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Post by Emperor AAdmin on Jul 28, 2010 15:35:26 GMT -5
Stats Don't Lie: The American Middle Class Is Dying
irishcentral.com — Once the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but that's ending at a blinding pace. The American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer here at a historically unprecedented rate.
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Posted on Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 10:29 PM
America's Middle Class is dying and the stats prove it
Take off your hats and bow to your betters. It's over - the noble American experiment I mean.
The American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer here at a historically unprecedented rate. Once the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but that's ending at a blinding pace. The new 'global economy' means that middle class American workers have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and practically no regulations. If the socialism the Tea Party is shouting about means anything in the U.S. anymore it refers to the golden circle of the super rich, who are profiting at unheard of rates whilst the rest of this nation suffers. U.S. Corporations have grown massively rich exploiting third world labor pools, but middle class American workers have increasingly lost out. Here are the statistics to prove it: • 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are now in the hands of 1 percent of the people. • The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 10 years ago. (Thanks George!). • 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans. (Thanks George!) • In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one. • The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income. • 61 percent of Americans 'always or usually' live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007. • A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement. • Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975. • For the first time in U.S. history, U.S. banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth than all individual Americans put together. • As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets. • The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth. • Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008. • More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying. • In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector. • In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. • For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011. • This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour. • Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years. The American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new 'global' labor pool. We're becoming the Chinese and the Indian labor market. The proof is all around us, the American Middle Class is dying - and once it is gone it will take decades to rebuild, if that's even possible now, the way things are going. www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/manhattan_diary/americas-middle-class-is-dying-and-the-stats-prove-it-99180624.html
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rex362
Senior Moderator
Pellazg
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Posts: 19,058
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Post by rex362 on Jul 28, 2010 16:54:57 GMT -5
Time to move to Iraq or Afghanistan....cant get any worse there
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Post by hellboy87 on Jul 28, 2010 18:23:02 GMT -5
"A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement"
Intresting
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Post by spartacus on Jul 28, 2010 19:23:15 GMT -5
Well this has been going on in the country for decades, only now we are feeling the effects of it. Removing the currency from the gold standard and devaluing the currency by printing more fiat money through the federal reserve system, borrowing more money to finance the wars, and trying to build a socialist nanny state with more tax payer money is unsustainable. Government spending and borrowing is the reason why the middle class is dying.
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Post by drinus123 on Jul 28, 2010 19:37:35 GMT -5
america needs a dose of socialism. the "villager" southern mentality has destroyed the country. perhaps model example societies such as sweden, norway, finland. the reason why middle class is dying is because they don't want to live in there anymore. they are moving elsewhere...
heck even myself try to avoid USA as much as possible...
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Post by spartacus on Jul 28, 2010 19:42:24 GMT -5
America has already had a bit of Socialism for the past century and that is the very reason why the country is in an economic crisis. America needs to go back to its rugged individualism and less government.
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Post by hellboy87 on Jul 28, 2010 19:59:15 GMT -5
spartacus,I thought America has always been or always had socialism.
Youuu........a Libertarian??? An Objectivist? he hee
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Post by chalkedon on Jul 29, 2010 8:34:36 GMT -5
America has already had a bit of Socialism for the past century and that is the very reason why the country is in an economic crisis. America needs to go back to its rugged individualism and less government. Amen brother.
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Post by chalkedon on Jul 29, 2010 8:37:56 GMT -5
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Post by emily33 on Jul 30, 2010 6:46:18 GMT -5
This is too sad. I saw a Dateline show last Monday how food banks are having a hard time feeding people in the midwest. This stuff only happens in 3rd world countries.
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Post by chalkedon on Jul 30, 2010 7:50:34 GMT -5
how can you feed them when we support the problem ? You have ghetto ppl having kids like roaches and expecting the school district and govt to raise them. There is no accountablity anywhere and we keep giving welfare checks.
Whever gets foodstamps should also be sterilised.
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Post by spartacus on Jul 30, 2010 9:57:08 GMT -5
^ Exactly.
All these social welfare programs have given people the incentive to do stupid things. Why would people try to look for work if they can just as easily receive unemployment checks? And also, ever since the government started using tax payer money to support young families with many kids, younger people started becoming careless and having more kids when they are not financially stable to support them. Rise in young marriages, divorce, and children with no father figure is because of this welfare incentive. If you told people that they will be 100% responsible for whatever they do, they would think twice about these decisions.
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Post by todhrimencuri on Aug 1, 2010 13:06:44 GMT -5
America has already had a bit of Socialism for the past century and that is the very reason why the country is in an economic crisis. America needs to go back to its rugged individualism and less government. What kind of socialism? Like FDRs that revitalized a country during one of the worst economic moments? Since that time there has been nothing other than a complete withdrawal and removal of almost all forms of social aid from the American public, particularly the black and hispanic groups. Even the "liberal" Bill Clinton signed one of the harshest and most extreme Welfare Reform bills in the country's history. You fuking morons dont even understand what the word socialism means to even claim that America has ever even had a taste for it. Since the 70s there has been nothing less than a retraction of all forms of social help while the elites continue to draw in earnings for themselves. "Socialist" things like unions have been and are being squashed left and right, people are forced into "work fare" jobs to sustain what little help they can get, forced into humiliating employment where u arent payed even half of what ur means need. The American middle class is getting what it deserves for keeping its eyes closed to the problems of the US by simply pinning them on empty political parties. In Canada I saw a society that functioned properly, where the citizen body cares for each other and the state cares for them. Thats a state. America is a selfish hellhole. If Americans continue to think in the way you do, Im glad you will continue to suffer the same chit over and over again. If you continue to watch Fox News and look for answers through Glenn Beck or O'Reilly or any other such idiots then Americans deserve it. Thats all I can say.... Do you know how much welfare actually costs this nation? In comparison to say Medicare and other retirement benefits? It comprises maybe 1-2% of national spending, at its heighest. Not to mention that this small and nonexistant percentage has been attacked over and over again because of the Reaganite conservative WASP mindset like the quote above. Now many of these mothers are forced into small time jobs that pay almost nothing without a choice because the welfare forces them to take them up, jobs that dont even pay for basic necessities. Not to mention that according to data, most blacks in ghettos are opposed to being on welfare (bs myths about them living well buying big screen tvs and new cares are white racist myths), over 80% want out because of the stigma. This and a whole other set of issues around it make welfare one of the smallest and weakest of the country's programs yet ignorants like u above and the racist politicians continue to attack it as if it does anything. Complete stupidity, racism and hatred of the poor. Good for the WASPs of this nation!
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Post by spartacus on Aug 1, 2010 14:08:27 GMT -5
FDR did not end the Great Depression. He prolonged it! Economic recessions existed in the US before only lasting one year, however since government decided to do away with the gold standard and to run a command economy, the depression lasted over 10 years! You do realize that under FDR American's were starving and living off rations? Those were NOT to golden years. What are you talking about that welfare has been cut on blacks and hispancis? What do you call the Great Society programs? And now we have universal healthcare because liberals obviously believe the healthcare in Europe is doing a terrific job. Socialism is an economic theory in which the state controls the means of production. America has had this system under Woodrow Wilson and FDR. A progressive income tax, social security, medicare medicaid, strong labor unions, government price ceilings and price floors, government regulation of businesses, yea that sounds a lot like socialism to me. And now the government wants to run healthcare when it cannot even run a post office. The debt is at 14 trillion dollars, that is a lot of money. So you believe that it is the role of government to be a nanny and provide for all its citizens? You believe that we are all entitled to free stuff and it is the governments job to make sure that everyone owns equal stuff? Do you believe our rights come from the government or do you believe that every individual is born with certain rights such as the right to own property, the right to keep the fruits of ones labor, and the right to engage in business transactions without the state interfering? America was a state where individuals can pursue anything they wanted without the government running their lives. To support a system where the government takes away from those who have, and gives to others is what I call a sellfish system. Yes you guys in Europe or wherever you live are doing such a terrific job running a command economy where over half its citizens are living off welfare. Even the UK is thinking of cutting its healthcare because it is unaffordable and inefficient. For the record Bill O Reilly supports a safety net, whereas I do not. America is in a recession because of government intervention, printing money, creating all these welfare programs. Yea call me a racist. This is what liberals always do. If you don't agree that we need big government you are a racist. This is what the nazis did when they were in power, calling all those who didn't agree with them bolsheviks. You speak of defending the poor, yet these welfare programs have made the poor much poorer. First of all the national debt is at 14 trillion dollars, how does the government pay for that? They print more money causing inflation and the devaluation of the dollar, which hurts the poor the most because prices rise. I strongly suggest you take an economics class before you call someone stupid or a racist. The baby boomers in the US are retiring in 2011, do you have a solution as to how American tax payers are going to pay for all this? I find that offensive. Again the far left is using white people as a scape goat to our problems. In Germany the scapegoat was the jews, in Russia it was the kulaks, in today's society it is white middle class people.
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Post by todhrimencuri on Aug 1, 2010 15:09:28 GMT -5
LOL!!! How? By stopping meat vendors from throwing out their meats that werent sold? By giving people with nothing a small trinkle to be able to cope with? Your arguments are a joke Im sorry. LOL! Wasps comparing themselves to Jews? Considering the WASPs of America are the greatest killers and genociders, slave owners, international manipulators. People who have persecuted an entire 3rd world to benefit their pockets. Considering half of them harbor strongly racist and at times even anti-semetic feelings. To compare the most despicable and dirty aspect of America with the persecuted minorities of Europe (persecuted by people with the very same origins as the American wasps). The White population of America is a nation who should be ashamed of their ancestry. They have enslaved, mass murdered, and then persecuted and stigmatized those they murdered and enslaved, and finally they ghettoized them. A group of some of the most racist, ignorant and selfish people in the entire world. Unfortunately they have partly succeeded in instilling these values on many others who have come to their country (or been forced to) and have taught these values as intrinsic to their success. Cut military spending, cut the billion dollar deals with dictators and persecutors (Israel) around the globe. Stop borrowing money to fund unnecessary wars and aggression. Start worrying about the people. America did this to itself. It has spent billions and trillions on unnecessary wars and campaigns while fooling its population that it is doing it in the name of freedom and defense. That is the way, social spending has nothing to do with it. American presidents (such as Reagan, perhaps one of the most racist and despicable of them all) have aided big business interests against those of the population (particularly those just below or just on the poverty line) while at the same time policing them to the extreme. They have spent billions and billions funding right-wing dictators and tyrants across the world (resulting in things like 911, something America had coming). But its too late now, the country is holding a wolf by the ears and only once it begins to shake at the foundation do I think that the country can experience true change. WHAT? LOL, the most welfare programs have done is give the most minute help possible to the poor. Welfare programs themselves cant feed a single person. Most people on welfare work 2 to 3 jobs on average. Statistical realities time and time again show that people on Welfare look for the easiest possible way to get off of welfare. Since Reagan and later Clinton, welfare has turned into workfare. In order for these people (usually black single mothers) to keep collecting checks they have to agree to a complete loss of freedom and near enslavement in some minimum wage job that can barely pay for milk. Welfare has dont nothing but help some of the most disenfranchised groups. And yet time and again it is attacked by the most racist, elitist groups of wasps who look for ways to get more racist voters on their side by "going hard on crime" or "ending unnecessary spending" (btw, medicaid is a dozen times more wasteful, but nobody is willing to touch that... no, old people vote.) What is this fox news info? Nobody in England is going to touch the healthcare. If it does I guarantee you that the people will rise against it. As opposed to the US, Europeans know what belongs to them by right and will rise for it (Im not talking about the likes of racist "Tea Party" morons). America is a state where a few can do good for themselves at the cost of everyone else. Where the motto is that if your poor its your own fault, irregardless of background, chance and everything else that decides a persons fate. A country founded on the ideals of greedy ambition, of accumulating as much as possible for yourself. A country of unbridled greed and consumerism. A nation that a 500 years from now will only have giant walmarts to show off its "culture". That is America. 200 years ago one could make it in the US if they were a slave trader. You could buy a nice big house with that money. Today its the very same, just under different terms. The fact is that unbridled capitalism leads to exploitation, a fact well learned in the first years of the industrial revolution. It should be the job of the state to help its citizens, especially if the state is elected by the citizens, patroled by the citizens and given legitimacy by the citizens. America is a state that both polices its citizens while also saying that it "abstains" from it. The fact is, "hands off" policies in America have done an incredible amount of harm to the American public (im not talking about the few who profited but of the greater whole). They have resulted in deregulated wages, desocialized jobs, longer hours, less pay, fewer vacations, more layoffs... all so a few can make money. At the same time the US government has stepped up efforts to squash any form of action against such a thing by enlisting a massive police force to enforce its rule. It has botn removed all forms of social help but one: police. America's debt is the fault of its right-wing elitist wasps who have spent trillions on foreign wars, not on the spending on social welfare which barely goes past a few billion. Im sorry, but it would do u good to get off of Fox News and read a little. Just a big, Loic Waquant would be a good start, Jamie Peck The Workfare state. Social Darwinism in European and American thought, The Color of Welfare. All sociological books that truncate everything piece of Fox News nonsense in your posts.
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Post by spartacus on Aug 1, 2010 21:21:23 GMT -5
By paying farmers to destroy their crops and livestock when you have people in the cities facing high food prices. By banning private contracts and forcing people to give all their gold to the government and accept inflated fiat dollars. Please study American history.
This is just a ramble of an uneducated far-left liberal brainwashed by some fanatics. You are making racial remarks against white people and using white people as the scape goat.
I agree that America should change their foreign policy and return to non-intervention, bring all troops home from all the bases around the world, and return to a neutral foreign policy such as the Founding Fathers argued.
Reagan understood that the role of government is not to run our lives. He also understood that taxing people to death is not only immoral, but also the reason why economies don't grow.
Welfare encourages people to do things they otherwise wouldn't do. The people in Europe wouldn't be sitting around cafes from dusk till dawn if they knew that they wouldn't be getting another check from the government. People won't work if they see that they are getting just as much money for not working.
The policiticans have combined $99.2 trillion just for unfunded social security and medicare obligations. Add in our national debt and interest payments and you'll see we have a problem.
And once again, playing the race card is not going to work anymore.
Yea, Europeans know how to obediently obey their government and allow their governments to take away their property, wages, and their rights to carry arms. Europeans also know how to allow totalitarian ideologies such as Fascism and Communism to breed in Europe. While American's distrust their government and rebel the moment our government tries to take away our weapons, Europeans obediently obey when their governments take away their rights. Europe is a nation of sheep.
America was founded on the idea that everyone has the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail. All earnings an individual achieves are his. The government has no right to tread on the liberties of anyone. A nation that has people who succeed and people who fail is a free nation. Whatever success you have in America belongs to you and it is not for the government to take anything away that is yours. That is America.
European nations invented the slave trade. It was not an American invention. Please study your history.
Capitalism is freedom. Competition and Adam Smith's invisible hand in the free market allow firms who perform to the benefit of the consumers to succeed. Firms who charge high prices or who don't meet the services expected of them lose to more efficient firms. It is the consumers who are in charge. That is Capitalism.
America's debt began since we decided to turn towards a welfare state. It was progressives who started America's foreign policy of nation-building. Woodrow Wilson said we need to make the world safe for Democracy, Roosevelt wanted to go into WWII, Truman started the fighting in Korea and went to war without the approval of Congress.
LBJ began a welfare policy that bankrupted the nation. I recommend that you lay off the drugs and Bill Maher documentaries.
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Post by todhrimencuri on Aug 2, 2010 0:26:31 GMT -5
I have, plenty and sociological and economical versions along side popular ones as well. Probably more books than you can even read in a lifetime. FDR's reforms werent the best, but they provided wages for many of America's entirely underclassed and unemployed groups. It didnt end the depression but it did help alieviate it for many people who finally found a way to ease it. Capitalism is not freedom in anyway. its not freedom when a small few are able to concentrate all of the economy in their hands and dominate all others, such as what happened before the Progressive years when people worked 6 days a week 14 hrs a day and what is happening today. Unrestrained capitalism leads to manipulation, extortion and virtual enslavement, such as with what is happening when American companies touch the 3rd world. Your ideology is antiquated and 19th century BS. The crap promoted by an elitist few who held all of the power. Reagan only helped the upper -- white -- classes of America, nobody else. He expanded prisonfare to diproportionate levels unseen in the entire western world. His union busting has resulted in the deregulation of wages all across America, he favored a few and fuked over the rest. Its because of men like him that 45 million Americans lack basic healthcare and work precarious wage labor jobs at Walmart or anyother major corporation. Not to mention that he expanded America internationally by promoting such despicable groups as the Contra or the Taliban in Afghanistan, fuked over the 3rd world by putting puppet dictators who threw their own people to the hands of American companies. In short, one of the most immoral and racist figures America has seen since the 19th century imperialist presidents. Are you saying that the Natives were not exterminated? That Blacks were not enslaved? That they were later not disenfranchized? terrorized? killed by KKK members and supportive parties? That America is the only country in the modern west where prisons are essentially black assylums for the pettiest of crimes. America continues to be a racial state where a white ideological and fundamentalist population exherts control (with or without Obama) over the Blacks in the country. Wtf are u talking about? Stop spewing shit and look at statistics. For one thing, welfare only gets about 16 billion per year as of 2002, that amount comes out to a joke when compared to everything else around it. Here are some: Out of 379 women receiving welfare in 4 cities in 1994: - 39% worked off the books - 77% received unreported income from family and kin. - 50% of welfare recipients LEFT welfare within a year because they disliked being on it. - 20% of daughters (welfare is mostly a single mother phenomenon because prisonfare is what is given to black men, I can go into that a bit more later) who grew up with family members on welfare continued to stay on it Read Making Ends Meet by Kathryn Edin and Laura Stein along side Living on the Edge: Realities of Welfare in America. Of all the countries in the modern western world, America, the embarrassing nation that it is, has one of the lowest and weakest forms of social welfare, resulting in an unprecedented amount of its population living below poverty, resulting in the US being one the most crime ridden countries of all the modern west with some of the highest murder rates.... not to mention America is also one of the nations closest to being essentially a police state, with a policing force that is bigger than anything in the modern west. These are all FACTS! On the whole the majority of mothers on assistance worked 2-3 jobs with the welfare and often worked to try and get off of it. The idea proposed above is nothing but an elitist conservative white (pun intended) lie! It has no basis on the reality of things. Its based entirely on perception of a racist white population. America was founded by elitist racist slave owners who agreed that equality was something that was designated only to landholding white males. Men who never envisioned opportunity in the country outside of their own central core. The ideology above is the ideology of an aristocratic elite group and never was something that trinkled into the ideology of the popular groups. Except that slavery existed and predominated parts of America decades after it was ended and banned in Europe. In fact, without a begrudingly fought civil war, there is no evidence today that Slavery was going to end in the south. In America, slavery continued to be an intrinsic aspect of a major portion of its economy. The entire southern cotton business relied on slavery and in 1859, on the eve of war, it was only expanding. Even the north and Abe Lincoln had no real love for the blacks, many in the north didnt care if slavery was ended and blacks freed, others who did didnt want to see Blacks become an enfranchised group. Many wanted them shipped back to Africa. A nation of sheep with more political and social upheavals than anywhere else. America has not seen a single change in its empty republican/democratic dichotomy for generations. Americans are the sheep here, Im sorry, I carry no particular love for Europeans but nowhere in Europe can you see such a passive resistance to the loss of freedoms, loss of wages, loss of benefits, loss of citizenship values, loss of unions et al. than in the US. In France, if worker unions are threatened people go to the streets in a second. If inherent rights are infringed upon people stand up in seconds. Here people moan or blame it on inefficient and empty political dichotomies, as if Obama is any different from the conservative republicans who ruled before him... or Clinton.... Americans are not only passive, but ignorant as well. On the whole they are unable to see the reality around them, they are angry but channel it through racism or empty criticism of "socialism" on a centrist president (Obama is not a leftist president, his policies are entirely centrist). Lets see the difference: - American cities are on the verge of death over the past 30 years - America is a nation with the highest incarceration rate - Highest crime rate - Highest poverty rate - The only nation in the modern west without socialized health care - Weakest amount of social and political freedoms out of the modern west America may be a world power, but that is the only meter it tops. In every other department America lags behind Europe in an epic scale. These statistics speak the reality of things. Not only all of this but America falls among the lowest in quality of life meters, coming close to the 3rd world. Europe consistently tops America in happiness meters... Sorry, America is on the whole a shithole... especially once you leave the Leftist areas of the country and enter into the "patriotic god-fearing territories" Lol. Its true, Americans work hard... only because they have to. In the past 3 decades America has seen one of the greatest drops in wages since the time before unionization. The current largest employer of the country is a temp company that gives out wage jobs throughtout. Wage jobs that pay 1/3 less than full-time permanent jobs, that dont give benefits, that are precariously held. Americans have lost more and more and more to big companies that are friends with those conservative politicians you favor and ideologies you promote. They would love nothing less than full capitalism... then you would see America become what Chinese factories are.... Then what do you say about Walmart? I call it a capitalistic success... it eats away everything in its path... and the consumer choose it. Then what happens once it destroys the economy of the town it enters? I hires out the entire town, reduces benefits and then can charge what it wants. The realities of capitalism dont work quite the way it was theorized to. Btw, how do you think companies attract consumers? By making the product cheaper. How do you make the product cheaper? By having it be made cheaper. How do you have it made cheaper? By employing cheaper labor. In capitalism, there will be one group of people who will lose out. If the government doesn intervene then you will see a repetition of the 19th century sweat shops that Chinese people are discovering today in their harsh journey into capitalism. In this way Capitalism is an ideology promoted by greed. Increasing revenue is the only philosophy and the corporation where capitalism is headed...
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Post by spartacus on Aug 2, 2010 19:01:52 GMT -5
I've read my fair share of books, but I believe what you have read are left-wing propaganda pieces. FDR brought the country into a deeper crisis in 1937, the Supreme Court was considering putting him on trial for trampling the Constitution until he bullied his way to get what he wanted. WWII brought prosperity to the arms industry, people were living on rations under FDR. Capitalism is freedom because you can start any business you want and make deals with anyone you want without the government on your backs. You are watching too many Michael Moore movies that you are confusing Corporatism with Capitalism. Capitalism is not big monopolies keeping competitors out with government regulations. People wouldn't be working 14 hrs a day because in a competetive market, another business is going to take workers away from you the moment you decide to exploit them. The reason why the few control so much is not because of Capitalism, but because of government intrusion, politicians making side deals with big businesses. Capitalism forbids any government involvement and forbids any special interest group. A man who didn't want government to run our schools and indoctrinate our youth, rather leave education up to the families and teachers is just some racist right? A man who cut taxes and brought prosperity to the country is an evil white racist right? Blacks were enslaved by European governments long before America was even an idea. Your so called Progressive heroes such as Woodrow Wilson were former KKK members. Margaret Sanger of the Progressive movement said that Catholics, blacks, and Jews should all be sterlized. Do I need to go on about eugenics and the liberal movement? This liberal propaganda you read has gotten to the point that it's just laughable. Thomas Jefferson called for the abolition of slavery in his original Declaration of Independence. Ben Franklin, John Adams, George Washington, all were very vocal about ending slavery. These men basically created a government out of enlightenment principles. so I guess those philosophers were a bunch of white racists as well There is evidence from an economic standpoint. Capitalism even showed that slavery doesn't work. The North was industrializing and employing free men working for wages, who were motivated and more productive, while the South was still using slaves who had no incentive to try and become more productive since they had nothing to gain from it. Slavery was already banned in the Northern states and it was only a few southern states that still practiced it. Slavery would have died on its own. The Civil War was a result of other factors, not slavery. That's not Capitalism. That sir is Corporatism, crony capitalism, Keynesian-ism. Capitalism does not allow government to get involved in the economy. There would be no business groups making friends with politicians, this happens when you allow government to interfere. Companys make products cheaper and better by researching technology and more efficient ways to produce those products. Look at computers, they used to cost thousands of dollars to make until technology and research made it cheaper. Walmart is a success because it gets cheaper products to its consumers. As long as Walmart continues to meet the needs of the consumers, it will stay in business. The key is that the consumers are in control. Walmart cannot charge high prices once they kick out their competitors, because competition will enter the market once wal-mart charges more. Government has intervened in the American economy for over 100 years! There was no progress! Government intervention is what makes an economy suffer, they are good for only the few lobbyists who pay politicians to vote their way. Government is like fire, it can be an obedient servant or a fearful master. So you're saying Communism is the way to go? Having peasants work on government owned farms, without the right to their labor or property, is better than a free market? Please just take a basic economics course before you become a Che Guavaro revolutionary.
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Post by todhrimencuri on Aug 2, 2010 19:59:14 GMT -5
yes he was. He expanded the police state aspect of the US to unprecedented levels and unleashed it on an impoverished black population that was seeing its jobs and support dwindle. He was supported by some of the most despicable right-wing church nuts of the country, a man who caused unprecedented damage to the brown third world and enriched his white crownies. Yes, he is racist. Btw, government outside of schools and we would still be teaching creationism as a rule. Big manopolies are the end result of capitalism. Wake up the late 19th century showed that quite well with giants such as Rockefeller. Without government to get involved and help out labor unions we would still be working 6days/12hr a week. Corporations were allowed by the government to begin... and then grew as the government hands disappeared from control. Capitalism will slow everything whole unless it is checked, you have no proof otherwise. Just look at the third world, at walmart and the rise of neo-liberalism. George Washington, vocal or not about slavery (and he wasnt, he just criticized it) never freed his slaves and continued to live with them... in fact the white house was built by slave labor. And there is no evidence that slavery was going to end in the south, there are a good set of lectures on the Yale youtube website about the Civil War. Look into them. The book Battle Cry of Freedom also goes into quite well. On the eve of the war the slave trade and cotton trade in the south was booming, it could have gone for 60 more years if the war didnt start. Cheapr products that are the result of cheap labor in the 3rd world. Products made in sweat shops in China. Walmart doesnt raise prices per se, but it decreases employment benefits, cuts worker wages... it essentially destroys the town it enters economically. Watch the documentary I posted above. All of the cheap stuff capitalism provides comes from the backs of the third world. Cheap Ipods, shoes everything.
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Post by captainalbania on Aug 4, 2010 8:16:23 GMT -5
Please Melty, FDR's reforms only lessened the burden slightly for the people so there wasn't a full on revolt. Since Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve act and effectively gave control of our monetary power to the federal reserve (which is neither federal, or a reserve, mind you), these throwaway "reforms" to give the people a few scraps when you have royally shafted them are a slap in the face of the ideals of the founding fathers of this once great nation.
On the "backs" of which country? This "cheap" revolution is what is giving china its incredible growth potential. This is the basics of economics and free trade. Don't blame global business tactics on paleoconservatives like Spartacus, he totally opposes free trade.
Everything you have said in this entire thread (besides the non-interventionism, which i agree with) is a fallacy. What made America great was its industry and free enterprise, and the fact that you could reap what you sow. Government did its job in the limited capacity that it had and things worked well.
We seem to agree on the basics, but you guys on the left have a warped view on things. You have not considered Spartacus' point at all. Think about it, he probably wants the following -Abolish the federal reserve and declare our national debt invalid -Abolish the IRS and only tax corporations -Stop free trade agreements between the United States and the third world to make American products more competitive on the domestic market.
What you want to do. -Socialized medicine (more taxes on the middle class) - Wealth redistribution programs (more taxes on the middle class)
How is anything that you want to do going to solve this country's fundamental issues at all?
The reason the middle class is suffering in this country is because they can no longer compete with the "middle class" of other countries on a global scale and are losing the economic war that began with the liberalization of trade.
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