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The Rich, The Poor, & The Trouble With Socialism
Authored by Bill Bonner (of Bonner & Partners), illustrated by Acting-Man's Pater Tenebrarum,
Rich Man, Poor Man
Poverty is better than wealth in one crucial way: The poor are still under the illusion that money can make them happy. People with money already know better. But they are reluctant to say anything for fear that the admiration they get for being wealthy would turn to contempt.
“You mean you’ve got all that moolah and you’re no happier than me?”
“That’s right, man.”
“You poor S.O.B.”
We bring this up because it is at the heart of government’s scam – the notion that it can make poor people happier. In the simplest form, government says to the masses: Hey, we’ll take away the rich guys’ money and give it to you. This has two major benefits (from an electoral point of view). First, and most obvious, it offers money for votes. Second, it offers something more important: status.

...and ending up moping.
After you have food, shelter, clothing, and a few necessities, everything else is status, vanity, and power. Extra money helps us feel good about ourselves… and attract mates. It’s not just the money that matters. It’s your relative position in society. From this point of view, it does as much good to take away a rich person’s money as it does to give money to a poor person.
Either way, the gap closes. Never, since the beginning of time up to 2015, has government ever added to wealth. It has no way to do so. And no intention of doing so. All it can do is to increase the power, wealth, or status of some people – at others’ expense.
The Trouble with Socialism
That is a perfectly satisfactory outcome for most people, at least in the short term. But the more this tool is used – the more some people’s power, status, and wealth is taken away – the more the wealth of all of them declines.
The trouble with socialism, as Maggie Thatcher remarked, is that you run out of other people’s money. You run out because there is only so much wealth available… and because the redistribution of that wealth distorts the signals and incentives needed to create new wealth.

Joseph Stalin’s modest little dacha in Moscow – highly appropriate for a the global leader of the proletarians
Photo credit: RIA Novosti
This means that society gets poorer relative to other societies that are not stealing from one group to give to another. After a while, the difference becomes a problem.
The meddlers see that they are falling behind and change their policies to try to get back in the race. (This is more or less what happened in Britain and China in the 1970s and the Soviet Union in the 1980s.) Or the poorer society is conquered by the richer one (which has more money to spend on weapons). There is one other wrinkle worth mentioning…

Stalin’s summer residence in Sochi – the leader of the proletarians after all needed to rest now and then.
Photo credit: Miracle Maker
Although it is true that “leveling” may have a pleasing aspect to the masses (bringing the rich down so there is less difference between the two groups)… it is also true that leveling is just what powerful groups do not want to happen. Even when the elite go after “the rich” with taxes, confiscations, and levies, they tend to look out for themselves in other ways.

Stalin’s private indoor swimming pool in Sochi – a marble-quiet place of contemplation, perfect for hatching out the new plans to improve the happiness of the proletarians.
Photo credit: Miracle Maker
They allow themselves special rations – special medical care… special pensions… special parking places… and various drivers, valets, and assistants. One study found that there was more difference between the way Communist Party members and the masses lived in the Soviet Union than there was between the rich and poor in Reagan’s America.

Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev photographed during a hunt in the GDR with his buddy Erich Honecker. Only the “dear leaders” could indulge in such luxuries in the socialist Utopia.
Photo credit: Wladimir Musaelian / TASS

About to go deer hunting in the GDR’s hunting grounds for comrades that were slightly more equal than the rest of the population (from left to right): Günter Mittag, Secretary for the Economy of the Socialist Unity Party’s central committee, Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the central committee of the Socialist Unity Party, Andrei Gromyko, Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics, and Pyotr Abrassimov, the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the GDR
Photo credit: Bundesarchiv
Alan Greenspan Was Right
All of this brings us to here and now… and to gold. Traditionally, gold is a form of money. Money has no intrinsic value. It is the economy that gives money its value. The more an economy can produce the more each unit of money is worth. It doesn’t matter whether it is gold, paper, or seashells.
But just as the common man is deceived by money (he thinks more of it will make him happier), so are policymakers. Their belief is a little more sophisticated. They know it is the economy, not money, that creates wealth. But they believe that adding money (and more demand) will make the economy function better… and make people wealthier.

Digital credit galore: total US credit market debt (black line), gross federal public debt (green line) and GDP (red line). Somehow, adding more and more debt hasn’t really made us a lot richer. It has however created a great mass of debt slaves – click to enlarge.
And in today’s post-Bretton Woods monetary system, they don’t add physical money (gold, paper, or coins); they add digital credit. This new form of money takes the scam to a new level. We have been trying to understand (and explain) how the system works and why it is doomed to failure.
But Alan Greenspan – bless his corrupted little heart – was on the case even before the credit bubble began:
“Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy’s tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset. But government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government’s promise to pay out of future tax revenues, and cannot easily be absorbed by the financial markets.
A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates. Thus, government deficit spending under a gold standard is severely limited. The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit.”

Alan Greenspan, here photographed during a poker game as he announces a raise by ten dimes.
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The trouble with many socialist retirement funds is that they invested in crony capitalist derivatives.
+1 Veddy nice.
"Employees produce more value per hour than they are paid per hour. That surplus amount of value, once converted from commodity to money (through the sale), is profit, and goes to the capitalist. The same goes for services.
Thus, quite literally, the entire history of capitalism is built on the concept of the capitalist getting more than what he pays for."
Kinda like painting everything green around you, handing out plastic cups with the company logo on it and flying off in your private jet to a global warming meeting in Tahiti while calling yourself an enviromentalist who's saving the fucking planet I guess.
They come in all colors ;-)
good god.....don't look over here......seems to me these vampires come out of the wood work every election cycle.....don't you dare look at my pile of money....everything except a quote from simon says about hiding your loot in some swamp land or offshore account
http://www.texemarrs.com/022010/rothschilds_plan.htm
Do ya get it yet, bitchez??????
It's all a big setup...been going on for fuckin' centuries. They always knew it would eventually take the advent of the highly technological age to come about so that they could use it all against us. We're there now and it's only getting worse and it's all completely by design.
U.S.A. Death Knell: Our Fate Has Been Decided
"The American economy is in the grip of what the eminent Harvard Professor Joseph Schumpeter many years ago called, ‘creative destruction.' "
—
Alan Greenspan
Chairman, Federal Reserve Board
"The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy."
—
John 10:10
America is dying, inflicted with a fatal, terminal disease. Few understand this. Most citizens are in denial. The glories of yesteryear—the halcyon days of Washington, Jefferson, Audie Murphy, and John Wayne—will return, the die-hard optimists say—"Just you wait and see."
But these bright-eyed people are wrong. No dreaded disease can be conquered by the misguided patient who fails to realize he is sick and dying. Knowledge leads to victory, and in America today, the people perish for lack of knowledge.
Cut Off From Our RootsThe reason why America is dying is simple. We have been cut off from our roots, including our Christian moorings, our Bill of Rights, and our patriotic heritage. All plants cut off at the roots eventually die, from lack of nutrition. The life force ebbs from their branches and leaves, and their limbs and vines atrophy and dissipate. So, too, do the limbs and constituent parts of nations die when separated from the nurturing substances that give them life.
America’s terminal illness is not an accident of fate. It is a planned event. This is the working out of "Rothschild’s Plan for America," a plan which I detail at length in my CD/audiotape offering of the same title (Order your copy today by clicking Tape or CD).
The greedy Rothschild is a thief, a global thief, and as Jesus told us, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy."
America Battered by "Creative Destruction"The Illuminati elite are deeply complicit in Rothschild’s thieving and murderous plan. They are willing tools of our destruction. Alan Greenspan, the crafty Jewish financier who served Rothschild and the elite cryptocracy as head of the Federal Reserve banking cartel during the administrations of both Presidents Bush (the younger George W. and the elder George H. W.) as well as President Clinton, significantly helped in the fulfillment of this heinous plot. Interestingly, Greg Kaza, in Chronicles journal (Jan. 2010), notes that Greenspan referred to America’s diminishing status twelve times during his reign as Fed Chairman, each time using the carefully crafted catch-phrase "creative destruction" first invented by Harvard’s economist, Joseph Schumpeter, in his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.
It was Greenspan and his cronies-in-crime, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who oversaw the massive "credit bubble" brought on by the repeal of the depression era Glass-Steagall Act. This ingenious bit of Rothschild-generated treachery enabled the huge multinational banks and institutions (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lazard, Bank of America, AIG, et al) to create and pocket trillions of dollars of instant cash in the form of shadowy mortgage debt swaps and derivatives. Whack! In one fell swoop the Jewish and Israeli bankers harvested a bonanza and profit windfall, while the unsuspecting American worker was abruptly and violently sucked down the vortex of the banking toilet and into a cesspool of financial despair and panic.
All this mess was foreknown by Rothschild and associates. After all, they engineered it. It’s a masterful part of the classic process of Hegelian dialecticism played out, pitting the two great opposing forces of social progress, Capitalism and Communism, against each other in a devastating contest of efficiency and will.
Barack Obama Created For This TimeBarack Obama was created for just such a time as this. He will go down in history as the Great Hero who put the final touches on Rothschild’s diabolical Master Plan—the leader who put the nails in the coffin of Capitalism while enhancing the efficiency of the Big Brother Police State. The end result of this contest—the historical tug of war between Capitalism and Communism, the synthesis that is going to occur after all the blood is shed and society undergoes a drenching, stormy downpour of consummate evil—is that an entire new system of government, social life, and culture will be installed. Already, if we look clear-mindedly and objectively at the grotesque future that even now is pulling up at our doorsteps, we can make out the dim lines of the horror that shall shortly confront us.
Neither classic, pure Capitalism nor the Marxist/Leninist system of Communism is acceptable to the elite. Capitalism, therefore, is being quickly discarded, and Communism, having abjectly failed, is also thrown out. From, however, the rotting carcasses of these two outmoded systems, Capitalism and Communism, Rothschild and his associates are now ushering in a ruthlessly barbaric system for which I have coined the descriptive catch-word, Zio-Mammonism. It means the smashing of individual rights, the exaltation of Jewish supremacism, and the triumph of crass materialism (Mammon) over spiritual principles. Rothschild’s Plan for America will vault our once great nation to the very pinnacle of greed, hatred, and narcissism.
America Being Torn Down and RebuiltGreenspan, in a September 4, 1998 speech at the University of California, Berkley, informed his audience that the traditional American way, the now discredited Capitalism, is "being torn down and rebuilt." On December 4, 2008, another of the establishment’s favored pied-piper spokesmen, columnist George Will, wrote that Schumpeter’s "creative destruction" was underway, with the economy necessarily "losing tens of millions of jobs." Both Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Will are big cheerleaders for the debilitating process of creative destruction.
Even conservative columnist Thomas Sowell, an avid supporter of the Rothschild/Limbaugh/Reagan/Bush/Cheney/Rockefeller Free Trade agenda, joined in this historically corrupt quest for economic pick-pocketing, writing on December 17, 2008, that "creative destruction"—a good thing, he insists—means that American automakers and other manufacturers will just have to die and be replaced, having “outlived their usefulness.”
What of the millions of American workers left destitute? So what, say the "creative destruction" wrecking crew. "All’s well that ends well."
But, just how will it all end? What is the end-game of this destructive process? The often overlooked fact is that Schumpeter was a Marxist! And he, like Marx, foresaw the end of Capitalism and its replacement. The dialectical process would continue: evolution and revolution would eventually see to the demise of both Capitalism and it’s opposite, Communism.
Everything Must ChangeBut—and this is vital and important—it is not only the economy of America that is "being torn down and rebuilt." Zio-Mammonism, the new social system now being implemented as our nation is "rebuilt," requires that our Christian values must go, our morality and ethical systems must be deep-sixed, our whole way of life must be gutted. Satanism is the ultimate endgame. Satanism is slated to rise triumphant, like the fabled Phoenix rising from the embers and ashes of a consuming fire.
To insure this satanic end-victory, everything must change. The Washington-Jeffersonian constitutional model is abandoned, the Rothschild-Zionist Plan is installed and made operative. Hell on earth must be created. Death must be served.
No More Bridges to the PastBill Clinton saw it coming. He understood the vision. In 1996, the murderously lying and conniving adulterer Clinton told America, "We do not need a bridge to the past, we need to build a bridge to the future."
So the links to the past were jettisoned, and the bridge to the future was built, and now this bridge to the future is in its final stages of construction. Soon comes the ribbon-cutting and then... No more heritage, no more yesterday, no more past. It all goes into the Orwellian black hole of ancient history. Thus, we can see why Bill and Hillary Clinton’s 1992 Democratic National Convention motto and anthem was the musical refrain from that witchy group Fleetwood Mac’s hit song, "Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow."
The New Paradigm: Zio-MammonismYes, America is to have a new paradigm, Zio-Mammonism, designed by Jewish rabbinical philosophers and brought about by "creative destruction." It’s out with the old (the outmoded and valueless U.S. Constitution, Christian truth, freedom and liberty, etc.) and in with the new. Our future will become the numbing, godless insanity of a Talmudic culture ruthlessly guided and policed by Judeo-fascist elitism. Rothschild’s Plan of Zio-Mammonism is being implemented. Only the old-fashioned fuddy-duddies like you and me will resist. The ignorant masses are clueless.
Can we save things? Turn back the clock? I am not sure we can, but we must try. It will be difficult, however, to put the genie back into the bottle. Our future does, indeed, look grim. Satan is grinning, his kingdom is at hand and the deliriously joyful congregation of the Synagogue of Satan is applauding. Storm clouds are gathering. As that famous tune by Bob Dylan so sagely warned us, "It’s a hard rain’s gonna fall."
One last thought: "The death of America equals the birth of the Jewish Utopia." Is that what has long been heralded as the "New Order of the Ages?"
Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money to spend, or your victim turns the tables and kills you.
I have so many problems with this article I don't even know where to even start.
First of all, this crony system we have in America is not by any means "socialist". I get so tired of reading these 19th century era canards. As for stealing from the "rich" and giving to the "poor", what the heck is this author even talking about? If anything the gap between rich and poor has gone exponential.
The rich use tricks like having $1 a year salaries, hiding behind LLCs, tax write offs, hiring accountants and tax advisers, meanwhile someone making more than $28,000 a year is raked over the coals, because a big chunk of their paycheck goes poof, thanks to the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943. And then, what little currency is left of their check goes towards, more taxes! Then an entire paycheck a month, every month goes towards rent where the landlords get all sorts of tax advantages, and the tenant gets the short end of the stick.
The Fed and the IRS with their undecipherable 40,000 page tax code that requires A.I. software to even comprehend, absolutely eviscerates anyone who actually works for a living and isn't a crony insider part of the big club.
Then of course, the ignorant masses are outraged and totally clueless, so they fall right into traps of puppet politicians blowing rhetoric like "yes we can" or "close the border" or "offshoring" or "create jawbs" etc. etc. etc. The silly masses think that casting a ballot once every four years for an empty suit is actually going to change things. No matter who gets selected, the rich always win, and the working class gets less and less.
As for the Marxist-Leninist lackeys mentioned in the article, that system is long gone. Today we face automation and the rise of A.I. so we need to radically think how to evolve the economy to accommodate this revolutionary game changer. The days of jawbs, jobs, jawbs, are over. We live in the "gig economy" now, and at least ordinary joes have access to take advantage of the schemes currently used today's wealthy.
I noticed Zero Hedge runs a lot of these types of childish "socialism is evil" type articles quite often. These capitalism vs. socialism vs. communism vs. fascism debates are so last century. These -isms were drawing board philosophical pipe dream theories developed in the agrarian age. With the advent of the world wide web, satellites, 3d printing, desktop publishing, eCommerce, mobile technologies, genetic engineering, robotics, automation, and nanotech, I can't believe that these silly -isms are even bothered with.
The debate should be resourced based economy vs. market economy with cryptocurrency vs. some other proposals out there that deal with 21st century developments. The days of 100,000 workers making fords at a factory, and the days of 90% of the workforce in agriculture are over. Heck even the "service economy" that was touted in the 1990s is quickly becoming dated and obsolete.
I agree that the current system is going to collapse one of these days... its inevitable. But these cronies will kick the can down the road forever, probably long after I retire. Eventually technology will just make central banking, and taxes, and government itself... obsolete.
Well said all around Doc...
Agreed, good contribution.
"...the days of 90% of the workforce in agriculture are over."
If you want to keep eating poison and killing pollinators that is.
Am I mistaken or is ZH running more of these articles lately? Why this one? Why now? Why are they digging up Stalin's moldy bones now? And why are they trying so hard to conflate our failing system with socialism?
Do they really believe that a system run by billionaires and banksters, one which has rasied wealth and income inequality and debt globally to simply mind-boggling levels and is now choking to death on them, is actually some kind of socialism?
Or is it because they can't get their minds around "President Bernie Sanders" - can't even talk about the possibility - and the possibility of a revolution from below, and this is how their terror is coming out?
Yes El Senador Bernie, that one, the self-styled "democratic socialist" from Vermont running against Hillary as a Democrat, the one who fought for and oversaw the first audit of the Fed and is calling for the breakup of the big banks and the reinstatement of the Glass -Steagall Act. The one calling for creation of 12 million jobs to rebuild America's infrastructure, for millions more jobs to build a green economy and a $15 minimum wage. The one who has been leading the fight in the Senate against the TPP and pledges to force a rewrite of our trade and tax laws to bring home 5 million manufacturing jobs. Who's led the fight for 30 years for medicare for all. And proposes to make the billionaire class pay for it all. Including (gasp) a tax on all financial transactions. (Sayonara high speed algo trading!)
The one who asks his crowds "Are you ready for a fight?" and gets back roars of approval! Who talks about building a movement of tens of millions so strong they can make "the billionaire class" an "offer they can't refuse"!
Yes, it could happen. Bernie just played to an overflow crowd of 15,000 in Seattle on Saturday and then an overflow crowd of 28,000 (!) last night in Portland. This is not a political campaign, it's a long overdue political revolution, a gathering storm, the uprising of a totally fed-up population against a failed system and a failed economy.
Despite a wall of silence from the corporate media the word is spreading. All that most people saw on the boob tube of the Seattle rallies was endless loops of Bernie being shouted off the stage of a rally of 5000 mostly old folk (a commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Social Security) by some angry and seemingly out-of-control (Soros-funded) Black Lives Matter activists. Naturally, Bernie's response on their issues, delivered from the stage that night at the Paladium, wasn't included in this hatchet job. But after the Portland rally last night the wall of silence is starting to crumble.
So apparently Tyler, with visions of guillotines dancing through his (her?) head, unable to talk (or perhaps even think?) about this populist rebellion, has to run this piece digging up poor Comrade Stalin's bones to express his terror?
Pitiful!
Tyler has lost his way in your eyes.
Behind the scenes he is getting threatened by Comey that if he does not follow directions that the ZH budget will be cut to $0.00.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/the-fbi-and-the-adl-working-toward-a-w...
Comey is under the sheets with the American joo overlords. He's learned to luv his submissive role.
Americans should wake up and direct their hate at the agency that is suppose to protect them.
END IT NOW!
The problem with Sanders and others of his view....is that they STILL see government as the 'solution' to all the problems. Government by default CANNOT CREATE ANYTHING. Jobs, prosperity, equality, none of those. All it can do is take from one place (often by FORCE) and give to another. And basing an entire strategy on 'making the billionaires pay for it all' illustrates the point. Prosperity is not being organically generated, but synthetically extricated from others. Fine and dandy until those turnips have been bled dry. Then what? Who pays for it all once there are no billionaires left (assuming they stick around long enough to be bled in the first place)?
Sorry man. I get the reason why Bernie is the perceived savior of the Team Blue faithful. Its the same reason The Donald is being heralded as the champion of Team Red's true believers. They both tapped into a very REAL anger from all sides at the establishment circus of corrupt hacks soiling the halls of congress while serving as useful idiots to the real power-brokers in the world.
Our last chance to at least place a genuine liberty-defending man as POTUS was Ron Paul. Not sure what good he could have done in that capacity....but it sure would have been better than the same old slithering vipers we normally get.
I've been thinking about Ron Paul. Looking at that pack of losers the Republicans are putting up, including Rand who has fallen too far from the tree, I was musing that Ron Paul is the only prominent Republican I know who would have a chance against Bernie.
Bernie, like Dennis Kucinich, is a truth teller, completely straignt, completely committed and passionate in his commitments. When he says what he believes, what he wil do, whose side he's on you can take it to the bank. (Well I'm not sure about that anymore. Put it under your mattress?) I've watched Ron Paul for a long time, and while I disagree with his policy positions on many issues he has that same quality. The only other prominent Presidential-grade politician I know who seems to have that quality, although I'd like to watch her over time to be sure is Elizabeth Warren. (Who started out as a Republican btw.)
Significantly Bernie, like Dennis Kucinich, aligns with Ron Paul on the Fed and the mega-banks, the TPP and the TTIP, the NSA and the Patriot Act, the Empire and ongoing wars and preparations for war. These apparently are places where two intelligent, thoughtful and completely honest people will converge despite profoundly different social philosophies. And if Bernie should lose I'd feel a lot safer with his losing to Ron.
If you want to stop Bernie, or just want to see a great presidential race fought fairly and squarely on the issues and competing visions for rebuilding our country, you might want to start a Draft Ron movement.
It is also factually wrong. Governments and collective organization have made HUGE contributions to productivity, starting with maintaining irrigation canals and networks in the bronze age and building hydro-electric dams and land reclamation in our own day.
Moreover, it is simply untrue that if you take property away from the wealthy then everybody becomes poorer. Quite the opposite. After bronze age debt cancellations the economy boomed, and that has remained true to this day. Unfortunately in modern times there is often war and/or revolution beforehand, but redistributed wealth is good for the economy. That is what made America great: not 400 super wealthy individuals but a large broad class of people who had claims to their own means of production, running things as they themselves best saw fit and innovating.
Prosperous countries are countries where inequalities are relatively benign and where people control their own lives.
Redistribution is the most natural thing in the world: it is the basis of families and communities, and many regard the sharing of food as the basis of human society. (And no, I don't think idle hands should be rewarded.)
Exactly HOW do employees produce more value?
Could it be because they are trained....to use someone else's assets like land and machinery and technology to produce. Stuff that these employees, even in America which has had one of the highest sustained prosperity in history, has failed to invest in. Instead choosing to consume. To indulge. And now with eroding income and opportunity, debt.
My father, born in 1919, started out working for 25 cents a day to shuck corn...by hand. He repeatedly told me...it's not what you earn but what you spend that is important. Its all about choices and the one constant throughout history is that people will spend far more time finding people to blame for their own bad decisions, than ever to figure out how to fix it....unless lampposts and guillotines are your idea of fixing things.
Highest sustained prosperity for whom? Your dad was an idiot; they're both important.
Yes you are right. The citizens of Ethiopian and Venezuela and so many others have had a much, much higher standard of living. Just because you chose the worker drone lifestyle DOES NOT make those who did not idiots.
my father died owing no one, as he lived the last sixty years of his life. You obviously are not qualified to refer to anyone as an idiot besides yourself.
Fucking scientist.... Explains a lot.
There are a few of us scientists out there not quite like the troll above.... A big part of the problems in the West today are due to science being villified, in the East and Russia Scientists are still respected. Here we have barristas, and art history majors getting all the glory.
The problem with higher education, especially in areas that provide labels like "scientist" and "doctor", is that some who hold them think they are smarter than everyone else. This is not to denigrate education, but it is a tool purchased to be used for purpose, and does not necessarily bestow its owners with all knowing "intelligence". I'm sure there are lots of great scientists, I just resist a person referring to them as such in an effort to give credibility to a field they are no more qualified to comment on than anyone else.
Venezuela is running out of food and the corrupt government of Nicolas Maduro is running out of excuses.
In places like Argentina, Venezuela and other Latin American countries, its about populist authoritarianism and dictatorships.
http://ferfal.blogspot.com/
seeeyeA corporate merc's couldn't be involved, could they?
nah...conspiracy blather
Well, GM, you show yourself to be the idiot.
Oldwood has it right. There has to be some concentration of capital for you and I to have a job. Do you have a couple billion to start a pharmaceutical company? Do have a couple billion to start an auto company, insurance or even a couple hundred thousand for a restaurant?
Fortunately for us, some do and they to brave something called "risk". Sometimes they fail and lose it all. Otherwise they equip you and I with machinery, training, and a place to work.
I want leffist to start their own companies and do all the things they claim should be done at no profit.
God help us with GM on board. Perhaps this was sarcasim?
Please run a spell checker, it really helps your case...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMYX__Z6hvE
No, they're "job creators" don'cha know...any and all profits are plowed back into hiring people whether or not there is work for them to do or demand for the products they would make.
What a fucking twit! Sure, there are plenty of shity employers, as there are many many more shity employees. I have been in business for thirty years and know better. Our wonderful progressive recovery has wrenched the shit out of most business people I know (and no, I don't know mr Dimon), most doing everything they can to keep their people working. I myself have been paying my people for six weeks now with NO work....waiting for the next job to come in...hopefully. There is more to the world than ZH headlines. Most employees work for small business, not GE or JPM or some other mega corporation. For many of us our employees are our family. I have employees working for me for over thirty years. I understand you think all of this shit is caused by rich people, and I understand that as an employee you have always felt under someone's thumb, but THAT WAS YOUR CHOICE. Many if not most of us started with nothing.
The rich are not a monoculture. Some of them are evil bastards and some are saints. The role of government is to prevent destructive imbalances in society. Unrestrained capitalism will take us to a new Medievalism with lords and peasants. Only the craziest libertarians want that. The belief that no matter how rich a nation becomes, it needs to have a large number living in poverty to be "efficient" is just plain stupid.
Wealthy people .... who give so much .... by creating wealth and employment .... become extremely generous .... and give back even more .... in meaningful charity .... that helps people become self-sufficient .... not just slaves on the Liberal Plantation !
Competition is the restraint. Government doesn't know p/l stmt from a duck.
Competition and the dream of profit also stimulate creativity and ... oh, why bother?
WTF.... Kunt, er Kant, where you blowing GM as he typed?
The role of govt is to protect our liberty and guard our borders, not to distort markets in the futuile attempt to prevent destructive imbalances in our society.
as we have seen with the current ass-hat in cheif, more distortion = more imbalance.
I wasted three seconds of my life reading your, um, thoughts.
Peak moronism in the comments section as arrived? Can this be topped?
Man, today the ZH comments section kinda sucks
Thus, quite literally, the entire history of capitalism is built on the concept of the capitalist getting more than what he pays for."
Those who own the means of production which can include anything from a pizza shop to a giant factory provide workers with the means to produce at a level they could not achieve without that capital equipment. The worker earns more money working for those who own the means of production than he could if he worked by himself with his own capital equipment. So it is not only the owners and managers who get more out of the system than they put into it, the workers also get more out of it than they put into it. That's the beauty of capitalism and voluntary association. Those who interact in this fashion do so because it is the best available means of profit for each participant and it makes more goods more widely available thus creating a varied and vibrant market in which those profits can be exchanged.
You are the Poet Laureate of Capitalism !
Thank you, but no, that would be Mr. Emerson.
http://www.emersoncentral.com/wealth.htm
Good stuff but I know for a fact some people will read your words then say the government needs to be the umpire and provide guidance and quality assurance.
" As far as I'm concerned, and I think the rest of the movement, too, we are anarcho-capitalists. In other words, we believe that capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism. Not only are they compatible, but you can't really have one without the other. True anarchism will be capitalism, and true capitalism will be anarchism." -- Murray Rothbard
https://mises.org/library/new-banner-interview-murray-n-rothbard-0
Good drug... bad drug, which is it .gov?
Would you like an extra helping of melomine with your baby formula today? Would you like to sign up for this 29% credit card to pay for it?
Balance Bitchez!
Then some capitalist swine notices that profit margin and competes so that profit margin is driven downward.
PS - if the capitalist doesn't get more than what he paid for, he fails and flour, cloth, combs, soap, meat, and widgets are no longer provided.
Profit is the market telling someone .... we like what you are doing .... here's some extra money .... do more of what you are doing .... and maybe even try something new !
This is immensely puzzling to some. They think some committee of wise men disinterestedly sits around and then decides that air compressors, can openers, and tires need to be improved on this month.
Um... I think your calculation leaves out a little thing called risk. It has very real value.
Is the concept of profit for risk so difficult?
I had multiple businesses in my life. Every one of them required me to invest time and money into it.
When the time came to have employees do you not think that I should make money of their labor?
I certainly did. My capital was still at risk.
One such business when it failed took with it about $30K.
My employees still earned a good wage and the amount I earned from their labor was tiny compared to what the government got.
Right, because the capitalist who fronted the money ran no risk and thus deserves no extra return for risking his wealth. Because the capitalist did not add value with his skill at creating and managing an organization to sell, move, more effeciently produce, and support the product. Because network effects don't exist and there is no value in systems and organizations. Because objects have objective intrinsic value, like mass and volume, and thus price is objective, not subjective. Because the employee had a gun put to his head to work for the capitalist and had no freedom to choose.
"Next, svimvear."
Damn Right Lat25!
~~~~~~~~
"All it can do is to increase the power, wealth, or status of some people – at others’ expense."
Abosolute fucken hogshit!
That phrase describes Capitalism just as easy as Socialism.
It AIN'T FUCKEN "SOCIALISM" THAT GOT US TO THIS POINT!...Unless you're willing to say that Ronald Raven, Bush1, The Clinton/Limbaugh Congress, and Bush2 were Socialists!
We are watching/living the DEATH of FREE MARKET CAPITALISM...it has FAILED under it's own corrupt weight...plain and fucken simple as that...and in its place will come Socialism or worse.
The problem with Capitalism is that you eventually run out of fresh debt slaves; and slaves you have stop payin...
When Bush said "We had to SUSPEND it in order to SAVE it"...he wasn't talking about Socialism morons!
We are watching/living the DEATH of FREE MARKET CAPITALISM...it has FAILED under it's own corrupt weight
The Federal Reserve was established in 1913 and since that time US citizens have been required by law to use privately issued currency created by the government sanctioned banking cartel. Although you mistakenly believe that the banking cartel is a capitalist entity it is not. The forced adoption of private currency is a collectivist enterprise and not a free market activity. Currency is at least one half of every transaction (sometimes both halves such as when a loan is made in which the principle must be repaid plus interest) and so no transaction since 1913 has taken place in a free market.
Capitalism and free markets are proven methods with a great track record which is why collectivists misapply those terms to describe their own antithetical policies. The oligarchy wants you to misunderstand the terms.
A free market is simply the voluntary association of the individuals who chose to interact in that market. Capitalism means that if one saves some of today's profit and uses it to increase personal skills or capital equipment then one can be more productive in the future.
This is how the world works, this is how people are fed, clothed, housed, educated and entertained. There is no way to short circuit this system without using a violent means of coercion which will inevitably lead to less overall production meaning that individuals will be not only poorer but less free as well.
"Free market" is pure theory and can never exist.
As soon as a group is successful in a "free market" system, such as the Rockefellers were the clear winners in the 19th Century America, they use their massive wealth to influence society which resulted in the current Bilderberg system we have today.
Yes, the cronyism we have today was a result of the free market capitalist system of the 19th Century.
I get accused of Utopianism all of the time by pointing out the exponential rise in technology. (heck posting this comment on Zero Hedge would have been pure science fiction fantasy in the 1970s). It's actually the libertarians that are Utopian with their "free market" views. They think if we eliminated the state that cronies would have this efficient "invisible hand" managing everything. A free market wouldn't last a week, because one business mogul would take the system over and have his cronies shut his competition down. Even if the state were hypothetically abolished, a psuedo state would be created by the corporate world anyways.
Look at the private "Federal" Reserve. Big banks from Europe run the damn thing. The only thing "federal" about is the board of governors, and that's it. They are "independent" from Congress.
The very "country" we live in is defined by law a "federal corporation." The very cities we live in are defined as "municipal corporations" with financial statements. The "state" that's decried so much by right-leaning libertarians are actually businesses, and very powerful people like it that way.
As soon as a group is successful in a "free market" system, such as the Rockefellers were the clear winners in the 19th Century America, they use their massive wealth to influence society which resulted in the current Bilderberg system we have today.
No, the rich influence government then come to control it creating an oligarchy. In the absence of government the only way to gain influence is by offering individuals a trade which they find beneficial. Organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Council on Foreign Relations exist at the behest of government and seek to control that government. They are not free market entities.
"Free market" is pure theory and can never exist.
Interacting freely when trading or working is no different than interacting freely while speaking or worshiping. Real world conditions affect that freedom and curtail it some degree (you hold your tongue to spare someone's feelings or you can't go to church because of a snow storm) but it would be a mistake to suggest that because every individual is constrained by naturally occurring situations that the concept of freedom is invalid.
There is no such thing as pure anything. Humans are imperfect, therefore the models they come up with for society/government/economies are imperfect. There was NEVER in all the world such a thing as PURE unfettered capitalism - at least beyond a few transactions. Not has there ever been such a think as pure socialism or communism. Ultimately, some of the humans within a system, driven by self interest, game the system their advantage. Others mistakenly believe that everyone is working for the good of the system or the state or the country or the community. Some might be. Others are not
As a result the system is corrupted - whether it's capitalism, communism, socialism. Doesn't matter. These systems either devolve into something other than what they started as, or they fail completely. Because the "ideals" of the theories of these systems don't really address human behavior adequately. My guess is they won't either for hundreds of thousands of years. All of our institutions and concepts of governing ourselves are outgrowths of philosophical concepts that are hundreds of years old - many of which have been shown to be false.
It doesn't matter - in about 50 years give or take - machines will do most everything and if you happen to own the machines or the networks re machines run on and on which all the info is housed you'll be ultra rich. If you don't (and this latter situation will apply to 80-99% of the population, you will be living at subsistence level. Concepts like capitalism and socialism and communism will eventually be quaint ideas of yesteryear just like we think of hunting and gathering today.
It's certainly true that no one is perfect and that any system has its inefficiencies. But one would be foolish not to predicate any proposed system on principles which better promote both morality and efficiency.
As to morality: Start with the premise that each man owns himself. This is undeniably a real and true natural right enjoyed by every human being. If one acknowledges that principle then one also affirms individual freedom to act and therefore a free market.
As to efficiency: Free markets are organized voluntarily while all other systems are organized by setting up an elite class with the sole authority to use violence against others and with no means of income other than what it takes from those whom it threatens or swindles. If the efficiency of a social system can be determined by whether it can provide the largest reward for the greatest number of individuals then obviously a free market in which every individual may engage (or not) voluntarily is more suitable than a system administered by and for an elite minority.
Simply put, do you feel offended when others assume authority over you and force you to perform actions which you find intrusive, immoral or personally destructive and are you happier when you get to make your own choices about how to live your life?
If you answered yes to those questions then you are a laissez faire capitalist whether you've realized it or not.
You're still framing the discussion in the context that somehow pure hands-off capitalism a) can actually exist b) has somehow been proven to be the perfect system.
If it was perfect and/or if humans were perfect,monopolies or oligarchies would not be able to form. Laissez faire Capitalism, Communism, Socialism are all nothing more than philosophies that try to describe human behavior. The fact that the world is in the state that it is in today should tell you all you need to know about how well any of these systems have succeeded.
They haven't succeeded because they haven't accurately predicted/described human behavior.
" In the absence of government the only way to gain influence is by offering individuals a trade which they find beneficial. "
When reading the following article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel ,
I have no pain thinking about scenarios, where there would be no government involved, but where some people would gain influence without necessarily offering trades others would find beneficial.
" Real world conditions affect that freedom and curtail it some degree (you hold your tongue to spare someone's feelings or you can't go to church because of a snow storm) but it would be a mistake to suggest that because every individual is constrained by naturally occurring situations that the concept of freedom is invalid. "
Well, if you want to live, you are not free not to breathe, not to drink, not to eat, not to have shelter, ....
There is a lot of things you are not free not to "choose", and where you can easily be "cornered".
In the end, I could not care less about whether "the concept of freedom is invalid" or not, I don't even know what you really mean by "freedom".
I don't even know what you really mean by "freedom".
So if someone claimed to own you and forced you to labor on their behalf you'd see no problem with it? Most people understand that that would be an infringement of liberty.
Oh good doctor...
"The very "country" we live in is defined by law a "federal corporation." The very cities we live in are defined as "municipal corporations" with financial statements. The "state" that's decried so much by right-leaning libertarians are actually businesses, and very powerful people like it that way."
Cute twisting od sematics. Businesses. They are if you consider The Mafia a "business". Because that is the business model. Here is the difference: When ExxonMobil is the largest by far oil company, I still have countless other CHOICES from whom to purchase my gasoline. IN fact I even have a choice on whether or not I even want to use gas for fucks sake! Unlike the dubious "corporation" you assign the Federal Bureaucracy which is THE only game in town and FORCES me to purchase its "services" or in other cases the "services" of some selected cartel (see ObamaCare for that) and threatens ultimately my person with violence, imprisonement, theft, etc if I do not comply. Exxon meanwhile doesn't do ANYTHING to me, steal ANYTHING from me or even seem to give a flying fuck if I CHOOSE to ride a bicycle and circumvent their whole product line re:gasoline. It is only when they get into bed with "the state" that they by proxy begin to do harm to me through federal land leases, or whatever.
That is only one example. I can go on for days referencing countless other actual "businesses" that JUST FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE. Something the government just will not seem to do. And since people like YOU are the bunch that seem to have "consented" to being "governed" and are the people who FUND said organization as well as continue to encourage their criminal behabior by voting, I then beleive it is you and everyone else who is the real aggressor here and only due to my generosity of spirit and abhorrance of violence do I not simply shoot you in the face in self defense for comtinually commiting these acts of violence against me by proxy of the state.
Hell even Mexican Drug Cartels cause less grief to me that your vaunted state. Funny thing those folks aren't chasing me around stealing my property and forcing me to by anything either.
Go figure.
Do you think Gasoline is the only product that Exxon makes? How many plastic products do you use that Exxon oil might have been involved in making? Who knows...
I'm not necessarily disputing the premise of your argument, only trying to say that in many instances you may have much less of a choice than you think.
Logged in to upvote THE only comment addressing the core issue.
To the complete douchebag who down voted this post, time to hit the books or maybe you just have the reading comprehension of a two year old.
To those obsessed with all the -isms: The only "ism" that matters is STATISM. Yes, it's really all your slave-like devotion to the magical "state" that allows for this giant shit mess inwhich we live.
I believe there is a little Rothbard above that addresses that issue. Mr. Billypoet's post above goes into this in the last paragraph.
Jeebus, can we get rid of the "'ism's"? Meaningless.
Wall Street is nothing less than a .gov supported casino, call it whatever else you will.
Washington is a ponzi scheme supporting the Ponzi scheme in New York and the rest of the elite hamlets of Amurika.
It's all a bunch of bullshit, a complete fucking lie, devoid of any political meaning, just money-grubbing assholes fucking over the real people. Politics has nothing to do with it, politics is the distraction!
The election means nothing!
"Isms" are the tools of manipulation they use to divide us while we willingly submit to tyranny.
All except freedomism.
Now we've gotten that off our chest, kindly provides with your ideas on a suitable replacement for this cockup.
Try the One Law.
No individual may cause physical harm to another individual or an individual's property. Those whose person or property are threatened may defend themselves and their property in proportion to the threat encountered.
Hang the banksters and their complicit politicians.
Guillotine or beheading will do, but rope and lamp posts more handy.
Or the problem, as always, is that there are bullshit socialist funds and institutions all together that the sheep-tards buy into when the scumbags in government trick the sheep-tards into all that kinda shit.
The problem is lack of education and a criminal governing body politic that corrupts everything and every generation.
Education is the key. There's a war on for you mind. This is an info-war, plain and simple. And with that, it's also a war of numbers. Always has been and always will be.
We need to outnumber them just as badly as they need to outnumber us.
Education, truth, and numbers.
And don't forget to be willing to fight for it to the death in order to preserve your rights and to pass those rights down to the generations behind you.
Same as it ever was....
The mentioned property did not belong to Stalin, it was owned by the state. The sheeple simply can't think outside of the box and be able to imagine that someone might have a value system different from a degenerate consumerism.
Stalin stopped satanic genocide of ethnic Russians/Slavs between 1917 and 1937 -- by chosenites (who, after assassinating Stalin, attributed their own crimes to him), fought with chosenite imperialism, including their puppet Hitler, and turned an agricultural country into world #1/#2 state.
The following are just a couple of achievements of Russian/goyim socialism, available for everyone in the country, just try to be honest with yourself and compare those with your miserable existence:
1) The right to have an 8 hour working day (for the first time in the history of mankind)
2) Paid annual vacation (for the first time in the history of mankind)
3) Employee protection/support by the government from being fired by business owners/administration
4) The right to work (by "work" I mean true engineering/creative type of work, not the cargo cult activities sheeple performs in the office stables), with 100% guaranteed employment for graduates and free housing
5) The right for free education (for the first time in the history of mankind -- hello americohen student loan slavery)
6) Free kinder-gardens, day care centres and summer camps for kids, as well as sport activities (for the first time in the history of mankind -- hello soccer mom cab drivers)
7) Free medical care (for the first time in the history of mankind)
8) Free specialized resorts with spa/physiotherapy (for the first time in the history of mankind)
9) Free housing (for the first time in the history of mankind, hello mortgages)
10) Free commute to work (for the first time in the history of mankind)
11) On top of those, women had additional privileges/benefits:
a) 3 year paid maternity leave with guaranteed employment
b) Free food/dairy for infants and toddlers up to the age of 3.
c) Any type of treatment including already mentioned specialized resorts, in case of any child disease
... And of course, no drug abuse, no organ trade, no child prostitution, no 24/7 homo propaganda and no systemic parasitism
PS
After Stalin was poisoned, chosenite puppets like Khrushchev, Brezhnev (BERezhnev), KGB Chief Andropov (real last name Liberman), Gorbachev (who was working for both Germany and USA, since both countries got a hold of Gestapo archives with evidence that Gorbachev's relatives worked for Gestapo during WWII, so he was easily manipulated) made sure the system goes down the hill, though they couldn't dismantle it completely.
The word "Gulag" is strangely missing from your interesting comment, Tovarich.
Great comment.
That's exactly my point: GULAG was established by Yiddish-speaking Jews (same apllies to the so called "Russian" revolution led by Trotsky's thugs he brought with him from New York) and 90% of GULAG administration was Jewish. You just don't get the point why it's so important for chosenites to tarnish Stalin's name: 1) he hampered their satanic plans for the World Wide Revolution and 2) he stopped ethnic cleansing of native Russians 3) he showed an alternative and just socio-political system. But I hear you -- you have been enjoying the results of imperialism/colonial taxation (free lunch thrown at she sheeple by banksters), you are just not happy with the fact imperialsm consumed the whole world and the bones from the free lunch are not thrown any more. Mazel Tov -- that's the origin of Tovarisch. BTW, Karl Marx's real name was Mordechai Levy, IYSWIM.
It's not what you get. It is the quality of what you get.
I love it when socialists use the word "free". It saves me the trouble of having to mount a long-winded, coherent logical argument why they are wrong. They do all of that hard work for me.
Excellent.
The libertarian fanatics are ready to forgive Stalin for Gulags by they will never forgive him for the crimes you listed above such as universal (not free) health care or universal (not free) old age pensions etc.
What's ironic that all those progressive labor and other laws in eastern Europe like legalizing freedom of abortion 20 years before the west did were introduced within society permeated by what we could call apparatchik mafia not dissimilar to US now and then.
This was the mafia that restrained natural differentiation in society, or competition and needs for basic sharing and made themselves indispensable to the system by artificially creating fake shortages of goods and services that buildup their power and providing support for western criticisms of socialistic economy which in fact was most productive in the world, sabotaged by apparatchiks for their own benefit or careers.
Capitalism needs poor, homeless and jobless to properly function. It needs losers to produce more losers and to concentrate capital into few hands and hence into the autocratic power. Winners of today are losers of tomorrow that's motto of capitalism.
For those believing that economy is rational science and economic conditions are result of laws or rules of economy I suggest interesting read on slave wage economy at:
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/slaves-of-wage/
For brief discussion of inflation/deflation as well as so-called “free” markets, benchmarks and indices I suggest fresh look at financial propaganda of deceit at:
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/29/invisible-hand-and-other-paranoid-delusions/
You forgot to mention the "right" to go to the Gulag or be executed if you didnn't go along with the charade.
Oh and if the properties shown in the article were actually owned by "the state" then why were they not available to all the members of "the state" for their paid vacations? I mean a simple timeshare agreement coulda been written up, right?
Dude, you have to stop smoking so much crack. Hitler and Stalin were like fucking twins when it comes to policy and implementation. The only difference was Hitler was smart enough to leave the mechanisms of industry in the hands of the people who knew what the fuck they were doing rather than have the hubris to think he and his political class coule run everything. Guys like Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky were unskilled two bit losers analagous to their brothers from another mother, Hitler, Mussolini, and FDR. All these fuckers were just useless politicians. Hitler just a failed artist. FDR just a product of a monied family with an inborn need to be a fucking totalitarian because he believed he was just smarter and better than everyone else. Read Trotsky's autobiography and he will tell you in his own words how he was astonished that the rube proletriat just got in line to all the fighting and hard work while he and his buddies running the show kept the hands clean and lived like Kings.
And all of that is probably why in that list of contributions to the world by Stalin's Soviet you don't see any technological advance or productive endeavour. And don't hit me with Sputnik because all that tech was stolen.
How was all this awesome stuff paid for again? I also see you forgot to mention the chronically empty grocery store shelves, among other things. Probably just an oversight.
As "Chairman Greenspan" pleads for more hair, "the gods" doc his account.
Repo operation.
And the trouble with crony capitalism is that those cronies will run out of a middle class.
but they won't run out of bullets to shoot them when they're poor :D
Actual wealth is a function of how useful to others you are. Its origin comes from when hunter gatherers became farmers and some were better at it than others. The only true path to wealth is to be productive, useful. That is, unless and only if you can control natural resources.
Or if you can control the ACCESS to resources, access to employment, access to credit, access to key dealmakers/politicians, access to information, etc.
Do you even know that when Stalin died, he only left two sets of his uniform and a used pair of shoes. His family did not get any inharitance from his death. They only had an average house, and also his granddaughter died in retirement home in US about 15-16 years ago. Stalin did not chase after his own enrichment or agenda. Whatever he did, he did for his country.
You are true believer, at least you got that going for you
It depends on whose history books you are reading. Most of you only know what western historians wrote about him. Did you ever read russian history books about Stalin? Many things he did were necessary at that time, and of course some things were terrible. But I don’t see him worse than a Bush or others. If you read Russian history books in the future about Bushes, Obama and other US presidents, I am sure you will read terrible things about them as well…
Define uniform and why the fuck did his grandaughter move here to die?
"What ever he did, he did for his country", and do see how well it worked out for those who survived?
It is amazing to see people so enamored with a utopian vision that they will burn it all down for the chance to see their dreams come true. And even after witnessing the horrors prior attempts have yielded.
Did you know his son didn't get to partake in that windfall because Stalin let him die in prison?
He killed the brains of the operation for his country. Lulz.
I would add that how Lavrentiy Beria died was particularly satisfying. I, for one, would have taken more time with a blow torch and pliers but that's just me.
Bring's me to Mao, he wanted to be "king", yet all he had for kids where 'tards. Kinda like the Clinton's.
Small compensation in a world full of tyranny enabled by state worshipping apologist like you.
GM are you a sociopath or just retarded?
It was unfortunate that so many of his adoring people needed executing on his orders to help him achieve his great works.
He left a lot of dead bodies, too.
Stalin was working for the new world order, controlled by the Jesuits. Same with Churchill. Same with every US president since Woodrow Wilson.
An Obamaphone and subsidies to have as many kids as you want. Stalin didn't think of that. He tried to kill as many of his "citizens" as he could, maybe 30 million or so before WWII started.
Staliln did what the head lion in Cecil's pride would do; kill everyone who could ever become a threat. Murdering nearly every officer in the Red Army and signing a non-agression pact with Hitler was not something a leader would do if he "cared" about his country.
You cannot be taken seriously with that attitude. He was evil and that is why he done it. Truth is always different as in the road to hell is paved with good intentions. His anyway. He killed his opponents, he killed the members of high society to prevent a counter revolution. Those 30 millions are more of a problem of bad organization. Not socialism or central planning, but bad central planning.
BCP? Are you for real?
"Obamaphone" ...You stupid fuck, have ever bothered to look into an "Obamaphone"?
I did, and it's an ABSOLUTE FUCKEN RIPPOFF! Yeah, you get a free phone circa 2009...but using it will break you financially...complete ripoff...an "Obamaphone" is government delivering the poor/stupid into the teeth of Corporate America.
Socialism masquerading as benovolence using thuggery disguised as government
Booboo
Classic.
Beautiful remark.
You hit the nail on the head.
I'll bet some of the "jack booted thugs" are catching some flak?
There are different socialisms like there are different people.
Both Stalin and Hitler were socialists. However,
Consequently, we are at a junction where the White Man Civilization will either recognize their enemies and their plans and fight for its future or will be extinct.
So Hitler should be our model?
It looks like we are "progressing" nicely.
The fact that both Stalin and Hitler saw the path to their utopia paved with "inferiors" should be of no concern at all?
Hitler did not start the WWII but he was unwilling participant.
Germany had all rights in world to free itself from the Treaty of Versailles imposed on it by Britain, France, and the USA. Germans had the same rights to defend itself like Vietnam or Afghanistan against the American imperialism or China fighting against the Japan aggression during the WWII.
Hitler knew that Germany was not ready to the war but he did not have a choice. The real aggressors were FDR and Stalin. FDR was looking for a world zionist banking mafia domination and Stalin was looking to expand his vampire-communist world domination. Both FDR and Stalin were very close to the world zionist WallStreet and the City of London banking cartel. After all, zionist WallStreet and the City of London banking cartel brought Lenin's communism to power in Russia. Neither FDR nor Stalin were looking for peace or democracy. This is why, when FDR became too friendly with Stalin at the end of the WWII, he had to go...
As for Hitler, he did not have enough brains and education to conduct successfully either international affairs or Germany war campaign. He was too naive and unskillful.
Your comment is well understood.
The simple fact remains. I didn't ask for this job, but I love honest hard-working men and women.
I don't want to form a Union.
I want for individuals to have the opportunity to be their 'personal best'.
I want for people that I've met to help me to be a better Man.
I want for people to use, and utilize their brilliant minds.
Jet engines are so passe' -We should have gravity drive propulsion.
About 20 million Germans died in WWII .... Hitler didn't kill them personally .... but, I hold him responsible .... personally !
Hitler and Stalin both killed Jews and killed Russians and Killed Germans. There was no difference. They killed their own countrymen by sending the armies to slaughter one another. All wars are planned. It is all set up.
Our secular religion is "materialism" coupled with "moral debauchery"; it feels good for a short time, but then gets boring or old. Like a child who gets a new toy and is "over-joyed", then a week later he hardly plays with it because he see something newer and shinier.
------------------
Joy comes from relationships and our relationships are being destroyed by social media, which is very anti-social. Add the medical and pharmaceuticals telling us we are depressed and so we get treated with drugs prescribed by brain-polluted physicians (brainwashing cleanses) that cause further disruptions in our natural desire to socialize.
-------
Then add the "let's sue to get rich" propagated by too many attorneys and we further add distrust. Add to that the continuous barrage of race-baiting by the racist (i.e. Sharptons, Jacksons, Waters and Obama's) and we have a further dividing of a nation. Add the intentional destruction of the nuclear family, where parents, if there are two, both work for the "American Dream", while leaving the next generation to be raised by anyone but the parents. Finally, we had a fixed moral values built upon the word of God; Satan's whole agenda is to destroy that which God has ordained for our good and Satan offers what man, by his very nature wants, the lust of the flesh (desires of the heart), the lust of the eyes (think sex everywhere) and the pride of life (think arrogance with accolades coupled with covetousness).
-------------
So we have turned our back on moral principals and the moral law-giver in exchange for the love of money, which all have found to be true that it is indeed the root of all kinds of evil. So there always remains that one hope, the Lord, that ironically is based on a relationship of love via forgiveness via one sacrifice for the forgiveness of our rebellion, but people love the darkness and will not come to the light because there deeds (thoughts and intents are evil) are evil and the light (truth) reveals all of this; so there is an element of shame and rightly so, for all fall short of the gory of God. It is so easy to see and according to God's word, the Scripture, it is going to get much much worse and I think people already know this, but since most people's hearts are hardened, they would rather sit in the place called "denial"...very stupid.
Of all these, the "lets sue the rich" is the most disturbing to me, or maybe the combinate that manifests the most in the situations I find. I am not rich, but I try to help people with what meager skills and resources I have. in the workplace and in the community. Only when they ask, and with no expectation of payback or compensation. Some people are great, but others, a disturbing majority, seem to be constantly setting some sort of trap. whether being asked to help somebody move something, fixing something that is actually not broken, borrowing something given freely and then claiming it made the situation worse, etc. Or a twisted reverse of this. People soliciting something to me I don't need or want, under incredibily shady yet sophisticated tactcs. With an "or else" undertone.
This is how hearts get hardened, and what we must avoid. I am perfectly fine with rich people being rich, and "poor" people being poor (not destitute) if they want to be, but as you described, it seems a dark force is trying to trick everyone into taking away everyone elses free will, on every socio-economic level/personal lifestyle, for no actual legitmate purpose. or even overt illigitimate purposes (greed, laziness,etc.)
Thatcher had it backwards. The problem with capitlaism is that you eventually run out of stealing working-class labor.
Capitalism can not survive without a social floor just as socialism can not survive without capital incentive.
Now explain to me how corporate right-wing central planning is any different than Soviet central planning that only benefitted themselves?
I won't hold my breath.
If I explained it you wouldn't understand. You obviously have no idea what real capitalism is.
Perhaps that's because the pipe dreams you call 'real capitalism' are all but impossible and none of your definitional tapdancing can alter that fact.
Ouch! Nothing left of TuPhat but a smoking hole!
The sustainable system is a simple one. A society that prohibits theft and fraud by government as well as individuals. Something that no "ism" can apparently provide. Only freedom works, but few are willing to pay what it costs. Corruption appears so much more profitable.
Even better, the “Single Tax” (tax assets, NOT INCOME). It’s the only tax that incentivizes asset hoarders to do something with their assets (build housing or a factory or grow food and create jobs etc…). Sales tax can’t do that, although it’s better than the current system.
If two people, John and Mary control fifty percent of the assets in a community (land, water, franchises like air rights, liquor license etc…), they should be responsible for fifty percent of the taxes in that community for their MONOPOLY.
That’s pretty much as the founding fathers envisioned when they said, “only land-owners should pay ALL taxes”. Land was the wealth-producing asset of their time. We never had an income tax until 1913 and 90% of taxes raised were from property taxes.
If John sits on his assets waiting for others to increase it’s value, he is a speculator…a parasite. If Mary builds a factory on her land and sells furniture, ALL INCOME IS TAX-FREE because Mary creates wealth. John must still pay the same asset taxes as Mary regardless. The only losers in this system are the hoarders and parasitic speculators.
The Single Tax eliminates ALL BUBBLES, as it is a disincentive for people who hold onto assets being taxed that should be used to grow an economy. When the asset holder who is being taxed, decides to recoup those taxes paid through wealth creation, everyone wins. Jobs are created and community wealth is produced. Unemployment in this system could hit ZERO or even NEGATIVE. Wage increases must follow.
Ireland is a perfect example of what happens when the asset hoarders control and do nothing with the community’s wealth producing assets. In 1840, millions starved to death because British absentee landlords who refused to grow food during a potato blight controlled the best land.
The best part of this…progressive’s love this idea and conservatives love this idea. Both William Buckley and Chomsky are said to have supported this tax, which is really an entire economic system. Whichever side grabs this idea as their economic platform holds the future.
Actually, the people who own the assets DO pay the majority of taxes. Unfortunately, the rest of the people get to vote, which is NOT what the founders intended. You left that part out.
Wealth as defined by the state. Neither the property or its productivity are the property of the state or anyone else. People continue to act as though the economy is a fixed sum game where one person's wealth comes at another's expense. Explain how my ownership of a farm in anyway obligates me to work it or produce anything....for you? That is what we are talking about, are we not? Taxation IS NOT about building roads and schools. The majority is for redistribution. Of course the progressive interpretation of the constitutional "public welfare" clause covers a lot of ground.
Ultimately I believe a consumption tax is the best for lots of reasons, but I would contend that just about any tax system would be tolerable if the people paying them knew they were paying them (not hidden into the cost of everything we buy through property, corporate and employment taxes) and agreed with how they were being spent.
We understand that the tax system is the primary tool used to corrupt our society. People induced into dependency while others are buying protection. The richest amongst us have the ability, as the OWN business, to roll the cost of taxes back into everything they sell, the things WE buy.
Freedom is not free. Dependency is not freedom. Unless we are willing to be independent, to resist the government's promise to take from others what we want or need, we will know no freedom. Maybe the reason we have such a hard time holding on to freedom is that so few actually want it. To read so many so willing to find justifications for "taxing" and punishing others to our satisfaction tells me freedom is the LAST thing they want.
A quick observation of North Korea and South Korea destroys any anti-capitalism stance. It's real-life, real-time, evidence.
Capitalism and socialism are both garbage.
One must differentiate capitalism and a free market economy. They are different animals but the zionist banking mafia succeeded to equate them in stupid goyim minds.
The difference is simple: an incompetent company goes bankrupt and no longer exists-as should have happened to say GM without government intervention. A corporation has a Profit motive to avoid this destruction. The central government has neither property. And those properies define free enterprise and capitalism, creative destruction and the profit motive. You try to violote either principle and you fail.
Is that Greenspan picture real? Surely it's a photoshopped picture of a corpse.
Fact!
the California pension system is UNDERFUNDED by AT LEAST 70 percent.
I call you out Barbara Boxer? You douche nozzle ?
Where's Nancy PIll Popper?
Where's Harry "Tread Mill" Reid?
Words to 'Cry -By'
But just as the common man is deceived by money (he thinks more of it will make him happier), so are policymakers. Their belief is a little more sophisticated. They know it is the economy, not money, that creates wealth. But they believe that adding money (and more demand) will make the economy function better… and make people wealthier.
I've been both rich,and poor,and the only difference I can tell,is this; When your rich,the girls chase you..and when your poor,you chase the girls..
Margaret 'the milk thief' Thatcher was a neoliberal douchebag skank whore that would spew whatever she needed to in order to get the UK out of the shitter. Greedscum, & Reagan, were offering the douche whore a place at the Cartel table, so she hopped on board for the collusion, and monopoly on finance. The City took off after that, and Margaret 'the milk thief' Thatcher was lauded as a hero until 2008 when the Ponzi imploded. Now Thatcher's faux history has been revised in light of her contribution to the largest Ponzi scheme ever perpetrated on Western civilization.
NOTE: The problem with Ponzi schemes is that sooner, or later, you run out of other people's money.
Rich people are not happy? good luck trying to explain that to your wife!
You think they're doing all that therapy and prozac as a tax write-off or something?
When I found one that understands that money and material possesions do not, in any way, make one happy; I knew that I had found the right one.
Only 10,000,000 matters. Do not come to Q99X2 with more than that.
Fucking liberals go into hiding as usual. I do my homework Bitchez
The Federal Reserve IS the foundation of the progressive state and all their social engineering schemes.
As Greenspan pointed out, without fiat currency and debt, they could not debt finance and the progressive welfare-warfare state would collapse.
Just another article about bad sides of socialism without getting into the matter, but showing pictures of communist russia. Why not show the pictures of Stockholm or Oslo? Then again as many here understand as there was never a true capitalism so was there never a true socialism. These are both ideas on the opposite side of the spectrum. A jungle approach of capitalism where the strongest and most adaptable survive while other die in the gutters (I guess industrial revolution in England comes to mind) or a society/civilazation of equals (communism in Russia would be closest I guess). Between those two ideas there is always a complex system where these two extreme ideas are intertwined and combined with different constructs (of credit, of power, of corruption, etc). Both have their good sides and the bad sides. Growing up in a socialist country I remember that crime was at an all time low, people had enough for themselves, culture florished, mental illness and stress existed only in extreme cases. Freedom of speech however was not high and the west had much more thanks to the free-er markets, the motivation of capitalism and ideas of a free society. You don't resent or envy your neighbour when you are in the same boat, right. And now in capitalism, there are beggers and thrash pickers, old people comitting suicide for lack of funds. Do we as a society want our old, our old selves to just die when we can't produce anymore. Do we want handicapped or mentaly challenged to be sent to the woods. This is where socialist redistribution, not capitalism, comes to save our sense of humanity. And for those who wanted more in comunism there was capitalism, but it functioned in a different currency of power and/or corruption which could be accumulated. Hence a combination of these two is necessery, we only need to create the best system in between instead of denounce either. An important part of capitalism (not central bank capitalism or let's call it socialism for the rich) as Austrian school sees it is that at some point redistribution of goods becomes neccessery. We call it Schumpeterian creative destruction. It comes from a free market capitalistic thought but leads to the same thing socialism does. It makes a society more equal. The difference is that it happens violently and every few years instead of continuosly. This creates a problem in continuosly running a system like that as each few years the society has to accept a major change and more imporatantly those who are rich and are on ugly side of destruction as well. I believe that the system should provide something to everyone, food and homestead. But driving a Lambo, wearing a gold rolex, would require work. I don't want to be Pickety's fan on ZH, but an idea of wealth tax and redistribution of wealth tax to equal basic income for all adults would create a system to resolve the issue of instability in capitalism in a continuous stable manner.
Sustainability requires sustainable incentives. You can not sustain a system by either incentivising theft or sloth, which we currently have at both ends of the spectrum, each eating the middle.
i think you can sustain the system right quick when participants in the system must be responsible for their own food production, grown locally. but not before the mega-migration that is currently underway now has run its course.
Which is exactly why we have an unsustainable system....the reliance on others to produce what we have been lead to believe we are entitled to NOT have to work for. A life of ease and privilege that has never really existed. A growing number of people do not want freedom, the want free everything.
"an idea of wealth tax and redistribution of wealth tax to equal basic income for all adults would create a system to resolve the issue of instability in capitalism in a continuous stable manner."
that would require designing and implementing a new system against the desires of the most powerful.
the verdict is still out whether it will be more or less centralized.
outlaw.guru,
No Austrian school of economics has EVER advocated redistribution of wealth.
You pretend to say that capitalism and socialism have their good and bad points, then you call for socialism.
I hope you aren't voting in the US.
To put a finer point on it, you are advocating STEALING MY MONEY, so F off.
Does your money not get stolen now? Do you not pay taxes? Does someone not protect your property (the part after taxes)? Do you expirience inflation of the prices of goods your money can buy? Either you are extracted a fair share of protection racket from the state or you are a freeloading socialist who freerides others to pay his protection, health, pension. I understand where capitalism is hands down a better system, but I also understand where it is not. This is why I want a combo of both that suits the most. You pay the protection for what you own, not for what you produce which incentivizes all to produce and not hoard. As wealth is never really destroyed, just changes hands I would argue that 1929 was caused by a mass of wealth hoarders which was only cured (redistributed) with heavy war inflation.
Back to Austrian school, how do you think creative destruction works? in its core it is a redistribution system. The wealth of the ones who malinvested goes down which reduces the wealth inequality. Others pickup, and you essentialy run on a pendulum of inequality between the recesions. Whenever inequality becomes too great (especialy with honest money) top gets destroyed when bottom cannot pay. It is only the current crony capitalism that allows further concentration of wealth without a redistribution towards people. Print more money and while inflation eats on the people's purchase power, the top can take that little extra money that the bottom does not have any more.
Trader1 I agree 100% about the problem of registering total wealth of individuals. The current system allows the owners of the planet to stay in the shadows and that is just how they like it. Got no good solution there except perhaps riding on the discontent of people during the next recesion to enact such a law. More centralized unfortunatly.
The difference is freedom to choose. Capitalism is about freedom. You are free to be poor or rich according to your drive, and abiities. Socialism is about power of the state and control. The state takes from one to give to another and keeps a percentage for overhead.
You are free to be poor. That much is true.
The one thing I've noticed is that the same people win, no matter the system. They don't bitch, and they don't complain. They simply learn what it takes to get ahead and then do it. If it requires joining the communist party then that's what they do. Winners win, and losers lose.
True dat - it is what socialists, communists, liberals, progressives or any other cute name for the 0bamas, Stalin's, Castro's, Mao's, Pol Pot's, Chavez's of the world do. They steal from the people they do not like and are jealous of and destroy the country from the inside like the cancer they are.
Socialism will work for a small period of time when you have a small homogenous society.
There is no doubt that government has never added to wealth, but try telling that to a government worker. To a man they think they are in "business" in some way. All of them think they are providing some indispensable service that the people owe them payment for. None of them can get it through their thick head that they serve at the pleasure of the populace, not the other way round.
"There is no doubt that government has never added to wealth"
Bull fucken shit...you don't think the Highway system added any wealth to the system? You think the Highway would have been built by private enterprise and free for everyone to use so they could get to work?
Find me a country with no "government" and I'll show you a shithole.
Every wealthy nation that ever existed had a Government...and never has there been a "wealthy nation" free of government.
Look at space Travel...Government been it that business for ~60 years and the "free market" is just now getting it's feet wet and has a hard time getting a rocket off the pad even though NASA showed them how it's done...the Space Program hasn't "added any wealth" to the system? Yeah, right.
NASA is a government boon doggle .... private companies will explore space with nano-rockets and nano-robots .... putting people in space is pase' .... expensive and dangerous !
but necessary. The human race must expand or die.
"NASA is a government boon doggle"
Today's NASA is a government boon doggle - their primary objective is 'muslim outreach' - simply F'd up