The fatal flaw in political Marxism

Discussion in 'Politics' started by BennyF, Sep 18, 2011.

  1. John99 Banned Banned

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    I am not against universal healthcare but the money has to come from someplace especially on a scale of the U.S. I think other countries should help contribute to it.
     
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    If all small businesses have to play by the same rules, then there is no disadvantage to any particular business. You see?

    These rules aren't arbitrary, either. There are usually very good reasons for these regulations. Like when you see a sign not to put your hand somewhere? That usually means that someone did put their hand there and it got mangled. Corporations and businesses have to be watched because people are greedy and they will cut corners to make more money, and the result is often that people die. All the profits in the world won't mean shit to the middle class when those same people die or become disfigured or disabled because some slimy owner wanted to make a buck. You can research the history of the labor movement to see why these regulations are necessary.

    Banks have a long horrible history of screwing people out of their money, that's why they need regulations. If they can't handle it, they have no business being in business.

    Corporations aren't hiring people now because demand is low, not because they have to pay a little more to keep their employees healthy. The health care law isn't even completely in effect, and they aren't hiring, so what's your excuse now? We had 9 years of Bush tax cuts, so where are the jobs?
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2011
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Other countries have universal care and their costs are lower than ours, so explain that.
     
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  7. John99 Banned Banned

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    So you like yours "for sure". The other part is not really relevant.

    And yet we don't all think alike. I think what you are showing is that you want others to think like yourself.
     
  8. John99 Banned Banned

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    Explain what? What costs are lower?
     
  9. elte Valued Senior Member

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    The other part is everything to me. A neighbor can be killed by a thousand cuts, and not just in one strike. A system that winks at the former isn't much better than one using the latter.
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2011
  10. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The overall cost is lower, and the care is more accessible, since everyone is covered. It's not hard to understand, if you add the profit motive, it gets more expensive.
     
  11. John99 Banned Banned

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    How is it lower?

    A surgeon does not make money in those countries? The more people not working the more the working person will pay.
     
  12. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    What do you mean how? Everyone still gets paid very well, but there is no profit because it's run by the government. It's the same way a letter costs 50 cents by the post office, but $15 by Fed Ex.
     
  13. John99 Banned Banned

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    Getting paid is profit.
     
  14. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    No John99, it's not. Even in a non-profit organization the people still get a salary. Profit is what is left over after all your expenses are paid, including salaries. But someone does get the profit, either the shareholders or the owners.
     
  15. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    BennyF,

    Let's look at one sort of regulation, the prohibition on monopolies. When one company buys up other companies, not only can they charge more money for their product, since there is no competition, they also fire people, because you don't need people doing the same job. So even though a monopoly would help a particular company gain profits, the people lose and the middle class loses. This is why lack of regulation, like the removal of restrictions on media ownership, hurts job creation and hurts the middle class.

    Regulation creates jobs.
     
  16. BennyF Registered Senior Member

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    You lack the clarity of the written word that is the difference between the lazy and the literate. Your first phrase implied a comparison, using "the same rules" as the deciding factor, but the object of that comparison was unclear. Were you implying that one small business should be compared to another one, or that all the small businesses as a group should be compared to another group, say, the large- or medium-sized businesses?

    I usually charge for my advice, but this tidbit is free. Preview and read what you've written before you submit something. If you can, pretend that you're reading it for the first time and you will learn how people who are reading your words for the first time will perceive it.



    The law that requires Americans to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. It makes no difference whether the law is arbitrary or not.


    If people are greedy, then shouldn't greedy people who are in a position to confiscate other people's wealth be watched as well? When any religious leader asks his flock to contribute money to the poor, that's part of his job, because these contributions are made voluntarily, by people who care about the poor because their religious leaders told them that they should. When a government official seizes my tax refund or jails me on the grounds that I didn't buy a health insurance plan, that's NOT his job, that's governmental tyranny, the dictatorship of the proletariat..


    You obviously don't know the first thing about capitalism. Profits, by definition, are dollars (or other currencies) that a business takes in that exceed their expenses. If a business makes a profit, it then has extra money with which to grow, perhaps by hiring another salesperson, another clerk, another manager, or perhaps by opening up a branch office, requiring even more hiring. Businesses that have profits can also give pay raises, both as a reward to employees who have helped the business make those profits and as an incentive for that employee to continue helping the business make those profits.

    On the other hand, any business that can't even cover their current costs is taking money from the owners. Any rational businessman will either turn this situation around quickly or close up shop.



    Where do you keep your money? In a box under your bed? And where do you go when you need a loan to buy a car or a house? Your next-door neighbor?


     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2011
  17. BennyF Registered Senior Member

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    The American banking industry is a good counterexample. There is a repeating cycle to it, closely tied to the overall health of the American economy. When the banks are financially healthy, the big ones get bigger, sometimes by buying small banks and sometimes other companies that aren't banks. The country's number one bank, Citigroup (it was then called Citicorp), bought the Traveler's life insurance company in 1988. Other banks got bigger as well.

    In order to stay financially healthy, big banks started raising the fees they charge to do business with them. That created an opportunity for smaller banks, those without insurance company executives on their payroll. Many of them started doing business in local and regional banking markets, many of them charged the public smaller fees, many of them knew their customers' first names, and many of them developed banking products and services that were customized for their smaller customer base, like longer hours, drive-up tellers, small loans, and quick approval for those small loans.

    These new, small, and customer-friendly banks started taking customers away from the big banks. This is an example of the success of market forces. No government regulation was necessary to prevent a monopoly by one big bank or a group of them. Many of the government regulations that are on the books now should be scrapped. They're more than simply unnecessary. They're hurting business, which reduces the hiring they do, which increases the unemployment rate, and which will produce the unemployment of our current President if people vote their pocketbooks in November 2012, as they usually do.
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2011
  18. The Esotericist Getting the message to Garcia Valued Senior Member

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    It's NOT capitalism that got us into this mess, it's corporatism that got us into this mess. The day the supreme court ruled that corporations, nameless, faceless entities, have the same rights as individuals, the country started a downhill slide from which it hasn't recovered. Corporations have no moral or ethical accountability, and don't accede to public pressure. They only respond to one thing, share holders.

    Why should corporations be protected by the Bill of Rights? That is absolutely absurd. Yet it will be the death of this country, AND capitalism.
     
  19. BennyF Registered Senior Member

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    Any corporation that wishes to stay in business will respond to its' customers. Likewise, any President that isn't a dictator and that wants a second term will respond to his voters and their complaints about his policies and the health (or sickness) of the economy. A high unemployment rate, caused primarily by a shrinking middle class, is often the reason why Presidents don't get reelected. I've already explained the reason why the middle class is shrinking. I don't need to go over it again. Just read what I've written about who is in the middle class and why regulations and regulators can hurt businesses more than they help


    Corporations aren't mentioned in the Bill of Rights because they didn't exist in that form two centuries ago. Many companies did exist, and some of them were profitable, but a corporation has some of the rights of an individual, and this legal concept was unknown at the time.
     
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2011
  20. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    I would recommend a basic grasp of history

    I think some of our neighbors have already addressed that. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin; many Americans admire slave owners. It is part of the American heritage, something we all must reckon with.

    Life goes on, for the living.

    Is this really just about you, Benny?

    Or are you asserting that, regardless of what you or I might think about the implications of one's skin color, it has no consequence in society?

    Is it too much to ask people to at least be familiar with the history involved before going off on a paranoid rant?

    The public option wasn't going to happen. Meanwhile, the private health insurance industry was a scam; incidentally, this outcome was predictable according to Marx.

    But since the obvious solution wouldn't fly, they went with the Republican plan from 1993, which was eventually adopted in Massachusetts and signed into law by a Republican governor. The functional problem with that scheme is that it doesn't work unless everyone is in. Hence, the mandate that it seems nobody is happy with.

    But you're not doing any good for your comrades in dissent with this fact-free blather. Rather, you're representing the argument very poorly for not even having a basic grasp of history. That is, if you don't even know what's going on, why should anyone trust you to solve the problem?
     
  21. John99 Banned Banned

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    It is still profit.

    Amazing how you guys think. As corrupt as it is, kind of funny actually.
     
  22. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    John, please get an education.
     
  23. John99 Banned Banned

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    Spidergoat,

    Let me ask you a question:

    Does the Surgeon have a supervisor? I am gonna say yes. Does he get paid or work for free? Yet he never directly touched a scalpel. How about administrators?
     

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