57 replies to this topic

[Pliny]

Be careful,Pliny...


The Pinko's are hiding under your bed!!!

The Marxist hordes are on your tail demanding your "freedom" as ransom for your existence!!!

Someone needs to ring the bell, Jack. Many people are waking up...WE don't need any more poems that start off with, "First they came for the..." and ends with.."When they came for me no one was left to speak out for me."

Am I an alarmist? I get that you are content with just making some new demands when your contract expires, retiring with a cola pension and that's what life is all about.

[Pliny]

Seems to me, with bailouts for the wealthy to order of 100's of billions of dollars, what we have is in fact a kind of reverse socialism.

What we have is an increasingly worthless dollar. Government has the ability to create money out of thin air. When it does that the first people on the lines to get that money are the banks, the bankers, Wall street and other well-positioned individuals and corporations, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and GM and their Executives come to mind. It eventually gets to the folks on Main Street but with a lower value - that's inflation. The middle and lower classes are not going to get ahead without a sound money system.

As to reverse socialism what is that? Big government without government services? You may be thinking of "Corporatism" or "crony capitalism" which could be likened to Fascism but they are all centralized authorities. Obama has been accused of crony capitalism for his role in funding companies like Solyndra and his bailout of GM, essentially trying to pick winners and losers in the market.

[bush_cheney2004]

What we have is an increasingly worthless dollar. Government has the ability to create money out of thin air. When it does that the first people on the lines to get that money are the banks, the bankers, Wall street and other well-positioned individuals and corporations, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and GM and their Executives come to mind....

So what? If the dollar is "increasingly worthless", what's the point in that? The first people in line are actually those receiving entitlements on a recurring basis.

[Pliny]

So what? If the dollar is "increasingly worthless", what's the point in that? The first people in line are actually those receiving entitlements on a recurring basis.

I'm not clear on your question here. Your last sentence seems to answer your last question.

[bush_cheney2004]

I'm not clear on your question here. Your last sentence seems to answer your last question.

Why would "well positioned people and corporations" play a greedy game of hoarding "increasingly worthless" dollars? Your position is incongruent.

[Shady]

No socialism is simply an economic scheme where the workers directly or indirectly own the means of production.

No, you're thinking of communism.

[dre]

No, you're thinking of communism.

[socialist]

i'll be very scared of obama doesnt win. obama is diffrent then other politicians. he understands the people. he understands the enviroment. he understands gays. he treats everyone with respect. i would vote for obama to be prez of the world if i could.

[BubberMiley]

he treats everyone with respect.

Except maybe those who are collateral damage from his drone strikes.

[socialist]

Except maybe those who are collateral damage from his drone strikes.

i dont like the drones. but some right wing nut is telling him to use these drones. obama is a great president and he is friends with one of the greatest educators taht i look to for ideology Mr. william ayers. mr. ayers is the person who mademe want to become a public school teacher. he knows there is more to public schools than the useless 3 r's

[Moonlight Graham]

No, you're thinking of communism.

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership and/or control of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy, and a political philosophy advocating such a system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

[BubberMiley]

mr. ayers is the person who mademe want to become a public school teacher. he knows there is more to public schools than the useless 3 r's

Do you have any right-wing sock puppets?

[Shady]

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership and/or control of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy, and a political philosophy advocating such a system.

Communism is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless, and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

[Pliny]

Why would "well positioned people and corporations" play a greedy game of hoarding "increasingly worthless" dollars? Your position is incongruent.

As long as there is a law that makes it "a legal tender", and thus a claim on goods, they will collect them.

Well-positioned people can ride inflation a lot longer than the lower and middle classes. It doesn't matter to them much how much things cost. And they believe that things will continue along if they simply contribute to the right political party. Unfortunately, things happen, and it necessitates government to prop up the system by bailing out those well-positioned people and corporations and they create more and more dollars to save themselves and they have full faith in the government to do so but eventually it gets out of control, history has a full account of what happens when a government takes over control of the money system.

But really, the true test of sound "money" is whether or not it needs a law to make people use it as money. Governments are so whimsical, leave it to them and what's money today may not be money tomorrow. Americans couldn't own gold from 1933 to 1975 for example. In 1933 gold was still money. In 1971 gold was no longer money. I guess in 1975 it was ok for you Americans to own gold since it was no longer money anyway.

[Pliny]

There is a bit of discussion about socialism and communism here and defining them in terms of the ownership of the means of production. Firstly, Communism is a form of "socialism" and works to achieve the same end through revolution. Secondly what does the ownership of the means of production mean? Does that mean those who own the means of production own the production? Does it mean the ones that own the production should own the means of production? In a democracy, and there isn't a totalitarian socialist country that does not have democracy as one of its tenets, the people are represented by the government. The more ability the government has to take production from some and give it to others the more it has "ownership" of production. That is basically an "indirect" ownership of the means of production. In Canada, it owns the means of the production of healthcare and education and the more it engineers society the more it controls the means of production. Saying that healthcare and education are just "social programs" is an attempt to skirt around the idea that they are socialist concepts. It owns the means of production because it determines how the industry will operate. There is no competitiveness so there is no means to set costs and the costs spiral upward while service spirals downward.

Communism starts with revolution and installing the total state. Somehow over time the role of government is supposed to dwindle away to being merely a matter of administration. That hasn't happened yet and I don't see how it could - unless the underground economy destroys the administration.