Brilliantly illustrated analysis of why Capatilism screws us.

[blutto]

http://www.kontraband.com/videos/23558/Crises-Of-Capitalism/#show

...that was great...have sent it to my circle of friends...hopefully it will go viral...

Cheers

blutto

 

[Anonymous]

So the massive inaquality in this world is an acceptable price to pay because to date your of the view that no better altarnative is possible?
Might that be because that small % that realy control power and wealth stamp very heavy footed on any attempt to redistribute wealth and power in a more equal way and to date have succeeded brilliantly in doing so?
No 1 rule of captalism as its foisted on us by this minority is the need to expand or it dies.
This is capitalisms Achilles heel....cus last I looked the world was finate and the culdesac were going down has one inevetible end...a dead end.
When Alians eventualy look down on the debri of a lifeless Earth do you think theyl be impressed we put profit before need?

Your post requires the acceptance of your premise.

Your premise is dubious so the rest of your point is moot.

I'll ask you again, show me a better system for large scale culturally diverse economies.

 

[Anonymous]

http://www.gizmag.com/go/6571/

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0227-02.htm

In India 1.1 bilion ( nearly 1/6th the worlds population) people live on the aquivalent of a $ a day.
Most people in the world do NOT have cars, TV`s phones etc.
Perhaps in your imagination they do.

Care to guess why this is?

Don't bother. Powerful central government that is rife with corruption. "Pay to play" takes on a new meaning there. But I suppose it all started out with the best of intentions...

 

[Darryl Webster]

Your post requires the acceptance of your premise.

Your premise is dubious so the rest of your point is moot.

I'll ask you again, show me a better system for large scale culturally diverse economies.

Before a problem can be solved we have to identify the problem.

My OP link does that.
Till theres agreement and concencus and the power of a small minority is relinquished and a global mandate that put people before profit , on a " one peoples , one planet" basis is adopted then the salutions to the grave problems that the current "Global Economy" foisted on the majority by a small but extreemly powerful elite will continue to be forever unexsplored.
No alteranative can be put into place or even clearly known until this Elite are un seated.
Of course your welcome , from your , as mine relative comfort, to live in denial that the current system is flawed and unsustainable but I think the great majority of us realise thats denial.
Denial it would seem has no limits.
If you realy think this is the best we can do then nothing I or anyone else might sugest will ever change that view for such a view is a reduction of human capability to that of the rest of the Animal Kindgom of adaption to Enviorement rather than shapers of Enviorement.
If theres one thing I know for certain its that Humanity is far more than mere survivor.

 

[trompe le monde]

Care to guess why this is?

Don't bother. Powerful central government that is rife with corruption. "Pay to play" takes on a new meaning there. But I suppose it all started out with the best of intentions...

Dear Scott SoCal,

Though I admire your fondness for ales, stouts, women on bikes etc, I am beginning to think that your role is to be an ersatz antagonist who posts before he thinks.

The chart shows that poverty has been on the decline in India, in fact that in thirty years the percentage of people below the poverty line has been more than halved. I repeat, more than halved! And when you factor in the staggering population increase during those years, it is actually quite an enormous achievement.

I just wish you could take a more nuanced position before subsuming everything under your one man intifada against big government.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, if you are waiting for a system that requires everyone to be good to one another then you are going to spend your life in a frustrated state.

Friedman (along with many, many other modern economists) was an altruistic idealogue until he realized he had to account for man's limitations. You can't wish away mankind's weaknesses.

I'll take Capitalism because it at least attempts to provide incentive to produce instead of incentive to take the labor of another.

 

[kielbasa]

Dear Scott SoCal,

Though I admire your fondness for ales, stouts, women on bikes etc, I am beginning to think that your role is to be an ersatz antagonist who posts before he thinks.

The chart shows that poverty has been on the decline in India, in fact that in thirty years the percentage of people below the poverty line has been more than halved. I repeat, more than halved! And when you factor in the staggering population increase during those years, it is actually quite an enormous achievement.

I just wish you could take a more nuanced position before subsuming everything under your one man intifada against big government.

Care to show us the definition of poverty during those years? Are you implying that capitalism is at the root of poverty? I wonder how many poor would there be in the U.S. if we had used the same standard as that of India.

 

[trompe le monde]

....I'll take Capitalism because it at least attempts to provide incentive to produce instead of incentive to take the labor of another.

What exactly did those jolly good folks at Enron produce? The fact that the downfall of Enron crushed, destroyed, annihilated the pensions of PGE workers actually did take the labor of another, quite a few actually, so your view of capitalism as having its hands clean when it comes to pillaging from the work of others may not be entirely valid.

Ever watch the documentary 'The Corporation'? A major aspect of the doc is to assess the actions of a corporation and to see where those actions would fall in the DSM-IV, which is the diagnostic manual used to treat mental disorders. The documentary found that 'the profit at all costs' ethos of corporations, such as Enron for example, have a tendency to act like psychopaths. Yes, that's right, psychopaths.

This isn't to say that I think socialism is the answer, but rather that democracy or how it should be qualified is not really self-evident. Qualifying it strictly in terms of being the best social framework for Capitalism to thrive is a bit misguided in my view. Governments should cater their policies to people first and not to corporations and one doesn't have to be sacrificed at the hands of the other.

 

[kielbasa]

http://www.gizmag.com/go/6571/

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0227-02.htm

In India 1.1 bilion ( nearly 1/6th the worlds population) people live on the aquivalent of a $ a day.
Most people in the world do NOT have cars, TV`s phones etc.
Perhaps in your imagination they do.

You're getting stuck on that silly notion that wealth is "distributed". That headline is misleading and the whole premise is false. The headline should read" "Where the world's wealth is created - the top two percent live in free capitalist countries"

The second link is a biased opinion piece, so I'll reply in kind:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2007/08/How-Poor-Are-Americas-Poor-Examining-the-Plague-of-Poverty-in-America
If you don't want to read it, at least glance at the charts.

When legal immigrants come to a capitalist country (it's never the other way around, is it?), they get jobs and start businesses, because they couldn't where they came from. Why is that? Because where they came from they either couldn't be gainfully employed due to bad economy or weren't free to become capitalists themselves. Communists didn't build the Berlin wall to keep West Germans out of paradise, did they? Though to think of it, there's nothing I would like more than for leftists to flee America in pursuit of real happiness in Cuba. It always ends with threat... ahem, promises.

I grew up in socialist Poland in the 1970's & 80's and no amount of theoretical gobbledygook is going to trump that experience with socialism. When I was there, we had a joke:

Capitalism, socialism, and communism decided to get together. Socialism was running late, and when it got there it said that it was due to being stuck in a long line. Capitalism asked: "What's a line?" Socialism explained: "It's when you wait in front of the store in hopes of buying some meat". To which communism inquired: "What's meat?".

Yeah, even the jokes sucked. Don't for a minute think that standing in line applied to buying meat only. It also applied to receiving "free" healthcare and many other "benefits" of socialism. Why are there empty shelves? Because socialists believe in redistributing wealth rather than creating it, so this is a natural progression.

So before you give me any more links to books, blogs, definitions, and cartoons, perhaps you should study up on history first:

http://culture.polishsite.us/articles/art52fr.htm

Take note that I didn't call you names or insult your intelligence.

 

[trompe le monde]

Care to show us the definition of poverty during those years? Are you implying that capitalism is at the root of poverty? I wonder how many poor would there be in the U.S. if we had used the same standard as that of India.

Look, if you read a bit more carefully the aim of my post was merely to illustrate the idea that corruption was holding India down was somewhat of a misguided claim. In 1975 the population of India was a little over 600 million people. In 2005 it was just a little over 1 billion. 54 percent of 600 million is 324 million. 25 percent of 1 billion is 250 million, so the number of people living in absolute poverty did go down a little, but when you take into consideration that in those thirty years the population increased by over 400 million, then that is a bit of an achievement no? If the percentage stayed at 54 then you would have over half a billion people under the poverty line.

Also, I'm not so sure that you should even consider comparing India to the US. Why? Who compares the standards of a first world nation to that of a developing nation? The conditions between the two, population, economy, resources, equality etc are so different that any comparison would be beyond useless. Seriously, to use India's standards on to the US? If you think surviving on a 1.25 a day, which is a kind of line that is used to define above or below absolute poverty, is an achievement that should be equally applied to the US, then I think that is really screwed up. Different set of conditions, different standards of life.

 

[jsem94]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A&feature=player_embedded

+10000. Milton is a true legend.

 

[ergmonkey]

What exactly did those jolly good folks at Enron produce? The fact that the downfall of Enron crushed, destroyed, annihilated the pensions of PGE workers actually did take the labor of another, quite a few actually, so your view of capitalism as having its hands clean when it comes to pillaging from the work of others may not be entirely valid.

It's a bit unfair to point to Enron and say "see, capitalism is evil." It's even more unfair to refer to Enron and "profit at all costs" without explaining the complex structured financing and accounting frauds which allowed Enron to present "profits" that weren't even real.

At its core, the story of Enron is not one of free enterprise; instead, it is the story of a fraud. One can believe in "capitalism" and still recognize the necessity of regulation to curb fraud and preserve fair, competitive markets. For example, the following are not incompatible with "capitalism": accounting standards, banking and securities regulations, and antitrust laws. "Free market" doesn't have to mean free to lie, cheat, and steal from anyone and everyone.

As for the deeper questions in this thread: there are more than enough real scholars out there debating social justice. I'll leave them to it while I am still trying to make sense of it all.

I will suggest, however, that unless you understand SPV's and credit default swaps very well, you have very little idea what this most recent economic crisis is about. If that lack of knowledge is your starting point, it doesn't make too much sense to proceed to any grand conclusions.

 

[trompe le monde]

It's a bit unfair to point to Enron and say "see, capitalism is evil." It's even more unfair to refer to Enron and "profit at all costs" without explaining the complex structured financing and accounting frauds which allowed Enron to present "profits" that weren't even real.

At its core, the story of Enron is not one of free enterprise; instead, it is the story of a fraud. One can believe in "capitalism" and still recognize the necessity of regulation to curb fraud and preserve fair, competitive markets. For example, the following are not incompatible with "capitalism": accounting standards, banking and securities regulations, and antitrust laws. "Free market" doesn't have to mean free to lie, cheat, and steal from anyone and everyone.

As for the deeper questions in this thread: there are more than enough real scholars out there debating social justice. I'll leave them to it while I am still trying to make sense of it all.

I will suggest, however, that unless you understand SPV's and credit default swaps very well, you have very little idea what this most recent economic crisis is about. If that lack of knowledge is your starting point, it doesn't make too much sense to proceed to any grand conclusions.

Is the goal of the internet to beat down on people by taking things out of context? I gave a counter example. That's it. Should that counter example be used to define my position entirely? Do I even do that? I mean in the last paragraph I do say that I do not think that Socialism the answer, I just think that governments should cater their policies to citizens first. How in any way does this imply that Capitalism is evil?

The second paragraph says that corporations act as psychopaths when they act under a profit at all costs ethos. How can this alone be construed as completely anti-capitalist? It does in a sense imply the need for regulation, but does regulation alone kill capitalism?

I wish you hadn't jumped to such a conclusion about me making and I quote "grand conclusions" when I never even bothered to do so. It's really a bit disconcerting. Yeah, grand conclusions, this coming from the person who never even bothered to read my entire post.

I'm outta here.

 

[Anonymous]

What exactly did those jolly good folks at Enron produce? The fact that the downfall of Enron crushed, destroyed, annihilated the pensions of PGE workers actually did take the labor of another, quite a few actually, so your view of capitalism as having its hands clean when it comes to pillaging from the work of others may not be entirely valid.

Ever watch the documentary 'The Corporation'? A major aspect of the doc is to assess the actions of a corporation and to see where those actions would fall in the DSM-IV, which is the diagnostic manual used to treat mental disorders. The documentary found that 'the profit at all costs' ethos of corporations, such as Enron for example, have a tendency to act like psychopaths. Yes, that's right, psychopaths.

This isn't to say that I think socialism is the answer, but rather that democracy or how it should be qualified is not really self-evident. Qualifying it strictly in terms of being the best social framework for Capitalism to thrive is a bit misguided in my view. Governments should cater their policies to people first and not to corporations and one doesn't have to be sacrificed at the hands of the other.

Enron produced energy at a profit for many years. Those that ran Enron into the ground are at fault for it's demise, not Capitalism.

Profit at all costs is not the basis of most corporations.

"Government should cater their policies to people first and not corporations..."
Who is it that supports government? Where does the means to cater to the people come from? A magical source? It comes from the labor of others. The question then becomes, "what is the correct ratio?" We can't provide the basics at a zero tax rate and 100% tax rate is a bit too high in my opinion.

Are governments able to be corrupt in your view? You point at Enron as if it'd the boogey man. I don't know where you are from but in th USA there is corruption at every level of government and it runs basically unabated.

Clean up government and that will amount to be a giant step in the right direction.

 

[blutto]

+10000. Milton is a true legend.

...Ayn Rand also has legions of followers...so I the point here is that there are a great number of deluded people in the world?......

Cheers

blutto

 

[ergmonkey]

Is the goal of the internet to beat down on people by taking things out of context? I gave a counter example. That's it. Should that counter example be used to define my position entirely? Do I even do that? I mean in the last paragraph I do say that I do not think that Socialism the answer, I just think that governments should cater their policies to citizens first. How in any way does this imply that Capitalism is evil?

The second paragraph says that corporations act as psychopaths when they act under a profit at all costs ethos. How can this alone be construed as completely anti-capitalist? It does in a sense imply the need for regulation, but does regulation alone kill capitalism?

I wish you hadn't jumped to such a conclusion about me making and I quote "grand conclusions" when I never even bothered to do so. It's really a bit disconcerting. Yeah, grand conclusions, this coming from the person who never even bothered to read my entire post.

I'm outta here.

I did read your entire post. And sorry if you took offense to mine.

As for grand conclusions, I could have written "one shouldn't jump to grand conclusions," as I wasn't thinking just of your Enron reference but instead of a whole slew of references in this thread to isolated instances of corporate malfeasance--none of which have a lot to do with the basic economic ideology supposedly at issue in this thread.

Also, don't fret: regulatory oversight is no more contrary to capitalism than referees are contrary to athletic competition.

 

[Anonymous]

Have you ever heard of invention? Stop getting so stuck on exploration, conquest, and exploitation of natural resources. What are bytes made of? What is intellectual property made of? Doesn't a software engineer, or a filmmaker, or an inventor create wealth? Who does a capitalist like Stephen Spielberg exploit? Even Michael Moore is a capitalist, albeit a very ungrateful one. What about a service provider such as a writer or musician? When people create music or write a book they create wealth, and then the consumers willingly distribute their wealth according to their means. Perpetually? I don't know, that's too big a concept, but I'll go with "indefinitely".

The standard of living is so much higher now than in the past centuries. How did that happen? Though it's still not universal, most people on earth have cars, tvs, phones, and many other "standard" luxuries (especially those in capitalist countries). Where did we get the money to buy all those? Generally speaking, all that wealth was created by inventive and hard working capitalists.

Funny, how some will criticize McDonald's and the like for making the poor fat . It seems that they should be thanked for providing a service of feeding the hungry at affordable prices, which is something no government in history has ever succeeded in. That's wealth creation.

It happened because early in the 20th Century, major industrialized nations incorporated socialist principles into their economies creating the greatest amount of wealth for the greatest number of people in the history of mankind. Its called a mixed economic system. Get some.

 

[Anonymous]

You're getting stuck on that silly notion that wealth is "distributed". That headline is misleading and the whole premise is false. The headline should read" "Where the world's wealth is created - the top two percent live in free capitalist countries"

The second link is a biased opinion piece, so I'll reply in kind:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2007/08/How-Poor-Are-Americas-Poor-Examining-the-Plague-of-Poverty-in-America
If you don't want to read it, at least glance at the charts.

When legal immigrants come to a capitalist country (it's never the other way around, is it?), they get jobs and start businesses, because they couldn't where they came from. Why is that? Because where they came from they either couldn't be gainfully employed due to bad economy or weren't free to become capitalists themselves. Communists didn't build the Berlin wall to keep West Germans out of paradise, did they? Though to think of it, there's nothing I would like more than for leftists to flee America in pursuit of real happiness in Cuba. It always ends with threat... ahem, promises.

I grew up in socialist Poland in the 1970's & 80's and no amount of theoretical gobbledygook is going to trump that experience with socialism. When I was there, we had a joke:

Capitalism, socialism, and communism decided to get together. Socialism was running late, and when it got there it said that it was due to being stuck in a long line. Capitalism asked: "What's a line?" Socialism explained: "It's when you wait in front of the store in hopes of buying some meat". To which communism inquired: "What's meat?".

Yeah, even the jokes sucked. Don't for a minute think that standing in line applied to buying meat only. It also applied to receiving "free" healthcare and many other "benefits" of socialism. Why are there empty shelves? Because socialists believe in redistributing wealth rather than creating it, so this is a natural progression.

So before you give me any more links to books, blogs, definitions, and cartoons, perhaps you should study up on history first:

http://culture.polishsite.us/articles/art52fr.htm

Take note that I didn't call you names or insult your intelligence.

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
John Kenneth Galbraith

 

[Anonymous]

Enron produced energy at a profit for many years. Those that ran Enron into the ground are at fault for it's demise, not Capitalism.

Profit at all costs is not the basis of most corporations.

"Government should cater their policies to people first and not corporations..."
Who is it that supports government? Where does the means to cater to the people come from? A magical source? It comes from the labor of others. The question then becomes, "what is the correct ratio?" We can't provide the basics at a zero tax rate and 100% tax rate is a bit too high in my opinion.

Are governments able to be corrupt in your view? You point at Enron as if it'd the boogey man. I don't know where you are from but in th USA there is corruption at every level of government and it runs basically unabated.

Clean up government and that will amount to be a giant step in the right direction.

Enron sold and traded energy, they didn't produce anything.

 

[Anonymous]

Are governments able to be corrupt in your view? You point at Enron as if it'd the boogey man. I don't know where you are from but in th USA there is corruption at every level of government and it runs basically unabated.

Clean up government and that will amount to be a giant step in the right direction.

Then we would have to clean up corporations...man, I feel like you and I are entering a movie we have seen many times before. I don't have the energy.

 

[ergmonkey]

Enron sold and traded energy, they didn't produce anything.

Technically true. And a useful point for keeping Enron's role in perspective. But, brokers and other market-makers may be said to "produce" to the extent that they "produce" a means of transacting business or distributing useful goods and resources.

So, the problem with Enron (and I'm not trying to disagree with you here; just making it abundantly clear for those not familiar with Enron) wasn't that they didn't have a tangible, industrial product; the problem was when they needed a Ponzi scheme to support their mark-to-market-accounting-driven paper profits vehicle after they ran out of energy contracts to securitize. In other words, they resorted to a fraud on the energy markets.

 

[Anonymous]

Technically true. And a useful point for keeping Enron's role in perspective. But, brokers and other market-makers may be said to "produce" to the extent that they "produce" a means of transacting business or distributing useful goods and resources.

So, the problem with Enron (and I'm not trying to disagree with you here; just making it abundantly clear for those not familiar with Enron) wasn't that they didn't have a tangible, industrial product; the problem was when they needed a Ponzi scheme to support their mark-to-market-accounting-driven paper profits vehicle after they ran out of energy contracts to securitize. In other words, they resorted to a fraud on the energy markets.

Yea, I understand this and agree. I was just pointing out that to call a broker a "producer" is not reflective of their actual position in a market. (And I should have said, bought, sold, and traded)

 

[blutto]

It happened because early in the 20th Century, major industrialized nations incorporated socialist principles into their economies creating the greatest amount of wealth for the greatest number of people in the history of mankind. Its called a mixed economic system. Get some.

...oooh...this is getting very scary...you are actually saying things that I agree with...or is this a dream?...

...Happy Halloween...what are you going out as?...me I'm going out as one the Szczmengi Brothers...

Cheers

blutto

 

[Anonymous]

...oooh...this is getting very scary...you are actually saying things that I agree with...or is this a dream?...

...Happy Halloween...what are you going out as?...me I'm going out as one the Szczmengi Brothers...

Cheers

blutto

I am stuck at home reading negligence torts.

I just heard a frightening figure. Since 1980 the top 5% of the wealthy have earned 40 Trillion dollars. That is more wealth than had been created in the world prior to 1980.

This "tax is evil" sh!t is the most irresponsible mantra in our country. I hear a lot of conservatives talk about passing debt to our kids. Exactly what is it they have done to reduce the debt or raise revenue? (and don't tell me that reducing taxes will raise revenue. It is a damn lie.)

 

[blutto]

I am stuck at home reading negligence torts.

I just heard a frightening figure. Since 1980 the top 5% of the wealthy have earned 40 Trillion dollars. That is more wealth than had been created in the world prior to 1980.

This "tax is evil" sh!t is the most irresponsible mantra in our country. I hear a lot of conservatives talk about passing debt to our kids. Exactly what is it they have done to reduce the debt or raise revenue? (and don't tell me that reducing taxes will raise revenue. It is a damn lie.)

....aaah...the Laffer Curve/Supply Side economics/Reaganomics/VooDoo economics/Thatcherism...just thinking about about how that swill was sold and rubes that drank that brand of kool-aid is going to make me real ill...this is really starting to be a very scary Halloween...

...makes me want to pile thru the collection and find my EP of Gil-Scot Herons B-movie...drop it on the platter...turn the rig up to 11 and proceed to kick out the jams...that will chase the demons away...at least till the morning...

...for you dude....check it out...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-F_hOL_nw8 ...really hope you like it...damn righteous that is what it is...

Cheers

blutto