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It is a ploy to get single-issue voters on Medicare for All, Guaranteed Basic Income (MMT), and Student Loan Forgiveness excited and register for the Democrats in the upcoming election. Many of them are young and have low turnouts in elections. It also is used to scare corporate donors to provide more financial support to the establishment Democratic candidates, Biden and Clinton.
I think the left wing of the Democrats are proposing more social welfare benefits, not socialism per se.
To say "I'm a capitalist" or "I'm a socialist" is meaningless in an era when the Western economies are blends of social welfare and highly regulated capitalism.
Should college tuition be free, or at least vastly reduced? Sure. As a hard core capitalist free enterprise libertarian type, I'm totally in favor. Stop building $100 million student centers, the $1 billion athletic facilities, and luxury condo-dorms. Fire the 75% of six-figure deans and administrative staff. Go back to being a school -- a few simple buildings full of classrooms with whiteboards, desks, and chairs, a few admin staff, maybe an infirmary, internet. You don't even need a bookstore in this day and age.
Colleges also need to be more selective. If 25% of the freshman class requires remedial English just to enable them to write a readable essay, they shouldn't have been admitted to a university; they should go back and do one more year of high school, or community college or night school.
High schools should force people to learn the Constitution, learn civics, learn history, learn a foreign language, cover chem, bio, and physics, learn algebra, trig, functions, and calculus.
Those who can't or won't hack it would leave after 10th grade and be tracked into a trade school where they learn something useful like carpentry, construction, welding, plumbing, electrical, etc. High paying trades that have a severe shortage today.
In my opinion, you never get something for nothing. We need an educated, skilled populace, not a lazy gimme-that populace that wants freebies.
I am not even sure of what free market capitalism is. People say free market will determine the price, but what if all of the companies are owned by 1 single company??
Look at expedia , it pretty much owns everything tht appears under the first page of google search.
Diamond sales - Signet group owns zales, hays, jamesallen etc.
IMO its only class divide than capitalism vs socialism usually either power or wealth vs the masses.
The last line in the attached image is an added bonus ( For people who think Clinton represents them )
Free market capitalism is the economic expression of freedom. Unfortunately, with a large, unconstrained federal government, it devolves into crony capitalism. The founding fathers were wise. That is largely the system we have now and is why Warren Buffett changes his political interests like the wind. He knows he can exploit bloated, corrupt government. Socialism, tyranny, corruption are easy - freedom is hard. The concept was likely lost with the imposition of the income tax in 1913 and the ill-advised creation of the Federal Reserve (not necessarily the concept of a central bank but the manner in which it was allowed to be created).
Look at expedia , it pretty much owns everything tht appears under the first page of google search.
Was curious so I typed "Flight DC to Paris" into Google search, the results in order=
1. Google Flights 2. Orbitz
3. Kayak
4. Iceland Air 5. Expedia
6. CheapoAir
7. Skyscanner
8. TripAdvisor
9. CheapFlights
10. Air France
11. Prokerala
Expedia is no longer involved with TripAdvisor, so as far as I can tell 18% of my results on the first page of my search on Google are owned by Expedia. I'm not sure "pretty much owns everything" is how I'd describe Expedia's impact on the first page of Google search.
It has nothing to do with unconstrained government. It has to do with regulators being captured by the industries over which they're chartered with oversight. The main reason is that the dominant companies in any industry are going to have direct financial interest in how regulations are shaped and enforced. Other firms in the industry will go along with the major players since it's also in their interest Other interests, including that of the public, are too diffuse to be able to effectively organize since the industry devotes budgets and full-time staff to lobbying.
One of the signs of a captured regulatory agency is the revolving door between the agency and the industry's key firms or legal representatives. There is the blurring of the line between the private sector and the government.
It has nothing to do with unconstrained government. It has to do with regulators being captured by the industries over which they're chartered with oversight. The main reason is that the dominant companies in any industry are going to have direct financial interest in how regulations are shaped and enforced. Other firms in the industry will go along with the major players since it's also in their interest Other interests, including that of the public, are too diffuse to be able to effectively organize since the industry devotes budgets and full-time staff to lobbying.
One of the signs of a captured regulatory agency is the revolving door between the agency and the industry's key firms or legal representatives. There is the blurring of the line between the private sector and the government.
Um, that sounds like a near definition of crony capitalism. I know! Let’s have a regulator regulate the regulating agency!
That’s all fine and well. Doesn’t change the reality that they will not be able to fund the social benefits of the older generation with the taxes of the smaller generation following them. Same problem that our SS system faces, arguably worse.
Can’t have it both ways - generous social benefits with no taxpayers to fund it. I’m all for the no kids part. I don’t want to pay 50+% in income taxes.
Expenditures in a modern large economy are no longer dependent upon tax receipts.
You got a problem with that?
Too bad.
It's been going on for fifty years now...and it's known as Modern Monetary Theory.
And it's here to stay.
How else can you run an economy where half the people pay no income taxes?
Wanting the excesses of capitalism to be reined in is not a march to socialism.
Excesses...?! Like what?? The “capitalist system,” also known as just reality, isn’t supposed to “work” for everyone, it’s supposed to provide everyone a fair chance to keep what they earn and be paid according to the market for the work they do. It’s not supposed to “work” for stupid, lazy losers. They should suffer and fail, because that’s life, it’s a very fair system. Dumb losers are at the bottom where they belong and smart winners enjoy whatever they can afford. That’s how it has always been throughout history. The only difference is these fat, lazy, stupid people who depend on handouts would have just been killed or eaten by wild animals in the past. That truly was the good old days - he who works, eats. Otherwise, stop stealing our oxygen.
Excesses...?! Like what?? The “capitalist system,” also known as just reality, isn’t supposed to “work” for everyone, it’s supposed to provide everyone a fair chance to keep what they earn and be paid according to the market for the work they do. It’s not supposed to “work” for stupid, lazy losers. They should suffer and fail, because that’s life, it’s a very fair system. Dumb losers are at the bottom where they belong and smart winners enjoy whatever they can afford. That’s how it has always been throughout history. The only difference is these fat, lazy, stupid people who depend on handouts would have just been killed or eaten by wild animals in the past. That truly was the good old days - he who works, eats. Otherwise, stop stealing our oxygen.
The idea that the only people failing under capitalism are the lazy, is a pretty over-reductive take. My wife and I can't from modest immigrant families, and now have a net worth of a few million in our early 40s.
A lot of it was hard work, studying to get into the top schools, planning to go into lucrative professions... but a lot of it was meeting the right mentors, coming across the right opportunities at the right time, etc. Things could have turned out very differently for us for reasons that have nothing to do with being "stupid" or "lazy".
Last edited by Mr. Zero; 05-09-2019 at 07:00 PM..
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I know! Let’s have a regulator regulate the regulating agency!
