Why do you feel socialism is bad?

[josephdavid]

Did you have an error to point out or does approaching the issue logically rather than emotionally make me a corporatist?

Emotionally no? Look up what Corporatist is. Those bankers who are celebrating and handing out bonuses to the tuned of $160 billion, cause me to question their true love their their country who with out little question bailed them out and saved their businesses (i.e. their hide).

Their concern is their own pocket first and the state of their nation second if not a distant third. I feel regret and disappointment what they are doing. Corporatists who pay themselves first while they are driving down wages of their workers just to fill their wallets.

Do you support this? I hope not. I pray not.

 

[tjm190]

Emotionally no? Look up what Corporatist is. Those bankers who are celebrating and handing out bonuses to the tuned of $160 billion, cause me to question their true love their their country who with out little question bailed them out and saved their businesses (i.e. their hide).

Their concern is their own pocket first and the state of their nation second if not a distant third. I feel regret and disappointment what they are doing. Corporatists who pay themselves first while they are driving down wages of their workers just to fill their wallets.

Do you support this? I hope not. I pray not.

These are not “Oh, hey I think you’re doing a good job” out of the blue bonuses. When they agreed to work where ever they worked, they signed a contract. This contract laid out what they would be paid. Some of that is in a yearly salary. Some is not- to ensure the institution gets its money’s worth, some of their salary is met if they fulfill certain conditions.

Many employees, after the bailouts, preformed to the point where they earned the bonuses they agreed to. The institutions were legally bound to pay those bonuses, the workers well within their rights to accept them.

Almost all of the banks have repaid most or all of the TARP money they received- the sense of being cheated is highly misplaced. Your money was not wasted.

 

[CPA2]

Bureaucracy

“The growth of the bureaucracy, reinforced by the changing role of the courts, has made a mockery of the ideal expressed by John Adams in his original (1779) draft of the Massachusetts constitution: ‘a government of laws instead of men.’ Anyone who has been subjected to a thorough customs inspection on returning from a trip abroad, had his tax returns audited by the IRS, been subject to inspection by an official of OSHA or any of a large number of federal agencies, had occasion to appeal to the bureaucracy for a ruling or a permit, or had to defend a higher price or wage before the Council on Wage and Price Stability is aware of how far we have come from a rule of law. The government official is supposed to be our servant. When you sit across the desk from a representative of the Internal Revenue Service who is auditing your tax return, which one of you is the master and which the servant (Friedman)?”

References

Friedman, M., & Friedman, R. D. (1990). Free to Choose. New York: Harcourt, Inc.

 

[CPA2]

Unfortunately, most people do not know their directions when it comes to government promises. The end does not justify the means. The “means” is the end. Tell me the means and I will tell you the ending. Such is the beauty of economics. I am not interested in the government’s lofty objectives; I am only interested in the means they use to get there. If you want to help poor workers, abolish the minimum wage. If you want to protect citizens from violent crime, abolish the gun control laws. If you want to increase wealth and employment, abolish taxes.

“An individual who intends only to serve the public interest by fostering government intervention is led by an invisible hand to promote private interest, which was no part of his intention (Friedman).” The “invisible hand” is the reason Milton Friedman says that he is not aware of the government doing much good. The government heads west when it should be heading east.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone always pays for “free lunches.” Economics is interesting because economics reads like a detective novel. “Who done it?” Who benefits and who pays?

Adam Smith’s genius was that he recognized the value of voluntary exchanges. Voluntary exchanges produce a win-win situation. Both buyers and sellers benefit. The price that they agree upon is the market price, or the equilibrium price. Adam Smith said that a seller, seeking only his interests, and through no conscious effort, is led by an invisible hand to seek the public good.

The reason that the Catholic Church opposes socialism is because it is not voluntary. Socialism is coercion by the state. Folks, you may not force people to be generous, even if they are not generous.

 

[sidbrown]

So? They were given loans. If your company was given an emergency loan, and used that as an excuse to ignore a large part of your contract (such as the part saying you were entitled to a performance based bonus if you preformed XXX well), what would you do?

Regardless of what you would do, you would be entitled to sue. And there’s a good chance you would win. And you might win a good bit more than you would have made originally for your trouble. And of course, while suing you probably wouldn’t be working. So the company would suffer further. And of course, the lawyers your employer would have to hire aren’t cheap.

Bankruptcy laws do give companies some lenience- but the entire point of the bailouts were to keep key firms from having to declare bankruptcy.

Why should the taxpayer be forced to give loans to fatcats with million dollar bonuses when the average working man is being forced to foreclose on his house and the bank will not give him a loan of a few thousand dollars to stop the foreclosure? This is obviously a double standard of socialism for the fat cats who by the way are making salaries, not including the bonuses, much much higher than those of comparable executives in Japan and Europe.

 

[sidbrown]

Did you have an error to point out or does approaching the issue logically rather than emotionally make me a corporatist?

There error is socialism for the rich but not for the poor.

 

[sidbrown]

Bureaucracy

“The growth of the bureaucracy, reinforced by the changing role of the courts, has made a mockery of the ideal expressed by John Adams in his original (1779) draft of the Massachusetts constitution: ‘a government of laws instead of men.’ Anyone who has been subjected to a thorough customs inspection on returning from a trip abroad, had his tax returns audited by the IRS, been subject to inspection by an official of OSHA or any of a large number of federal agencies, had occasion to appeal to the bureaucracy for a ruling or a permit, or had to defend a higher price or wage before the Council on Wage and Price Stability is aware of how far we have come from a rule of law. The government official is supposed to be our servant. When you sit across the desk from a representative of the Internal Revenue Service who is auditing your tax return, which one of you is the master and which the servant (Friedman)?”

References

Friedman, M., & Friedman, R. D. (1990). Free to Choose. New York: Harcourt, Inc.

But is it mostly the rich and wealthy who are able to use tax loopholes to avoid paying taxes? For example, we have seen what billionaires such as Leona Helmsley have said: “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” Shouldn’t a billionaire pay at least a small tax and not be able to get off scot free paying no tax at all? I mean a billion dollars is a lot of money isn’t it? Even a million dollars is a lot of money. Actually, it is a whole lot more money than many people will ever see in a lifetime. Why do these millionaires and billionaires boast that they pay no taxes while it is only the little people who have to pay taxes? That doesn’t seem to be very fair to me. They don’t have to pay taxes and yet they get all of this federal aid bailout money, huge salaries and on top of their salaries which are larger than those made by executives in comparable positions in other countries, on top of their enormous salries, they get huge million dollar bonuses.
It seems like it is only fair to audit these wealthy fatcats who are paying no taxes at all, unlike ther rest of us poor little people who live day to day trying to make ends meet so that we can have enough food on the table to prevent our family from starving to death.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

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?

because socialism is theft.

it is nothing more than stealing from people who work, in order to buy the votes of those who dont. its the basic strategy of the left.

it will keep a group in power for a while, but no mommy state can last. they run out of money.

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 murder of an unborn child is profoundly evil. period.

 

[tjm190]

Why should the taxpayer be forced to give loans to fatcats with million dollar bonuses when the average working man is being forced to foreclose on his house and the bank will not give him a loan of a few thousand dollars to stop the foreclosure? This is obviously a double standard of socialism for the fat cats who by the way are making salaries, not including the bonuses, much much higher than those of comparable executives in Japan and Europe.

I presented a logical argument and you seem to have soared right past in your emotional fervor.

No ‘fatcats’ received money. Companies did. They used this money to continue operating. Part of operating is keeping your contracts. Then they made some profit and paid back their loans.

Do you understand the following-

It would have been illegal to withhold bonus money, from the firm’s POV.

Nobody has been robbed, most banks have paid their loans back. Most of those that have not have reliable plans to.

The banks won’t give that man a loan because they don’t think he can pay it. Do you want them throwing the tax payers money away on risky investments again?

 

[tjm190]

There error is socialism for the rich but not for the poor.

You have yet to demonstrate ‘socialism for the rich.’

Lots of poor people worked at those companies- the janitors at AIG got bailed out just as much.

 

[tjm190]

But is it mostly the rich and wealthy who are able to use tax loopholes to avoid paying taxes? For example, we have seen what billionaires such as Leona Helmsley have said: “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” Shouldn’t a billionaire pay at least a small tax and not be able to get off scot free paying no tax at all?

Fun fact- “New data Released by the IRS has just shown that the top 1% income earners pays more in tax than the bottom 95% combined.”

atr.org/top-percent-pays-more-taxes-bottom-a3619#

If the rich are trying to get out of paying taxes, they are doing one hell of a poor job.

 

[sidbrown]

I presented a logical argument and you seem to have soared right past in your emotional fervor.

No ‘fatcats’ received money. Companies did. They used this money to continue operating. Part of operating is keeping your contracts. Then they made some profit and paid back their loans.

Do you understand the following-

It would have been illegal to withhold bonus money, from the firm’s POV.

Nobody has been robbed, most banks have paid their loans back. Most of those that have not have reliable plans to.

The banks won’t give that man a loan because they don’t think he can pay it. Do you want them throwing the tax payers money away on risky investments again?

It is not true that all of this money which was “loaned out” will be paid back.
money.cnn.com/2009/05/05/news/companies/chrysler_loans/
Further banks supposedly giving back their bailout money are repurchasing their warrants for less than their market value.
See:
business.theatlantic.com/2009/07/bank_bailout_loans_become_partial_subsidies.php

 

[sidbrown]

Fun fact- “New data Released by the IRS has just shown that the top 1% income earners pays more in tax than the bottom 95% combined.”

atr.org/top-percent-pays-more-taxes-bottom-a3619#

If the rich are trying to get out of paying taxes, they are doing one hell of a poor job.

That’s funny because billionaires such as Leona Helmsley have said: “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.”
why should the little poor people such as myself and others have to pay taxes, when billionaires such as Leona Helmsley say that they do not pay any taxes? And then why do these billionaires go around begging for government handouts or bailouts. Of course they call them loans, but when they are paid back, in many cases they are paid back by warrants wrth much less or in dollars which are worth much less than their original value.

 

[CPA2]

The government has stopped representing us in many ways. Government represents whoever shines the most money in their faces, discreetly, of course. There are laws, after all. Yes, I blame the government, and their ties to big business.

There is a revolving door between government employees and big business employees. Government employees regulate their former employers! Economic research highlights the sad phenomena. That is why I say that the government is a government of special interests, by special interests and for special interests. It is no longer our government. The government creates special interests through their regulatory powers. We would be better off without all of the regulatory agencies.

 

[CPA2]

I only worked one hour a day at the LSU Department of Agriculture Economics. When I left I told the department head that he could fire 80% of the people and still get the job done.

I visited New Zealand for three weeks, mainly to see for myself the economic miracle brought about by privatization of the economy. A taxi cab driver told me that he once worked for the New Zealand government on a railroad line. The government hired 15,000 people, including him. Today private industry only uses 200 employees. I rode on that railroad.

 

[josephdavid]

The government has stopped representing us in many ways. Government represents whoever shines the most money in their faces, discreetly, of course. There are laws, after all. Yes, I blame the government, and their ties to big business.

There is a revolving door between government employees and big business employees. Government employees regulate their former employers! Economic research highlights the sad phenomena. That is why I say that the government is a government of special interests, by special interests and for special interests. It is no longer our government. The government creates special interests through their regulatory powers. We would be better off without all of the regulatory agencies.

That is why I say we no longer have a Democracy or Capitalistic society anymore. It is a Corporatocracy.

 

[CPA2]

That is why I say we no longer have a Democracy or Capitalistic society anymore. It is a Corporatocracy.

Milton Friedman’s book, Free to Choose, is my bible on economics. I told my wife yesterday that I want all of his books! His premise is that economic freedom does not exist with out political freedom. His book is a “classic inquiry into the relationship between freedom and economics.” The book changed many of my views. Here is another quote from his book, without the examples, of what we can do:

“Our founding fathers have shown us a more promising way to proceed: by package deals, as it were. We should adopt self-denying ordinances that limit the objectives we try to pursue through political channels. We should not consider each case on its merits, but lay down broad rules limiting what government may do…In order for a written, or for that matter, unwritten-constitution to be effective it must be supported by the general climate of opinion, among the public at large and its leaders. It must incorporate principles that they have come to believe in deeply, so that it is taken for granted that the executive, the legislature, and the courts will behave in conformity to these principles. As we have seen, when that climate of opinion changes, so will policy (Friedman).”

 

[CPA2]

The end does not justify the means. I happen to know of three families that the SS (Social Services) tore apart because of someone’s accusations of sexual abuse. Such concentration of power and abuse of power is unconstitutional. SS also violates the separation of powers. They are the judge and jury, much like the feudal lords were before the Magna Carta around 1225.

Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson saw concentrated government power as a great danger to the ordinary man. The 3 documents that support this view are:

1. Virginia Declaration of Rights – 1776
2. U.S. Bill of Rights – 1791
3. Separation of Powers (Executive, Legislative and Judicial)

What is Milton Friedman’s conclusion in his book, Free to Choose?

“The two ideas of human freedom and economic freedom working together came to their greatest fruition in the United States…We have been forgetting the basic truth that the greatest threat to human freedom is the concentration of power, whether in the hands of government or anyone else. We have persuaded ourselves that it is safe to grant power, provided it is for good purposes.”

“We are again recognizing the dangers of an over-governed society, coming to understand that good objectives can be perverted by bad means, that reliance on the freedom of people to control their own lives in accordance with their own values is the surest way to achieve the full potential of a great society.”

References

Friedman, M., & Friedman, R. D. (1990). Free to Choose. New York: Harcourt, Inc.

 

[josephdavid]

Fun fact- “New data Released by the IRS has just shown that the top 1% income earners pays more in tax than the bottom 95% combined.”

atr.org/top-percent-pays-more-taxes-bottom-a3619#

If the rich are trying to get out of paying taxes, they are doing one hell of a poor job.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[josephdavid]

Milton Friedman’s book, Free to Choose, is my bible on economics. I told my wife yesterday that I want all of his books! His premise is that economic freedom does not exist with out political freedom. His book is a “classic inquiry into the relationship between freedom and economics.” The book changed many of my views. Here is another quote from his book, without the examples, of what we can do:

“Our founding fathers have shown us a more promising way to proceed: by package deals, as it were. We should adopt self-denying ordinances that limit the objectives we try to pursue through political channels. We should not consider each case on its merits, but lay down broad rules limiting what government may do…In order for a written, or for that matter, unwritten-constitution to be effective it must be supported by the general climate of opinion, among the public at large and its leaders. It must incorporate principles that they have come to believe in deeply, so that it is taken for granted that the executive, the legislature, and the courts will behave in conformity to these principles. As we have seen, when that climate of opinion changes, so will policy (Friedman).”

So you subscribe to Supply Side Economics?