About Socialism

This has been answered numerous times. But no one can make you hear and remember.

 

So is cooperation. For most people cooperation wins out over greed when the going get tough.

Nope. It's not there. The only greed we can honestly accuse progressives of is the greed for fairness.

As a socialist hater, you don't get to say how progressives, leftists, and socialist should express or practice or organize their interests and advocacy.

 

Interesting. There are still a few K-Marts around where I am but they've been in decline for quite awhile and I see occasional stories that say they're on death's door.

I use Amazon a lot because their prices and delivery are usually the best option. A lot of the time Amazon isn't really Amazon as the products I'm buying are from another retailer using Amazon services to advertise and deliver their products. WalMart online is the same thing. Its a marketplace that other companies participate in so buying from them is often buying from some small retailer somewhere in the world that is using the WalMart online marketplace to reach a wider customer base.

 

OK Robert. Serious question.... Since you apparently owned and operated a successful business, please explain to me why a 5% profit is inadequate. How much profit is required?

 

No, you're right. Amazon became the pure capitalist company. It strove for & has nearly achieved a monopoly on many specific item sales nationally. So, do you support capitalist monopolies?

 

Do you feel obliged by say a law to make use of Amazon.com or if you purchase from them, to you believe you got true value for your spent dollar?

When the Mall first arrived in America, it was promised to spell the death of all small businesses in the malls shopping center of influence. The further from the mall, the more the small shop keeps surviving. so later due to advances in things like better automobiles, we found that huge warehouses with a huge variety of discounted products could beat out malls. Locally I have seen the birth of malls and notice they are declining. But the huge COSTCO form of discounted warehouses are doing well, despite the internet.

So we round the ball. Shopping is now available including delivery from your own cell phone. One can shop when at work in cases.

I do not have to support anything. The market is wide open and a good idea can beat Amazon or Costco or the malls. I believe when my parents owned their local grocery store, they had a higher profit margin than did the Supermarket. Mom sold out as Supermarkets showed up.

I have the benefit of knowing by personal experience the shops of the 1930s up to now. i saw all of this change.

 

I think the difference between you & me, is that you see the world as an abode of individuals all doing their own thing without regard or concern for the lives of those around them. I see the world as communities of people, living & working together in an interdependent system that offers opportunities for every individual to pursue their own dreams, while at the same time, providing for the basic needs of everyone so they don't have to waste their precious lives simply struggling to survive. Your world view dominated human lives in ancient times & up until the industrial revolution. Since then, the world has been gradually trending more toward my world view--something necessary when you have 7.5 billion individuals trying to live their lives on a planet that's the same size it was when there were between 10 & 30 million of us total globally. It's impossible for your kind of rugged individualism to survive when there are so many humans competing. That would be a world of constant violence. Neither you or I would have the slightest chance of survival in such a world. We are both too dependent on others to provide the services & items we both need to live our daily lives. Since we are so dependent on others, it is in our own best interest to care about their safety & security as much as our own. There's a saying: "It takes a village. . ." And, indeed it does--for any of us to survive or experience individual freedom in our present overcrowded world.

 

The natural tendency towards market concentration is an interesting one. We know that its counterproductive. It threatens wage growth and therefore demand, increasing the need for redistribution. And when that redistribution is used its wrongly called socialism, when in reality its just about reproduction of capitalist profit.

 

You & I both live in a society that is interdependent for many aspects of daily living. For example, I don't grow my own food. I don't make my own clothing. I didn't build the house where I current live. I don't do surgical procedures on myself or my family if they are needed. I was educated in state supported public schools--as were my kids. We are all individuals with private dreams, but we are all dependent on others for many of the goods & services we need for daily existence. That makes others around us more valuable to us than most of us realize, and it's altogether considerate, wise, thoughtful, and a very good investment in our own futures to care about others around us. Liberals try to do that by using portions of the wealth created by a whole society in ways that benefit all the members of that society as much as possible. Conservatives appear to be happiest when that wealth is saved for & distributed to those that already have the most. To me, that seems both unfair & illogical, for the stability of a society depends on the overall comfort levels of the majority who live within a given society. And, the worst thing that can happen to any society is division & upheaval affecting the majority of inhabitants. That always leads to increasing conflict, eventual violence & tragedy. Under Trump & his Republicans, this appears to be where we're headed.

 

To reply with pure professionalism on my part, as I try to do most of the time ...

I judge the problem to be volume. Similar to why can't a worker manage to live on $5 per day. When Ford was expanding Ford in the early 1900s that could be enough to live on.

5 perecent of what? 5 percent of Bill Gates sales is a lot of money. 5 percent for my parents, when they owned a small local food store, would have been the death of the store.

I have studied profit margins for a lot of years.

When I owned the machine shop, a profit of 5 percent meant my workers got the money and I needed another job along with a working wife to make ends meet. My volume was just not enormous. I had to pay 3-4 full ti me machinists and cover the cost of book keeping My book keeper never created a profit.

So size has to be a factor. Can the business create enough business? Will it die by lack of sales? A sales person is not a profit center. The producer of product is a profit center. And overhead has to be paid for.

I get it you said 5 percent but the actual question has to be 5 percent of what?

The typical corporation runs from 5 percent to 10 percent depending on what is being sold. Floor space is a factor. If you are a small firm making one machine per month, say a conveyor system, you may need 25 percent to meet payroll and cover overhead. Each business has a variety of parameters. I used to visit the Small Business Government office and there one can pick up from sheets of paper up to pamphlets that go over all of this kind of thing.

I suggest to those wanting to survive an education process that learns the truth about an industry they want to be a business owner in. A guy owning a bar has a different problem than a firm wanting to produce motorcycles.

The person wanting success has to blow a lot of time on self education.

When I owned the machine shop. i was buying books all the time. i learned the correct way to bid jobs. Other company owners shared how to do things with me too. I ranged all over to understand more to be a better owner of the business.

If one opens a corner quick turnaround business, say a dry cleaner his problem is different than the guy opening up a machine shop.

I want to inform but am not able to inform on each type of business. I found when opening my first real estate brokerage firm that one must locate licensed agents. The typical agent is more willing to work for a huge firm with full educational systems in house than some guy in a 400 sq ft office with nothing to offer in training too. Agents like to promote the company they work for. They believe if they work at Coldwell Banker it beats working for Bill sixpack sole owner office. Some want to work for the tiny office. It all depends. A one man RE operation can't survive on 5 percent. I have seen the small fee Real estate businesses come and go. Redfin now offers a fee to the seller of 1 percent. Will they survive given the rest of them failed? I can't be certain. I recall when Red Carpet Realty started. I recall when they failed. I recall a Broker who thought he was going to get rich by charging sellers $700 per listing. He failed big time.

 

I understand that to a worker, paid weekly most of the time, how easy it is to fall into the trap of the one size fits all for workers or companies. That is not the real world.

Say you want to sell your home. And you not knowing the state laws or having forms etc, you look for an office to sell the home. Why not sell it yourself? The market is not for beginners. Agents don't get the money they get by being equal to the sellers or buyers. Agents must offer much more or the public would buy and sell on their own. You buy a car on your own. But most do not buy homes on their own unless a new home. Then they are at the mercy of the builders sales people. They never represent the buyers, they represent the firm building the home. State4 law probably compels those people to hold a real estate license but they do not work for the buyer.

Then there is this problem of Bill lives on Oak St but wants a larger home. Why would his neighbors kick in money for him to buy a larger home?

Apply that to Government. Why would a man living in a ten million dollar home want to put you into your ten million dollar home? What did you do for him?

Apply lessons to government as you want to apply them to tax paying neighbors.

To sum up, why do you want to pay a lot of money so that bum sleeping in the street is catapulted into a lovely home? Bums will burn out and lose the place.

 

Here are lessons from a now dead but awesome human being on success.

TIP. If you are as good as you can possibly be, ignore the below videos. If you want to improve life, watch these and also on youtube watch all of his presentations. He is why Tony Robbins got rich.

He is the single most common sense speaker I ever saw a number of times in fact.



Please, watch this too.

 

You should at least go for some high brow stuff such as creative destruction, with monopoly power driving the innovation process.

 

Robert, if a business is incorporated, your own pay is part of expenses and is "covered" (accounted for) before calculating profit. Profit is what remains after all costs are subtracted from revenue. When you say 5% left you needing another job, it tells me that either your business wasn't incorporated and you are considering your own income to be "profit", or that you are misstating facts. "PROFIT" is profit. It doesn't include your income. If your business is incorporated you would get your income even if the business profit were zero. So I don't understand what you're saying.

 

I read two lines and rushed to correct your inaccurate comments about me. I can't correct a thing you said about you since i believe you know yourself best. But it is a huge risk to speak for me.

In an ideal community as you appear to visualize it, when you lose your job, you will have your neighbors that you hope or presume understand you better than some dude in Florida or Wyoming does, will rush to your to hand you money to pay your home loan, feed your family and give you entertainment funds. In short take your place.

I wish all humans operated as you wish they do. I do not believe they are like a mound of termites all supporting the nest.

i do not see how the addition of populations means you must pay my bills, even government
bills.

I suggest all poster commence educating themselves using the free You tube. It has a lot of hack jobs but also has world class people that understand this topic.

I posted two videos by Jim Rohn. Rohn died some years back but I was one of the fortunate Americans to meet the man and profit from his lessons. He was very humble. And he thought so much of helping the public, his talks were really a community service.

I have in my 80 years of live done the butterfly thing. I started out as a Democratic party worm. I realized the philosophy taught by them was a failing system.

To digress to prove my comment, what good did the Civil Rights law do for America?

Blacks prior to it had almost entirely a two parent home. Actually they were making tons of progress. Today blacks as a group have about 20 percent with two parents. When I was a kid, blacks did not live on welfare. Today a large percent of them live on welfare. So that is the failure of the Democratic party ideology. And it is really worse than that. As a kid in grade school, mass killings by kids was not known. Today we know a lot about this. Until about 1978, I was as a human being still in the worm stage with no butterfly wings. I read a super book. I invite all to read it. A time for Truth by William Simon is a good start.

If you truly wish to advance, study the individual. I do not study groups. I have studied a large number of super achievers and have many books for self improvement. I do not depend on the mob to improve my life. I know the mob has a lot on the mobs plate and can't waste time on me.

Look at the futile nature of forums?

What is the arguments? Who have you persuaded? i doubt I persuade many. It is a huge consumption of time to try to reply to each post that comes at me. I am sure you get tired of talking to the hand too.

Some of us must think we are Jesus and have the magic system to convert others to how we do things. Hell I have tried to persuade.

I prefer not to fight, but to guide. I prefer to be guided and not harassed. Watch how @Lesh badgers posters. I prefer that style of posting vanishes.

If you truly want to be a better human, try to spend time on Jim Rohn's videos on You Tube. He is not magic man. But I have seen him in person prior to his death and he has a talent to reach large audiences and they then change their own lives. Below is but one of that mans videos. It could change your life. Can you lose? I never saw a person lose using his lessons.

 

To be sure, capitalism has positive aspects lacking in all other systems. But unregulated capitalism can be a harsh, destructive, abusive system too. Mixing elements of socialism with capitalism helps mitigate those abuses. A mixed system is the best system possible--not capitalism or socialism alone.

 

Kode, you you mean well but you are talking to a man who has spent decades understanding what you are saying.

I was making the point that you simply ignored or my bad for not explaining it well is that small firms do have wives that work to keep the business that loses money open for business. She does this praying the man is able to pull in more business. Some businesses will die if they are not out selling. Some like Costco open doors and the crowds enter and automatically buy goods.

I will not try to cover all types of business.

I did not incorporate the machine shop but later did incorporate my brokers business. I understand all about that stuff.

My machine shop and my RE business both depended on driving all over seeing jobs. In the case of the shop, it also had to fight other shops for the same work. If they bid lower, unless my product was superior, they got the job. I had my men working on two principles or more. But two major principles.

1. Be super fast at output.
2. Make sure my firm delivers extreme quality.

I trained my machinists how to work super fast, but not kill themselves and how they could create superior looking products.

For my Real Estate Broker firm, I would take out all my agents to a lot of homes to illustrate to them the correct way to show homes. i trained them how to study quality in homes. i did this for my appraisers too. Each Appraiser got trained by me to understand their craft. The appraisal teaching schools were mostly poor quality schools

I have lived this creed. Be the best.

When one builds a home, be the best carpenter. Be the best electrician or plumber. Top the competition. The market wants and needs top craftsmen.

I apparently was no help to you at all.

I have many years of study on what you are talking about. I do understand your message.

 

Socialism can be much more harsh than capitalism can be.

Competition regulates. We have this strange idea that a company can get away with anything.

I think an uneducated consumer can't be helped by law, but can be helped by correct education.

Say your state DMV faced commercial competition. The public would love the service of the private firm more than the government operation.

 

Why?

Perhaps you did not explain well. I don't get it.

 

Because that's the high brow right wing response to my comment about market power. Its temporary; it drives the innovation process.

Perhaps you meant to respond to a different post, where content isn't important?

 

Sounds good huh?

I look at life like baseball players look at the game.

To hit the most home runs, one has to have a measure of talent, drive and practice the craft.
But to play a game where the worst hitters are simply handed free runs, is nuts.

Hits expressed in other ways is money.

Oh manager, please on his scorecard donate other people's hits to that poor player. He needs runs so much.

Nuts to Democrats teachings.

 

Don't look at me for this idea you call high brow. i simply am trying to add to others lives in constructiove ways.

The market does have power. Amazon.com shows such power as does Walmart and Costco stores.

Look at the value of the electric light. Edison failed and failed but finally made it work properly.

How would society have done if for him?

 

Nothing constructive in the bobbins you tried to make me watch.

Market power isn't a positive.

The follow with the right wing 'constructive destruction' angle is that they forget that Schumpeter was referring to the eventual end of capitalism. Hey ho!

 

That is your best.

My best has or is a lot more good than yours is.