This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Guest Post: The Socialization Of America Is Economically Impossible
Submitted by Brandon Smith from Alt-Market
The Socialization Of America Is Economically Impossible
I understand the dream of the common socialist. I was, after all, once a Democrat. I understand the disparity created in our society by corporatism (not capitalism, though some foolish socialists see them as exactly the same). I understand the drive and the desire to help other human beings, especially those in dire need, and the tendency to see government as the ultimate solution to all our problems. That said, let’s be honest; government is in the end just a tool used by one group or another to implement a particular methodology or set of principles. Unfortunately, what most socialists today don’t seem to understand is that no matter what strategies they devise, they will NEVER have control. And, those they wish to help will be led to suffer, because the establishment does not care about them, or you. The establishment does not think of what it can give, it thinks about what it can take. Socialism, in the minds of the elites, is a con-game which allows them to quarry the favor of the serfs, and nothing more.
There are other powers at work in this world; powers that have the ability to play both sides of the political spectrum. The money elite have been wielding the false left/right paradigm for centuries, and to great effect. Whether socialism or corporatism prevails, they are the final victors, and the game continues onward…
Knowing this fact, I find that my reactions to the entire Obamacare debate rather muddled. Really, I see the whole event as a kind of circus, a mirage, a distraction. Perhaps it is because I am first and foremost an economic analyst, and when looking at Obamacare and socialization in general, I see no tangibility. I see no threat beyond what we as Americans already face. Let me explain…
Socialism Is Failure
A country that feels the need to socialize has, in my view, already failed culturally. It is an open admission by the public that they are unwilling or unable to take responsibility for their own prosperity. If a society is not able to function in a healthy economic manner without the force of government (an abstract entity often manipulated by corrupt ideals) resulting in the creation of artificial and precarious balance using fiat stimulus and overt taxation, then the people of that country are not remotely independent and self sufficient. That is to say, only a nation filled with pathetic overgrown children would actually need government to enforce mandatory “charity”, welfare, healthcare, etc. A truly healthy society supported by strong and self sustainable individuals would not beg to be parented by government. If a country is so unbalanced as to stoop to socialism, then its ailments already extend far beyond anything government (even good government) could ever hope to cure.
Obamacare, its tentative application, and those who blindly support its introduction in the U.S., are an example of a weak people groveling for handouts they do not work for nor deserve. Socialism is defeat. It is a waving of the white flag by a society and the trading of that culture’s liberty for the illusion of fiscal security. It is the act of an adolescent and naïve populace groveling for an allowance from their “motherland”.
If one wants to consider what a socialized America would actually be like, why not examine the track record of the EU, a group of nations which have dabbled extensively in the principles of collective centralization and various levels of socialism, including the extremes of communism and fascism (and yes folks, both are derived from a socialist/collectivist foundation, despite what pseudo-intellectuals and propagandized academics will try and tell you).
What success have they accomplished in the course of their Utopian endeavors?
Well, more than half of the states of the European Union have already reached debt to GDP ratios well beyond the limit required to retain membership:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/06/19/europe.debt.explainer/index.html
Several countries, including the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, are all in the midst of severe debt crisis. The Euro itself is on the verge of disintegration, and in all likelihood, the EU charter will be reexamined, and mutated into something completely different to what exists today. The central bankers will blame European countries and their “insistence” on maintaining sovereign control over their finances, but ultimately, it is not sovereignty that strangles the EU, but its ridiculous supranational status which is entirely misapplied and has created a state of interdependency that has weakened every member nation to the point of disaster.
It should be painfully clear to anyone considering socialism as a viable option for America that this kind of system requires fiscal discipline and a vast amount of SAVINGS. Notice I say “savings” and not “money”. Money is a carnival ride; an illusion of wealth that can be printed from thin air. Savings is an actual concrete storage of real capital, an ongoing surplus of manufacturing and production capability resulting in the stockpiling of working credit and ample employment. Most of the countries of the EU do not have such savings, and never did. In fact, most European countries have operated for decades on a loss. They have never been able to live with the direct and indirect investments of outside players. Because of this, EU countries are utterly unable to keep up with the grand concepts of socialism, and have buried themselves under the crushing debts generated by entitlement programs.
America is no different.
Forget Universal Healthcare – The U.S. Is Bust
There has been a pervasive delusion amongst pro-socialism movements in the United States that we are the “richest country in the world”. They claim it is “absurd” that the establishment system does not pay for our healthcare with such riches at its disposal. They consistently rant about Canadian Healthcare and its record of universal treatment. The problem is, they ignore the details…
Canada’s national debt stands at around $1.1 Trillion (officially). Canada’s population sits at around 34 Million. America’s national debt stands at around $15 Trillion (officially) and our population sits at around 313 Million. The two countries are entirely different animals. To clamor for a Canadian style healthcare program for a country with completely opposite economic parameters is idiocy, or lunacy, or both.
Officially, our economy has already broken the 100% debt to GDP threshold. Unofficially, but more accurately, the U.S. national debt sits closer to $120 Trillion. This number accounts not only for public debt, but intragovernmental debt, and implicit debt, meaning, the debt obligations the government has committed to for the near future:
I would also like to quickly note that mainstream economists back in 2011 were predicting the U.S. would reach 101% of GDP by 2021. It is now 2012, only one year later, and we have already crossed the 101% marker.
Add to this the projected costs of Obamacare ($17 Trillion in estimated long term unfunded obligations), and what you get is a broke-ass country:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/sessions-obamacare-costs-2.6-trillion-in-ten-years/article/2500877
The only factor which has stayed the tide of a full-blown macro-implosion of the U.S. is the world reserve status of our currency. The dollar is all we have left. Period. But don’t count on that for much longer either. With multiple nations, including China and Japan (our largest foreign debt holders) quietly forming bilateral trade agreements cutting out the use of the greenback, it will not be long before its world reserve status disappears as well, and then, we are on our own. The private Federal Reserve can print all they want, but if other countries no longer need dollars to facilitate cross border trade, then what we will get is hyperinflation, or stagflation. Obamacare only expedites this process by generated even more liabilities we cannot cover, thereby giving the central bank even more excuse to churn out dollars with wild abandon.
To put it plainly, all those people who believe America is the “richest country in the world” are living in mushroom land. We-are-broke. Bust. In the red. In the hole. Insolvent. Our pockets have become lint traps. We’re switching from fine Belgian beer to Busch Light. And, we can’t all move back in with our parents like so many Obamacare proponents I have met…
Go Ahead, Try To Enforce Obamacare…
We-have-no-money. Therefore, the debate over universal socialized medicine is pointless. It is mathematically and economically impossible to implement. What the Supreme Court says on the subject of socialization certainly matters in terms of principle, and they have failed Americans spectacularly in that respect (or served their globalist sugar-daddies well; however you want to look at it). But, in terms of finance, the Supreme Court’s shocking decision means nothing.
One of Ron Paul’s primary arguments against the ongoing wars in the Middle East has always been that whether one agrees with these conflicts or not is irrelevant. The U.S. does not have the means to fund them. Eventually, we will break the bank and the dollar to maintain our presence in the region, and thus, the wars WILL end, one way or another. The same philosophy goes for Obamacare and every other socializing program presented in America.
They will say that taxation will cover the costs; but how do you raise taxes on a populace that is growing more destitute every year. How do you take money from people if they do not have it? This tactic doesn’t seem to be working very well for Europe. Also, keep in mind that as population and inflation grow exponentially, so will costs. Meaning, the taxation will have to expand as fast, or faster, than the expenditures. This is why so many opponents of Obamacare voice concerns over population reduction programs and rejected care; they are an inevitable end result. When you institutionalize health and life under the auspices of bureaucracy, you must also invariably institutionalize death. Population and life suddenly become a numbers issue to the state, rather than a moral issue.
They will say that the penalties to those who refuse to participate will cover the costs of the rest. Again, how to you take money from people that do not have it? What if millions of people simply refuse to participate, AND refuse to pay penalties?
They will say “tax the corporations”, and we could, but, as the derivatives crisis has proven, most major corporations in the U.S. are on the government take just to survive. We cannot have corporate bailouts and increased corporate taxation at the same time. The bailouts would have to end, the companies would collapse (as they should, but that’s besides the point), and we’re right back to where we started. Just like our government, most corporations also operate on false wealth. They will not be paying for Obamacare anytime soon.
They will say that it is all for the greater good, but since when has the establishment been qualified to define what the “greater good” is? Is Obamacare really a matter of conscience? Or, is it a farce flaunted about as if it is a matter of conscience?
They will say that people must be forced to do what is right for the group. I say, such hubris has always led to catastrophe. Usually, it is the select beneficiaries of tyrannical cultures that call for the might of the central government to be wrought upon the rest of the citizenry. Not to do right by conscience, but to satiate their desire for control. Men love government as long as it is imposing their particular world view, and as long as the tables never turn.
They will say that current medical practices and costs are terrible and something must be done. I agree. However, Obamacare is not the answer. If there is one thing that wears thin upon my mind it is the one track thinking of the progressive ilk who know that Obama’s healthcare initiative is a stop gap at best, but barrel forward anyway because “at least it is something different”.
“Don’t you want to help the poor”, they say.
Certainly. I want to help them by saving them from the disaster that socialism will inevitably lead to.
Principles and existentialist debates aside, the primary economic question still remains; where is a realistic plan to pay for this monstrosity of a program? I have yet to see a single grounded solution to the quandary. How does one pay for something he will never be able to afford? If there are no means, there will be no Obamacare.
»
- 20221 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
By productive people you surely don't mean Wall Street sort of paper pushers right? Or Plutocrats, right??? A Janitor is more productive than these types.
You assume the rich are productive and the sheeple are not. If productive means dreaming up new derivatives to loot the economy, I guess you may have a point. You also ignore that when all taxes are counted, payroll taxes, excise taxes, property taxes and local taxes, the bottom percentiles pay a much larger share of their income. Selective statistics serve your agenda.
"Epic truth. But in ZH whenever the rich and powerful have to pay it's called socialism, evil, communism, terrorism, etc..."
You noticed that too, hunh? Makes you wonder... reminds me of a story I once heard, given by a politician who was elected to office where he inherited an egregious debt. Yet, despite keeping the lion's share of his party's campaign promises and overcoming massive resistance from private interests (including the media), his gov't proceeded to run 17, count 'em seventeen, consecutive surplus budgets. Anyway, FWIW here's the story:
The Story of Mouseland
As told by T Douglas in 1944
It's the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.
They even had a Parliament. And every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterwards too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats.
Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of Canada for last 90 years and maybe you'll see that they weren't any stupider than we are.
Now I'm not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows. They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws--that is, laws that were good for cats. But the laws that were good for cats weren't very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds--so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much effort.
All the laws were good laws. For cats. But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn't put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats.
Now the white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: "All that Mouseland needs is more vision." They said:"The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we got. If you put us in we'll establish square mouseholes." And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.
And when they couldn't take that anymore, they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. Then they went back to the white cats. Then to the black cats. They even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up of cats with spots on them: they were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but ate like a cat.
You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.
Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea. And he said to the other mice, "Look fellows, why do we keep on electing a government made up of cats? Why don't we elect a government made up of mice?" "Oh," they said, "he's a Bolshevik. Lock him up!" So they put him in jail.
But I want to remind you: that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can't lock up an idea.
Yep, ZH'ers sure make a habit of sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting at the top of their lungs when that example is brought up; or, say, Norway's success. Makes you wonder, no?
Anyway, thank you for making the effort to appeal to reason, there's a dearth of it in here roaming around masquerading as an 'alternative'
The obvious lesson here is:
Mice = Common men
Cats = Statists
It matters not which precise brand of coercive philosophy a statist politician peddles or pretends to honor; the implementation of his philosophy is ALWAYS going to good only for him and for those who similarly exercise power.
What this story pointedly ignores, however, is the sad but very real fact that even if the mice were to reject ALL cats, and elect other mice into office, those mice are inevitably going to BECOME cats soon afterward, if not immediately. The lure and seductions of power are a mouse-altering hormone that virtually no mouse can resist.
Given that, in at least 6000 years of so-called "civilized history", humanity seems congenitally unable to learn the lesson that statism is unproductive, evil, and a dead end, I suggest that God wipe the slate clean and start over --- clearly, humanity is, as a species, either hopelessly retarded, or dangerously insane. Or both.
The obvious lesson to be derived from your comment is that if it wasn't for gravity, you couldn't hit the ground.
Just another of the shallow, flippant, puerile and feeble comebacks I have come to expect from one of the most arrogant and clueless posters in this forum.
Thanks for the above parable, anyway. Too bad its lesson is utterly lost on you.
Hoo hoo! Me oh my is that rich.
You know, I never pegged you as a CCF supporter; enjoy researching the author of that parable just a little bit... let us know how it goes once the penny finally drops.
What this story pointedly ignores, however, is the sad but very real fact that even if the mice were to reject ALL cats, and elect other mice into office, those mice are inevitably going to BECOME cats soon afterward, if not immediately.
Wrong, clearly you've been deceived by the complex dynamics of the setting of Mouseville. What you fail to take into consideration is that if mice were elected, they'd behave like cats.
Heh.
Hahahaha!
Oooooh, so that's what happened to T. Douglas once he was elected! Of course. Total transmorgification.
I mean just look at what akak wrote, in light of that could it really have been any other way? From the gaping maw of the cult of MUST BE; so it shall.
The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.
___________________
Gregarity of cats is low.
Lip-smacking goodness of cats in Chinese Citizenismland is high.
Know any good Polish jokes?
Just wondering, because you don't seem to have any funny or even half clever Chinese ones in your tiny but redundant repertoire, and I thought you might want to mix it up a bit.
It won't work. They will find ways to shield their money from taxation. The vast majority of taxes are paid by the middle class because they aren't wealthy enough and sophisticated enough to hire the specialists to skirt the taxes. Let the TBTF banks go bust, nationalize them, and wipeout the 400 peoples' equity and you can equalize some wealth. Short of that, they'll get second passports, live internationally, or just simply expatriate. This ain't the only casino in town, ya' know?
...but those 400 people make all the decisions. Like Obama-care. Which, if I remeber, was an elaborate compromise ginned up by the Senator from Montana to preserve the profits of the insurance comapnies on the backs of everyone else. My guess- the insurance companies, the Senator from Montana, Obama, and the Supreme Court- all owned by the 400.
To digress, I believe the author is correct to suggest that all of this is a symptom of a degeneration of cultural-morals.
A courageous and upright people will simply laugh at Obama-care and refuse to participate in their own enslavement/harvest/slaughter. Wild animals approach bait with extreme caution, knowing that tidbits are not normally found lying about carelessly on the ground. On the other hand domesticated animals expect to be fed, and approach the feeding troughs with a sense opf entitlement. You can figure out the rest...
If you have $1 of net worth you would have more money than 24% of the population since their net worth is negative.
Hell yea, baby! I one of the 76 percenters...
No matter who is printing....the problem is bigger than little green pieces of paper, or numbers on a spreadsheet.
That's what scares the shit out of people, hence why they resort to these petty left right agruments like, "I think ObamaCare is XXXX" or issues on "The gays" or "regulations".
Our government hasn't looked in the mirror for about 35 years. And the people follow suit, because they are TOLD to.
I know some of the libs on here can't stand the right-leaning of ZH at times; but that really is the minority of the board (although they are the most vocal). The majority of us, the TRUE libertarians, know that this system is 100% bullshit, that both parties represent the corporate class, and not the will of the people. I'd also venture the majority of us that know this, are under the age of 40.
You'll see after record youth voting in 2008, it will DWINDLE in 2012. Young people haven't had access to this much information in our history....during the longest recession our country has ever seen. Most considered Obama the last hope....and the only thing we got was more of the same shit. That will be reflected in the voting booths (giving Romney a chance to win).
Conflict will only increase once the zombified Baby Boomers die off, and are rplaced by a more informed workforce in record amounts of debt, income stagnation, and declining life quality.
Wall Street is a machine to vacuum all the wealth from Americans. It always has been, though. My company holds these idiotic 401K retirement seminars and I have all I can do not to throw up when I see the ads for them--it's all been a giant scam, all of it.
You can try to fill the budget gap by "eating the rich", but I'm not sure tax rates past 100% are actually feasbile . . .
The real goal is to fix the system that allows the crony-corporatists at the top to amass so much cash off the backs of the people, and you know what contributes to their looting of the public? People like you, ready to give them power in the name of "healthcare for all".
I'm sure the CEOs of the major health insurance companies are laughing all the way to the bank. Maybe they'll send you a Christmas card for your part in helping them get even richer?
Socialists are just useful idiots to the 0.1%.
That's new news?
There is only one solution to solve this problem. Wipe out about 6 billion people on the planet. I'm sure it's in the works.
start with the bankers
Ya but the 500 million that survive will wish they were dead.
The Georgia Guidestones.....
Clusterfuck on the banks of the Rubicon.
It never fails to crack me up in a bitter way when I read a piece that correctly identifies our political and economic structures as being man-made abstractions, and then proceeds to explain that thus-and-such are inevitable because of the rules governing those very same man-made abstractions. I wonder how fish philosophize about the nature of water.
more like, this idiot realizes we are headed straight for the rocks, yet he tries to make a point that a stearing correction is a bad idea. Whoever wrote this is assuredly not a deep thinker.
Oh failed Sweden. Failed Dänmark. Failed Norway, etc... Complete failed states (just like Somalia, right?), unlike the US where you gots the free market prisons, corporate industrial food and money being speech. Thank God for success America!
the total population of these countries is less than one top five US city. not to mention Norway's oil bonus, and uncle sugars military defense umbrella they've been living under.
we'll see how well they do tethered to the rest of a failing europe, paying for carbon usage to keep those huts warm, or having to face the russian bear once the US empire is no longer footing their protection bills.
the US government, for all of its failings has had a two hundred plus year run. by comparison, modern european socialist governments have had a very short, and generally not promising, history.
"the total population of these countries is less than one top five US city."
So, the more people around, the less possible to establish a socially oriented rule?
"not to mention Norway's oil bonus,"
Hm, the US had that too... too bad they wasted it rather than managing it smartly.
"and uncle sugars military defense umbrella they've been living under"
All thanks to American military empire. Banzai!
why does zh post this garbage. source of the 17 trillion? so all the other oecd countries which have controled health costs way more efficiently than the US are broke because of those same health care costs. how does that make any sense? http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012...
What about the"unfunded liability" of the military, which consumes 50% of all federal revenues
At least the protection of the USA is a constitutional power of the US Government. Sure it has been stretched. But I'd rather spend $1 trillion on the military, than $1 trillion on social welfare.
you are an idiot
Not and idiot, a serf.
wow. that is one of the saddest and most sickening things I have ever read.
I surely hope you do not breed.
Don't worry. If he ever grows some balls, he's going to start burning down his nearby housing projects and likely be sent away for awhile.
projected net cost of ppaca over 10 years ~ 1 trillion. Annual amount spent on military in a YEAR in the US 1.5 TRILLION or 15-18 TRILLION over the same 10 year period (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kFeduoDWKj4#! and https://www.warresisters.org/sites/default/files/FY2012piechart-color.pdf). Cost of Iraq War -4 trillion on the low end estimate (http://articles.marketwatch.com/2011-12-15/general/30778140_1_iraq-war-iraq-and-afghanistan-veterans-budgetary-assessments).
meant 50% of all federal spending above, not federal revenue
adr, it seriously is the same difference. Think of all those military careers that honestly do nothing, but we pay billions per year to fund it. Plus pensions and health benefits. How are they any different than welfare queens? So they can go and kick some two bit dictators ass? That isn't making us any safer, in fact it's making us more targeted. If we adopted the Swiss model of self-protection and laying low, we wouldn't have the military welfare system we have today.
I'd rather not waste trillions on anything. The only useful thing being done by our military in the middle east is providing employment for kids that can't find a job because the government is wasting our wealth on the military and military contractors. The government seems to be able to come up with the most expensive way to do things, just look at obamacare.
That is not what we're talking about here you silly. Stop with your revealing charts and common sense.
I'm a reasonable man, and willing to compromise:
Let's slash both the military-industrial complex and the welfare state!
EBTs accepted at WaWa and just about everywhere these days.. i think WalMart gets 20% of its revenue from EBT sales
Excellent article.
True Capitalism requires failure, and true democracy requires personal responsibility and the least amount of government possible.
What I find odd, is that the dreams of most Socialists I know is to have a common ground utopia where everyone is the same and poverty is eliminated. However, they all want this dream enforced by a maasive centralized force.
The Socialist supporter thinks they will be one of the people enforcing the system, not one of the peons being crusjed by the weight of it.
I always say. How about we have a system where I do what I want to do, and you do what you want to do. Maybe both work for us, or maybe one of our ways doesn't work. The response is usually, that isn't fair.
It isn't fair because someone has to accept failure, something a Socialist refuses to accept. The entire goal of Socialism is to somehow eliminate failure by making everyone accept a single standard, that is not supposed to fail. What they fail to understand is that the entire concept of eliminating failure is in effect, a complete failure before it starts because it doesn't allow anyone to be successful at anything they do.
so wrong, you dont even understand the arguement. Fucking sad but typical.
Start here, life is not all or nothing, its not black or white. Some industries need to be socialized, while many others need to be free market. WHy is that so hard to grasp. Its not one or the other, its finding the right mix.
Are you joking?
Sorry but you couldn't be more wrong. Nature is black and white, the universe works on the principles of positive and negative. Gray only ends with gray. Life is actually black and white, but because of the absolute unfairness of this society has been tring to inject gray into everything. People can't accept the law of nature that the weak get eaten or die, and the strong survive. The gray is to confuse the population into accepting centralized control and the concentration of wealth and power into an ever smaller minority.
Gray is to accept everything as the same, that no answer is the correct answer. That one single person can never be right, only that the collective can be right.
There is no rght mix of socialism and capitalism. Once Socialism injects itself into capitalism you end up with subsidized industry fighting with unsubsidized. If a business can not survive on its own, then it isn't a viable business. Why is this so hard to accept?
Viable business is choked out by ones that can survive failure on the backs of bailouts and subsidies. How can you compete against a company that can lose hundreds of millions, yet remian viable through subsidies, when any loss would bankrupt yur company?
You can't have a mix of Socialism, by definition Socialism can only work if all accept it. No one system should have the power to enforce its will on everyone. The American experiment worked because it allowed millions of different views to either succeed or fail based on merit. Uccess moved us forward, failures allowed us to learn.
agreed but you do need to concede on items like sewage since you can't really have competition for things like that.
corruption destroys both sides visions anyway. great stuff for the chalkboard but reality shows that power over others is what is in motion. No matter how you sell it to the peons.
Well, please tell us then, in your wisdom, where the mountain in the distance begins and the valley ends, whether indigo is a shade of blue or one of violet, how many stones are in a heap, if the North African is a white man or a black man, or at what point death occurs, in this black and white nature of yours.
First, what is the necessity, economic or other, in the discernment you request? The mountain-dweller lives in as bankrupt a nation as the valley-dweller if the math declares bankruptcy is imminent. No one will be paid to move a heap of stones regardless of size, and both the cobalt blue and indigo shawls will go unpurchased, in a bankrupt nation.
"Some industries need to be socialized"
Just tell us which industries are immune to economic forces and why, and we'll get right on that.
Stooge.
Very good sir. We wouldn't want anyone to have their feelings damaged due to their own inferiority complex, no matter how deserved.
The real trouble seeped in with Feminism. Where the mantra of "We can do anything a man can do" somehow got mixed with "I'm a woman and my differences make me special". Limp wristed men jumped on this wagon gleefully and struck up the band, since it's the only way they can get pussy of any type of quality.
So the lesson of the story is that anytime you ignore mathematics and place relativism over reason you're simply slathering together a big shit sandwich for everyone to have a bite of.
This whole socialism thing, like all the Greater Stupidities, is self-correcting. Eventually it will boil back down to the one thing Darwin got correct: Survival of the Fittest. We may have to eat a great many of the socialists before it's over. In fact, I think we should make every effort to eradicate them, to extend the next "uptick" of the cycle even further.
"Quality pussy" is a redundancy.
ROFL. I would counter with "at the time of the act". I have some in the memory banks that still make me cringe when I think about them. Make hay while the sun shines they say. Then you can feed it to them big gals afterwards, sez I.
But I do admit it was pretty damn fine at the time!
The real trouble seeped in with Feminism.
_________________________
Feminists are simply US citizens who happen to be women.
Blobbing-up, roadside-shitting Chinese Citizenism citizens are simply dogs who happen to walk on two feet.
Know any good Polish japes? Because your limited worn out cliché of a Chinese playlist is getting as fucking boring as it is stupid.
The weird thing is that, in practice, "socialist" systems tend to be wildly more Darwinian that capitalist systems.
Living under a self-declared "socialist" or "communist" state, survival for the average working man means you have to constantly be alert and aware to make sure you are working, speaking, thinking, behaving, interacting, socialising, buying products, publicly politically supporting certain concepts in the correct way. Survival under such a regime is exhausting.
The interesting thing about Western Socialists is that under most of the "socialist systems" we have seen historically to date, almost all of them would be perceived as deviants, bourgeois, enemies of the state etc -- and been packed off to remote areas for re-education. In Poland under the USSR, a "socialist" set-up rather than "communist" according to the Soviets, most British socialist activists would have been regarded as social pariahs (antisocial "arseholes") because they do not work in manufacturing or agriculture.
And true is true.
Food for thought:
"Those in power are blind devotees to private enterprise. They accept that degree of socialism implicit in the vast subsides to the military-industrial-complex, but not that type of socialism which maintains public projects for the disemployed and the unemployed alike"
William O. Douglas, former US Supreme Court Justice
"Globalization can be seen as the triumph of capitalism: the ascendancy of economics over politics, of corporate demands over public policy, of the private over the public interest, of the transnational corporation and its global framework over the national state."
Gary Teeple
" In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the l990s it triumphed over democracy. "
David Korten
"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."
Alex Carey
you use the word socialist like others use communist. As long as you are stuck on ideology the only good injun will be a dead injun!
That says it all!
The day you come into the real world of how collective and individual values dovetail, without betraying the golden rule of society, you will find that these words do not mean the same thing; its all a question of balance. And both extremes create more problems than they solve; however intellectually pure the vision of society they may vehicule in theory at each end of the spectrum. Avoiding Charybdis of collectivism and Scylla of individual hubris...there lies the challenge.
but what's it gonna take for US to do something about it????
pitchforks and torches to DC...then they'll listen
Is it socialism? Is it fascism? Is it corporatism? Could be. BTW coming this January. Taxageddon. Look for a VAT tax. You say you don't have any income? The VAT will get at your wealth. With the VAT, if it moves, it gets taxed. Check Romney's back pocket. It's in there.
Q: What is the difference between O'Bama and Mittens?
A: The Bad policies that O'Bama tried and failed to enact (VAT, Higher taxes on the Middle Class, etc) will be passed when Mittens takes office, because he will have the backing of the Republicans, much like Bush was able to get Presciption Drug coverage under Medicare.
How will the socialisation of the US be paid for? VAT. It won't work? Might not, but that won't stop them. Besides if it buys four more years, then = winner.
"How will the socialisation of the US be paid for? VAT. It won't work? Might not, but that won't stop them. Besides if it buys four more years, then = winner."
Not so sure. Consumption taxes are usually deflationary as people cut back on spending. Perhaps It might temporary boost the economy if people choose to rush buy before the tax takes affect, but it won't last very long. EU did a VAT to drive an export model economy by culling domestic consuption and promoting exports to support entitlements. Who is the US going to export to? EU? Asia? I don't see an huge market for the US to switch to a export economy.
I doubt VAT will by any time. The US running $1.2T to $1.6 Trillion budget deficits. Hard to see how a VAT is going to put much a dent in that, and it would cause significant economic issues. If you take out all of fluff from GDP (all gov't spending - Fed/state/local) we are down to about $7T for real GDP. To close a $1 Trillion spending gap the VAT would need to be 20% to 35%. (since not all transactions would subjected to VAT (ie healthcare, Education, capital gains, exemptions such as Food, etc).
The only thing buying the US time is money printing, but that has limits. I can't see the gov't giving up on Money printing, since its like a drug.
Put the VAT on everything including non-discretionary purchases that need to be made immediately and often. Fuel and food come to mind.
At the same time print and spend.
One has marxist ideology and one doesn't?
the kind of socialism that the US and others have planned for us is thus:
-cash will be fully electronic. you protest, and your money is gone.
-debt will be an abstraction controlled by the oligarchs
-banks will be allowed to make "money" and big fees and to buy off politicians
-oligarchs will choose if your company deserves to live by allowing you to get loans , or not
-everybody else will get poverty-level socialism & piss poor schools
-due to lack of employment, governments will have a yearly cull count of useless humans to exterminate.
-and, what democracy? it'll be just theater, a fame-show like
"Look Who Wants to be in the History Books"
yep a tech savvy, totally informed darkage
yes you can have cheap healthcare for all as long as you make healthcare workers earn the same as walmart employees. You can also have patients do many of the tasks themselves just like checking out your own stuff at the grocery store. You can go to the digital scale (you know they haven't upgraded from the old move the weight scale to protect their jobs) and it will be recorded automatically, same with temperature. If you only use one foot on the scale the eye in the sky will fine you. Yes you will be watched and monitored but not helped. You have to do your own bloodpressure, and most shots. There will be a placard to instruct you.
grandma and grandpa are going to find it hard to sell more and more treasuries to consumers in order for US healtcare to put commercials on good morning america
.
obamacare is alot of capitol going directly to healthcare.... it works
"They will say that taxation will cover the costs; but how do you raise taxes on a populace that is growing more destitute every year. How do you take money from people if they do not have it? This tactic doesn’t seem to be working very well for Europe."
While the statements above are true, one problem is that those taxed are earners, productively supporting their families, or trying to. What ought to be taxed first, before anything or anyone else, are entities that avoid taxes.
http://voices.yahoo.com/charitable-foundations-rich-avoid-paying-income-640967.html
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/11/warren-buffett-.html
http://www.zimbio.com/Amy+Rule/articles/3/doesn+t+Rahm+Emanuel+pay+property+taxes
http://taxfoundation.org/blog/create-church-avoid-paying-taxes
HUGE problem, HUGE hypocrisy -- but hey, this is the USA.
like much of the mindless commentary here, brandon smith is still demanding a realistic plan for this program
well there isn't one; mittens doesn't have one either, btw
the actual plan is simply to keep the checks in the mail for as long as possible
hey! if you think the 'neoCons' are better at this than the 'libs', by all means, vote neoCon
p.s.: nobody cares! the political class will now FIX this somehow, brandon? is that your hope again, this election? help all the less intelligent switch to neoCon so those @ atl-Market can have a better party? what the hell is so "alt" here? brandaon's neoCons lost one and now they hafta FIX everthing again?
hey! go ahead and make your money, honey, but please don't blow that smoke up slewie's ass cause i'll blow it right back up yours and your puppet-masters' too, brandon
tyler if you are dumb enuf to keep running paid political advertisements without getting paid, i hope you get just what you deserve Hahaha! and no vaseline!
if you are gonna get paid to run them, i think you are ethically bound to label them "PaidPoliticalAdvertisement" but iu'm not a publisher, just a journalist
i may be crazy, but i'm not insane
anyhow, prez0 wants 4 more to finish trying to stabilize the structure from the last time; he and barney and chris and nancy and bilary and the chairsatan are already fixing everything
didn't you notice?
this is so totally fuked up, kafka has left the building!
anyway we are gonna re-elect prez0 (slewie and fuking michael = strange bedfellows 101) on zH b/c we are still sick of fuking neoCons like you, brandon, pretending to know how to fix things better than we do
the libs can pretend to fix things just fine, thank you
so there!
It's good to hear from you again Slewie.
i'm here quite frequently; try paying closer attention, maybe?
It's always good to hear from slewie.
http://taxfoundation.org/blog
No bucks = no Buck Rogers.
ARE YOU ALL DUMB OR SOMETHING?
American education system has a LOT to answer for (bercause it's failed to provide the population with any answers)
1) Obamacare is NOTHING to do with Socialism - any decent socialist would not allow any private provision - it would all be by the state.
2) Obamacare is an INSURANCE POLICY for America - because when the USD loses it's reserve status MILLIONS of Americans will be thrown onto the unemployment lines with NO HEALTH CARE. Obama knows this is coming and knows he can't do ANYTHING TO STOP IT.
Sadly the Republitards and T-patties are SO FUCKING THICK they haven't worked this out yet. They actually believe that 'economic meltdown will be avoided' - making them as dumb as the stupid shits in charge of this whole fucked up mess.
Unlike Bush, Obama is thinking ahead - probably not for himself but for the next guy (president) - and very much unlike Bush he doesn't want to leave a sack of shit society behind which is tearing itself apart through it's own stupidity.
trust me - when the 'burn takes control' and the USD falls then you americans will be very grateful for your free healthcare.
..oh and maybe you get all 'hot under the collar' about 'affording' things because you don't understand the basics of value
Real value dictates you cannot afford NOT to have Obamacare - fuck what the banks and their FIAT say - this is about society and it's cohesion.
Don't listen to the shills of healthcare providers - the NHS hasn't bankrupted the UK and it's the LARGEST EMPLOYER in the country.
Most of what I have seen written by US hacks about the NHS has been a TOTAL LIE without any basis in any facts.
...and one more thing.....
Where do you find this STUPID MOTHER FUCKERS to write some of these posts. I quote.
"(not capitalism, though some foolish socialists see them as exactly the same)"
WRONG DUMBFUCK - socialist don't think that at all - anyone who has read Marx properly knows that Corporatism (or fascism) IS THE INEVITABLE RESULT OF CAPITALISM.
Only 'lost' capitalists think that Capitalism is 'different' to the corporatism you now recognise you're in.
I mean are you so stupid as to think a system driven by capital accumulation wouldn't end up with the monopoly of capital by a few we see today?
Seriously - you really didn't think it would?
Who the fuck educated you?
MDB? Is that you?
That's what I miss on ZH- a real honest to god rant from a True Believer, complete with howls, bold type and insults.
My contempt for your ideals is balanced by my repsect for your idealism.
True believer? I live under a NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE and my country has LESS DEBT TO EARNINGS THAN YOURS!
(I used capitals as I suspect your attention to detail is kerbed)
Please can you tell me how it's bankrupted us? Seems to me I don't live in an 'Obese epidemic' land where Capitalism has left you all broke, dimwitted fatties - with well capitalised banks (thanks to the taxpayer)
Lets compare:-
Pax Americana where "you're on your own" after your 'leader' decides to socialise banking losses - where the 'citizen' clings to the ideals of 'freedom' whilst owing his whole life to debt issued by the banking monopoly who 'own' the shared capital. Where the entire country 'owes' private investors in order to pay for wars nobody wanted.
or
"Socialist haven" where the population is fit, healthy and ready to rip the banks apart and reclaim our taxes fromt eh insolvent banks. Where a large proportion of the population remain employed thanks to a Government rrun health service which provides much needed 'stimulus' at the bottom - rather than throwing it into banks who re-lend it to the Government!
mmmmm.....decisions...decisions...
Judging by the number of down arrows you've received combined with the lack of responses, I'd say you hit a nerve somewhere with this one... I wonder where, and what sort of vile creatures reside there.
Norway!
...
Of course - here are the rules.
Tell someone something they already know and they will thank you
Tell them something they didn't - especially if it's something concerning - and they will attack you, shout and scream, holla you out - anything rather than be made to look a fool for not knowing what is blindingly obvious.
Most of the comments in reply are half hearted attempts by shills to deceive people. I love the dimwitted idea that America 'cannot afford Obamacare" - but it can afford to bail out (and keep bailing out) the banks!!
I mean what sort of fucking retard would accept that as an argument???
hmmm, to their credit I don't think many here on ZH accept that rationalization at all; perhaps suggesting that the MIC is one of the largest drains on the productive economy of the entire world might draw the ire of a few more screechers from the most heavily indoctrinated zealotry who's positions rely on them defending the indefensible, of which there are a fair chunk residing here no doubt, but I think the bank bailouts are pretty much universally condemned by all ZH'ers. And rightly so.
OTOH, even hint at something like the nationalization of a key industry (even the sort that tends to monopoly anyway) in order to swell a SWF with the goal in mind, ostensibly, that the fund would eventually reach a point where the income derived from it could be used to provide essential services sans anymore taxation; services that even the most rabid ironically 'anti-statist' dog would concede are necessary and part of what they themselves see as the duties of their government...well, regardless of the number of real world examples existing that illustrate how such a policy can, at the very least, keep the nation that adopts it from completely losing its sovereignty to debt enslavement, we all are made loudly aware that suggestions of that nature constitute heresy of a higher order dontcha know, and are not even to be considered or discussed except in the very height of derisive fashion.
Nothing drives these types into a state of utter irrational lunacy quicker than fiscally responsible people whom they hypocritically deem 'statists' or 'socialists' who are looking for some way to cut taxes without reducing services. They are simply unable to process 'the very idea' because they have undergone incessant conditioning every day of their lives in order to maintain their delusion that such a thing is definitively impossible, regardless of any plain evidence of the ol' glazzies to the contrary that is presented to them.
Go try peddling your foul statist policies on Huffington Post or (more appropriately) The Onion --- most ZH readers have awoken to the lies and scams of self-serving sociopathic statism, and are not buying it, least of all from a dishonest, disingenuous, arrogant prick like you.
Blah blah blah. But thanks for the case in point. Truth hurts you, yes? When did you become the official mouthpiece of ZH anyway?
Narrator to Tyler(s): Can I stay at your place?
I think you may still be overdrunk on power after asking to have Trav banned based on his overt racism, and then it seemingly happening... and then you lying about making the request.... and then fuu outing your lying about it...
Which is doubly ironic, considering what you preach, and practice on ananon.
Damn, you are one weird tea towel holder. Talking with you is like trying to argue with a parrot: your most cogent rejoinder is "Raach! I know you are, but what am I? Rach!", yet you don't even understand what you're saying. Then, once you've finally figured out that you're not getting a cracker, you fly up and shit all over a person every chance you get.
do you really believe the Obama gives a flying frosted flake fuck what happens you, me or anybody after the dollar falls? my god man, he's a bought and paid for teleprompter and just like all the rest of the parasites in DC left or right he doesn't care one iota about you or your family or those millions of American's that will end up on the unemployment line.
this is the first delusion that every American must brake, the idea that any repulicrat gives a shit about what happens to the unwashed masses beyond what they can wring out of us for themselves or on behalf of their masters.
make no mistake when the dollar fails we will all be on our own...
...but at least you will have free healthcare - under the Republicans you will have nothing but bills you cannot pay - but it's OK because the 'successful' aka - the monopolies will be fine.
The fact that Obama is taking a huge political risk for large social (but to a politician - useless) reward in return shows that he does care.
I seem to recall similar howls of fear echoing around Britain before Clement Atlee enacted the NHS - and we haven't looked back since.
Oh - and by the way - for the shills out there - the UK's debt to GDP ratio is better than the US and WE HAVE A NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE.
So much for 'going broke' under socialist health services!!
It's not free. He did it to "buy" votes. Most of the strange stuff i read about NHS is in the British "papers". And I see you figured out how to avoid the red arrows.
The ones which are in court now for illegal phone hacking, destroying criminal evidence, corruption, perverting the course of justice etc.?
They are your sources?
Was it the Daily Mail per chance?
Who owns these papers - people who use the NHS - or media barons who can afford private healthcare?
The NHS is dire. It has been since the 60s and it still is today. The people that *heart* the NHS are those people from wealthy or renowned families and/or living in wealthy areas, where doctors don't treat them like dirt. For the average person, it is dreadful.
The NHS is directly responsible for the deaths of three of my family members -- one a poisoning (yes, poisoning), and two misdiagnoses. A family member with advanced bowel cancer was sent home, told he had constipation and given a laxative that caused the contents of his bowel to literally explode through his anus, causing extraordinary pain. Half of my face is now numb because of a messed-up NHS operation to remove a wisdom tooth.
Many NHS hospitals are filthy and unsafe; I know of one hospital where they clean floors with cold water and no detergent. Some of the food served in them contains ingredients that are illegal in the US. Nurses cannot guarantee that your belongings will not be stolen on a ward.
Now think on this ... if the US were to go universal healthcare, free at the point of access (like the NHS), paid for out of taxes (I understand this is not Obamacare), it would be looking at somewhere in the region of $800 billion a year at least. Yes, this is half the price of the $2 trillion they spend now, but I wouldn't wish average NHS provision on anyone.
Prior to the NHS, working class people did have healthcare. They had local GPs and would pay fees off on a monthly payment plan. It was a very personal relationship between doctor and patient, and GPs went out to call on a regular basis, and earnt reasonable salaries from their work. Now we have a situation where GPs will not make calls and are in the top one percent of all income earners in Britain. The NHS created a monopoly situation with state capture thrown into the mix.
Socialised medicine only works in countries where there is a societal and political focus upon the value and figure of the ordinary men or woman -- the "worker" is lauded and respected, so to speak. Britain does not have this ... so ordinary people are treated like insects, and, now, find themselves in grubby hospitals treated by people who can barely speak their language.
I speak as someone with two close family members that worked in the NHS all their lives. One was so horrified by what was going on during the noughties that, now she has retired, she refuses to do any temp or cover work (even thought her old hospital is desperate). The other eventually had a breakdown caused through stress.
[edited as forgot to put in dollars]
You're a stone cold liar.
That's a lie - regular inspections occur in NHS hospitals in the combat of C-Diff.
That is nothing to do with the NHS - that's to do with UK food regulations - but they don't serve red slime (unlike the USA)
Dentists do wisdom teeth removals - not NHS hospitals.
So where do you live that you have such an awful experience? I live in Central London and I have never experienced what you describe.
Oh I see - I get where you're coming from - you like your doctors to be white?
Do you want me to go on?
The NHS is not perfect - but then show me a healthcare system that is. The NHS is cheaper to deliver than the US system and costs patients and taxpayers less overall.
...and lets not forget - you have the CHOICE in Britain of going private - so if the NHS was so bad - why didn't you take that choice and opt out?
So this is what it's come down to - lying to push your own agenda - nice human being you are.
You forgot to yell FACT. That really convinces people when you yell that.
If you have nothing to say - then say nothing.
One should follow one's own advice. Too late for you.
.
...or was that your attempt at a elnogated response (for you) at dissuading me that Obamacare is unaffordable and private healthcare is the cheeapest to deliver around the world.
....because if it was....then I missed it.
Socialism doesn't do a very good job of dividing up the "labor pie" ! The government poor don't contribute anything ! The average lottery "nigger" (that includes all races .... afro lottery winners lose it all quicker) is bust in two years ! Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Capitalism Works Like An Austrian Watch Every Time It's Tried
If you filled a room with ZHers and threw out a copy of something like this I wonder how long it would be before someone got shanked. Of course I love the debates that inevitably follow posts like this becuase it shows that there are still some THINKERS out there.
THIS:
"...only a nation filled with pathetic overgrown children would actually need government to enforce mandatory “charity”, welfare, healthcare, etc. A truly healthy society supported by strong and self sustainable individuals would not beg to be parented by government. If a country is so unbalanced as to stoop to socialism, then its ailments already extend far beyond anything government (even good government) could ever hope to cure."
yeah but globalization came and pissed on all that old time founders' yammering
Just one more way of saying "this time, it really is different!"
A society in which empathy and charity are absent deserves neither. So I see no need for socialism.
Lebensphilosoph, why do you say this(quoted below from previous page)? Would you provide some detail please.
"Yes. But what you and all your Libertarian friends are refusing to understand is this as an inevitable consequence of 'capitalism'."
Every bank would have failed if not for a socialist bailout... so where is the right wing anger at that??
The right left paradigm leaves a lot to be desired, but most right wingers I know would have preferred that the banks (sic) be allowed to fail. It's thoses lovers of central control that won't allow the failure to be penalized.
Privatizing profits and socializing losses is not socialism it's fascism.
Obamacare ? A retirement emergency fund for black athletes, politicians, lawsuit plaintiffs, celebrities, lottery winners who made it big and lost it all .... and can't make it on public charity ! Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad I Wish I Could See Maxine Waters Debate Bob Diamond
It is in a decent society's best interests to provide a BASIC level of healthcare for all residents.
It's sensible to decide how much money we as a society can afford to spend. Probably less than we spend now.
Then just decide how best to spend that amount of money.
It is in a society's best interests to inculcate in its citizens a moral rectitude and sense of personal responsibility that not only demands liberty, but guards against license, which is liberty's only true enemy.
"Private" health insurance, provided by corporate institutional employers, was nothing more than another erosion of liberty, because it alowed people to indulge their carnal appetities, ruin their health with bad lifestyle choices, and then go to the doctor for free to get pills that alleviate symptoms that thus enable such people to continue their bad habits which will eventually kill them.
Here is a solution: Outlaw all health insurance. Health care costs wil immediately come down, people wil take better care of themselves, and health care providers and patients will come to creative cost-covering solutions based on free-market principles.
Please give me an example where such a system, which is no system, is working in the world. Free market principles work very well for the 1%.
The longer term issues are: should we just nationalize health care & who decides what a basic level of healthcare will be.
Nothing bad could really happen in our world if we could harmonize all the good intentions of Socialists spending other peoples money ? Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad I Will Not Rest Until Socialism Is Recognized As The Dirtiest Word In The Dictionary
" When you institutionalize health and life under the auspices of bureaucracy, you must also invariably institutionalize death. Population and life suddenly become a numbers issue to the state, rather than a moral issue."
Welcome to National Socialism; NSDAP American style.
November is the last chance to vote these evil bastards out.
If the Muslim Brotherhood agent remains in office, the assassinations, concentration camps and death camps will follow. America will become a desolate land, patrolled by death-dealing drones and assassins, all directed by the Magic Negro.
Oh please. Mitt won't perpetuate the same abuses? You really think the Magic Mormon will be better than the Magic Negro?
lakecity55...a poster-child for public education's success in virtual lobotomies.
The ball and chain of social/government spending is dragging us down .... but it's the third rail of politics ! The Magic Mormon, even with MDB as veep, won't touch it !
vote him out? what, in favor of mittens, and what exactly is that going to change?
nothing, it's just switching one teleprompter for another, the great ponzi will carry on unabated.
republican or democrat, it's all the same just slightly different commercials on TV.
and as far as Obama being a agent of the muslim brotherhood, I highly doubt that because that would require at least some kind of faith in a higher power, a belief in some way of a moral authority greater than that of man's. and Obama and Romney both strike me as being soulless, empty sociopaths, utterly incapable of of such beliefs.
republican, democrat, left, right, libtard, teabagger ect. ect. it's all just labels meant to divide and distract, it's the oldest trick in the book and it works every single time.
you can't "vote these evil bastards out" because by voting at all you are giving your consent to be ruled by the system, you perpetuate and feed the illusion of choice, even when there is none to be had.
we must refuse to take part in this fraud, we must leave the polls empty, we must turn or backs on this two party dictatorship en mass...we have to abandon dividing and false ideas such as political parties and simply be Americans again.
until we do that nothing will ever change.
Thatcher had the money quote:
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
Also, why is that people (many Zero Hedgers included) endlessly prattle on about the niggling difference between one form of socialism vs. another (e.g., “corporaticism” vs. “fascism”, etc.)? They are all forms of socialism where the individual is crushed (by design or not), and do not fit under traditional American form or intent of government. In essence, these same people can make what are “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” type arguments about fundamentally irrelevant words yet would be hard pressed to explain why we are where we are and how we should get out of it. The author of this piece (and Ron Paul) is right, soon enough it will all be a moot argument.
ObamaCare is not even about health care. It's about health insurance. And health insurance is not really insurance. It's just a giant fund that promises to pay under certain conditions. Sound familiar? It's not different than Social Security, which everyone knows is not a retirement fund. It's just part of the general fund.
ObamaCare is just a collection of tax increases. They're going to get theirs. "Private" health insurance is nothing but a dunning system. It's outsourced tax collection.
So go on with the sob stories about some 70 year old dying on the streets or the kid that get cancer. It's a misdirection. A lot of you just voted yourselves more taxes.
Oh. And Medicaid is already in arrears in many states. Adding enrollment to it isn't going to improve the situation.
The US is not a democracy, it is not a republic - it is an oligarchy. Forget all the crap you've been told since you were 5 years old and starting out in school. Yes, America is the land of freedom - the FREEDOM of the Oligarchs to F@#K us over in any way they please!
A very distinguished gentleman has words on this subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jQT7_rVxAE
For those who have not, I recommend that they first read Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" (the book could have been boiled down to about 10 pages, but Saul filled it with examples of his ego) and then read "The Communist Manifesto". Both are very short reads.
If read in that order most likely the lightbulb will go off in your head and you will think: "dang Marx was just a community organizer trying to control the masses of proletariat for his (or someone else's) benefit". Marx's communist ploy simply followed the age old formula retold by Alinsky. Viewed in this light, Marx had no interest in the proletariat, only in controlling them... and the same can be said for our current set of socialist/communist so called "leaders".
Then, to get a feel for who is running the world, a good read is Machiavelli's "The Prince". Instead of feudal states we have corporations and the so called "corporate leaders" are just following the age old formulas for "princes" written about by Machiavelli. Again a very short read.
If there are two types of people in this world: a) those who just want to be left alone AND b) those who won't leave others alone, then I would say Machiavelli falls into catagory a) since he dispassionately transferred his knowledge to the Prince and had no interest in being a "prince" himself. Alinsky on the other hand revelled in screwing with other people and the notoriaty it brought ... falsely claiming to be a servant against injustice.
So how does one deal with borderless feudal states (corporations)? How does one deal with "false servants"?
In Obamacare .... child molesting, AIDS infected welfare recipients will be eligible for liver transplants at public expense !
Socialism really sucks. We should privatize the roads, the schools, firefighters, police...nah, that's chump change, lets privatize the MIC, the big enchilada! Surely the private sector can do a better job running it than the government. Don't cop out by quoting the Constitution, just entertain me with your mental gymnastics.
We used to have the right to own the most advanced weaponry .... even if it was only a musket .... we should have the right to sufficient weapons to overthrow a government out of control .... that was the original idea ? Each man a militia !
The pioneers crossed the deserts and plains waking beside their ox carts, or pulling hand carts. The pilgrims crossed the atlantic in a leaky sailboat smaller than many of today's private yachts.
There was no health care beyond hebs annd leeches. Depression, alcoholism, and full-blown mental illnesses were rampant. Violence of all sorts was commonplace. If cancer or some other internal disease was contracted, the individual got skinny and died. Most people died from complications to the common cold, or from some form of dysintery.
This is the way things are without health care. So, was it all so bad? I don't think so. Life is for living, not for being afraid of dying.
Wah! I don't have health care! Fucking grow up. Like Frederick the Great said to his troops, "What, do you want to live forever?"
It isn't about the health care, it's about the money. A friend of mine got kicked by a horse. The helicopter ride alone cost 20 grand. The five days he spent in ICU cost another 50 grand. If the wonders of modern medicine were absent, he would have died. But he would have died doing what he loved. Now, he's saddled with a debt he'll never be able to repay, reduced to debt-slavery for the rest of his life.
Obama care seeks nothing less than to enslave us all, before we incur the unpayable debt, or rather, to slap all of us with the unpayable debt at birth and keep us enslaved forever. Really, I'd rather die free than be trapped in tax- slavery for the rest of my miserable existence.
I'm sure it occures to everyone that the woman holding that sign is a paid supporter. And the people behind the camera with signage of the opposite? Yep. Paid too. Even the camera guy to the left. Paid. The guy taking the photo. Paid.
All the world's a stage.
Seems to me like Obamacare isn't really about taking care of the health of people, that's just a side effect that may, or may not actually happen.
It's really about taking care of the health of insurance companies.
Forcing people to pay money to insurance companies and, if they can't pay, the government pays for them instead (via other peoples' money). It's ridiculous that insurance company windfalls be guaranteed by law, just as ridiculous as the Fed being mandated to use PDs as middle men when buying TSYs, thereby guaranteeing PD profits.
It's just a bailout for insurance companies. They need it to cover the black holes in their books created by being on the wrong side of too many CDSs.
What Would Romney Replace Obamacare With?
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/07/what-would-romney-replace-obamacare.html
Fast food: Any gazelle that tries to negotiate with the lions.
I prefer free market as a term rather than Crapitalism. It's been tortured and raped and pilaged for too many years to hold a proper definition. ObamaCare should be free market, pay for services rendered. Tort Refom. Bring it down.
The forces of creative destruction will bring it to ruin. Just like Baldacci's state of Maine healthcare, Dirigo. It doesn't work.
Ignorant nonsense. Capitalism involves high degrees of socialization, so this analysis is simply knee-jerk bashing of nominal attempts to collectivize for the benefit of the many, as opposed to the very few.
Stick to trading instruments of no real value dude, at least until you finish your GED.
Socialization?
first post mistake...
Great Post again,
The Socialization Of America Is Economically Impossible
interesting to watch, how many more bleeding hearth novelties are on the way.
13,000 Pages of Regulations for New ObamaTaxes Drafted...
Government in an end unto itself, it is purely a circular concept as soon as it deludes itself in thinking that it represents the people.