reply to post by LogicalExplanation
Canada is a largely Socialist state,; Australia is almost entirely. Both countries contain the most secure financial systems on the face of the
planet. Wealth redistribution is simply a minor component, if it's at all even considered, and is definitely not the greatest concern of any true
Socialist state. Social welfare is the primary affair of such states, which includes implementing programs and policies, usually Nationalized ones,
but not restricted to corporate competition, that relates to common issues, such as health, education, pensions, social services for the disabled,
basic issues of employment. etc. I do not believe in a economic market directed by the aims of any state body. There isn't any indication that Obama
is deciding to take this route. I mean, he did sign the EESA, but so did John McCain and so had just about every member of Senate ratified the Bill.
If he didn't, he might have appeared to the public in such a crucial point in his election campaign to be unconcerned about the economic situation
that the average American was in during those two weeks, further advancing the notion that he is an "Elitist". Or that he was a simply the neo
conservative Chicago style economist that Geroge Bush emulated so perfectly during his now eight year run. He has, however, proven that he can lead
the discussion on the progression of such Acts, even if they are not in the ostensible interest of the public, and that's more than any member of
Congress or Senate can say for themselves, all of whom simply voted to get it over with, or under the pressure (Senator Dodd) of the Federal Reserve
and the influential financial analysts.
In this example, political pundits are throwing around the term "Socialist" so liberally that it has essentially become a harrowing term little more
effective at describing the targeted politician's agenda than perhaps reading his palm and discerning his future course merely by evaluating from the
lines on his hand.
Now of course there are extremes, Nazi Germany and USSR are included. You can only attribute their lack of success, however, as an amalgam of their
initially poor political and economic conditions, and total lack of foresight for the future. It was all about expanding NOW, conquering whatever
territory TOMORROW to meet the industrial capacity of the previous DAY. You can't say it was Socialism's fault for the ruination of those economies.
Pragmatically, it was the fault of isolationism, autarchy, Nationalism, the subsequent lack of multinational concern, which didn't play well with the
League of Nation member states (GB, France... Japan in fact left for those same reasons as WWII approached), and so on and so forth. It's blatantly
obvious why the Nazis lost the war, and so too is clear why the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s. Greed, corruption, embezzlement, private
political interests, are all but a few of the factors involved in the production of such an undefinable collapse. We can be confident in assuming that
the American market is well prepared for all those things. Two hundred years of essentially uninterrupted free market capitalism has indoctrinated all
its players to a sufficient degree in order to operate seamlessly, despite the aforementioned ailments (corruption, etc).
Obama's social schemes aren't all that cunning as you'd like to believe. He's being pretty smart about it too. He'll use the CPI (consumer price
index, a model for the standing of living) to calculate the nominal change in minimum wage prices so that they match the level required for such a
worker to maintain a healthy lifestyle. He's not raising taxes. He's going to cut tax breaks to corporations, which in a free enterprise economy
might not be such a bad thing. Tax breaks for large corporations aren't free market. People today refuse to acknowledge the fact they have become
indoctrinated by Corporatism, becoming wholly ignorant of the Capitalist society from which their accusations are supposedly supported. You might
argue that giving the businesses (which run our capitalist society) tax breaks would increase their levels of production and efficiency, and lead to
economic growth, which is good for every right? (This has not only proven to be false on several occasions-Enron in particular-but that excess capital
is simply divested into operations which are not in a slightest degree beneficial to the capital it has invested in-lots of dead weight loss that
could have been used to
fund schools, hospitals and pensions).
Tax breaks implemented on the basis of some state plan, which would supposedly stimulate economic growth, is in it's very essence the pinnacle of
Socialism. Is that not ironic? So what if the corporations, which happen to be the country's largest revenue generators, pay a little extra? By all
means they should already be doing so. A true Capitalist wouldn't care.
[edit on 1-11-2008 by cognoscente]
