Someone explain how putting our country $800 billion in the hole will help us.

[40oz]

I got this feeling last night while watching the news about the $165 mil. AIG bonuses that what is happening now could be the beginning of the end of capitalism. Everything is just too stupid to keep on going on like it is.

Some lady was blabbing about how the government in some states has a large tax on bonuses like that. So it ends up working out like this, the government prints out billions of monopoly dollars to give to banks, banks get it, give their executives huge bonuses, and the government takes a large percentage of that monopoly money back in taxes. Is it just me or does something not seem right here.

[psychocat]

It's very much a "rob Peter to pay Paul" type of solution.
The bonuses for the wankers who made this mess are a slap in the face for the public that saved thier arses.

The strange thing to me is that people don't see that this whole charade is a case of the priveleged few getting caught with thier pants down and carrying out a damage limitation exercise .
A few minnows will get thrown to the sharks , a couple of well timed "falling on thier swords" and the old boys network will continue to make sure , "never to give a sucker an even break".

The public are the biggest suckers ever.

[Coelho]

Well... if i remember well (as i used to sleep in the history classes), not long ago (maybe less than 100 years ago), the gold was the standard to measure one countrys wealth, so as more gold it had stored, more wealthy it was.

Then the usa entered an economic crisis (i think it was the great depression), and its amount of gold (and consequently its wealth) decreased noticeably. So, what they did? They found a way to convince the world to adopt a new standard to measure the countries wealth: the dollar. So, a countrys wealth wasnt measured by how much gold it had anymore, but by how much green-painted paper (dollar) it had.

And... as the usa was the country which made this green-painted paper, of course it made a LOT of it, far more than its amount of gold, and so it became "wealthy" again, because now wealth was measured by how much green-painted paper one had, and now it had plenty of it.

Now the same thing is happening... this green-painted paper is losing its value, and so the usa is becoming poorer. How long it will take until they try to convince the world to adopt a new standard to measure wealth (and thus increase artificially its wealth again) ?

Im sure they will try to do this, and probably the new standard will be something electronic, like credit cards with chips, or just chips, or something like this... so, using the excuse of "promoting new technologies" they will put this new "electronic money" to use, while artificially creating a lot of it and thus getting wealthy again.

PS. I almost forgot... one good way to decrease the govt spending is to stop the drug war... but surely they prefer to let the countrys economy crash than let all the potheads smoke their weed in peace without being bothered (or arrested).

[jonquest]

I got this feeling last night while watching the news about the $165 mil. AIG bonuses that what is happening now could be the beginning of the end of capitalism. Everything is just too stupid to keep on going on like it is.

Some lady was blabbing about how the government in some states has a large tax on bonuses like that. So it ends up working out like this, the government prints out billions of monopoly dollars to give to banks, banks get it, give their executives huge bonuses, and the government takes a large percentage of that monopoly money back in taxes. Is it just me or does something not seem right here.

Hopefully people will realize capitalism is what we need before it's too late.

[40oz]

Hopefully people will realize capitalism is what we need before it's too late.

not necessarily disagreeing with you, but why is capitalism what we need?

[5thHorseMan]

capitalism creates competition, companies have to compete to get or retain customers. Look at microsoft and apple, In the beginning microsoft had the better more user friendly product, and apple was over complicated and largely outdated. Now the tables reverse. Perfect example of competition creating a better product or service.

And while I think we need capitalism, I think we also need a certain degree of socialism. Healthcare for instance does not benefit much from capitalism, since most insurance companies charge as much as they can, while providing as little care as possible, theres not much competition there to create value for consumers. And it's not like those consumers can do without the good and services they provide and so are forced to pay whatever fixed price the companies and providers determine.

[40oz]

capitalism creates competition, companies have to compete to get or retain customers.

unless of course the government decides to come in and bail a failing business out. Then its just sit back and let the dough roll in while everyone else struggles to earn money.

And while I think we need capitalism, I think we also need a certain degree of socialism. Healthcare for instance does not benefit much from capitalism, since most insurance companies charge as much as they can, while providing as little care as possible, theres not much competition there to create value for consumers. And it's not like those consumers can do without the good and services they provide and so are forced to pay whatever fixed price the companies and providers determine.

So then maybe capitalism isnt the answer, huh. People's health and well being should be more of a priority than competing businesses. Humans are competitive by nature, we don't need a system that causes us to be cut throats to survive.

[FreshNugz]

Yes but...without capitalism, we'd have to resort to another political theory..problem there is, the US hates all of them except capitalism.

I think it's sad how much of a kick the Russians must be getting out of this. Marx is chuckling in the grave.

[JaggedEdge]

unless of course the government decides to come in and bail a failing business out. Then its just sit back and let the dough roll in while everyone else struggles to earn money.




So then maybe capitalism isnt the answer, huh. People's health and well being should be more of a priority than competing businesses. Humans are competitive by nature, we don't need a system that causes us to be cut throats to survive.

Actually capitalism would work just fine if the government would stay out of things. And the high cost of health care is the perfect example of capitalism working. No everyone can't be covered, but this isn't a perfect world. The reason American scientists are working on cures for cancer's and the reason they have had some success with ovarian cancer treatment and others is because they are compensated very well for these discoveries.

Socialized healthcare will just mean horrible care for all Americans rather than a few. Scientists will stop releasing cures because they won't get paid enough for doing so. Why exactly to people travel from all over the world to get treated in America?

[40oz]

Actually capitalism would work just fine if the government would stay out of things. And the high cost of health care is the perfect example of capitalism working. No everyone can't be covered, but this isn't a perfect world.

Wouldn't denying an individual health care be the same as denying the right to life and liberty? Isn't that what our country was founded on? Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all?

The reason American scientists are working on cures for cancer's and the reason they have had some success with ovarian cancer treatment and others is because they are compensated very well for these discoveries.

Ok, but then you run into problems when that cure for cancer is discovered. Don't you think the people who discovered it would want to be compensated for it? If that's the case, which it defiantly will be under capitalism, then we will have a cure that only the wealthiest individuals in our society could afford. We can't just give the treatment away, because then the life work of all those scientists would have no gain (besides helping people). We can't charge outrageous sums to the upper class and smaller sums to the lower class for treatment, because that's not fair...and it's not capitalism

Plus look where capitalism has gotten us in the pharmaceutical industry. We have doctors and psychiatrists doubling as drug dealers. I believe you will have a hard time finding a family that doesn't have at least one of its members caught up in some kind of "legal" drug addiction. Humans got along decent throughout the course of history without man made pain killers and anti depressant pills, and now they are a part of everyday life.

Socialized healthcare will just mean horrible care for all Americans rather than a few. Scientists will stop releasing cures because they won't get paid enough for doing so. Why exactly to people travel from all over the world to get treated in America?

I don't believe that, look at Canada. Lots of healthy people up there.