DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Among Millennials and Gen Zers, socialism is nearly as popular as capitalism

The dirty little secret about taxes is that most of the US tax payers are middle class and pay more than their fair share while the most wealthiest pay little or none. Only a flat tax rate for all personal and business income will fix that.

Raised taxes if they actually went to stuff that was good for society wouldn't bother me. Raising taxes to pay for more failed military hardware going well over budget, bridges to nowhere, and politicians frivolous pet projects (or golf expenses) is more likely what we'd get. Medicare for all sounds great, but it is kind of a putting a bandaid on a bullet hole kind of deal. We need to make healthy, nutrient-dense food more available to everyone and stop allowing processes and products that expose people to toxins, carcinogens, etc to be used and/or sold. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The illusion of prevention (basically its lack) costs a nearly immeasurable amount. We're the most medicated country in the world. And yet, despite economies of scale, we pay the some of the highest prices for those prescriptions.

Would you rather be rich and dying or healthy and broke? Our government's choices and priorities seem to indicate they prefer rich and dying.

Medicare for all is probably better for big Pharma (and the politicians it supports) than it is for the people.

...Americans are really good at getting stuck on "issues", quite often they aren't the most important ones or are only the tip of the iceberg.

The government wouldn't need our tax money at all if they started charging companies royalties for the rights to use tech where taxes were used to pay the R&D bill.

You could cut welfare drastically if companies were forced to pay a living wage.

If you fine people, companies, or entities for not circulating a percentage of their wealth through the working economy (not investments in stocks or real estate), you would turn on the taps of prosperity as if the streets were paved with gold. And the best part is they could do this and still make money/keep their money, so effectively not a tax.

You're kidding right?

Personally I think this has a lot to do with upbringing, education, entitlement, and having things handed to you.

This is why studying economics needs to be mandatory in school. After you've looked through the last 100 years at several different countries, the designs of socialist systems you wouldn't want to go anywhere near them.

If you want socialism there are plenty of countries to move to, just not the US.

Only most of Europe, Australia and Canada disagrees with you.

Waiting for the "Wahatabout Venezuela?"

And there in lies the rub. They make it sound like almost every democracy in the world is a socialist country. As though good healthcare for your citizens will somehow make our nation worse.

It's stuck in their mind and no amount of logic can change it.

If the US weren't so full of stupid, greedy, and vain people, Capitalism would probably still work here. Sadly, Capitalism hasn't worked well here for awhile.

Money, unlike rabbits, shouldn't experience exponential growth when a bunch of it is locked in a room. Economics classes often gloss over/fail to mention quite a lot.

Socialism hasn't failed because of the system. Socialism has failed because corrupt individuals sell necessary resources to greedy capitalists. Capitalists try to destabilize socialist countries, so they can continue having every whim and dark desire satisfied at the expense of many poor schmucks who do all the labor and get however little scraps the rich "overlord" thinks he can get away with giving. If people realized that socialism could work, they wouldn't put up with the fact that the rich can get richer by doing nothing but sitting on their fingers and spinning (or just nothing.)

Capitalism tends to lead to unbalanced power. When certain individuals have a nearly unfathomable advantage in (financial) power, they can abuse it with impunity. We appear to be well past that critical mass.

The idea of everybody being able to get rich sounds great. However, one can only get rich from taking that money from somewhere else in the system. There is not an infinite amount of money. (Fractional reserve banking can make it appear otherwise.) Everyone can't be rich.

Chances are most of that money is locked up in some Billionaire's accounts. It's not coming your way. You can scratch, and claw, and scrape to amass some savings, but if a corporation puts a chemical in the water table (fracking, fertilizers, industrial run off) your supply accesses and you develop a medical condition, it's all gone in a second into the pockets of one of those rich Billionaires in pharmaceuticals, or if you and your family were to pass before being completely sucked dry, the government's (most of its members being "supported" [paid] by those billionaires.)

Rich capitalists can afford to pay to have laws changed so that they can get away with doing horrible things.

If there weren't horrible people, capitalism might work (better.) Or maybe capitalism simply makes people horrible when they focus on climbing its heights. Who cares if we're killing the planet if not doing so cuts into profits? Sure, we'll throw solar panels on the roof so we can call our corporations "green" in the hope people will be willing to spend more money on "green" products.

Sorry, got to cut this short. Don't want to upset the rich too much.

Capitalism hasnt failed. All the successful Mom n Pop businesses can attest to that. It is one of the greatest parts of America.

If you have a complaint, it should be against big business in unregulated industries that have adverse affects on our lives.

And then your questions should be addressed towards the Government as to why those industries arent regulated.

Its not a Capitalism problem, it's a Government problem.

(Corrupt Government not included in this post, but is most likely the largest fail when it comes to business)

I’ll leave this here...
https://time.com/2888403/u-s-health-care-ranked-worst-in-the-developed-world/

But let’s not change anything because profits over performance.

We agree on a lot, but have different perspectives on the interrelation and/or mutual exclusivity of the government and capitalism "problems." It seems to me they feed each other. The capitalism problem leads to the government corruption problem which feeds back into the capitalism/greed problem.

While there are successful "Mom and Pop" businesses, they are much more the exception than the rule. For profits to be attained there has to be an uneven exchange. Capitalism will tell you that products are worth whatever you can convince someone to pay for them. While this is "easy" to rationalize, it completely bastardizes the concept of inherent or real value. It leads to products being designed to fail. Waste abounds in America. It's a likely output when profits are paramount.

This probably isn't the best Link , but the image provides a rather graphic illustration. Look how much waste we produce as compared to our population.

In Capitalism, for some to have more, others must have less. In effect, in order for billionaires to exist, many people must be scraping to get by. It's a "closed" system. More just doesn't magically appear because you've done something of value.

Since the abolishment of the gold standard, the central bank can kind of just make money out of thin air, but it isn't a common occurrence and isn't anything remotely resembling evenly/fairly distributed. (Money has no fixed/real value that ties it to something physical.) Rather we allow shady marketing to inflate prices. For example, Apple is successful because it's effectively ripping people off.

Everyone's wages aren't tied to the value they produce in any real way. Employers rip them off because they can. They've done it for so long people have normalized it.

Mom and Pop places can be successful, but economies of scale favor gigantic corporations. People can choose to support local mom and pops, but they are generally doing it at a cost to their own financial wellbeing. Gigantic corporations have undue influence on the government.

Financial disparity is expected in capitalism. That expectation allows greed to flourish.

If financial disparity weren't an option, hard work and ingenuity might be rewarded in more societally productive ways, or at least ones that don't have negative impacts on government or inevitably prove to be harmful to most of society.

Will corruption ever go away? Maybe not, but with the current example of capitalism in effect, it never will.

If you want to change to a new system, it's a good idea to look at the good and the bad. Venezuela is an example of the bad.

Once again, you fail to understand why people are against this. I'm not against good healthcare. I just don't think the government can implement national healthcare in a way that would be good. We're talking about the same government that couldn't build a functional website for Obamacare. Yet I'm supposed to trust them with my healthcare? No thanks.

I've brought up problems in previous threads on this. If this problems were to be addressed, I might get on board with this. Everyone prefers to stick their head in the sand when it comes to problems with government run healthcare.

Socialism goes beyond healthcare. People want want free education, free healthcare, free this, free that. It going to create more dependency on the government, which gives the government more control over us. That will create the nanny state Eve was talking about.

People don't want free stuff so much as they want equal access and treatment and fair value in return for their efforts.

You mention the problems with the government trying to do things. What about the problems with private "healthcare" such as patients dying while insurance companies quibble, the prioritization of treatments over cures to create continuous revenue streams, hurried visits to maximize profits rather than figuring out patients problems/being charged for an hour block while getting 15 minutes of attention.

Whatever your feelings about capitalism vs Socialism, etc, healthcare feels like an arena where a profit motive shouldn't be a consideration.

It's a little late to worry about a nanny state. We're already there. It's just not a benevolent nanny. It's a chain smoking, perfectly willing to lock "children" in closets, taking her money and leaving nanny (state.)

While I'm not trying to dismiss your concerns, I believe there are far more positives than negatives.

Look at our prescription cost compared to that of countries with national healthcare. When you have a central negotiator to make drug companies come to the bargaining table, everyone saves. When you take the profits of insurance companies out of the equation, everyone saves.

The global average saved over American prescription costs are 56% with many countries saving even more.

https://www.drugwatch.com/featured/us-drug-prices-higher-vs-world/

We have people dying because they can't pay for medications in our nation.

Americans are dying because they can't afford medicine; Dispensary of Hope wants to help

https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/cle...e-wants-to-help

People are dying because they can't afford treatment costs here.

Millions in U.S. Lost Someone Who Couldn't Afford Treatment

https://news.gallup.com/poll/268094/millions-lost-someone-couldn-afford-treatment.aspx

So it's not that I believe the government will do some perfect job. But what I am aware of is it really wouldn't have to start out all that well to be an improvement over what we currently have.

Right now, people dying while their insurance is fighting not to cover their treatment and having the highest cost of prescription drugs certainly isn't working.

Right now there is a concerted effort NOT to have better healthcare for our own citizens. Those in the senate and in congress who own large amounts of stocks in the healthcare industry. Some politicians receiving as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and super pac donations from the industry.

Now you may be leery of a total overhaul of the system, but can you honestly say the current system doesn't need a total overhaul?

"Socialism hasn't failed because of the system. Socialism has failed because corrupt individuals....."

So in summary and truth, most every system has failed due to corruption and abuse of power. It wasn't the systems or programs themselves, but those in charge of such things.

This is what America is seeing now, people in power for way too long, with way too much power. But they have us fighting against each other on "sides" to keep us blind to their corruption.

Capitalism was much better 50-70 years ago here because the working class got a fair shake. The system is now rigged for the 1%. I'm not sure it can be unrigged.

Same here. Once people get a taste for being greedy, they're not going to stop being greedy if it's an option.

I don't even know that Capitalism was better 50-70 years ago. It's just harder to hide the dark side of it now. I'll admit, it probably has gotten worse, but more from just momentum than a fundamental change.

Trump says it might be better to wait until after 2020 election for a China trade deal

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/03/trump-sa...china-deal.html

yall realize that a phase one deal is just to get rid of the tariffs that were put in place? basically, even if something gets done, trump will claim victory for getting us back to square one, even though he's the one who made us take a step back to begin with.

Trump suddenly realized we're going to need a democrat to fix his mess.

In other words, "Come to find out trade deals aren't easy and I don't have a clue what I'm doing."

I've seen your candidates. I wouldn't trust them to fix a flat tire... even if Trump is the reason the tire is flat.

In the end, the government doesn't really care what system we are in because they win either way...

In Sweden, the members of their "house and senate" make 1.6x the national average income, which is at the low end of what a decent professional person makes.. they get very few extra benefits, most of them ride the bus or the subway, they get no staff, if one is seen taking a taxi (the more expensive route to get around the city) they are publicly ridiculed, the only person with a small security staff is the Prime Minister...

In the US, the members of the "house and senate" make 3.5x the national average income, far more than most professionals.. they also get office space, a huge staff, they charter private planes to travel, get paid lobbyist trips to great destinations, they have security and drivers everywhere they go...

And the government's only goal in all of this is "don't blame us".. blame the other party, blame the rich capitalists, blame the media.. just don't blame congress.

As so many diligently fight the Ds vs Rs battle on the daily, they neglect to see that we have allowed the creation of a ruling class.. and the only battle that really matters is the battle between the government and the rich businesses for who controls the lions share of our lives..

Reply to op

...because they’re indoctrinated by leftists beginning at childhood

It's more likely they are rebelling against dogmatic capitalists that seemingly enjoy burdening the young with debt and expect the young to support them when they are old.

Basically baby-boomers want their cake and to eat everyone else's, too.

In other words, giving them a loan they were unqualified for and borrowed stupidly.

Maybe. But my daughters went to public school in Southern Cal, and they told me the indoctrination that they received there. Very slanted one way. That’s not education.

Yes, they were stupid for listening to the baby-boomer who gave them the loan and for believing that the baby-boomer had their best interest in mind rather than the banks/their own.

Every baby-boomer that complains about socialism should have to stop collecting social security checks.

I agree it's very slanted. It's very pro-Capitalism.

Lol, Bernie the Socialist took 72 percent of the Dems in the radical blue state of California

That's a result. I haven't seen any evidence of the education system presenting socialism as better than capitalism.

That is the thinking that most capitalists use. Start with a result and try to use that as evidence working backwards.

Socialism is bad, it has been crushed by greedy capitalists. Capitalism is better.

Check who the California teachers association has endorsed for the last thirty or so.

The kids have been thoroughly indocfrinated by the education system, the entertainment industry, etc. I know. I grew up in that system and so did my children.

participationtrophysayswhat?