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Can we please stop talking about Cuba? Cuba is not the point, America is. Our economy sucks, our young people have very limited job opportunities, our rich people are getting richer while our middle class disappears. Capitalism is killing this country.
Three points here:
1
The private sector cannot compete with the public sector. Why? Because the private sector (the government) has no incentive to make a profit. The government takes money through taxes and uses it for whatever it wants or needs. It doesn't really have to manage money because there is always another tax source out there. Businesses cannot do this so they have to manage what the have because, unlike the gov't, they can't force people to part with their money in their own favor.
2
The gov'ts own statistics say that the poverty level in this county has remained in the 12% to 15% or range since the 1960s. This means that if the middle class is disappearing, its members are moving UP, not down. If they were moving down, the percentage of poverty would be getting larger and larger every year.
3
As long as people depend overly on the gov't to provide income, through direct payments or through laws about what pay should be, they will ALWAYS be dependant on the gov't. Why? People who know how to make money will always make money, regardless of what the economy is doing. They will because they have the "I can do it" mindset. The money will always from toward them. Also, if you choke the rich, many of whom provide jobs, no one can breathe. So, do what you want to the EVIL RICH, and watch yourself die!
2
The gov'ts own statistics say that the poverty level in this county has remained in the 12% to 15% or range since the 1960s. This means that if the middle class is disappearing, its members are moving UP, not down. If they were moving down, the percentage of poverty would be getting larger and larger every year.
Good post.
This also means the government "war on poverty" has been a failure along with the "war on drugs" and the "war on Afghanistan".......
This also means the government "war on poverty" has been a failure along with the "war on drugs" and the "war on Afghanistan".......
The wars on drugs and poverty fail because they are fighting the symtoms, not the cause. I would say the gov't makes more money from fighting these things then they would defeating them. This is especially true for the war on poverty. The Democrats are always saying to the poor, YOU CAN'T GET AHEAD, LET ME HELP YOU. This mindset keeps people in cyclical poverty. Don't get me wrong, we need to help people who can't help themselves or people who need a helping hand for a short time, but we need to separate the poor who constantly make bad decisions that keep them poor from the ones who are truly poor with few or no resources to get out.
As far as the wars, there has been so much bad management from both Bush and Obama - like not wanting to win - and using it as a political tool, everyone seems to be at fault here.
Who would benefit from this arrangement besides government?
Right on the money! (pun intended!). If I can't give you a rep point, consider + 1 here!
I just tuned into this thread and haven't read ALL the posts (will do so in a bit), but this one pretty much says it all.
I realize there is no such thing as a totally free-market system (unless, perhaps, one counts the "barter system" of primitive tribes and such! LOL). For one thing, people are imperfect and inevitably, can become dominated by those who will use its naturally moral worth -- freedom itself -- for immoral purposes. And, yep, (as we see today) government will become a willing partner to it all. Thus, the coziness of big government and corporate big business.
On a quick related tangent, I guess I am what could be called an ideologue. A Jeffersonian conservative! LOL
But regardless, while the free market system will never be pure nor perfect (Adam Smith said as much), it is infinetely better than ANY controlled and/or over regulated system.
The liberals/progressisves/ left never seems to get it. Notwithstanding that some on the left actually DO get it and use it to their advantage, all too many on that end of the ideological spectrum place an extremely naive trust in government to manage things better.
Thomas Sowell wrote a classic book, A Conflict of Visions, which dealt in depth on the whole phenomenon on not only economic but social issues, but it comes down to...welllll, a naive trust of government to manage peoples affairs better than the people can manage their own. For all its prattle about "power to the people", the leftist premise is anything BUT than people can be trusted to do anything right.
What IS government anyway? It is not some benevolent force and/or objective entity. As George Washington said, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master...
What is is, in reality, is the sum total of naturallly self-centered individuals whose livlihood depends on running things and managing them. Why in hell does any sentient person think that a collective of bureaucrats are going to have the public interest in mind when they too have to make a living and keep their jobs to feed their own families? And yes, like all of us, have ambitions and desires to better oneself and, yes again, make money?
How can anyone think different? (well, ok, some do..ala the thesis of Sowell mentioned above!). Simply put, this is the underlying lot of the reason for the failure of the grand "War on Poverty" scheme of the 60's. (Or scam, maybe). It created an "industry" of its own. Put another way, the paradox is that the very "system" put into place to "solve" a "problem" (in this instance, "poverty" ) did -- intentionally or not -- create a system whose very nature is dependent upon perpetuating the said problem.
That is to say -- concerning the above example -- it is in the best interest of real live human beings who are the reality of the government "powers that be" to actually KEEP people poor and on the welfare roles. Hell, if they "solved" the "problem", they themselves would be out of a job!
Anybody remember that "Mitch (something or other)" fellow who, back in the 80's was a "spokeman and advocate" for homeless people? Hell, the truth of it was that he made a good living off of it. He started some sort of tax-protected advocacy group in the name of helping the "homeless." When it came out that their figures of the actual numbers of homeless people were MUCH less than that touted by this group, they got hysterical.
Now. Break here. Wouldn't that be GOOD NEWS for them? That there were actually less living on the streets than they stated? Nope. On the contrary, it was BAD news...because it meant there would be less need for them to live off the donations of those who were taken in by that line.
The same can be said true of any other case and instance where it is presumed to believe government regulation and control is the answer.
Ok...after this rant and ramble of mine...is it beer-thirty yet?
Capitalism sucks. Period. I know that may sound shocking, but it's true -- at least of unregulated, laissez-faire "free market" capitalism. It screws the poor and middle class out of a decent living, while enriching the corporations that send our jobs overseas and making the fat cats even fatter. It is a disgusting, evil system based upon greed and avarice. It is based on the lust for more, more, MORE while stopping at nothing to feed that desire.
In a capitalist system, corporate execs will slash thousands of American jobs to add a few pennies to their annual bonuses. They will send skilled jobs to China and Cambodia, laying off American workers and forcing children to work in sweatshops for pennies per day. These soulless organizations will sell out American workers to save a pittance, reaping record profits while we grow more and more desperate. If people here are fortunate enough to keep their jobs, they'll see their wages slashed, pensions cut and benefits scaled back. When unions try to stand up for workers rights, the government moves in to bust the unions in the name of "saving money" (look at what's happening in Wisconsin). However, raising taxes on the rich and corporations is out of the question. The government gives corporate behemoths tax breaks and exemptions and even bailouts while cutting essential services like education and unemployment benefits. It is disgusting.
It's not just about jobs either. Take healthcare. A man works hard, goes to college, and gets a good job with health benefits. If he loses his "good job," he'll be out of luck, becoming one of the millions of uninsured Americans. At least in almost any other developed country, you don't have to worry about lacking health insurance because you lose your job. Also, what of all the people with pre-existing conditions - the private health insurance companies look for ways to deny them.
People keep talking about "high taxes" and how they don't want to pay taxes. I really don't get this. I'd rather pay higher taxes and get better services than save money on taxes and have to fight the corporate machine to get essential services like healthcare. I'd rather tax the living crap out of the rich and corporations to ensure everyone gets a free education, a living-wage job, a home, unlimited unemployment insurance and guaranteed access to free or very low-cost healthcare and prescription drugs.
Basically you seem to be under the delusio that the rich will actaulky pay fr all tht free stuff.Do you actaully undersatnd why the siviet union collpaed oe why china wne to capitalist ecvonmic ways to get their people two bowls of rice instead of one.You seem to be dilidng yourself that someone else will work hard to give you free stuff. You really should start beig rich if you beleive that as you will need you.
Can we please stop talking about Cuba? Cuba is not the point, America is. Our economy sucks, our young people have very limited job opportunities, our rich people are getting richer while our middle class disappears. Capitalism is killing this country.
Corporations are fleeing this country because of out of control regulation by the government. That same government that you want to hand control of this country to? I don't think so.
I'm saying profit should not be the primary motive in a business. Salaries and profits should be controlled enough so that the rich -- poor gap is much smaller than it is today. Government regulation doesn't always have to lead to shortages or increased prices.
Obviously you've been to college. You've swallowed the leftie mantra completely.
Yeah, Jim Crow laws would still exist, the South would still be third-world impoverished, kids would still die of polio and measles, factory workers would still work in unsafe conditions (if they had jobs at all), illiteracy would be over 20%, women would not have equal access to employment, special education would not exist, pollution would poison our rivers and blacken our lungs . . . . yeah, who needs those liberal initiatives!
By the way, before FDR, we were in the Great Depression!
This will not happen. But if it does, I will leave the country and beg for refugee status. I would not want to live in such an anti-American America.
1. Jim Crowe laws were initiated and protected by democrats
2. Vaccinations have nothing to do with liberalism. As a matter of fact, liberals, supporting the trial lawyer's association, has driven most of the vaccination production outside of the US due to litigation. Only two weeks ago were the vaccination manufacturers given protection from litigation.
3. Education- the standing of the US relative to other nations has steadily declined with the rise in power of the teacher's union and liberal policy.
4. "Special education"? So what. Just how has this made our nation stronger?
5. Child labor laws were initiated by TR, not liberals.
6. "Black lung" is a concocted "disease" created by the trial lawyer's association designed to bilk coal companies for smokers. I guess, given the fact that you are not a physician, you are not aware of the specific studies regarding "black lung".
7. Democrats opposed the civil rights movement (see George Wallace). Nixon initiated affirmative action.
8. The Great Depression was two years prior to FDR. The aggregate of US history, happened prior to those two years. Had liberalism been the predominant political leaning during those years, we would still be 13 colonies and the French, Spanish, and Indians would still own the majority of the US.
After the economic chaos of default/insolvency (courtesy of liberalism), the US will probably break into a few separate entities and will rise in power and stature again. The nation (what is left of it), will be educated in the destructive nature of liberalism and how fostering lethargy is certain death for the productivity of the nation.
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) did -- intentionally or not -- create a system whose very nature is dependent upon perpetuating the said problem. 
