Forum Post: The Truth About Our Economy
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 24, 2011, 10:46 p.m. EST by suzencr
(102)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
CAPITALISM
CAPITALISM is an economic system that allows ownership of private property and the ownership of the means of production for creating value.
Communism is the termination of private property. Josef Stalin’s socialist collective farms enabled the Holodomor man-made famine that killed 7 to 10 million Ukrainian people.
CORPORATE crony capitalism sucks. It is privatization of resources through monopolies, usually by multi-national corporations. Monopolies prevent competition in the free market and can only exist through government regulations and enforcement. An example of a corporate crony monopoly is the massive failure of the banks and the government’s use of taxpayer money for the bailouts to protect the banks.
FREE MARKET capitalism is the opposite of corporate crony monopolies; in free markets there is no interference by the state. Free markets favor customers because businesses must compete, which means that customers get the highest quality goods or services for the lowest prices. True capitalism rewards people who are productive.
All people who live in a capitalist country have property, starting with their bodies and including any justly acquired stuff.
The #1 source of freedom is property ownership because it allows the individual to be self sufficient in producing food and other resources that are independent of government control.
Free markets and competition are the key.
CRIMINAL BANKS
Central banks such as the US Federal Reserve System consolidate power at the top. Criminal banking FRAUD is at the heart of our economic problems, but this has nothing to do with private property ownership.
FIAT MONEY: money that has value only because the government says it has value. The value of fiat money is enforced through the threat of fines and imprisonment.
FRACTIONAL RESERVES: banks issue receipts (paper money/dollar bills/I.O.U.s) for assets, usually gold and silver, held in reserve. But the banks write receipts (money) for more gold than they actually have in reserves.
The cure for inflation and criminal money printing is to return to asset backed currency: money backed by gold and silver. Because precious metals require labor for extraction, this prevents printing money out of thin air. The Federal Reserve System is a money monopoly that must be ended in order to return to asset backed money and prosperity.
TAX THE RICH
“Tax the rich” is a trick: the unconstitutional income tax was sold to the public as a tax on the wealthy elite, but the public is the real victim. Because people were envious, they supported the income tax on the rich and the tax was later levied upon them.
The favored wealthy people found loopholes to avoid or minimize their income taxes. For example, most of Warren Buffett’s income comes from capital gains, so he pays only a 15% tax.
If the income tax was eliminated, the government would shrink and people could keep the money they earn.
SOLUTIONS
End the criminal banking monopoly — End the Fed!
Replace fiat money printed out of thin air with asset (gold & silver) backed currency.
Re-institute the Glass-Steagall firewall to separate banks, brokerages, and insurance.
Free markets break corporate monopolies by removing government interference.
Government officials and corporate heads must be held accountable.
Remove prohibitive government regulations from businesses (except those that protect people’s lives, liberty and property).
Remove US membership and support from the UN. Cancel UN treaties.
End the unconstitutional income tax.
No, no, and NO.
1) Ending the Fed isn't going to help at all; in fact, traditionally speaking financial services monopolists like the original J. P. Morgan loved the idea of no Fed and "hard money" or asset-backed currency because it meant that their assets never lost value. The poor loved fiat money because it effectively led to the depreciation of debt, and I feel like their cause is still valid.
2) See #1
3) Not true. Laissez-faire economics in all its glory is what we had during the 1870s through the 1890s, and that was the era of the great tycoons; damn near every industry was completely horizontally and vertically integrated and it took government interference in the form of anti-trust legislation to put an end to that. Monopolies never need help to form but generally always require help to break up.
4) I agree with you that there must be greater accountability, but this runs hand in hand with greater regulation.
5) What prohibitive regulations? There are very few regulations left at all, let alone the kind of regulations that could be construed as artificially prohibitive and restrictive. Furthermore, the process of removing these regulations sent half the jobs overseas and led to the outlandish string of abuses you see in front of you now. Want to make it worse? Keep deregulating?
6) What would that even accomplish other than royally pissing off the rest of the world?
7) Are you serious? The income tax is the ONLY truly progressive tax; everything else disproportionately slams the poor and the middle class while the rich get off scot-free. Besides, a decently graduated income tax would provide a far more stable and far larger revenue stream for the government than what we have now.
In a free market, what stops me from just taking the goods of the sellers without giving value for them?
-- the fact that we have a government that licenses a police force and a legal system to enforce agreed property rights.
In a free market, what stops me from giving short measure, offering goods not fit for purpose, selling stuff that damages the health of the buyer?
-- the fact that we have a government that licenses weights and measures regulations, health and safety regulations, consumer protection regulations.
A "Free Market" is not an unregulated market. There are rules that protect sellers rights, and there are rules that protect buyers rights. "We the People" make the market, but our government makes it workable for all parties.
These things that you believe you are protected from are already happening. You get no value for your dollar anymore, not with runaway inflation. There are hundreds of products sold to you every day that are dangerous and unhealthy and you most likely are not even aware of it. Do you use flouride toothpaste? POISON, an industrial waste by-product used in Nazi Germany to pacify prisoners. You are not safe, even with all the so-called regulations because the corporations protect themselves, even the FDA and EPA are in on this corruption. So your argument does not fly.
So then it's all right for me to take whatever goods I want without paying, because the regulations that protect buyer and seller are dysfunctional?
Focus on a real solution...
Are We the 99%Voters ready to take the REAL next step?....Here is the more proactive solution as the necessary next step at-- http://www.getmoneyout.com --& tell a friend--tell everyone...because this ones gonna be the hardest next step to take.
Election Reform Now-- One person ,one vote ,$100 limit to voters only! Reform Elections first...& the rest will follow...put an end to "government of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation."
& Read Jeffery Sachs--the "Price of Civilization: Renewing America's Values". or listen to--- http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/dr-jeffrey-sachs-101011 ---
Vote for any one who supports these ideas.