BCR
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2010
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- Political Leaning
- Libertarian - Left
Well, we already practice socialism to a degree. Social Security and welfare have existed for some time. Roosevelt's 2nd Bill of Rights would have gone a long way to keeping a more equal balance in America.
But a 100% capitalism is heartless for a nation that has a long history of being otherwise.
It's bad enough that our corporations (Wal-Mart, Nike, etc) screw over many workers abroad,
We need to be Americans first
corporations second. Since around the 80s, we have reversed that.
Washington caters to corporations long before it caters to Americans,
We also have to consider the environment.
We are in a "Progress Trap." This is a term best explained using Easter Island.
Eventually, one guy visited the last tree on that island and hacked it down.
Another example of the "Progress Trap" is in Canada. I forget what the site is called, but it was a location where hunters thousands of years ago used to run hundreds of bison over a cliff. They had evolved their hunting abilities to the point where they figured out that they didn't even have to try. They could just herd hundreds of them off a cliff and pick a few out for dinner. Eventually, they killed out all the game like this. They knew that the herds were becoming harder and harder to find, yet they practiced this until starvation took them or they migrated to find food elsewhere.
Capitalism is a progress trap in today's civilization.
We see the rain forests, the oceans, and ecosystems being destroyed exponentially year after year, yet we continue to "progress" and push as if we can't see an end. 100% capitalism is not good for the economy as a whole, people as a whole, and the environment as a whole. Right now we consume 130% of what the earth can produce a year. This is mostly all through capitalism and it is the very few in corporate offices who are getting rich. In the mean time the bison are runnning out and the Easter Island heads can't be moved as they once could.
I thought it was a Conservative with his massive tax breaks, foolish trillion+ dollar war and not so conservative spending that really dug us in deep. Something I learned today, your typical conservative has a very short memory.
This economic problem started with Reagan, worked its way through Clinton and emerged with Bush. Without the Iraq war, this was still going to happen.
This is not just a conservative or a liberal creation. They are both at guilt and trying to play one up against the other merely encourages the same foolish partisan garbage that makes coming to a solution impossible.
the putz on pennsylvania came out for 45 seconds this morning to assure us all we're heading in the right direction
gosh, what must be his goal?
Socialism never works. It violates human nature.
Do they? Providing a job is "screwing people over"?
And socialists never.
Socialism and the kleptocracy and slavery that goes with it are not compatible with the American ideal and they're not Constitutional, either.
No. The fact of the corporation has been with this country since the first settlers arrived. The ability to incorporate is enshrined in the Constitution, under the First Amendment freedom to assemble and the Fourth Amendment freedom to own property,
Go back to demanding the government in Washington be limited by the explicit bounds of the Constitution, and the government will then no longer have the power to run a catering business.
Ya think the US is going to deforest itself? Do you seriously believe the logging companies are going to cut down all the trees, when their business is selling tree products?
You know this for a fact? The movie Rapa Nui is a documentary? How certain are you that the people didn't protect the last tree until it died of old age? And, interestingly, Easter Island is too far from land for the indigenous forest to have been a remant cut off from the mainland by rising sea levels. No, the indigenous forest was also an immigrant forest, and it was only a matter of time before some chance event reseeded the island with trees of some sort.
Just in case you missed it, but there were massive bison herds in North America until the middle of the 1800's. The indians never had a chance of exterminating THOSE megafauna. It took white men, white man rifles, and white man's horses, to almost make the bison extinct.
Okay, we should only allow nations that were capitalist to remain capitalist. Fortunately for me, that means the United States should remain free. It's going to be rough on India, China, Ethiopia, Zaire, Cuba, and all the other places in the world ravaged by the evils of socialism, but hey, its not my problem what happens over there.
You got any clue what the word "exponentially" means? Want to know why the jungles in Brazil are being stripped?
It's because NO ONE OWNS THEM.
They're the "commons". And like all commons everywhere, no one owns them, so everyone seeks to maximize the immediate profit they can get from them before they're used up.
The problem with the whales is that they're part of the commons.
That's right.
Jimmy Carter never had to give a speech that was never later called his "Economic Malaise" speech. And since he never actually gave his Economic Malaise speech, it's not meaningful to say that Carter never actually used the phrase "Economic Malaise" in the speech he didn't give in which he told Americans there was nothing to do about the economy that wasn't deteroriating under his one and only single term presidency and that the Americans would just have to learn to lower their expectations about the future of their lives and their children's.
All the economic problems started with Reagan. You're absolutely right.
I thought it was a Conservative with his massive tax breaks, foolish trillion+ dollar war and not so conservative spending that really dug us in deep. Something I learned today, your typical conservative has a very short memory.
What he said ^^^
Tim-
Hardly. As much as the Americans like to think that they're the only gem of purity and goodness in the world, and that every other country on the face of the earth ought to either grovel or stay out of America's way, the reality is that, in the year 2010, your nation, along with the rest of the world, has come a long way from 1991. America is once again just one power among many, and any rational man can tell you that, for all of the stories of interdependence between America and China, it's the EU and America that are the closest partners when it comes down to world relations. It'd be disastrous to America to see the EU breakup, and it'd be disastrous to the EU to see America breakup.
Now, admittedly, I am English, and you're right in saying that the current trend is probably more favourable to our half of the partnership, whereas America's going through some rough times right now. But it'd be daft to alienate your most vital allies and partners because you're sore about losing your preeminent status.
The best way to stimulate the economy right now, is to cut checks to the bottom 50% of income earners.
Some where in the range of $5k-$10k.
Recovery? You have to be kidding. The only reason that job losses are fewer is because we have already lost so many jobs that there are fewer jobs to lose, so there are fewer job losses. A recovery is when we begin getting jobs back, not losing fewer of them.
Well, we already practice socialism to a degree.
Washington caters to corporations long before it caters to Americans
We also have to consider the environment. We are in a "Progress Trap." This is a term best explained using Easter Island. This island used to [be] saturated with forest. Over the centuries, the indigenous people hacked down trees to use as rollers to move their rock carved heads around the island. At one point, the trees were becoming scarce and this is where [when] rock heads started to be left on the coasts. Eventually, one guy visited the last tree on that island and hacked it down. What this means is that people had a sense of progress in their heads with these carved heads and no matter how obvious the end was, they continued as if committing suicide.
Capitalism is a progress trap in today's civilization. We see the rain forests, the oceans, and ecosystems being destroyed exponentially year after year
In the mean time the bison are runnning out and the Easter Island heads can't be moved as they once could.
I thought it was a Conservative with his massive tax breaks, foolish trillion+ dollar war and not so conservative spending that really dug us in deep.
global warming is so dead as an issue, rarely has a platform so high fallen with such hubris so fast
when's the last time someone around here pushed it, how far did it go?
did you see what happened in the copenhagen cold?
whoa
i guess it's just a matter of priorities
y'know, in times like these
Jobs recovery is stronger than past recessions - Sep. 2, 2010
Also from the article:
Now I would like to ask the folks out there in the audience this question:
If a second stimulus is needed to avoid a secondary and possibly more severe recession, would you be in favour of it?
Although the question is irrelevent as the White House has said there will be no second stimulus.
I think many people out there seriously underestimate just how severe this recession is, and that there is no magic fix for it.
It's not about global warming. It's about obliterating natural resources until there are none left. Global Warming hadnothing to do with past "Progress Traps." We have a human history of doing this over and over from culture to culture and from region to region. When oil runs out where will you get your plastics? When we kill off all the trees how will you build your homes or heat them?
Would you explain to me how the job creation that has led to a reduction in the number of people employed can be called a recovery and the strongest job recovery in decades?
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1980 99879 99995 99713 99233 98945 98682 98796 98824 99077 99317 99545 99634
1981 99955 100191 100571 101056 101048 100298 100693 100689 100064 100378 100207 99645
1982 99692 99762 99672 99576 100116 99543 99493 99633 99504 99215 99112 99032
1983 99161 99089 99179 99560 99642 100633 101208 101608 102016 102039 102729 102996
1984 103201 103824 103967 104336 105193 105591 105435 105163 105490 105638 105972 106223
1985 106302 106555 106989 106936 106932 106505 106807 107095 107657 107847 108007 108216
1986 108887 108480 108837 108952 109089 109576 109810 110015 110085 110273 110475 110728
1987 110953 111257 111408 111794 112434 112246 112634 113057 112909 113282 113505 113793
1988 114016 114227 114037 114650 114292 114927 115060 115282 115356 115638 116100 116104
1989 116708 116776 117022 117097 117099 117418 117472 117655 117354 117581 117912 117830
1990 119081 119059 119203 118852 119151 118983 118810 118802 118524 118536 118306 118241
1991 117940 117755 117652 118109 117440 117639 117568 117484 117928 117800 117770 117466
1992 117978 117753 118144 118426 118375 118419 118713 118826 118720 118628 118876 118997
1993 119075 119275 119542 119474 120115 120290 120467 120856 120554 120823 121169 121464
1994 121966 122086 121930 122290 122864 122634 122706 123342 123687 124112 124516 124721
1995 124663 124928 124955 124945 124421 124522 124816 124852 125133 125388 125188 125088
1996 125125 125639 125862 125994 126244 126602 126947 127172 127536 127890 127771 127860
1997 128298 128298 128891 129143 129464 129412 129822 130010 130019 130179 130653 130679
1998 130726 130807 130814 131209 131325 131244 131329 131390 131986 131999 132280 132602
1999 133027 132856 132947 132955 133311 133378 133414 133591 133707 133993 134309 134523
2000 136559 136598 136701 137270 136630 136940 136531 136662 136893 137088 137322 137614
2001 137778 137612 137783 137299 137092 136873 137071 136241 136846 136392 136238 136047
2002 135701 136438 136177 136126 136539 136415 136413 136705 137302 137008 136521 136426
2003 137417 137482 137434 137633 137544 137790 137474 137549 137609 137984 138424 138411
2004 138472 138542 138453 138680 138852 139174 139556 139573 139487 139732 140231 140125
2005 140245 140385 140654 141254 141609 141714 142026 142434 142401 142548 142499 142752
2006 143142 143444 143765 143794 144108 144370 144229 144631 144797 145292 145477 145914
2007 146032 146043 146368 145686 145952 146079 145926 145685 146193 145885 146483 146173
2008 146421 146165 146173 146306 146023 145768 145515 145187 145021 144677 143907 143188
2009 142221 141687 140854 140902 140438 140038 139817 139433 138768 138242 138381 137792
2010 138333 138641 138905 139455 139420 139119 138960 139250
What I see here are 139.250 million people employed this August vs. 139.433 million in August 2009. Compare that to the 142.2 million employed when Obama took office. How can anyone say that the economy is headed in the right direction unless the goal was to destroy the job market and the economy?
And please note from your own statistics:
Reagan: February, 1981 - 100,191 August, 1982 - 99,633
Bush: February, 2001 - 137,612 August, 2002 - 136,705
Obama: February, 2009 - 141,687 August, 2010 - 139,250
Huh? All three of them in a recovery from a recession and all three of them at simultaneous points in their terms had all lost jobs. Huh? Wow! Who knew that jobs lag during a recovery? I'd never have expected that. Nor would I have argued that!
Oh, wait. It's what I've been saying to all of you.
The biggest criticism that I can levy at Obama was claiming that the stimulus would prevent unemployment from rising. Now, it did save some jobs (using CBO numbers) but it wasn't going to be enough to prevent this from happening. Neither were Reagan's efforts; nor Bush's efforts.
This is the natural part of a post-recession process. I ask you, once again, find me a recession that didn't result in job losses even well into the recovery? Find one for me.
Interesting how you interpret the numbers. I see job losses since he took office and I see losses every month this year vs. last year. Reagan loses 500k his first year, Bush lost 900k his first year, and Obama lost 2.4 million his first year yet Obama supporters call that a the strongest job market in decades and that is after signing a stimulus plan that was supposed to cap unemployment at 8%.
There is no question that unemployment is a lagging indicator but the problem is the economy plan Obama has in place to create jobs, massive govt. growth and spending, whereas both Bush and Reagan promoted the private sector. There is no question which programs grow jobs and which do not. Obama economic plan is a failure and the only similarity between Reagan, Bush, and Obama is that all three lost jobs but that is where the similarities end.
By historical standards, the labor market is recovering nicely -- job growth has started earlier than in past recessions.
But, how am I supposed to know that Reagan and Bush policies worked if I'm in the present?
If I were unemployed under Reagan, am I supposed to just sit by and be reassured, that four years later, the jobless rate would return to the same level it was when he took office?
Or, as you're doing - should I have said - YOU SUCK AND YOUR POLICIES SUCK because RIGHT NOW you have lost jobs under your presidency. Should we have voted against Reagan? Bush? (I wish, but that's beside the point).
You're saying that we shouldn't have judged them during their terms by the numbers you're using to judge Obama now.
I'm all right with you hating him and his policies. By the evidence you're providing is precisely the evidence that suggests that we should have thrown out Reagan and Bush during their economic recoveries.
these days, you sound like a birther
carry on
Because the numbers show that they worked, economic growth in bea.gov and U.S. Treasury in showing growth of revene to the govt. If you were unemployed under Reagan you had the knowledge of an economic policy that promoted private sector growth and that you wouldn't be penalized for taking the risk. same with Bush, not so with Obama.
I don't hate Obama, but his policies are another story. As for throwing out either Reagan or Bush, why would I do that knowing what their economic policy was, pro growth, pro private sector vs. Obama's pro govt, pro union, and anti private sector. The malaise now says it all, not the case when Reagan or Bush announced their economic plans, but we are getting off track here again as once again another liberal diverts from the thread topic.
I want to know how anyone can post this is the strongest job growth in decades when the actual numbers prove differently?
FilmFestGuy;1058963951]I've already called the title histrionic, so I'm not one of those, so please don't lump me in with them.
My point about Reagan and Bush is this: place yourself in 1982 and tell me that Reagan's policies were working. You do realize that at this point in his term, Regan's unemployment rate was 10.1% and was on it's way to a peak of 10.8% in December of that year? How could you, in August, 1982 after watching unemployment climb and climb under Reagan say that you supported his policies at that time based on the evidence OF THAT TIME. You had no evidence that anything he was doing was working when unemployment continued to go up and up and would continue upward for many more months.
You can only say, in retrospect, that they did anything.
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