Zonie63
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Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
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ORIGINAL: Phydeaux
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
So, I'm supposed to sympathize with that? I'm supposed to care about the trials and tribulations of the ungrateful rich who earn 250k a year? As I see it, they still have 150k left if they're taxed 100k.
No, I said nothing about sympathy. I merely corrected you when you said government was a small expense. Its small or non existent if you're at the low end of the totem pole. It is rather large at the high end.
But why should anyone care if they complain about it? Why should it matter to anyone except the super-rich? Why should the vast majority of voters want to support a system which bends over backwards to placate the mafia?
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(And I know they didn't actually "earn" that much, because nobody in this universe is actually worth that much, except in the imaginations of all those special snowflakes who think they're "worth it." That's just an illusion based on faith, not reality.)
And you'd be wrong. I did some consulting for AT&T. One of their data centers that typically processed 10k a second in transactions was down. I charged them $1000/hr, and got their servers back up in 4 hours, with no data loss.
Do you really think I didnt earn it? Do you know how many people know failover mechanisms on unix? Or can debug large scale raid (although I forget the technology name). Considering my fee was equal to less than 1 second of transactions - I'm pretty sure I earned it.
Well, you were there; I wasn't, so I'll take your word for it. As to whether you "earned" it, that's all relative. Does AT&T "earn" its money for the services it offers? Is it really worth it to their customers?
I have no idea how many people know failover mechanisms on unix, but if their numbers are as few as you suggest, why would they even bother to use that system? I think that's a fair question, as many years ago, I used to work for a long-distance company, and they had a system which worked perfectly fine, yet some bozo decided they wanted a new system that was fraught with glitches and never-ending problems which was frustrating to everyone who had to use it, including the customers.
Everyone thought the software engineers were idiots, since they imposed this system upon us which they thought was just "wonderful" when it was total dogshit. We'd tell them there were problems, and either didn't want to believe they were capable of making any mistakes (which is a common theme whenever one calls technical support), or they just didn't care. Did they "earn" their salary? If they were making more than $1.98, then it was too much.
Most computer software just seems like overpriced crap to me. Just because they're able to sucker people into believing that it's "worth it" does not mean that it is.
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In the same fashion - a baseball player that makes 60 mil a year isn't from the owners goodness of his heart. He earns it.
I wouldn't be so certain of that. Not every sports team owner is in it for the money; they just like the idea of owning a sports team as a matter of prestige and pride.
Still, since you brought it up, that's another area where the prices are too high. Just because a bunch of suckers are bamboozled into thinking that a ticket to a baseball game is "worth it" doesn't mean that it is. Again, it's all based on illusion, not on reality. As long as the illusion holds, then people will give their money. But that's still a far cry from actually "earning" it. A con man who has a talent for manipulating and suckering people doesn't "earn" his money. He steals it. That's the difference.
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You make it sound like food and shelter are luxuries.
If thats what you got from what I wrote, then you didn't understand what I wrote.
Okay.
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Perhaps it's better to give people a choice.
We agree. Thats why I am opposed to government generally. A business you have the option of using their services -or not. (Which, by the way is why monopolies are bad - becuase a lack of competition puts a business in the same position as government - you are compellled to used their service.
So, then, you agree that for every product and service available on the free market, the government should provide a lower-priced alternative? A lot of businesses and free-market types actually balk at that sort of thing, since they think it's unfair competition. Who's going to want to spend $1000 a month for an apartment when the government can provide the same exact thing for $100 a month?
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Government, unlike business, rules by fiat. If you don't do what the government says, they have the ability to take your money, your property your liberty, your life.
Not our government. Our government is elected democratically and is duty-bound to carry out the will of the people.
It's the mafia (aka private business) which rules by fiat, at least as far as they can get away with it (which they often can, because they can bribe government officials and they have enough shills out there arguing that the "private sector is better" to keep the public confused). Business is a scam. It always has been; always will be. They are liars, cheaters, manipulators, thieves, and (if they don't get their way) murdering thugs. Read the history of private business in this country, starting with plantation owners and then working your way through. Read about railroaders and robber barons. Read about strikebreakers and monopolists (which you say you're against, but it requires the "evil" government to prevent it, since those bastards are incapable of self-restraint).
The government is needed to protect the public from the private sector. They're the only ones who can do it. Business are the ones who rule by fiat, and it's only been since the FDR years that the government has been able to rein them in to a level that was tolerable (and beneficial to the people). Now that conservatives have been slowly doing away with those reforms, the economy has gone sour again.
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Regarding your hypothesis that government could do it cheaper - have you ever heard of an example of the government doing it cheaper than private enterprise? Please give examples.
I think if we compare our healthcare system to countries with socialized medicine, we find that the quality is better and is far less expensive.
We disagree, for the reasons I've enumerated in this thread many times.
It's not a question open to disagreement. This has been proven. The quality of European healthcare is far superior to ours, and far cheaper.
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Also, have you ever seen a privately-owned army defeat an army controlled by the government?
Yes. Iraq comes to mind.
Syria.
American Revolution.
French revolution
Communist revolution
Oliver Cromwell.
Vietnam.
Communist China.
The list goes on and on. Wrong at the start, your theory cannot be right at the finish.
A list of uprisings by the people is NOT what constitutes a privately-owned army. I think you're going to have to do better than this, or at least offer more elaboration.
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Finally, if socialism (what you are advocating) is so good - why do people flee every place it has ever been tried? Cuba is a socialists paradise. Free healthcare, free education. But food is scare, poverty is everywhere, and anyone with any sense makes a 90 mile boat ride.
With all due respect, I never really considered this kind of argument to be all that valid...
One thing you really can't deny is that, wherever a country has overthrown its previous capitalist regime and implemented socialism, they were still far better off than they were under the previous regime.
Of course I can deny it.
You can deny that the world is round, too, but that doesn't make it so.
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Lets take Venezuela, for example. Previously one of the highest per capita incomes in South America. Do you really think they are better off?
The countries of Latin America have generally been poor and not very well-off, much of it having to do with our own hegemonic policies over the region. I don't see any real evidence that life for the average person is any worse off in Venezuela, although there may be some internal flaws or faults in their system which have to be addressed. A lot of these countries have also been very corrupt, and the legacy of corruption in Venezuela may also be a stumbling block.
That's why it's vital for a country to be proactively heavy-handed against corruption in society, but that's where the free-market types fail us again, since they argue that corruption is a necessary evil in business and don't believe society should do much to stop it. They'll run interference and protect the corrupt at all costs, and that's where they are wrong.
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It reminds me of the old joke:
Q: What did socialists do for light before candles?
A: Lightbulbs.
Oh, how droll. That's good; hadn't heard that one before.
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Then there's China, which was a total mess for the first half of the 20th century. Japan had them on the ropes all during WW2, yet look at how powerful they became in a very short time after the 1949 Revolution.
All your examples are faulty.
That's your opinion.
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But lets consider the example exactly of China. 40 million people were killed under Mao's great leap forward.
But fine - lets ignore that.
Capitalists have blood on their hands, too. All it goes to show is that neither system holds the moral high ground and that the only effective basis for comparison is how good it does for the aggregate whole of the nation.
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Here is chinese per capita gdp: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp-per-capita Click the max button to see the history.
You can see that per capita GDP is flat up until 1980. It wasn't until after Nixon "opened" china that china started to bloom - and really after the capitalistic reforms of deng Xao Peng.
And our economy didn't start to bloom until after FDR implemented his socialistic reforms.
Besides, there is more to measuring the well-being of the population other than GDP per capita. That you're trying to limit the discussion to just a single indicator is not telling the entire story. You're not being intellectually honest here.
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Either way, the per capita gdp does not pass $1000 till 1995 or so. So the idea that china got better after switching to communism/socialism - is flat out wrong.
Maybe if you took your nose out of meaningless graphs and charts and actually read some real history about what China was like before the Revolution, you might see differently. How well off was China during the Opium Wars or the Boxer Rebellion? Are you saying they were better off back then under capitalism? Or how about under the corrupt warlords of the Nationalist regime? Do you think life for the average Chinese person was better under Japanese occupation?
Hell, at least the communists knew how to defend their own fucking country, something that capitalists are woefully incompetent at.
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It was only when they decided to allow capitalism, so long as it did not challenge communist party rule - that they started to prosper.
And it was only when we decided to allow socialism (1940s) when our country started to prosper. When Nixon and Reagan led a reactionary movement against those progressive policies, the country has declined rapidly to the point where we're in dire straits today. China will surpass us. What does that tell you? Capitalism simply doesn't work.
< Message edited by Zonie63 -- 4/16/2016 10:52:29 PM >
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