The problem of Capitalism

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by stan1990, Mar 13, 2019.

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Do you agree that the main problem of Capitalism is of moral nature?

Poll closed Apr 12, 2019.
  1. Yes

    33.3%
  2. No

    50.0%
  3. Maybe

    16.7%
  1. Quadhole

    Quadhole Well-Known Member

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    What a bunch of HOG wash. How often do you see an unintelligent person use their VERY OWN situation as a BLANKET for all ?
    Quite often ! If I can do it, everyone else should too. Amazing how OBTUSE people can be...
     
  2. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    It's not about the individual, it's about the fact that the conditions exist to make good. This argument relates to the materials and resources (for escaping poverty) freely available in the capitalist democracies of the First World. Individual choices are used to hilight the fact that they ARE choices.

    But yes, if individuals who've experienced immense hardship and trauma can make the system work for them, then clearly anyone can. That's the bottom line. You cannot argue that reality.
     
  3. Quadhole

    Quadhole Well-Known Member

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    Wrong, the conditions do NOT exist to "make good" When I graduated High School in 1983 you could go right into the work force, full benefits, and 15/hr. That DOES NOT exist today, part time maybe. There is a 300% increase on Cost of Living that supports it.
    Now, how does that "ADD UP" ?

    I get your point, and obviously yours is a point of view to your OWN situation. You should try watching some real world Documentaries, or check the education level of the avg person in Alabama. Half of the people in this country that voted last time got to choose from 2 really bad people, they chose the shyster, That should tell you something. People here are dumb, gullible, and easily manipulated. Ever see a Poll on dumb questions like who was the first POTUS, or 1st man on moon. People here have not a clue.
    Our economic system is a dissaster and collapsing fast. Yet, ask 95% of the people and they will REPEAT what a KNOWN LIAR says. "Unemployment is at an all time low and the stock market is highest ever" Totally irrelevant to THEIR situation. Unemployment is at 21% REAL WORLD numbers. They dont include XYZ, and they do include PART TIME. The numbers are nothing more than rigged. Supported by a vast # of right wing think tanks, it sounds great, just not honest.
    We are NOW QE again, free billions to the banks that never trickles down, none of it does. All we have done since 2008 is PRINT more money, and the consumer borrowed. We raised the value "asset appreciation" and pretend that is a GROWING economy.

    TRUMP BRAGS about 2% GDP. That number is worthless, we changed those parameters. Now we include Government Spending. Thus, real GDP is, and was under Obama -1.5% or worse. Add in a +4% Govt spending into the BILLIONS each Quarter and all of a sudden you present (make news) on a better fake number.

    THE Bank owners are family and friends with the medical, news, hollywood, investment banks, and polticians, all in order to control and lie to Gullible AMERICANS. Trump could literally borrow and spend 300B next quarter and raise the GDP to +3%
    Where could that money go ? He could have the FED buy stock with it making the stock market look higher too. The Public, not knowing or lack of care is the problem.

    This does not help, but also hurts the working class. So do buybacks, they were illegal for 80 years, then we changed it, that is what has the market up. Americans are just foolish. What can ya say
     
  4. Quadhole

    Quadhole Well-Known Member

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    Also, it is NOT the Choice of the boy that grows up in the ghetto and is 13 years old to run drugs, or eat mac and cheese 5 days a week. Then goes to jail for stealing from the local 7-11. He did not CHOOSE that life, it is the only life he knows because there are NO opportunities for him. His parents or parents have not taught him right from wrong.

    There is a HUGE difference coming from a long line of poverty in the 3rd world country and WANTING MORE vs Being born into a Prosperous Nation on the lower end and trapped in a situation of a country going backwards. This country had so MUCH good for so long, we started stripping it away in 85 and has been headed down since.
     
  5. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    You've just shone the spotlight directly on the problem (my bold), thank you. "Wanting" indicates choice - and choice is what I've been arguing all along.
     
  6. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    I can't speak for Americans, but in my country the same conditions are at play. Wealth divide is increasing (especially in big coastal cities), big city housing is outrageously expensive, and wages are stagnant across the board. It's on us to adapt to the changing conditions, if we expect to prosper.

    Interestingly, the working classes who've not attempted to live in big coastal cities are actually technically doing better. While their wages have been as stagnant as everyone else's, their property prices have also remained much less 'bouyant'. In practice this means their cheaply purchased homes are far more likely to be owned outright by middle age - which is a massive contributor to financial security - compared to those on similar incomes living in big coastal cities who will almost certainly be life renters .. thus perpetuating their financial insecurity.

    PS: none of this has anything to do with politics. all of is it a result of the effects of excess and safety (both being grotesquely profuse in the First World) on our very opportunistic animal nature.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
  7. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    Personally I would rather see a Job Guarantee (as described in MMT) than welfare, as praised by that Danish politician in the video; but without one or the other, the underutilisation of c.10% of available labour (designated U6 in the US) that is a permanent feature of our present neoliberal monetarist system will ensure entrenched poverty, by definition.

    Unfortunately you have zero understanding of the MMT JG, but nevertheless just look at the hundreds of unemployed who turn up for a job when, eg, a large supermarket offers jobs. As for a public sector JG job, local councils can match local needs to available job seekers' abilities.

    See above; people want to work, and if the private sector can't supply sufficient work for everyone who wants a job, then the public sector will need to become the employer of last resort. Again, you will need to study what has MMT has to offer, if you want to discuss this issue in a meaningful manner.

    You don't seem to understand I have no argument about any of that (except the bit about contradiction, which is irrelevant to anything I have said.

    No. MMT has to become mainstream before that will happen; my task is to spread the word before entrenched poverty and increasing inequality - the natural outcome of money creation in our "invisible hand" competitive market system ALONE* - destroys our democracies.
    *since not all can participate in this system, given permanent high U6 (noted above).

    Hint: a nation's wealth AND well-being is tied up with how its real resources, including labour are utilised and developed. Obviously it's better if 'all hands are on deck', with all participating according to ability.

    Only a collaboration between the public and private sectors can achieve that outcome. As to funding (ie "how will we pay for it"), go to any of professor Stephanie Kelton's youtube MMT presentations.
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2019
  8. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    1) A 'large supermarket' is a private sector employer, and the people who turn up almost always live within a one hour drive, and are people who don't necessarily want to work a 40 hour week, or take any courses, and don't care to travel for work. That's a VERY specific set of parameters. Go advertise a full-time rotating shift cleaning job that requires a senior first aid certificate and in a remote location, and see how many people turn up. People who've decided they won't work just any job, will not take your guaranteed jobs. Ever. It's literally absurd to think they will. As for 'matching jobs to clients' .. what planet are you on? You actually think that kind of insanely expensive personalised service is doable?

    2) No, not all people want to work. The evidence for that is all around you. There are thousands of jobs going empty, yet people sit at home and wait for something 'better'.

    3) People are entrenching their own poverty. The system has nothing to do with it. If you're unsure, see point two, above. Jobs going empty puts the lie to involuntary poverty (as does every cent spent on all of those luxuries listed in my earlier posts).

    4) You will never again see 'all hands on deck'. We forfeited our universal work ethic when we decided to hand out free lunches to anyone who asked.

    5) Which you will never get in a democracy. So how will you do it?
     
  9. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    You are evidently unable to understand the difference between ownership and brute animal territoriality: territory has to be defended by the claimant; ownership is defended by third parties.
     
  10. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    <yawn> Such claims are easily made when not supported by any evidence.
    Again, it's easy to make up statistics that can't be checked.
    Wrong. Determination gets you nowhere unless you are intelligent enough to decide on useful goals to pursue determinedly, and luck is necessary to avoid crippling misfortunes of accident, illness, crime, etc.
    <yawn> blah, blah, blah. I suppose it takes a rather more complex -- and educated -- mind to understand why hard work and determination often don't get the desired results.
    GARBAGE. To deny the role of luck in determining life outcome simply reveals either total ignorance of the human condition or having led a charmed life -- and I have to say you talk like the latter is the case. Two people are riding bicycles side by side. A dog runs into their path and both crash. One walks away with scratches, the other suffers permanent brain damage and can never work again. Nothing but pure, dumb luck.
    Wrong again. None of those things are actually free because you have to pay a landowner full market value just for permission to ACCESS them. Welfare is far from generous, and recipients have to pay landowners full market value for permission to spend the money in stores without spending a lot more money (and time) on transportation to and from the stores. You have to pay a landowner full market value for permission to live near enough to hospitals and clinics to benefit from "free" healthcare; you also have to pay a landowner full market value for permission to live near "free" education. Etc. You claim all these opportunities and advantages are available, but they are not because landowners own everyone else's liberty rights to access them.
    More garbage. The fact that working people are systematically robbed of their wages for the unearned profit of rich, greedy, privileged parasites has nothing to do with self-discipline. They are just victims of evil. Full stop.
    Again, try to find a willingness to know the facts: that some people might be strong enough to run a race while carrying someone on their back does not mean that everyone is that strong, or that those who are not that strong are to blame for being unable to run with someone else riding on their backs, or that those who ride across the finish line on others' backs have somehow earned that position.
    Fact.
    SOME can. You just don't know enough science or statistics -- or logic -- to understand that migrants and refugees are already self-selected for strength, health, intelligence, courage, determination, risk tolerance, etc.
    <yawn> Wrong again. Google "self-selection bias" and start reading.
     
  11. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    I know that it is true, and that you have never identified a criticism I have not comprehensively and conclusively refuted.
    <yawn> Already refuted multiple times, with no fact, logic or counter-argument offered.

    But thanks for continuing to disgrace yourself with such contemptible performances. Such unworthy opposition reassures me that I must be right.
     
  12. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No. Why even say something so self-evidently absurd? Especially if you then get all in a huff and accuse me of "pretending" you said something stupid.

    I would anticipate enjoying secure, exclusive tenure in return for paying the community that secures my exclusive tenure for me full market value for that service and the desirable public services and infrastructure it provides at that location.

    See how easily liberty, justice, and prosperity are to explain if you will just permit your brain to think something other than absurdities?
     
  13. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    So you would violate my right to liberty. Got it.
     
  14. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Just as you would violate mine. Exclusive land tenure always inherently violates people's rights to liberty. The difference between us is that I would like to see just compensation for such violations, whereas you want to be entitled to violate other people's rights to liberty without making just compensation for what you take from them. I want to pay, you want to steal. Simple.
     
  15. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    So you offer nothing new. A system where the people's right to liberty is violated.
     
  16. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    CONSEQUENCES

    It doesn't but neither did the SubPrime Mess in 2008 that started the economic turmoil that is now troubling the US as it embarks onto the Information Age having left the Industrial Age. Naive people like you thought "nothing's gonna change" - and you got it wrong, wrong, wrong. Everything is changing in this new age of ours in which advanced-economies find themselves.

    As I never will tire saying on this DEBATE Forum, the country needs badly free post-secondary education to prepare its young for today's market-demands (in terms of capacity) as regards jobs. And all the bitching-'n-moaning in the world is NOT going to make any difference whatsoever. Only 12% of all jobs are found in Industry, and that is mostly in any company that has become very highly "automated". (Building a simple car is nothing like it once was half a century ago.) Only 45% of our kids go on from high-school annually to obtain a higher educational qualification!

    You (plural) wanted Donald Dork, ya got him! Lotsa luck with THAT HUMONGOUS MISTAKE !

    The "road-back" to communal prosperity was wrecked with his election (manipulated by the Electoral College). Had Hillary been elected she would have instituted her promise for Free Tertiary-level Education in state-schools funded by the Fed. And our kids needing it most would be getting the educational-qualifications that this New Age of ours requires.

    Ya wanted the Megabuck Glory-Boy - ya-got-jerko! ("You-plural".) Now you-plural contend with the consequences ... !
     
  17. a better world

    a better world Well-Known Member

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    "….who don't necessarily want to work a 40 hour week,... "

    Did I forget to stipulate a full time job? Silly me......and yet hundreds will still turn up....

    Now, the Job Guarantee (posited in MMT) is a 'buffer' job that will likely be temporary for most people, depending on the current condition of the private sector business cycle. A JG job is not a regular - permanent - public sector job. Warren Mosler describes the JG as 'employer of last resort" job, in which a local council can offer work to all those who are seeking it, with simple matching of local needs (eg gutter cleaning, elderly assistance) with unemployed labour, at an above poverty wage, funded by the currency issuing national government.

    [Availability of resources is the key in MMT, not availability of "money"].

    A nation with "all hands on deck", usefully employed, as well as "productively" employed* will be in a better state than one with a sizable welfare dependency.
    *[You need to study MMT to understand the significance of the quality of resource management, apart from its mere 'quantity' - eg in producing and advertising junk consumer goods - in an "invisible hand" free market economy]

    Of course, the elimination of involuntary unemployment will have immense social benefits and advantages.

    [btw, your remote location job will attract workers if the wage is right, given the drawbacks.


    Disproved above. However, necessary work that is revolting or disgusting needs to be appropriately rewarded, well above poverty level.

    Forget the luxuries (they are your excuse to argue against public sector intervention in unemployment), and concentrate on the necessities. Jobs going begging are either disgusting AND underpaid, or require specific skills that the unemployed don't have - in which case the government could subsidise the employer to take on anyone with the aptitude for the job.


    That change was caused by the increasing complexity of our post industrial world, in which skill requirement is also more complex. Note: a lad can't go out and catch a rabbit or a fish to feed himself these days....and perhaps get a job repairing a farmer's fence as well....that's change.

    That's what slave owners said, but the moral argument for abolition of slavery prevailed in the end (in Britain and elsewhere, without the need for war).
     
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2019
  18. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    You can muddle those words around as much as you like, but it won't change reality. We ALWAYS faught to the death over territory. The great advancement was title deeds.

    "Third party"? You mean the King. You want us to be reduced to tennant farmers. Should we wear doublet and hose, also?
     
  19. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    No, those luxuries are the reason for the poverty. They will not be 'forgotton' in order for people like you to enable and perpetuate those incredibly poor choices.

    That says it all. A genuinely poor person would not regard themselves as in any position to quibble - they would take the 'disgusting' job.
     
  20. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    WHAT DO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT?

    Dead easy - it's called Age-Change and has nothing to do with your birthday!

    You were born in the Industrial Age and not-so-slowly but surely we have moved on (with the assistance of the Internet) into the Information Age. What does that mean?

    It means that in developed economies, industrial work has moved on to less-costly climates. For the US, that means Mexico and China. The Manufacturing Sector TODAY (according to BLS data) of the US constitutes only 13% of the entire workforce. (See that data-point corroborated here.)

    Where did the other 87% go? Into the Services Sector as shown by the Bureau of Labor Statistics here:
    [​IMG]
    Note the differences above between Service-Producing and Goods-Producing sectors.

    Or have a look here (again from the BLS):
    [​IMG]
    Look at that whopping percentage in "Personal Care Aides" - Wow! (And who are these people? I'll bet they are mostly females.) Note also the Home health aides sector and its increase. The low salaries in both are very likely female, who have yet to "catch-up" in terms of higher-level education.

    Which is why Hillary's proposition to institute a policy of national higher-education subsidies for all families earning below $100K/year would have made free post-secondary education available to their children.

    And the Electoral College screwed-up that promise - because Hillary won the popular-vote (by a highly significant margin of 2%!) but lost anyway the presidency. What-in-hell sort of democracy is that?

    One that is unjustifiable and MUST CHANGE! How so? Here's how:
    *First we rid ourselves of the Electoral College rule that the
    Majority Vote Obtains All EC-Votes, and then
    *We tank geographical
    Gerrymandering of voting districts to prefer one or the other of the two principal political parties in the US. And, most importantly,
    *Just like all democracies in this present world, the Dems and the Replicants make do and adjust to the new rules!


    It's dead-easy - what's missing is the political Will-To-Do-It! But, clearly, that change is what the American people very-largely want!
    From here:
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2019
  21. stan1990

    stan1990 Active Member

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    Maybe you should study economics again
     
  22. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And maybe you should LEARN economics ... !
     
  23. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yet another technical innovation that spurs Conspicuous Consumption:
    [​IMG]

    The above shows clearly what Demand is all about. From the lowest-cost to the highest-cost models the essential function identical.

    It's just a phone - but one that employs gotta-have-gimmicks*.

    *Also known in the trade as "high-tech-hookers".
     
  24. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    What in hell is a 'physician assistant'?
     
  25. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    Are you opposed to consumption? I thought you lefties all worshipped consumption as the backbone of GDP.
     

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