someone who proclaims "it isn't black and white" you sure do label things that way with the "socialism is the cure for capitalist ales" nonsense. I never said NAFTA was socialist, simply said a socialist style leader installed it.

Of course things are not black and white with economics. There is no country in the world today that is 100% capitalist or 100% socialist. All countries are somewhere in the middle.

100% capitalist would mean no regulations and no government involvement in the economy, and no government granted entitlements. To understand what that would look like, imagine a world with no public education, no state colleges or universities, no national parks, no regulations on utilities or broadcast, etc. It would be a world of chaos where social darwinism rules.

The only example of 100% socialism I can think of is living on a kibbutz in Israel. 100% socialism means no private property of any kind.

All countries fall somewhere in the middle. The United States has clearly moved more towards capitalism and away from socialism over the past 30 years. Obama's policies are no more socialist than Eisenhower's or LBJ's were. I'm not sure why you fail to see that. If Obama continues his current trend and he is elected for a second term, we possibly may move as far left as this country was in 1985, and if another liberal democrat is elected after him for 8 years, then just maybe we can reach where we were in 1965. But currently we are far to the right of where our country was economically for most of the 20th century -- the period that most refer to as the "good ole days" for the United States as a world economic power.

[Wagner]

Originally Posted by Eric5273

Of course things are not black and white with economics. There is no country in the world today that is 100% capitalist or 100% socialist. All countries are somewhere in the middle.

100% capitalist would mean no regulations and no government involvement in the economy, and no government granted entitlements. To understand what that would look like, imagine a world with no public education, no state colleges or universities, no national parks, no regulations on utilities or broadcast, etc. It would be a world of chaos where social darwinism rules.

The only example of 100% socialism I can think of is living on a kibbutz in Israel. 100% socialism means no private property of any kind.

All countries fall somewhere in the middle. The United States has clearly moved more towards capitalism and away from socialism over the past 30 years. Obama's policies are no more socialist than Eisenhower's or LBJ's were. I'm not sure why you fail to see that. If Obama continues his current trend and he is elected for a second term, we possibly may move as far left as this country was in 1985, and if another liberal democrat is elected after him for 8 years, then just maybe we can reach where we were in 1965. But currently we are far to the right of where our country was economically for most of the 20th century -- the period that most refer to as the "good ole days" for the United States as a world economic power.

I see this all the time, Obama being compared to now:

Lincoln
Kennedy
Roosevelt
Hoover
LBJ
Eisenhower

Anyone else ya'd like to throw in? When Obama repeals the Stim. Pkg and actually reads the bill he is signing into law, then maybe I would give him a fighting chance. But he hasn't and isn't. I don't have issues with regulating capitalism. I do have significant issues with throwing money at social programs with no logic (that is how SS got here). It sounds GREAT, until you attempt to practice it.

And now Obama has sent a video to Tehran, which Tehran blew off and said pretty much "apologize for the last 30 years". He is naive and is showing that he really has no idea what he is doing and leaning on Congress to tell him what to do. Now if Congress had a brain, that would be fine.

Part of me wonders (conspiracy wise) if this is a leftist push to make Capitalism look REALLY BAD...to justify socialist practices.

[Eric5273]

Originally Posted by Wagner

Part of me wonders (conspiracy wise) if this is a leftist push to make Capitalism look REALLY BAD...to justify socialist practices.

Everyone keeps referring to the stimulus bill as socialism, but what I see in this stimulus bill is mostly fascism, which is the opposite of socialism. I see large chunks of money being given to special interests, as is the case with these bailouts. There is absolutely nothing socialist about giving taxpayer monty to large corporations so they can spread it among their wealthy elite. Socialism would be the exact opposite.

Out of the total money being spent, only a very small portion is actually going to the lower and middle class. If most of the bills consisted of tax rebates to the lower and middle class, then you would be correct in calling it socialism.

I don't doubt that Obama really wants to move things more towards socialism, but I think he is mostly powerless to do so. What he needs is the people to protest like what is happening in France. If people were to come out in number and demand change, then he will be able to make it happen.

In the end, our elected representatives do care about their own asses, and they will turn down the money from special interests if they think their careers are on the line. It's good that you send letters to them expressing your opinions. It's too bad that more people don't do this.

Remember that people with the most also have the most to lose. Whenever the poor and middle class become restless, those in charge see visions of Bastille, and they will compromise as much as is needed in order to keep the masses content. That is what happened under FDR in the 1930s, and that could very likely happen again, but people have to show that they can organize and protest. Otherwise the establishment simply ignores them.