It was a simple question, especially as he espoused that <quote>Capitalism has always been far too wasteful with resources<unquote> rather than the people that make up the system. It's one thing to say that some of the decision makers have been wasteful with resources... even always. Quite another to say that a system is too wasteful with resources.-wraith808
I'm not anti-capitalist, but I am for highly regulated capitalism. In the US, we suffer from amnesia every time our plutocratic overlords wreck the economy and send the bill to the taxpayers. In effect, banksters and politicians perpetually go to the market casino, gamble with our money, promptly lose it, and then turn to us to bail them out. We also export this same pain on much of the world because of how much US debt other countries own. Our government -- liberal or conservative -- gives corporations tax breaks to ship jobs overseas, tax breaks to bring their goods back into the country, and then more tax breaks in the form of
not having to pay taxes at all! Building the "best mousetrap" isn't the goal anymore given the current patent climate. Besides, the goal of capitalism is to increase profits, pure and simple, not to seek the best solution or to consider future repercussions of today's actions (drill baby drill! let me dump my toxic waste in your river, store my nuclear waste on your property, and so on).
The other thing that bothers me is <quote>excessive profit</quote>. What is excessive profit? Who decides that? One can ask these questions without being up in arms about the decisions that led to the current economic state. And that had little to do with capitalism, and a lot to do with the stupidity of investors, and the mentality that there's always someone that will come along that's stupider. Everyone was trying to ride the wake, instead of realizing that the wave's natural tide was being spurred by their actions, rather than this becoming the new norm.-wraith808
First,
excessive profit is the opposite of "dumping"; that is, where I charge much lower prices for the same goods you're selling just to run you (or your country) out of the business (of steel, microchips, etc.).
Excessive profit is when it's never enough. To squeeze another drop of money out of iPads, Steve Jobs is perfectly willing to let FoxConn workers die, or should I say, commit suicide. Really?! Necessities such as energy, food, healthcare, often government-sponsored, charge far more profit than they need to be richer than rich.
Extremely large corporate profits don’t necessarily translate into large amounts of personal wealth for anybody. Consider the fact that a company that has several billion dollars in profits — a lot of money, by anyone’s accounting — might have hundreds of millions of shares outstanding, spread across thousands (or even millions) of shareholders, and might pay out only a tiny dividend (say, a dollar per share). So a massive profit doesn’t necessarily translate into massive personal wealth for the investor. Our intuitions of fairness guide excessive profit. But we all know what a few monopolies in the sectors of energy, transportation, healthcare, insurance, education, and housing can do great evil in a short time.
My "allergy" to Socialism in it's purest form has to do with the implicit statement that makes that the government is my provider. I do believe in providing for the citizenry, but not at the expense of the individual. There's a middle ground that very few seem to be willing to see or espouse in the current global climate.-wraith808
No problem there as long as the rules are the same for everyone and practices the same capitalism. Governments are enablers of entities like Goldman Sachs, AIG, and large sectors of the economy (above) gaining extraordinary advantages over others. The greatest socialism of all is practiced by the banks -- if I know I can't fail, and if I do, the government will charge the taxpayer to make me whole again, then I can never lose. Ever. If Wraith or Renegade or Zaine goes broke in business, I don't get the benefit of a government-funded backstop. Goldman, AIG, et al. were lying and selling its customers (investors) pure trash, knowing it was trash, and then running to the market and betting AGAINST its own products -- knowing they would fail -- just to make a profit.
There's a long, long story in here about leverage, too. Let's just say if I gave you to opportunity to borrow a billion dollars to start a business, you might fail. But if I gave you the ability to to borrow $400bn, you'd have a hard time failing! And even if you did fail by making the worst decisions possible -- as the banks did -- then knowing that you'd get to keep your $400bn because someone else would bail you out (the taxpayers), even if you failed completely, you'd still profit and could call yourself a success. Wiping you out so I can succeed via fraud or incompetence is socialism at its worst. Not the guy trying to afford a needed operation on his kidneys.
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Sorry for the long-winded reply.
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