Has China broken capitalism?
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By your definitions, I am not being exploited, I am the one doing the exploiting.
You talk out of both sides of your mouth. You use an Orwell allegory to further your narrative that playing the game to win is stupid, because you prefer another game. Yet you want to live in some kind of Orwellian society that reeks of his 1984 dystopia.
Just be honest... You want a place where everyone looks and thinks like you. You want to be rewarded for nothing other than where you were born. You want to complain about your circumstances, but rather than improve them, you blame others for stacking the deck against you. You say you are a nationalist, but do nothing for your nation.
You can say communists leveraged capitalist free markets to get access to capital and purchase goods and that would be an accurate statement. Or, you can say capitalism created communism and make it a twisted, distorted narrative from an unhinged conspiracy theorist.
Words matter.
I can't tell you if the left has said what I posted since Sanders left the race.
I have 0 idea what 'the left' is saying in general and if it could be possible, I would have even less of an idea what the left is saying since Sanders left.
While we may be the most capitalistic country(I have no idea), that doesn't mean our economic system is capitalism. It just means ours is closer to capitalism than other country's systems.
This isn't a tough concept to conceptualize.
I have not said or even hinted at 'cApItaLizm iz bAd'.
I did not say or even suggest that my reasoning for saying we have a mixed economy is due to us having public schools or roads.
As for your rambling about the meaning of the word 'thug', that is so far beyond anything in this thread that it isn't worth discussing here.
You made some really crazy assumptions in that post.
I didn't support Sanders, I don't know what 'the left' has been claiming, and my reasons for viewing our economy as a mixed economy instead of capitalistic aren't for the reasons you mention.
You were 0 for the century with that post.
America broke capitalism
People forget (or never learned it seems in most cases) that while capitalism is the greatest economic system ever devised, it is not magical or natural. It is a creation of man, and requires the maintenance of man. It takes referees on the sidelines keeping it within its bounds to keep it from running off the rails (to mix several metaphors). Usually we call this regulation.
More specific to your question, capitalism requires competition. But competition limits profits. Market actors hate competition, but capitalism only works when competition is fierce. Decades ago powerful, politically-connected corps decided they wanted to alter regulation to stifle competition. Profits soared! But now capitalism is broken. We find we must bailout failed companies over and over, as there are no competitors to pick up the slack if we don't. We find out pay stagnant as competition for our services has consolidated and diminished.
Often economics is about to finding the "sweet spot". Taxes, regulation, etc, you can't have too much but you can't have too little either. Decades ago we had too much, then we ovecorrected. Normally we would have swung back the other way by now, but that overcorrection led to corporate control of our government, and it seems now that we can't change course. Broken.
People forget (or never learned it seems in most cases) that while capitalism is the greatest economic system ever devised, it is not magical or natural. It is a creation of man, and requires the maintenance of man. It takes referees on the sidelines keeping it within its bounds to keep it from running off the rails (to mix several metaphors). Usually we call this regulation.
More specific to your question, capitalism requires competition. But competition limits profits. Market actors hate competition, but capitalism only works when competition is fierce. Decades ago powerful, politically-connected corps decided they wanted to alter regulation to stifle competition. Profits soared! But now capitalism is broken. We find we must bailout failed companies over and over, as there are no competitors to pick up the slack if we don't. We find out pay stagnant as competition for our services has consolidated and diminished.
Often economics is about to finding the "sweet spot". Taxes, regulation, etc, you can't have too much but you can't have too little either. Decades ago we had too much, then we ovecorrected. Normally we would have swung back the other way by now, but that overcorrection led to corporate control of our government, and it seems now that we can't change course. Broken.
Quite the contrary...this whole process has demonstrated that the AMERICAN CONSUMER is the driving force for the world's economy....the freedom of individuals to willing participate in commerce creates the wealth that can't be duplicated by any form of government. Capitalism focuses on the service of others..A provider must create a good or service that meets a need or want of the consumer. The collective economic models focuses on needs of the state. Capitalism is the ONLY economic system that freely allows for individuals to create their own destiny.
Here's the deal with conservatives
Trump somehow represents the best of capitalism to them when his life has proven he represents the worst of it. "He's a businessman that takes no ****!" Not really. Born with a silver spoon, exploited the tax code, bullied governments into subsidizing construction projects, out lawyer the little guy, etc. He's been living off other people's money and intimidating those around him his entire life. And that's just the fiscal side. Do we need to talk socially?
I'm not really sure why conservatives backed him. Fiscally or socially. All I can come up with is he was the product of a really ****** republican field and was the best at trolling the libs and getting under Hillary's skin. That and lower taxes, but all republican candidates offer that.
Trump somehow represents the best of capitalism to them when his life has proven he represents the worst of it. "He's a businessman that takes no ****!" Not really. Born with a silver spoon, exploited the tax code, bullied governments into subsidizing construction projects, out lawyer the little guy, etc. He's been living off other people's money and intimidating those around him his entire life. And that's just the fiscal side. Do we need to talk socially?
I'm not really sure why conservatives backed him. Fiscally or socially. All I can come up with is he was the product of a really ****** republican field and was the best at trolling the libs and getting under Hillary's skin. That and lower taxes, but all republican candidates offer that.
Nuclear Option: If I'm the US and it comes to that, I just takeover all stateside companies/plants that are owned by China and re-distribute them to competent US companies to run. Then tell China go pound sand on the debt we owe. Then suffer for a bit while we try to onshore all critical manufacturing that we currently depend on China for. Basically become very nationalist until the threat landscape changes to make international trade less risky. I'm not a big nationalist, but I do believe that the US has incredible natural resources and food production capabilities that far outweigh the needs of our nation, so short of being physically occupied and controlled or nuked off the face of the earth, we'll be fine long term.
Not anymore. Now we bail out the company that built a defective mousetrap, and they use their market and political power to prevent the better mousetrap competitor from ever seeing the light of day. Not always of course, but usually. Or enough that the perverse outcomes are rampant. Part of this is natural, products have gotten more complex, and barriers to entry have risen with that. But instead of using regulation to tilt the playing field back towards competition, we've swung it even harder against it.
BoomBoom bringing heat, and I'm certainly no liberal. I disagree that we can't change course, though.
Trump outlasted other, actual conservative republicans b/c so many republican voters got sick of "establishment" "conservatives" selling out once they got elected. And it wsan't because it was a ****** field but because it was a fragmented one. There were lots of options, from unexciting but competent big government republican (Jeb), to accomplished governor that moved the needle toward conservative policies in a liberal state (Walker), to ideologically "pure" (that word really doesn't fit in politics, but can't think of a better one right now) in Cruz, competent with no ideological compass (Kasich), etc. Trump just had a very defined base for the primaries and a "lane", whereas everybody else was mostly competing for overlapping constituencies. Had the field been half as strong, Trump probably wouldn't have gotten off the ground.
I will say, I was pretty dumbfounded that he won the nomination and thought his supporters were idiots, but for all his faults (and they are legion), he has been more loyal to his voters than probably any other candidate would have been (which is funny since he has basically no ideological grounding anywhere outside of trade). And his election has been priceless as far as exposing how corrupt our government is and how disconnected the political and bureaucratic class is from the majority of the country and it already seemed pretty corrupt and disconnected.
This is all more or less correct I think. But I would point out that it's almost inevitable that if you give regulatory agencies so much power over markets, you will see them captured. I'm not sure "the regulators have used their power to pick winners and losers based on political clout; we have to fix it by giving them more power" is a good approach. The alternative approach is difficult once you've used regulation to entrench existing market participants. Focusing on antitrust might be good, but even that has a history of not being utilized to promote competition but being used by large incumbents to try to give protection from successful market disruptors.
It would be an *** whooping of epic proportions. The only advantage China may have is the sheer number of people they could put in front of our bullits and bombs to drive up a body count so horribly high that public opinion turns against us.
I thought this was an interesting take....
I don't have enough personal knowledge around this stuff to say if/why this guy may be right or wrong, but it is good, in my opinion, to hear someone offer a different take on it. Specifically that it is a "myth" that when these companies "fail" they end up firing all of their employees.
[TWEET]1248669571441209346[/TWEET]
I don't have enough personal knowledge around this stuff to say if/why this guy may be right or wrong, but it is good, in my opinion, to hear someone offer a different take on it. Specifically that it is a "myth" that when these companies "fail" they end up firing all of their employees.
[TWEET]1248669571441209346[/TWEET]
You really have no understanding of geopolitical and modern warfare realities.
I agree with this 100%.
Credit companies target college students and recent graduates because they know most of these kids are clueless about debt management, investment, etc. That is not is not the creditors fault, that is the parent's fault and the child's fault. There is tons of Dave Ramsey type stuff out there for guidance.
During the last election period, I had someone include me on a message they sent out saying that people should not vote for anyone that would take away obamacare - the message - "if the govt stops paying for your medical expenses, who do you think will be left to pay it?" Guess what, if it's your medical bills, YOU should pay for them, not me. Do what it takes to get a job with an insurance plan and man up to your responsibilities.
I hear commercials all the time saying, "if you owe $10k or more in credit card debt, don't let the credit card company trick you into thinking you have to pay it all back." It's not a trick. You signed a contract to accept the card, You spent the money knowing there was high interest. You're dubmass fault. Pay up.
I make a pretty decent living but the credit companies would loan me money like i was an oil sheikh if i asked for it. I have to make the choice on how much, if any, debt I am willing to take on.
I get so tired of people wanting to blame everyone in the world but themselves for their own choices.
Credit companies target college students and recent graduates because they know most of these kids are clueless about debt management, investment, etc. That is not is not the creditors fault, that is the parent's fault and the child's fault. There is tons of Dave Ramsey type stuff out there for guidance.
During the last election period, I had someone include me on a message they sent out saying that people should not vote for anyone that would take away obamacare - the message - "if the govt stops paying for your medical expenses, who do you think will be left to pay it?" Guess what, if it's your medical bills, YOU should pay for them, not me. Do what it takes to get a job with an insurance plan and man up to your responsibilities.
I hear commercials all the time saying, "if you owe $10k or more in credit card debt, don't let the credit card company trick you into thinking you have to pay it all back." It's not a trick. You signed a contract to accept the card, You spent the money knowing there was high interest. You're dubmass fault. Pay up.
I make a pretty decent living but the credit companies would loan me money like i was an oil sheikh if i asked for it. I have to make the choice on how much, if any, debt I am willing to take on.
I get so tired of people wanting to blame everyone in the world but themselves for their own choices.
The point of the TPP was to band together Asian-Pacific countries not named China and give the US a lot more leverage in that region. It would have helped with some of what's happening with China now.
Add in the we have been taught (bludgeoned with it, really) that Supply side (the defective mousetrap makers) economics is the solution.
So much so that many on here still think that giving more power to the "too big to fail" companies is good for capitalism...
I can't speak for Xeno but My nation is the USA. If you are from a different nation that you think is better, feel free to hop your happy tail right back over there.
American greed is what will kill capitalism. Our insatiable desire for bigger, better and more and we want all that cheaper.
Hungary is appealing, but I'd rather fight for my nation and land here to turn it into a good society from the Weimar degeneracy/decadence/excess it's become.
We would lose all of our Aircraft carriers.
And lots of satellites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-21
And God knows what they would do to us via the internet...
But in the end, we have more nukes so we'd "win"...
"and the next war will be with sticks and stones"
How'd we let that happen? We shouldn't allow their government to own anything in this country.
Except that's not how it played out at all. We had effective regulation without capture, until an ideological change took hold: short term consumer prices outweighing market share when judging mergers. The regulators didn't get captured, Congress and the courts did.
It's not inevitable at all. That's like saying since teachers have so much power over students, it's inevitable that the teachers all become their drug dealers or pimps. Or that it's inevitable that refs cheat for Bama, rather than a choice made by the SEC. Regulators have followed the rules. No one doubts the market share estimates they put forth. Via govt, we made a choice to change the rules. We didn't have to make that choice, and we don't have to stick with it
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