Capitalism Is Bad. Time For Change?

reply to post by -PLB-


I don't really want to debate. You have to live here and experience it.
Go into a gas station, grocery, drug store convenience store and look for a drink....if you are lucky you may find some water there. A dirty fountain. The rest is soda. Cases and refrigerators cranking up the cool using heaps of energy and sending lots of nasty into the atmosphere for the privilege of bringing us cases and cases of SODA. Heaping throughout isles. So-called "juices" filled with artificial chemicals and flavors and a few bottles of plain water.

Is that all there is my friend?

When they make it hard and awkward to ask for healthy fresh fruit and vegetable juices - real staples and vital to LIFE....when they really only incorporate these as luxury shops in "high end" areas, you reap what you sow. Sick people.

And yeah it is true. $2000 for about anything brought to hospital before they diagnose it.
Minor things like a cold might run you $200 to a walk in physician.
And a typical coverage for us, healthy and without disease or preexisting conditions about $200 per month. For many people this is 1/4 what they pay for rent. You are taking food out of their mouths to "promise you will be there if anything befalls them" - this too is a joke. You'll pay 200 a month and when you need them they will FAMOUSLY NOT be there on some pre-text, fine print or excuse.

reply to post by VikingDude


Capitalism is a cancer, the people never gain anything from Capitalism it only destroys them.

Originally posted by newcovenant
I don't really want to debate. You have to live here and experience it.
Go into a gas station, grocery, drug store convenience store and look for a drink....if you are lucky you may find some water there. A dirty fountain. The rest is soda. Cases and refrigerators cranking up the cool using heaps of energy and sending lots of nasty into the atmosphere for the privilege of bringing us cases and cases of SODA. Heaping throughout isles. So-called "juices" filled with artificial chemicals and flavors and a few bottles of plain water.

Is that all there is my friend?

If this really is an important negative symptom of our society, I can only conclude that we are having it extremely good. I get water from the tap, but they sell plenty of it in the stores where I live. But what does this have to do with the system? It is your choice to buy soda, nobody else's. If you want our government to limit our rights to buy soda, I say no thanks.

When they make it hard and awkward to ask for healthy fresh fruit and vegetable juices - real staples and vital to LIFE....when they really only incorporate these as luxury shops in "high end" areas, you reap what you sow. Sick people.

"They" don't make it hard. It is simply a matter of supply and demand. If nobody buys fruit, then nobody is selling it. Where I live there is plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables available, including all type of biologically grown stuff. I am buying it daily, 5 mins walk from where I live.

What is it you want? That our government is forcing shops to sell healthy stuff? That our government is forcing us to buy healthy stuff? No thanks, I rather choose myself.

And yeah it is true. $2000 for about anything brought to hospital before they diagnose it.
Minor things like a cold might run you $200 to a walk in physician.
And a typical coverage for us, healthy and without disease or preexisting conditions about $200 per month. For many people this is 1/4 what they pay for rent. You are taking food out of their mouths to "promise you will be there if anything befalls them" - this too is a joke. You'll pay 200 a month and when you need them they will FAMOUSLY NOT be there on some pre-text, fine print or excuse.

So you pay both coverage and you pay $2000 for a visit? If so, I agree something is wrong. But it has nothing to do with capitalism.

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus

Originally posted by The Old American
The mom-and-pop Chinese food restaurant down the street from my house is practicing capitalism, which is business for profit. They sell a product, they live off the profits after expenses. Simple as that.

Capitalism can lead to corporatism, but they are are two different animals as different as a mouse and a blue whale. I wish everyone who decries capitalism with wailing and gnashing of teeth could have the capability to see that and stop mixing up the two.

/TOA

Maybe they would all rather just work on a collective farm. That was the old Soviet System. Gulag anyone?

----- yes, and the Kibboutz system also .....

I read somewhere that if the rich and wealthy people and business did pay the SAME amount of taxes as they did in 1961, the US Tresor should have no problem at all with the deficit and the debt : tresor would have 716.000.000.000 $ each year more than they get now !!!! Not even speaking about the costs of recent wars etc ...
yeah, but some Reagen ( Thatcher .. ) and Bush did pass along and Bush gave big presents to the richest of our society, so they pay very very very little taxes .....
Some CEO's pay even less taxes than their secretary, nice world up there for the highest incomes !!

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
Karl Marx railed against the bourgeois Capitalists. Marxists today still do. Communists hate Capitalism. Communists must prefer collective farms. Unions are a tool of communists.

edit on 1-8-2011 by ThirdEyeofHorus because: (no reason given)

Karl Marx railed against the bourgeois Capitalists because in those times man, capitalism was a very inhuman system where the workers had to work very very hard during long long days to get some money for food and education of their children .... so I think you would also revolt against that system as it was in the beginning of the industrial revolution !!! So those capitalists got the max profit out of their workers, how would you not revolt hé !
Now capitalist system became more soft, more gentle, you work less hours in more human conditions, you get some more money and holidays, but the system is still the same you know : to make the max profit possible !
What counts is not the quality of things, what counts is only direct profit, the product doesn't count any longer, it's the money it represents that count.
So yes, I can understand Marx in his revolt against that capitalist economic machine, as did millions of other people during history !!!

Originally posted by Sunlionspirit

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus

Originally posted by The Old American
The mom-and-pop Chinese food restaurant down the street from my house is practicing capitalism, which is business for profit. They sell a product, they live off the profits after expenses. Simple as that.

Capitalism can lead to corporatism, but they are are two different animals as different as a mouse and a blue whale. I wish everyone who decries capitalism with wailing and gnashing of teeth could have the capability to see that and stop mixing up the two.

/TOA

Maybe they would all rather just work on a collective farm. That was the old Soviet System. Gulag anyone?

----- yes, and the Kibboutz system also .....

I read somewhere that if the rich and wealthy people and business did pay the SAME amount of taxes as they did in 1961, the US Tresor should have no problem at all with the deficit and the debt : tresor would have 716.000.000.000 $ each year more than they get now !!!! Not even speaking about the costs of recent wars etc ...
yeah, but some Reagen ( Thatcher .. ) and Bush did pass along and Bush gave big presents to the richest of our society, so they pay very very very little taxes .....
Some CEO's pay even less taxes than their secretary, nice world up there for the highest incomes !!

Exactly right. This is true. The uber - rich here pay the same rate of tax as a janitor.

reply to post by -PLB-

"They" don't make it hard. It is simply a matter of supply and demand. If nobody buys fruit, then nobody is selling it. Where I live there is plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables available, including all type of biologically grown stuff. I am buying it daily, 5 mins walk from where I live.

You are lucky and if you lived here instead of just talk like you did you would know exactly how lucky you are.

reply to post by -PLB-

So you pay both coverage and you pay $2000 for a visit? If so, I agree something is wrong. But it has nothing to do with capitalism.

Don't be obtuse. It is one or the other.

And if you don't see anything wrong with this picture and insist "I don't have to buy it" as your argument... I can't help you.

Go into a gas station, grocery, drug store convenience store and look for a drink... A dirty fountain. The rest is soda. Cases and refrigerators cranking up the cool using heaps of energy and sending lots of nasty into the atmosphere for the privilege of bringing us cases and cases of SODA. Heaping throughout isles.

I have an honest question, and it's not a rhetorical one, how come when people speak about Communism they constantly say that it is good on paper but in practice due to human nature it would never work out? Yet in the same breath when speaking about "pure capitalism" say that what we have now isn't pure capitalism but a corrupted version of it. Wouldn't the same apply to both systems? If human nature corrupts, wouldn't it equally corrupt? Checks and balances are fine and dandy, but how do you stop the inevitable deregulation of it?

I think the same can be said of both systems, in that they are fine on paper but in practice are doomed to fail sooner or later. Not trying to put down any system, honestly curious as to why pro-capitalists do not see the parallels.

Originally posted by newcovenant
You are lucky and if you lived here instead of just talk like you did you would know exactly how lucky you are.

Maybe I am lucky, but it has nothing to do with "the system", as I also live in a capitalistic county. The reason they sell fruit and vegetables is because there is a market for it, and capitalistic as my local supermarket is, they sell it to make a profit from me. Nothing is holding you from moving to a place where they do sell vegetables, water and fruit in the supermarket. At least not in western capitalistic democracies.

reply to post by -PLB-


How about you go back farther in history to before we started fights all these wars and social programs....

Way back to 1912 when there was NO INCOME TAX and guess what? The government had no problem supporting itself.

Eliminate the income tax raise capital gains and corporate taxes to 30%
cut the military from foreign lands
cut all the rediculous social programs

It is that easy, too bad people are still full retard about democrat republican. Idiots need to open their eyes

And to the guy asking about capitalism. Capitalism implies that one has capital, the system we use now is not capital it is debt. For every dollar printed is printed as debt.
Do you get it now? People own nothing but debt which is not capital. therefor they cannot build capital for themselves as capital has been limited to only physical goods.

Originally posted by newcovenant
Don't be obtuse. It is one or the other.

I haven't been following the debate in the USA that much. Where I live a health insurance in obligatory. I don't really understand what it is what you want exactly. Free health care? That doesn't exist.

And if you don't see anything wrong with this picture and insist "I don't have to buy it" as your argument... I can't help you.

Yes I see something wrong here. I see a person, you, who wants to decide for others what they can or can not do. And I completely oppose that.

reply to post by MasterGemini


The world has changed a lot. I think an economy without income tax is no longer realistic. And in a global economy it does not work to increase corporate taxes in a single country. But your post shows the sharp contrast between the two different positions, more government regulation or less government regulation.

Originally posted by -PLB-
reply to post by MasterGemini

 

The world has changed a lot. I think an economy without income tax is no longer realistic. And in a global economy it does not work to increase corporate taxes in a single country. But your post shows the sharp contrast between the two different positions, more government regulation or less government regulation.

edit on 1-8-2011 by -PLB- because: (no reason given)

I said most income come from capital gains.

income tax is commissions and hourly wages....... do not f'ing get this? AKA not rich people.

Go right now and look at the income statements.

Income and capital gains are two different types of income.

seriously. do you not get this?

Greece ireland spain all socialist going broke.Capitalism is what has been financing all the entitlement programs in this country for years without it we would be in worse shape .How come everybody blames the banks but not the people who signed the loans and did not pay them in good faith.Socialism is strangling Capitalism in this country.Just wait till the Ponzi scheme collapses and it will it has too. OUR market isnt free anymore taxes tariffs social security these thing are socialistic and they are giving capitalism a bad name I encourage everyone to read the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE No NANNY STATE IN THAT who can seriously argue with freedom and we all have a right to a profit

Capitalism free-market system: an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, characterized by a free competitive market and motivation by profit

reply to post by -PLB-

I see a person, you, who wants to decide for others what they can or can not do. And I completely oppose that.

Really?

Then you are seeing things.

I could give a ##SNIP## what people do and I think everything... product, plant and possibility
(that does not infringe on the rights of another) ...should be legal.

I am in favor of contentious, thoughtful and sensible decision making. Not the wild wild west.

Clearly you are against any sensible thought processes utilized beforehand...

So, let's just agree to disagree.

reply to post by MasterGemini


You did no say that "most income would be from capital gains" so no I did not get that, I am sorry. Capital gains taxes already exist in the USA. I strongly doubt that capital gains taxes alone will be nearly enough.

reply to post by newcovenant


I am just wondering whit it is you do want. You don't want a large selection of sodas in fridges in stores around you, but you do not want the government to intervene. But you still somehow blame the system. It is not so much a matter of disagreement, I just completely do not understand what it is you are suggesting that should happen.

Originally posted by -PLB-
reply to post by MasterGemini

 

You did no say that "most income would be from capital gains" so no I did not get that, I am sorry. Capital gains taxes already exist in the USA. I strongly doubt that capital gains taxes alone will be nearly enough.

Here let me help you get a clue.
I have a have here three links to the information you are looking for.

The operative term you need to look for is Capital gains as percent of USA income.

www.infoplease.com...

sociology.ucsc.edu...

www.wealthandwant.com...

Now get back to me on capital gains and corporate taxes.

and loose your clown college liberal economics please

reply to post by MasterGemini


If you make an argument in the form of "I think capital gain taxes and corporate taxed alone would be enough because [fill in your reason], maybe we can have a civilized conversation. If not, I am not interested.