Forum Post: The stunning wonder of capitalism!
Posted 11 years ago on March 24, 2013, 4:33 p.m. EST by Perfectcast
(-168)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Go to a cellphone store and see how capitalism enriches our lives.
Perfectcast, you are getting opposition here... because you are only looking at the benefits of Capitalism ... and I agree there are benefits..
(GIVEN... that all the wealth has not fallen into the hands of a few).. ie freedom to choose work... freedom to prosper... freedom to profit... etc... and all the other BS .. (which mostly is true)...
when times were good for all... no-one complained .... but now ...the problem is that Capitalism (as it has been abused ) is hurting not only the masses but the planet itself ... and most of us feel that we either need to improve it so it doesn't harm... or replace it with something new....
This isnt capitalism we are living in. Its corporatism.
And everyone here only looks at the ills. I was struck and frankly amazed at how free market competition has made my life so easy when when I went to Verizon. For $99, and a 2 year contract, competition has given me a little machine that is a phone, video machine, camera, calendar, GPS, game center, web portal, etc. That's just stunning. And the competition is intense and the product cheap.
I bought a Subaru Forester. List price $32000. The dealer took $5500 off the list price and gave me 0% financing. Capitalism drives that.
When Verizon bought Alltel, they cut my 14% margin to 7%, with no explanation. My business is now closed and 19 people are on unemployment, because of companies like Verizon. They along with others made my small business nothing more than a corporate outlet. Learn the whole story.
yeah ... good for you... but not for many others...
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/426566_612519825429069_1449532239_n.jpg
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/310507_578930152117967_1388712077_n.jpg
Your second photo is bogus.
And I counted the people who bought new cellphones in a blue collar, lower middle class neighborhood. In 2 hours, they sold 30 cellphones. People buy what they enjoy.
why is it bogus ?
Because, Brad, the red shirt guy said so.
yep... kindda thought so
I don't think it can help it
LOL
Capitalism creates great wealth, but it does not create poverty. Man was in poverty for 70000 years, unless he was a royal. Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any system ever. Capitalism is not a zero sum game. It favors intellect and ambition, but it lifts even the lowest. Don't lose sight of where man, the common man was 250 years ago.
???? where have you been the last 6 years ?.... how many people do you know that declared bankruptcy ? .... likely none... because you are sheltered in your own materialistic world...
I'd rather be homeless on the street ... than live in your blindness ... sorry
Humans will achieve progress regardless of what "ism" they are in, because we are builders and creators.
Humans will always be over run by elites if they are too afraid to get involved.
There is nothing to be sorry for in having integrity
~Odin~
Why did they have to declare bankruptcy? The true reason?
most of them went bankrupt ... because they lost their jobs, during the crash ...
The reason is the Fed had a loose money policy. They tried to create a political result with monetary policy. That's a very very bad idea.
and a WHOLE LOT of Fraud
The entire monetary system is a fraud. Its fraud built on fraud. Financed by fraud, and then spun into deriviatives of more fraud.
If the monetary policy wasn't being used for political purposes, fraud would have been tough. An asset bubble is asking for fraud.
You dont really own your house.
Yet it sucks money from you every month.
You don't know how profound your statement is. The Federal government stimulated home ownership with artificially low rates, putting people in an asset that really isn't an asset. It was a horrible policy. Home ownership isn't a good thing for a very large part of the population. Home ownership shouldn't exceed over 40-50% of the people. Think about it. If everyone owns a house, values HAVE to fall and fall dramatically. Why? Because there isn't demand left, everyone owns a house.
If 60% are renters, then there are still buyers.
And if there wasnt that built in fraud to begin with, we would never be looking at housing as an asset to begin with.
Huh?
What fraud?
maybe spend a little time reading thru the hundreds of posts here detailing the crimes... and not so much time telling us that everything is fine... we can go to Fox NoNews for that
I have. Not here. They can't convict anyone because no laws were broken. Cases get brought up then dismissed. Please document a real crime. I have looked. All over.
You haven't looked too hard then:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/12/even-the-mainstream-media-finally-awakens-to-the-fact-that-big-banks-are-criminal-enterprises.html
When you push investment products that are based on bullshit and then see that they get AAA ratings attached to them
And when you were also the major reason that this irresponsible system came about
And when you sell the same shit (because you know it's shit) that you are pushing on unknowing customers who ended up losing their shirt
I call that fucking fraud, and the only reason undoubtedly that it was not prosecuted is because a deal was made before the election
~Odin~
Fraudulent interest rates and schemes controlled by central planners.
What fraudulent rates? Lots of loans were tied to T biills, not LIBOR.
Trying to tie down these loans to certain things is almost impossible, because its all such a woven mess.
That being said, Tbills are manipulated as well. Not too much free market common sense going into them if you ask me. And yet there they are, plentiful as usual.
The problem is that capitalism has been taken over by something quite different from capitalism, which is imperialism. Rather than being a bastion of capitalism, Wall Street is and always has been an outpost of global empire, which seeks to enslave whole nations to it.
American capitalism was intended to allow as many people as possible to accumulate capital. But empire has infiltrated our system, and uses it to steal as much of our accumulated capital from us as possible.
As our accumulated capital continues to diminish, the empire will inevitably have to move towards war, as its only remaining viable means of looting nations of their accumulated capital.
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Hm... You state you know something about human condition 70K years ago... what would be your source of history and documentation.
Seems that most artifacts dissolve in like 4,000 years ... Egypt being the most prominent example.
We have Law (Regulations) carved in stone that are over 6,000 years old in Mesopotamia. My question is in view of the ethics carved in stone 6,000 years ago ... why would we tolerate people making money off of Rent Seeking in your stated "Modern 20th Century American in the USA"? Because it is clear that the reeducation of America has a goal to turn the USA into Latin America... where the Gap between the Rich and the Poor is Criminal and Felonious.
Are you familiar with the Fall of Rome or the Rape of people that haven't had good schools ... and who are forced into economic decisions that include indentured servitude and serfdom. ????
Do you think there is something natural about serfdom???
Is it natural that people without protection should have Rights taken away .... should have no opportunity for property ... should have no opportunity for education .... should have no opportunity for an ethic a life, a viable wage, for liberty, for freedom, for respect from government and society, for respect for being a spiritual being with ideas and enterprise and an opinion???
In the end the People in Charge will find a way to deprive the vote from the common people. It is so clear. It is clear who is in charge. It is clear that education is not the objective of government. And it is likely that US Elections will be found to be fraudulent in the future if not in the recent past.... it is not a question of documentation ... it is a question of motivation.
The Powers that be have every motive to rig the US elections and corrupt our state representatives that go to Washington DC where the big money is.
Late add: maybe you support the US Banana Wars by Smedley Butler... and US Marine CORPS.???
Perhaps you don't care about the killing in El Salvador?
Iran Contra Doesn't bother you?
Operation Gladio doesn't bother you?
Yes I do know what scientists have said the true humans were doing 70000. That is the dawn of humanity. Life was short, brutish, and savage.
Today's poorest man in America is far richer than the richest 500 years ago. Would you rather colkevt a welfare check, or chase bison on foot and drive them over a cliff?it is a serious question.
There is no evidence that Scientist know what was happening 70,000 years ago.
The Scientific Method precludes knowing.
You can not admit evidence except through rigorous criticism in the scientific method. You know that. The fact is there are way too many holes in History and in Science. You know this. And the problem is you can't use the scientific method to make any conclusions at all beyond 3,000 years ago.
If you are a scientist, you must conclude that we don't know enough about people in the past to definitively State How they Lived and How the Believed, How there Culture was, How Great their Culture was, If they had advanced Philosophy or advanced education... it is all unknown.
Scientists are idiots when it comes to History and Culture. Every year Truth is overturned in Science. It is the same in History. We don't know our history because most indicators and records are gone.
In fact the Scientists are such assholes they seldom admit that most old libraries and keepers of history and knowledge have been burned by the time of the Roman Empire.
Therefore, ... you either don't know the scientific method or you are just a layman who doesn't look for facts.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352461,00.html
We know a LOT about early man.
Sorry but you are wrong. There was no iron, copper or stone. My son studied early humans in Europe. We have mitochondrial DNA.
Sorry but you have no credibility.
So you are saying there is only .... one or few components of science or analysis... seems kind of anti-science to me. And we have Quantum physics that would point to a basis for knowledge in thinking, meditating, religion, spiritual exploration.
You can't acknowledge that people have many abilities can you?
Sorry my father is a physicist. You have no credibility.
When did I say people didn't have many abilities?
Okay, slow down, look up Scientific Method and read that for a while. Then look at the difference between soft science and hard science, ... then do a search to see how science changes over 20 years and in fact if you were born in 1940, 70% of what you know based in science will be overturned by the time you are 80 years old.
Your position is that science is static. That is ludicrous and scientists will refute this assertion.
If you say science does change every year, then you admit that knowledge is hidden, the characteristics are that it is unknown, and that perhaps there are systemic forces that would like to keep knowledge unknown.
It doesn't matter
Science publishes new science every year that overturns the older education and knowledge. This proves the point that science has limitations - even when institutions refuse to teach the limitations of science.
You don't get it. Science is limited to the study of what I can prove. This means that there is a whole huge set of things that science can not investigate. Science does not touch most of what we call culture or history or art.
And it can't tell you much about life 2000 years ago.
There may have been great cultures and great cities that had ethics, morals, and laws of equality that made a kind of paradise. But we may never know ... we can only look at stone carved laws that exist today and admire the clarity and thought of people that were just like you and me... which is obvious from the laws that were written.
Come on out, puppet.
Not too bright. I like that in a girl.
Ahh, there you are little cockroach.
Did you get what you came for?
Ahh, there you are little cockroach.
Did you get what you came for?
Did you get what you came for? Puppet?
Fool, capitalism is just a stage in evolution. It came as naturally as our opposable thumbs and future generations will study it like we are cavemen.
And you know this how? Predict the next phase.
I hope you live to be equal.
Perfectcast, you must be pretty young because you sure don't sound like you know much about the real world.
Capitalism is not the problem.
Democracy is not the problem.
Wall st is not the problem.
Main st is not the problem.
Dems are not the problem
Repub are not the problem,
The problem is that
Main St Dems LET the greedy capitalist Wall St Repubs buy
THE PEOPLE's DEMOCRACY
take it back with HR29 & http://corporationsarenotpeople.webuda.com
What would you think of capitalism if corporations were not given the rights of PEOPLE & citizens united was overturned -
severing the link between capitalism & democracy
see HR29
&
http://corporationsarenotpeople.webuda.com
Troll bait. Don't get hooked.
This does not make any sense. Private ownership on the means of production is not why we have technological development. There are many examples of publically run companies offering very good services. Successful worker owned/managed enterprises – cooperatives – are also increasing in number.
Why do we have patent law?
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Here - try to edgamacate U'rself on crapitalism:
Debt Strangles the 99% | http://OccupyWallSt.org : http://occupywallst.org/article/debt-strangles-99percent/#.UU9UVwnOS7w.twitter …
Full Show: What Has Capitalism Done for Us Lately? http://bit.ly/XA3wxE via @BillMoyers Watch/Share/Circulate.
Are you going to answer the cellphone store example?
Capitalism, often efficient, needs people
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/01/what_capitalism_cant_fix.html
Whose problems aren't always solved by capitalism
I have no objection to providing a safety net. But it needs to be controlled. Just .I,e capitalism can't answer every question, the central government cannot either. OWS thinks all ills are cured by power concentration in Washington. That's a bad and foolish bargain.
The people must solve their own problems.
You don't agree congress has a share In our problems? Eg unpaid for spending, and charging it and interest to future and citizens. Bailouts to too big to fail banks, subsidizing bank speculative gambling on wall street? Buying weapons the military does not want, overseas bases in Germany, Japan.
http://www.cusdi.org/annapolis.htm
Representative government is messy, real messy. I wouldn't have bailed out banks, I think we need to balance the budget, and we get in stupid wars.
Is congress protecting special interests
http://newshour.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/2012/10/02/At_17.6_percent_of_GDP_in_2010_slideshow.jpg
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries.html
http://www.cleanupwashington.org/sii/
Why? It is a poor example.
Much better material and information here:
Full Show: What Has Capitalism Done for Us Lately? http://bit.ly/XA3wxE via @BillMoyers Watch/Share/Circulate.
And here:
Debt Strangles the 99% | http://OccupyWallSt.org : http://occupywallst.org/article/debt-strangles-99percent/#.UU9UVwnOS7w.twitter …
Again, are you going to answer the cellphone store question? I guess you can't. Ok.
What's C done for us? Email, cellphones, printing, fashion, food, lighting, recorded music, the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, Broadway, heat, air conditioning, automobiles, surfboards, baseball, Disneyland, the PC, lawnmowers, washing machines, the cotton gin, steam power, penicillin, artificial joints, Bill Moyers eyeglasses, his haircutm his clothes, the wire to transmit his message, the cathode ray tube, flat screen TV, Blu Ray,
Bill Moyers has earned over $20 million from public television and refuses to post his income. Some messiah. TWENTY MILLION.
Collaborative groups like universities are producing more innovation. Private innovation is trending down to just 30 percent of innovation http://www.itif.org/files/Where_do_innovations_come_from.pdf
Innovation will happen, capitalism may have spurred innovations. However
What are negative side effects of capitalism?
Pure capitalism is harsh to the weak, like the sick. It also severely punishes the lazy, as it should. Also everyone here makes a critical thinking error. We vent anger at some hedge fund billionaire, but forget to understand that there were other hedge funders who list billions betting the other way.
I love Libertopia.
I C U R still the perfectASS.
Typical Internet COWARD. fearful, wimpy, chickenshit.
Why are there so many offerings of cellphones?
Answer, Mr. Scaredy cat.
Greed. Simple wasn't it? mr blindass.
So product innovation and consumer choice relate to greed. Ok. At least it's an answer. Weird but ok.
Everything is due to capitalism. But the ows people have been told ( their talking point) to decry capitalism in favor of socialism. With socialism , everyone is equally miserable. With capitalism, everyone can achieve, its up to them, their ambition, talents, drive , hardwork and never quitting in spite of failures along the way.
I love watching the Tea Party denial. Even more, I love watching how you keep trying to make it a capitalism v socialism thing because you just
can't
seem
to grasp it.
I twinkled this can you twinkle mine?
You are correct, of course.
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Our mayor was away on a ski trip when the city announced its decision to close 54 schools. This is the largest mass closing of schools in the country’s history. It comes on the heels of Mayor Emanuel closing several mental health clinics in mostly black & brown communities. All of this is happening in a larger context where poverty has been steadily increasing in Chicago, affordable housing is scarce, communities are demanding access to trauma care and we have had a spate of lethal violence. We seem to have entered an era of disaster capitalism in Chicago where the elites manufacture crises as an excuse to privatize the commons.
http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2013/03/23/resilience-love-and-refusing-to-give-up/
And austerity continues to turn up the heat on social unrest/disenfranchisement/abandonment.
Exactly.
What you have a dem run city that's rife with corruption and has been for decades. Capitalism is not the problem,..........your elected officials are.
Disaster capitalism doesn't recognize one political party, now, does it?
I can break out your little Tea Party if you like.
dem run cities and states are a fiscal mess.
Actually every single state is a mess. And they are all realying on handouts from the Fed. To think otherwise is just more Hannity and Oreily nonsense. Perhaps the three of you can have a tea party with Chris Hayes?
take a look at california + illinois, dem run disasters. Then look at texas.
Ok, let's look at Texas. http://firedoglake.com/2012/12/09/of-cancer-and-crony-capitalism/
Or here:
Despite its growth and diversified economy, Texas also has had the less fortunate history since 1980 of having a larger percent of its population living in poverty than the overall US average. Briefly stated, Texas uses a measure of poverty employed by the federal government that calculates a yearly dollar figure; if an individual or a family has an income that is less than this figure, then that individual or family is by definition poor. For example, in 2006, a family of three individuals, two of which were under 18 years of age, was considered to be "in poverty" if the family's total income (wages, salaries, etc.) was less than $16, 242. For a family of four with two under age eighteen, the "poverty line" or "poverty threshold" was $20,444. As Francis Deviney of the Center for Public Policy Priorities discusses in the video clip found in the box on the right side of this page, the definition of the poverty line, however, fails to reflect the modern expenditures of most contemporary households.
A graph of poverty rates in the US and Texas shows that every year since 1980 Texas has had a higher poverty rate than the US. One might well ask why this is the case, and we shall address this question and others as we go along.
What else is distinctive or notable about poverty in Texas? One way to answer this question is to ask how Texas ranks with the other fifty states on a variety of indicators. For example, in 2007 Texas ranked second among all the states in the percent of its populace that was poor (that is, only four states had higher rates). The poverty rate for Texas in that year was 16.5%. The only other state that had higher poverty rates was Mississippi (20.1%). It should be pointed out that the four other states in the top five all have much smaller populations than Texas, and all are predominantly rural, as this table illustrates. This fact alone makes Texas distinct; it clearly has the highest poverty rate of any large industrial state.
But Texas also has far greater numbers of poor people than these four other states. Its poor population in absolute numbers (3.934 million people) is larger by far than the combined poor populations of the other four states (3.9 million for Texas compared to 2.13 million for the other four together (US Census Bureau "Income, Earning, and Poverty Data from the 2007 American Community Survey", p. 15). Indeed, California (total population 36.8 million) is the only state with a larger number of poor people (4.67 million) than Texas. The third and fourth largest poverty populations are in New York (2.8 million) and Florida (2.3 million), but all of these states have significantly lower poverty rates (California 12.7%, New York 14.3%, and Florida 12.5%) than Texas. Texas therefore has both a large number of poor people and a high percentage of its population living in poverty. In 2007, Texas ranked ninth in its poverty rate for the elderly; it ranked forty-ninth in the percentage of its adult population with a high school diploma; and it ranked first, at 24.4 %, in the percent of its populace with no health insurance. http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/12_2_0.html
Take away the bailouts and the handouts, and see where they are. They may have just posted a surplus, but their education is horrible, they are a massive police state, and are leading the nation in minimum wage jobs.
Go there. Walk around Dallas and Houston. And then tell me that feels like a success.
texas has a booming economy, i have 2 business's there. both doing well.
Booming?
You ever heard of a bubble there pal?
Here's a hint: We are ALL in one.
yes, booming, in Austin.
What you think is a boom will be extremely short lived. Bernake is running your show. A "boom" these days is nothing more than a short bump.
What's the gamechanging tech breakthrough that is fueling the boom?
this bump that makes me money has been going on for years.
Not saying you arent better at making money than the average person. Saying that your idea of a boom is totally a perceptive thing from vast conditioning and would be a joke, in relations to the better quality of life for the entire area when compared to other areas lesser, and then the entire difference compared to last times where there were "booms"
Bottom line- this entire country is a bubble, and its not going to spare "Austin:....because there really is nothing terribly unique in Austin compared to other areas of the country.
gold, silver, lead, and a vast supply of food, water, energy.
i'll be fine, i have silver and gold and lead.
Fine is relative too. If you end up in a situation where those three things have taken on a much greater value than normal, then you are sucked in with the rest in the grand scheme of things regardless. They are hedges. hedges against a downturn. Still a downturn.
Thats my point, There is no boom. Its all a bubble. Whether it pops or just slowly deflates is another discussion all together (market forces vs central planning).
But its a bubble regardless. Kind of gives the term "living in a bubble" a whole other set of meanings, both as a society and an individual.
Chicago's issues are more related to 80% out of wedlock birthrate in minority areas than government policy. It is a fact that young men raised without a father have almost no chance of success. Interestingly girls don't have the same negative.
Wroooooooong again!
Good article.
Thanks.
Funny how the proper information can illuminate some dark and seemingly incomprehensible issues - Hey?
I agree.
Good thing that some people are still working to get the truth out.
Yeah, and the good thing is that there are a lot more than people realize.
And more circulating/sharing that information as well.
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Chicago is at the mercy of the public employee unions. However that in no way explains the amazing innovation that has taken place because of the profit motive of capitalism. Please stay on topic.
No, not really. But, thanks for playing. Please stay on topic.
That only applies if you think that inventors would be in need of public money. Which would go against what your core point is here.
Hence......
Everyone has access to that public money. It demands intellect and ambition. Some take advantage and proSper, some do not.
So you think innovation is dependent on public money to a certain extent?
Yes it is.
Are you ok with that?
Theres always private money floating around. You just have to find it.
Yes
Where did you go, little cockroach?