Why do you feel socialism is bad?

[tjm190]

America needs to start imitating its more perfect neighbor to the north.

The North Pole?

Canada is america done right.

Tehehehe

We have a capitlist economy and social health care.

True

If a homeless person and a millianare both need medical care they both get the same care.

Unless the rich man doesn’t want to wait 2 months for his MRI, then he goes south and buys quality care. (ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070914/belinda_Stronach_070914/20070914)

Our govenment looks after the people to the best of its ability while in america it only looks after the wealthy.

Canada puts everyone into the same clogged system, while America provides a market solution.

Welfare is not wrong it is a tool used to help people to stand on their own feet.

In the perfect world, yes. But all handouts get taken advantage of eventually if you aren’t careful.

unless you are on disablity you are expected to find work and the amount of money given is just enough to keep you from starving to death.

Says who?

The problem with america is that it just does not care about the poor.

When there isn’t enough care, how would you recommend divvying it up?

it treats them like scum and are looked down on.

Prove it.

when this is brought up that the poor need help you always get the “they should pull themselves up by their boot straps” have you ever tried it? it is a physical impossablity.

Because America doesn’t have a welfare program?

America needs to stop being so self centered and start acting like human beings that have some measure of decency.

As opposed to all the other countries in the world, which make a point of not caring about their own countries.

The world hates america not becuse of its freedom (which it abuses)

What freedoms do we abuse?

but becuse it is full of self-centered jerks who use and abuse its people and the people of the world.

Yes, since it’s Americans that go around making baseless accusations (oh wait, that’d be you)

Canada is america done right-we look after the health of our citizens,

Oh?

we have lower gun related crime,

/golfclap

we never had slavery

probably because you don’t have land suitable for labor intensive crops

our army is a peace keeping force and not the tool of warmongers (and we still beat america in war games on a regular basis even though we have less funding)

You don’t put money into your military because you assume we’ll back you up for purposes of defense (source on the wargames thing?)

oh and my favorite peace of american history on August 24, 1814 Canada burned down the white house.

Canada didn’t exist as a nation untiles the 20th century.

Canada is a much better place to live than america and you americans need to get your act togeather and start acting like the civilised country you claim to be.

Yes, if only we were as civilized as you.

 

[tjm190]

Be sure to read the comments in that story I linked to for some Canadian opinions on the Canadian health care system

 

[sidbrown]

America needs to start imitating its more perfect neighbor to the north. Canada is america done right. We have a capitlist economy and social health care. If a homeless person and a millianare both need medical care they both get the same care. Our govenment looks after the people to the best of its ability while in america it only looks after the wealthy. Welfare is not wrong it is a tool used to help people to stand on their own feet. unless you are on disablity you are expected to find work and the amount of money given is just enough to keep you from starving to death. The problem with america is that it just does not care about the poor. it treats them like scum and are looked down on. when this is brought up that the poor need help you always get the “they should pull themselves up by their boot straps” have you ever tried it? it is a physical impossablity. America needs to stop being so self centered and start acting like human beings that have some measure of decency. The world hates america not becuse of its freedom (which it abuses) but becuse it is full of self-centered jerks who use and abuse its people and the people of the world. Canada is america done right-we look after the health of our citizens, we have lower gun related crime, we never had slavery, we never commited genocide on the natives (we just turned them into generatial alcoholics) our army is a peace keeping force and not the tool of warmongers (and we still beat america in war games on a regular basis even though we have less funding) oh and my favorite peace of american history on August 24, 1814 Canada burned down the white house. Canada is a much better place to live than america and you americans need to get your act togeather and start acting like the civilised country you claim to be.

Yes, America needs to be more concerned about the poor and less concerned with giving million dollar bonuses to the fatcats of AIG who have been whining that they need a bailout of $171 billion dollars.

 

[tjm190]

Yes, America needs to be more concerned about the poor and less concerned with giving million dollar bonuses to the fatcats of AIG who have been whining that they need a bailout of $171 billion dollars.

Do you understand just how crucial AIG is?

 

[Brendan]

Do you understand just how crucial AIG is?

I really don’t think so. I tried to explain AIG’s insurance portfolio. But I guess sid really isn’t all that concerned about a father’s life insurance policy actually paying out, or a worker’s pension plan taking even less of a beating that it did.

All I’ve seen is just some old mantra’s about ‘fat cats’.

 

[sidbrown]

Do you understand just how crucial AIG is?

I follow what Ben Bernanke says and not what some anonymous poster on the internet says. Bernanke spent his undergraduate years at Harvard University and graduated with a B.A. in economics summa cum laude in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979. Since he taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business from 1979 until 1985, was a visiting professor at New York University and went on to become a tenured professor at Princeton University in the Department of Economics, I would guess that he knows a whole lot more than you do about what is or what is not crucial. Here’s what he said about AIG: “If a federal agency had [appropriate authority] on September 16 [2008], they could have been used to put AIG into conservatorship or receivership, unwind it slowly, protect policyholders, and impose haircuts on creditors and counterparties as appropriate. That outcome would have been far preferable to the situation we find ourselves in now.”

 

[sidbrown]

I really don’t think so. I tried to explain AIG’s insurance portfolio. But I guess sid really isn’t all that concerned about a father’s life insurance policy actually paying out, or a worker’s pension plan taking even less of a beating that it did.

All I’ve seen is just some old mantra’s about ‘fat cats’.

Let’s take a look at what Eugene Fama has to say about this. As you know, he is currently Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. And he co-authored the textbook The Theory of Finance with Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics winner Merton H. Miller. Fama has argued: that we should have let AIG fail, since ivestors and healthy banks would have stepped in to buy its assets and withing a week or so, the system would have been operating again.

 

[Brendan]

Let’s take a look at what Eugene Fama has to say about this. As you know, he is currently Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. And he co-authored the textbook The Theory of Finance with Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics winner Merton H. Miller. Fama has argued: that we should have let AIG fail, **since ivestors and healthy banks would have stepped in to buy its assets **and withing a week or so, the system would have been operating again.

Sure, that covers it’s assets. But what about the liabilites to the various pension funds that purchased insurance against stock losses.

What did Dr. Fama purpose be done with those? Should those pension plans have been allowed to fail? Especially when the fund managers did the right thing and attempted to cover the fund (and it’s paid in workers) by purchasing insurance.

Sure, defined benefit pension plans could have been taken over by the PBGC, and all those retirees would have seen their pensions cut by 40% (the standard for a government assumed pension). The plans with 401(k) would have been lost entirely.

So you would have other companies be able to buy AIG’s profitable business units at rock bottom prices, the government assume those defaulted retirement plans, pensioners recieve smaller checks, and have no way at all for the taxpayer to recoup any of it.

Is that what I am hearing?

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Socialism in action.

youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw

Pass it along

And that’s why I feel socialism is bad.

Bush had nothing to do with it. It was President Johnson and the then mayor of Detroit. 1961.

 

[schwank111]

The more socialism you have the more decisions are made for you by government. Even if the program were going to a good cause if you take away free will you take away the potential for it to be true Chairity, or Love. Love requires free will. Socialism takes wealth from someone and gives it to someone else, even if its against their will. The last time i checked that’s called stealing. I dont need a government telling me who i should be charitable to. I can figure that out on my own, and I do. I am in a very low income situation so I dont have to pay much tax but I still donate to the church and to charities where I think my money will be put towards the charitable acts I would like to fund. PEOPLE DO GIVE. more money is donated by people in this country to those in need out of sheer good will than money allocated and redistributed by the government to those in need. The only good government is one that strives to protect peoples freedoms at all costs. That must be the priority. “those who will sacrifice liberty for protection don’t deserve liberty or protection” - benjamin Franklin. If you look at history when people give their rights away to a centralized power the only way they get them back is by a revolution, and sadly most of the time that is violent. We must not be apathetic towards government. Because if we let it go and do not enforce the beautiful document of the constitution bureaucrats, big bankers, and big corporations will never stop trying to get more power and more power. The problem is not a free market, it is not capitalism, it is not the system of government outlined in the constitution. The problem is Our foreign policy, our war mongering, the false choice between left and right, and the number one problem is APATHY. People in this country are ignorant, and need to educate themselves on what our constitution says and what the founding fathers meant when they wrote it; how it works, and why it works. Don’t be fooled by the mass media. Stand up and be heard! Apathy comes before the fall.

 

[sidbrown]

Socialism takes wealth from someone and gives it to someone else, even if its against their will. The last time i checked that’s called stealing. I dont need a government telling me who i should be charitable to.

Well then, why the rush to steal money from the hard working low income taxpayer to bailout the fatcats of AIG so that they can receive bonuses of more than one million dollars apiece?

 

[tjm190]

Well then, why the rush to steal money from the hard working low income taxpayer to bailout the fatcats of AIG so that they can receive bonuses of more than one million dollars apiece?

The contracts those workers signed state they are entitled to X amounts of money if they meet Y performance standards. Those employees met those standards and received what they earned. Had AIG withheld that money, more government money could have been lost in a lawsuit.

 

[wabrams]

Well then, why the rush to steal money from the hard working low income taxpayer to bailout the fatcats of AIG so that they can receive bonuses of more than one million dollars apiece?

B/c the “low income taxpayer” really isn’t a taxpayer at all. If you recieve all or more in refunds and/or tax credits at the end of the year than what you paid out throughout that year, then you didn’t pay any taxes. Something like 45% of all working Americans fall into that category.

 

[sidbrown]

B/c the “low income taxpayer” really isn’t a taxpayer at all. .

Oh really?
You mean that the low income taxpayer does not pay the gasoline tax of 46 cents per gallon. He does not pay any of the state sales taxes? He does not pay any of the following excise taxes on imports such as:
Bicycles 11%
Brussel sprouts 12%
Cotton hammocks 15%
Infant formulas 18%
Flashlights 18%
Peanut butter 143%
Girdles and panty girdles 24%
Brooms 32%
Plastic school supplies 5%
And he dopesn;t pay any of the payroll taxes such as your Social Security tax, your Medicare tax, your unemployment tax, your workers compensation…
That’s news to me.
Do you have a supporting reference for your claim: “the “low income taxpayer” really isn’t a taxpayer at all.”

 

[CPA2]

Hello there! I’m a supporter of the United States becoming a socialist democracy, and having systems such as socialized health care.

Looking over this forum, most (if not all) of the members are strongly anti-socialist. Why?

Note: I do understand that abortion is evil if not done for (both physical and mental) medicinal reasons. If abortion is not funded, at all, would you be in favor of it?

The Catholic Church opposes socialism.

 

[Lampo]

The Catholic Church opposes socialism because it takes God out of everything.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Oh really?
You mean that the low income taxpayer does not pay the gasoline tax of 46 cents per gallon. He does not pay any of the state sales taxes? He does not pay any of the following excise taxes on imports such as:
Bicycles 11%
Brussel sprouts 12%
Cotton hammocks 15%
Infant formulas 18%
Flashlights 18%
Peanut butter 143%
Girdles and panty girdles 24%
Brooms 32%
Plastic school supplies 5%
And he dopesn;t pay any of the payroll taxes such as your Social Security tax, your Medicare tax, your unemployment tax, your workers compensation…
That’s news to me.
Do you have a supporting reference for your claim: “the “low income taxpayer” really isn’t a taxpayer at all.”

Hi Sid-
I believe the wabrams was referring to income taxes, not excise taxes. Employers pay for WC, 1/2 of Social Security and Medicare, 100% unemployment insurance.

I don’t know if you realize it, but your tone appears rude and defense to me. We can have a discussion without being sarcastic. I learn a lot more when I have an open mind to those who disagree with me.

 

[CPA2]

Hello there! I’m a supporter of the United States becoming a socialist democracy, and having systems such as socialized health care.

Looking over this forum, most (if not all) of the members are strongly anti-socialist. Why?

Note: I do understand that abortion is evil if not done for (both physical and mental) medicinal reasons. If abortion is not funded, at all, would you be in favor of it?

Communism is capitalism gone mad!

Monopolies cannot live without the power of government. I am only aware of one monopoly in the west that has survived without the backing of government, DeBeers. I challenge you to name more than one monopoly in the west that exists without the support of government! Good luck.

Communism is a complete philosophy of life. Communism is different from all other secular systems. Unlike other secular systems, Communism seeks to control man’s inner life. Communism is a doctrine of salvation! It wants to control the whole man, body and soul!

Congress believes in salvation by law. If only there were a perfect law, there would be a perfect society. The SEC gives detailed reasons why rules-based accounting standards are subject to manipulation. Wow! I never thought that the SEC would admit that rules do not work. There is an old cliché that says that the tighter you hold on to a fistful of sand, the more the sand slips through your fingers. I am not a rules oriented accountant. I am a principles and objective oriented accountant.

Communism is the final logic of dehumanization of man, such as we find in the practice of abortion. Communist China practices abortion on a grand scale, and so does the United States. I think that Communist China has found an ally in the United States in carrying out its abuses of dehumanization!

 

[tjm190]

Monopolies cannot live without the power of government. I am only aware of one monopoly in the west that has survived without the backing of government, DeBeers. I challenge you to name more than one monopoly in the west that exists without the support of government! Good luck.

the government ‘must’ actively break up monolpolies in emerging industries. U.S. steel did quite fine, as did most railroads, as did bell, as does Microsoft.

only natural monopolies, such as trash collection and water utilities, get government support generally speaking.

 

[sidbrown]

Hi Sid-
I believe the wabrams was referring to income taxes, not excise taxes. Employers pay for WC, 1/2 of Social Security and Medicare, 100% unemployment insurance.

I don’t know if you realize it, but your tone appears rude and defense to me. We can have a discussion without being sarcastic. I learn a lot more when I have an open mind to those who disagree with me.

What?
The fact is that everyone pays a lot of taxes and that the sales tax is regressive.