About Socialism

That's not the kind of thing adding socialism ideas to our current capitalist system would entail. Adding socialism to our current system would hopefully: guarantee a living wage for all employees; provide for access to healthcare for all citizens; provide child care for all workers who needed it; guarantee a descent paid vacation for all workers annually (European countries give six weeks); guarantee a retirement income for every worker that can't be voided by unemployment or changing employers, etc. The example you cite in your post strikes me as an attempt to downplay or degrade the ideas of socialism as if they deserved no consideration. If true, that's both mean-spirited & misleading, for socialism would be used to improve our culture, not degrade it.

 

What country are you speaking of? Is that uzbekistan?

 

What point are you trying to make?

Mine is that tipping is stupid because it doesn't make the service any better. In fact, it nosedives when you tip.

 

Should it be the responsibility of the customers to ensure the clerks earn enough? A customer tip to the worker can include some for health care.

When I paid wages to my machine shop workers, I had to replace them with workers. Adding pay for their vacation meant I paid a man who did not work plus another man I did pay to work who then got laid off.

It would be wonderful if for a full year, people got to pay workers from their own pockets. I suggest the consumer pay a tip to each worker he deals with as a consumer.

 

I asked my daughter about this. She says in her case, she works hard to make sure her customers get top treatment, fast service and with humor service.

To those paying, tips are stupid. To her, they help pay for her home and her child.

 

The philippines? I love the country. Either awesome service or... well, there was that time the cook was busy rebuilding a transmission from a jeepney inbetween cooking my food. My wife and I are thinking of retiring there in about ten years.

 

I disagree. The core of capitalism is greed. The purpose of capitalism is to feed that greed, with no concern whatsoever for the impact, or harm that might derive from the frenzy for profit. Capitalism is a cold mistress who willingly sells her soul to the highest bidder. America deserves better.

 

Nope, but not far from there

I wouldn't retire there if I was you. Climate is TERRIBLE. Vietnam is a better option. More varied terrain and climate ... AND cheaper!

 

Tell your daughter that until she can come up to the level of service in Japan (which has no tipping) she's wrong. Customers don't get top treatment for tipping her. Maybe it provides some reason to not spit in the food, but she isn't providing good service.

 

Can socialism be regulated? I do not recall any of that in Russia. Democrats made their living since 1933 by regulating.

And they admit they do it. They complain all the time if anything is deregulated.

Democrats are true authoritarians.

 

The problem there is that English isn't exactly a known commodity.

 

Greed is a survival instinct. And you can find that 'frenzy for profit' explicitly exampled in the Progressive's overweening lust for the profits of capitalism.

If America (ie, you) deserves better, why aren't you doing something to bring that about? It starts at home. Are you practicing self-sufficient, nil surplus collectivism? Or are you playing the capitalist 'fee for service' game?

 

Eastern hemisphere.

 

It's enough. And you'd soon learn the lingo

 

I'm too old for that, and it's not like I'm all that damn broke. I've done the math and we can afford a nice beach house and a live-in maid.

The wife is still not convinced, but I'll pull rank if I have to.

 

That is not the core of capitalism at all.

Every human is greedy and exercises greed in any economic or political system. Capitalism is not a person at all mistress or otherwise it is simply the best system we have which allows for respect and free exchange between people. All other systems are rooted in force and violence.

We deserve what we have and it is better than anywhere else.

 

Strike the word Greed. I know when I opened my machine shop Greed was the last thing on my mind. Survival was high on the list. Simply getting a corporation to give me work was primary. i had to prove to them i was capable. It led to me hiring. I did not hire them for greed. i in fact paid for good workers so I paid on the upper end.

So many firms scrape by making 5 percent profit I see no way for Greed to help them. So many other corporations will cut them down to size.

My machine shop faced off with other firms. I would even talk to other shop owners about how they set prices. We all tried to survive.

Then into Real Estate. Believe me, I was not being paid for hours put in. I was worried after almost 6 months trying I might fail.

Customers did not care if my cupboards were bare or that I had a wife and 3 small kids to support.

When escrow closed, no customer gave me a tip.

I ran into one woman agent last year who actually told her customers a sob story and got some of them to pay her a $1000 tip. My son foolishly paid her the tip or I never would know what she did. And she was born and raised in India.

You know what I paid all of my agents? I paid them since only Brokers collect commissions in CA, from half to 90 percent of the revenue they added to my firm.

 

I will try not to ever talk bad about any of your children. I know how great her service is. Customers will not pay huge tips to lousy waitress.

One of my daughters customers tipped her a huge amount that she put into the bank for her sons future college degree.

 

I don't know your daughter, but you used her as an example of how tipping results in better service.

Maybe she is the greatest in the world, but overall, Americans wouldn't know how to provide good service if their lives depended on it. This goes doubly for tipped positions.

 

You judged my daughter.

 

Russia wasn't socialist. It was state capitalist.

It is certainly true that, once you allow for a command economy, regulatory frameworks go the way of the dodo. Market socialism, for example, highlights the importance of independence. You see stuff such as replicating independence of the central bank. Rather than about the credibility of macroeconomic policy, its about the effectiveness of investment support by public banks. A regulatory framework can be adopted to ensure a system akin to the social benefit concerns shown by research from universities.

 

Greed is an insult aimed at others for attending to their own self interest. Are you greedy or merely self interested when you accept a raise or look for the lowest price on a purchase? Free market capitalism is entirely voluntary, which means the only way Amazon, or the corner bodega, gets paid is if they successfully provide value to their customers. Also, Amazon isn't a monopoly, as anything you can buy through Amazon can also be bought in a myriad of other places on line or locally. They're only as big as they are because they provide value to their customers. K-Mart, Sears and Montgomery Ward were once the "too big to fail" businesses and they're all gone now since they didn't adequately provide value to their customers. Amazon could, and likely will eventually, come to the same end, when something better comes along and provides better value.

 

This is particularly naive. First, there is no such thing as free market capitalism (it is neither achievable or desirable). Second, for a market characterised purely by exchange, you'd need all of the criteria of perfect competition to hold. If they don't, you necessarily shift from exchange theory to conflict theory (and zero sum games)

 

Fair enough. But again .. that climate. What about Southern Nippon?

 

Well put.

FTR, I've never used Amazon in my life and the sky hasn't fallen. Also FTR, K-Mart is unstoppable here, while Walmart doesn't exist.