Agree Capitalism is a better system with flaws. Now all these minimum wage socialists posters should go back to their jobs created by Capitalists.

Anonymous wrote:The anti-socialist people on this thread are just throwing words at the wall. There is no deeper understanding. Just scare tactics. Mao! Bernie! North Korea! Illegals getting care when sick! Free stuff!

OP your question has been asked and answered.

Yes it has….Capitalism wins by a long shot. That mass produced smart phone in your hand is just one example.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, you are not well educated on this topic, you should stop posting:


How many millions starved to death under Stalin? 3 -5 million during the Holodomor?
How many millions starved to death during Mao's great leap forward? 30-40 million?
How many people are dying in North Korea?


These are not socialist countries. Stalin and Mao were COMMUNISTS. Kim is a dictator. His country isn't a functioning anything. Not capitalist, not socialist, no even really communist, it is chaos.

This is what happens when you have dictators instead of democracy. Ahem.

Clearly a Bernie Sanders supporter. What’s the different between socialism and democratic socialism?…….Nothing.

Um, everything. At their very core. Democratic socialism doesn't actually seek government-owned enterprises, rather to retain private ownership but tax/subsidize the hell out of them to achieve policy goals.

If you don't understand this very basic, 101 thing, maybe you should sit out the rest of the discussion as it's obviously over your head.

You’re living in a govt controlled fantasyland. If you’re going to tax/subsidize and overregulate the hell of them like Democrats do, the incentive to start businesses, invest, innovate, etc will decrease significantly. Poof….lots of taxpaying jobs that could have been never happen. Please try to understand basic 101 economic theory as well as the history of the world. Start with what occurred with Sweden’s economy when they deregulated their economy, lowered taxes, passed business friendly laws, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism is better

Unless, of course, you are in the capitalist class. Your standard of living may drop when you stop oppressing others.

OP here - How are capitalists oppressing the “non-capitalist class”? Are they holding a gun to their head forcing them to work for certain wages? Is the working class in true socialist countries living a better life than the “oppressed” here?

OMG, holding a gun to someone's head and forcing them to work for certain wages. What a metaphor.

Work or starve. Don't like the wage, work somewhere else. Oh everyone has similarly sucky wages? What a shame.

Side note, federal minimum wage has not been changed from $7.25 per hour since 2009. TWO THOUSAND NINE!

As soon as you raise the federal minimum wage, businesses will pass those increased labor costs onto the prices of their products and services and the consumer will pay more. The consumer always pays in the end. Same reason why raising corporate taxes just results n higher prices for products and services. Those costs are just passed onto the customers. Why is this concept so hard for people to understand?

It’s not hard to understand at all. And you are too dumb to realize you are making the case for socialism.

Sorry your Art History degree isn’t working out for you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, hope your kids aren't in public school, and I really hope you don't plan on Social Security or Medicare. Please don't take unemployment benefits, or complain about potholes. Don't engage in anything that has federal funding, please, which includes higher ed, the arts, medical advances from research.

It's all a one sided understanding with you types, but you're the first to complain about inflation, right? We have inflation due to corporate gouging- they got bail outs and turned around and took advantage of the system by raising prices.
. It's not even capitalism we have, it's a
system of oligarchy.

Our nation has the very rich, supported by tax cuts and benefits, but also we have people literally starving on the street and dying from a lack of health care access. So is this the question you really want to ask today?

You are confused. Capitalism doesn’t mean don’t pay any taxes at all. Certain socialist services are necessary for a functioning capitalist society. And by the way the wealthiest 50% pay most of the taxes in this country so how is it that the wealthy aren’t paying their fair share. But paying taxes so someone’s student debt can be canceled when they alone agreed to their loan is not what capitalists had in mind (unless you want to buy votes). Or paying for illegal aliens’ health care for that matter.

See this is where a compromise could be good. I don't want to pay off someone's student loans either. But why can't we have a (gasp) government program where we give interest free loans for behaviors we want to encourage? Like getting our populace educated. Maybe even incentivize them to study things we need and want more of like science and tech?

As for healthcare, I know illegals don't qualify for any official healthcare plans, so are you talking about people who go to ERs then skip out on the bill? Also, I hope you are not Christian because the whole "care for the poor and sick" thing could create some real cognitive dissonance for you.

The government should immediately get out of the student loan business and I guarantee you the cost of college would drop significantly. If I was a college comptroller and the govt said they were going to forgive $10K of student loans, I would immediately raise the price of tuition by $10K.

I didn't say forgive. I said interest free loans.

So should the govt get out of home loans too? No more Fannie and Freddie?

Not sure what you’re point is here regarding home loans. This administration isn’t offering to forgive $10K of home mortgages. You signed the loan contract pay it back like everyone else. If you don’t understand what you’re signing and how interest works perhaps instead of going to college you shouldn’t repeat middle school.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m very worried about the direction of our country. There seems to be an accelerating drift toward socialism with the forced distribution of wealth. The famous quote about socialism working until you run out of other people’s money keeps coming to mind. What are people’s thoughts on this?

My thought is....is there someone with too much time on their hands starting all these threads just to get people riled up for their own entertainment? Or is someone or some organization funding an effort to go on various popular message and discussion boards and start threads to get people riled up to increase the perception of strong political divides, reduce confidence in the government, and generally contribute to the negative climate in the US?

There was a great podcast posted last week here in the Money forum. The take-away as it applies to this thread is that 70% of Americans are basically centrist and want to get along. But there is 15% extremists on the left and 15% extremists on the right who live in an echo chamber of their own beliefs and are highly vocal and demonizing, making the 70% fearful of speaking out. This makes the country seem more divided than it is.

I don't see how that can be true when somehow the 15%managed to get rid of my daughter's abortion rights.

, forgive student loans with taxpayer money for individuals who signed an individual contract to pay the loans back, printed trillions of dollars resulting in runaway inflation, allow rampant crime to explode with little legal repercussions, attempt to ban gas stoves, provide free health care to illegal aliens, etc etc

Back up your claims.

Who printed the money? PPP and ERTC was approved under Trump, right? Did you or your employer take this money? Not that I think it was the wrong thing to do. But yes it has consequences.
Who is banning gas stoves? BANNING. link?
Free health care to illegals? How do tax payers pay for that. link?
Open border? Who just tanked the border legislation?
Crime is trending down. https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00099/nypd-january-2024-citywide-crime-statistics

You just spew hate talking points with no research behind your mental diarrhea because you come from a place of fear and hate, not reason and facts.

Biden officials PROPOSED to ban gas stoves to cow tow to the climate activists. Well know fact. Just see the well circulated video of VP Harris standing in front of her gas stoves telling all of us we can’t have one.https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/13/house-passes-bill-block-gas-stove-ban-00100492

Free health care to illegals — go visit an ER in a major city. Liberal California govt just passed legislation to provide minimum health care to illegals because it would be cheaper than them going to an ER.https://apnews.com/article/health-california-immigration-gavin-newsom-medicaid-b09edcb2b89ab041b520f431f8aab4b6

Open Border - you clearly haven’t been paying attention if you were not aware of the millions of illegal aliens who have entered the country in the first 3 years of the Biden administration in an effort to fundamentally change the demographics of the country to keep Dems in power. The legislation you were referred to just happened in the last two months. What’s your excuse for the first 3 years of this disastrous Presidency?

Crime —- you posted a link from an ultra liberal city that is on the defensive because people and businesses are moving out (also due to ridiculous tax rates). Here’s a link referring to San Francisco. https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/03/politics/san-francisco-crime-rate-what-matters/index.html

The anti-socialist people on this thread are just throwing words at the wall. There is no deeper understanding. Just scare tactics. Mao! Bernie! North Korea! Illegals getting care when sick! Free stuff!

OP your question has been asked and answered.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, you are not well educated on this topic, you should stop posting:


How many millions starved to death under Stalin? 3 -5 million during the Holodomor?
How many millions starved to death during Mao's great leap forward? 30-40 million?
How many people are dying in North Korea?


These are not socialist countries. Stalin and Mao were COMMUNISTS. Kim is a dictator. His country isn't a functioning anything. Not capitalist, not socialist, no even really communist, it is chaos.

This is what happens when you have dictators instead of democracy. Ahem.

Clearly a Bernie Sanders supporter. What’s the different between socialism and democratic socialism?…….Nothing.

Um, everything. At their very core. Democratic socialism doesn't actually seek government-owned enterprises, rather to retain private ownership but tax/subsidize the hell out of them to achieve policy goals.

If you don't understand this very basic, 101 thing, maybe you should sit out the rest of the discussion as it's obviously over your head.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, you are not well educated on this topic, you should stop posting:


How many millions starved to death under Stalin? 3 -5 million during the Holodomor?
How many millions starved to death during Mao's great leap forward? 30-40 million?
How many people are dying in North Korea?


These are not socialist countries. Stalin and Mao were COMMUNISTS. Kim is a dictator. His country isn't a functioning anything. Not capitalist, not socialist, no even really communist, it is chaos.

This is what happens when you have dictators instead of democracy. Ahem.

Clearly a Bernie Sanders supporter. What’s the different between socialism and democratic socialism?…….Nothing.

Please define those two terms.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with socialism is human nature. Sure everyone working for the common cause and singing kumbaya sounds good in theory but the reality is a completely different matter. With socialism there is no incentive to work hard, take risk with capital, innovate, be an entrepreneur, etc. Society would stagnate. I’ll take capitalism with all its flaws any day. By the way, that smart phone in your hand is a result of capitalism.

You still don't understand what socialism is.

Let's say you have an electric company. You decide to make it socialist. All the residents in the state of Vermont are now considered owners of the electric company. The company has staff, including management. And a Board of Directors. The staff and management are paid by the company to "work hard". The profits of the electric company are shared with the share holders, who are the residents. The staff may even get bonuses if they do a great job each year and the company is running efficiently.

Alaska does something like this, see the checks they mail out to all their residents each year for oil and gas proceeds. Google the oil and gas dividend.

Bad example when using utility companies. Try again.

Why? Why is it a bad example?

So replace utility with hospital. College. Trucking company. Corn fields.

What industry do you want me to do that does not fit a board, management, and shared profit and loss?

Anonymous wrote:Again, you are not well educated on this topic, you should stop posting:


How many millions starved to death under Stalin? 3 -5 million during the Holodomor?
How many millions starved to death during Mao's great leap forward? 30-40 million?
How many people are dying in North Korea?


These are not socialist countries. Stalin and Mao were COMMUNISTS. Kim is a dictator. His country isn't a functioning anything. Not capitalist, not socialist, no even really communist, it is chaos.

This is what happens when you have dictators instead of democracy. Ahem.

Clearly a Bernie Sanders supporter. What’s the different between socialism and democratic socialism?…….Nothing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism is better

Unless, of course, you are in the capitalist class. Your standard of living may drop when you stop oppressing others.

OP here - How are capitalists oppressing the “non-capitalist class”? Are they holding a gun to their head forcing them to work for certain wages? Is the working class in true socialist countries living a better life than the “oppressed” here?

OMG, holding a gun to someone's head and forcing them to work for certain wages. What a metaphor.

Work or starve. Don't like the wage, work somewhere else. Oh everyone has similarly sucky wages? What a shame.

Side note, federal minimum wage has not been changed from $7.25 per hour since 2009. TWO THOUSAND NINE!

As soon as you raise the federal minimum wage, businesses will pass those increased labor costs onto the prices of their products and services and the consumer will pay more. The consumer always pays in the end. Same reason why raising corporate taxes just results n higher prices for products and services. Those costs are just passed onto the customers. Why is this concept so hard for people to understand?

It’s not hard to understand at all. And you are too dumb to realize you are making the case for socialism.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with socialism is human nature. Sure everyone working for the common cause and singing kumbaya sounds good in theory but the reality is a completely different matter. With socialism there is no incentive to work hard, take risk with capital, innovate, be an entrepreneur, etc. Society would stagnate. I’ll take capitalism with all its flaws any day. By the way, that smart phone in your hand is a result of capitalism.

You still don't understand what socialism is.

Let's say you have an electric company. You decide to make it socialist. All the residents in the state of Vermont are now considered owners of the electric company. The company has staff, including management. And a Board of Directors. The staff and management are paid by the company to "work hard". The profits of the electric company are shared with the share holders, who are the residents. The staff may even get bonuses if they do a great job each year and the company is running efficiently.

Alaska does something like this, see the checks they mail out to all their residents each year for oil and gas proceeds. Google the oil and gas dividend.

Bad example when using utility companies. Try again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Socialism is better

Unless, of course, you are in the capitalist class. Your standard of living may drop when you stop oppressing others.

OP here - How are capitalists oppressing the “non-capitalist class”? Are they holding a gun to their head forcing them to work for certain wages? Is the working class in true socialist countries living a better life than the “oppressed” here?

OMG, holding a gun to someone's head and forcing them to work for certain wages. What a metaphor.

Work or starve. Don't like the wage, work somewhere else. Oh everyone has similarly sucky wages? What a shame.

Side note, federal minimum wage has not been changed from $7.25 per hour since 2009. TWO THOUSAND NINE!

As soon as you raise the federal minimum wage, businesses will pass those increased labor costs onto the prices of their products and services and the consumer will pay more. The consumer always pays in the end. Same reason why raising corporate taxes just results n higher prices for products and services. Those costs are just passed onto the customers. Why is this concept so hard for people to understand?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, hope your kids aren't in public school, and I really hope you don't plan on Social Security or Medicare. Please don't take unemployment benefits, or complain about potholes. Don't engage in anything that has federal funding, please, which includes higher ed, the arts, medical advances from research.

It's all a one sided understanding with you types, but you're the first to complain about inflation, right? We have inflation due to corporate gouging- they got bail outs and turned around and took advantage of the system by raising prices.
. It's not even capitalism we have, it's a
system of oligarchy.

Our nation has the very rich, supported by tax cuts and benefits, but also we have people literally starving on the street and dying from a lack of health care access. So is this the question you really want to ask today?

You are confused. Capitalism doesn’t mean don’t pay any taxes at all. Certain socialist services are necessary for a functioning capitalist society. And by the way the wealthiest 50% pay most of the taxes in this country so how is it that the wealthy aren’t paying their fair share. But paying taxes so someone’s student debt can be canceled when they alone agreed to their loan is not what capitalists had in mind (unless you want to buy votes). Or paying for illegal aliens’ health care for that matter.

See this is where a compromise could be good. I don't want to pay off someone's student loans either. But why can't we have a (gasp) government program where we give interest free loans for behaviors we want to encourage? Like getting our populace educated. Maybe even incentivize them to study things we need and want more of like science and tech?

As for healthcare, I know illegals don't qualify for any official healthcare plans, so are you talking about people who go to ERs then skip out on the bill? Also, I hope you are not Christian because the whole "care for the poor and sick" thing could create some real cognitive dissonance for you.

The government should immediately get out of the student loan business and I guarantee you the cost of college would drop significantly. If I was a college comptroller and the govt said they were going to forgive $10K of student loans, I would immediately raise the price of tuition by $10K.

I didn't say forgive. I said interest free loans.

So should the govt get out of home loans too? No more Fannie and Freddie?