Out of Control Capitalism? Time for a change?

[Bob26003]

Please watch the video first.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5rcnAWaC64





Well, we have all seen the collapse of wall street and tax payer dollars bailing them out .......

We have seen pensions and life savings vanish.....

We have seen real wages remain stagnate for forty years....

We now see that the the top 5% controls more wealth than the other 95% combined.

We have seen the amount of wealth controlled by the middle class steadily decrease for since 1967 when we had the greatest share of wealth.

We have seen entire sectors of our economies shipped to cheap labor markets.

We have seen worker productivity steadily rise yet real wage stagnation continues.

We now have the most prisoners per capita in the world by far.

Growing unemployment.... Millions without health coverage... And 60% of all bankruptcies do to medical issues, even with ppl who have insurance.

Low academic scores.

Increasing poverty, Increasing crime

HOW MUCH LONGER WILL WE LET THE TOP 1% BLEED AWAY OUR EVAPORATING MIDDLE CL ASS, BUST UNIONS AND STICK IT TO THE THE AMERICAN WORKER. HOW LONG WILL WE SIT BACK AS OUR JOBS ARE SENT OVERSEAS, OUR SCHOOLS AND INFRASTRUCTURE CRUMBLE, OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES ARE SHOT DOWN IN THE NAME OF HOMELAND SECURITY. HOW MANY MILLIONS OF OUR HOMES MUST BE FORCLOSED, AND HOW MANY MUST DIE DUE TO LACK OF HEALTH INSURANCE AS OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM BECOMES MORE AND MORE EXCLUSIVE. HOW LONG WILL WE STAND FOR HOMELESS WONDERING THE STREETS 25% OF WHICH ARE VETERANS. HOW MANY MORE NONVIOLENT OFFENDERS MUST BE PUT IN PRISON WITH DRACONIAN SENTENCES WHILE CROOKS LIKE TOM DELAY ARE ON DANCING WITH THE STARS AND WAR CRIMINALS LIKE CHENEY LIVE THEIR DAYS OUT IN PEACE.

HOW MANY WARS OF CONQUEST WILL WE LET THEM LIE US INTO. HOW LONG WILL WE ACCEPT THEM PROFITEERING OFF THE DEATHS OF OUR CHILDREN?

How much more will the American PPL take?

I may a pessimist, but I think they will take alot more.

They are too worried about Gays getting married and the impending rapture and getting those darn arabs to care about anything that may actually impact their lives.

For instance, in 04 Bush got elected as a Christian, Gay bashing moral crusader. YET, the first thing he tried to do after the election was hand over our Social Security to wall street. Showed his real priorities eh?

Dont get caught in the hype people, its just a diversion.



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Can we not come up with a fair economic order? What can we do to fix this problem? Are enough People even aware that there is a problem?

 

[worlds edge]

Please watch the video first.

I kind of like Bernie Sanders. However, Michael Moore is a douchebag and hypocrite of the first order.

Well, we have all seen the collapse of wall street and tax payer dollars bailing them out .......

You do realize that this is hardly a symptom of 'out of control capitalism,' I hope. As in, in a capitalist system the investment banks would have failed for their inability to judge how risky the investments they were peddling actually were. There are other issues ping-ponging around in there, as with banks being forced to make loans to unqualified applicants, etc., but my main issue with what you're saying is simply that government intervention on such a scale as we've seen lately is not capitalist under any definition of the term with which I am familiar.

Note that I'm not a big fan of laissez-faire capitalism, but it seems silly to blame "capitalism," never mind "out of control" capitalism for something like this.

We have seen pensions and life savings vanish.....

We have seen real wages remain stagnate for forty years....

We now see that the the top 5% controls more wealth than the other 95% combined.

We have seen the amount of wealth controlled by the middle class steadily decrease for since 1967 when we had the greatest share of wealth.

Not sure where you're getting your numbers, but the wealth controlled by the top 1% seems to be about where its been historically. See here: link

We have seen entire sectors of our economies shipped to cheap labor markets.

Indeed. The highest growth rate of the US economy also correlates nicely to the period when tariffs were at their absolute highest, from 1865 to 1900. Doesn't establish causation necessarily, but it does serve as a rebuttal to the free-trade true believers who are always squawking about the Smoot Hawley tariff as a cause of the Great Depression.

For instance, in 04 Bush got elected as a Christian, Gay bashing moral crusader.

Not really, since if there was anything like this going on, it was simply lip service. And it was Bill Clinton who signed DOMA into law, don't forget.

I've never been a fan of Bush # 43, but about the only things he did to appease social conservatives were the ban on stem-cell research and the nonsense about 'partial birth' abortion. Otherwise they got zip out of his eight years in office.

YET, the first thing he tried to do after the election was hand over our Social Security to wall street. Showed his real priorities eh?

Self-directed social security accounts are far more preferable to the current situation if you're under age 40, quite frankly. As in, what we have at present is that everything withheld as social security/self-employment tax is used to fund current benefits with the surplus grabbed by the gov't. to either offset deficits or pay general expenses. Technically some sort of bond is issued by the US gov't. to the social security system as this happens, meaning when the payouts exceed the intake the government is supposed to pay these bonds back. (And of course they will. :rolleyes: )

With a self-directed account you might get something. Under the current system those under age 40 will get nothing, or next to nothing, as either benefits will be cut or the US dollar will have to be depreciated to Zimbabwe-like currency.

Don't have time to respond the rest of this, sorry. But I think on several points you're in error, though I think I also noted some places where I agree with you.

 

[wastedmylife]

This was all part of the Reagan/Bush plan

It is disgusting what these people have done to this country


Their greed knows no boundaries



I know my life was destroyed by these people and the reason I am here


These guys(the greedy Republicans) either made a conscience effort to control us during the Reagan/Bush/Bush era, or they are just greedy scum without any human emotion and only care about themselves, and would kill 100,000 people if it meant their stocks could go up a few points

 

[Mikeintx]

Bob, I sympathize with your anger man I really do. But I have a different perspective on these issues. Lets look at the issue Senator Sanders brings up regarding having a baby in Denmark and think about how this applies to our lives.

Right now if I wanted to have kids in a responsible manner, I would need to have a good amount in a savings account to cover food, diapers, daycare etc and so forth. Now in Denmark, from what it sounds like Mr. Sanders is saying, people do not need to worry about this as the government will give them the money they need to take care of things.

Okay, so same principle really, except the government holds on to the money in an account instead of you for when the day comes to have those kids. But what happens if you decide not to have kids? Does the government give that tax money back? If they do not, then you may say it goes to help those other families that are "less fortunate" who are having kids and need someone to pay for them(another topic I will get to in a moment).

But what about my rights to not have children? Through this taxation, it is beneficial for me to have kids as opposed to not having them. In an indirect way my personal freedoms are being stepped on to help those that want kids. It goes the same with marriage: if I choose to get married I will get additional tax breaks from the government, so it is beneficial for me to get married. Once again I am being financially coerced to get married(albeit in a small way, but nonetheless I am).

So here we have it Bob, these social programs, that when we first hear sound great, are really just slowly chipping away at our personal rights.

Now lets go back to these "less fortunate" that many people love to scream and cry over. Before we go further lets make a distinction between these two groups. First you have the truly sick and disabled people who are unable to work and everyday is a struggle for them. My heart truly goes out to these people. But lets not forget the other "less fortunate" people that really are not less fortunate at all, but are lazy and self entitled.

We all know people like this. People that feel everything is owed to them, people that are also(in most cases) insecure and feel that everyone who does better than them in life deserves to be punished. These are the people that we CANNOT cater to Bob as it will only drag down our society even more and continue to allow these perpetual cycles of abuse to keep happening.

I believe in personal responsibility first and foremost for everyone. This allows us to have the freedoms the founding fathers of our great country wanted us to have. By each of us being financially responsible(ie not spending money we do not have via easy credit, having an emergency account for when things go bad in life as they will, etc) we will not have to rely on the government(who historically is HORRIBLE at business) to insure us when things do go wrong, which in life they inevitably will.

Also by each of us being responsible we can all CHOOSE to give money back to those that truly are less fortunate in life. We can donate money to causes we believe in and when we see a neighbor or relative falling on hard times we can help out without overextending ourselves. This will allow those who choose not to do this, and do not forget this is their right whether we believe it is morally wrong or not, the ability to spend their hard earned money on what they want to.

Well this turned out long and I am rambling so ill stop now, but as always thanks for letting me see your side of things Bob. Take care.

 

[lonercarrot]

Well, we have all seen the collapse of wall street and tax payer dollars bailing them out .......

bailouts are the exact opposite of capitalism. In a pure capitalist society, the taxpayers would not be responsible to save any company. If you are against bailouts, you should be pro-capitalism.

We have seen pensions and life savings vanish.....

The same thing happens in socialist regimes

We have seen real wages remain stagnate for forty years....

What wages have remained stagnate? This is just a complete lie. The standard of living for the average person has risen immensely in the last 40 years. 40 years ago my dad got paid like $2 an hour washing dishes, if he was lucky, whereas now the minimum was (in Canada) is over $9/h.

We now see that the the top 5% controls more wealth than the other 95% combined.

This is such a tired leftist dogma. The numbers are never even the same, they vary from 1% to 25%.
But so what? Why is it so bad if 5, 10 or 20% of the people control so much money? It's their money, they earned it.

We have seen the amount of wealth controlled by the middle class steadily decrease for since 1967 when we had the greatest share of wealth.

...No. Where did you get this info? Sources? It's easy to say stuff, but you need to back it up.

We have seen entire sectors of our economies shipped to cheap labour markets.

Yeah, this is true. But either they stay here and products will cost more or they're manufactured in other nations and products will cost less. Also, shipping these sectors to 3rd world countries is a great opportunity for those living there to actually make money.

We have seen worker productivity steadily rise yet real wage stagnation continues.

Again, the standard of living for the average person has continued to rise.

We now have the most prisoners per capita in the world by far.

This has nothing to do with capitalism...

Growing unemployment.... Millions without health coverage... And 60% of all bankruptcies do to medical issues, even with ppl who have insurance.

I live in Canada and can say our system which so many leftist American idolize is far from perfect. health care is an issue where I'm kind of on the fence.

Low academic scores.

Again, in no way is this caused by capitalism.
If anything, capitalism should encourage people to study harder and do better in school because in a capitalist system, you can't rely on the government to help you out. You need to rely on yourself which means you need to do well in school in order to get a good job so you can support yourself.

Increasing poverty, Increasing crime

Capitalism increases poverty and crime? And how does it do that?