capitalism or socialism ??

[frenchy]

just a thought thats been goin around in my head lately and thought i'd share it .. there seems to be a lot of people who don't like the word socialism .. and to live in the usa where capitalism rules its an even dirtier word .. and i wonder why that is .. i've always said the true measure of any great society is how well they treat the least among them .. and yet a lot of people think that if you have any kind of social net to break the less fortunates fall you're not helpin them but enablin them .. to some degree they may be right .. a lot of people want to think if you want it bad enough you'll work for it yourself .. if thats a brand new flashy car or the house on the hill that costs 3.2 mill i'd have to agree .. but what about basic human needs ?? such as just some kind of roof over your head , basic transportation to a job of some sort .. an education , clothes , food thats actually nutricious .. basic stuff that some take for granted ..

i see where cyprus wants to take like 9% out of everyones bank account because they're havin some serious money troubles .. and it will hit the really rich harder because after all they have more money so they'll pay more .. and of course they all wanna flee the country with their money .. but it makes me think .. we live in a structured society and that takes money to keep it runnin .. schools , hospitals , police , firemen , who pays for all that ?? if you live in that country shouldn't you ?? if you earn more shouldn't you pay a little more for the privilige of livin there and gettin those services ?? i mean what if they couldn't pay the police and firemen and all them things and you were bein robbed and called for help and the answer was well we had to let the police go because we couldn't pay them .. and the person who was callin was sayin i know .. the police are the ones that are robbin me .. 

now could that happen here ?? who knows ?? maybe? maybe not?? but does anyone really wanna push the issue to find out ?? i think capitalism only works if everyone gets to share the spoils .. such as gm has a banner year and makes record profits due to hard work and good execution .. and then you see the ceo gets a 5 million dollar bonus .. and the workers get a turkey at thanksgivin .. seem about right ?? since the 70's the average pay in dollar amounts and actual worth has declined for the american worker every year but has gone up for the people at the top by as much as 300% .. anybody think this is fair ?? 

don't get me wrong here i'm not sayin that if you're down on your luck the guberment should put you up in the ritz.. there are a lot of things that can be fine tuned a bit better .. but socialism is not a bad thing in my mind .. what do you guys think?? be nice now .. no pushin no shovin and no sniffin hineys ..  

[Lifesighs]

I have seen many recent surveys of the happiest countries, usually the top are the scandinavian countries where the average joe gets lots of benefits, they pay a big tax rate however it comes back to them with services, the countries are cleaner the health care is free good schools and child care. Very socialist places and they do take care of the least of them. 

I guess I'm a commie pinko because I'm losing faith with the capitalist system we have now. It's very broken. When it was regulated in the 50's and 60's it worked much better, now the greedy pigs, banks, insurance companies and big oil own it all.

[frenchy]

just a quick addition here .. i'm not sayin you can only have one and not the other .. i happen to believe you can have both .. to be fair if you build a better mouse trap then you should be able to reap the rewards of that venture .. but you should also be able to pay a little more to maintain the fabric of this society that you live in that made it possible for you to 1, build that better mouse trap and 2, be able to sell it and earn the rewards in this great country of ours  ... 

[frenchy]

i liked the video too .. it was funny even tho not completely accurate .. but half right is still half right ..

[Shadowman]

Remember the old joke? 

What's the difference between capitalism and socialism? Under capitalism one  person exploits another person, and under socialism, it's just the opposite.

[frenchy]

well i'm not so sure about that shadowman .. capitalism is the few at the top takin advantage of the many at the bottom .. socialism is the many tryin to even up the odds somewhat and wrestle some of the wealth from the elite few .. 

don't get me wrong , i don't think we should start takin everything away from the rich .. i do believe in capitalism too .. but somehow when i think of someone like bill gates who earns 64 billion dollars payin a bit more to keep the nation runnin smoother it doesn't upset me to think he might only have 60 billion left... and thats the big knock on socialism .. that we're tryin to take away the individual spirit of the entrepeneuers .. i don't think that has to happen .. but for certain things i think its nesessary . such as healthcare, the capatilists think they should be able to make a profit on weather you live or die.. i disagree ..we'd be much better served with a not for profit healthcare system .. now that don't mean you don't pay for it .. it just means that there ain't a bunch of middle men in the ointment gummin things up so your health becomes secondary to someones bottom line .. but when you say things like that then you're a socialist ..and i don't think thats a bad thing .. nor do i think good old yankee ingenuity and the reward for the better widget is a bad thing either.. and that would be capitalism .. but then the cost of doin business in this great society should be a higher toll for the ones who have more .. so then we're back to socialism again .. i guess i'm a socialistic capitalist.. or would that be a capitalistic socialist ?? 

[dwalt]

Sorry, I want to choose who I give my hard earned dollars to.  If I can drag my rear out of bed T 4:00 in the morning and work..well so can the able ones. I'm not talking about children, elderly, or handicapped.  I just see far too many expecting handouts and not willing to better themselves.

[frenchy]

well i agree with you on that dwalt .. i even had a plan for it .. i don't think that anyone who really needs help should be turned away .. but why does it always have to be free ?? now if you are legitimately disabled thats different .. but young mothers who don't think ahead and just get knocked up time after time with no plan at all in mind ?? i think there should be a different plan for them .. i don't think they shouldn't be helped .. but i think the first question that should be asked is who is the father ..i remember when i lived in jersey before i had my own business i'd get my check every week .. and along with it came a stub that had all the deductions on it .. federal income tax witholdin , fica ( social security ) state tax, and sui ( state unemployment insurance ) i don't see why they couldn't just make one more box for someone who got a LOAN  from either the state or the federal gubment for help they got when they had small kids at home .. now if you know who the father is you pay 50% and he pays 50% .. however if you don't know who the father is then you're on the hook for 100% .i think you'd have a lot more fathers in court payin child support and practicin birth control too. you'd see how quick the unwed birthrate would go down ..and like a school loan every penny you get you pay back .. even if its only 10 bucks a week so its an incentive to not stay on the dole for too long .. for the dad too to either wear a condom or use the rhythym method and practice withdrawal .. i'm sure the a.c.l.u. would claim foul but the states could just say ok you're right its not fair so we'll just cut all the fundin unless  the recipients sign this form ..i don't think there's a law anywhere that says we have to give any money away for free .. all i'm tryin to do here is separate the ones who really need it from the ones who put their own ass in a sling .. again i believe in socialism but that don't mean i don't also believe in some sort of responsibility too .. 

[dwalt]

Amen to that frenchy.  And the free cell phone for people on wellfare, ummm, no.

[frenchy]

i'd probably give em the phone for emergencies dwalt.. but i'd put it on their bill and they'd pay that back too .. might take em 15 or 20 years at 10 or 15 bucks a week plus a low interest rate.. but it would definitely teach some kind of responsibility .. and i'd try to see what kind of courses they could take at home for a better education to get em ready for the real world while they were takin care of them kids so they could get a better job and could pay all that money back ..  

[ProblemAgain]

 the answer, to me at least, lies someplace in the middle. if you look back at history and that includes both recent history like the last 50 years and older eras including victorian and earlier times, whenever either group i. e. capital or labor was in complete control, it was not good for society as a whole. good capitalism is a great thing. it produces goods and jobs and general well-being for the society as a whole.
  the last few decades and, especially since the financial debacle, we have seen why unfettered capitalism is bad for society. we have witnessed corporate executives getting massive bonuses for figuring out how to lay off employees...some of the large financial institutions can proudly point to layoffs of over 100,000 employees each. instead of figuring out ways to bring employees back, they figure out ways to get rid of more and those ways include outsourcing and loading more work on fewer employees. and the laidoff employees have hard times finding jobs. some employers have admitted that they won't even consider a person for a job unless they ARE EMPLOYED at the present time. sort of makes no sense to me since it essentially seems to be penalizing those former employed people who weren't actively seeking to leave the companies that employed them.

  walmart has led the way to part-time employees making minimum wages with no benefits and what small company such as an owner-run small grocery can compete with a corporation that not only pays minimum wage and no benefits but also exercises such economic clout because of its size that it can negotiate the prices of goods from their suppliers by threatening to not buy, and at the same time, charge shelfspace fees to that supplier to sell the same merchandise?


 elizabeth warren stated just the other day that if minimum wage had kept up with productivity and inflation, the minimum wage would now be 22 bucks an hour. it is 7.25.  the middle class, for that matter, has had a decline in its income for the last 30 years as prices of goods, services, housing et al have increased. but the very top tiers have seen huge increases in income.

 so just my take on it, but the demand for government services for the poor can in some instances be laid at the feet of big business. essentially we as a nation are providing a subsidy to the large corporations and the wealthy by these safety nets that we need because they don't want to pay living wages or benefits. the idea behind a minimum wage was that minimum wage was what was required to be able to make a living, not get rich or take vacations,  but to pay rent, buy food, etc. just do the math..when was the last time you could make a living on 580 bucks a month? and that is gross, before deductions.
  meantime up at the tippytop, the very very wealthy have NO expenditures. everything is paid for them as expenses and perks. health insurance, life insurance, even home staff get expensed. might just be time to take a look at what really is fair

 and add to that the taxpayer's funding of cleanups of sites of corporate irresponsibility such as libby montana, the exxon valdez etc etc...

just the other day this was in the news...

Waste, fraud and abuse commonplace in Iraq reconstruction effort

After U.S. and allied warplanes destroyed a key bridge carrying 15 oil and gas pipelines in northern Iraq during the 2003 conflict there, officials in Washington and Baghdad made its postwar reconstruction a top priority. But instead of spending two months to rebuild the span over the Tigris River at an estimated cost of $5 million, they decided for security reasons to bury the pipelines beneath it, at an estimated cost more than five times greater.

What ultimately happened there tells the story — in a microcosm — of a substantial chunk of the massive nine-year U.S. effort to reconstruct Iraq, the second-largest such endeavor in history (only the U.S. investment in Afghanistan has been larger).

Studies conducted before the digging of the new pipelines started showed that the soil was too sandy, but neither the Army Corps of Engineers overseeing the effort nor the main contractor at the site, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), heeded the warning. As a result, “tens of millions of dollars (were) wasted on churning sand” without making any headway, as Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart W. Bowen Jr., described it in his recently published final report on the U.S. occupation.

By the time the digging effort was halted, and the old bridge and piping repaired — more than three years later — the bill had reached more than $100 million. “Because of the nature of the original contract, the government was unable to recover any of the money wasted on this project,” Bowen said. More than $1.5 billion in oil revenues may have been lost as a result of the delays. KBR did not respond to a request for comment.

The episode is emblematic of the contracting abuses and mismanagement that wasted at least $8 billion of the $60 billion spent by Washington on Iraq’s postwar recovery, under the guidance of what Bowen describes in his report as “adhocracy” largely controlled by the U.S. military — a structure that never “coalesced into a coherent whole” and often failed to achieve its aims.

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/19/17362769-waste-frau...

oh geee...we had cost plus contracts and pissed away 100 million on ONE project alone and STILL ended up with the bridge that would have cost 5 million to replace if they had just done it...i smell a position on a board of directors for someone..

or jamie dimon's bank hiding 6 billion in losses from regulators?

and that's why i think we need a regulated capitalism to provide opportunity for people to create business and to protect workers from abuse BY business and that MIGHT protect the american public from predatory capitalism. countrywide mortgage et al...

[frenchy]

yup pretty much what i been sayin .. its a delicate balance and when one side gets too much weight then we all fall off the see saw ..

 

[ProblemAgain]

there actually was a time in old england when it was a crime and punishable by prison terms to even talk of unions, unionizing or rights of workers. some seem to like that idea...