so, let me get this right, I make a statement based on my own personal knowledge and research, and you reply with posting the exact same rhetoric a second time? How about arguing why I'm wrong.

Mirror

Like I have said many times before, we will never be a completely socialistic country anyways.

It is a tool of fearmongering used by the right wing to instill fear in the masses and make them think that only the right wing will solve all their problems.

Think back to the fearmongering of the "Commie" crap we heard all through the 60s and 70s. Or how the white supremacists use "Commie" and "Socialist" to bring fear and try to make the masses see their agenda.

We will never be a socialist country. There will be a few socialist programs in this country to balance the capitalism here. In a completely capitalistic society the misfortunate will die. The elderly will die. Those born disadvantaged will die. It is very inhumane.

A countries wealth is not measured by it's rich, it is measured by how well it takes care of it's underpriveledged. I don't remember who said it but it is true.

What is 'wrong' with the socialist type actions being taken at the present time?

Perhaps we could focus this discussion a little more should some current examples be given that we can work with... or maybe a question could begin this anew!

Does anyone know why the socialist measures began?

Why did they become necessary?

Personally, I think it is sad that we have to get ourselves in debt more in order to correct the economic mess in this country but the logic behind it is about as sound as we can get without being psychic.

Socialism is not detrimental in controlled doses. It is a way for a country to provide for the masses in ways that make the whole country a better place.

But I think you wanted to hear from those with a problem with it. So I said my peice.

Our current socialist practices began last century with the New Deal. It began to lace a sense of entitlement into the American public and now, that sense of entitlement has gotten further out of hand.

The problem with our current socialist spending? Sustainability. The principle of socialism is based on that everyone puts in everything they can and everyone takes out what they need. In order for socialism to succeed, there has to be that balance that what is taken out does not exceed what is put in.

We are far exceeding what we put in. We have faced record deficits for the past 8 years and are facing even further record deficits that will make the last 8 years look like chump change. We cannot sustain this practice. It's that simple. We are already over 11 trillion dollars in debt and rising fast.

What is being put into place is partly infrastructure investment (which is not always socialism, capitalism is based on the most efficient entity performing any one good/service and sometimes, the government is it) but is largely is socialistic spending. Increasing jobless benefits, medical assistance, and other care programs will be the reason for the tax hikes that are to come. We are creating permanent programs with borrowed funds. Bush and his administration borrowed heavily to fund tax cuts and the wars (though both only totaled about 60% of their deficits IIRC). Nothing has changed in those budgets but we are now permanently increasing our social spending while our economy is falling. Even when it rises again, we will not be able to sustain our current spending practices because we could not even do that before.

What we need is responsibility, not giving handouts to the people. You may think my statements are heartless, but the facts are the facts: we are not fixing anything. We are placing a band-aid on a bullet wound that is our economy. We are failing to fix the problem at this point and all the administration is concerned with is the people that are going to help this economy the least. Until we fix the root, we are doomed to repeat.

I sure love all these folks worried about other people's entitlement issues...LOL They crack me up

Acting like they are doing others a favor with their scorn.

If they are so worried about entitlement, make sure they themselves never get entitled and that is the end of their personal responsibility.

Entitlement talk stems from extremist groups. Clinton made sure that welfare is not an entitlement program anymore. Foodstamps never has been so what is all the concern about unless you have a hidden agenda.

I wonder what all these nay-sayers are going to do when all their predictions prove wrong and the economy recovers!

I sure hope they're hungry!

No, entitlement comes from all those that are crying to the government to fix their problems.

Clinton did nothing but sign the bill for welfare reform. It was republicans in Congress that started the reform. Congress is largely responsible for just about everything. All that had been done then is quickly being erased.

I never said the economy won't recover, I said the recovery is artificial. We have done nothing to fix the problem, only pass band-aid legislation that will get us out eventually, only to let us fall again in the future.

Grassroots started the reform!
I know!
I worked hard and long on it here in NC back in the mid 80's on!

Hey dragoness!!!

I am opposed to some measures which I feel seem to be a socialist action, and very well may be depending upon one's definition. The digital revolution clouded the reality which had been taking place in manufacturing as a result of the mistaken belief that it was a good idea to allow companies, in fact give incentive to purchase and/or move their operations overseas. Manufacturing is where much of the country, especially the middle classes, made a living...

The artificially inflated real estate market, which I feel was mostly perpetuated by the mortagage brokers and some of the more corrupt lending institutions, added much to the deflection from the above reality as well.

The blatently manipulated stock market did not reflect the real picture of what was going on until recently, after the collapse of the foundation of the entire system took place.

That foundation is the average citizen, without the success of which the country dies a slow and painful death.



Andrew... I will respond directly to your post momentarily.

Can't stand it that Dem did the welfare reform huh?


I said worry about your own entitlement and get out of other's yards and you won't have any problems with it.

Entitlement is a creation of the extreme right to attack the minorities and disadvantaged in this country and make it look like they are doing someone a favor.

I wasn't talking about you necessarily Andrew, but I do disagree that it will be artificial!
I just watched Gietner on Charlie Rose last night talking about just that!
They are putting in a lot of measures to prevent the same thing from happening again!
He said the important thing right now was to get the economy moving again, but that legislation is already being written to address the problems. They just feel enacting it would slow recovery!

Step by step my friend!

I agree with your assessment. I do believe it was a long time coming. I believe that the catalysts were in the manufacturing and then the further push was the housing bubble. And the war of course. I believe some of our leaders misread or did not act to intervene when it could have made a difference whether intentional or not, I cannot say.

I do believe that what the economists are saying needs to be done are needed now regardless to how much it is going to cost us. It is our job to try to stop it from becoming any worse if we can.

Too many bonuses were paid for too much risk taking!

One problem that really stinks from all this is the number of economists that have been educated into thinking this is good economics!

I was reading something the other day about the number of former ENRON employees that are practicing the habits they learned at ENRON with new companies today! Thousands of them!


Now, we have the Bush torture memo lawyers. One is a Professor at Berkley and another a Fed judge!

Care to the 'New Deal' in a litle more detail?

Not that it matters much, but I disagree with the placement of timing, I find it began way back with Benjamin Franklin establishing Fire Departments... for the greater good of all!



This is only a legitimate worry if the investments do not show a profit later.



I find this to be a little too abstract. Actually kinda wrong according to my understanding.



What if the investments turn a profit? Why not invest in America and it's people?



Again this presupposes failures of investment.



Handouts to people ??? That is an interesting take on things.

What do you believe is this 'root'?

Fire Departments are not socialism. Capitalism is about efficiency and in most areas, it is far more efficient to have a taxpayer funded fire department than a private one. the New Deal was the largest creation of social programs in our history and none of them really fell away after. Social programs are like a drug - once a person gets a fix on them, it's hard to let them go.

Sustainability has nothing to do with turning a profit, it has everything to do with productivity. we are increasing spending far faster than our productivity is growing. if you don't understand the principle of productivity in the economic sense, just think of it as real economic growth like we sustained in the 1990s.


I really don't know any other way to word the socialism lines. If you can't understand the idea, I'm sorry. To be honest, it's too complex an economic topic for most and you have to understand the other marketplace occurrences of the two systems in order to see how it works. Basically, capitalist systems can survive with occasional deficit spending, but socialist systems cannot.


I'm curious what these investments you are speaking of are - because all I see is a lot of money being thrown at failing companies. Chrysler: billions gone, still Chapter 11. GM: even more billions, still at risk for Chapter 11. AIG: over 150 billion and still, failing. These are not investments. Investing requires a keen eye and is done with the statistical advantage determined by research that a gain will be had. We are simply giving money to failing ideologies. while we are receiving a 5% return on the TARP funds, we borrowed it in the first place, so it is nowhere near that amount. What we are doing is not investing, it is hoping the economy recovers and everyone forgets how much we are wasting.


The root, as I've stated before, is the money supply and the control of it. It's long. It's not too complicated (mostly). I've covered it many times before and really don't feel like doing so again in great detail. Basically, economics is based on scarcity. The fed violates that rule of scarcity. the banks control the fed. the banks profit from loans. the banks make more money to make more loans. loans default (partly) and the artificial "growth" is realized to be artificial. market crashes. we spend lots of created money. we fix nothing.

This is the ultimate root of all of it, much like any such legislation, but in washington, it was pressed much harder by congress (with the support of grassrooters like yourself) and clinton merely signed it.

Andrew...

With all due respect of your person...

Some of your expressions make no sense to me, I do not follow the logic...

The focus seems to be a little distorted from our different understandings about these two terms... capitalism and socialism. I feel you are placing far too much value into your definitions, which according to your extrapolating are incorrect by the way. I say incorrect because that is not what I am claiming...

The foundational ideology beneath what I feel is socialism is simple...

For the greater good of all...

Often this means complete governement ownership and distribution, although those ways are only approaches not socialism itself, as I see it. Can we approach this conversation from that perspective?



No! Profit is about efficiency. Capitalism is about private and public ownership of market goods and services.

We can go back to Roosevelt's plan later... do not forget that it worked!

If you take the concerns over whether people will or won't become entitled and concentrate on the pure information of capitalism and socialism maybe we could get somewhere.

Whoever first came up with the entitlement gargon and interloped it into regular politics changed the dynamics and turned it into a reason for hatred.

Entitlement used to be used in reference to a criminal mind and the justification criminals use for committing their crimes. It takes a terrible mind to transfer that to regular society for political advances.