Capitalism is a massive grift, if not outright theft. Paying people 2.90 and hour and then subtracting food (uneaten food), is wrong. Of course that never stopped a die-hard capitalist, After all whether or not his employees eat or pay rent isn't his problem, is it? (It is, though)
Capitalism is a massive grift, if not outright theft. Paying people 2.90 and hour and then subtracting food (uneaten food), is wrong. Of course that never stopped a die-hard capitalist, After all whether or not his employees eat or pay rent isn't his problem, is it? (It is, though)
This is fucking brilliant Robyn. I particularly like this:
"... that is not, remotely, how it is working. Rather, business owners pay as little as they can, landlords charge as much as they can, and everyone else? Well, they’re just supposed to “figure it out” in a way that somehow does not inconvenience anyone. That doesn’t work. It doesn’t allow society to function, nevermind flourish. It turns us into the Donner Party, willing to eat our own if we think it will allow us to survive."
Entrepreneurship is a scam, full stop. Starting your own business is just begging for failure (unless you're an evangelical, in which case you can skim off the GoFundMe for your attorney for the inevitable discrimination suit.)
All the folks that yap about capitalism don't understand that profits don't exist in capitalism over the long term.
Profits are anti-capitalist.
What we actually have is a a series of industries that are monopolies and oligopolies that allow a small number of companies to leach all the value out of our economy while crushing any nascent competition.
Meanwhile our country full of ignorant numbskulls thinks they're all going to be the next Elon Musk so they throw giant fits whenever we talk about raising taxes on corporations or the mega wealthy.
Capitalism is also anti-capitalist by way of rewarding monopolies. Or to be specific about the process, capitalism creates a culture where ethics and laws are fungible, which leads to politicians that are sensitive to regulatory capture. This makes monopolies even more probable.
I mean, it's not a new take. It's just basic economics. In a true capitalist system, any market where there are excess profits will see new businesses enter the market until it is no longer sustainable, i.e. profits are near zero.
The problem is, we have high schoolers drawing maps of their state instead of studying things that will allow them to be active citizens. (I got in deep shit in like 11th grade because I said, here's your fucking map 🖕🏾)
I've read and heard plenty of economist claims, statements, and theories and every single one of them is bad at basic math. I have rejected the entire field als a scam.
I've never heard an economist say that profit is anti-capitalist. Do you have a source? Because that sounds like the kind of economist that might redeem the field in my eyes. And while I do enjoy shitting on economists, my intellectual honesty requires that I give counter arguments a fair chance.
I mean, I generally agree with you with regards to the field of economics. Most people with advanced degrees are spouting nonsense.
As someone with a mere bachelor's degree in the field however, that's just econ 101.
Economics assumes perfect information and the ability for anyone to enter the industry (otherwise it's oligopoly or monopoly which should only be allowed where the economies of scale are highly beneficial and should be highly regulated to prevent profiteering).
The downsides of oligopoly and monopoly (and of course oligosony & monopsony) are obvious to anyone who has spent any time studying the development of any hierarchy over a long period. Power grows. Always. You could say it has a gravity of it's own. This for me is enough to fear monopolies etc. in any context, regardless of benefits. As they say, the fascists made the trains run on time, but is that really worth it?
Power only ever becomes less if it is made to explode or if the powers that be understand that it is about to explode, motivating them to hand over some of the power to others (though they will try to rig the game).
As you say, regulation is key. Nationalised services being such a bureaucratic mess is a feature, not a bug: It means there is no power centre to start growing. Or at least, the power is the bureaucracy's ability to say "no" and nothing else. It creates a situation where power-hungry behavioural patterns are attracted to positions where their only power is the power to hit the brake. That is inherently stabilising.
Your point, Robyn, can NOT be repeated too often. A society that works for only a select few is no society at all, which explains the late, lamentable Margaret Thatcher to deny its very existence, she wanted nothing to do with a polity without abject losers, people denied any value. She and her ilk NEED there to be an underclass to sneer at and feel superior to.
Is it possible that their are goods and services that can not be provided without SOMEBODY being paid minimum wage or less? Maybe, maybe not. If not, then the answer is to socialize the business so it may be run without having to turn over a profit AND without exploiting anyone. Is getting cheap cuts of meat worth the lives of desperately poor immigrants, working in dangerous and filthy workplaces? How about the meatpacking industry buying immunity from mandated common sense public health measures during the worst of the Covid pandemic? Never mind the whole "meat is murder" issue, that is an entirely different argument.
Industrial farming is another relevant issue. Not only does it make paupers of independent farmers, but it also leads to such ghastly phenomena as vast liquid waste lagoons, open-air cesspits which in some places which are kept from totally overflowing by simply pumping it up and spraying it into the air, effectively constituting biological warfare against citizens down wind. Don't click on this clip from Amy Goodman's show unless you are feeling VERY brave, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyAFNV4Afgw. Remember the grossly irresponsible aerial testing of nuclear weapons in the '40s, '50s and '60s, and the huge cancer shadow it cast over the western great plains? Well, here we are again, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TnkJ8_BmSI as Gomer Pyle was wont to say.
Unions, not unbridled capitalism, built the once powerful middle class. Had we followed the lead of Morgan, Mellon and Carnegie, we would be living in a feudal society of serfs and nobles.
The ever reliable Paul Krugman has decided it's time yet again to remind people that those "good paying" manufacturing jobs are only good paying thanks to unions. It drives me nuts when anti-union Republicans go on and on about manufacturing all the while undermining the very reason they are good jobs to begin with. Or rather, it drives me nuts that the media let's them get away with the hypocrisy.
The media couldn't give a rat's ass about truth or reality. Their objective is to produce ad revenue Consequently, they will say whatever drives the ratings charts and applause meters the highest.
WE have had a system of regulated capitalism in the United States for well over 100 years. it is actually the model European countries emerging from the chaos of WWI and WWII based their economic systems on. Unions are an integral part of that system as are social welfare programs and safety nets. It has been working splendidly for over a century, so why in the hell does anyone want to change it?
Are you speaking ironically, or just without the first clue about how things work here in the Land of the Free (to be exploited mercilessly) and the Brave (who volunteer to serve in such atrocities as the oil companies' attempt to steal Iraq's oil reserves).
We HAD the beginnings of a social democracy in the New Deal, which the Party of Treason has been chipping, chipping, chipping away at tirelessly ever since. Unions have been broken, suppressed, driven out since the '60s. Do not even try to compare the US to actual Social Democracies such as the Scandinavian countries, and maybe a few south of the Baltic, but NO WHERE ELSE in the world.
What the handful of rich people don't understand is that those good paying jobs are what keeps them rich. Only a very small handful can depend upon generational wealth to keep them rich.
Actually, this is capitalism. It just needs to be regulated and transparent. Where do you think "businesses" come from? Plopping up fully formed from the ground? What other system do you think would do better? You'd better actually have one and not some fantasy you've concocted. Capitalism is not perfect, but you should work harder to perfect it than just whine.
"I am clearly not a capitalist, but I imagine that in an ideal world, it would work something like this — businesses people a fair salary and charge a fair amount for their goods and/or services, landlords charge people a reasonable amount to live somewhere/a majority of single family homes are, at the very least, affordable for people making the current median salary (currently $45,760). In turn, people then have disposable income with which to buy goods and services, supporting other businesses that also pay people a living wage."
Somehow, in the chilly nations of Scandinavia, Capitalism has been hedged in and policed so that it does not get grossly out of hand. They don't have bloated plutocrats like the Kochs, Mercers and so on who can subvert their democracies with pocket change.
Bless him, Biden is keeping the promise Obama broke when he didn't put on his "comfortable shoes" and join those striking/protesting teachers in Wisconsin and other states. Biden is quite possibly the most pro-union president we've ever had in this country.
Biden is doing this now, but I'm sure he would not have previously. He adjusts to the times. He's a good president, but Obama got more done against bigger obstacles.
Pray tell, what has been the biggest obstacle that Biden has had to deal with thet Obama did not have? - TRUMP and the MAGAts. I would posit that that is a huga obstacle that has the majoity of people around the WORLD worried that thge US with become a facist state. The fact that Biden has spoken out against it so continually has easily put a target on his head that he must think about every day.
He, like I, was alive when President Kennedy was shot, and not because of a vile evil American trying to destroy outr country every day.
Nothing. I'm saying Biden has less obstacles. Did you forget Obama is Black? And I believe that was far more difficult to overcome than TRUMP and the MAGAts. And what is the significance of being born before 11-23-63?
First of all, your second sentence is insulting as of couse I know that. But he ran againt Mitt Romney in 2008 and John McCain in 2016, neither of whom were extreme right Republicans. And sorry to say that was not as hard for him as anyone running againast Trump now.
Trump did start being more well known on the national stage in 2011 when he claimed that Obama was born in either Maylasia or Kenya, but his claims did not stop Obama from winning a second term.
Now Obama won in 2008 with 52.9% of the vote, and Romney with 45.7%. In 2016 it was 51.1% for Obama and 47.2% for McCain. A bit of a drop which can be probably based simply because more people liked McCain that Romney.
But the MAIN thing that happened that makes it harder now is that before Obama, many of the future MAGAts were still in their hidey-holes, and both Obama's election and then Trump's rise to national fame allowed them to actually come out and say PUBLICALLY that they wanted to kill all non-white people, all immigrants, all-LGBTQIA+ people, and that women should all be barefoot and pregnant and stay home and cook and not have jobs. Oh, and did you forget January 6, 2021?
It is all of these things that makes Trump still an extreme danger to this country. We do not know at this point if he will be found guilty in any of his trials or not. We do not know whether he will be able to run for president or not.
But what we DO know is that just like most people did not know about those bigots in their hidey-holes in the past, we do know that they will be out there in 2024 with their sniper rifles and machine guns and bombs and other weapons no matter which way Trump ends up.
And that is why Biden is in more danger than any other president has been.
As for the JFK reference, the point should've been obvious as it is very possible that one of these MAGAts might kill Biden. Of course I do not wish that at all, but unlike one person who was gunning for Kennedy, there are easily thousands who would want to kill Biden, and we have to hope that that does not happen.
I do not think Jan 6 is something that will benefit tfg by Nov 2024. I also think Biden has benefitted from following a true patriot who broke new paths - Barack Obama. Most everybody has a dipshit relative who talks big but lacks the spine to back it up. I don't think Biden is in MORE danger than any president has been. I do agree there's danger, though. The FBI may be more effective for Biden than they were with Obama.
Capitalism is a massive grift, if not outright theft. Paying people 2.90 and hour and then subtracting food (uneaten food), is wrong. Of course that never stopped a die-hard capitalist, After all whether or not his employees eat or pay rent isn't his problem, is it? (It is, though)
Capitalism is a massive grift, if not outright theft. Paying people 2.90 and hour and then subtracting food (uneaten food), is wrong. Of course that never stopped a die-hard capitalist, After all whether or not his employees eat or pay rent isn't his problem, is it? (It is, though)
This is fucking brilliant Robyn. I particularly like this:
"... that is not, remotely, how it is working. Rather, business owners pay as little as they can, landlords charge as much as they can, and everyone else? Well, they’re just supposed to “figure it out” in a way that somehow does not inconvenience anyone. That doesn’t work. It doesn’t allow society to function, nevermind flourish. It turns us into the Donner Party, willing to eat our own if we think it will allow us to survive."
Entrepreneurship is a scam, full stop. Starting your own business is just begging for failure (unless you're an evangelical, in which case you can skim off the GoFundMe for your attorney for the inevitable discrimination suit.)
Avarice is the absolute worst, and it rules everything in human civilization.
I don't think capitalism can get better...I think we need to wean ourselves off of it, eventually getting to Space Communism like on Star Trek.
All the folks that yap about capitalism don't understand that profits don't exist in capitalism over the long term.
Profits are anti-capitalist.
What we actually have is a a series of industries that are monopolies and oligopolies that allow a small number of companies to leach all the value out of our economy while crushing any nascent competition.
Meanwhile our country full of ignorant numbskulls thinks they're all going to be the next Elon Musk so they throw giant fits whenever we talk about raising taxes on corporations or the mega wealthy.
That's a new take, I completely agree.
Capitalism is also anti-capitalist by way of rewarding monopolies. Or to be specific about the process, capitalism creates a culture where ethics and laws are fungible, which leads to politicians that are sensitive to regulatory capture. This makes monopolies even more probable.
I mean, it's not a new take. It's just basic economics. In a true capitalist system, any market where there are excess profits will see new businesses enter the market until it is no longer sustainable, i.e. profits are near zero.
The problem is, we have high schoolers drawing maps of their state instead of studying things that will allow them to be active citizens. (I got in deep shit in like 11th grade because I said, here's your fucking map 🖕🏾)
I've read and heard plenty of economist claims, statements, and theories and every single one of them is bad at basic math. I have rejected the entire field als a scam.
I've never heard an economist say that profit is anti-capitalist. Do you have a source? Because that sounds like the kind of economist that might redeem the field in my eyes. And while I do enjoy shitting on economists, my intellectual honesty requires that I give counter arguments a fair chance.
I mean, I generally agree with you with regards to the field of economics. Most people with advanced degrees are spouting nonsense.
As someone with a mere bachelor's degree in the field however, that's just econ 101.
Economics assumes perfect information and the ability for anyone to enter the industry (otherwise it's oligopoly or monopoly which should only be allowed where the economies of scale are highly beneficial and should be highly regulated to prevent profiteering).
The downsides of oligopoly and monopoly (and of course oligosony & monopsony) are obvious to anyone who has spent any time studying the development of any hierarchy over a long period. Power grows. Always. You could say it has a gravity of it's own. This for me is enough to fear monopolies etc. in any context, regardless of benefits. As they say, the fascists made the trains run on time, but is that really worth it?
Power only ever becomes less if it is made to explode or if the powers that be understand that it is about to explode, motivating them to hand over some of the power to others (though they will try to rig the game).
As you say, regulation is key. Nationalised services being such a bureaucratic mess is a feature, not a bug: It means there is no power centre to start growing. Or at least, the power is the bureaucracy's ability to say "no" and nothing else. It creates a situation where power-hungry behavioural patterns are attracted to positions where their only power is the power to hit the brake. That is inherently stabilising.
Your point, Robyn, can NOT be repeated too often. A society that works for only a select few is no society at all, which explains the late, lamentable Margaret Thatcher to deny its very existence, she wanted nothing to do with a polity without abject losers, people denied any value. She and her ilk NEED there to be an underclass to sneer at and feel superior to.
Is it possible that their are goods and services that can not be provided without SOMEBODY being paid minimum wage or less? Maybe, maybe not. If not, then the answer is to socialize the business so it may be run without having to turn over a profit AND without exploiting anyone. Is getting cheap cuts of meat worth the lives of desperately poor immigrants, working in dangerous and filthy workplaces? How about the meatpacking industry buying immunity from mandated common sense public health measures during the worst of the Covid pandemic? Never mind the whole "meat is murder" issue, that is an entirely different argument.
Industrial farming is another relevant issue. Not only does it make paupers of independent farmers, but it also leads to such ghastly phenomena as vast liquid waste lagoons, open-air cesspits which in some places which are kept from totally overflowing by simply pumping it up and spraying it into the air, effectively constituting biological warfare against citizens down wind. Don't click on this clip from Amy Goodman's show unless you are feeling VERY brave, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyAFNV4Afgw. Remember the grossly irresponsible aerial testing of nuclear weapons in the '40s, '50s and '60s, and the huge cancer shadow it cast over the western great plains? Well, here we are again, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TnkJ8_BmSI as Gomer Pyle was wont to say.
Unions, not unbridled capitalism, built the once powerful middle class. Had we followed the lead of Morgan, Mellon and Carnegie, we would be living in a feudal society of serfs and nobles.
Excellent, excellent post Robyn. Kudos.
The ever reliable Paul Krugman has decided it's time yet again to remind people that those "good paying" manufacturing jobs are only good paying thanks to unions. It drives me nuts when anti-union Republicans go on and on about manufacturing all the while undermining the very reason they are good jobs to begin with. Or rather, it drives me nuts that the media let's them get away with the hypocrisy.
The media couldn't give a rat's ass about truth or reality. Their objective is to produce ad revenue Consequently, they will say whatever drives the ratings charts and applause meters the highest.
when click bait is your business model you are no longer a journalistic outfit (i said it)
plus, the oligarchs who own the mass media do NOT want their hirelings spreading the word about unions
WE have had a system of regulated capitalism in the United States for well over 100 years. it is actually the model European countries emerging from the chaos of WWI and WWII based their economic systems on. Unions are an integral part of that system as are social welfare programs and safety nets. It has been working splendidly for over a century, so why in the hell does anyone want to change it?
Are you speaking ironically, or just without the first clue about how things work here in the Land of the Free (to be exploited mercilessly) and the Brave (who volunteer to serve in such atrocities as the oil companies' attempt to steal Iraq's oil reserves).
We HAD the beginnings of a social democracy in the New Deal, which the Party of Treason has been chipping, chipping, chipping away at tirelessly ever since. Unions have been broken, suppressed, driven out since the '60s. Do not even try to compare the US to actual Social Democracies such as the Scandinavian countries, and maybe a few south of the Baltic, but NO WHERE ELSE in the world.
Can't have a system with good paying jobs AND a handful of rich people with more wealth than the the bottom 30%. So good paying jobs have to go.
What the handful of rich people don't understand is that those good paying jobs are what keeps them rich. Only a very small handful can depend upon generational wealth to keep them rich.
You know, I also love how unions can just crush your business. If a union can destroy your business, it probably deserves it.
Oh, wait - he was being sarcastic? My bad. Previous comment still stands.
Actually, this is capitalism. It just needs to be regulated and transparent. Where do you think "businesses" come from? Plopping up fully formed from the ground? What other system do you think would do better? You'd better actually have one and not some fantasy you've concocted. Capitalism is not perfect, but you should work harder to perfect it than just whine.
"I am clearly not a capitalist, but I imagine that in an ideal world, it would work something like this — businesses people a fair salary and charge a fair amount for their goods and/or services, landlords charge people a reasonable amount to live somewhere/a majority of single family homes are, at the very least, affordable for people making the current median salary (currently $45,760). In turn, people then have disposable income with which to buy goods and services, supporting other businesses that also pay people a living wage."
Somehow, in the chilly nations of Scandinavia, Capitalism has been hedged in and policed so that it does not get grossly out of hand. They don't have bloated plutocrats like the Kochs, Mercers and so on who can subvert their democracies with pocket change.
Morning all. ☕
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Bless him, Biden is keeping the promise Obama broke when he didn't put on his "comfortable shoes" and join those striking/protesting teachers in Wisconsin and other states. Biden is quite possibly the most pro-union president we've ever had in this country.
Biden is doing this now, but I'm sure he would not have previously. He adjusts to the times. He's a good president, but Obama got more done against bigger obstacles.
Pray tell, what has been the biggest obstacle that Biden has had to deal with thet Obama did not have? - TRUMP and the MAGAts. I would posit that that is a huga obstacle that has the majoity of people around the WORLD worried that thge US with become a facist state. The fact that Biden has spoken out against it so continually has easily put a target on his head that he must think about every day.
He, like I, was alive when President Kennedy was shot, and not because of a vile evil American trying to destroy outr country every day.
Nothing. I'm saying Biden has less obstacles. Did you forget Obama is Black? And I believe that was far more difficult to overcome than TRUMP and the MAGAts. And what is the significance of being born before 11-23-63?
First of all, your second sentence is insulting as of couse I know that. But he ran againt Mitt Romney in 2008 and John McCain in 2016, neither of whom were extreme right Republicans. And sorry to say that was not as hard for him as anyone running againast Trump now.
Trump did start being more well known on the national stage in 2011 when he claimed that Obama was born in either Maylasia or Kenya, but his claims did not stop Obama from winning a second term.
Now Obama won in 2008 with 52.9% of the vote, and Romney with 45.7%. In 2016 it was 51.1% for Obama and 47.2% for McCain. A bit of a drop which can be probably based simply because more people liked McCain that Romney.
But the MAIN thing that happened that makes it harder now is that before Obama, many of the future MAGAts were still in their hidey-holes, and both Obama's election and then Trump's rise to national fame allowed them to actually come out and say PUBLICALLY that they wanted to kill all non-white people, all immigrants, all-LGBTQIA+ people, and that women should all be barefoot and pregnant and stay home and cook and not have jobs. Oh, and did you forget January 6, 2021?
It is all of these things that makes Trump still an extreme danger to this country. We do not know at this point if he will be found guilty in any of his trials or not. We do not know whether he will be able to run for president or not.
But what we DO know is that just like most people did not know about those bigots in their hidey-holes in the past, we do know that they will be out there in 2024 with their sniper rifles and machine guns and bombs and other weapons no matter which way Trump ends up.
And that is why Biden is in more danger than any other president has been.
As for the JFK reference, the point should've been obvious as it is very possible that one of these MAGAts might kill Biden. Of course I do not wish that at all, but unlike one person who was gunning for Kennedy, there are easily thousands who would want to kill Biden, and we have to hope that that does not happen.
I do not think Jan 6 is something that will benefit tfg by Nov 2024. I also think Biden has benefitted from following a true patriot who broke new paths - Barack Obama. Most everybody has a dipshit relative who talks big but lacks the spine to back it up. I don't think Biden is in MORE danger than any president has been. I do agree there's danger, though. The FBI may be more effective for Biden than they were with Obama.
Is this open thread, or is every thread the open thread?...
The workers have seized the means of production!
The Wonkers have seized the means of production.
AOT, K.