Weirdo political ideas...

[Tuomas]

As said before... tell us the alternative.

Social Democracy for the win!

But that was communism, right?

[SSH]

But that was communism, right?

Well, its what the UK has right now...

[Jared]

Surprised that the OPs proposal of the army filling in for schoolteachers during a crisis has been ignored. I guess that's what happens when somebody says 'politics' on this forum..

[Andail]

Capitalism, a lengthy play:

State: Everybody must own everything! Nothing must be shared!
Bank: Allright, we will grant people ludicrous loans even though they can't afford to pay them back.
Bank director: Sure, why not? We get our quarterly bonuses regardless of what happens to the bank. Oops, time to go and get my second 300 million dollar bonus this year. 

Citizens: Yay, million dollar loans, now we can own ridiculously expensive houses that look like the ones on TV! We don't need welfare money now! We are rich!

Bank: Looks like we can't get enough people to pay interest on their loans, let's borrow money from a bigger bank.
Bigger bank: Sure thang ;P It's what the state wants!
Bank director: Let's all go and get our bonuses! We can take my helicopter!
Bigger bank director: Okidoke, but to afford all this we need to raise the interest rates to get more money.

Citizens: Darn, those rates sure are getting expensive. Let's take a stupidly expensive short term loan to pay the rents this month.

Citizens: All right, now we're doomed. We need to leave the house and declare bankruptcy.
Bank: But what about the loan? Our money?
Citizens: Sorry, no can do. We ain't got 'em. Time to get some welfare money from the state.
Bank director: Increase the rates to get more money to the bank.

Bigger bank: Hey, smaller bank, you're not paying back your loans anymore.
Bank director: Let's discuss this while we collect our bonuses. There's still some money in our bank to use on our personal luxury!

Bank director: Ok, now almost all the money is gone. Let's take the last as a golden handshake and declare bankruptcy.
Bigger bank: Rats, we're quickly losing money on smaller banks that can't pay back their loans.
Bigger bank director: Time to leave this sinking ship. Let's grab what's left and declare bankruptcy.

State: Hey, what's up with all these big banks bankrupting and all? Let's inject hundreds of millions of the tax-payers' money to save them!
Citizens: That smells like socialism! Using the state's tax money to help private banks?
State: Ummm...look, it's raining outside.

Banks: Yay, bailout plan cash!
State: Promise to use them to lend money to citizens, it's important that they feel rich and can consume material property using money that isn't really theirs.
Citizens: We don't really feel like shopping anymore, what will all this crisis and everything....
State: For crying out loud, shop, goddammit!! Pursue your dreams!

Rince and repeat.

[Nacho]

What you wrote above is a caricature... Since it is a caricature I am not going to reply to it with arguments, since you didn' t wrote an argument. 

I might reply to you with the caricature of how socialdemocrats policies work, but I just don' t see the point.

[Andail]

What you wrote above is a caricature... Since it is a caricature I am not going to reply to it with arguments, since you didn' t wrote an argument. 

Why, because it's too funny? Did you choke on your cigar? 

But seriously, isn't it hilarious that you need a socialistic approach to solve a problem caused by purely capitalistic motives?
So the big banks, run dry by greedy directors, in the end need tax money to survive?

Isn't that ironic, don't you think? Yes it is, Nacho, it's like freaking rain on your wedding day, it's so ironic it makes me pee, frankly

[Nacho]

I never advocated for statal interventionism for solluting the actual crisis... Why do you refer to me? Why don' t you to the people who took the decission to intevene?

If you ask me, I advocate for using that taxes for covering the quantities that people was saving in the "corrupted" banks, and just for that. I don' t see the point of giving money to people who managed money unpropperly. Why doing that? Who ensures us that they are not going to piss it off again? How can I know that they are going to use that money for covering the payments they are facing and that they are not going to imbark in another risky business? "Why should we be carefull next time? This idiots of the Government are going to save our ass if we fuck it up again!!!" 

Give the money back to its licit owners (The people) and they will move that money to serious banks.

What? The corrupted banks will collapse? Yes, that's preciselly what I mean. Sorry for them.

Anyway, I never thought that giving credits to "no income, no jobs, no assets people" was a distinctive stroke of free market policies. (?) I thought that in a situation of a free market, banks would never give credits to that ones who can' t pay. Who could have been the person who pissed it off? Mmmmmm...

http://www.aikenjournal.org/2008/09/clinton-and-subprime-crisis.html

And now I am going to shut up... I have read my posts again and I don' t think I' ve been that unpolite to receive sentences like the last one you wrote, so, for not entangle this even more, you win.

Capitalism is shit, social democrats policies are the best sollution, they have been before, and they will ever be!

Hurray!

[Andail]

ACtually the last sentence was just me getting carried away with how USA handled the crisis, it wasn't so much directed at you. I just addressed you to bring attention to how utterly ironic it all is.

Either way, nuff of this quarreling!

[Nacho]

The cigar thing puzzled me a bit as well... What do you thing I am, an evil cigar-smoker version of the capitalist monopoly character??? 

[InCreator]

Considering your comments on anything else here aside capitalism, I do imagine you so... 
You forgot monocle from the list! And a top hat.

[De-Communizer]

Considering your comments on anything else here aside capitalism, I do imagine you so... 
You forgot monocle from the list! And a top hat.

And a tiny silver car, don't forget that.

Seems this has degraded into a "pros and cons of communism" thing!

[Nacho]

Come on, tell me he is not the best character ever! (Maybe second, after Vegeta) 

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Andail:

You do realize that these bailout concepts aren't supported and work against a free market economy, correct (in other words, they weren't needed, they were chosen)?  In free markets, companies who do good business and make wise investments are elevated, while those who venture into mal-investment fall apart.  But here we've had too many special interests with their fingers in the pie, propping up a system that should liquidate mal-investment and bad debt and be replaced by something better and more efficient.  Your statement was ironic, I agree, but perhaps not for the reasons you may believe .

Misj:  I'm tending to lean toward us agreeing more than we actually disagree on this subject.  I do think people should act to improve the lot of their fellow man, but as I've said before it should be voluntary to be of any value.  This is why I'm opposed to socialist 'solutions', because they rob you of that choice and turn the exchange into a santized, emotionless event.  It also encourages people who do not really need help to take advantage of it, which is happening in the US with welfare and SSI at an alarming rate.  People come to rely on these systems as a replacement for honest labor and some never intend to stop using them because of this mythic idea that the money comes from the government.  On the other hand, there are people who really need the help in the short term and I think it's great that it's there, but I also think that the additional influx of money to the American people from not being forced to pay for these schemes would be more than satisfactory to handle the people who really need it.  I'm a strong advocate of helping people who need it, but I am also a strong believer that this help should be made voluntarily -- yes, SSH, even if some people would not choose to help.  Hopefully that clears up any ambiguities.


SSH:  I've studied American history for quite some years now, and I can only say that nothing has pointed me toward some imminent situation of poor health care that required a change (which, as you said, occured in the UK).  If you do find an article on this I'd like to see it, and I'll see if I can rent that movie you suggested.  Also, as you're intelligent enough to know, there is a world of difference between making children brush their teeth and forcing a nation of adults to pay for welfare and SSI.

If you want to discuss this reasonably, at least provide an argument that merits comparison, please.

[SSH]

SSH:  I've studied American history for quite some years now, and I can only say that nothing has pointed me toward some imminent situation of poor health care that required a change (which, as you said, occured in the UK).  If you do find an article on this I'd like to see it, and I'll see if I can rent that movie you suggested.  Also, as you're intelligent enough to know, there is a world of difference between making children brush their teeth and forcing a nation of adults to pay for welfare and SSI.

Yeah, you can't make adults make charitable donations with the promise of a bedtime story... Seriously, though, in the UK I think it is a valid comparison. In the US, there is much more of a charitable culture that just doesn't exist here. I really don't know enough about that culture to argue about it with you so I think its best if I stick to my own country's situation: I bow to your superior knowledge of the USA. We can probably agree that different countries may well need different solutions.

Personally, I think the way to make sure that welfare doesn't become a trap (i.e. no incentive to work) is to make a single, non-means-tested universal benefit to everyone. Everyone gets enough money to raise them above the poverty line. Now, this would require higher taxes but for many the amount of benefit they receive would cancel out the tax rise and only the highest earners would be worse off. It would also be way more efficient than means testing, as you just give it to everyone and don't have to do any checking or calculations.

One of the worst things about the British tax and welfare system just now is that its soooo complicated. I make sure that I give enough charitable donations through payroll giving to mean that I don't reach the tax band where I have to do a tax  return as they are a nightmare, even if you have a relatively simple life like mine.

[Andail]

Your statement was ironic, I agree, but perhaps not for the reasons you may believe

Yes, in fact it was ironic exactly the way I believed it to be, thank you.

I think your ideas about "volontary" charity are both alarming yet symptomatic for our time.
Instead of working systematically towards decreasing the difference between rich and poor, people prefer to ease their conscience by sporadically donating money via spectacular charity events. It fuels the already flawed system and allows people to feel good about themselves.

[Matti]

I think your ideas about "volontary" charity are both alarming yet symptomatic for our time.
Instead of working systematically towards decreasing the difference between rich and poor, people prefer to ease their conscience by sporadically donating money via spectacular charity events. It fuels the already flawed system and allows people to feel good about themselves.

Seconded!

Yes, this is all I wanted to say.

[Nacho]

But... why should rich people share their money? Taking something out you earned legally is stealing.

Of course, if you start from the basis that all rich people became rich cheating, speculating and oppressing, I understand that you want that. It should stealing to a thief. Modern Robin Hoodism, it should be great. I am with you in that!

But not all rich people did that to become rich.

Actually... none of the rich men I know did that. My parent started working as a hobby, as an account man in his grandpa' s business when he was 9. He was the third employee in importance in a bank when he was 17 (I don' t know the name of the employement in English, babel fish tells me "Comptroller"). Sub director when he was 19, director when 21, Shire director when 24 and moved to private enterprise when 30. A life of hard work, without starting of the "pole position" that having a rich father could have put him in. My grandpa had a little car school and he was not able to pay my dad the University (He did not to University, to clarify).

My actual dad' s boss is a man who came from a very little town to Benidorm in the sixties, and decided that he could do something bigger than selling milk packs. He asked for a credit and now he is one of the biggest alcohol dealers in Spain, spreading his business to discotheques and Hotels... Another live of taking risks and hard working. Speculating, opression or stealing level=0.

I know more cases. All examples of good, working people who did not take anything to anyone to be where they are.

In free market there are tools to fight agains speculation, opression and robbery, as well... All that "bad things" lefty people says about rich people is in many cases propaganda. Capitalism is not "Try to become rich at any price", no.

Capitalism is "Try to be rich", period. That "at any price" is something that left people added to make it sound worse than it is.

Associating "Rich", with "thief, corrupter, oppressor, cheater" is a caricature that has made fortune in left circles, but it's not true. It' s quite unfair and insulting if you belong to a "middle/high" status family who did nothing bad to have that welthness, too.

(Intermission: Sometimes I tend to see any people deffending socialdemocracy as a person who automatically thinks those insultant things about my familty, so I tend to be harsh and become too deffensive... I must apology for that in advance, and I promise I will not project those thinks into my friends on this thread)

Believe me, rich people hates as much as yo do corrupted people, and they open champagne bottles when one of those is caught. Nobody with principles likes cheating, no matter if that person is rich or not.

Ironically, and focusing in the European example, where ideologies are more defined than in the USA, the highest percentages of corruption are seen in countries where socialdemocrats rule (Logic, if the system puts obstacles to become free, it makes sense to become part of that system and, once there, stealing)

People who likes left (IMHO) tend to thing that "Rich people is going to share its amorale money with me, a person as intelligent as them, but who did not had the "luck" to become as rich as they are". Yes, it' s one of the principles of left. What "left supoorters" do not tend to have in mind is that "intelligent people who did not had enough luck to become rich" will have to share its money with lazy and unproductive segments of the society.

Maybe saying "Bill Gates is going to give a portion of his fortune to school teachers" sounds good. God, it even sounds good to me. Look it in this way: "Teachers will have to share it's money with pimps, thieves, lazy uneployed and sons of rich people who think they are too good to work". Now it doesn't sound that good, no?

But the thing is worse... Those "scumm people" (understand the quotes) will think "Oh, man... No matter how few I work... The State will take care of me!" and works even less.

Which is a big problem, but it' s not the biggest one: When that engine of the economy, the middle class (those teachers, those mechanics, those house maids) realise that their work is used for keeping that scumm, they will finally end thinking "Hey! Why should I work and keep that "scumm" when I can be one of them and live the life?"

Of course, what I wrote is an exaggerated caricature of the social demoracies, but... The fartest you move to the left, the closest to that it becomes. Free market in "being at 6 o'clock". Doing nothing to economy. It' s saying: "What to produce, who, and in which quantity will be decided by the people, not by me". Saying that "the right" or "the free market" is somethig else (Stablish a corrupted competition framework to keep the nowadays status quo, where rich are rich, and the poor will still be poor and opressed forever) is simply lying.

[Nacho]

I go on.

I am for any kind of social measures to help those who have been unlucky with the opportunities they had, or didn' t had any opportunity at all. I am not for applying those social measures to lazy people who misuse the system. Do you people honestly believe that 100% of people using social services didn' t had other options? I can quote examples, dozens of them, of people who is not. Too many cases to think that those cases are residuals, but the norm.

That's why "left" people tend to focus the debate in "We help people, Capitalism do not". That' s missdirectioning the debate... Modern capitalism also does care of the disavantaged. But the debate is not that. Debating between "left" and "right" is knowing the principles of the economy.

Nacho' s economy class:

Economy is about deciding how to share limited beings. If the beings are infinite, there is no economy.

When you arrive to a desert island you must decide how to assign the limited food... There are many economical systems: "The stronger has all the coconuts, all the rest die" (Dictadure), "If you give coconuts to me, I will do your live easilly, killing the cannibals, building you a shed..." (Feudalism... If the feudal lord is strong, you must keep giving him coconuts forever, not because he is doing something good to you, because otherwise he will kill you). "I decide who harvest the coconuts, and I decide what to do with them" (Communism). "Everybody picks its own coconuts" (Capitalism).

Economy is deciding "What to produce, who does it, for who and how many to produce". The lefter you go, the less is decided by the people, and more by the government. You redouce the number of people deciding, from "everybody" in a market of perfect competition, to "very few" deciding in extreme left.

IMO, the most people deciding, the better. All the rest (capitalism is stealing, corrupting, speculating!) is false. Capitalism, is free market: DOING NOTHING. You can' t do more than that, if your ideology is doing nothing.

Touching almost nothing in economy but a small bit is not "being in the centre, but a bit to the left", is having an almost perfect free market competence. Touching lot is being socialdemocrat. Touching a lot is being communist. Removing social rights and taking decissions opposed to morele is a dictadure, no matter if it' s made by left or right governments.

There are no "futher movements to the right of the 6 o'clock", because 6 o'clock is NOT TOUCHING. All that things assigned to "the right" (Militarism, politial state, reduction of the civil rights, awaking people at the middle of the night to interrogate them, shootings without trial, etc, etc...) have been assigned to the right because left has a good marketing assistant. That things are impossible in a free market framemark for a simpy reason. All that tools of opression are... statal... How could Pinochet be "extreme right" when he used a "government army" to supress the people? How can be Hitler interventionist policies be considered as "extreme right"? National socialist, his party was called... It was.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Yeah, you can't make adults make charitable donations with the promise of a bedtime story... Seriously, though, in the UK I think it is a valid comparison. In the US, there is much more of a charitable culture that just doesn't exist here. I really don't know enough about that culture to argue about it with you so I think its best if I stick to my own country's situation: I bow to your superior knowledge of the USA. We can probably agree that different countries may well need different solutions.

That's rather unfortunate if true.  I know a lot of people just in my sphere who give to charity and do charitable work like working food lines and donating canned goods and such.  There have been difficulties added to this from the sue-happy system my country seems to revel in (it's almost impossible to donate anything unsealed or slightly out of date, for example).  To me, food is food and if someone is hungry and the food is not spoiled they should be more than happy to have a full belly.  Unfortunately, many overly-liberally minded individuals with the best of intentions have made donations far more complicated than they could be, though again, there's still the donating of canned goods and such going on.  I've donated canned goods on a few occasions 'just because'; it didn't make me feel superior or better about myself as Andail seems to think, I just realized I had a surplus and there were those out there who did not, just as I've worked church food lines with my mother when I was younger just to help out.  Maybe it's this perspective (the perspective of someone who has grown up in and around families who do charity work) that helps me to see this side of the argument more clearly than some, and in spite of the flaws I've seen it succeed time and again.  I've said it before, I know, that I think people are generally in this world for themselves, but I've seen those same people offer time of themselves rather than money to help other people at food lines and other places.  Charity is one of those situations that reduces the gap between giver and recipient and allows you to see the impact of your choices (even if on a small scale).  This, for some people, makes them feel they are making a difference, whereas when money is silently taken from their accounts for people they've never met...well, I've known people on both sides of the issue, some who don't mind the taxes and others who resent paying to care for someone else's well being.  I don't think either person is inherently bad or good for their views, but the person resenting it usually does so because the human element has been stripped out and made into an impersonal business transaction.  They don't see where the money is going, they're often suspicious if it's even going to help anyone at all, and these are legitimate concerns.

Sorry about that, got a bit ranty there.


Andail:

You're welcome.  Also, if my ideas about voluntary charity are so utterly alarming for you, your solution for enforcing charity through welfare is as equally alarming for me.  You would rather take a person's right to choose whether or not to do good from them than risk that they will choose not to do good, and I find that alarming.

[mkennedy]

Some regulation is necessary to keep thing working smoothly and no regulation results in unsafe conditions. The lack of proper regulation is part of what led America into the current mess it's in now. If taxes were completely eliminated then the government would have no money to do anything. Education and health care should be provided to people free of charge. By paying for a person to go to medical school the government will increase the number of competent doctors, in turn those doctors who received the free medical training should do community service for a while in order to benefit the whole of society.


There are enough bad apples out there to ruin it for everybody.