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What does CAPITALISM mean to you? Do you like it or not?
Jasper,
I'm a little sad that you would buy some of this communism stuff. I have been in a couple of communist countries and our life in the States is much better.
What about human rights and religious freedom? I don't even want to toy with communism like the French seem to do at times. I don't mind the "sharing" part, but I don't think it encourages innovation and acheivement except maybe in sports...
I don't mean that I think you are a communist, but I hear a lot of anti-capitalist rhetoric being thrown around almost in the guise of playing the devil's advocate. It's insidious.
<< namely, central planning of the money supply and interest rates by the FED, which has ushered in boom-bust cycles for the last 80 years or so>>
There were boom and bust cycles long before that in the US (panics, depressions, etc.).
<<empty shelves in unlit stores, crumbling infra-structure, abject poverty, almost mediaeval farming practices, huge potholes in the roads and pavements, water supplies cut off between 23:00 hrs and 07:00hrs each day, openly corrupt officials and especially police officers>>
I wonder if the U.S. will be like this in a decade or so?
Dave Ramsey Homepage - daveramsey.com
Host of a nationally syndicated radio program discussing personal finance topics. Strongly emphasizes reducing, avoiding, and eliminating debt.
www.daveramsey.com/ -
What I used to like about Antimoon is that it would introduce me to some slightly different ideas.
It is interesting to come across an American who is not totally enamoured with the American way of life. In many ways 'Capitalism' is much harder in America than it is in many other countries of the world, where there are attempts to mitigate its worst effects.
America used to describe itself as being a 'Young Country' and that used to be the excuse for all sorts of things that were not perfect. Now there is a sense in which China is a 'Young Country'. A country that is being re-born.
<<empty shelves in unlit stores, crumbling infra-structure, abject poverty, almost mediaeval farming practices, huge potholes in the roads and pavements, water supplies cut off between 23:00 hrs and 07:00hrs each day, openly corrupt officials and especially police officers>>
Sounds like Africa to me. Africa is capitalist.
Rothbarian: "Jasper - the present American-style "capitalism" is actually corporatism, full of regulations and statist intrusions, starting from the income tax, compulsory social security, job licensing and anti-trust regulations, and ending with the feature that is perhaps most devastating for the smooth functioning of financial markets - namely, central planning of the money supply and interest rates by the FED,"
Rothbarian, actually, before the changes made in the 1930s, economic depressions were both frequent and deep. Let's see: there was the panic of 1907, the panic of 1892, the depression in the 1870s....
Damian:
Actually, the Wall fell in 1989, and Communism fell one year later in 1990. You were in Romania in 1999, quite some time after that series of events.
KT, it must be understood that I am close friends with someone who was smack dab in the middle of all that mortgage mess.
The trouble with Americans is that the Reps want to blame the Dems, and vice versa. I am a political Independent, so I am free to tell you that it was equally both their faults.
Have you been keeping up with the taxpayer $$loans to the banks? The banks issued millions of $$ in bonuses to their top people out of government money. Instead of being ashamed of accepting such welfare for the rich, the bankers were indignant: We earned this money! We have the talent! (Can you imagine the nerve of those people?)
Talent, my eye! Talent to run multi-billion$$ businesses into the ground? Why, they should have been FIRED!
I, too, have that kind of talent! KT, if you'll be kind enough to give me a $6million bonus, I'll be happy to run your business into the ground for you. And I'll do it with a smile on my face. ;)
Anyway, you have to keep in mind that it was bankers with this kind of narcissistic mindset who were pushing these kinds of loans. They really are living in a kind of bubble—people who have a sense of entitlement that won't quit. Modern-day Robber Barons.
The more loans they closed, the more money they made. It didn't matter how they got those loans closed—Close Those Loans, by hook or by crook. Do you have any idea what they did the Mexicans? It's downright wicked. I bet you don't even know about it.
I think that, because you're a Republican, you probably believe that it was all the homeowners' fault, but I assure you that it really did take two to tango.
Communism fucking owns ALL of you.
Communism > Antimoon
Союз нерушимый республик свободных
Сплотила навеки Великая Русь.
Да здравствует созданный волей народов
Единый, могучий Советский Союз!
Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
Дружбы народов надёжный оплот!
Партия Ленина - сила народная
Нас к торжеству коммунизма ведёт!
Сквозь грозы сияло нам солнце свободы,
И Ленин великий нам путь озарил,
На правое дело он поднял народы,
На труд и на подвиги нас вдохновил.
Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
Дружбы народов надёжный оплот!
Партия Ленина - сила народная
Нас к торжеству коммунизма ведёт!
В победе бессмертных идей коммунизма
Мы видим грядущее нашей страны
И Красному знамени славной Отчизны
Мы будем всегда беззаветно верны!
Славься, Отечество наше свободное,
Дружбы народов надёжный оплот!
Партия Ленина - сила народная
Нас к торжеству коммунизма ведёт!
Jasper says:
***Damian:
Actually, the Wall fell in 1989, and Communism fell one year later in 1990. You were in Romania in 1999, quite some time after that series of events***
That is exactly right.....the much despised and loathed Nicolai Ceausescu had been dead for nearly ten years when I and our school party were in Romania for the sole purpose of witnessing the eclipse of the sun, which was also total in parts of England as well on that occasion, but the Romanian weather is normally a lot more reliable than England's, and it was also a brilliant chance for us to further our education even more by visiting an Eastern European country which had been incarcerated by Communism for almost fifty five years.
The after effects of fifty five years of a very harsh, very restrictive form of dictatorship could not be eradicated over night, and even though the Communist regime had been swept away ten years before we were in Romania the residue was still very much in place in so many ways, as we discovered.
It was like going back about a hundred years or more in time in many ways. It really was quite an eye opener for us visiting from the UK as a school party - teachers and students alike - a cultural shock being quite an understatement. What I said we had experienced is exactly what we did experience.
Communism had sucked all the initiative and enterprise out of the people, and a blind adherence to a strict Muscovite ideology had obviously left wounds which were taking a very long time to heal. Even now it hasn't been totally dismantled, as official corruption is still in evidence in Romania it seems, and a friend of mine who went to Bulgaria last year )Bulgaria now being a popular holiday destination for Brits) a country just to the south of Romania, told me that corruption is still pretty much rife there, and a Mafia style clique still has quite a strong influence in the capital city of Sofia, a fact which greatly concerns the EU officials in Brussels, who have apparently issued an ultimatum to the Bulgarian government to get their act together or face a withdrawal of EU funding, or even expulsion from the EU as a very last resort.
Jasper - every instance of depression and panic prior to 1913 was always associated with the politicians granting some special privileges to selected banks in exchange for these banks issuing cheap credit (not backed by specie) to the powers that be to finance their projects. The existence of the gold standard somewhat mitigated these attempts. But the worst depression of the century came after the establishment of the FED and after a decade of reckless money printing (1920s). Later on it was further deepened and prolonged by abandoning the gold standard and introducing a host of interventionist moves, including bailouts, wage and price controls, etc. There is an ample literature on the topic, I recommend "America's Great Depression" for a start.
PS. What Damian said is exactly right - communism cannot be shaken off just by legal reintroduction of market economy - it poisons people's mentality and distorts their incentive structure for many generations. We still do not know how many generations have to come and go in order to shake off the mental after-effects of communism in its totality - some of the post-communist countries have already become quite enterprising, but none of them is exactly 19th century America.
"asper - every instance of depression and panic prior to 1913 was always associated with the politicians granting some special privileges to selected banks in exchange for these banks issuing cheap credit (not backed by specie) to the powers that be to finance their projects. The existence of the gold standard somewhat mitigated these attempts."
Roth, I really do think you've been reading some revisionist books.
Current economics thought suggests that the gold standard made depressions worse, not mitigated them, because adherence to the gold standard is depressionary in nature.
I am not an economics major; in fact, I consider economics a pseudoscience of a most egregious nature. However, some of the arguments against the adoption of the gold standard do make sense. To wit:
http://www.auburn.edu/~garriro/g4gold.htm
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