How Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

The quote I have put into this post do not really do justice to the article, so please read it in full.

Be it in Japan, Europe or the United States, companies are hardly investing in new machinery or factories anymore. Instead, prices are exploding on the global stock, real estate and bond markets, a dangerous boom driven by cheap money, not by sustainable growth. Experts with the Bank for International Settlements have already identified "worrisome signs" of an impending crash in many areas. In addition to creating new risks, the West's crisis policy is also exacerbating conflicts in the industrialized nations themselves. While workers' wages are stagnating and traditional savings accounts are yielding almost nothing, the wealthier classes -- those that derive most of their income by allowing their money to work for them -- are profiting handsomely.

He was the face of the Reagan revolution, a young man with large, horn-rimmed glasses and thick hair, wearing a suit that was too big for him as he sat next to the hero of conservative America. As former President Ronald Reagan's budget director, David Stockman was the architect of the biggest tax cut in US history and the propagandist of the "trickle-down" theory, the Republican tenet whereby profits earned by the rich eventually benefit the poorer classes.

Disaster struck in 2007, when one of his highly leveraged companies went bankrupt. He was indicted on fraud charges, and the bankruptcy cost him millions and damaged his reputation. It became his "road to Damascus experience," as he calls it, when the financial crisis erupted a short time later. He concluded that the same mistakes that had destroyed his company also took the United States to the brink of an abyss: cheap credit, excessively high debt and a false sense of security that everything would ultimately work out for the best.

source

a reply to: AlaskanDad

You are talking as if capitalism was on the rails in the first place.

Like most economical systems, this system has a level of chaos inside - variables which are hard to reduce to a simple formula. Nothing is stable in such a system. It's life, mate.

Still, it is quite educating to pinpoint causal events. S&F.

Your source take me to a Germany language website.

It's not really capitalism anymore when the laws of supply and demand are corrupted by speculation, greed and corruption.

I don't really know what you would call the current economic system...it looks more like socialism for the wealthy and corporations with the preferential treatment they receive thru subsidies, bail outs and avoidance of taxes.

www.informationclearinghouse.info...

a reply to: olaru12

It's fascism, not capitalism.

'When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross' - Thank You, TeaParty, right on cue...

When are we going to indict and imprison (if not execute) people like Bush when their last act as President was to rob the U. S. Treasury of its entire contents and hand the money over wholesale to his Wall Street buddies, rather than to treat these criminals as 'honored elder statesmen?' I mean, seriously, what's it gonna take to realize that not only is capitalism off the rails, but it fell off the cliff into a giant smoking heap of cattle cars a long time ago?

China and Japan are producing the bulk of the manufactured goods for the rest of the planet; China is a stinking polluted mess only able to keep going because they're 1/3 the planetary population and everyone there is a few days from starving to death. Japan is radioactively contaminated and their millennial generation is moving away in droves to Indonesia and Mountain View. The US is a hollowed out shell of its former self and everyone is in debt with no way to pay it back with real unemployment numbers in the 25% range and an aging boomer population that will stretch the medical system way past the breaking point. Doctors in the US are leaving practice and moving to other countries where the patients can actually pay their bills.

Meanwhile, Wall Street is 'doing fantastic' but we'll all be told to panic when the inevitable happens and they lose billions in the blink of an eye, even though all that billions is money conjured up out of thin air and never represented reality in any form. Oh, there were a few 'fines' levied for grotesquely criminal behavior with the big banks paying billions; but of course that money went to the Treasury, which borrows money at interest from the Federal Reserve, which is the big banks. And around and around we go.

We live in a fantasy land propped up by criminals in fancy suits and slave labor at a ratio of 1:10,000.

But we're all still getting credit card offers every day in the mail, '0% interest rate free for the first 12 months, then only 29.99%!

I don't know about you, but I'm sorely tempted to take them ALL, run them up to the hilt, take out all the cash advances possible, and then disappear. Why not? It's all imaginary money.

*Please read about the Zeitgeist Movement if you want an example of a sane way to do things.*

When are people going to STOP calling the United State economy "capitalism"? WE HAVE FASCISM in the United States NOW! It should be clear that we now live in a fascist country,with oligopolies running it behind the scenes. If people would just accept this FACT en-mass, we could then move forward to change it.

AGAIN, the USA is NOT socialist, NOT communist and not even a Republic, but instead a Reactionary, Protestant leaning, Fascist State. What that means is, the "owners of capital" will "legislate" mandatory purchases in the future, if revenue does not match their expectations or projections. If someone chooses not to buy them, they will simply pay a "penalty" at tax time. When the "owners of capital" run out of consumer good that they can force people to buy in order to go to work, like gasoline, internet connection, car insurance, bus/subway fare, cell phones, suits/uniforms, soap, deodorant, razors, etc, they will simply make it law that you have to buy them, in certain quantities before tax season. You will not be allowed to be frugal in the future because the "owners of capital" will take close to the same amount back in the form of "penalties", when you choose to "not buy" and then don't have the proper "coupon" to prove you bought these items, in the required quantities, when taxes come due.

If people would just accept this FACT en-mass, we could then move forward to change it. We can't currently because some people keep on insisting that we live in "the Greatest Nation on Earth" and that it is somehow a functioning democracy. Nothing will change for the better until these people start realizing the truth or are forcefully condemned to fall with the fascists they have blindly supported.

The fact that so many people deny this obvious realty is astonishing. I'm beginning to understand what the intelligent Germans must have deny like in the 30s watching helplessly as their nation became a totalitarian state.

Anyone got any ideas on how to show people the truth? How does one cut through the massive walls of ignorance most Americans employ?

The only way this runaway train stops, is by crashing and coming off the tracks. There is no other way to wake up the masses, other than making it so hard to live that people WANT to change. I just dont see any other way around the inevitable. They can keep creating money out of thin air, but prices will continue to rise for every single item of use. Workers wages will remain the same, creating an even harder pinch on the consumer. This will not end well

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Do you have any solutions to offer? I see two walls of text and an external link, but nothing from you.

In my opinion you can't tear down an existing system without a solution in hand. If you do the vacuum can be filled by anything and it may not end up being better than what we currently have.

originally posted by: Glassbender777
The only way this runaway train stops, is by crashing and coming off the tracks. There is no other way to wake up the masses, other than making it so hard to live that people WANT to change. I just dont see any other way around the inevitable. They can keep creating money out of thin air, but prices will continue to rise for every single item of use. Workers wages will remain the same, creating an even harder pinch on the consumer. This will not end well

it always ends well for the wealthy...ever since the "corporation" was invented, the wealthy have been able to privatize gains, while socializing losses. during the 1930's depression, the wealthy were able to buy up land, gold, businesses, and other valuable assets at discounted prices...happened again in 2008 with real estate. the wealthy have been doing this for centuries. they have studied it, they discreetly plan for it, and they have come close to perfecting it. the "corporation" is antithetical to democracy, or any other form of representative government. there is no need to provide some type of written proof of this, it can be found in the various forms of corporate law, regardless of the country in which it is written. the wealthy simply live by a vastly different set of economic regulations and rules, that commoners have neither the access, nor the resources, to make it work for them.

'Too big to fail' is not capitalism.

Kelo v. City of New London is not capitalism.

Small business uber-regulation is not capitalism.

Forced healthcare expense is not capitalism.

Civil forfeiture without due process is not capitalism.

Unfettered monetary printing is not capitalism.

I could go on and on....

Seems to me what we have is a kleptocracy.

Big difference.

originally posted by: loam

Seems to me what we have is a kleptocracy.

Big difference.

I had to look that up...

Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often with pretense of honest service.

Seems pretty accurate, actually.

originally posted by: olaru12
It's not really capitalism anymore when the laws of supply and demand are corrupted by speculation, greed and corruption.

That is capitalism! Unfortunately some defenders of Capitalism fail to understand the logical conclusion of any economic system based on Capitalist principles.

a reply to: yorkshirelad

No it is not.

Only the cool-aide drinkers will have you believe that. Free trade on a level playing field isn't something we really have. So I can see why people point to the current horrendous system and confuse it with capitalism.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

I applaud your effort to set focus back onto the pitfalls of the economy, especially as 2016 election approaches.

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71
Your source take me to a Germany language website.

Google translate can be your friend in such instances if you choose to use it.

To the OP: Yep, I actually just touched on the issues of our current economic situation in regards to these subjects in another thread on these boards. In the US, the reliance of the GDP being on the financial sector should be a very, very uncomfortable thing as it is essentially a reliance on the debt of the citizens within the nation.

originally posted by: yorkshirelad
That is capitalism! Unfortunately some defenders of Capitalism fail to understand the logical conclusion of any economic system based on Capitalist principles.

Nope that is Fascism, which has many "capitalistic" characteristics. Open a book, learn the academic terms, THEN make informed comparisons and comments.

originally posted by: loam
Small business uber-regulation is not capitalism.

Forced healthcare expense is not capitalism.

Civil forfeiture without due process is not capitalism.

Unfettered monetary printing is not capitalism.

I could go on and on....

Seems to me what we have is a kleptocracy.

Big difference.

You and I agree, but please don't get too carried away with trying to define the USA as some other form of government, other than Fascism. A true example of a Kleptocracy is Panama under Manuel Noriega, where a "blind eye" is turned when "fleecing" is done; its still not "legal", just not scrutinized or taken to court when certain people do it. To contrast in America, the "fleecing" is legal, meaning there is a court hearing and thieves are found innocent, that's Fascism. Remember Fascism bureaucratizes "fleecing" for certain groups to legally take advantage of others and then keeps that bureaucracy in place through a blossoming industrial military complex.

Americans need to be taught what Fascism is, teaching them anymore than what is relevant, only obfuscates the truth.

a reply to: boohoo

Most Americans think fascism only means concentration camps.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Capitalism as a natural extension of basic property rights makes sense, but corporate personhood has gone too far, I think. I agree with Signalfire, what we are seeing isn't capitalism, it is fascism/corporatism so it is unfair to attack anarcho-capitalist economics through what we have today. That is essentially a strawman argument. I still prefer economic mutualism, but I think it should be done socially and voluntarily, not through centralized authority.

Capitalism, in today's world, is far from true Capitalism, just like Conservatism is far from true Conservatism.

Capitalists love to say "we built that" but go running to the Socialist Government for bailouts every time they get into any sort of trouble.

So many on the far right say that they are against Socialism as a system, but without Socialism, GM, AIG, Bank of America, Chrysler, and many other companies, along with over 20 million jobs, would have disappeared since 2008.

If it were up to Capitalism, the American Middle Class wouldn't exist, and the working poor would be working 14 hour days, six days a week, be going to Church on Sunday, have no safety standards, no vacation time, no overtime pay, no right to complain.

Capitalism. Ain't it Grand?