Why capitalism doesn't and can't work

[Problem Child]

REDWAVE, for calling me a fascist exactly 100 times on this board you win a free subscription to www.hotgaycommiesex.com and an all-expense paid trip to the wonderful southern California ghetto of Long Beach!

Once there, hopefully you can join in solidarity with the striking longshoremen and get cracked over the head by some vicious strike-breaking bulls that the corporation will undoubtedly hire to restore the downtrodden worker back into his submissive place in the evil corporate machine, where he can return to earning a paltry $80,000/annum.

Enjoy, and don't forget to bring a sturdy bike helmet!

 

[Sandia]

Miles: I do realize that businesses are owned by people.

And you're right: when costs go up, you can either raise your prices, cut other expenses, or take less in profits. My point is that in a competitive marketplace, businesses can't raise prices willy-nilly: when you raise prices you're liable to lose market share. And that businesses - at least some of the time - are therefore forced to take less in profits when taxes go up.

 

[A Desert Rose]

Hi, Hey, See I am back....

This isn't rocket science. It is not a liberal or conservative myth. It's business. period. When costs go up, businesses can either raise prices to cover their costs, do nothing and watch profits drop, or reduce expenses (payroll=employees=expense). Businesses ("corporations") are not buildings. They are people. Owned andoperated by them.

Oh Christ, (oops I mean miles) thank you..... It's simple economics. Even a silly graphic artist like myself can get this.

But you know what? I like ya REDWAVE..... ~smiling~ this fact is going to take my edge off of disagreeing with you.

 

[Ishmael]

Miles: I do realize that businesses are owned by people.

And you're right: when costs go up, you can either raise your prices, cut other expenses, or take less in profits. My point is that in a competitive marketplace, businesses can't raise prices willy-nilly: when you raise prices you're liable to lose market share. And that businesses - at least some of the time - are therefore forced to take less in profits when taxes go up.

All like business's are effected equally. All raise their prices.

Ish, one may was well argue that workers don't pay taxes, corporations do. Because workers just charge more in wages everytime their taxes go up.

By George, I think you're getting it now. That's what's called an inflationary spiral. Go back to the 7-11 lesson.

Ishmael

 

[REDWAVE]

Rose

I like you too, Rose-- but please don't tell any of my commie buddies. They might kick me out of the club.

 

[REDWAVE]

Elasticity of demand

Of course, the flaw in miles' argument is childishly easy to spot, and Sandia put his finger right on it. Economists call it "elasticity of demand."

 

[phrodeau]

Oh, like the flaw in REDWAVE's argument about converting the military.

Exactly how many of our troops defected to join the Viet Cong?

 

[Sandia]

Don't get me wrong, I hate paying taxes as much as the next guy - perhaps more than the next guy, since I'm self-employed and therefore pay double social security. I'd like to see government spending go down. Especially government spending on particularly wasteful programs, like the War-On-Iraq program, or the War on Drugs, or Star Wars.

The thing about military spending is that when you're done all you have is something useless, like a bomb or a tank. At least other kinds of government spending get recycled more or less directly back into the economy.

 

[REDWAVE]

Revolutionary fraternization

Not many defected, phrodeau, but quite a few refused to fight, deserted, or fragged their officers. I'm sure Ishmael, as a former military man, knows about that. But then, you don't want to talk about it in public, do you, Ish?

 

[70/30]

I don't care if they 'blow up'. The 'ballsiest' move I ever saw was back in the 70's when there were riots all over the United States. Almost every city cordoned off the area's and allowed them to burn. The mayor of Tampa, FL got on radio and TV and basically said, "I'm sending in the police in 30 minutes. Their orders are to shoot to kill." The riots stopped and everybody went home. It was the same orders that the National Guard was given regarding looters after hurricane Andrew. There is a profound difference between civil disobedience and civil insurrection.

Ishmael

If some people are willing to actively protest, many more will be willing to vote. Neither extreme would take hold longer than 2years unless the police state is very, very diligent. Remember there are several ways to protest. Labor stoppage is one. A large part of the public would give support to ultrapatriots who oppose a socialist lead government. A considerable part of the public would do the same for elves. Heck, Teddy Kennedy would lead a march to the front steps of the white house, he'd get more than a million. The parties are very far apart now and no cooperation is found. The situation I'm talking about are if one of the extremes came to power, there are many stubborn people on both sides that would create more gridlock. Best bet is to come to the center.

 

[70/30]

Especially government spending on particularly wasteful programs, like the War-On-Iraq program, or the War on Drugs, or Star Wars.

I hear Trent Lott is building a big boat, maybe it'll be free admission.

 

[Ishmael]

Everybodies bitching about capitalism and not one, not one alternative.

70/30, you assume that libertarians are extreme. Perhaps according to the socialist mind. But if your goal is freedom, true freedom. I'd suggest you do a little more reading and a little less ranting.

Ishmael

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

I could get my products so much cheaper if they didn't force companies to keep upgrading to meet the governments totalitarian safety standards and insisting that toxic chemicals not be dumped into the water supply! I mean what's a few hundred thousand maimed workers, or a bunch of people being poisoned, compared to being able to save a few cents on vinyl floor tiles! The problem with socialists is that they just don't have their priorities right.

Cry, you sometimes say the darndest things. I'm sure that all those mean and nasty people who develop goods and services are just itching to cause mass mayhem and injury to their customers. It's a good thing that we have government workers to restrain them.

 

[70/30]

Everybodies bitching about capitalism and not one, not one alternative.

70/30, you assume that libertarians are extreme. Perhaps according to the socialist mind. But if your goal is freedom, true freedom. I'd suggest you do a little more reading and a little less ranting.

Ishmael

They are extreme to the people that live in Watts and Detroit. Republicans can't get a toe nail into their world, laughing at the libertarian that tries.

 

[70/30]

I'd suggest you do a little more reading and a little less ranting.

Ishmael

If you are talking about a TJ libertarian movement, I'm not that far away. However the Libertarian Party are a group of modern Hamiltonians-I'm not likely to go there. I'd listen a little bit more if you made a good movie (something like Training Day), a catchy rap song, or went back in time and wrote a classic epic novel that actually defends raping nature and champions idiopathic greed.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

Don't get me wrong, I hate paying taxes as much as the next guy - perhaps more than the next guy, since I'm self-employed and therefore pay double social security. I'd like to see government spending go down. Especially government spending on particularly wasteful programs, like the War-On-Iraq program, or the War on Drugs, or Star Wars.

The thing about military spending is that when you're done all you have is something useless, like a bomb or a tank. At least other kinds of government spending get recycled more or less directly back into the economy.

You don't "pay double" unless you're paying 30%. The SSI bill is 15% where half (7.5%) comes from the employee and the other half (7.5%) comes from the employer. Since you're self employed, you're seeing both sides where most people who are employees only see the half.

It's thanks to that bomb, plane or tank that you're not filling in your tax forms in Russian.

 

[Sandia]

Cry, you sometimes say the darndest things. I'm sure that all those mean and nasty people who develop goods and services are just itching to cause mass mayhem and injury to their customers. It's a good thing that we have government workers to restrain them.

Mansanto, the biotech and chemical company, dumped toxic chemicals in a small Alabama town for decades.

By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 1, 2002; Page A01

Now they know. They also know that for nearly 40 years, while producing the
now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto
Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped
millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of
pages of Monsanto documents -- many emblazoned with warnings such as
"CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy" -- show that for decades, the corporate
giant concealed what it did and what it knew.

In 1966, Monsanto managers discovered that fish submerged in that creek
turned belly-up within 10 seconds, spurting blood and shedding skin as if
dunked into boiling water. They told no one. In 1969, they found fish in
another creek with 7,500 times the legal PCB levels. They decided "there is
little object in going to expensive extremes in limiting discharges." In
1975, a company study found that PCBs caused tumors in rats. They ordered
its conclusion changed from "slightly tumorigenic" to "does not appear to
be carcinogenic."

Monsanto enjoyed a lucrative four-decade monopoly on PCB production in the
United States, and battled to protect that monopoly long after PCBs were
confirmed as a global pollutant. "We can't afford to lose one dollar of
business," one internal memo concluded...

"It was like dunking the fish in battery acid," recalled George Murphy, who
was one of Ferguson's graduate students at the time and is now chairman of
Middle Tennessee State University's biology department.

"I've never seen anything like it in my life," said Mack Finley, another
former Ferguson grad student, now an aquatic biologist at Austin Peay State
University. "Their skin would literally slough off, like a blood blister on
the bottom of your foot."

The problem, Ferguson concluded, was the "extremely toxic" wastewater
flowing directly from the Monsanto plant into Snow Creek, and then into the
larger Choccolocco Creek, where he noted similar "die-offs." The outflow,
he calculated, "would probably kill fish when diluted 1,000 times or so." He
warned Monsanto: "Since this is a surface stream that passes through
residential areas, it may represent a potential source of danger to children."
He urged Monsanto to clean up Snow Creek, and to stop dumping
untreated waste there.

Monsanto did not do that -- even though the warnings continued...

And what, Kaley asks, is wrong with that? Corporations, after all, have
obligations to their shareholders, and the federal law banning the
manufacture of PCBs did not take effect until 1979. Monsanto's critics,
Kaley says, do not understand capitalism.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/pcbs010702.cfm

 

[Lancecastor]

What bonehead started this thread?

Capitalism works, by the way.....geez, I can buy a can of Coke almost anywhere on the planet for under a buck.


Top that.

 

[miles]

They are extreme to the people that live in Watts and Detroit. Republicans can't get a toe nail into their world, laughing at the libertarian that tries.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think this doesn't make a bit of sense?

Loks like a pattern.

 

[A Desert Rose]

I have been at a loss all night in here.....

 

[crysede]

Bet you have never worked in the private sector or owned a business and employed people, either. Am I right?

Why of course I haven't; I'm just a ditsy naive little girl-child whose never worked a day in her life, has every thing handed to her on a silver platter, and couldn't possibly have the slightest understanding of the real world. Oh, and I couldn't help but notice that you feel you are familiar enough with socialism to pass judgment on it - since only people who have run private businesses have the requisite experience to understand capitalism, clearly the same must be true of socialism - so I take it that I am correct in assuming that you have also owned a business with over 60 employees in at least one socialist state?

Suggesting that I need to have employed an equal or greater number of people than you to understand pure capitalism in theory, or the mixed socialist-capitalist systems that exist in reality, makes as much sense as claiming that only women can understand the issues raised by feminism - which is clearly nonsense: I had a very interesting and thought provoking debate about some central feminist concerns with Ishmael and LTGR, and I'm fairly certain that neither of them are women. Naturally they disagreed with me completely, but not because they didn't understand the issues.

Understanding and direct personal experience are related, but non-identical - possession of one is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for possession of the other.

Oversight and regulation are two different animals. Passing and enforcing laws to protect the environment are not outside the domain of government. Nor are laws prescibing criminal penalties for fraudulent business practices...

They're called safety regulations and anti-polution regulations - I think my position that they are, in fact, regulations imposed by government on industry, is well supported by these facts. Hell, you've even called them regulations. You've got to at least give some warning if you're going to start using a term in a different way!

But fine, call it governmental 'overseeing' of industry if you want - if you've got governments overseeing industry by forcing companies to abide by certain rules to protect people and/or the environment, it ain't pure capitalism.

Mansanto, the biotech and chemical company, dumped toxic chemicals in a small Alabama town for decades.

Thanks sexy M O D E R A T O R dude, less work for me

 

[Sandia]

Charming feet, ADR. I also liked the tennis shoes one too.

 

[A Desert Rose]

Sorry I brought out the cattiness in you . ~smiling~

 

[A Desert Rose]

Charming feet, ADR. I also liked the tennis shoes one too.

Why thank you Sandia, you sweetie....

 

[Sandia]

Thanks sexy M O D E R A T O R dude, less work for me

Heh, whatever I can do to help.

Mansanto, I think, was also involved in that international price-fixing scam... I can't quite remember the details now.


From this month's Atlantic:
"According to the ninth annual CEO compensation survey, the average CEO makes 411 times as much as the average worker. (Twenty years ago, in contrast, CEOs earned only forty-two times as much as their workers.) If annual pay for production workers had increased at the same rate as CEOs' pay has since 1990, a production worker might have made $101,156 in 2001, rather than $25,567. The report also reveals that engaging in dubious accounting practices can pay off handsomely: top executives at twenty-three companies under investigation for accounting fraud earned 70 percent more ($62.2 million versus $36.5 million) than top executives at other large companies.