Capitalism or Socialism choose a side and state your point

[Seanchaidh]

The effect is to incentivise investments perceived to be poor. The urge to reduce risk and maximize profit minimizes the boom/bust while state regulation accelerates it.

Economic history doesn't support this claim. The end of the 18th century had much less regulation and much wilder and more frequent booms and busts. Booms and busts aren't usually caused by good or bad investments, they are caused by shifts in aggregate demand. Shifts in aggregate demand can be caused by good and bad investments, of course. Unemployment is a waste of national resources, so it behooves the government to stimulate demand in order to stimulate production when there are employable people out of work.

So my answer is capitalism properly tempered by Keynesian countercyclical policy. Republican politicians like to call that socialism, which is dumb because it doesn't entail managing any industry. Of course, hardly anyone is a Keynesian during the boom (which would mean cutting spending or raising taxes), which is just as essential as being Keynesian during the bust (which means supporting stimulus packages consisting of spending or tax cuts.) Oddly, republicans seem to have it in their head to do the opposite: cut spending and "get the fiscal house in order" when our tax income is at its smallest and the economy its weakest. And then pass any surpluses back to taxpayers in the form of tax cuts... and we wonder why we have such a large national debt.

 

[letsnoobtehpwns]

Capitalism.

 

[Lazier Than Thou]

I'm for a mixture. People can try to become rich and competition is good for the consumers, but wealth gets spread around so no one has to be poor and businesses are regulated to stop monopolies and bad business practices that hurt the consumers (if it wasn't for consumer advocacy we wouldn't have airbags as standard).

Really, I believe in a comfortable living always being available and allowing people to strive for greater wealth and power through superior business (the wealth spreading would just inhibit hilarious amounts of wealth that's only useful if you want to gold plate everything).

But definitely have universal healthcare. Peoples lives aren't just a business.

I'm curious as to how you expect your utopia to pay for this "universal health care." Obama-care is estimated to cost $1.5 TRILLION and that's the rough estimate.

 

[Lazier Than Thou]

Socialism is not communism.

For me, I'd make the sensible choice and take a combination of Capitalism and Socialism, like, I don't know, a good lot of countries are using right now.

You have most defining qualitities of Capitalism, but people who don't have the best jobs or the most money can still benefit from governmental programs that get funded by taxes - you know, stuff like free health care, decent free education, et cetera.

Yea, that could all work. I mean, it's not like those things cost an ungodly amount of money. Thank goodness there's no way for our countries to become bankrupt from too much spending...

Yes, yes, sarcasm is a very great thing.

I think the Obama/Bush administrations have proven quite well that the government can spend as much as they like with absolutely no direct effect on the economy. [/sarcasm]

Umm do you KNOW what was the main reason behind the economical crash in US?

I think I could ask you the same thing.

Greed. Mortgages that everyone could get too easily.

Yes! Caused by what?

If government would step in and regulate it, it wouldn't have happened.

Close! But you were way off. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

You see, it was government intervention that caused the economic crash in the US. The government said to the bankers "give mortgages to people with low income or shady income" and the banks did it, which lead to a bunch of a lot of people that wanted to get free money but not able to afford to pay back the bankers which lead to a whole lot of problems. It was, in fact, because of two presidents. 1. Jimmy Carter and 2. Bill Clinton. They were the main driving force behind the current economic problems.

Welcome to the world of knowledge.

And no, a country won't become bankrupt because these things "cost an ungodly amount of money". Cut the military spending. Taxes bring in a LOT of money.

Ah, yes. The old "we don't need the military because certainly there haven't been any terrorist attacks on the US in the past decade!" I mean, as useful as such a stance is, it's really not. The costs for health care would be approximately triple that of the military. So, even assuming we cut all of it, how're we gonna get the rest of the money?

Seriously, have you even heard of economics? I don't claim to have a degree or anything, but jeez.

Yeah, I clearly don't know what I'm talking about.

 

[Sark]

I am really surpirsed at the number of people who don't know the difference between socialism and communism. Without Socialist ideals, a purely Capatalist society will make the rich richer and the poor poorer. I guess I am a socialist as I think everyone should have a chance to reach their maximum potential.

 

[Combined]

Capitalism, of course. It provides economic growth and the competitive system exploits human nature to ensure that humans will not only continuously improve themselves to match with the changing tendencies of the economical system, but also ensures that everything can be affordable and every major global problem could be solved.

Socialism, on the other hand, would lead to Communism, which will lead to ruin. Because it always ends in ruin for Communism.

 

[A random person]

I'm for a mixture. People can try to become rich and competition is good for the consumers, but wealth gets spread around so no one has to be poor and businesses are regulated to stop monopolies and bad business practices that hurt the consumers (if it wasn't for consumer advocacy we wouldn't have airbags as standard).

Really, I believe in a comfortable living always being available and allowing people to strive for greater wealth and power through superior business (the wealth spreading would just inhibit hilarious amounts of wealth that's only useful if you want to gold plate everything).

But definitely have universal healthcare. Peoples lives aren't just a business.

I'm curious as to how you expect your utopia to pay for this "universal health care." Obama-care is estimated to cost $1.5 TRILLION and that's the rough estimate.

Good point. As much as I preferred Obama to McCain (didn't hate McCain himself, but Palin made me scream WTF!), he seems to have problems with responsible spending. The best plan I can think of right now would be for the government to provide cheap insurance and have some tax payer money go towards healthcare (like Canada), but with private insurance companies competing with government healthcare, but I'd have to analyze Obama's plan for a more in depth idea.

 

[Seanchaidh]

You see, it was government intervention that caused the economic crash in the US. The government said to the bankers "give mortgages to people with low income or shady income" and the banks did it, which lead to a bunch of a lot of people that wanted to get free money but not able to afford to pay back the bankers which lead to a whole lot of problems. It was, in fact, because of two presidents. 1. Jimmy Carter and 2. Bill Clinton. They were the main driving force behind the current economic problems.

I was unaware facts had a political undertone.

Anyway, while it is (or it might be, so I'll concede that it is) true that the community reinvestment act helped to cause the crisis, it is also true that financial firms were leveraged to quite a ridiculous and untenable degree such that they could fall apart if sneezed upon. Capital requirements (a standard banking regulation) applied to large banklike-but-not-classified-as-bank financial firms could easily have prevented the crisis. If banks didn't have capital requirements and if there was no FDIC, there would be much more frequent financial crises and they would be extremely harmful to the economy.

 

[Chiddy]

Capitalism for sure, working super in socialism and u still get the same pay as a garbageman, wat bull

 

[Jindrak]

Here, let's run down all major economic theories:

Capitalism- Perfect in theory, flawed in practice
Socialism- Perfect in theory, flawed in practice
Communism- Perfect in theory, flawed in practice
Barter System(?)- Perfect in theory, flawed in practice

The only answer: Mixed Economy! Though no country will ever do it right. It's always fun to watch people debate what will never be perfected.

 

[Lazier Than Thou]

I'm for a mixture. People can try to become rich and competition is good for the consumers, but wealth gets spread around so no one has to be poor and businesses are regulated to stop monopolies and bad business practices that hurt the consumers (if it wasn't for consumer advocacy we wouldn't have airbags as standard).

Really, I believe in a comfortable living always being available and allowing people to strive for greater wealth and power through superior business (the wealth spreading would just inhibit hilarious amounts of wealth that's only useful if you want to gold plate everything).

But definitely have universal healthcare. Peoples lives aren't just a business.

I'm curious as to how you expect your utopia to pay for this "universal health care." Obama-care is estimated to cost $1.5 TRILLION and that's the rough estimate.

Good point. As much as I preferred Obama to McCain (didn't hate McCain himself, but Palin made me scream WTF!), he seems to have problems with responsible spending. The best plan I can think of right now would be for the government to provide cheap insurance and have some tax payer money go towards healthcare (like Canada), but with private insurance companies competing with government healthcare, but I'd have to analyze Obama's plan for a more in depth idea.

So you want Medicare? A government program already in existence that is said by one David Walker former Comptroller of the United States Government to cost an estimated $2-3 Trillion dollars in unfunded liability? http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/05/walker-gao-concord-face-cx_rs_1103autofacescan04.html

Or maybe you were referring specifically to Medicare part D passed through by George W. Bush which will have the same unfunded liability, but in the area of $17 Trillion.

Or maybe we not make the government run our medical system. Just a thought.

 

[M3707ik]

I don't see why it has to be either one. Both have good ideas. They say that nationalizing health care is a socialist move, but it's good to have health people, even if they can't afford to be.

The problem with nationalized, universal healthcare (at least for me) is that it'll accelerate the growth of a serious problem already present in industrialized nations. namely "Speciel Weakness" (sometimes called "Special Weakness"). The growing rates of cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity, weak immune systems, allergies, birth defects, and innumerable other diseases is no coincidence, and it doesn't just link to our food and exercise habits. As our healthcare has advanced, so has our ability to survive. While this may sound good on the surface (and it generally is), over time, people that would NEVER survive in the wild now live as long, or longer, than people who are naturally healthy, and generally pass on their genes accordingly. This means that each generation is progressivly weaker than the last.

Universal healthcare, by extending healthcare to millions more people, would be like throwing an enourmous amount of wood on a fire in an attempt to put it out (temporarily covering up the problem, instead of solving it, but making it worse in the end).

The only way I would vote for national healthcare is if it included a "Eugenics" (Selective breeding of humans) clause, meaning that people that can genetically pass on their diseases to the next generation would not be allowed to (or be discouraged from) breeding. This would make the system serve as an investment in the future, instead of as hort-sighted action for the "here and now." As time went on, and artificial selection took the place of natural selection, fewer and fewer people would get sick and, eventually, the "healthcare crisis," as we know it, would be over for good.

Other then the Hitler mindset, that makes sense.

Anyone know what the downsides to national health care are to people who aren't breeding a superior race?

Yeah. What the secind post (the longest one) proposed was social darwinism. Different from Hitler's ideas in that social darwinism is natural while Hitler used [artificial] selection. As a jew im oppsed to Hitler's ideas but every human should be opposed to social darwinism. As you sir, yes you are not a perfect human nor can u evolve into some magical perfect human with no disease and super human reproductive abilities. Medicine is man's way of combating disease without throwing millions of batches of Dna at the problem untill we get it right.

Oh and back to the argument.

I support a not very original blend of social ideas into capatalist society. Where we (america) are at is okay. Its a balance betwwen overhanded government and reckless abandonment on the other. Once again the answer is very very very, complicated. I wish laissez faire economics would work, but history has proven that wrong (Great Depression). On the other side of the spectrum you have a government so involved in the economy that the two are unseperable. Then all you need is a madman named Joseph Stalin and more people die than in the Holocaust (Ukrainian Genocide, the great purge, and other indiscriminate killings). In the middle is a constant struggle to find a balance. Great. nothing solved

 

[Lazier Than Thou]

You see, it was government intervention that caused the economic crash in the US. The government said to the bankers "give mortgages to people with low income or shady income" and the banks did it, which lead to a bunch of a lot of people that wanted to get free money but not able to afford to pay back the bankers which lead to a whole lot of problems. It was, in fact, because of two presidents. 1. Jimmy Carter and 2. Bill Clinton. They were the main driving force behind the current economic problems.

I was unaware facts had a political undertone.

Anyway, while it is (or it might be, so I'll concede that it is) true that the community reinvestment act helped to cause the crisis, it is also true that financial firms were leveraged to quite a ridiculous and untenable degree such that they could fall apart if sneezed upon. Capital requirements (a standard banking regulation) applied to large banklike-but-not-classified-as-bank financial firms could easily have prevented the crisis. If banks didn't have capital requirements and if there was no FDIC, there would be much more frequent financial crises and they would be extremely harmful to the economy.

No political undertone. The current economic crisis was caused by two Democratic presidents, but if I may be so bold, it was worsened by one Republican president by the name of George W. Bush. He was the man quoted as saying

"I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system," Bush told CNN television, saying he had made the decision "to make sure the economy doesn't collapse."

in the following article http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081216215816.8g97981o&show_article=1

Not only was Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter enormously stupid in terms of economics, but so was our latest president.

 

[Chesterfield Snapdragon McFisticuffs]

Socialism for the rich, Capitalism for the poor!
Thats how it goes, right?

 

[Cuniculus]

Yeah. What the secind post (the longest one) proposed was social darwinism. Different from Hitler's ideas in that social darwinism is natural while Hitler used [artificial] selection. As a jew im oppsed to Hitler's ideas but every human should be opposed to social darwinism. As you sir, yes you are not a perfect human nor can u evolve into some magical perfect human with no disease and super human reproductive abilities. Medicine is man's way of combating disease without throwing millions of batches of Dna at the problem untill we get it right.

Oh and back to the argument.

I support a not very original blend of social ideas into capatalist society. Where we (america) are at is okay. Its a balance betwwen overhanded government and reckless abandonment on the other. Once again the answer is very very very, complicated. I wish laissez faire economics would work, but history has proven that wrong (Great Depression). On the other side of the spectrum you have a government so involved in the economy that the two are unseperable. Then all you need is a madman named Joseph Stalin and more people die than in the Holocaust (Ukrainian Genocide, the great purge, and other indiscriminate killings). In the middle is a constant struggle to find a balance. Great. nothing solved

It's not natural selection for a guy with a clip board to say "You're not fit to reproduce." either.

Plus this didn't answer my question.

 

[M3707ik]

Yeah. What the secind post (the longest one) proposed was social darwinism. Different from Hitler's ideas in that social darwinism is natural while Hitler used [artificial] selection. As a jew im oppsed to Hitler's ideas but every human should be opposed to social darwinism. As you sir, yes you are not a perfect human nor can u evolve into some magical perfect human with no disease and super human reproductive abilities. Medicine is man's way of combating disease without throwing millions of batches of Dna at the problem untill we get it right.

Oh and back to the argument.

I support a not very original blend of social ideas into capatalist society. Where we (america) are at is okay. Its a balance betwwen overhanded government and reckless abandonment on the other. Once again the answer is very very very, complicated. I wish laissez faire economics would work, but history has proven that wrong (Great Depression). On the other side of the spectrum you have a government so involved in the economy that the two are unseperable. Then all you need is a madman named Joseph Stalin and more people die than in the Holocaust (Ukrainian Genocide, the great purge, and other indiscriminate killings). In the middle is a constant struggle to find a balance. Great. nothing solved

It's not natural selection for a guy with a clip board to say "You're not fit to reproduce." either.

Plus this didn't answer my question.

I apologize for the first part. I thought he ment get rid of medicine all in all. ya know let the big man work it out. Turns out he's a psycho. I dont even know what to call tht besides fucked up.

EDIT: Not that getting rid of medicine wouldnt have been psycho either. Now hes worse than a murderer. He's a Eugenist.

Also i dont know. I hav no clue what the negatives to healthy people are besides a huge economic drain. oh wait i do know

 

[Borrowed Time]

Capitalism. Be responsible for your own shit people! Hell, the government can't even balance their own budget, how are they going to take care of my health care?

 

[Borrowed Time]

Capitalism. Be responsible for your own shit people! Hell, the government can't even balance their own budget, how are they going to take care of my health care?

Probably about the same way you will if things go bad. Go seriously into debt and lose everything, or be bullied around by big business (aka HMO and insurance plans) into getting crap service.

Enjoy!

Erm, considering they can't even get their act together when things aren't going bad, I'd say I have a better chance of it. I can at least provide for my family even on private insurance. (which I'm on)

BTW, I have zero debt, don't even have a credit card and own everything. Not even a mortgage or car payment.