"Socialism" - the foundation required for Capitalist Democracy

[סלח לנו]

http://finance.google.com/group/goog...c9057f797898ee

There is a crash every 8 years. A minor crash halfway
between those years dividing the cycle into two hemispheres.
A huge boom at the second hemisphere of the cycle.
The boom is the way for Americans to further sell debt to
unsuspecting foreigners. Those of us who don't realise
that are not quick enough to get out before the peak
meant to bait overseas funds.

Then comes the crash, where we recuperate and regroup
to reassess our strategy for the next cycle.

The crash is the way Americans devalue our overseas debt.
We compel others to sell us cheap goods, We import goods
and export jobs. Compared to Zimbabwe, even our most destitute
street hobo is more comfortable.

Then when we run out of money, we devalue those debts by
causing a crash.

• Edited by a Moderator •

The huge bulk of voters who make themselves available as fuel for ultra-capitalists are prosperity-gospelled evangelical Christians, who find in David Wilkerson their sworn enemy.

But when the market crashes, they spread the news - the Jews did it. They forget about their sacred commandments to help the poor and destitute. "Conservative" redneck, joe-the-plumber political economics is more important to them then the conservative values of helping the poor and destitute.

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[themuzicman]

Wilkerson is a preacher, not an economist.

[joel]

The boom is the way for Americans to further sell debt to unsuspecting foreigners.

There is some truth to this. Though this is caused by the government, and not by the markets. I recently read a book on the Great Depression (for an example), and learned that the government in the boom of the 1920's manipulated the market to get banks and individuals to lend money to foreigners (i.e., buy foreign bonds). The reason for doing this was irrational: the government had prevented foreigners from purchasing American exports by placing high taxes on imports, thus foreigners had no way of selling anything to Americans to acquire dollars. So, instead of eliminating the irrational taxation, the government got Americans to buy bonds from foreigners, so that the foreigners use the dollars to buy American exports. Of course, the foreigners still have no way of selling things to Americans in order to acquire dollars in order to pay back the loans. So the government got Americans to lend more dollars to foreigners so they could pay back the old loans. And so on. This anti-capitalist policy played a part in the financial crash of 1929.

But the main problem causing business cycles, including that one and this one, is government induced credit expansion, primarily via government central banks.

Ultra-capitalists of the past eight years including some of Nixon's years have twisted the meaning of Capitalism

"Ultra-capitalists" have twisted the meaning of capitalism? That seems oxymoronic.

Therefore, these ultra-capitalists would prefer that you paid for the balloting costs before you could cast your vote

We do pay for the balloting costs. It doesn't magically come out of nowhere.

Why should people who have no qualms of feral cats
and dogs running around town pay for the animal
control department of the local town?

Why should people who have no children pay for taxes
more than half of which goes to the schools in your
towns?

Why should people who have no cars and pay for taxes
that goes to traffic lights?

Amen. They should not be forced to pay. Abolish government postal service too. The foundation of a society based on liberty, democracy, and private property is not social programs. They hamper liberty and the market process.

The huge bulk of voters who make themselves available as fuel for ultra-capitalists are prosperity-gospelled evangelical Christians, who find in David Wilkerson their sworn enemy.

I'm an evangelical Christian. I say the "prosperity gospel" is clearly wrong. The prominent evangelicals and evangelical organizations reject the the teaching. And, along with Muz, I don't understand your reference to Wilkerson.

But when the market crashes, they spread the news - the Jews did it.

Actually, this idea came from socialist groups. A while back I read a book written by an economist in the 1920's who described socialist groups (especially in Germany) who equated "Jew" with "Capitalist", which led them to cry, "Death to the Jews."

They forget about their sacred commandments to help the poor and destitute. "Conservative" redneck, joe-the-plumber political economics is more important to them then the conservative values of helping the poor and destitute.

I don't support free markets in spite of the values of helping the poor and destitute. I support free markets (and oppose socialism) because I care about the poor and destitute, and the well-being of my fellow man.

[MandrivaSpring]

Weird to support a system founded in self-interest to "help" anyone. If it weren't for government programs, the third sector institutions and communities, market failures would have wiped out most of the living population. In England, the moral-less pure capitalism led to child labor, worker exploitation and hideous poverty. In the US, trusts and cartels drove anti-trust laws due to the oppression they caused, and the few monopolies that appear must be constantly watched to avoid their abuse of market power. Were it not for unions and government actions we would have no benefits, no vacations, no decent working conditions, no social security (whichever the flaws are), nor other stuff. There simply isn't any inherent reason for incurring those huge costs in the free-market, profit-maximization logic. You may explain these via a number of parallel theoretical mechanisms, but the fact is that capitalism by itself is unable to generate ANY sort of benefit for the poor and destitute. It is a failed goods-distribution system, so it must constantly be coupled with socialist measures in order to survive. But since socialism is also a load of trouble (don't get me started on it), both fail.

Imagine if we did a market on national security, where terrorist attacks were the supply and our government's defense program is the demand. Will it reach a "desirable" equilibrium of terrorist attacks on the U.S.? Once again, market failures must be invoked to make sense of this, and centralized planning must be done to at least try to achieve a NO terrorist attacks goal.

[apostoli]

Imagine if we did a market on national security, where terrorist attacks were the supply and our government's defense program is the demand.

From where I've been sitting for a lot of decades, you have just described the foundation of USA economics = war based economy. If the USA hasn't an enemy to pursue (real or imagined) it would have no industry or relevance in the world...

Recently I was reading a conservative economic report on the difficult "eco-political" position my country is in...Oz's economy is currently in a growth phase but dependent on Chinese demand for our resources, but to meet demand we are dependent on USA investors to fund infrastructure expansion and high-techy machinery. On the other side of the loop: the USA is dependent on the Chinese buying bonds etc to prop up the USA economy, as USA investors refuse to invest in the failing USA economy. The Chinese need to finance the USA economy so people have money to buy their goods, which gives the Chinese income to buy Oz's resources, which attracts USA investors into Oz....The trouble with the loop is that if the Chinese stop lending to the USA, the USA goes down, China, Japan & South Korea growth slows, demand for Oz resources declines, USA investors withdraw from the Oz market etc etc

The analysis of the conservative economic report I was reading recently concluded that China has reached its risk limit and isn't happy with the USA government's indirect US$ devaluation, and thus Chinese assets in the USA. Thus it is refocusing its investment strategy, and has increased direct investment in Oz.

In short the prediction is that the USA will, in the decades ahead be (in economic terms) irrelevent to our region of the world (as Europe already is).

The commentariate suggest that the USA's major mistake and ongoing problem is its lack of social infrastructure and most importantly its inequality in wages. Successful western economies (those that survived the GFC) all have "living wage" protections. People who can't earn enough to feed and house themselves, don't have surplus money to buy disgressionary items. The more people in this situation, demand falls, supply eventuall falls to where production is unprofitable, unemploment or underdeployment increases, demand reduces even more etc etc

Moral of the spiral: feed/house the poor and help the sick as a national occupation and your nation will prosper. Rely on "free markets" you get the USA & European experience...perpetual social and economic instability...

Personall, I don't perceive the evangelical churches in the USA as "Christian", as from my observation organisationally they come across "me-ists" in focus. I'm sure there are individuals that are exceptions...I hope so...

[MandrivaSpring]

Excellent points. I was leaning more to the theoretical underpinnings, though :) Middle-class is a very high cost under the profit-maximization theory, since it needs a huge investment in benefits that companies looking to maximize their stockholders' portfolios are simply reluctant to give. So we do a lot of unpaid labor (not in the sense of Marx's value added approach), because our labor "market value" are simply "production costs" that must be minimized in any way possible. Thus machines will keep replacing us, and the amount of machines per person will steadily augment, since only that guarantees a steady reduction in the human costs for stockholder-driven enterprises.

The big problem in the market logic is the structure of the enterprise: it is a machine designed to squeeze as much money possible into investors' pockets. At a glance it would seem fair: after all, we all should get rewarded for the things we do, right? And that's exactly the point. Investors don't work for the money they receive from their enterprises, they just benefit from the work we give them. If we suddenly stop being enough, out the window with us; but the investor is a god who cannot be replaced, so no matter if he is a greedy lazy bastard, in he goes. They usually explain trading in general terms to justify their specific needs: for example, from Mankiw's book I read that "from the standpoint of society as a whole", monopolies don't affect the regular outflow of goods and services: they just give a bigger part to producers/firms. In translation: "goods and services are always traded, so who cares who has more?" I'll tell you whom: the people who have NOTHING, who have been told they can no longer use their talents to make a living for their family, who work like slaves in double-triple shifts to give their sons only the meager subsistence. Now if investors don't care about it, they are not deserving of the money they get from enterprises. We don't care about them, and we are the majority. So there.

I am a big fan of worker-owned enterprises: I think they are the economic future for the middle class. In this arrangement, workers are the stockholders, so the enterprise exists solely as a structure to enable workers to do their jobs. Whatever extra produce is made in the business, it goes straight into workers' pockets at the end of the year, and is distributed by how much work each did. Workers then have better salaries, more benefits (the benefits of being stockholders), end rewards, decision power, and assets, all in a single stroke. Imagine going to work and being able to vote in assembly what healthcare provider would they like, what materials to use in production, and receiving in turn open financial statements of YOUR business, and rewards for YOUR WORK at the end of the financial year. That is something worth looking forward to.