Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
As a business owner, it is certainly not the riskiest thing that I do. The riskiest thing that I do is borrow money to invest in growth. At the end of the day even I don't grow I am still stuck with the debt. I can fire the employee if I can't afford to pay for them. There is no regulation that forbids me from firing an employee that I can't afford to retain.
The riskiest thing you can do is borrow money at 5% interest?
1 thing for sure. EPA is used as a skilled weapon to manipulate business. u can close em or move em depending on what lobbyist is manipulating the politician for sale.
The riskiest thing you can do is borrow money at 5% interest?
Does/Can your borrowed money:
incur payroll taxes
sue you
require health insurance
get injured on the job
require liability insurance for said injuries
Absolutely, it does not matter if it is 5%. If you have to borrow money and you expend it on advertising etc. and you don't get a return you are still stuck with the loan and the money to pay it back is gone. Huge risk.
As for your employee scenario.
Payroll taxes - so what, if you don't have the employee because business is doing poorly no more payroll taxes.
Sue me? I don't know anyone who has not decided to hire another employee because they are afraid of being sued. That is ridiculous
Drop the employee. No more health insurance.
Workers compensation coverage is fairly cheap and you don't have to pay it after you fire the employee.
Sorry regulations are not what keep people from hiring employees. Demand or lack of demand is the reason people do are do not hire employees.
Ask anyone who owns a business what drives their decision as to whether to hire one additional person. It is need based on demand for the services or product they require.
Who said that socialism implies equality? Isn't that true of the US as well? The US and French revolutions were both about equality. In truth, socialism is about making sure that the economy meets human needs. It doesn't demand absolute equality of outcomes. The person cleaning ****ters will get payed more than he might today but the guy with the desk job will not be jealous because he will be compensated according to his labor, and he'll realize that he doesn't really want to be cleaning ****ters anyways, so won't be jealous of the janitor's money. What will end is the exploitation that basicly prevents unionization of low status workers and their exploitation economicly due to political and social factors. Somebody like the janitor or meat-processing plant worker can't demand higher wages because he has to eat, he is not completely free on his end in negotiating wages (and in many cases cannot effectively organize with other workers in similar circumstances), leaving him open for exploitation by his employers.
Socialism implies equality. It would be unfair if the s**t cleaner got paid more than me. We need to get paid the same. Where is my equality? What happens when everyone trains to become a s**t cleaner and their wages fall? Now you have to organize the retraining of s**t cleaners to doctors or other professions. What if the s**t cleaner is a family member or personal friend of the government official doing the organization? Do you worry that they'll get first dibs on the higher paying jobs?
Socialism implies equality in the broad sense. It doesn't mean that everyone will make the same salary or have the same job, just that the gap between the haves and have nots should be small. Providing a small incentive to take undesirable jobs is not against the principles of socialism.
Quote:
Same here. Defending in March 2012. We'll see where it takes me. Probably a postdoc abroad. Possibly remaining here in industry. I prefer academia because there are way too few libertarian/conservatives there, though I have to keep my political affiliation secret just incase there are folks in higher places who would not approve.
I'm shooting for academe simply because I love academe. It's interesting that you think conservatism is so rare there. At least in political science, it isn't, though liberalism is more common. Many political scientists, especially those specializing in international political economy or comparative political economy, are staunch capitalists. I'm worried that my socialist views may hurt me in the long run .
Quote:
Venezuela was almost always a big government controlled junta.
What's in bold is important to remember. What if Venezuela wasn't awash in oil reserves? What happens if the demand for oil stays low for even longer?
Of course the oil reserves certainly didn't hurt Venezuela's development. However, my argument is that the socialist system helped distribute the oil wealth fairly, rather than concentrating it in the hands of a powerful few, which is what would have happened under capitalism.
Quote:
Their socialist utopia has been crumbling coincidentally with the drop in oil prices.
As long as capitalism exists in the world, socialist countries will still be subject to market effects, directly or indirectly. True socialism cannot be achieved until global capitalism has been completely eradicated and replaced by an equitable system.
Absolutely, it does not matter if it is 5%. If you have to borrow money and you expend it on advertising etc. and you don't get a return you are still stuck with the loan and the money to pay it back is gone. Huge risk.
As for your employee scenario.
Payroll taxes - so what, if you don't have the employee because business is doing poorly no more payroll taxes.
Sue me? I don't know anyone who has not decided to hire another employee because they are afraid of being sued. That is ridiculous
Drop the employee. No more health insurance.
Workers compensation coverage is fairly cheap and you don't have to pay it after you fire the employee.
Sorry regulations are not what keep people from hiring employees. Demand or lack of demand is the reason people do are do not hire employees.
Ask anyone who owns a business what drives their decision as to whether to hire one additional person. It is need based on demand for the services or product they require.
Are you saying that payroll taxes and liability don't affect your decision making? The fact that you're stating that you can just fire employees to not incur these expenses, taxes and liabilities show that regulation is a drag on hiring.
Are you saying that payroll taxes and liability don't affect your decision making?
Why didn't you just quote Satan. That would have been reliable. Here is something more than anecdotal evidence. WSJ article that demand is the reason for less hires. I don't know why we are even having this conversation. It seems to me that this is simply common sense. Oh well.
You're forgetting that during the period of 1930-1980, we had a social-capitalist mixed economy, using Keynesian economics. The liberalization spree under Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II eroded economic regulations, resulting in the recession and huge spike in unemployment.
Why didn't you just quote Satan. That would have been reliable. Here is something more than anecdotal evidence. WSJ article that demand is the reason for less hires. I don't know why we are even having this conversation. It seems to me that this is simply common sense. Oh well.
So true. Low demand is why no one is hiring and why companies are laying people off. Businesses are amoral agencies. They don't care if they are ruining people's lives, all they care about is the bottom line. This is another reason why we need a socialist, planned economy and worker-owned cooperatives rather than capitalist-style businesses.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
. 
