Failed State - Breadlines of Capitalism

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by Horhey, Nov 19, 2020.

  1. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I never know exactly what that means.

    I do know that we have a LOT of important laws and regulations that reduce the damange that those who don't know or don't care can do to others.

    All these were created because it was found that living without them was simply not working out for our citizens.
     
  2. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Recognizing that our hospitals are FULL and that those trying to keep COVID patients alive are dying at a higher rate than others ... is not "fear mongering".

    You simply don't understand America - or civilization, for that matter.

    Our sacrifice for freedom is a sacrifice that every individual gets to make. It is NOT something limited to those in our military. It is part of the responsibility of every single citizen in America. It includes everything from speed limits to defense against the ongoing assaults on our very democracy.

    And, when THAT fails, we start having to create regulation to cover for those that think that "freedom" means not having to give a crap about anyone but themselves.

    Do you have ANY idea how little respect I have for aholes who are so self absorbed that they can't bother to wear a mask to help keep our hospitals open and our healthcare workers alive???

    Our economy isn't going to open until we get this problem under control.

    Tyson closed, because they didn't do crap to protect their workers, NOT because they were ordered to close. They closed because COVID closed them. And, they left the cities in their areas with hospitals full of people whose lives they had damaged.
     
  3. Gentle- Giant

    Gentle- Giant Well-Known Member

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    Ever since Trump lost the stock market has been doing very well. Capitalism tends to thrive under Democrats. Clinton pulled us out of the first Bush recession and Obama got us out of the second Bush recession. The stock market anticipates progress with the return of sanity to the White house.
     
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  4. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    What percentage of these millions are overweight?
     
  5. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    Any of them fat?
     
  6. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    They're giving out MEAT?

    Jesus H that's terrible management of limited resources :eek:
     
  7. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    You're labouring under old impressions. The same problems are increasing everywhere - America is just ahead of the game .. as in all things good or bad.
     
  8. Spim

    Spim Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That surprises you?
     
  9. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No, that is a common misconception. Capitalism is by definition private ownership of the means of production: producer goods, which classical economics called, "capital," and natural resources, which classical economics called, "land." Private property in producer goods is a valid right because producer goods are privately produced; their private ownership does not deprive anyone of anything they would otherwise have. But private property in natural resources is not a valid right, nor is it an outcome of freedom because it DOES deprive others of what they would otherwise have: their liberty to use what nature provided for all. Landowning is therefore a form of chattel slavery, because it forcibly removes people's liberty rights to use what nature provided for all to survive, and converts them into the private property of landowners. So everyone else has to pay the private owners of natural resources just for permission to survive. The only difference between private ownership of natural resources and slavery is that slavery forcibly removes people's rights to liberty and makes them into others' private property one person at a time, private landowning does it one right at a time. So capitalism is not consistent with freedom.
     
  10. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    To be fair, business owners know - going in - that they're choosing industries which only thrive in the good times - when people have plenty of discretionary funds. Gyms, cafes, tourism, yoga classes, etc etc. Those are always the first things to go when times are tough - the 'recreational' stuff. No need to feel bad for them, they knew the risks and were more than happy to take them.
     
  11. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    It's horrifying. Think how many more genuinely needy people could be fed, if expensive luxuries like meat weren't handed out unconditionally to anyone prepared to line up.

    Awful.
     
  12. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    I don't recall off the top of my head seeing any recently who were particularly fat or stood out to me as a whale or anything like that. I just happen to see the place on the opposite side of the 4 lane road from me on my way into work. Like I said before, they mostly strike me as middle aged or older though I did see a younger black woman with grocery bags getting on a city bus in front of the place this past week. I only really noticed because I didn't know the buses stopped there since there is no pull over or bench or anything right there indicating a bus stop.

    I assume they do have fat patrons though just because many poor people tend to be that way due to their bad diets, or because they are handicapped in some way that makes it hard to keep the lbs off.
     
  13. Poohbear

    Poohbear Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Enjoyed this. There a 'but' to it all though.
    Socialism and Communism are not consistent with freedom. I enjoy the freedom to own
    my own land and run my own (meagre) business.
    In Venezuela the Maduro govt expropriated all landholdings over 1,000 hectare. Later it
    did the same for 500 hectare lots, and has probably moved down the pecking order since
    I last checked.
    Extensive landholdings are different. They ought to be, as happened in England, simply
    taxed out of existence IMO. But under Communism you don't own ANY land or business.
    Here it began as a fight against 'big business' which shifted to middle businesses and then
    all private businesses.
    I see Capitalism, subject to the law, as integral with human rights.

    As an aside, I suspect the rise of China is going to be checked - by the Communist party.
    Attacks on businesses and the IPO of the Ant group show what could take China back to the
    Mao days.
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2020
  14. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    If they're in need of food, they should be skinny .. obviously. So were they skinny like the hungry and starving? Or were they typical, average, well fed folk? It's an important question.

    Meantime, poverty does not cause obesity. Obesity is actually more expensive to acquire and maintain.
     
  15. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    This isn't actually true.

    Cheap food tends to have empty calories, high salt and other issues that can lead to being unhealthy, undernourished and overweight.

    Beyond that, we have tens of millions of households that are food insecure. And, those households have been shown to be more likely to include children.

    It's not legitimate to base policy on food insecurity on finding someone who didn't meat with your approval on their body mass.
     
  16. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    They were bundled up in warm clothes as it has been cold the last few weeks. Sorry I didn't stop by with the calipers to measure their body fat for you.

    In the meantime, there is ample evidence what you believe about poverty and obesity is not true. A few links for your consideration:

    https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/79/1/6/4690070

    https://www.healthcare-administration-degree.net/poverty-obesity/
     
  17. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    Agreed. What is fear mongering is not words but actions. The shut downs are fear mongering.

    You simply don't understand authoritarianism and appropriate government action.

    And?

    We are talking about government authoritarianism closing businesses, remember? I all for distancing etc. I have a problem with authoritarianism.

    No.

    Then why destroy peoples' lives by closing businesses. We already know that doesn't stop the spread of the virus.

    Nothing wrong with that. If they decide to close that is their decision. The problem is GOVERNMENT closing businesses. Have I gotten through yet?
     
  18. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Right, because they are based on the same lie as capitalism: that there is no essential difference between owning land and owning a factory. Heads and tails are considered opposites, but they are both part of the same coin. Similarly, socialism/communism/Marxism are the other side of the same coin as capitalism. Just as capitalists falsely claim that the landowner is just as much a contributor to production as the factory owner, socialists falsely claim the factory owner is just as much a parasite as the landowner. Both reject the fact, which was clearly identified by classical economics, that the factory owner earns his return by contributing producer goods to the production process, while the landowner is a parasite who is merely legally entitled to charge producers for his permission to use what would otherwise have been available anyway.
    Just as slave owners enjoyed the freedom to own others' rights to liberty.
    Running (owning) a business does not deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have. Owning land does.
    After they had already expropriated most producer goods (and done a lot of other stupid things, like giving away free gas), thus destroying the economy. Do not make the mistake of attributing to their last resort the harm done by what they did as their first resort.
    All exclusive landholding abrogates the liberty rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land. The size is irrelevant, except insofar as larger holdings make the injustice more obvious.
    Every holder of exclusive land tenure owes just compensation to the community of those whom he deprives of the land for what he is taking from them.
    You are making the same mistake as socialists and capitalists: refusing to know the difference between factory owners offering workers access to opportunity they would not otherwise have, and landowners depriving them of access to opportunity they would otherwise have.
    Business, big or otherwise, is not the problem. Privilege is the problem. So fighting against business, big or otherwise, is just misguided and counterproductive foolishness.
    Capitalism inherently abrogates human rights, as already proved. The reason capitalism outperforms socialism is that when socialists steal factories, there are fewer factories available for production; but when capitalists steal land, the amount of land available for production stays exactly the same. Producers just have to pay the landowners for permission to use it.
    It already has been. China's rise as a geoist economy since ~1980 has been greatly slowed by its legacy of socialist corruption and incompetence -- which should give you some idea of what a geoist economy could achieve without the handicap of such a legacy.
    Nothing will take China back to the Mao days. The genie is out of the bottle. I can see China going in a number of different directions, most of them dangerous.
     
  19. Oh Yeah

    Oh Yeah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I come from the maritime industry and the big shipyards have apprenticeship programs where you go to school and then work on the ships then back to school etc. My oldest son is an engineer and youngest daughter is involved in hiring at the shipyards. Both went through the apprenticeship program and now we have two grandsons just starting this year. Good training and good money and education while they are going through the process. Both the older kids tell me that it is hard to find good labor at present as we have had a rash of old timers retiring. Sort of a brain drain at present.
     
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  20. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  21. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Our system is an amalgam, taking benefit from individual policy decisions that are tailored to meet our various problems.

    We use capitalism when that works.

    We use other methods for other problems, especially when there is real need, but not a profit motive - like our military.

    Ignoring solutions based on party affiliation or absolute adherence to some preferred model is an unthinking approach that can not possibly lead to what's best for America.
     
  22. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    There is CORRELATION only. Now let's look at the reality:

    Processed and convenience foods are necessarily more expensive than their weight-for-weight raw ingredients. Let's say you buy a frozen 'roast beef' meal. There's no universe in which the same amount of raw beef/potatoes/carrots etc as are in the meal, will be the same or greater cost. In almost every instance, the cost of the frozen meal's ingredients will be significantly greater. You cannot add chemicals, handling, processing, packaging etc and not have it cost more. The very proposition is absurd.

    Moving on, the cheapest diet on planet earth is rice/beans/corn/bread. In just about every impoverished society in the world, one of those or a combination of them will be the staple diet. Usually a very tiny amount of meat or other protein is added, along with any cheap and readily available seasonal vegetables. I guarantee that that diet does not make people obese. It's the very least likely to make you fat, in fact.

    If you're actually claiming that fast food, convenience foods, meat, cheese, and soda are cheaper than rice and beans, you're either incredibly misinformed, or you're trolling. Either way, it's preposterously dishonest.
     
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  23. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    Yes, it's absolutely true. Rice and beans are the cheapest diet there is, but I guarantee these fatties aren't eating rice and beans.

    It's way less legitimate to be indiscriminate with finite resources, allowing for massive exploitation and abuse of those resources. You would only do that if you truly don't care.
     
  24. Chrizton

    Chrizton Well-Known Member

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    I have provided you links to reports. You have provided unsourced opinion and theory. Claiming I am dishonest and trolling makes this the last post of yours I will be reading and the last response from me you will be getting.
     
  25. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    Easier just to admit you were wrong, and that the studies are flawed because they address correlation only.

    You know what I'm saying is true, but for unknown personal reasons you have a need to believe that poverty causes obesity. That's your cross to bear, but you should at least consider how it colours your worldview and your capacity to process reality.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2020

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