2012 Presidential Race

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Originally Posted by janvanvurpa

No, you still need to answer why Capitalism fails every few years, maybe from where ever you move to.

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And that's not all, the best part of it is that when that happens we get a

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

And by Winston Churchill..

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

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meaning that the poor get to share the loses due to the failure of the rich, but never the profits!

Capitalism is failing for one reason, because what we have today it is not what capitalism was at it's inception, what we have today is a system that is not based anymore on production of goods and services, instead we have a system based on production of money without the required production of added value to support it. We are living in a sick system and we are all going down the drain, some faster, some slower, but without changes we will all finish in the same sh!t.

I haven't seen anything offensive until the claims of it being offensive!

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

Janvan,
What you refuse to admit is that capitalism is the only economic system to ever show consistent and an increasing of better standings of living. As tough as the economy gets, capitalism still shows hope and growth. Why ? Because it works !
No other system has shown such great progress and improvements in production, technology, growth, etc.

It focuses on free enterprise and individual rights. It has worked better than government "socialized" programs. The less government is involved in our lives, the better off we are. The Constitution was written to protect man from the government and the Bill of Rights was actually written as an anti-government document to give individuals rights superiority. The government's first job is to protect our lives, not run them. I dont know how you cant see that...

Thomas Jefferson said it good... "Government that governs least, governs best.

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Inflation-adjusted wages for most people in the USA have changed slightly over a few decades. In the same time, pay at the top has quadrupled. So much for trickle down economics.
It's the Inequality, Stupid | Mother Jones

I personally support a mix of responsible capitalism and moderate socialism, which has enabled countries like Norway to have very high standards of living for everyone, and contributes to their low crime rates.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

I think that's rather harsh. Ill-informed, certainly, and not especially well-educated, probably — but not 'crazy' in this instance.

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Ah, but I said "seems"--and "like" as in "as in, ".. Truth is this guy speaks in 'code -words" and I know what he means with his phrases..and all i can say is Tsk tsk tsk..... Maybe a haruph thrown in for good measure.

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

No other system has shown such great progress and improvements in production, technology, growth, etc.

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Except for the mixed economic system, which to date delivered the industrial revolution, the discovery of four continents (from a European perspective) and the establishment of the basis of most western law and mode of thinking.

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

It focuses on free enterprise and individual rights. It has worked better than government "socialized" programs. The less government is involved in our lives, the better off we are.

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Presumably you drive a motor car. Also presumably you are aware of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways which is the single biggest "socialized" program in history and cost roughly $568bn in 2012 terms. Without it, the United States would cease to function and yet so many private firms use it as a delivery system for all manner of goods and services.
If you think that any private system of roads at more than 47,000 miles would have even been built at all, then I would like to hear your reasoning.

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

The government's first job is to protect our lives, not run them. I dont know how you cant see that...

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Maybe because the word "government" is the noun derived from the word "govern". To govern means to enact and oversee policy and planning, which usually also happens in conjunction with a rules making authority.

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

And for the record I also love Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter.

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I would have been surprised, disappointed and confused if you'd said otherwise. Oh, and don't forget about Michele Bachmann. Surely if you love those other two, you gotta have a hunka, hunka burnin' love for Micky.

Amirite or amirite... or amirite?! :)

P.S. How do you feel about Laura Ingraham? Way back in the day (when dinosaurs still roamed), Laura was in law school at UVA while I was working on my MBA there. She wasn't really famous back then and I only knew who she was because she was very striking (about 5'10"+/- and pretty darn hot back then)... and she'd made something of a name for herself at Dartmouth (going after gays, when her brother was gay). Even then she was known to be kind of wingnutty, kooky and angry (even though UVA is/was a pretty conservative school). But you'd have probably liked her a lot too.

Reason(verb):

1. Think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic

2. Find an answer to a problem by considering various possible solutions

3. Persuade (someone) with rational argument

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

I never could reason with a liberal...lol

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Judging by the above definition, I don't think what you've posted in this thread and the 9/11 thread qualifies as reasoning.

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Originally Posted by janvanvurpa

No, you still need to answer why Capitalism fails every few years,

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Capitalism has never failed. Only people who think they have a better idea on how people should live their lives fail.

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

Capitalism has never failed.

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Ah another Tony the _________ flat assertion that flies in the whatever of the historic record.

Maybe you can go and rewrite all these articles, you being the expert on all history of everything:
he following 36 pages are in this category, out of 36 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).

2 2007–2009 recession in the United States[/*:m:shpy7v50] 2010 Flash Crash[/*:m:shpy7v50] B Baring crisis[/*:m:shpy7v50] Black Friday (1869)[/*:m:shpy7v50] Black Monday (1987)[/*:m:shpy7v50] D Dot-com bubble[/*:m:shpy7v50] E Economic effects arising from the September 11 attacks[/*:m:shpy7v50] F Friday the 13th mini-crash[/*:m:shpy7v50] G Global financial crisis in November 2008[/*:m:shpy7v50] Global financial crisis in October 2008[/*:m:shpy7v50] L List of recessions in the United States[/*:m:shpy7v50] O October 27, 1997 mini-crash[/*:m:shpy7v50]

P Panic of 1792[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1796–1797[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1819[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1825[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1826[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1837[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1857[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1866[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1873[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1884[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1893[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1896[/*:m:shpy7v50]

P cont. Panic of 1901[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1907[/*:m:shpy7v50] Panic of 1910–1911[/*:m:shpy7v50] R Recession of 1937–1938[/*:m:shpy7v50] Recession of 1958[/*:m:shpy7v50] S Savings and loan crisis[/*:m:shpy7v50] Silver Thursday[/*:m:shpy7v50] Stock market downturn of 2002[/*:m:shpy7v50] T Toxic security[/*:m:shpy7v50] U United States bear market of 2007–2009[/*:m:shpy7v50] United States policy responses to the late-2000s recession[/*:m:shpy7v50] V

Of course that would require clicking and reading the links, far more trouble than one lines plucked from the Florida air..

What kind of air do they have in Florida?? :idea:

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

Capitalism has never failed. Only people who think they have a better idea on how people should live their lives fail.

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What does that statement mean?

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

What does that statement mean?

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First, capitalism is an economic system and not a political system or form of government. This thread, supposedly, is about the pending American presidential election. So let's not confuse them.

Tony is correct that capitalism has never failed. From time to time the system renews itself by shedding dead wood (investors stupid enough to think good times last forever, among others) and then moves on. True, it can be a little rough on some. What it has done is provide long term economic growth - with emphasis on the "long term" part. It gives people and companies the freedom to fail and the freedom to win big. It is the only system which allows countries like China, once they adopted a version of it in their manufacturing, to become economic power houses. It has allowed the US to lead the world economically for a century.

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Originally Posted by Starter

Tony is correct that capitalism has never failed.

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Of course he is.

There has never been even a single completely laissez-faire system, in the history of the world. I concede that "capitalism has never failed" largely because a purely capitalist system has never existed.

"A fully free economy, true laissez-faire, never has existed,"
Capitalism: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics | Library of Economics and Liberty

"This tension helps explain why capitalism in its putative ideal form - of laissez-faire state and completely free market - has never existed and doubtless can never exist."
- Stanley Buder, Capitalizing on Change: A Social History of American Business (2009) Pg13.

Nice work in affirming the consequent, which is a formal fallacy by the way. You may as well say that Gordon Shedden's Honda has not crashed at all in this year's Formula One season.

I wonder what all this abstract theorizing has to do with 2012 US Presidential elections and what happened to the nasty threats from Pino to ban ANYBODY making off topic posts?

(somebody could point out that that is precicely the tactics the right wing extremeists have done to steer the whole dialog in USA away from POLICY involving real stuff, like building highways, or taxes for curing the yawning gaping educational failures we see in evidence here, over to a theoretical discussion of what they imagine the sysytem once was, should have been, and maybe one day can be returned to, theoretically... so somebody could point out that we have had a microcasm unfolding right here mirroring the external world: Good thinking from all over the world, resisted by monumental refusnik, pseudo-religious-nationalistic blather, and pointless empty assertions of a particular skewed view, really just an expression of contempt for others.
As I said, somebody could point that out..

Because Shirely I could not comment

No previous candidate in recent history has been in net negative territory on favorability at this point of a campaign.


A review of Pew Research Center and Gallup favorability ratings from September finds that Romney is the only presidential candidate over the past seven election cycles to be viewed more unfavorably than favorably.

Swing Voters’ Views of the Candidates: Romney is hard to like

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Originally Posted by Starter

Tony is correct that capitalism has never failed.

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I refer you to what Rollo wrote above. It is very hard to find any example of pure, unadulterated capitalism in action in terms of government policies.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

I refer you to what Rollo wrote above. It is very hard to find any example of pure, unadulterated capitalism in action in terms of government policies.

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OK, let's rephrase it as "capitalism as practiced in the US". Kinda nit picky though, we all know what was meant.

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Originally Posted by Starter

OK, let's rephrase it as "capitalism as practiced in the US". Kinda nit picky though, we all know what was meant.

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No we only have dim idea of what was asserted

Well Capitalism as practiced in the US has had failures. The dust bowl; the great depression?

Mark, please don't confuse this barbeque with facts!

http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/i...6dc67814/l.jpg

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Originally Posted by Starter

OK, let's rephrase it as "capitalism as practiced in the US". Kinda nit picky though, we all know what was meant.

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Not nit-picky at all, since this element of the discussion has clearly moved on to one not solely about the US. And, in any case, the assertion that all capitalism as practiced in the US is entirely 'laissez-faire' is still nonsensical.

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Originally Posted by Mark

Well Capitalism as practiced in the US has had failures. The dust bowl; the great depression?

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The dust bowl???
I think you pulleth our legs.

:D

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

Not nit-picky at all, since this element of the discussion has clearly moved on to one not solely about the US. And, in any case, the assertion that all capitalism as practiced in the US is entirely 'laissez-faire' is still nonsensical.

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As I noted in post #365. I wasn't the one who took it off track (this time ;) ), that was done while I was enjoying our great southwest.

"When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous."
- Mitt Romney as quoted in the LA Times, 23 Sep 2012
Mitt Romney pulls in $6 million at Beverly Hills fundraiser - latimes.com

What is this I don’t even...

Maybe it's because airplanes travel at heights more than 29,000ft where the air is less dense and needs to be pressurized to keep the occupants breathing. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that allowing the windows to be opened would create lots and lots and lots of holes that need to be sealed, and having them leak pressure is not desirable.

This is cloud-cuckoo-land territory.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

Not nit-picky at all, since this element of the discussion has clearly moved on to one not solely about the US. And, in any case, the assertion that all capitalism as practiced in the US is entirely 'laissez-faire' is still nonsensical.

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That's the case now and it has been since there was a United States.
Modern "conservatives", many as astute as we see here to our continuimg amazment and dismay---being bereft of any history, forget just how much all US Governments have given away things---for the betterment of the commonwealth.

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Canal land grants:
Total 4,424,073.06 acres (17,904 km²)

Railroad Grants:
The first grants were given to the Mobile and Ohio and Illinois Central Railroads in 1850.^[2] Additional grants were made under the Pacific Railway Acts between 1862 and 1871, when they were stopped due to public opposition. In total, 79 grants were made, totaling 200,000,000 acres (810,000 km²), later reduced to 131,000,000 acres (530,000 km²).^[2]

Homestead Act, free land just given away:
Eventually the federal government granted 1.6 million homesteads and distributed 270,000,000 acres (420,000 sq mi) of federal land for private ownership between 1862 and 1934, a total of 10% of all lands in the United States.^[4] Homesteading was discontinued in 1976, except in Alaska, where it continued until 1986.

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People and Governments them were not this neo-corn-servative "every man for himself and all against one" repulsive sickening greed mentality which some, beneficiaries of generations of shared giving by the Government, rant and rave against, now that they're fat dumb and happy.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

"When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous."
- Mitt Romney as quoted in the LA Times, 23 Sep 2012
Mitt Romney pulls in $6 million at Beverly Hills fundraiser - latimes.com

What is this I don’t even...

Maybe it's because airplanes travel at heights more than 29,000ft where the air is less dense and needs to be pressurized to keep the occupants breathing. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that allowing the windows to be opened would create lots and lots and lots of holes that need to be sealed, and having them leak pressure is not desirable.

This is cloud-cuckoo-land territory.

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This reminds me of when George H.W. Bush visited a grocery store and asked the cashier what the bar code scanner was, :confused:
only stupider and more disconnected. :laugh:

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Originally Posted by Rollo

"When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous."
- Mitt Romney as quoted in the LA Times, 23 Sep 2012
Mitt Romney pulls in $6 million at Beverly Hills fundraiser - latimes.com

What is this I don’t even...

Maybe it's because airplanes travel at heights more than 29,000ft where the air is less dense and needs to be pressurized to keep the occupants breathing. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that allowing the windows to be opened would create lots and lots and lots of holes that need to be sealed, and having them leak pressure is not desirable.

This is cloud-cuckoo-land territory.

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Rollo, you are a very intelligent person. You often opt to pick too soft targets for your critique, though and that, in my eyes, somewhat diminishes the value of your contribution to the discussion.

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Originally Posted by janvanvurpa

That's the case now and it has been since there was a United States.
Modern "conservatives", many as astute as we see here to our continuimg amazment and dismay---being bereft of any history, forget just how much all US Governments have given away things---for the betterment of the commonwealth.


People and Governments them were not this neo-corn-servative "every man for himself and all against one" repulsive sickening greed mentality which some, beneficiaries of generations of shared giving by the Government, rant and rave against, now that they're fat dumb and happy.

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Conservatives, neo-conservatives, right, left, center... I believe we are confusing ourselves by sticking to the political vocabulary of the last two centuries to describe and analyse the modern day reality. These days various segments of the society group themselves along different lines and that traditional left/right paradigm no longer works. Even in the world of economics the lines of division between the free market and government regulation are very mich blurred. It's about time to refresh our thinking.

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Originally Posted by Rudy Tamasz

Conservatives, neo-conservatives, right, left, center... I believe we are confusing ourselves by sticking to the political vocabulary of the last two centuries to describe and analyse the modern day reality. These days various segments of the society group themselves along different lines and that traditional left/right paradigm no longer works. Even in the world of economics the lines of division between the free market and government regulation are very mich blurred. It's about time to refresh our thinking.

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I agree. The labels are useless and are 'code words" anyway.. The use of the words is intended to be like a 'recognition sign" and supposed to infer some kind of complex shared set of beliefs, but its rediculous..

What would you suggest calling these "theoretical social Darwinists"?

I know what I would call them but the moderators in their selective enforcement already dish out absurd warnings and threats of lifetime bannation so I gotta keep "clam".

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Originally Posted by janvanvurpa

I know what I would call them but the moderators in their selective enforcement already dish out absurd warnings and threats of lifetime bannation so I gotta keep "clam".

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I am glad to read that and while here, I want to inform you that those threats about off-topic posts were referring to that particular thread. So please stop mention that all the time thank you.

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Originally Posted by pino

I am glad to read that and while here I want to inform you that those threats about off-topic posts were referring to that particular thread. So please stop mention that all the time thank you.

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Well we only can go by what we read that you wrote... you seem pretty selective and "generous' with your demerits as many others have commented on that over the years, and I've been given "demerits" or whatever you call them merely for saying things "seem" like something or for agreeing with Bdunnel...
Quite an inhibiting presence you and several others bring to honest discussion.

Perhaps you could be a little clearer and trouble yourself to answer when people take their time to honestly inquire what specifically you mean or was "offensive' when you're barking out your warnings, because we can't just guess what you mean..

Can we keep to the topic please, the discussion has been fine - apart from complaints about moderators!

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Originally Posted by janvanvurpa

What would you suggest calling these "theoretical social Darwinists"?

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I don't know. I'd probably use some plain language, like "people who stand for unlimited competition" or something. In the process of debating some newer and more adequate definitions and recognition signs would emerge and make it to the common language.

We recently had parliamentary elections in Belarus. One of the candidates in my district was a member of a communist party (we have at least two of these). He fully supports the current government and the President who combines Soviet-style welfare state and populist rhetoric with tough Latin American-style government capitalism. On top of that the candidate is a radio host with a bohemian lifestyle and most likely gay, which is anathema to traditional communist demographics. You see, using the "communist" label to describe him is a bit misleading.

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/e.../obamunism.jpg

Ingraining A Culture Where If You Earn Money You Are Not Entitled To It, But If You Want It, And Do Not Have It, You Are !

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/e...s/2shirt10.jpg

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/e...s/2shirt10.jpg

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[youtube]t3GnWTy8Ebg[/youtube]

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Originally Posted by DanicaFan

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/e.../obamunism.jpg

Ingraining A Culture Where If You Earn Money You Are Not Entitled To It, But If You Want It, And Do Not Have It, You Are !

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That was a long absence.

If you are to return to the thread, maybe you could do so with some thoughts of your own, rather than yet more pictures off the internet?

It does seem to be the case in politics discussions that e.g. posting articles which "prove" your point is seen as the way to go, rather than using your own arguments.

PS. Don't post full articles they'll get deleted ;)

Just a thought:

Was it Obama, the Republican Party, the Democrats, the Communists, the Socialists, the Liberals, the Green Party, al Qaeda, the Taliban, or someone else who made the decision enabling the US lending agencies to grant mortgages to "sub-prime" customers? And who made the decision to fund these from the world's banking system. Who tried to sort out the resultant mess?

In other words, are people shooting at the right target?

With regards to the lending crisis it is all of us. Oversimplified, Republicans push for relaxed banking regulations and to allow the creation of new investment instruments and Democrats push for relaxed lending standards and to eliminate "red-lining" of certain areas and classes of borrowers. Meanwhile, after the dot-com bubble, investors are looking for the next big thing. Real Estate is always good and it always goes up!! Plus there's all these new type financial instruments, mortgage backed securities, tranches, credit default swaps, real estate investment trusts. After all, even us little guys want our mutual funds and 401k's to keep going up, up, up.

So money starts getting poured into real estate, the rational people that we are, prices are rising, Flip This House (not to be confused with Flip That House :D ) becomes a popular TV show. Since prices are rising, we might as well take out a home equity loan even if we don't want to move, after all real estate only goes up, right? So we created an asset bubble of the very homes we lived in. So asset bubbles do what all asset bubbles do ever since Tulip Mania back in the 1600's, It crashed. It's also interesting to me that a change in accounting rules to fair market rules exacerbated the problem. By making value such a moving target in a declining market, banks would have to sell off assets to maintain adequate capitalization, but since the market was deflating the assets would then be lower,then requiring them to sell off more assets. It was a death spiral. Not sure when it changed but before they could hold assets and record them as the value paid.

So who caused it? We all did.

We have seen the enemy and he is us!

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

That was a long absence.

If you are to return to the thread, maybe you could do so with some thoughts of your own, rather than yet more pictures off the internet?

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These pictures say it best. They are so true.... Sorry, I know the truth is hard sometimes. :)