Rational Politics.
Posted on: August 14, 2008 - 12:18pm
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Rational Politics.
I've come to the conclusion that the current atheist movement is full of so many socialists, neo-Marxists with far left wing political ideals, that there is no way the movement could be considered ‘rational’. It operates just like religions, based on how one wishes the universe operates not on how it actually works. Devotion to dogma is more important than facts. I don't want to have anything to do with this because it's pretty much the same kind of irrational dogma as religion.
I understand the thinking that if government could eliminate poverty and human need that people would need to turn to religion as their only hope. But this is a false idea first that governments could ever do this without going bankrupt. The key to eliminating religion is not making people dependent on government through a welfare state but enabling every citizen to become self-sufficient through an effective education/rehabilitation system.
If there is not a general consensus among rational thinking people in this self-sufficiency principle, I see no point in having anything to do with the so-called rational atheism movement. I think this web site is just going to turn into a haven for irrational neo-Marxist dogma, just as irrational as any right wing religious group. Ignoring how economics and human nature actually work. It’s just changing one form of irrationality for another. It’s just replacing a celestial sugar-daddy (God) for an earthly one (Government). How about no sugar-daddies?
In many ways socialist political values are similar to irrational Theism:
1. Based on wish thinking. The thinking/decision and opinion making is based upon how one wishes the world works, not on how it actually works. Theists and socialists both wish there could be an all-powerful entity with unlimited resouces that could eliminate all problems just by asking it to do so. The only way humans can eliminate problems is with effective education and hard work. Government, the rich and corporations can not be or sugar daddy.
2. Devotion to a dogma and practices that have been proven not to work. Prayer never works for the Theist. Yet they persist. Why it makes them feel good. They feel like they are doing something to help the situation when they are actually doing nothing. They convince themselves that they care as some kind of drug to feel good about themselves.
Socialist liberals do the same thing. They use other people's money to give to benefit someone, they believe they've helped when they've done nothing but make the problem worse. But feeling that they care is they way they make themselves feel good. You point out to socialist the failures of the system. They will ignore the facts. Devotion to the dogma of wealth redistribution/welfare can solve all problems is of supreme value.
3. Demonization of anyone that disagrees with them. Anyone that does not agree with them is labeled as uncaring and cold-hearted. They do this to avoid defending the rationality of their position. The fact is that socialist values are so irrational and destructive that many people are driven towards right wing Christian fundamentalism.
These should be the political goals of every rational thinking person:
1. The main political goal of every rational person should be to have an effective education system that enables every person to become self-sufficient. This includes worker retraining and effective rehabilitation of criminals. Technology and scientific principles must be applied to effectively and efficiently educated and retrain people. Publicly education must be centered first and foremost on enabling people to become self-sufficient. Students can’t be allowed to study whatever they want if it does not enable them to be self-sufficient. Schools and teachers that do not train people to be self-sufficient should be cut off from public financing. Education is the only effective tool to eliminate poverty and human over-population.
2. Welfare can only be a temporary solution while citizens are being educated or rehabilitated. Society needs to make a social contract with its citizens. When one is in a difficult spot, a social worker should evaluate their situation then come up with a plan of action to put the individual/family on a path to self-sufficiency. The help cannot be interminable and only citizens that cooperate with the rehabilitation program can receive benefits.
Socialist seem to be content with a failed education/rehabilitation system. They seem to believe it is impossible to educate a large portion at a level to make them self-sufficient so we then need to pay even more for welfare. How about not accepting failure as an option? Then they want people and businesses with some money to give even more to governments that are failing to properly educate our poor dependent citizens in the first place. This cycle of government failure must not be tolerated.
3. Government mandates for private businesses should be avoided. If businesses are forced to pay high wages and provide services that don't make economic sense, they overall effect will be negative. If businesses are forced by mandate to do these things, they will either pass the costs on to consumer in the form of higher prices or they will go out of business. Either way the poor will be the ones most hurt by these mandates. Government regulation of businesses should be aimed only at preventing fraud and environmental destruction. Businesses will not pay high wages for large numbers of unskilled workers. They will either go out of business or use automation to eliminate jobs.
4. Income and sales taxes should be eliminated or kept very low. Society should move toward being a pay as you go system where self-sufficient people pay for the government services they use. Income tax discourages hard work and investment. If the rich are heavily taxed, they will simply stop investing in job creating enterprises and take their money to places where they can avoid the tax man.
5. Protection of the environment is a high priority. Human activates that pollute the environment or use a large amount of natural recourses should be eliminated or heavily taxed. This will encourage the development of technologies that have a low impact on the environment.
6. Leveling the playing field for all citizens. The way to make the economy fairer for the poor is to eliminate corporate welfare. The exploitation of the environment and natural recourses should not be a protected means of generating wealth. Wealth should be generated though work, investment, and entrepreneurship that solves real problems and meets the real needs of society.
[FORMATTING CORRECTED BY SAPIENT]
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
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Caring EXT, geezz ... You and a lot of us use strong language to make our passionate points. I doubt any here are of a murderous nature. Revolution and 'eat the rich' don't necessarily imply violence. Aren't we really talking more of a fair "middle"? Do you really think "dynasties" and a small mega rich class are good things?
Jefferson said an occasional revolution is a good thing, and a standing army was a bad idea. He also didn't trust the rich.
Don't a lot of the rich just invent money?
Cartoon - Duck Tales Inflation Lesson - 4 mins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_LWQQrpSc4
Atheism Books.
sorry, i was never aware that the english language and marxism are incompatible. oh wait, that's right, you have no fucking clue what marxism is. almost forgot...
you know, marx actually wrote in english every now and then. he's buried in london.
you also have no fucking clue about slovakia. it's not poor in the least, and it has very heavy foreign investment. so anytime you wanna call u.s. steel, kia, peugeot, citroen, molex, swep, t-systems, etc., etc., and warn them about little old me, go right ahead. you apparently have the power to make one of the fastest growing economies in the european union grind to a halt. congratulations. i await the apocalypse, douchebag.
but wait...what did i hear before?...
whoa whoa whoa, let's back it up one sec. once more, please:
once more, just to be sure:
i do what now??? when the fuck did i bash america? somebody??? please? help me out here? i bashed capitalism, i bashed the free market...well, actually, i didn't even do those things; all i did was try to explain to someone--very sloooowly--that he shouldn't talk about a political theory of which he knows nothing.
but to this person, i bashed america.
hm.
well, if i needed any more proof that i'm talking to a neocon, right-wing nutter to whom america is nothing more than the laissez-faire status quo and anyone who doesn't agree with said status quo is bashing america, that little freudian slip just solved my problem!
no.
btw, it's "bourgeois," mr. education reform.
seriously, dude, fuck off. this is getting embarrassing for everyone. why are you still here? nobody is taking you seriously at this point but you. seems to me like if an internet forum got me this riled up, i'd just quit it.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
It's people like EXC that were actually managed to spread communism through out the world. Luckily people like that will never get into political power (even in America) or if they did are likely to start a revolution against them.
The only rights you have are the ones that society/government recognises
The only private property you have is that which society legal system recognises (ie without society/government private property simply does not exist)
He knew where the money(therefore power) was too. Just as much of a hypocrite as you. And we should center our Economic policy on the writings of a man that was too lazy to shave or comb his hair.
BTW, you should capitalize 'You, Marx, English and London' since you're so into perfect English.
Again more proof that your politics is exactly like a religion.
Capitalize 'I' & 'douche bag' is two words.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
And now we observe EXC, instead of actually rebutting his opponent (if he ever did do that, to any of them), scrutinizing language use and inventing the idea that iwbeik is '... so into perfect English.' This is apart from the out-of-context quoting of 'i await the apocalypse, douchebag (sic).' which is actually, in context, a condescension. Perhaps EXC should work on his argumentative and literacy skills and actually respond to what has actually been written by the people arguing him?
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Can't you people just stop talking to this asshole? He's already shown that he doesn't listen to anyone unless they're saying the exact same thing that he does. Trying to correct him is futile, because he just know he's right, and nothing you can ever say will change that. Even if you would take the square rock and put it in front of him, he would just close his eyes and continue to call it a circle. Everyone except EXC can see this, so there's no reason to go on with this tiring thread.
For the sake of humanity, give it a mercy shot and let it die.
"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy."
i'm not into perfect english. "bourgeois" is french, douchebag.
maybe i'm motherfuckin' e. e. cummings. douchebag.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
you're completely right. but for me, it's kinda like hawkeye and trapper john fucking with frank burns until they finally haul him off in a straitjacket in the original m*a*s*h movie. i just can't resist.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Ok, here we go...
Two words: Uncalled for.
You continue to strawman the left-wing position. Even after we explain our varied positions, you don't respond, moreover you call us thugs for wanting to hold the thugs in power to account. Wage-labour isn't fair, nor is private ownership of capital, and it is barely justifiable. Are you going to tell me that my boss works as hard for his millions as I do for my minimum wage? I doubt it.
I've already explained this in previous posts, which clearly you've ignored. Hey, maybe we can change that, maybe we can't, who the fuck knows, but it doesn't stop us wanting to change it. It's a possibility that violent revolution may be necessary for change to come, it's possible that it won't. I don't share your bleak view on human nature, we are selfish yes, I'm selfish, but we're also a very altruistic social ape. This isn't wishful thinking, it is an empirical observation. Another observation from history is that human beings have lived in a range of social and economic systems, of which capitalism is only the most recent. Another observation is that capitalism is an unstable economic system that can never see past the end of its own nose. These observations lead me to believe that change is possible, maybe change can be for the worse, maybe for the better. Sure, I used to delude myself that one day the revolution would come and save us all, and human beings would live in peace forever. Several years of rigorous philsophical training has erased any traces of that faith in the simplistic historical dialectic, I am an empiricist through and through, and yeah sure, that's filled me with dread about how crap human beings can be, but it is impossible to deny that human beings are as much altruistic "moral" creatures as they are Earth-raping parasites.
Atheist Books
I agree. Capitalism or any system can't work if there is fraud and intimidation. But what makes you think Communism or Socialism wouldn't also have greedy frauds taking advantage of the system? The socialists say the current crisis is caused by not enough regulation. Hell government doesn't bother enforcing the laws on the books now. So we'll give them even more laws they won't bother to enforce. The problem is government isn't like free enterprise where you're at on you ass the day you screw up. That's the reform government needs.
You're boss probably doesn't work that hard now. He may have worked hard to get where he is. Sometimes it's luck knowing the right people, etc... The choice is not between Wage-labour and some system that is fair. It is between an unfair wage labor and no jobs at all. Isn't part of you problem that you're looking for instant gratification, instead of learning the game and working your way up?
Life is not fair. People realize this and they get angry. So they turn to religion, where god will make everything fair in the end. Or to left wing politics, where they believe someone like Lenin or Obama can bring them hope and fairness. I think you're better of just accepting that life and economics is unfair and working withing those parameters.
In case you think I'm alone in seeing that Communist/socialist politics is like a religion(from Wikipedia):
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
I guess it's my religious background. When everyone in church was telling me the piece of bread was the Body of Christ, I just couldn't see that either. I kept call his body a piece of bread. Forgive me for not seeing whatevery one else in the cult can see.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
The reason life is not fair is because of people who say that instead of doing something about it. We still could make sure money is redistributed. If someone is suspected of burying gold or whatever in their backyard we dig it up and if they have it, they get tortured to death. We don't let anyone take more than $50,000 out of the country. We don't allow any money into foreign banks. We force businesses to pay fair wages. If they try moving the business overseas we take it over and the government now owns the business and the former owner gets nothing. We could easily make it work and keep things as equal as possible.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
EXC, I think it's safe to generally say we all here agree that we dont' like injustice, and want workable solutions. Obviously capitalism needs some serious repairs.
I often think on those born especially unprivileged as in parts of Africa etc, and what world system would bring the entire human race to a better place, of less unnecessry suffering.
Education is of course a major way, and repairing the money systems, and so what is standing in the way of a united human race, working to the goal of more genuine attainable happiness for all?
Atheism Books.
Wow IAGAY! I actually understood everything you said there!
Atheist Books
EXC, i'm just curious why you're still here. you started this thread to complain about how all the atheists on this sight are socialists and "neo-marxists" and that you might have to part ways with rrs because these theories are so irrational, yet several weeks later, and with no supporters thusfar, here you are still beating a dead horse. if we're all just a big cult, why are you still posting?
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I'm honestly impressed that EXC has managed to get pwned by marxists, socialists, moderates, AND liberals. I wouldn't have thought that it would be possible to go this long without scoring a single debate win against any position.
Anyway, EXC, I'm happy to know that your one Rethuglican vote is only going to count as one vote. I'm also thrilled that you've kept this argument going. If anything, you've probably talked a few people out of voting Republican just by the sheer idiocy of your position.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I wouldn't expect to win any debates points from the people on a Christian/Theist web site either. But every time one of you makes an argument, it pretty much proves you're in a cult of leftist ideology. One can always see the exact analogy to religion.
We see a fine example of what happens when you make government policy to allow people to live above there means and to consume more than they produce with the sub prime mess.
P.S I'm not a Republican, we see from the bailout and wasteful spending that they are just as bad as any leftist.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
So what are you, a fascist?
EXC, yeah bad bad bad, so how do we fix the bad? Bad leftys Bad rightys ....What's the best plan man?
Atheism Books.
I got a better analogy, it's kinda like theists fantazising that athiests will be punished by God and carted off to Hell to be tortured for eternity. They just can't resist.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Well it's an interesting study. The more responses I get from people like you, the more I understand how humans operate. I'm not winning any debate points by arguing with the choir, but I can learn to be more rational by understanding irrationality. Rationality is still an evolving feature in our species. I think we are in a transition state between animals driven by instinct/chemistry and creatures that can understand our world and ourselves and act rational in accordance with that.
We all have fantasies, perhaps this is necessary for our survival. Perhaps we can not live without hope. When we have no hope we just go into an out of control spiral that leads to our demise. So hence we have religion. Now, we have this constant debate with theist that atheism can only lead to nihilism, that seeing how unfair and uncaring the material world is can only lead to anger and a desire to strike back at some oppressor. You and Shizzle confirm this.
So to me it seems the communist/socialist atheists have just replaced the hope of God with the hope of some idealist society, of some caring entity with infinite resources that will provide them with security and something for nothing. So you often stop living waiting for this hope. I think communism is an extreme example of this. I don't think it a coincidence that Marx was descended from Jewish rabbis. I actually agree with about half of what I know about Marx. But he went off the rails driven by his hate and created another religion.
What often happens is you become what you hate. Marx hated religion and having an elite class that oppressed others. Then he creates a movement that is like a religion where the communist believers are the elite. I think the RRS and other atheist movements are going to do the same thing and become like a religion as well. The socialist do the same thing, they believe the rich are stealing and killing the poor, so they'll do the same thing.
So you think I'm out of my mind and I don't want to understand you ways. But truly, I do want to understand how things work. This really has been quite an eye-opener to see that "rational" atheism operates in much the same ways as religion. You've become what you hate. But maybe this shouldn't be a big surprise given that we are still the same species.
I'll visit churches and debate Christians too, just to understand. So I think once I understand things, I'll be done with RRS. But I don't expect to win any converts.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Far from it. Politics is very analogous to religion. Which is why they are both very contentious. Politicians are pretty much like preachers. I'd say my politics is pretty much like my religion. I'm against both. I'm for what works, what aligns it's self with how the world really works. I'll change my opinion if I think the evidence supports a better solution.
So I'm for the libertarian ideal. As much liberty as possible, pay as you go for whatever service one uses, make my own decisions and live with the consequences for better or worse. I would like the only role of government to be referee, to prevent people from committing fraud and acts of violence.
But just as with communism, socialism, etc... One must ask, will it work? Just because I wish for this ideal does not mean it will work. The laws of physics, chemistry, biology, economics do not align themselves with any one's fantasies. The libertarian ideal can only work for people that are economically self sufficient. Obviously we have a problem with orphans, old people, people with learning disabilities, the sick, etc... being economically self sufficient. We also have the problem of limited natural resources that must somehow be shared. So how to deal with these?
I think you have to have a two tiered society. One group of free self sufficient people that participate in the free market economy with little interference. Everyone in this group needs to have a service or product that enables them to take care of themselves and their children. The people that can't participate in the free market need to be offered intensive education/rehabilitation services. Many of your liberties such as the right to breed, drugs, travel, and other luxuries would be limited during the education/rehabilitation time. It must be geared toward making people self sufficient. Welfare can only be temporary and must have a net benefit to the general welfare in the long run.
The problem is all social help for the poor is always done in a half assed way. Things that are done half-assed are just a big waist of time/money. For example, the government 'helps' the poor by getting them bank loans at 0% down and low income. It doesn't do shit to increase their real productivity and value of their labor. Same thing with mandating minimum wage, it's a half assed solution because it does not address the problem of real productivity of unskilled labor.
How to pay for these services? You tax the use of land, water, minerals, oil and other natural resources, heavily tax pollution. This forces private business/individuals to be efficient with the use of resources which benefits everyone. Income tax needs to be abolished.
Given how the world really works, I don't see any other solution that would be good at reducing poverty while allowing people to enjoy the fruits of their labor and liberty.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
I'm sure glad that your ideas are about as popular as lowering the age of sexual consent to 2 would be. I'd rather eliminate free markets entirely and force as much equality as possible. I see equality as the most important thing a society can provide - more important than freedom or security. I'd rather make it that there is no security whatsoever for those that have more than most people until there is almost total equality of income/wealth.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
EXC, to your OP, we are what is, the government is us. To fix us is to fix the government of what is ... No one is truly an individual, as All is ONE.
Is there anything wrong with this picture?
List of the 100 wealthiest people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires
What allowed them to be so super rich?
Is the Human race cannibalistic?
"World Starvation"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=world+starvation&btnG=Search
Columbus and Other Cannibals (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/Columbus-Other-Cannibals-Jack-Forbes/dp/1583227814
Umm, eat the few rich, as they eat the common poor. Stop cannibalism ....
Atheism Books.
If anyone is being irrational here EXC it's you. You don't respond to any argument put forward, other than to say: "No you're wrong, you're all in a violent, angry blood cult." Well, maybe you ought to show us how our arguments in anyway demonstrate a reliance on faith. I agree some hardcore commies do have a certain affinity with religious believers, but you're painting everyone who wants to make a difference in the world with one big red "deluded" brush. You've deluded yourself into this way of thinking and won't listen when people explain otherwise. You're like a creationist who no matter how many times we explain evolution to you, you ignore it and say "all you there atheists and spicking niggerjews are in one big God darned blood cult. God is gonna send y'all to hell fo' yo' blasfeminism."
I honestly can't be arsed talking to you anymore.
Atheist Books
I've only accused iwebeck and Shizzle of using violence to promote their cause, because they've come out and said this. They want to revolt and kill rich motherfucking capitalist pigs.
With the socialists it's much more subtle, they don't like having blood on their hands. They want to use the tax man to come(with a gun) and take nearly all every one's honestly earned wealth. So it's as old as humanity, try to steal from people that have more than you. It's just marketed as compassion and fairness under the banner of socialism.
All the arguments require faith that implementation of communism/socialism will not have very negative consequences if they are implemented. When I point out to Hamby that minimum wage will just cause inflation, lay offs and companies going out of business, this is ignored. You have to have faith that rewarding low productivity will not just produce more of the same. You have faith that overpopulation and oversupply of unskilled labor will not still be a problem.
The 800 pound gorillas in the room are low productivity by unskilled labor, limited natural resources, human overpopulation and what will human motivation to work hard. The leftist solutions just ignore these or pretend somehow they will magically go away when there is 'fairness'. That requires about as much faith as any theist.
If I seem flippant about the explanations of commie/socialists it because I've argued with them before. They don't want to understand how the world really works, they just want to feel good about their 'compassion' with other people's money. It's like listening to a drug addict or religious freak tell you how wonderful things are in their world. They want to believe that an easy solution like wealth redistribution will work, because it makes them feel good. Humans can make themselves believe what they want to feel good.
I think I'm quite open to trying to understand how things really work. But I'm not one to allow myself to be deceived by how propaganda is used to sell things. Socialism is often a form of armed robbery no matter how it is sugar coated as 'compassion'. It's also rewarding failure and low productivity.
If you want to make a difference in the world, try to promote seeing things as they really are. Don't just go along with seeing things a certain way because it makes you feel good or because everyone else feels good by believing something.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
so now i'm using violence! riiiight...
look, i don't know why you're screaming about this like an offended catholic schoolgirl. yes, marxism is a revolutionary ideology, and yes, sometimes revolutions require bullets. i've never made any secret of my views on this. so just let me speak for myself, thank you, and i'll let you continue digging your hole.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Is there any evidence whatsoever that you can get anywhere near a 100% of people 'economically self-sufficient' even with unlimited education?.
The answer is almost certainly no hence any politics based around 'economically self-sufficient' is utterly silly, not even sure the concept has any meaning.
Regarding politics being rational, not really convinced it is or is ever likely to be, the electorate chooses based on short term self-interest often with extremely limited information and massive amounts of irrational concepts learnt from parents and friends. I despise religion but thats not the same as ever thinking most of the human experience can ever be considered totally 'rationally'
and you don't want to understand how marxist theory really works. i think jacob and i are the first marxists you've ever actually spoken to, and that all the "commies" you met before were members of greenpeace or stoned undergrads who had just read the communist manifesto for their intro to poli sci class and thought marx had "some cool ideas." here i am telling you repeatedly it's about neither "compassion" nor your money, and here you are still harping on them. if anybody needed proof that you close your ears to others' arguments and repeat the same shit over and over, it's right there.
go read vol. 1 of das kapital and then we'll talk. you can get it for free here:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
'Seeing things the way they are' ?..... umm, yeah, human nature at work , me no like a lot of what we do, we must make laws and educate to improving, cause no god idol is going too do it for us, so all we are left with is to self disipline our selves, and I have faith that we can make big improvements if we better use our reasoning to pinpoint the problems and work to solutions.
Nuts oh consumerism, the bad part of capitalism, where as productivity etc, is too focused on throw away and planned obsolescence, instead of affordable products, housing, education, health care, and more free time.
Bad government, the money changers, working in secret with the wealthy, under the guise of national security and woo woo creative financing. The rich like it the way it is. Shit box houses worth 1/2 a mill ... Welcome to the never ending treadmill kids, and hail the rich socialist elite welfare for the rich club. Salute their flag. Dog eat dog cannibalism competition, so fuck a united cooperation of all, the world just doesn't work that way, the most toys wins true happiness, blah, blah ....
A massive military police force, consuming over half the U.S. budget to enforcing the imperialist capitalist rich, instead of promoting world peace. Dick Cheney powerful elected servant of the people??? Build more yachts, weapons, prisons, not hospitals, schools, and childcare centers.
Please help me out of my delussion and confusion caring EXC.
Atheism Books.
'Economically self-sufficient' means you can support yourself by buying and selling in the free market without having to ask for assistance from the government for anything. Obviously a lot of people fall into this category. The answer is not a handout, but retraining to make them self-sufficient.
I think in the context of where humanity is at our evolutionary history perhaps it's not possible, we haven't evolved yet into fully rational being. We still breed and control human populations like animals. We can't get people to be 100% rational all the time(hence we have religion).
But just as the RRS has set 100% eradication of religion as a goal, so to can the goal 100% self-sufficiency be set. But your right, this goal probably can't be achieved unless a lot of irrational ways are eliminated from humanity. Evolution happens slowly, so this may not happen for a long, long time.
I think we can get a lot closer to the goal if this becomes the number one priority of society, the main function of government and the education system. Technology can now be applied for very rapid learning. We don't need to accept an expensive education/rehabilitation system that fails.
In the mean time, we need to have a two tiered society to take care of the non self sufficient people. We already have this with children, they don't give them the liberties that adults have and they are expected to get an education so they do become self-sufficient as adults. Unfortunately, because we tolerate a failed education system, we have a lot of adults that need to go back into this category with their liberties restricted.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Can do.
Yes bad government. Any system will fail with corruption and people not doing their jobs. The problem is politicians need to be fired after they fuck up, not wait years as in the case of Bush. We also need the public to vote on all major legislation like the bail out.
The socialist answer is more government, so reward a failed government by giving them more power and money. That is insanity. The woo woo finacing was created by the poverty pimps.
Unfortunately the people that have capital to build such things have little interest in the latter. Socialism is basically put a gun to their heads and force them to give up their wealth. If a robber took your pay check every week, you'd stop working wouldn't you? They will hide their wealth and stop doing the activietes that gained them wealth.
Even if socialism worked temporarily to alievate misery, humans breed like animals. We keep increasing popluation until limited resources, war, poverty, etc.. prevent further expansion. Our poplution are controlled by misery, not rationality. So all the commie/socialist proposal will fail.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
There isn't a 'Marxism for dummies' book is there? I'll try to understand it as best I can.
Isn't the basic problem that there is always an oversupply of unskilled labor? So the price for unskilled labor is set by the minimal amount need to survive. So the problem is with human breeding, we keep breeding as long as we can survive, no amount of misery seems to stop us from having lots of babies. Overpopulation creates extreme pressure on the natural resources so the commodity prices are high.
I somewhat agree with communists only when it comes to private ownership of natural resources. Because they are limited they must not be polluted and must be managed wisely. Ownership should only be over things you earned though work or investment. Land, water and mineral 'rights' are BS. You on the other hand don't seem to want to let a software designer enjoy the fruits of his labor, by selling his work and services to the highest bidder.
I don't see how any other system deals with low productivity, human overpopulation, wasteful use of natural resources and motivates people or societies to work hard and invest in innovation. Please give us the dumbed down version of how Marxism deals with these issues and I'll listen.
In looking at it briefly, I already found this statement that is completely wrong. The value of labor or any commodity is determined by it's value to the consumer and the laws of supply and demand. You and Shizzle both think that because someone worked long hours at manual labor, that they are entitled to be paid a high wage.
You can go dig a ditch in your backyard, spend months working your ass off to do it. But nobody wants your damn ditch so why waist time and money something nobody wants? And then expect others to give up their wealth for shit no one wants? If you base an economy on this principle you'll end up with shit products that no one wants and no innovation. The consumer must determine the value of labor and commodities, not labour-time.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
EXC, I agree with probably most of what you say. We all agree that we need solutions.
Supply and demand, how about building a beautiful fun world? Lots of work to do.
I see ours, and all economies, as a blend of government money philosophies, good and bad. Finding a better blend is the issue and problem. Basically I am a "power to the people" guy, as the common people are not rich nor secure, which is why I and others use the slogan "Eat the Rich", as to eliminate the wild wealth curve, so the rich can no longer eat the poor to the bone.
It takes the common workers to make one rich, so I am simply saying flatten the wealth curve to a fair and most productive one, for all. Money vacuum cleaners and any system that tolerates them is in need of serious repair.
So what is standing in the way of an overhaul. I say the rich are a primary reason and problem, creating an insecure, uneducated, unhappy apathetic public grinding along on a steep tread mill of mostly greedy rich design, which needs to be seriously challenged and reworked.
I do not think most people are innately lazy when opportunity is available, and heck, think of all the work to do, to building a better fun world.
Thanks EXC and to all those working on progress. Think about the kids and their kids and kids, as we adults are almost dead.
"Shout at the Devil" of wrong thinking and "Eat the Rich" so hungry, never rich enough cannibals ..... please please .... "Love (as to heal) the enemy" within and out.
Atheism Books.
well, not surprisingly, you looked too "briefly" and failed to understand. if you read further in capital, you'll see that marx divides labor into two types: necessary and surplus. here he's talking about necessary labor, i.e., the labor-time necessary for a worker's sustenance. necessary labor-time is constantly in flux, precisely due to two things: 1, the wage an employer offers, based precisely on the demand for the labor he requires, and 2, the price of commodies necessary for sustaining the laborer. the goal of any capitalist is to increase the amount of surplus labor-time versus necessary labor-time in a given working day.
marx didn't "base an economy" on this principle. every economy is already based on this principle. capital is mostly marx's analysis of the capitalist world, the world as it already is.
and stop fucking telling me what i think, asshole. if you knew anything about marxism, you'd know it has nothing to do with increasing wages. it's about eventually abolishing wage-labor altogether. and yes, i'm sure you don't agree with that. please don't waste your energy typing it. for the 1000006657668734th time, I'M NOT HERE TO CONVINCE YOU TO BE A MARXIST.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I've been watching this exchange from afar with much amusement.
EXC, you'll note that you've just made a positive claim and prediction here. Please provide the empirical evidence you've used to formulate this prediction and support your positive claim.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
The reason I asked the above is that this statement was made:
...Which demonstrates not simply that EXC hasn't even the most rudimentary understanding of Game Theory, but perhaps doesn't even read newspapers.
EXC, I'm just learning how to teach, and part of my instruction has involved how beneficial it often is to illicit answers from students who believe they have the correct response rather than just immediately provide the correct answer.
Please explain, in your own words, what the sub prime mortgage crisis is, and what it's underlying causes were (in detail).
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Yes, the capitalist is trying to increase efficiency. That's what an economy needs to have a good products a low prices. If the capitalist doesn't force the workers to do this, who will? The problem is to increase productivity in our high tech world, the workers need training. But too many people are content with a failed education system that is not focused on increasing worker productivity.
OK, then what's the difference in Communism? The consumer wants a high quality product at a low price. This squeezes the workers to work hard for low wages. It doesn't matter if a capitalist owns the business or the workers. The consumer demands this, that's where the pressure on workers comes from. The Capitalist is just acting as middleman or organizer of the producer/consumer exchange. He's trying to squeeze both of them, he can squeeze the unskilled laborer because there is a never ending surplus and human reproduction/religious/political/education system that provides a never ending supply.
The difference with communism is that the workers just have an interest in keeping their jobs, not increasing efficiency or meeting the consumers demands. So if a new technology could lower the cost of production by reducing labor, the Commie co-op would vote against it because members would lose their jobs. So in a Communist society you'll have no innovation, inventiveness, low efficiency. It would suck for the consumer.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
This shows to me that you clearly don't understand evolution. A lot of people get fooled into believing that evolution = progress. It isn't. It is merely adaptation over time, and it doesn't wean out minor imperfections, so long as they don't hinder an organism's chances of reproducing before they die. The development of the human brain took place through a period of time where the survival of our ancestors depended upon it. We've come to a point now where there are virtually no selective pressures on human beings. We aren't going to evolve any further in the brain department, those who are less mentally endowed aren't going to struggle to reproduce. We may vary over time, but we aren't going to turn around in a couple of thousand years and suddenly realised we're much cleverer than those from the 21st century - the selective pressure on brain size no longer exists, the physicists and the retards will both pass on their genes. I think the RRS would like to see religion eradicated, sure I would too, but it's not going to happen, people will always be stupid. The proposals I make Re: socialism are not based on the idea that humans could become 100% selfless, that ain't gonna happen. But capitalism rewards only our selfish natures (which I contest is only a part of human behavioural nature), and is thus imbalanced and dangerous in how it shapes human behaviour.
Atheist Books
I think I understand things quite well.
Since the Great Depression, we haven't seen wide swing in home prices till recently. A 30-year fixed mortgage with 20% down was standard operating procedure. Home ownership was a slow and steady way to gain wealth. Home prices had been artificially inflated because of the home mortgage interest deduction(government manipulation of the free market). Also creating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also inflated home prices because of government market manipulation.
Then in the 90s we had poverty pimps and politicians telling us how unfair it was that some people couldn't get a mortgage and others couldn't. Instead of fixing our education system to increase real wages and productivity, we had to force mortgage standards to be lowered, force banks to loan into poor neighborhoods. If anyone dare oppose this they would be called a heartless racist. Even illegal immigrants got loans with no money down.
Housing prices soured and made prices artificially high making homes unaffordable, the exact opposite of what was intended by government manipulation. We also had foreign money pumped into the housing and credit markets due to the US trade deficit and high taxes in foreign countries.
Another problem is the 401K market manipulation. The government gave a tax break to people to invest, but only to select Corporations. This flooded the investment markets with too much money chasing too few good investments. So a lot of that money ended up being used to buy up sub prime mortgages and other bad loans.
The politicians measured economic success in terms of home ownership not in real wages and wealth. Home builders overbuilt due to the inflated prices. Too many appraisers, underwriters, etc... did crooked things to make a commission. Investment brokers committed fraud in repackaging securities. The government regulators did nothing because there are government employees that can't be fired no mater how bad they screw up. The Fed manipulated interest rates to prolong the bubble, instead of looking out for the long term. The politicians went along.
So there is just tons of defaulted mortgages, leveraged and worthless all over the place.
The gamers on wall street understand that the market manipulation by government policy disturbs the free market equilibrium. First it creates the bubble, later comes the crash. The gamers understand this and profit when the market goes up then when it crashes. The taxpayer gets stuck with the bill because Republicans are just as bad when it comes to corporate welfare as the Democrats are with individual welfare.
So were stuck with a broke government that can't do anything to solve our real problems with education, the environment and energy. End of story.
Moral of the story, when you do things in a half-assed way you just make things way worse. The government attempts to create home ownership where half-assed and half-baked. Real wealth can only come from real productivity not market manipulation in the name of compassion.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
I never made this claim. And I do understand evolution. The only claim I made is that if humans could have a society of 100% self-sufficient persons, we'd have to become 100% rational beings. Whether we can evolve or engineer or society into this state, who knows? But at this point our survival as a species may depend on forcing ourselves to give up our fantasy worlds of religion, communism and socialism.
I would argue quite the opposite. Capitalism forces everyone to be contributors to the economy. If it is managed without fraud and corruption, no one can get a free lunch. You can't be selfish because if you don't contribute anything, you wallow in misery and don't survive. Capitalism only rewards the selfish when monopolies or fraud is tolerated.
Socialism on the other hand rewards selfish people who want to take but never give back in the form of hard work, study and development of useful products and services for the rest of society. It tells people they can take it easy and have a free lunch on someone else's dime. It tells people they can have instant gratification with working for success.
You need to meet some real business owners. Do you think they believe it easy to make a profit? Do you think they never work hard? Do you think they often don't lose there money when they risk it? Where did you get this idea that business owners/investors live on easy street from exploiting the poor? I'm sure they would think that you're just a naive person that hasn't paid his dues and is jealous of their success from years of hard work.
Why do you think risking your own money to start a business that provides jobs and products that consumers want is so evil and selfish?
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Great Depression: 1930~
Present Day: 2008.
Your argument, then - just so we're clear - is that home prices have been largely in equilibrium for nearly half a century?
Correct (though the latter part depends on the home-owner to be responsible with their money. More on that later...)
Woah, hold-on there boss; you're saying that the interest deduction was a government-imposed sanction? Rather than a measure used by private interests (money lenders) to sell more mortgages?
If that's the case, you're incorrect.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/25/national/main4292140.shtml
In a nutshell, the money lenders actually broke the government-imposed rules in order to give-out loans to people whom were not eligible for such loans, and used snake-oil salesman techniques to convince people that they could make big money on home equity by taking-out long-term mortgages.
Remember what I mentioned earlier regarding your point about home ownership being a slow and steady way of gaining wealth? Well, as it turns-out, our greedy fellow humans aren't particularly interested in 'slow and steady' wealth when they can get an immediate injection of money right now. They used the low interest mortgage loans as personal piggy banks for financing cruises, T.V.s, vehicles, second mortgages, etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/business/27sec.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/business/03sec.html?em
The SEC even concedes, as we see above, that it was a lack of government regulation - not an over-abundance of it - that led to the crisis.
Pfft. Source?
The notion that banks would've been 'forced' to make these loans to anyone is ridiculous. I suppose it's also the government 'forcing' Visa and Mastercard to send-out credit card application forms in the mail, hire call centers to harass people with cold calls regarding pre-approval and put advertisement on TV?
Money lenders make money through giving loans (which people then pay them interest on). They got greedy, and gambled by giving loans to people who wound-up not being able to pay them back. Their poor bet crippled the economy.
Correct. This was a huge blunder on part of the Bush administration.
Correct. You'll note that none of these people have anything to do with the government - but the problems you mentioned do have an awful lot to do with greed and capitalism, don't they?
Wrong. The government regulators did nothing because there was nothing they could do. Not only were the regulators very few in number and given little resources, the market was being heavily deregulated. There were virtually no rules left for regulators to act upon because money lenders had been decrying their harmfulness to the market since the Reagan administration.
Keynes was wrong, but Hayek was even further off the mark. This is reflected in both history and present times, and should be obvious to anyone familiar with Game Theory (...to be fair, mathematical game theory models are relatively new, and people like Keynes and Hayek didn't have access to the science. That said, why in the Hell any present government would be basing their economy today on such outdated ideas is beyond me).
This is Hayek philosophy. It is outdated science. The 'gamers' on wall street arguing in favor of it are like people who argue for the Geocentric model of the universe.
Curiously, with both of Keynes's and Hayek's core models being broken, free-markets have a bit of a conundrum. Where do we go from here?
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Go Kevin. Hey EXC, is the wealth curve not an example of an obvious enemy? And aren't you forgetting that capitalism is a bad unresolved mix of all economic philosophies of left right ideas? The major socialism I see, unfairly favors the super rich controllers.
Work on all levels would be abundant if the goal was not massive personal wealth, but to sharing in building a better world for all. Imagine the inspiration that would be ignited, if only the super rich were out lawed. Does that make any sense to anyone?
I object to dynasties, fuck that ....
Atheism Books.
Since the end of the great depression, they were steadily going out of equilibrium. As income taxes rose, the mortgage interest deduction became more valuable, thus artificially creating demand for houses. The effects of Fannie and Freddie had been to inflate prices. The insane thing was that as housing prices rose, the government did more to increase demand thereby inflating the bubble even faster.
It effectively was corporate welfare for banks. People don't pay tax on income that goes to the bank. It's why we have too many banks now. It made it too easy for them to make money(in the short term).
Agreed. But if rich motherfucking capitalist bankers want to be stupid about loaning money to people with no collateral and low income, that's their business. Why the hell does that call for socialism? The capitalists losing their money to poor people, isn't that what you socialists love to see happen? So why do we need to socialize the banks? Why bail them out?
It was a lack of enforcement of the current regulations, lack of transparency, permissiveness of fraud. Any new regulations must be aimed at preventing fraud, not manipulating prices, supply or demand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act
The CRA law pretty much forced them to do what they didn't want to do. If they didn't make loans to poor people in poor neighborhoods, the government would make life very difficult for the bank.
The government would have stopped doing business with them. They would be labeled racist. Individuals and business would pull their money out for this reason. Unfortunately, the USA still struggles with the legacy of slavery and segregation. The CRA is another half-assed attempt to fix this problem.
True, but the market manipulation by the socialist policies of the government made the bubble 10 times worse.
Democrats were just as guilty. Thank you Barney Frank.
The home builders did what they were supposed to do. There was a huge demand for houses, they built them up in a very short period of time. Provided good jobs for people. A great example of capitalism meeting demand quickly. The demand was artificial, the financing was flaky was the problem.
Fraud is still illegal. There was plenty of that going on. I agree there should have been more competent regulators looking for fraud. But if regulation means social engineering it will fail again.
Well I would say that Keynes and Hayek were not wrong, they just didn't give us the complete picture. Like Issac Newton, he wasn't wrong, he just didn't give us a complete understanding. I think their models can be tools to understand things under certain circumstances. What I would argue is that laisse-fair capitalism works great when you have a valuable skill or product you can market. Unfortunately your going to be a big loser if you don't. It's like showing up at a poker game with no chips, the best you can do is be a servant of the players.
That's why we need a two-tiered system. I don't think a single solution can work. One for the people that can compete in the free market that operate according to the Keynes and Heyek model. Another for people that need help to get into the game. You take them away from the game for a while when they get some chips to be able to play the game.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/05/business/labor.php
Here's an article to explain the situation. And what kind of worker is leaving Denmark? A software engineer that requires little use of the infrastucture. Who stays, the businesses that take advantage of the gravy train of free services. Yet there is no shortage of unskilled immigrants comming to take advantage of the free government sevices, imagine that.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Encourage global whining.
Here's the problem.
It's clarly not just 'their business', is it? Do you understand the concept of 'symbiosis', by chance?
The banks and ther terrible money management have guaranteed (barring some unprecedented event) that your economy is going to flatline. I agree; bailing them out solves nothing - all it will do is hyper-inflate your currency when reserve is forced to print more to cover the debt the government decided to take-on.
Not bailing-out the banks would've been disastrous as well - as they liquidated, small/medium businesses would've folded, people would've gone unemployed, theunemployed would not have been able to spend money or save money, and the whole system would've enter a death-spiral.
By failing to recognize the banks as one important part of a large machine, and insisting on just 'minding your own business' as long as you're allowed to make profit, capitalists like yourself have led the system to it's undoing.
More importantly: While the American economy happened to fail from the 'top-down', so to speak, it can also fail from the 'bottom-up'. This is why it's important to understand symbiosis, and what your taxes actually pay for (granted, there is a lot of government waste in reality. For now, I think we could consider that a pervasive nuance of an imperfect system rather than a failure of resource distribution at the conceptual level):
Any person (in fact, any organism) will only willingly participate in a system if they percieve it as beneficial for them to do so. Any system is ging to be stratified - but the most successful systems must ensure that each strata of participants is invested in it. If not, the strata that are not benefited by the system will not participate. If forced to participate, they will be motivated to act destructively towards the system (speaking in general, emergent terms).
I really think you're missing whats being said. You've interpreted the people you're arguing with as beng violent / threatening; in reality, they are simply describing how the resource-less strata is most likely the behave, whether or not anyone agrees with violence.
Let's look at a visual for a moment:
A (3,000 Members): $$$$$$$$$$
B (3,000 Members): $$$$$
C (3,000 Members):
I'll give your arguments an unfair benefit of the doubt. Group 'A' are hard-working entrepreneurs who've earned every penny they have through innovation and hard work. Group 'B' are average-joe 9-to-5ers who are also hard workers, but haven't gone the extra mile and become self-employed. Group 'C' are lazy couch-potatoes that never do any work so haven't earned any money at all.
In order to survive, each group needs one '$' for every thousand members.
Group C doesn't want to work... so how will they survive? The 'tough' attitude some capitalists might have is, 'They won't. So fuck 'em. Serves 'em right'. And, perhaps for this model, there's some merit to that. But is that realistic? How likely is it that Group C will just go quietly into their goodnight?
Not likely at all. In fact, not just unlikely - improbable. They will not abide by the rules of the system to acquire the wealth to sustain themselves; they'll aggressively take what they need to surivive instead (Some of the population will opt to die-off, but natural selection will favor those who steal and teach their children to steal).
So, what we end-up with is:
Group A (3,000 Members): $$$$$$$$
Group B (3,000 Members): $$$$
Group C (3,000 Members): $$$
...Wealth redistribution, but through criminal behavior that the system has reinforced. Of course, as it turns-out, aggressive and violent behavior allows C to accrue their wealth without doing much work (granted, at a greater risk), so Group A and B learn about this 'beneficial' behavior and it cascades upwards. Money becomes funnelled into avenues of protection and persecution instead of growth & education, and the economy stagnates and flops as it becomes a anarchistic police state.
Mao's China is an excellent example of this, as is Tsarist Russia.
Instead, if Group A and B had willingly given the money to Group C that was otherwise going to be taken from them anyway, the system would've sustained itself. No, in this instance (given your assumptions about the different strata of society) it isn't fair - many capitalists refer to an explanation like this as the lazy holding the working class at gunpoint. But reality and the human psyche doesn't operate on what's fair, it operates on mathematics and dispassionate principles.
If you do not feed the peasants, metaphorically speaking, they will eventually show-up on your doorstep with torches and pitchforks rather than beggars' mugs.
Now, I don't agree with communism for a number of reasons (the largest of which is the entrustment of a singular, immutable body with the administration of the system), but the present North American model needs to be more inviting to those whom do not work or do not otherwise earn a solid wage, even if you personally believe that such people are lazy. If the system does not change, the unwillingly participants will see to it's change.
History should've taught us at least that much.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
so basically you admit that marx's statement on the price of labor in the capitalist world which you called out as "wrong" just a minute ago is perfectly valid? ok then.
riiiiight.
once again, total ignorance of what it meant to live in a "communist" society shines through. in the stalinist world of the soviet union and the eastern bloc, it was impossible to be unemployed. the worst that could happen to a person like a party official was that he would be bumped down to a lower position or be expelled from the party. a worker in a "commie co-op," however, had no other place to go. this actually was the cause of a lot of problems: people couldn't be fired. however, there was plenty of initiative to make jobs easier through technology. tractors, for example, were constantly in high demand.
now, that's that for stalinism and all its bureaucratic mistakes. if we look at marxist theory, we see that much of the emphasis is on increasing production and its efficiency for the purpose of meeting the needs of society and nothing more--for example, no surplus labor time just to bolster a capitalist's profits. this is one of the reasons why marx saw the revolution beginning in a highly developed industrial country like france or england, where the technology was sufficiently advanced to allow quick, new innovations which could decrease the labor time necessary for meeting the needs--both for living and for luxury--of society and increase the leisure time and quality of life of every worker. the motivation for the worker would be his own well-being.
now, once again, i'll take it for granted you disagree. fine. i'm not trying to convince you. i'm just trying to show that you have no grasp of the subject and thus it would be better to be quiet. (notice i haven't tried to debate software development, for example.)
really? well, i'm willing to take my chances.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
The problem is we have too many banks. So we will have too many banks chasing after too few good loans opportunities.
We waist too much of our workforce/human capital on financial services. Banking is way for the rich to get richer at the expense of the working poor, so why do you want to save the 'machine'? The just encourage people to live above their means. Then work their ass off for 30/40 years to make banks richer.
Yes there would be short term pain from laid off workers. If we had an effective education/retraining system, they could be training to work in industries we need like alternative energy, education, medical services. It's better to get the pain over with quickly. Only the non profitable businesses would fail. If you have good cash flow and collateral you can still get a loan.
As we see, they bigger banks will buy up the failed banks. To keep banks afloat is just setting us up for another disaster down the road and piling debt onto future generations. The bailout is BS. We're setting ourselves up for the next bubble.
How does the taxman come and get his money if people don't pay? He brings armed men to intimidate. So, its BS to claim Socialists are just these peace-loving people when their surrogates use armed intimidation. They do exactly what they claim Bush/Cheney do in Iraq, use violence to steal other people's wealth. Its funny, but I have more respect for Iwebeck and Shizzle cause they're willing to do the armed robbery themselves, not pretend to peace-loving while letting their tax man surrogates do the dirty work.
So, what we end-up with is:
Group A (3,000 Members): $$$$$$$$(hidden is secret places). Former capitalists that got their wealth out before socialism took hold. Sorry Kevin, but the rich know how to maintain their wealth.
Group B1 (1000 Members): $$$$, Former members of B, that had job skills that enabled them emigrate to places without socialism and get a job. Most productive workers are lost from the economy.
Group B2 (2000 Members): Low skill workers with no jobs even though they are willing to work because the rich took all their capital out. Government is too broke to pay for their families education. Engage in underground economy just to get by. Must deal with the misery, turn to religion for hope.
Group C (3,000 Members): People incited by the poverty and food shortages to steal, riot and wage civil war. Prisons overflow putting an even greater demand on government services.
You completely ignore secondary effects of high taxes. Just like in Denmark, people will refuse to work if you take 60% of their income in taxes. Capitalists will take their money out of a country/economy with socialism. It's just a recipe for stagnation and everyone living in misery. Sorry, but if Robin Hood is robbing people in the forest, they rich stop going through the forest.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
OK, then so the instead of the capitalist pressuring the worker to work long and hard for low pay, the Commie Coop leader(the middleman) is pressuring the worker to be more productive and take home little pay so the consumer can get good products at low prices. The workers still have an asshole boss threatening to fire them if they doesn't perform and accept low pay. So, how is life any better for the worker under communism?
Yes and under communism, there is always a shortage of high tech equipment. No one had incentive to study or work in a difficult field like tractor production/maintenance. You can choose to study what you want in school and get the same pay/benefits from the government. Or just don't study at all.
It sounds like at best Communism is a system where you trade off having shit products and services and shortages for the consumer in exchange for having a less stressful job with fewer hours to work. Fine, if that's the trade-off you want to make, go off and start a Commie Coop. Why do you have to run around pushing for a violent revolution against the people that don't want this trade-off? They've tried in the past to have Commie Coop societies, but always failed.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen