- This topic has 191 replies, 24 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 4 months ago by waynster.
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November 30, 2016 at 7:18 pm #866725
JTBParticipantCd, so just to be clear, do you disagree with Piketty’s observation that wealth invested by a plutocracy is less productive than when spread more broadly and used for more directly productive endeavors? Your source doesn’t seem interested in addressing that fundamental finding. That is a fundamental observation of his research, regardless of what your sources choose to gnaw on. Ooh ooh “Marx.” The issue is—-what does the data reveal?
November 30, 2016 at 11:48 pm #866745
captainDaveParticipantJTB: The observation isn’t relevent. The US could have only been proven to be a plutocracy if Clinton was elected. She wasn’t, therefore the plutocracy was an illusion. So no, I don’t believe that the redistribution of wealth through taxation and welfare makes a more productive society because getting stuff for free makes people lazy.
December 1, 2016 at 12:45 am #866751
JanSParticipantLOLOLOLOL
December 1, 2016 at 6:16 am #866765
JoBParticipantCaptain Dave
“..getting stuff for free makes people lazy.”
have you considered what you get .. or use… for free?
December 1, 2016 at 7:51 am #866770
miwsParticipantDecember 1, 2016 at 11:43 am #866795
JoBParticipantCaptain Dave..
perfect illustration of an argument based on an unsupported assumption
” The US could have only been proven to be a plutocracy if Clinton was elected. She wasn’t, therefore the plutocracy was an illusion. ”
there’s a name for that argument but i am too tired after trudging up to Harborview this morning to remember it..
December 1, 2016 at 2:35 pm #866809
JanSParticipantDear MIWS…yes, I still love you :)
December 1, 2016 at 4:57 pm #866827
redblackParticipanti don’t know how many different ways to tell you this, dave, but we bolsheviks don’t want free sh!t – except for people who are struggling.
not for ourselves.
for the least among us.
capiche?
a good lot of us shiftless commies actually want to work. hard. for someone else. who makes more money than we do. as long as we’re rewarded. and taxed so that the least among us don’t spread typhoid and drop dead around us.
simple enough for you, comrade dave?
i know you need an enemy, though.
i’m not disillusioned by your intractability, but i’m baffled by your motives in vociferously turning on and mocking your fellow americans – in west seattle, no less.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by redblack.
December 1, 2016 at 5:08 pm #866830
redblackParticipantjan: how ’bout me? :)
December 1, 2016 at 6:41 pm #866836
JoBParticipantredblack..
i can’t speak for Jan but i love your huge bolshevik heartDecember 2, 2016 at 12:14 am #866875
JanSParticipantDear Redblack…you, too :) I was just thinking that..it was way back in 2011 when I met you (fundraiser)…will we still be commenting here in another 5 years?
December 2, 2016 at 7:28 am #866920
waynsterParticipanthttp://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/politics/clinton-trump-harvard/index.html
and it still goes on maybe its time to bridge that gap between them
lol
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2016/11/28
and the electoral college debate
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2016/11/30December 2, 2016 at 12:15 pm #866956
JoBParticipantCaptain Dave
that plutocracy you thought didn’t exist because Hillary didn’t win?
they’re meeting in DC to divvy up the spoils…http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/11/13181/hypocrisy-trumpism-agenda-alec-meets-washington-dc-week
December 2, 2016 at 9:36 pm #866994
JTBParticipantCd: Piketty’s point isn’t about a plutocracy specifically; call it “the elite,” “the top .1%,” ” the people who control the bulk of the excess accumulated wealth,” whatever. The nomenclature isn’t the issue; how the available capital is used is the used. When it’s used for speculative trades, luxury items, etc. it isn’t being put to use in endeavors that generate productive economic growth.
The clear observation is that historically, when income is distributed more equitably, there is more economic growth than when it is accumulated in small segments of the population. You can try to make that about “free stuff” in a disingenuous manner, but in fact it’s about producing and consuming goods and services. You know, capitalism.December 2, 2016 at 10:31 pm #867000
mark47nParticipantI tried to stay out it, I tried to stay away because it’s just the same old crap over and over and over…including from me.
Oh Captain my Captain: Here’s what you said:
The US could have only been proven to be a plutocracy if Clinton was elected. She wasn’t, therefore the plutocracy was an illusion. So no, I don’t believe that the redistribution of wealth through taxation and welfare makes a more productive society because getting stuff for free makes people lazy.
What are you trying to say here? Your 1st sentence claims that HRC is supported by plutocrats is a wobbly claim at best. If you’d be so kind as to indicate who those plutocrats are that would be super! Yes, HRC had super big corporate donors lined up for her. That, in and of itself, doesn’t make her a plutocrat. Trump funded his campaign, if you can call it that, out of his own shifty and highly dubious pocket. That is plutocracy in action, make no mistake.
Let’s go one to your second and third sentences “She wasn’t [HRC], therefore the plutocracy was an illusion. So no, I don’t believe that the redistribution of wealth through taxation and welfare makes a more productive society because getting stuff for free makes people lazy.” You can’t use a negative as proof for anything. As to the third sentence, my personal favorite, but only taken in context of the 1st and 2nd, where you equate plutocracy with the redistribution of wealth. Do you actually know what plutocracy is? Here’s the definition from Merriam-Webster:
Definition of plutocracy
plural plutocracies
1: government by the wealthy
2: a controlling class of the wealthy
plutocrat \ˈplü-tə-ˌkrat\ nounHere are a few example sentence lifted straight from the website:
If only the wealthy can afford to run for public office, are we more a plutocracy than a democracy?
Or:
Corporate greed and America’s growing plutocracy.I will admit that the definition indicates that we’re a plutocracy, at face value, but then again, it’s the same in every nation. Perhaps we should say that we are governed by the [wealthy] people for the [wealthy] people and hope that some of that wealth rubs off…like trickle down economics. The question for me is what those in government DO. Do they ensure that the least among us are protected? That they have access to clean water and food (I’ll steer clear of medical care as my views on for profit healthcare/insurance and the scam that system is will definitely show my red roots…oops) and other basic needs? Do they ensure that we’ll have clean air to breathe, not only for us, but for generations to come? Or do they ensure that money will continue to accumulate in their pockets, peddle influence and maybe include their children in meetings at the highest level, for no reason other that just because.
Boy are those weeds tempting! But I digress: I think the true test of whether or not we are a plutocracy is answered by who Trump appoints to cabinet positions. I can certainly tell you that, so far, it’s authoritarian goons, thieves and demagogues of the worst sort. Oh, and RACISTS!
I hope I straightened this out for you, after all, Fox, Breitbart, the Drudge Report and the National Review and other sites you read and have oft cited as “news” may have misled you to the meaning of the word plutocracy.
December 3, 2016 at 12:29 am #867009
captainDaveParticipantmark47n: I understand what you are saying about the definition of plutocracy. However, just because Trump is a successful businessman instead of a politician doesn’t automatically make the situation a plutocracy. If Trump’s primary objective were to build his own businesses, he would have been much better off donating $100 million to Hillary and getting the benefit of her political favors that have been proven to enrich her elite donors. I define Hillary’s situation as a plutocracy based on her track record of “selling” her power to dominant corporations and wealthy individuals specifically for the purpose of control and profit. Your narrative that Trump has become president just to make more money for himself doesn’t make sense when he is decentralizing power in many respects, rather than centralizing it.
JoB: The Center for Media & Democracy has a heavy liberal bias (https://www.activistfacts.com/organizations/12-center-for-media-democracy/ ) The first clue was in the first sentence that incorrectly described Trump’s agenda as “far right”. The article does raise some interesting issues about “dark money” but fails to make any mention of the horrendous amounts of dark money on the left.
JTB: I am not sure why it is so difficult for people on the left to understand the automatic income leveling effect of fair market competition. Back when I was in the engineering and development business, I had lots of competition. I paid some of my employees more than I made because they had many opportunities to work elsewhere if I didn’t. When you make it easy for people to compete, capital doesn’t get stagnant–it generally erodes away from the people who don’t keep their wages high and their prices low. I don’t like the .1% wealth accumulation any more than you do. But I know that capitalism, when managed properly, works far more effectively than compulsory redistribution of wealth under socialism. The reason I hate the socialist model is that there is little incentive to innovate, improve and advance. You just end up creating a worker drone society that gradually declines while the elite take more and more profit until there is a bloody revolution to reset things. Also, big government always breeds the corruption and cronyism that further reduces real productivity.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by captainDave.
December 3, 2016 at 8:28 am #867027
JoBParticipantcaptain Dave..
A fact based bias is not necessarily a liberal bias…
And the first sentence did not label Trump’s agenda as far right
it described the meeting of ALEC to promote a far right agendait’s a pity you got no further than what you thought you could use to dismiss the article
especially since what you thought was in the first line wasn’t there.- This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by JoB.
December 3, 2016 at 1:36 pm #867061
TuesdayRodgersParticipantSocialism.. Really
Typically when you make an attempt to defend an Ideology and or economic system you try to use as that example a system that actually has WORKED.
Some advice to my dear Liberal Comrades… It makes your argument much stronger when the citizens of those Economic powerhouses your defending aren’t Starving to Death. I’m just say’n !
So, back to the discussion about the latest examples of the workers paradise and latest results of the positives of Socialism ( Venezuela & Greece ).
I was going to ask Sean Penn who spoke so highly of Mr. Chavez and his Totalitarian system ” Freedom ” if the goal was to not starve to death ?
Because if Eating is a goal of Socialism.. It hasn’t been working out so good lately.Let’s just join hands and pray that the EU gives Greece another loan so that they aren’t forced onto that always effective ” Socialist weight loss program ” that Venezuela has adopted So effectively.
December 3, 2016 at 3:49 pm #867069
captainDaveParticipantJoB: What was your purpose in posting an article published by an organization supported by the far left if it was not to voice your opposition to the “far right” you purport me to be? As I said, it had some interesting points. But largely, its just another ideological shell game. For example, many Trump voters don’t agree that raising minimum wages and increasing employment regulations actually does anything positive–But then there are those like you who think the notion of free markets is deplorable.
December 4, 2016 at 6:48 am #867128
JoBParticipantCaptain dave..
my purpose is to show you that the candidate you supported is the plutocracy you think you voted against.
tell me.. what about the Carrier deal shouts free market to you?
stop name calling and start thinking
deciding the validity of an argument based on your assumptions of it’s source is a guaranteed fail. Reading a link, noting it’s source and then noting it’s lack of original source material is not the same thing as dismissing a well sourced article simply because you assume the site publishing it is biased.
December 4, 2016 at 9:54 am #867157
redblackParticipanttuesday: there’s no need for us to knock down your straw man. again. it falls over on its own.
December 4, 2016 at 10:15 am #867160
redblackParticipantdave: what gives you the idea that we find free markets deplorable? what i find deplorable is the anarchy that allows industries and banks to write their own economic policies that benefit them and that harm workers. i find the revolving door from congress to lobbyists deplorable.
and that appears to be exactly what you’re cheerleading.
you can see (i hope) that while moving industrial jobs to low-wage third world countries saves american consumers money at the cash register, it devastates american jobs and wages.
we don’t want socialism or communism as economic models. we don’t want authoritarian government. and we sure as hell don’t want corporate rule. we want regulation that protects our jobs and wages, causes the tide to rise, and lifts all boats.
you keep calling that marxism or whatever because you seem to need an enemy to blame for our nation’s troubles. it’s a lot easier and more gratifying to yell at your neighbors than jamie diamond or alan greenspan or barack obama, isn’t it?
despite my repeated attempts to talk reason with you, i don’t think you’ll ever believe that i’m as much of a capitalist as you are. you’ll just have to take my word for it that i’m not your enemy, and i don’t wear rose-colored glasses.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by redblack.
December 4, 2016 at 10:54 am #867163
captainDaveParticipantJoB: Here are two good pro/con articles about the Carrier deal:
https://mises.org/blog/defense-trump’s-deal-carrier
vs.
https://mises.org/blog/countless-ordinary-americans-benefit-when-companies-move-mexico
I believe the ultimate goal of the Trump administration is to restore trade balance rather than to restrict free trade. The problem we currently have is that one-way free trade simply allows corporations to profit from ultra-cheap labor and little environmental concern. While people in some countries generally have enjoyed an increase in their respective standards of living due to American consumerism, many compromising tradeoffs were made (like more crime, slavery, wealth disparity and pollution). Our current situation, thanks to Clinton-Bush-Obama, essentially allows extreme “plutocracies” to be built in other countries.
While corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit for share holders, the US government is obligated to act in accordance to our constitutional values. A strong US economy is powerful leverage that can be used to encourage other countries to raise the bar for individual rights, prosperity and environmental stewardship. While you probably believe this is counter intuitive to the dogmas of socialism, I think capitalist carrot always works better than the stick of tyranny.
I consciously buy US products when I can because I can be more assured that they were not produced with slave labor or excessive environmental damage. With proper trade arrangements, I can hopefully someday look forward to the same assurances when I buy goods from other countries.
redback: I don’t get it. If those are the things you want, why didn’t you vote for Trump? Don’t tell me you got all your information from MSN/CNN pundits rather than from the horses mouth. Well, did you think for a minute that the big network advertisers were going to give up on their lobbyists, crony-monopolies and cheap foreign labor without telling you a few lies? Now they are trying to tell you that everything opposing them is “fake news”. Imagine that! It’s time to wake up and discover reality. Do your research beyond the approved liberal news sources.
December 4, 2016 at 1:50 pm #867189
JanSParticipantwhere exactly is this “horse’s mouth”?
December 4, 2016 at 3:55 pm #867208
captainDaveParticipantJanS: Trump, of course. (https://www.donaldjtrump.com) –You can also find his books on Amazon and countless tapped interviews online. But you knew that already.
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