I didn't read all of that, but since you asked me in the first post to say stuff, I will.
Unregulated capitalism has been the cause of a lot of suffering (slavery, Civil War, why we're in the Middle East). Corporations are outsourcing more than ever, the top 1% controls something like 40% of the countries wealth, and the gap between lower and upper class is growing larger everyday. Your idea of private schooling and private healthcare further f@#! over these people and prevent them from contributing to society. There are things called positive and negative externalities in economics. The existence of negative externalities is a reason in itself while capitalism is flawed. For example, in unregulated capitalism, a business could cut corners and pollute, something that effects everyone even if they support the business or not... That's a negative externality and that is why government regulation is needed... I mean, isn't it enough to look at American history before labor laws? Anyway, people staying alive and being educated to contribute to society is considered a positive externality, and when you make people pay for things like school and healthcare, you're always going to be excluding the poorest of people. So not only does privatized everything create negative externalies, it reduces the amount of positive externality output.
You are a little bit all over here, Shy, so im going to attempt to clarify while staying inside the bounds of the original discussion. Let's drop the idea of unregulated capitalism where no labor laws or pollution controls exist, because no one in this thread is for that from what I can see. Tying capitalism to slavery and the civil war is prepackaged rhetoric, and again is a topic that involves a great deal of issues, very few of which relate to the dialogue here. Lets stick to the basics. If you want to revisit that later, im game, but lets cap the current discourse first. The most important point you address is the privatization of healthcare and schooling, we'll get back to that. The most important part of my endorsement of privatization is that private enterprise is, at a base level, infinitely more efficient than the government. My measure of efficiency in this case is capital, or more specifically, currency. Private enterprise can provide cheaper schooling the government can, and a switch to privatization can allow for total reform of the unions that strange our public schooling system. By doing this, taxes can be lowered, which will result in more jobs. With enough flexibility in the job market, these so called 'unfortunates' with 'no hope' can enjoy gainful employment which results in a more productive society.
Slavery and the Civil War were just examples I gave that showed what capitalism has historically led to. Today, capitalism oppresses the working and lower class as well as other groups.
Pollution was just an example of a negative externality that capitalism produces. Capitalism means laissez faire, it doesn't want government regulating it... But just to clarify, you do support government regulations on businesses?
Like I said before, privatized schooling will exclude the poorest of the poor, that's why the system is so oppressive. You can't compensate that fact by saying lowering taxes will create more jobs therefore more citizens will be productive to society. Also, another problem with private schooling is that they can teach whatever the hell they want. This is a problem right now, even with public schools and the issue with evolution. There needs to be universal guidelines for what to teach across the country. Forbidding evolution is absolutely unacceptable in a world that is rapidly progressing forward.
f@#!, how do you quote individual things in a post? I'm just gonna have to quote stuff...
"The history of oppression is our country is long and its legacy is deeply engrained in our society. Blacks still suffer because of the sins of our fathers (as we are white), and have less opportunity than whites. Again, this is mostly a social issue, and not really part of the main discussion here. There is an economic difference, but im sure we can agree this is mostly because of social standing and prejudice, and no amount of money appropriated by the government is going to solve that. The blacks aren't the only ones that are born into poverty-like conditions with strikes against them. See: Indigenous Native Americans. Lets drop racism for now, again something we can revisit later. You are taking an issue in a totally different direction, and it confuses the issue at hand. "
The main part of this discussion seems to be economics, and since economics is a branch of sociology, it doesn't make much sense to brush off my points by calling them social issues and saying I'm missing the point. You want to drop racism, why? It's a valid point in discussing flaws of capitalism. Because of racism, a large amount of people are excluded from the fruits of capitalism, and it was capitalism that was the cause of much of this racism!
"I can't refute your assertion that becoming wealthy is mostly luck, its an important point. Most people who have risen to prominent positions (CEOs, ect.) will attribute much of their success to luck, being at the right place at the right time. Alternatively, you have to work hard to put yourself in the position to even have luck be a factor. This applies to people of any color, from any walk of life, from any income bracket. Unfortunately, taxing the sit out of the top bracket isn't a real solution. I'd love for someone from France on these forums to come in here and tell you how the proposal to tax the wealthy at a 75% rate is going. The proposal from Francois Hollande has the wealthy scrambling, as a 75% tax rate should. The wealthy affected are ready to leave the country entirely, taking their businesses with them. So how is that going to help? Especially with the rise of foreign direct investment these days among the rich in the USA, who is to say your tax proposals won't drive them out of the country entirely. Mexico for years have based much of their economy on becoming attractive landing spots for american companies. Your 1% will depart for Mexico long before they pay any sort of crazy rate you are envisioning. And for the record, anyone can be successful through hard work as long as they have a job. Your proposals don't create any jobs. Companies don't create positions when they are taxed more heavily, rather when they are taxed at a lower rate. Why do you think that one of Obama's first significant decisions in office was to extend the Bush tax cuts?"
If people can't handle the tax rate, let them leave and take their business with them. Socialism does not erase the free market; Someone else who can handle the taxes will replace them. Your assertion that hard work leads to success still doesn't hold. I'll ask the question again; why does the vast majority of people born into poverty stay into poverty and the vast majority of people born into wealth stay into wealth? It's ridiculous to assume that everyone in the lower class (which is a large amount now) is lazy and can't work hard. People on welfare want to work, being on welfare is not a free ticket to paradise... they are living on the bare essentials. These businesses that you're afraid will flee the country are the ones most concerned with profit, look how they are outsourcing far more than ever. How is that helping the people who want to work, when the corporations would rather hire people from across the sea to work for nickels? The private sector clearly isn't helping these people, the government needs to be putting out more jobs. I'm sure there is plenty of infrastructure that could be improved. The government could be hiring citizens to do these public works, but instead, we have private businesses utilizing the cheap labor of illegal immigrants, and to my knowledge, there is still no law that targets those who hire them, so there is virtually no risk for these businessmen to cut corners... Speaking of cutting corners, look at the BP Oil Spill and the vast harm it has caused to nature... there's a negative externality for you that could have been avoided with more regulation.. But now I am getting off point.
"I envision government as a entity working in tandem with its citizens to provide freedoms directly outlined in the constitution. Government should be responsible for providing protection for these freedoms in terms of a strong national army and stout militia at a local and state level. Your argument for government funded studies holds no water. There are plenty of studies done by private companies that have been just as influential on the direction of life and health, as you put it. There is no reason to believe government is the only body capable of executing and producing results of studies. If you want examples i'll cite them, but theres no reason to at this point, its a universal fact. I bet you are furious that your liberal contemporaries are selling off the development and upkeep of roads to private companies, especially with your mandate of this being a job of government. As far as your points you've made so far, you've stuck with facts. But when it comes to Reagan, you are dead wrong. Under Reagan, unemployment fell more sharply then it ever had in US history, and the economy grew exponentially. Reagan cut taxes indeed like you said, but in his second term, with the help of congress, pushed through the single largest tax increase in US peacetime history. He then presided over several more tax rate hikes in his first term, the most notable were for social security and credit card debt? I think? Fact check me. The economy grew, more people had jobs, social security was strengthened for the future retirees. Criticizing Reagan is a terrible place to start if you want to rail on someone for ruining the economy. Start with Jimmy Carter."
My point still stands. Yes, there have been great private studies, but the cycle remains the same... Did the scientists who conducted these private studies grow up in a vacuum with no help from the government or community? No, they didn't, no one can. That's the point I'm making. Growing up in society wouldn't be possible without everything the government gives to us, and we have an obligation to give back through taxes to help later generations. The problem is that the top bracket is convinced taxation is theft of hard earned money and they bitch about taxation. Why do you think we're in such debt right now (besides the military budget)? Because the government is funding various things in society (at least trying to), and the people who are lucky enough to make huge amounts of money think they did it all by themselves and don't want to give back to the government that helped them reach that status, so the government is pouring out more money than it is receiving... and once again, it's total greed. These CEOs who are making thousands more than their employees don't think they can live comfortably with still tens of millions of dollars even after a 70% income tax. How much do you think the average person in the top 1% spends a year? Do you think they even come close to spending half of their income in a year? You realize that most of the money they make just sits there, when it could be put back into society to help the less fortunate? I'm not dead wrong about Reagan. You can easily look up any graph and see that when Reagan took office, taxes were sharply cut and the national debt sky rocketed.
http://greghollingsworth.org/storage/post-images/Income_Tax_Rate_v._National_Debt.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1250006419085 There is a simple graph... Income tax goes down, national debt goes up, right after Reagan takes office. The only economic gain you see from Reagan was through the highest bracket. He totally f@#!ed the lower class. Like I said in our private discussion, if there was one president I would compare to Hitler, it would be Reagan for what he did to the lower class... I challenge you to google "Reagan lower class", a neutral term, and show me how many goods things you find, because everything I'm reading through is pretty diabolical, and I don't want to bother listing everything when you can do the research yourself. Also, I'm pretty sure the Austrian School of Economics is the only school that takes Reagan seriously. Just like Fox News is a joke in the educated journalism community, Reagan is a complete joke to the educated economics community.
"Greed is a poor choice of words, ill recant that statement. It's entitlement I think socialism creates. Also, if you want to argue against the two party system or foreign wars, I'm game. I'll stand next to you and echo your exact sentiments. I support an isolationist foreign policy and a forced reform of the two party system. I think the country needs a little revolution now and then, like Jefferson said, "Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Obamacare and the forced mandate of healthcare eliminates the power of choice, choice that doesn't interfere with the rights of others should never be forced upon anyone. It's an infringement on my rights as a private citizen of the US."
Amen, the two party system wants the same thing and is totally corrupt.
I don't know the specifics of Obamacare. All I know is I condone single-payer healthcare so the poorest people aren't afraid of costs when deciding to go to the doctor or not. Privatized healthcare, like private schools, will exclude the poorest of the poor, just another example of how capitalism is the oppressor of the working and lower class.
"By 'a lot' you mean Scandinavia. How are Italy, Spain, and France doing with their sky high taxation rates? It's no surprise that the countries with your pure socialist models have almost no armed forces and rely upon coalitions of the world if they were ever attacked. They rely on the United States and like countries to defend them if they were attacked. You can argue for ceased aggressions, but we all know that will never happen, its human nature. Wars will always be fought, these countries are all gambling that other countries will defend them. It's hard to find an effective country that is well rounded on all fronts, I would probably say Germany is doing pretty well with its pseudo-socialist policies. Germany cracks the mold somehow, the effective socialist countries tend to be sparsely populated, Ropa posted a list of global satisfaction, its no surprise the top 10 are all very small countries population-wise with little military save for Germany."
Yes, I was referring to Scandinavia mostly and other countries that practice social democracy. Maybe these countries who aren't building arms realizes that there isn't a profit to make for someone going to war with them. There's no profit in going to war with a country like Iceland, and if someone did, they'd practically be asking for WWIII. Why does population and military matter, anyway?
"Corporations are not whats wrong with lobbying, that is a stupid argument. The system is broken, and where there are cracks in the foundation, people will take advantage. This extends from welfare and unemployment all the way up to lobbying. Corporations drive the lobbying, yes. But when politicians are having their campaigns funded by special interests, where is the problem, really? Is it the special interest group, or the law that allows them to perpetrate the US political system? Come on, Shy. Don't let your feelings cloud the actual issues. "
Mablak already took this one.
"Pretty much all television and print media involves bias. Pretty hard to quote news or even reference news without referencing the bias that comes packaged with it. Just take it with a grain of salt. Pretty sure your hair on your back wouldn't have bristled at the idea of me quoting an MSNBC story."
I don't learn news from TV or radio. I prefer using independent sources that can't be touched by corporations such as democracynow.com. Fox News is packed with propaganda and is an entertainment station for anyone not brainwashed by them. For god sake, they aired Glenn Beck, he is an entertainer, not a journalist. The fact that you said Bill O'Reilly is everything that is right with journalism scares me. Look up some youtube videos of O'Reilly. Just search his name and everything that comes up is him making a complete ass out of himself because he doesn't know how to argue logically and he treats his guests like shit. He knows he's an entertainer and not a journalist.
Honestly dude this graph shows nothing... You have a steady green line and you're trying to say that the purple line that is jagged all the way shows some kind of correlation... You don't even need text and context data on that graph to see the two lines are independent from one another. Like D1 said, it's per person or per some amount of persons to eliminate the population bias.
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Take a look at a quick graph I made, it charts these scores by the quality of life index and compares them to the populations of the countries:
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