Independent here but these are the most sound words to ever come out of Trump’s mouth.
USA. USA. USA.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/05/trump_america_will_never_be_a_socialist_country_we_were_born_free_and_we_shall_stay_free.html
Independent here but these are the most sound words to ever come out of Trump’s mouth.
USA. USA. USA.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/05/trump_america_will_never_be_a_socialist_country_we_were_born_free_and_we_shall_stay_free.html
Trump: "America Will Never Be A Socialist Country"; "We Were Born Free And We Will Stay Free"
comments
America has never been a pure Capitalist democracy. I think the focus needs to be on free markets and fostering competition.
A healthy system of innovation and industry is what’s good for the country. Not overly burdensome regulations and high taxes.
We need less competition more cooperation. Less greeding more caring.
We are a lazy specie that resist change and favor shitty habits. The wake up call might come to late.
And yes, we need to find a middle ground.
What are the good parts of socialism? Not saying there are none. That would be far from the truth. But I want to hear other people’s thoughts on this.
Wishful thinking and/or bull crap. They love regulations as long as they give them an edge. Corporations are soulless entities maximizing profit whatever the social and environmental costs are. Just look at the string of recent deregulation to please bank, coal and fossil energies industries and making even more difficult to go after them.
One basic idea of socialism is for the means of production, distribution etc. to be collectively owned by the community. It can be translated in the decreasing of the separation between Work and Kapital.
Also I do not believe in discussing ideologies and theories, I prefer to just address the problems and find solutions.
Not addressing the most pressing problems our societies are currently having will lead us into some very dark times.
Just look at the privately owned prisons as an example.
Looks at schools in Sweden. Privately managed. Better outcomes. Looks at healthcare in Sweden. Publicly funded, privately managed. Again, better outcomes at significantly cheaper cost.
Want an example in US where you can compare Oranges to Oranges. SFO airport Security is privately managed. Compare that to TSA managed airports. SFO passengers consistently rate the experience better than TSA. Wait times are smaller and they consistently performed better at identifying threats when undercover agents tried to penetrate.
They want profits which means they will cut things like clearing ice from lines, etc
But then say regulations are bad.
Which is it?
Overly burdensome heavy handed regulations are bad. After Dodd-Frank a lot of small community banks had to hire legal companies just to understand the mammoth regulation put on them. In some states there are regulations on how far a window has to be from restrooms and food for restaurants. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and they cannot survive let alone thrive under such environment.
Minimal light touch regulation. That’s the key.
People controlling vast sums of money on the other hand can invest it in any number of ways, can sit on it, can start a business or whatever they want more or less - unlike the worker, they are not investing to make ends meet. They invest to grow their wealth and power and stay ahead of rivals to ensure their continued growth. And if the company fails, they might loose some money but are protected as in the bank bailout or PG&E shareholders getting paid out and CEOs getting bonuses before the lawsuits go into effect.
Your statement here has no connection to practical reality - it’s simply dogma.
Capitalism, by itself, is a person using their capital to create a business and ultimately create wealth for themselves - with free people that enter into willing employment and business transactions.
Your anger is better directed at the dirty Democrat party elites.
Yeah the Democrats de-regulated all sorts of industries (medical, telecom, credit cards and banks etc). But this was not for “diversity” and not to help anyone but the banks. Monetary circulation is one of the mantras of neoliberal politics. Alan Greenspan’s answer to the stagnant wages for the “middle class” was reverse-mortgage your house and cash that in because - of course the view then was - “the economy will only keep growing”.
This was the neoliberal dogma of the time and supported by both parties. It had nothing to do with “diversity” and everything about freeing up capital for banks and investments.
Capitalism, by itself, is nothing but the competitive accumulation and centralization of wealth created through wage labor. It does this with free-markets but equally with state-power (you can’t even have international markets without a military and governing laws). It doesn’t care about diversity or your libertarian fantasies. Freedom of capital is certainly a goal but no system founded on forced labor of British people pushed off the land or Africans forcibly transferred to the Americas could ever claim to be based on the claim of “willingness”.
Here’s a reality check on who risks what in capitalism: gle.com/amp/s/kkkk://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4531988
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-atlantic-city-bankruptcy/
gle.com/amp/s/kkkk://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/business/economy/as-a-grocery-chain-is-dismantled-investors-recover-their-money-worker-pensions-are-short-millions/2018/12/28/ea22e398-0a0e-11e9-85b6-41c0fe0c5b8f_story.html
All these things like retiree earnings and 401k are invented by socialists. You need to try harder.
Also, you keep saying people are forced into labor. No one forced people into labor. People choose who they work for and then make decisions on what they want to invest.
If you have failed, it means you did something wrong but you blame the system but not yourself.
“Dude”, you’re goalpost moving. You said investors have all the risk and workers take none... yet it’s common and legal for companies to go bankrupt, protect investors first and then skip out on full pensions for workers who “invested” years of their life.
2. “No one forced people into labor.” LOL. Capitalism was founded by removing the peasantry from the land and literally forcing them to seek wages or be arrested for vagabondry and sent to a work-house. Further, what built industry? British textile manufacturing did. So where’d they get that cotton... oh yeah forced slave and indentured servant labor.
3. The Democrats. So... FDR is your example of contemporary DNC politics? Here’s a little history lesson for you: Democrats and Republicans both supported Keynesian capitalism until the 70s. In the late 70s Carter, followed more successfully by Reagan, began implementing neoliberal policies and neoliberal justifications for those policies. This was the consensus of the leadership of both parties until the recession when voters became much more skeptical of those justifications. The Democrats, like the Republicans care about Wall Street and Banks, not “diversity”. The only difference is that DNC voters care about progressive things so the DNC has to pay that lip service.
1. Again, workers don’t directly “invest” in a company. They can if they want to by buying stock in it.
2. People left their farms to seek out jobs during the industrial revolution on their own accord because the standard of living was better in cities and the pay was better.
3. Reagan supported supply side economics not Keynesian theory. Other Republicans tried to sway the vote by following liberal policies. These people are called RINOs are they aren’t liked by Republian voters.
Diversity is pushed by Democrats.
~an overwhelming majority of voters support AOC’s 70% top marginal tax, and a similar level of enthusiasm for Warren’s wealth tax. Need more proof? There was a hilarious segment on Fox News recently where they asked their viewers about those policies and the pundits were SHOCKED, literally beside themselves, that a sizable majority of their viewers also supported these “socialist” policies.
~ people overwhelmingly disapproved of the GOPs assault on healthcare last year. Poor ass opioid addicts who voted for trump are realizing that the gop wants them dead. Medicare for all is now a feature of every single major contender for the democratic primary - such a thing would have been unheard of in 2012.
America is falling out of love with billionaires. A majority of millennials, who in 2020 will be the *largest voting block* describe themselves as democratic socialists. The tidal wave is coming. We are going to soak the rich.
In 50s it had the 4th largest GDP/capita in the world. 2x Japan. Higher than Canada. Caracas had the highest density of high end restaurants in the world in the 60s when their industries were independent. Heck, Americans were moving to Venezuela for better quality of life.
Now, will Americans give in to the stupid idea of socialism once automation and AI creates rampant unemployment for simple white collar and blue collar jobs that’s a different discussion.
Me living in not socialist nation.
No access to healthcare or dole when unemployed.
Schools are underfunded prisons and still paying loans for college.
Muggings burglary and poop on street.
Pays tax 36%.
It’s running its course in Venezuela right now. And in Cuba.
Capitalism expands wealth but also concentrates the distribution of wealth in society. And since wealth = power of course people with money and power are going to exercise that power in self-interested ways.
I realize that other people with different backgrounds haven't experienced this and, maybe, don't understand (don't believe?) that it was real. I realize that a lot of socialist ideas sound good (and maybe they are good; I don't think so but I can see how others might).
But when I hear people casually talking about how socialism is good, or how we should do this, that, or the other socialist thing, it really, truly sounds to me no different than someone putting forward core Nazi policies. I'm legit _scared_ of the people who aggressively push socialism while denying/being ignorant of the atrocities that reliably resulted from doing that in the past.
At the bare minimum I would appreciate, when people bring up socialism things, some kind of blanket disavowal like "Yes, that happened, and yes, it was really bad. We agree, and we would like to avoid that. That's why this time will be different, because ______, and I solemnly swear that this won't end with your sister forced to dig your grave at gunpoint". But instead I just see "die techie scum" posters and similar.
Trump is a gigantic joke, but I very much appreciated him saying that.
The main one is that you had an history of communism and socialism (varies by country) and it was nasty.
That’s why I make a clear distinction between socialism and social democracy.