Capitalism, the Death of the World

[divineseraph]

Alright, who else has noticed the bullshit going on with our idiotic economic system? I mean, far beyond our petty number system bullshit where nobody has a job and people are losing their homes. I also mean beyond the fact that the rich own all the means of production and force the lower class into labor for the profit of the wealthy through supposed prospects of "freedom".

Let's consider this idiotic bailout. It's coming up on one trillion dollars. For those of you who are not aware of what this means, let me show you.

1,000,000,000,000. That many zeroes. That, again, is 1,000 times 1,000,000,000.

Now, this money will be spread around the corporations so that they may use it to hire workers and buy materials so they can continue making and selling products. Basically, we're taking money and giving it to the rich so they can hire the poor so the poor can buy from the rich. Like that's not ******** up at all.

It gets worse. What could we do with this time and money? With the resources this money represents? I did a quick number crunch. Let's assume that it costs 1 dollar a day to feed someone in a third world country. In reality, it costs much less than that, but for argument's sake, I'm rounding way up. Let's also assume that the bailout stops as 1 trillion dollars.

If we took .01% of the money... That's 1/100 of a single percent, we could feed over 230,000 people for a whole year. Imagine what we could do with .5%, or even a whole 1%. Imagine the hospitals we could build, and the schools, and the food processing facilities and water cleansing plants.

Why are we so willing to let the world fall to s**t, so that we can keep the rich in their mansions and leer jets?

Think about it.  

[Crimson Raccoon]

I agree that all the things you're saying are problems. The amount of money that the government has given to corporations, is so much that if you went back in time to the year Christ was born, and spent a million dollars every day until now, you still would not have spent as much money as the government has spent in the bailouts. A million dollars every day, for over two thousand years, is not as much money!

The bailouts are not an example of the faults of capitalism, though. The purely capitalist thing for the government to have done would've been to let these corporations and banks fail, and not given them any money at all. Because, according to capitalist philosophy, if these corporations were so corrupt, then they should fail, so that new and less corrupt ones could then have the chance to succeed. The government interference with these corporations are not capitalist actions, it is more on the socialist side of things. Capitalism is when the government is less involved in the economy and business; socialism is when it is more involved.

If the government were to need to spend so much money, then it would have been much better to spend it on the people rather than on the corporations. But, I believe it's wrong that the government should have so much money to spend at all on anything. So much money and power concentrated into one place, whether its corporations, government, or anything, is always going to result in corruption. I really don't think we can doubt that the increasingly close and co-dependent relationship between mega-corporations and the US government is seriously hurting this country.  

[divineseraph]

Regardless of what it's called, putting so much emphasis on our imaginary number systems is a terrible idea. It may not be pure "free market" capitalism, but any system in which there is so much care placed into money that we are blind to the world around us, and we get so tangled up in this imaginary system, is a bad one.

It is a sad state when we are willing to pour our effort into fixing our already unjust system rather than promote peace, equality and general welfare to all people.  

[Crimson Raccoon]

I myself am not sure whether "imaginary" or fiat money is an inherently good or bad system. I'm not inclined to think it is inherently bad, but it's possible. It was originally the working class of America that made demands for the gold-standard to be removed from backing the currency, and then we were pretty much forced into removing it through the two World Wars.

I think one of the biggest things the U.S. government could do to improve conditions in many countries, is have requirements for manufacturing conditions of imported goods. The majority of the products we buy are made over seas, not because all the resources are there, but because a cheaper workforce and exploitable environment are there. The big companies that are centered in America and sell their products primarily in America, often have their manufacturing done in countries where there is less and less regulation for working conditions, worker's rights, and environmental regulation. So they can make their products extremely cheaply and make more profit when they sell them. The manufacturing conditions would be illegal in the USA.

If the U.S. government would just say, that they won't allow manufactured goods to be imported if they are made in certain unacceptable conditions, that would immediately improve the situation in many of these exploited companies. Also, it would bring a lot of the manufacturing jobs back to America - where they originally were - because the incentive of dirt-cheap labor overseas has been taken away. Thousands of jobs would be created here; it would improve conditions for everyone. And it would be a relatively simple solution, because it doesn't involve working with any other governments or the U.N., it's just us controlling what is imported, which we have complete sovereignty to do.  

[divineseraph]

Crimson Raccoon

I myself am not sure whether "imaginary" or fiat money is an inherently good or bad system. I'm not inclined to think it is inherently bad, but it's possible. It was originally the working class of America that made demands for the gold-standard to be removed from backing the currency, and then we were pretty much forced into removing it through the two World Wars.

I think one of the biggest things the U.S. government could do to improve conditions in many countries, is have requirements for manufacturing conditions of imported goods. The majority of the products we buy are made over seas, not because all the resources are there, but because a cheaper workforce and exploitable environment are there. The big companies that are centered in America and sell their products primarily in America, often have their manufacturing done in countries where there is less and less regulation for working conditions, worker's rights, and environmental regulation. So they can make their products extremely cheaply and make more profit when they sell them. The manufacturing conditions would be illegal in the USA.

If the U.S. government would just say, that they won't allow manufactured goods to be imported if they are made in certain unacceptable conditions, that would immediately improve the situation in many of these exploited companies. Also, it would bring a lot of the manufacturing jobs back to America - where they originally were - because the incentive of dirt-cheap labor overseas has been taken away. Thousands of jobs would be created here; it would improve conditions for everyone. And it would be a relatively simple solution, because it doesn't involve working with any other governments or the U.N., it's just us controlling what is imported, which we have complete sovereignty to do.

Exactly- The focus is taken away from creating quality product, and placed on making a profit. If making cheap, poor quality produce will result in profit, people will take that route. This is why we're still stuck on fossil fuels, because patents for more efficient systems are held back by those who make money off of oil.

People are more interested in making a buck than solving problems, and this is one of the largest reasons of failure for economic systems.  

[Vasilius Konstantinos]

We live in Corporatism. we have not seen a true Capitalism, probably by some people's standards since 1784, or when Alexander Hamilton instituted the First National Bank. But the fact remains that Corporatism is what we have had for over 100 years, and the Statists call it Capitalism and blame every Republican President for its crimes, yet the biggest crime committed was just this year when much of the bailout money went towards specific banks and companies, while others who were in the same boat got the shaft. Remember Lehman Brothers? Why did they get canned while AIG was saved? Someone wanted Lehman Brothers gone, and did it politically, just like how a Corporatist Society should function.  

[lordstar]

Vasilius Konstantinos

We live in Corporatism. we have not seen a true Capitalism, probably by some people's standards since 1784, or when Alexander Hamilton instituted the First National Bank. But the fact remains that Corporatism is what we have had for over 100 years, and the Statists call it Capitalism and blame every Republican President for its crimes, yet the biggest crime committed was just this year when much of the bailout money went towards specific banks and companies, while others who were in the same boat got the shaft. Remember Lehman Brothers? Why did they get canned while AIG was saved? Someone wanted Lehman Brothers gone, and did it politically, just like how a Corporatist Society should function.

That’s interesting

I wonder why AIG received bailouts but Lehman Brothers didn't

It could be a corporate conspiracy
or maybe LB didn't survive long enough to get the cash
or maybe LB wasn't big enough to cause a significant enough impact to the economy
or maybe LB was unlucky enough to be first
or maybe LB refused bailout

I also think it would be interesting to know what our reps were thinking
but they would never tell us anyway  

[Vasilius Konstantinos]

I'll seriously ask Congressman Petri next time I run into him. He is my State Congressman for my area and my wife works in his offices.