American Revolution

So really, what are the chances of an uprising in modern day America?  Not only do you have police everywhere, along with National Guard/Reserves and regular military bases throughout the country, but anyone that dares to fight  is an automatic criminal/militia/fanatic/terrorist.  Of course that means you're judged by the very rules you're trying to overthrow... but what chance is there that someone could overthrow the country's entire rule system and start from scatch, or even have the support of the majority of the people who watch TV and see everything thtrough a filtered media that puts negative spin in order to dissuade the efforts of a revolution?  The problem is the majority of the population is content and complacent.  Revolutions occur when the majority is poor, pissed off, and tired of the current system.  It would require people to have no access to their books, television, movies, computers, video games, or anything else to distract them.  It would require wealth to diminish to nothing, houses to lose their value, and utilities and public programs to become completely ineffective.  I don't see any of this happening unless the US is assraped by the Middle East or communist Asia.   

"In principle, it could be debated that the poor person owes society much more than the rich person, since he probably makes more use of the services that society provides him."

When a rich guy drives through town in his mercedes, walks safely through the streets, sits down at a nice resturant and is hand served food by expert cooks, then drives home to his huge central heated electricity consuming pointlessly large house built using difficult to extract materials he is wasting a shit load of resources provided by that society that could've be used to do a lot of good in that society. Why does he deserve this just for getting dividends from owning property? Surely an economic system that put his monetary talents to good use and forced him to work hard all day, possibly to maintain his wealth, would be better?

If he were plonked naked in the middle of alaska, he wouldn't be rich, therefore he isn't rich entirely through personal merit and owes society and more so than a poor man who only uses a fraction of the economy compared to the rich man.

I'm sick and tired of lazy ass profiteers idling around just because they have enough wealth to not to have to work, they leach more off the economy than lazy bums who don't work! You don't see actors and musicians with lots of money stop working. They're rich anyway so what's the problem?

"A corporation pays for thier electricity to the power company not the govenment, and they do pay.  they pay less per kilowatt hour true, however if you have a company that makes buttons, and  somebody was willing to buy 50% of the buttons you made every year, would you give them a discount."

So they pay the power company for their power, but who do they pay for the priviledge of being able to use such a large portion of the country's resources? When you own property you pay tax, people who rent a flat and work in a company they don't own already pay extra so that the landlord can meet tax demands and gain less in wages so that the company's owners can pay their tax, so why should they pay more tax?

Has any country ever gained success through economic strength

>>41 for the win.

And the answer to the last question is no. Not economic strength alone and even if by that alone- those countries are no long powerful and no longer 'around'.

>>36
>The idea that "people are poor because they're lazy" isn't usually the case.
It isn't, people who are poor are usually stupid. Should they be penalized for that with lower income even though they work just as hard as other people? I don't know. It's at least as unfair as making people with more money pay more than people with less.

>These people who are being "immorally" penalized for succeeding probably got to their position through "immoral" practices and exploitation.
You can't make such broad generalizations. But anyway, do note that I am only talking theoretically. As I said, even such a "moral" solution such as making everybody pay the same amount of tax is flawed. The current system is flawed, but it's probably the best we can come up with without making it incredibly complicated and bureaucratic. Christ, it's already terribly bureaucratic as it is.

>Not a chance. Think of how much electricity a large office building requires as opposed to a single family home. An executive jet and several high class cars as opposed to the family van. See where I'm going with this?
Nowhere. That was a very poor argument. Electricity is not given away freely, it is paid for, so it doesn't matter who uses up more or who uses less, because everyone in theory pays as much in compensation as they use up. The jet and cars are the same: they are paid for by the person, they're not bought from government money. You could even say that the person who buys them (buys more than the one with less money) is doing society good, because he is creating job opportunities. Someone who buys 10 cars vs. someone who buys just one pours back more money into the economy, theoretically benefitting more people.

>When a rich guy drives through town in his mercedes, walks safely through the streets, sits down at a nice resturant and is hand served food by expert cooks, then drives home to his huge central heated electricity consuming pointlessly large house built using difficult to extract materials he is wasting a shit load of resources provided by that society that could've be used to do a lot of good in that society.
In what way? For all those things he uses, he is paying more than other people are. The Mercedes costs more, the trip to the restaurant costs more, the big house costs more... all that money flows back into the economy. If he were keeping it all on his bank account, it'd be different, and even then it does the economy good, because the bank would be able to use his money to further THEIR economic interests.

I'm hardly rich myself, but whenever I hear people bitching about rich people buying "useless" and "pointless" things, I can't help but feel they're just sadly jealous.

If he were keeping it all on his bank account, it'd be different, and even then it does the economy good, because the bank would be able to use his money to further THEIR economic interests.

Tell that to Japan. Why do you think their economy tanked Everyone saves; the lifeblood of the economy was tied up. A rich guy spending is better than a rich guy saving.

A real question is whether a large amount of money in one person's hands is efficient.

      You are still avoiding the fact and argueing against an extinct victorian idea that the rich are rich because they are geneticlly superior, socially superior, etc.  THE RICH ARE RICH BECAUSE THEY HAVE MONEY. it is a simple consept to understand.  there are many reasons to be rich.  Only a complete dumbass would compare the work a "lazy CEO rich person" does with the work a "rich actor" does.  and there is a huge difference between income and assets.  A professional sports player has huge income, does that mean that he has money?  abolutely not.  the same is true with most celebrities in the entertainment industry.  They have money comeing in so they spend it thinking it will last forever, no investing or anything, so they have to go out and get millions for another shitty movie and live off that for a while.  they don't have money or assets, they have income.  They have no knowlege of how to invest so they have money, their children will most likely never have the lifelong benifit of money that the child of someone with money and assets will. 

Most rich also put in EXTREEMLY LONG HOURS OF WORK. yes they take vacations, yes they have money and go to great shows ocassionally and other bullshit.  when you are willing to put in 60-75 hours a work in of that kind of responsibility you are going to recive the perks of that work.  Yes, our economy requires there to be a working class, but our economy also requires a wealthy class.  the wealthy class is the one that has the jobs that the working class work for.  rich do create, although they don't physically build.
     I am not saying the workers don't have a stake in the sucess of a company, i mean they want the company to suceed so they get paid.  however look at this analogy.  if you hire me to build a house and you buy all the material, pay all my and my workers labor to make the house.  when it is done you have the ownership and financial stake in the house.  are you saying that because you hired me to build it i should have a right to it as well because i put the work in?  that is just fucking stupid.

   >>41
     "When a rich guy drives through town in his mercedes, walks safely through the streets, sits down at a nice resturant and is hand served food by expert cooks, then drives home to his huge central heated electricity consuming pointlessly large house built using difficult to extract materials he is wasting a shit load of resources provided by that society that could've be used to do a lot of good in that society. Why does he deserve this just for getting dividends from owning property? Surely an economic system that put his monetary talents to good use and forced him to work hard all day, possibly to maintain his wealth, would be better?"
         Well you are using a computer to look on the internet which is a service you paid for, using electricity you paid for, that very few people have the luctury of, how about you put all that money to better use for society? because the rich have more that they could give?  That is just a greedy notion that everyone that has more than you is responsible for all those that have less, but certainly not you responsible. 
     Also, have you ever tried to put someone with monatary skills to work where they don't get monetary gain?  they will find the gain, just like politicians now get rich off of their offices.  they will find wealth in their position if they have the skill, at least in the market they are competing their skills in a straight forward contest of who gets the most money, rather than trying to hide it under the carpet.
Also you are once again comparing things that come to the government with things that don't.  the mercedes he bought with his money, and takes up no more road room than somebody elses car, he doesn't walk the streets more than somebody else, the resturant is privately owned and he is paying the owner to use the services, the cook is geting paid no small ammount of money at a fancy resturant for his expertise, he is paying the electric company for the electricity, the heating company for the heat, the gas company for the gas, and all of it by the same unit measurement as you.  All of the services he gets from others are paid for just like the ones you get from others, and the ones that he gets from the government he pays for because he pays much more in taxes than you.  and he isn't using them more than you.
      And he is actually in a much higher tax bracket than you, he simply has more exceptions than you.  for instance if you were to build a new house, it would be a tax exception on your 1040a, the same for him, and he has the money to build houses more often.  If i were to have a exception of x% of your income per child you have, a rich person will have more money comming back per child because he hs more money taxed away in the first place than you.  And you keep on saying that he has all this money and is spending it on stuff because he has it.  well where does it go  from there, just back to his pocket?  even if he buys something from the company he is the CEO of he only gets pennies on the dollar of what he spent.  the rest goes to paying the workers that make the product, paying for the materials that make the product, all the maintenence on all of the equipment and building and land used to make the product, all of which gets spread out to several hundred people, and the government is going to take it's share of it at every step.  The federal government collects every dollar that the US has issued over 3 times a year, and thats not counting all the times it is collected by various state and local governments.  he buys more and he pays sales tax on every item he buys the same as you. that money then goes to buying the materials and labor for the product, income tax then more sales tax, and then all those people that have their shares of that money spend and pay various amounts of tax on it as it spreads further.  so that rich person, spending more money than a normal person, creates more cycle for all that, and causes more money to be paid.

    As for a office building using more money than a house that is just stupid.  Look at an office building, now look at a house,  which one do you think uses more energy.  the office building right?  you are now as intelligent as the one who said that.  now look at the same house and the same office building again, which one do you think causes geater gain for socity on a whole.  the house holds one family and benifits only them.  the office building has possibly thousands of workers that all get paid, uses many tons of various products a year such as paper and other office materials, all of which have to be purchased from other companys, which in turn have more workers to make them.  now the house and the office building sit on about the same ammount of land.  which one do you think should be torn down for not providing enough for society by these people's logic?

Has anyone here ever voted for a presidential candiadte, or ever seen one that wasn't a millionare

>>46
Excellent post. Just wanted to add one thing:

>And he is actually in a much higher tax bracket than you, he simply has more exceptions than you.  for instance if you were to build a new house, it would be a tax exception on your 1040a, the same for him, and he has the money to build houses more often.  If i were to have a exception of x% of your income per child you have, a rich person will have more money comming back per child because he hs more money taxed away in the first place than you.
At least in the country where I live, the tax exemptions are linked to your income. So a person with a high income and wealth does NOT get any tax benefits when he has children, for example. Want to hear even more ridiculous? There is discussion going that a person with a lot of money (and thus paying a lot of tax) should be paying for his own medical bills, even though he is paying for medical insurance just like everyone else!! The notion is always that this person "needs" it less than others. So that makes it right to take everything away from him?

So yes, the poor person DOES take more from society than he gives back than the rich person.

>>44
>>46
Money has to be seen as a tradable good rather than a supernatural measure of value. When money is exchanged for objects and services a spender is being given the priviledge of assuming resources from society. I don't have a problem with entrepeneurs who made the right decisions getting rewards, but the idea of a talented person using the millions he has skimmed off his business on himself instead of working and putting those millions to good use seems ot me like a waste of his talents and a major flaw in capitalism. Though some succesful people tend to keep on working and applying their vision instead of becomming playboys corrupted by self-pleasure, I think it would be better with some sort of safe guard.

As for the office vs house example, the paper and power companies pay their dues and the office pays for it when it pays the extra cash they charge to cover tax. The same goes for the house, since the house is less of a burden on the economy it pays an astronomically lower sum. The only difference between the current system and my system would be that the amount they pay is more correlated to how much they actually owe, thus causing the office owner to install insulation and the home owner to join a neighbourhood watch program and encourage his kids to be home by 18:00. A small increase in efficiency throughout the economy can often saves billions of dollars in expenses.

Am I jealous of rich people, of course I am, everyone wants to be rich, so why would I want an economic system that goes against the opportunity to become rich? The absurdity of your attack on my person denotes your intelligence and benefits my argument, sir.

>but the idea of a talented person using the millions he has skimmed off his business on himself instead of working and putting those millions to good use seems ot me like a waste of his talents and a major flaw in capitalism.

Just because you are an untalented fuck doesn't mean those who do have talents should start doing menial jobs just because you think they should "work hard too".

Fact is, actors work hard. If you've ever been on a set or had seen how much work musicians need to do to earn their share you would think twice about saying they're "lazy". And more importantly, only few of them become popular enough to actually make a lot of money. And is it THEIR fault that people buy all of their stuff and not others too? Blame the people that idolize actors and musicians for spending all their money to see or hear them.

>As for the office vs house example, the paper and power companies pay their dues and the office pays for it when it pays the extra cash they charge to cover tax. The same goes for the house, since the house is less of a burden on the economy it pays an astronomically lower sum.

The office is not a burden on economy at all, as >>46 pointed out. You're an idiot for even going against it.

>The only difference between the current system and my system would be that the amount they pay is more correlated to how much they actually owe, thus causing the office owner to install insulation and the home owner to join a neighbourhood watch program and encourage his kids to be home by 18:00. A small increase in efficiency throughout the economy can often saves billions of dollars in expenses.

I don't know what the fuck you are on about here. Sounds like the ramblings of an insane mind. Maybe you haven't eaten yet today?

>Am I jealous of rich people, of course I am, everyone wants to be rich, so why would I want an economic system that goes against the opportunity to become rich? The absurdity of your attack on my person denotes your intelligence and benefits my argument, sir.

Not really. It's fine if you admit that you are jealous of rich people. But then you can't take the moral high ground and claim you want them to pay more because other people need it more or they work less hard. You just want it cos you're a greedy fuck.

>>37
a. "do you really want to pay the guy doing that with minimum wage" These people are making grotesque amounts of money. Government workers sometimes have millions of dollars that they are responsible for, but their pay isn't nearly as high as in the private sector. Military commanders too often have considerable expensive hardware at their disposal. Its only in the private sector where you commonly see this big a difference in pay.
b. "also there is the fact people capable of running that kind of operation are few and far between" I think you and I both know this line is bullshit. hehe
>>39
Where the hell did you get that idea from? I know a lot of people who work their asses off with 4 jobs and still have trouble. You need a reality check.
>>43
First off, yes I can make such a generalization. Second, you can't speak theoretically in this kinda of a debate. Theoretically everything would work just great and we would have a beautiful, competitive economy. The reality is totally different though. And as for your "best we can do" comment, its total crap. If anything is impractical its our current system. We're digging ourselves into a hole and will likely start to finally pay for it in 10 years or so. The current bureaucratic isn't nearly as bad as you seem to think, in fact its often more streamlined and costs less as far as upkeep in concerned then the private sector.
>>46
Its true that some of the upper class may put in more work then other people, but at the same time there are no doubt many people below them who put in far more time and effort. Nobody is disputing that management is important, but we're talking about people who are making 430 times more then everyone else here.
>>50
"And is it THEIR fault that people buy all of their stuff and not others too? Blame the people that idolize actors and musicians for spending all their money to see or hear them."
They price the merchandise. Its their responsibility to society not to take advantage of people all for their own self interest.
And just so your aware, you sound like a complete idiot arguing with 49.

>>51
"b. "also there is the fact people capable of running that kind of operation are few and far between" I think you and I both know this line is bullshit. hehe"

LOL the lower class always thinks they could do what the people in charge do just as well as them.

Fuck off, you bum. Go bitch about rich people with your poor buddies.

>>51
>First off, yes I can make such a generalization. Second, you can't speak theoretically in this kinda of a debate.
If you cannot engage in discussions on a higher level than that, I am done talking to you. Good day.

>>52
I'm not poor, I just don't have my head up my ass. I live only a few miles from a national lab and am in a research program over the summer. Some people here are quite well off, others have trouble paying taxes.
>>53
Very mature.

>>51

          This part that argued with my post
  "b. "also there is the fact people capable of running that kind of operation are few and far between" I think you and I both know this line is bullshit"

     You are kidding right?  you think anyone can just wake up one morning and run a multibillion dollar corporation?  You think you can?  How much do you know about Corporate labor law?  How much do you know about corporate anti-trust law?  how much do you understand about running a business at all?  how much do you know about corporate tax law?  how much do you know about organizing billion dollar budgets into million dollar projects and decided which of them are worth keeping and which aren't?  Do you even have a concept of what a billion dollars is?  I don't, thats for sure.  More money than i can imagine easily.  I mean a million dollars is an apocalyptic shit load t me.  and a thousand appocalytic shit loads of money is well beyond my scale of comprehension.  If anyone is capeable of understanding that kind of issue, why is it that 75% of lottery winners declare bankruptcy in under 10 years.  they spend it all.  they look at a big ass, apocalyptic shit load of money and assume they can keep on taking money out of the pile and there will still be pleanty left.  It's eventually all gone.  and i am not presently capeable of running such an operation, i will come out and say it.  If people are capeable of knowing how to spend money on that level how come the govenment has a 20,000,000,000,000 dollars debt.  do you know how much money that is.  its exactly 20 appocalyptic shitloads of apocalyptic shitloads of money to me.  Hell, i am willing to bet there are CEOs of multi-billion dollar corporations that can't get their mind around that much money.  Bill Gates looks at that much money and wonders how the hell all those zeros get in one number. and i am not presently capeable of running such an operation?  Those people capeable of understanding on this level are few and far between, not so much because most people are born unable to understand these things, but becase the conditioning just isn't there for most people to understand these things. 

>>55
>If people are capeable of knowing how to spend money on that level how come the govenment has a 20,000,000,000,000 dollars debt.
Because anybody can put himself up to get elected, that's why there's a big group of idiots like >>51 who are officially allowed to fuck up the country's cash flow. And the people who vote for them even think they're doing a good job because they're too shortsighted to see any further than "Hurrr look my welfare cheque got bigger"

>>55
If you read anything else I said you would know damn well that I don't believe that anyone can run a large corporation. As I've said before, management is an essential part of an organization. I agree that its not a position that can be done by the "average joe" or any dumb looser, but at the same time these guys aren't unbelievably rare super-men as some people seem to suggest. And to answer your questions on how much I know about business related laws and regulations, enough. I've taken courses in business and business law. Nobody is disputing how important management of that "apocalyptic shitload of money" is, but rather if those who are responsible for it are paid appropriately.
>>56
Have you ever even met someone in financial trouble? Your paragraphs are dripping with ignorance and fuzzy logic. Those who are elected may foul up things sometimes, but when they do they are held accountable. Why? Because, unlike in the private sector, government positions are at the mercy of public scrutiny. Gov employees are hired to serve the people and when they act in self interest they will likely loose their jobs. Those working in business have only a responsibility to themselves and the organization they represent. Because of this anything is fair game unless it violates federal regulations. A business rips off a few hundred people, they probably won't get more flak then a local television station at best.

>>57
I've told you I won't talk to you anymore, so you are free to keep responding to me, just don't expect an answer.

I will, however, lol hard at your idea that people in politics are held accountable for anything and that people in businesses are not. Talk about a warped view of the world.

>>58
Way to go ignoring what I wrote. Seriously, never seen someone not respond to me so well before. When you added that ">>57 before your response I just felt so not-talked-to. I would also like to congratulate you on your failure to respond like an intelligent, functional person in light of acting like a sour 12 year old who can do nothing but make blunt statements with no supporting logic or examples.

>>59

  Than take it up with me.  I have met people in financial trouble that went on welfare for a period of time because they had no other choice.  they went back off of it when they could.  My parents go to food banks because my mother is currently working a part time job at walmart while going to school, and my father is a lazy good for nothing asshole the way the others i complain about are.  I have also met people like my father, a whole bunch of them in southern ohio, that feed off of the social system.  Because they don't have to work they don't.  it's as simple as that.  I am not saying that poor are lazy.  I am saying that poor welfare bums and other bums that loaf around on ineffecint social prorgrams are lazy.  and that lazy 12 year old can still outsmart you.  he just isn't as stuborn as me in pressing matters.
>>57
     >>58 is totally right
 "I will, however, lol hard at your idea that people in politics are held accountable for anything and that people in businesses are not. Talk about a warped view of the world."
        When the business man makes a mistake the business suffers.  he suffers as a result of that.  a politician just covers it up with other shit.  A CEO that fucks up and causes the company to loose millions is going to be fired by the board of directors.  don't believe me read up on business and look how often boards of directors get tired of administrations and hire a new CEO.  Also if i am a manager and i fuck up i get fired.  the private sector is just as responsible because they have their stake in it all the way though.  If i fuck up my job i get fired.  if anything the government is much less so.  I can get fired imediatly after fucking up, you may have to wait 6 years if a politican fucks up.  and imagine how much worse shit he can do durring that period of time.  Also if they are so responsible how come the national debt is so high.  don't even say because of tax cuts, it's because of overspending.  the government doesn't need to spend a fraction of the money it does.  the federal governemnt collects every dollar currently in circulation over 3 times every year in taxes.  if you count state and local taxes it gets much worse.  what the fuck needs that much money.  and then can still be in debt.  The budget doesn't need cut, it needs hacked slashed and a piss taken on it.  both sides are guilty of the money spending, but we need someone who is willing to cut the budget, and take responsibiltiy for cutting it.  the problem is that politicans love to say they will cut the budget, none are willing to deal with alienating someone by cutting the wrong thing out.  The govenment doesn't fuck things up some of the time.  it is not the exception when the government fucks something up.  the big beurocratic government fucks things up almost all the time.  the only part of the govenment that runs anything near efficient is the armed services.  Because they are more accoutable because everyone is waiting for them to fuck up.  The government should get the fuck out of everyones lives.
      I understand some social programs, i understand government regulatory agencies, i even understand limited welfare spening.  But too much is too much.  Are you really willing to give the government sole responsibilty for all healthcare in the US.  Why are you going just for health care anyways.  Why is nobody petitioning for socialized food industy.  I mean everyone needs food well before they need healthcare.  But i am ranting.  The point is to get the government the fuck out of my life.  it doesn't do much of anything right, and when it does do something right it's usually though dumb luck.

http://www.whitehouse.com

>>60
    I'm not talking about executives making mistakes that hurt the company, I'm talking about when they do something that isn't in the best interest of society or the people below them. My entire point is that the people in government are supposed to serve the people while businesses have no such responsibility. Perhaps I didn't make this clear enough, if so my mistake.
    I would be the last person to say the federal government is managing its budget correctly. But at the same time, one could argue that this may be due to the fact that it relies so much on the private sector. When something needs to be done they contract someone. As you said, the military is watched the closest and this is where we see the most evidence of private businesses contracted by the government taking advantage of people. You'll also see some of the largest spending in areas where the government needs to contract with the private sector.
    I agree with some of what you say and disagree with other bits. Hell, you even changed my opinion a bit. Still though, its important to look at the larger situation and realize how reliant the government is on third parties to simply maintain itself. I seem to think this is a large part of the problem.

The govenment isn't supposed to be self reliant.  If the govenment were selfreliant it would simply be too powerful and do whatever the fuck it pleased.  However how do you intend to keep a corporation constanly thinking about the public good?  I mean do you think about the public good with every action you take?  Most of the things a corporation can do to really hurt society are already illegal.  insider trading, embezeling, monopolizing the market, and many other things that fuck over all the investors and society as a whole are illegal.  True, a corporation is publicly owned and therefore be more publicly responsible than a private business.  however that doesn't overshadow the fact that it is still a business.  and the job a buisness is to look out for it's interests, mainly being profit.  there is a conflict here that with a lot of gray area inbetween.  However i do not believe that they are less accountable as they are public companies, and can suffer greatly for their immage.  I mean people don't think walmart is accounatble for the unfair things it does, but you still fucking shop there, i still fucking shop there, many people still fucking shop there.  what we have decided is that the ends of getting our stuff cheap justifies the means of their emplyee abuse.  That is something to be blamed on society as a whole, not on walmart for being there to facilitate our justification.  although they certainly aren't without resposibility.
      I don't believe all control over to the govenment for them.  For instance we need a public highway and street system.  we have simply developed past the point where we can function without it.  Now the government obviously owns the roads.  By the your logic of getting rid of the government dependence on the private sector they would then buy the companies that make the roads(the government usually but not always hires out work crews).  it would then want to buy the various material providors of the material for road construction(asfault, concreet, quaries, exc.), it would then buy the shipping companies that deal with getting the material from the source to the construction site.  Now we would buy out the dozens of companies that make the various forms of construction equipment for roads. then the manufaturers of the trucks for the shipping companies, then the manufacturors of the various mining equipment and such for the sourse material for the roads.  Then we would need a fuel company to provide gas to all of that equipment.  and another company makes machine tools to build all that equipment so we would need to buy them as well.  then we need steel mills and various refineries to get the raw materials  to make all that equipment.
    I could go on and on with what it would have to buy until eventually the govenment owns everything.  I mean there would be miles of red tape and beurocracy covering all of these aquisitons and running them.  So much paperwork i can't comprehend it all.  thousands of people involved.  hey all that paper means the government needs to buy the supplier of that to.  and all those workers need to eat, they need a food company to feed them, then the farms that provide the food, i mean the list goes on and on.  If you wanted to sepparate government from private interest you would need to eliminate anything private and give it to the government.

>>63 this guy is just a dumbass and shouldn't be listened to.  If the goernment took over everything and equally disributed it we would all be better off.  all except those jack ass rich atleast.

>>64
speaks the truth.

if at the age of 18 you were supplied a house, a car, and a large sum of money to spend in whatever way you chose, how awesome would that be? you'd never starve. never have to worry about paying the bills.

generally, you would only be required to live. you could start a buisness, or maybe go to college. of course there would be those who would spend it all on drugs, booze, and bitches, but hey, at least they would have somewhere to go home to.

of course this requires that everyone has a job, and recieves generally nothing but security from it.

there inlies the problems. human beings are too consumed by greed to ever exist in a state of peace. the chances of utopia are only logical in a setting where the entire world had basically been destroyed, and those left needed to survive.

aka brave new world

>>65
Wrong, 64 and 63 speak bullshit.

Of course in a 100% capitalism eventually monopolies would arise and become hugely inefficient bureaucratic morasses, but in a 100% socialism everyone would be given a house, a car and a large some of money for everyone, but then no one would have any reason to work and the economy wouldn't be able to support electricity and maintenance for the house, fuel and maintenance for the car and the value of money would deflate as no new products go into circulation.

"Socialism works until everyone runs out of everyone else's money."
Margaret Thatcher.

>>66
      How does that make >>63 wrong.  I don't see anything about preaching pure capitalism, in fact i said in >>60 that
      "I understand some social programs, i understand government regulatory agencies, i even understand limited welfare spening."
I even mentoned that things like monopolies are illegal for a good reason in >>63.  so you are mostly agreeing with me, and definatly not saying any arguement about the primary part of >>63 at all.  I really want to hear from >>62 anyways, as he is the only one that says much of anything intelligent on your side.

     BTW.  I got bored and did post 64 myself as well. lol:)

>>66
Theres your problem, your quoting a dumbfuck like Thatcher.

>>67
thatcher was many things, dumb wasn't one of them.  I didn't agree with everything she said that didn't make her dumb.  I don't agree with everything freud said either that doesn't make him dumb.

bump

>>67
Sorry, but your argument was so full of holes and ambiguity I could only guess what you were trying to say. I'm thinking that maybe 62 hasn't repsonded yet because he has no idea either. So I'm saging this thread so it dies if 62 doesn't care.

The discussion seems to go like this.
You: Oh we need 100% capitalism because the poor are stupid and lazy.
Someone: That's stupid, people are rich because they own everything and make people depend on them not because they are superior.
You: Oh yeah well I agree, we need 100% capitalism and no monopolies.
Someone: So you agree that the government shuold have control over things that can only be run by 1 institution? That isn't a 100% capitalism.
You: Oh yeah well I agree, we need 100% capitalism and everyone gives 40% of their income to pay for the police, hospitals and roads and things.
Me: Property owners should pay more tax since they are gaining wealth without doing any work, this would be fair and dependant on how much they owe society for the priviledge of being able to sit around and jerk off all day if they wanted to.
Someone: Private companies shouldn't be able to influence the government.
You: Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare. Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare. Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare. Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare. Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare. Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare. Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare. Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare. Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare. Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare. Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare. Oh yeah well I agree, the government should give a little in welfare.
You posing: lol im a communist lolol

If you can't (intentionally refuse to develop a simple rational argument to define the steps you would take, you are just sidestepping and hopping around like a prancing faggot. I'm not sure why you are wasting your time, your arguments are so mentally feeble you can't be testing your ability to persuade or anything.

>>71
       I never said 100% capitalism. I never even implied it.  what i was tring to get though is that it neeeds to be as close as possible.  I also said that rules that goven corporations shouldn't always goven independently owned businesses.  I said we need limited control over corporations to keep them from becoming to big.  We tend to do an ok balance today with keeping corporations from having too much control over a certain area(good exceptions to this are oil, which is international and beyond our control, and DirectTV cotroling all of satelltie telivision.). 
       I never said 100% capitalism.  Without a hundred percent capitalism i assume  that all those "things that can only be run by 1 institution" like fire department, police department, ect would fall into private hands.  I assume this is where you are going atleast.  I also admit that now is not the 1700's and we need a slightly different govenment infastructure(such as a highway system) that we didn't need then.
       We don't need everyone to give anywhere near 40% of their income, or at least not on a national level.  Police and Fire should be local.  Basic Medial subsidies if they exist should also be local.  The Federal Highway system doesn't even add 1% to your taxes, it builds relatively few of the roads, although it does fund many other roads of an ammount i am unsure of.  However this money gets pretty fairly distributed over population and so does state road subsidies, And there is a need for roads, so I am not going to bitch too much.  But still a small portion of the govenment spending.  Hospitals are private businesses and organizations and therefore should not be paid for in tax dollars, God knows they get enough fucking money from us.  However they still get a relatively small portion of the money(not counting social security and medicade that isn't going directly to hospitals for running cost but is paying for health care).  Should the Govenment pay the Hospital for work done on patients that can't pay, but they still legally have to do the work anyway.  Of course to be fair we have to, I mean we do (rightly so) force the hospital to do the work, and being a buisness not a charity they deserve proper compensation.  However this should only be done for hospitals that offer adequate payment options to those that can pay it but not immediately, and if there is an adequate system in place to determine when a person "can't pay".
       However this is just a smaall portion of tax dollars.  Social Securtiy and Medicade need to be phased out over the next two generations to allow for subsidized insurance plans, and private retirement plans that don't require the govenment to set them up.  Welfare needs to be all but disbanded.  Pointless systems that just but thousands of social workers in cooshy good paying jobs should be thrown out.  this is where you save the money, not getting rid of police, hospitals, and roads. 
         Property Owners already pay more, It's called "property tax" look it up.  Now if you are a business you can write off what you pay in propety tax as a business expense, but that doesn't give you anywhere near what you paid.
         An independent business is owned by me personally, all profits go to me.  It is not an independent entity, I am attached to it at the hip.  It spending money is actually me spending money.  So I should be able to spend that money as I please as long as I don't report it to the IRS as an expense when it isn't.   Corporations are publicly owned.  They have no exact interest int them(majority interest but not exact)  and shouldn't be allowed to donate money to political institutions(parties and special interest groups).  Labor Unions should be under the same restriction.  If i own a share in General Motors that doesn't mean I want to spend money on the same political party,  If i am a member of a union I don't nesessary have even a choice, so i still might disagree with the political aspirations of said group.  Special interest groups should be all but illiminated with these actions, getting rid of their money would help us all out.
     I said I was willing to accept a little bit of money going to welfare, not that I agreed with it.  We have created a system that people have come to depend on, and will have to be weened off of.  Best method to do this in my opinion is to but them into public jobs as they open(postal service, trash collector, ect) and tell them if they do the work they get paid.  If they don't they are out of the program, simple as that.  If they want more pay find a better job, if you are ok with the work you are doing here than keep doing it.  but WORK.  I never said I advocate wellfare spending, I understand it.  Kind of like i understand the good intentions of PeTA and the humain society, but they are crazy and fairly stupid.
        I hope I covered everything here,  want more detail on any one thing ask.  And I didn't post all the stuff claiming 100% capitalism  more along the lines of 90%

what i was tring to get though is that it neeeds to be as close as possible.

Having lived in the rest of the world as well, I disagree. Theory is nice, but I prefer empirical evidence.

If you travel industrialized countries, there seems to be an inverse correlation between how "capitalized" they are and quality of life. There's more to life than a rat race, you know?

Europe has a shitload of their own problems, as does Australia, but they have moderately capitalist systems that don't completely suck (yet). Living there is actually pleasant.

The idea that the rich and famous are genetically our betters is entirely rediculous. Do you know how much a biologist gets paid next to the CEO of Haliburton? Give it a fucking rest. If your *corportion* (NOT independantly owned business) takes an exhausting amount from the commonwealth then you should be required to put that same amount BACK into the commonwealth. NO TAX BREAKS. No dodging Tax for corporations. No corporations getting into our government via lobby.

Enough is enough, already. I'm sick of people defending obvious glaring faults in our system in the name of keeping capitalism strong. The benefits for working harder should be casual and NOT re-enforced by society.

The idea that the rich and famous are genetically our betters is entirely rediculous. Do you know how much a biologist gets paid next to the CEO of Haliburton? Give it a fucking rest. If your *corportion* (NOT independantly owned business) takes an exhausting amount from the commonwealth then you should be required to put that same amount BACK into the commonwealth. NO TAX BREAKS. No dodging Tax for corporations. No corporations getting into our government via lobby.

Enough is enough, already. I'm sick of people defending obvious glaring faults in our system in the name of keeping capitalism strong. The benefits for working harder should be casual and NOT re-enforced by society.

>>73
      If i idolize any places economic system it is Hong Kong.  Best free market system known to man.  Second is that those European nations are doing far from well.  France and Germany are actually outsourcing much of their skilled manufactuing labor to the US where it is cheaper.  the extreemly high minimum wage is on the verge of breaking their economy in the next decade.  The businesses just can't afford to do it.  Not to mention they pay 70% taxes so they can't not have that income because the government takes almost all of it.
>>74
          I never said rich and famous people were rich and famous because of being genetially our betters.  In fact I called that a outdated Victorain Philosophy.  The rich and famous are rich and famous because they are rich and famous.  There are many rich actors, singers, etc. that I think are stupid, genetically inferior to just anybody flipping burgers, and still rich and famous.  They have every right to become rich and famous.  It is a right that comes from living in a society that allows advancement at all, is that they get to become that.  I don't like them, and I don't want to hear from them, but I don't argue with their right to be that way.  Once again people are paid by what they do and how it is desired.  If the Biologist wanted to make more than he should have went to business school.  A few less biologistw would decrease the supply making the demand proprotianally greater, which would make them able to demand higher pay.  By your logic of corporations if i am reading it right is that whatever they get in from the public they should give back.  In other words they shouldn't be allowed to be a real business and make a profit, they should have to give all income back to the community.  Tell me if I am reading that wrong.  And I don't understand your "no tax breaks" philosophy. do you mean only for corporations or for anybody.  Corporations don't get any taxbreak another person or business can't, they just get more for spending that much more money and having that many more expenses.  And what exact flaw with the system did i defend, I am attacking the flaws of the socailsit system that you seem to be blind to and advocating a return to a not perfect but more funcional and fair capitalistic system.  Explain how I am doing what you accuse and you aren't in defending your system.  I already said that Corporations shouldn't be allowed political contributions to interest groups, parties, or politicans, and the same for labor unions and that the donations should only come from private areas.  Not only do Corporations have tax, they get whats called "double taxation" this means the corporation gets taxed on it's income, then the stockholder gets taxed on his or her dividend share. from the corporation

If i idolize any places economic system it is Hong Kong.

Not a bad place, but have you taken a look at its Quality of Life index? I suggest you do. As I said, there's more to life than a rat race.

France and Germany are actually outsourcing much of their skilled manufactuing labor

And Hong Kong doesn't? Where the were you in 1997?

>>76

Socialism? You have me confused with someone else.

My point: If that business decieves the commonwealth, takes from the commonwealth dishonestly and habitually taked advantage of the commonwealth at the peril of undoing the very fabric of our society...all in the name of profit...then that business shouldn't be allowed to run as usual. Meaning they should triple-tax and penialized on the federal level.

You see: It's a very simple matter of where your fucking priorities lie.

Is it with Capitalism and Business?

Or is with the people, society and the country to you live in?

The idea that the rich and famous are genetically our betters is entirely rediculous. Do you know how much a biologist gets paid next to the CEO of Haliburton? Give it a fucking rest. If your *corportion* (NOT independantly owned business) takes an exhausting amount from the commonwealth then you should be required to put that same amount BACK into the commonwealth. NO TAX BREAKS. No dodging Tax for corporations. No corporations getting into our government via lobby.

Enough is enough, already. I'm sick of people defending obvious glaring faults in our system in the name of keeping capitalism strong. The benefits for working harder should be casual and NOT re-enforced by society.

I believe in the free-market and meritocracy, but not for the sake of it, I believe in it because it does good. It provides an incentive and dishes out rewards fairly and with respect to the amount of good a person has done for the economy. Do people here at least agree with these guidelines? For instance hypothetically...

Let's say it is proven that there is program which would end homelessness, put the homeless to work and create new taxpayers who will cover the costs of the program. Unfortunately this program takes one year to complete and during that year taxes have to go up by 1%, they would of course go down the following year due to the new taxpayers in the economy. Is it justified to have this program? Of course it fucking is, if it turns every homeless person into a taxpayer for just 1 year of an increase of 1% tax it has to be good.

Is anyone such a greedy motherfucker they would disagree with this?


Let's say for 20 years this program slowly bloats into a huge inefficient morass due to corruption and bureacracy and people look at it and say "do we really need this?", they are reminded that it prevents homelessness, but they decide that homeless people should just get a job on their own accord instead of being given a free ride and the program isn't necessary. People begin to become homeless again.

I think this about sums up broadly what is happenning in real life, people are angry that the government takes so much cash, but they fail to realise government isn't bad for the sake of it being the government, it is bad because it is run badly and it is run badly because people fail to realise it is a monopoly and that more incentive and realism than just charity and blunt statistics is needed to ensure the efficiency of government programs.

What we need to do is to acknowledge the good and bad of different systems instead of zealously and blindly following them.