Socialist USA!

[StageLeft]

The Big Question: Why is Stalin still popular in Russia, despite the brutality of his regime?

The Result

I think I know what Moonbeam would have to say about why Russians have this appreciation for Stalin.

A survey from late 2006 found that 47 per cent of Russians viewed Stalin as a positive figure, and only 29 per cent as a negative one. "Lenin is slowly becoming a historical figure with little contemporary relevance," says Mr Dubin. "But as we focus more and more on the Great Patriotic War [Second World War] as the main event in our 20th-century history, the figure of Stalin becomes more and more significant to ordinary Russians."

Man, you can lead a horse to water but...I don't know what it's like looking back and saying one of your most significant leaders was an evil hell-born wretch of a man, perhaps it's bad for the national psyche and that is why they lie to themselves.

In fact, the West can safely conclude that had Hitler taken them over they would have been worse off. I wonder if Russians can really say it. Probably not, quite frankly, Nazi Germany or Stalin Soviet Union? Like choosing between scat and crap.

 

[BigDH01]

Obviously not, since you think free trade works better for agrarian societies (where currency is largely an accounting mechanism) than for the modern societies which were largely created by free trade and its attendant specialization of labor and potential rewards for risk taking and innovation. I suspect this is just another symptom of our "gimmie your stuff" entitlement mentality.

I would pose that modernity, or post-industrial age, is largely the result of labor. It was the rapid industrialization and urbanization that really allowed people to specialize and create a middle class. However, for the actual factory workers, conditions did not measurably improve. Of course, it was in reaction to poor conditions, child labor, low pay that ideologies such as Socialism and Syndicalism were born. It was the condition of the working class in industrialized France that led Jefferson to say...

As soon as I had got clear of the town I fell in with a poor woman walking at the same rate with myself and going the same course. Wishing to know the condition of the laboring poor I entered into conversation with her, which I began by enquiries for the path which would lead me into the mountain: and thence proceeded to enquiries into her vocation, condition and circumstances. She told me she was a day laborer at 8 sous or 4d. sterling the day: that she had two children to maintain, and to pay a rent of 30 livres for her house (which would consume the hire of 75 days), that often she could no employment and of course was without bread. As we had walked together near a mile and she had so far served me as a guide, I gave her, on parting, 24 sous. She burst into tears of a gratitude which I could perceive was unfeigned because she was unable to utter a word. She had probably never before received so great an aid. This little attendrissement, with the solitude of my walk, led me into a train of reflections on that unequal division of property which occasions the numberless instances of wretchedness which I had observed in this country and is to be observed all over Europe.

The property of this country is absolutely concentred in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a million of guineas a year downwards. These employ the flower of the country as servants, some of them having as many as 200 domestics, not laboring. They employ also a great number of manufacturers and tradesmen, and lastly the class of laboring husbandmen. But after all there comes the most numerous of all classes, that is, the poor who cannot find work. I asked myself what could be the reason so many should be permitted to beg who are willing to work, in a country where there is a very considerable proportion of uncultivated lands? These lands are undisturbed only for the sake of game. It should seem then that it must be because of the enormous wealth of the proprietors which places them above attention to the increase of their revenues by permitting these lands to be labored. I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree, is a politic measure and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed. It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment, but who can find uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.

http://www.per-fidem.org/mobile/bookshelf/tjwealth.html

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Obviously not, since you think free trade works better for agrarian societies (where currency is largely an accounting mechanism) than for the modern societies which were largely created by free trade and its attendant specialization of labor and potential rewards for risk taking and innovation. I suspect this is just another symptom of our "gimmie your stuff" entitlement mentality.

I think you've misunderstood me. I understand the free trader principle but disagree that it's necessarily the best thing in all circumstances and that it's always the best policy. I also highly question whether or not all "free trade" is really an instance people voluntarily exchanging value for value and whether or not sometimes some parties have less leveraging power, no power, or might even essentially be coerced.

This, in spades. We have almost reached the Democrat goal of 50%+ of the population paying no taxes (or more properly, convinced they pay no taxes, not understanding that taxes on corporations are passed on to the consumer) and receiving government largess. from that point we will have a small, very wealthy class that makes the rules and largely self-selects its new members, and a very large poor class (that largely thinks it is middle class) which is equalized by oppressive taxes and government redistribution. At that point progress largely stops because starting new businesses will become difficult and self-defeating. Only education and working for government will offer any real prospect of improvement in one's condition. Only large corporations and those individuals favored by government will start new businesses. We are going to be Greece within a decade, two at the most. Except we'll be fatter and even more spoiled, if possible.

And you're blaming all of this on elements of socialism or elements of capitalism? I blame it on elements of capitalism that expose us to the economic force of Global Labor Arbitrage in addition to other aspects of our current current government that are destroying the economy (current health care policy, failure to regulate higher education, etc.)

 

[WhipperSnapper]

You've fallen into the Progressive trap. The mindset that feels that all things can be managed, by the Government no less, with better results. It's a false premise.

I believe that rational people could in fact manage things well and build profit motives and rewards for productive and rational action into their society. The problem is that humans are currently still primitive and self-destructive when it comes to their philosophy. It's a false premise in the sense that humans are, perhaps, inherently irrational with many having low IQs and being stupid.

To your way of thinking we have too little micro-management by government and to my way of thinking we have too much. We already have a mixture of both socialism and capitalism and have had for a long time. You feel that you'll be better off with a more Socialistic form of government but history proves otherwise.

I think some things are best handled by the government and some better handled by the market. Health care, roads, and utility infrastructure (sewers, electric wire) are things which are not really good market entities. People do not have a choice about whether or not they can go without health care and it is a non-transparent good; it's hard to shop around for it and know exactly what you are purchasing nor can people shop for it when they are in immediate need of it. Roads are build on non-fungible land and often require someone to literally seize another person's land by force in order to have the most efficient path from point A to point B. There is not such thing as real competition between roads in these regards nor would it be economically efficient. (The same goes for utility infrastructure and other things that cross land.)

What we are seeing today is that history is proving that we have too many capitalist elements in the wrong areas and not enough socialist elements (regulation of banks and securities, international trade, higher education, immigration).

To hear some people tell it, pure capitalism would be the ideal and would result in widespread prosperity and freedom for everyone just like some sort of a John Galt-like Atlantis fantasy land.

Contrary to what you've been taught, a purely Socialist from of government saps the incentive from people. It stifles innovation and fosters sameness. It eventually collapses because it cannot sustain itself. The incentive to better oneself is quashed.

What if a mixed economy or even a socialist economy were designed to maintain a profit motive and incentives for innovation--you receive more wealth based on how hard you work and how much you contribute?

I agree that certainly that is a concern. However it isn't as though pure Capitalism doesn't have its own tremendous problems, such as massive inefficiency in the delivery of health care and other goods and services that are not very amenable to perfect competition. Our challenge is to figure out in what areas and to what extent mixtures of socialism and capitalism make sense.

Our hybrid form of government we have right now is near collapse in part because of the demands our socialistic ways have put on it, not because of the capitalistic elements. We're in the situation we're in to a great degree due to deregulation of capitalism that should never have occurred.

Isn't the term "regulation of capitalism" (and thus "deregulation of capitalism") a contradiction? How is it capitalism if it is deregulated? What you seem to be advocating are sociliast controls.

We are in the situation we are in precisely because we have too many capitalist elements in the wrong amounts and in the wrong places in our economy. Our problems are not being caused by having public roads, socialist fire and police departments, or socialized medicine. Rather our problems are being caused by unregulated banks, unregulated and non-beneficial international trade, unrestrained immigration, a broken and inefficient health care system, and waste in higher education.

If one thinks that capitalism is bad, that does not make the extreme opposite better. That should be obvious from our last presidential election.

I never implied that the extreme opposite is better. As I have stated, I am an advocate of a mixed economy having capitalist elements in some areas and socialist elements in others to various degrees.

You've got all the talking points of socialized medicine there. It's been talked to death. I'm not going to bother going into any detail.

Why not refute all of those details? It seems pretty clear cut. Are you really just going to let the sharp contrast stand like that?

We already have socialized medicine here. We call it Medicare and Medicaid. They are both flat ass broke with the resultant mountain of debt and are both run by the same government that wants to further socialize our health care system. Hello? Yes, I know, it will be different this time.

Could they be broke because much of the health care dollars spent in this country that would otherwise shore up care and coverage for the people on Medicare and Medicaid are being squandered by our current health care system? What if instead of having gobs of health care dollars wasted on insurance companies, medical billings people, insurance brokers, large pharmaceutial profits, and benefits plan managers the money paid for doctors, hospitals, nurses, and medical supplies instead?

The last versions of the bill that the public were allowed to peruse were more about "fundamentally transforming the United States of America" than health care. Show me a true health care bill and I'll pass judgment on it. Like you, I know we need health care reform.

I agree that the health care bill is a mess and will not do anything to address our fundamental health care problems--massive free market waste and inefficiency.

BTW, you really should have skipped the ad-lib yacht comment. It cheapens your argument.

No, it doesn't. It just helps to emphasize how much money our current system is wasting. Could we have a health care system without insanely wealthy insurance company executives? Uh, yeah, we could, just like all of the other first world countries do.

But continue to rail against that very same rich man that will be needed to bankroll your Socialist utopia as it's what eventually collapses the very system you're so enamored of.

My point was that those particular rich people, health insurance company executives, are completely unnecessary for our health care system and that they constitute a large amount of economic waste.

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

That is an overly-simplistic cute dogma. I could likewise say that, "The problem with capitalism is that eventually everyone will be owned and enslaved by the owners of the capital."

If you think that by taking a mild air of intellectual superiority you've somehow refuted me or provided a convincing argument in favor of having a predominantly capitalist mixed economy, you've failed.

You still completely failed to explain how socialized medicine can work so much better than our current system and be less expensive in other countries. I put the facts out there with bullet points, making it all an easy target.

 

[umbrella39]

404: Commentary not found.

No shit. Where is the QA around here.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

For labor in the US, free trade is extremely unfair. Perhaps if we had factor mobility both internally and externally at least proportional to the mobility of capital I could agree with your assessment. As it stands, capital is flowing to high population areas while the labor remaining in the United States is told they can't follow it (immigration restrictions). This is on top of other mobility concerns (language barriers, customs, etc). Thus, labor in the United States is stuck living next to capital, which is seeing nice returns as the US is capital endowed, and forced to compete in the same market.

Even if Americans could easily follow the capital, it wouldn't help them. The problem is that they are being merged in with the billions of impoverished people in the third world and in formerly communist countries. We have had a huge explosion in the amount of able and willing labor relative to capitalism, meaning that supply-and-demand will dictate that Americans will end up having a third world standard of living. Perhaps that is good for people in those other countries, but from the perspective of the American people and the American government, the question has to be whether or not it is in the rational selfish economic interests of the American people.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Confiscatory taxation is theft. Pretty soon all the people just move out that have all the wealth.

It depends on who exactly is being taxed. Is it possible that a great many of those CEOs and bankers are grossly overcompensated and that heavy taxation on them would merely recapture money they never should have received?

If those people left it's highly questionable whether our economy would suffer. We have hundreds of thousands of intelligent, well-educated people who would love to take those jobs for a mere $1 million/year. I have a hard time believing that the difference in performance would be all that great.

We've been witnessing that over the past several decades with all the outsourcing of jobs and hiding of money in foreign accounts.

The foreign outsourcing is the result of businesses' ability to pay relatively impoverished people in the third world less compensation while having fewer labor and employment regulations (which might be seen as compensation in terms of standard of living). Taxes or no taxes, it was going to negatively affect the U.S. economy.

Socialized medicine is cheaper due to rationing of care. Robert Reich explains it accurately. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT7Y0TOBuG4 There's a reason my hospitals here in my border town near Canada are packed with Canadians every day. They can't even get a damn MRI so they come here and pay cash to get one same-day.

To hear you tell it, the U.S. doesn't have rationing either nor health insurance company death panels. We ration too!

So, why aren't the Canadian people demanding an end to the Canadian system and the adoption of the American system? Why do the majority of Canadians who are not wealthy or upper class look at the American system with horror?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

BigDH01,

Thank you for posting that excellent excerpt. I never would have guessed who the author was had I not followed that link (which was the point in your posting it). When I read that, I had figured that it was written by a modern person traveling through Southeast Asia.

For those who didn't follow that link, I have copied the preface to the material BigDH01 quoted here:

The entire letter is included here, though the important part is the first three paragraphs, especially the third in which Jefferson discusses the inequality of wealth present in France just before the French Revolution (1789). In this letter to Bishop Madison (not the statesman, but his cousin), Jefferson argues that an inequal distribution of wealth, such as what can be seen in France, is a violation of the natural right to property and the related right to labor. Jefferson advocates a graduated tax as one solution to this problem.

OMG! This cannot be! Those evil socialist ravings were written by none other than our founding father Thomas Jefferson!!! Jefferson may have been an evil socialist at heart!

 

[BigDH01]

Even if Americans could easily follow the capital, it wouldn't help them. The problem is that they are being merged in with the billions of impoverished people in the third world and in formerly communist countries. We have had a huge explosion in the amount of able and willing labor relative to capitalism, meaning that supply-and-demand will dictate that Americans will end up having a third world standard of living. Perhaps that is good for people in those other countries, but from the perspective of the American people and the American government, the question has to be whether or not it is in the rational selfish economic interests of the American people.

I don't know how we avoid the inevitable Malthusian catastrophe, which is basically what you are describing here.

And rational self-interest in the United States is practiced on an individual basis by those who sell to the working and middle classes terms like patriotism and freedom. Nationalism is certainly not practiced by those exporting jobs to places like China, a trading relationship designed to always put the American worker at a disadvantage. It doesn't stop the average American from buying all those little Chinese-made American flags though.

 

[Amused]

Arnt you a pretty well off Business Owner Amused? Like several dozen subways? You know damn well your station gives you inordinate amount of power locally. Just multiply that by a few trillion and go to Washington. And you also know the first million is the hardest after which it's easier to parley your relatively unique wealth into other avenues because not many are competing. It's like having an MD vs HS dropout.

Your Idea of economics is a failure because the necessity of redistribution. America was founded with redistribution (home steading) and ran with it (small business loans, FHA etc) and unfortunately today has largely subsided because we don't give away land anymore to people, and bailed out banks have a strangle hold on funds currently, small business loans are almost impossible to get hence worse economic news. Survival & Riot Control change like welfare and and unemployment don't count I'm talking about capital and/or a means of production.

Why is redistribution necessary? Because unregulated capitalism moves wealth from the labor that creates it to the owners who accumulate it. Simple as that. The rich get richer and poor get poorer. Over time the wealthy control of capital enables them to control politics like we see now, banking and job creation and pay nothing to workers (let them eat cake) because there's more workers than capital and you have to eat to live. Owners have succeeded in getting it all many times and spawned a revolution because all of a society's productive assets and policies are controlled by a small elite. You get fabulous wealth on the one hand, and destitution and misery on the other.

The way to fix this w/o bloodshed and revolution, is to establish mechanisms to move wealth from the top back to the bottom. One simple way to do that is labor unions or higher wages. The other simple solution is progressive taxation. It's all about balance and our modestly unionized progressively taxed economy from the end of the war into the mid-1970's was just amazingly prosperous almost to the bottom of society. Not only that, every rich country on earth has capitalism with strong socialistic undertones. Take at look at your "no tax" , "free market", "minimalist government" paradises. They have names like "Guatemala", "Bolivia" and "Chad" you wouldn't be caught dead in and you know it. Many of you couldn't survive in the misery and poverty of a "minimalist government" paradise.

I'd be interested to see how you paid for your first Subway, first house, College or primary school for that matter, couldn't have been redistributionist taxpayer funded institutions? Nah. Like Robinson Corsue your a man on an Island.

I know better than that. I was educated and I make my money from having a solid middle class not billionaires.
__________________

My father died when I was a teen. I was a drug addict as a teen.

I pulled myself up from drug addiction and homelessness, joined the Army, went to school and made something of myself. I never took a dollar I did not earn or pay back.

I'm now retired.

It's funny how I made it using my idea of economics, isn't it?

I know, I know: But, but but... it's impossible!!!

Bullshit.

Everyone keeps making excuses for why people can't succeed rather than actually encouraging them to succeed.

But what do I know? Everyone's line of thinking is so much more sophisticated than mine... as they sit in school on mommy and daddy's dime soaking up anti-capitalist propaganda and parroting it as if they actually KNOW something. Meanwhile not a fucking one of them has any real world experience and no concept of how to actually generate wealth.

I'll hear bullshit about how "lucky" or "fortunate" I was... or how some socialist program saved me when it's all just more excuses. I worked for what I have and paid back every dime I ever borrowed. Period.

And if I can do this, ANYONE can do SOMETHING to take care of THEMSELVES so long as they are able bodied and minded.

You see, if such a simple minded, unsophisticated idiot like me can generate wealth... your whole pile of bullshit falls apart, doesn't it?

 

[Zebo]

I didn't say you lucky of fortunate. Our socialist system is designed so you have to work for it. None is going to give you an SBA loan without a solid business plan and some skin in the game like your own savings and credit. None is going to allow you into college without decent grades either.

In your long, man on an Isle rant, you never answered the question if those socialist mechanisms aided you or whether they're worthwhile.

 

[wiretap]

It depends on who exactly is being taxed. Is it possible that a great many of those CEOs and bankers are grossly overcompensated and that heavy taxation on them would merely recapture money they never should have received?

If those people left it's highly questionable whether our economy would suffer. We have hundreds of thousands of intelligent, well-educated people who would love to take those jobs for a mere $1 million/year. I have a hard time believing that the difference in performance would be all that great.



The foreign outsourcing is the result of businesses' ability to pay relatively impoverished people in the third world less compensation while having fewer labor and employment regulations (which might be seen as compensation in terms of standard of living). Taxes or no taxes, it was going to negatively affect the U.S. economy.



To hear you tell it, the U.S. doesn't have rationing either nor health insurance company death panels. We ration too!

- Confiscatory taxation is what it is.. I don't care how wealthy someone is. It's taking money from one person and giving it to another. Most of our taxes collected by the federal government are unconstitutional and have been created without a constitutional convention and amendment approval.

- We have the highest or second highest corporate tax rate in the entire world. We have the most regulations and standards that businesses have to follow. Everything has to be federally approved.. making products, providing services, building codes, etc. (now there's even a bill in Congress that says all software created will have to be NIST federally approved) Companies just pack up and say see you later. Government backed Unions have increased the cost of labor incredibly high which in turn makes the products too expensive to compete with foreign made products, so they have to cheapen up the quality to keep competitive price-wise. On top of all this, the hundreds of billions and trillions in federal spending have increased the money supply which causes inflation and cost-of living increases. Just since I was born, things which once cost $1 now cost $2 and wages are roughly the same.

- We have health options. I have the option to pay for whatever treatments I want, even though they are expensive, and I don't even have to have a policy if I don't want to. I don't have to be forced into any policy I don't want.. especially a government policy. If you choose a shitty health plan where you are denied certain coverages, that is your fault for not looking deep enough into your plan options.

 

[Jaskalas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1-QcAPiunk

Yeah!

Summary: We should be receiving free education, which we are entitled to, to get a middle class job, which we are entitled to, to eat food, which we are entitled to, and not be governed by these million dollar senators.

We're already bankrupt without providing this. Imagine how quickly we'd collapse if we were....

 

[Amused]

I didn't say you lucky of fortunate. Our socialist system is designed so you have to work for it. None is going to give you an SBA loan without a solid business plan and some skin in the game like your own savings and credit.

In your long, man on an Isle rant, you never answered the question if those socialist mechanisms aided you or whether they're worthwhile.

Very carefully: I never took a dollar I did not earn or pay back.

I am NOT a product of wealth redistribution, no matter how hard you're trying to make it seem that way. No one gave me anything.

 

[BigDH01]

My father died when I was a teen. I was a drug addict as a teen.

I pulled myself up from drug addiction and homelessness, joined the Army, went to school and made something of myself. I never took a dollar I did not earn or pay back.

So you joined an organization solely funded by the federal government through progressive taxation. Given that you admit the rich pay most of the taxes, you understand that the rich paid the majority of your salary. Given that you were likely poor, what was this other than the rich being forced to give their wealth to you, even when there were likely rich people that didn't want to fund the military at Cold War levels.

Your statement also makes it clear that you are fine with wealth redistribution if it is distributed for work. If every capable poor person in the US decided to join the military, would you be ok with paying taxes to fund it?

How did you pay for school?

I'm now retired.

Congrats.

It's funny how I made it using my idea of economics, isn't it?

It appears to me you made it by taking advantage of a large government program that provides work, training, and education to predominantly poor people by taking tax money from the rich.

I know, I know: But, but but... it's impossible!!!

I think the above is common actually.

Bullshit.

Agreed.

Everyone keeps making excuses for why people can't succeed rather than actually encouraging them to succeed.

Should I encourage them to take advantage of programs offered by the Department of Defense, the single largest expense in federal discretionary spending?

But what do I know? Everyone's line of thinking is so much more sophisticated than mine... as they sit in school on mommy and daddy's dime soaking up anti-capitalist propaganda and parroting it as if they actually KNOW something. Meanwhile not a fucking one of them has any real world experience and no concept of how to actually generate wealth.

I'm not on mommy and daddy's dime. Although I don't think it's very wise for someone who made it on the government's dime to then proclaim the evils of "Socialism." Do you think your time spent in the Army was a time you spent generating wealth?

I'll hear bullshit about how "lucky" or "fortunate" I was... or how some socialist program saved me when it's all just more excuses. I worked for what I have and paid back every dime I ever borrowed. Period.

I don't think you are lucky or fortunate. I do think some Socialist program did save you (and I think the military has helped a lot of people by providing training and money for school). The fact that you had to work does not change that fact. In fact, the idea of armies, industrial, agricultural, military, or otherwise, is a strong theme in Marx's 10 tenets of Socialism (further proof you've never actually read Marx). He also proclaims that everyone has an equal liability to labor. I'm glad the US government was able to help you out of your situation though. They continue to target poor neighborhoods and selling service as a means to pay for higher education, funded predominantly by rich taxpayers, of course.

And if I can do this, ANYONE can do SOMETHING to take care of THEMSELVES so long as they are able bodied and minded.

Yes, almost ANYONE and JOIN THE MILITARY funded by OTHERS to take care of THEMSELVES.

You see, if such a simple minded, unsophisticated idiot like me can generate wealth... your whole pile of bullshit falls apart, doesn't it?

Actually, you should be the poster child of Socialist programs in the US. You took advantage of a taxpayer-funded organization to learn and develop skills which provided you with a better life. It doesn't change the organization that gave you those skills though.

 

[Amused]

So you joined an organization solely funded by the federal government through progressive taxation. Given that you admit the rich pay most of the taxes, you understand that the rich paid the majority of your salary. Given that you were likely poor, what was this other than the rich being forced to give their wealth to you, even when there were likely rich people that didn't want to fund the military at Cold War levels.

Your statement also makes it clear that you are fine with wealth redistribution if it is distributed for work. If every capable poor person in the US decided to join the military, would you be ok with paying taxes to fund it?

How did you pay for school?



Congrats.



It appears to me you made it by taking advantage of a large government program that provides work, training, and education to predominantly poor people by taking tax money from the rich.



I think the above is common actually.



Agreed.



Should I encourage them to take advantage of programs offered by the Department of Defense, the single largest expense in federal discretionary spending?



I'm not on mommy and daddy's dime. Although I don't think it's very wise for someone who made it on the government's dime to then proclaim the evils of "Socialism." Do you think your time spent in the Army was a time you spent generating wealth?



I don't think you are lucky or fortunate. I do think some Socialist program did save you (and I think the military has helped a lot of people by providing training and money for school). The fact that you had to work does not change that fact. In fact, the idea of armies, industrial, agricultural, military, or otherwise, is a strong theme in Marx's 10 tenets of Socialism (further proof you've never actually read Marx). He also proclaims that everyone has an equal liability to labor. I'm glad the US government was able to help you out of your situation though. They continue to target poor neighborhoods and selling service as a means to pay for higher education, funded predominantly by rich taxpayers, of course.





Yes, almost ANYONE and JOIN THE MILITARY funded by OTHERS to take care of THEMSELVES.



Actually, you should be the poster child of Socialist programs in the US. You took advantage of a taxpayer-funded organization to learn and develop skills which provided you with a better life. It doesn't change the organization that gave you those skills though.

Simply amazing.

I took money from NO ONE. I worked for everything I have. No weath was "reditributed" to me.

I took advantage of employee benefits that could have just as well been private sector. In fact, many private sector employers DO offer education benefits to their employees. I know I did.

In the end, you're trying to turn my success into a hand out, and you're full of shit. I created wealth in a system you claimed was preditory and impossible for the poor to do so.

And if you think I'M a bad example, you should hear the story of my brother, who under the same hardships I faced (minus the drug problems) paid his own way through school (No, not a single government scholarship or grant)and used private money to found Xircom. Please explain his success?

Wealth is generated everyday in this country and people climb economic ladders without socialist programs all the time. But according to your sophisticated bullshit, it's impossible.

 

[Zebo]

The fact you can even write proves you're FOS. Who taught you that? How was it pad for?

 

[Amused]

The fact you can even write proves you're FOS. Who taught you that? How was it pad for?

Ah yes, I see. Since I went to the terrible LA county public schools I'm a product of socialism.

Well, let me fill you in, I succeeded IN SPITE of them, not because of them. You see, in 7th grade I was bussed (another great leftist experiment that supposedly "helped" me HA!) to the East Valley to the gang infested shithole of Pacoima where I was assualted more times than I can count, and started skipping school rather than going. It was then that I started doing drugs and lost all interest in education.

How can I write? Well, I could barely spell by the time the wonderful LA County school system graduated me. I taught myself once I realized no one would, or could, help me but me.

 

[Zebo]

BTW why did you sell? I bet Subways are frekken packed right now with tight budgets..

 

[Zebo]

Whether you admit it or not almost everything you've done in life was aided by socialism. The college you went to, the military that protects you, the police and courts that protect your wealth now. The cream and hardworking should rise to the top but that does not mean some mechanisms shoudl not be in place to offer that chance and we got to pay for them somehow.

 

[werepossum]

I think you've misunderstood me. I understand the free trader principle but disagree that it's necessarily the best thing in all circumstances and that it's always the best policy. I also highly question whether or not all "free trade" is really an instance people voluntarily exchanging value for value and whether or not sometimes some parties have less leveraging power, no power, or might even essentially be coerced.



And you're blaming all of this on elements of socialism or elements of capitalism? I blame it on elements of capitalism that expose us to the economic force of Global Labor Arbitrage in addition to other aspects of our current current government that are destroying the economy (current health care policy, failure to regulate higher education, etc.)

I would never argue that free trade is the best policy, only that it the most fair. I'm fairly protectionist myself, because my first interest (after my family) is my country, not fairness. Free trade offers the greatest net gain to a country's wealth, but it also greatly stratifies wealth. The traditional liberal solution to this is for government to seize and redistribute wealth, which both empowers government (which does not produce wealth, but only consumes it and moves it around) and discourages innovation and work by decreasing the ultimate difference in compensation between working very hard and working very little (or not at all.) This is ultimately bad for a nation.

However in fairness I have to admit that free trade is the most fair, even when not completely supporting it (outside the USA) myself. Liberals tend to think free trade's unfairness is demonstrated by inequality of outcome, but for that to hold true every person must be equal. This is easily demonstrated to be untrue. As one example, think of myself, Kobe Bryant, and a Mexican illegal immigrant with no education, and three available jobs - professional basketball player, engineer, and landscaping worker. Kobe Bryant makes far more money than do I because the pool of people who can competitively play basketball at a professional level is quite small and the potential loss or gain is relatively high. The uneducated Mexican illegal immigrant makes far less than I because the pool of people capable of doing landscaping is quite large and the potential loss or gain is relatively small. In offering our labor, Kobe Bryant is always going to earn more money than do I (as long as he is capable of playing) because he has less competition and little motivation to compete with me, and the uneducated Mexican illegal immigrant is always going to earn less because he can't compete with me. This doesn't mean the free market is not fair, but merely that everyone is NOT equal. Likewise not every nation is equal. Different people in different nations are always going to earn different wages because of these inequalities. That an unskilled worker in Mexico earns less than an unskilled worker in the USA is not unfair any more than is my inability to play professional basketball.

 

[Amused]

Whether you admit it or not almost everything you've done in life was aided by socialism. The college you went to, the military that protects you, the police and courts that protect your wealth now. The cream and hardworking should rise to the top but that does not mean some mechanisms shoudl not be in place to offer that chance and we got to pay for them somehow.

Yes, yes, I understand that we have essential services paid for my taxes. We always have. And the military is actually the one thing the Constitution DOES allow for.

That is quite different from the socialist programs called for today, and you know it.

 

[BigDH01]

Simply amazing.

I took money from NO ONE. I worked for everything I have. No weath was "reditributed" to me.

You most certainly did. You took money from taxpayers. Do you understand how military funding works? You were paid by taxpayers who ultimately had little say in how the money was spent and whether or not they had to pay it. You were paid to do a job with money that was forcefully confiscated by people who may or may not have agreed with what you were doing. How is that not redistribution?

I took advantage of employee benefits that could have just as well been private sector. In fact, many private sector employers DO offer education benefits to their employees. I know I did.

So you do admit you took money from the federal government and thus the taxpayer.

In the end, you're trying to turn my success into a hand out, and you're full of shit. I created wealth in a system you claimed was preditory and impossible for the poor to do so.

You pulled yourself up by the bootstraps by joining an organization where the government paid you with money predominantly taken from the rich who had little say in the matter. It may not have been a hand out, but it sure as hell was redistributive.

And if you think I'M a bad example, you should hear the story of my brother, who under the same hardships I faced (minus the drug problems) paid his own way through school (No, not a single government scholarship or grant)and used private money to found Xircom. Please explain his success?

You're a bad example because you are deriding an entire philosophy while at the same time fully admitting you took advantage of said philosophy to better your life. The fact that you can't understand this is mind boggling. Although I find this sort of hypocrisy to be quite common, I'll never understand it.

Is your brother Gates or Matthews? Gates went to Cal State Northridge, which according to this article cost him less than 5k.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/ALUMNUS+ENRICHES+CSUN+WITH+GIFT%3B+ENTREPRENEUR+WILL+DONATE+$1...-a083869790

I wonder why tuition was so low at a STATE university?

Wealth is generated everyday in this country and people climb economic ladders without socialist programs all the time. But according to your sophisticated bullshit, it's impossible.

Well, judging by your story, and the story of your brother (if it is Gates), both of you received at least some help from the government. You in an obvious way, and your brother in the form of subsidized higher education.

 

[Amused]

BTW why did you sell? I bet Subways are frekken packed right now with tight budgets..

I sold because I reached my goal, and all stores were paid for.

I cashed out, reinvested, and moved to San Diego to be near my family in LA.

Now I ride my new Specialized Roubaix Pro up the coast for 40-50 miles a couple days a week (in the dead of winter!) and love every mile of it. I reward myself with a piece of chocolate cake. On off days, I jump on my Harley and cruise inland.

I get to see my neices and nephews far more often and build rockets with my bro.

I may be a capitalist, but I do know there are some things more important than more money.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=1100953228&aid=-3#!/photo.php?pid=2245785&id=1100953228

 

[werepossum]

You most certainly did. You took money from taxpayers. Do you understand how military funding works? You were paid by taxpayers who ultimately had little say in how the money was spent and whether or not they had to pay it. You were paid to do a job with money that was forcefully confiscated by people who may or may not have agreed with what you were doing. How is that not redistribution?



So you do admit you took money from the federal government and thus the taxpayer.



You pulled yourself up by the bootstraps by joining an organization where the government paid you with money predominantly taken from the rich who had little say in the matter. It may not have been a hand out, but it sure as hell was redistributive.



You're a bad example because you are deriding an entire philosophy while at the same time fully admitting you took advantage of said philosophy to better your life. The fact that you can't understand this is mind boggling. Although I find this sort of hypocrisy to be quite common, I'll never understand it.

Is your brother Gates or Matthews? Gates went to Cal State Northridge, which according to this article cost him less than 5k.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/ALUMNUS+ENRICHES+CSUN+WITH+GIFT%3B+ENTREPRENEUR+WILL+DONATE+$1...-a083869790

I wonder why tuition was so low at a STATE university?




Well, judging by your story, and the story of your brother (if it is Gates), both of you received at least some help from the government. You in an obvious way, and your brother in the form of subsidized higher education.

Big difference in taking taxpayer money in return for doing a job and potentially risking your life versus taking taxpayer money because someone else earns more so you're "entitled".