Coming soon (hopefully) to a theater near you

[darwinslair]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wty7974IKg

[opsec]

I'll buy a ticket for this.

[Lady Lilya]

 

[MountainMeg]

Ok, I *hate* going to theaters.  I'd totally go for this movie. 

[Wellspring]

Thanks for the link!  Look forward to it - although we know all this already.
What will it take to get the sheeple to put their bag of Doritos down, get off their butts, out of their lazy-boys and take a stand?

From the clip:  "The problem with Socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people's money."

[The Future]

The trailer certainly presents one side of the coin well!  However, showing the error of one way doesn't mean "the" other way is any better.  The problem with Capitalism is that eventually, you run out of other people to capitlise on.  The mathematics of capitalism say it MUST eventually collapse.  I suspect the same folks trotting around the ideas of how bad socialism is, aren't at the same time and with equal fervour saying that capitalism cannot go on as it is.  We need an entirely new economic model, one founded on adding value rather than taking profit or other people's (fictious) money.

[opsec]

The trailer certainly presents one side of the coin well!  However, showing the error of one way doesn't mean "the" other way is any better.

History has shown definitively that socialism causes more human exploitation and injustice than capitalism does. Capitalism is, hands down, the lesser of two evils.

The problem with Capitalism is that eventually, you run out of other people to capitlise on.

The people being capitalized on (I assume you mean employees) are themselves capitalizing on the company that employs them. That evil, greedy, selfish, morally dubauched embodiment of evil known as "the company" provides it's employees with the opportunity to trade their time for money. The problem is not capitalism. The problem is companies failing to compensate their employees for the full value of their time. Capitalism is the one economic theory that recognizes this for the theft that it is. Contrast that with any centrally planned economic system in which human exploitation is baked into the system.

The mathematics of capitalism say it MUST eventually collapse.

Same goes for collectivism in all it's various forms.

I suspect the same folks trotting around the ideas of how bad socialism is, aren't at the same time and with equal fervour saying that capitalism cannot go on as it is. We need an entirely new economic model, one founded on adding value rather than taking profit or other people's (fictious) money.

So in other words you would have everybody add value according to their means and avoid profiting from it, effectively giving the added value to everybody else according to their need. That is what socialism is, and far from being entirely new, it's been tried in many places and it has a track record of 100% failure. Ironicly, the chief failure of socialism is that it places higher value on money than on human well-being which is your primary complaint against capitalism.

[Atash Hagmahani]

I think one of the problems with capitalism is that it is poorly-defined.

I think originally the banks were supposed to be capital aggregators and "gatekeepers" for how the aggregated capital would be used. The idea is that if enough people pool their savings, then SOME people can use the savings to buy tools that no one person could have afforded, and use them to increase production and/or efficiency. Another idea was that the bankers had to have a compelling profit motive to allocate capital to only the best uses.

What eventually happened instead was that banks became expanders of fiat money, and furthermore, they were making loans on discriminatory terms depending on whether you were an insider or an outsider. Insiders got better terms...too good!

Something else that went wrong was that profit motives were turned upside-down so that bankers were rewarded for making risky loans, while those who had nothing to do with the bad loans were punished through bailouts and other inflationary measures.

I think what Future is talking about is how to handle interest payments. That ties into the issue of risk management (versus "risk transfer", which is what the current system is). Interest payments above and beyond the growth rate (or even shrinkage!) of the economy imply that someone won't be able to repay.

[The Future]

History has shown definitively that socialism causes more human exploitation and injustice than capitalism does. Capitalism is, hands down, the lesser of two evils.

We don't need evil of any kind.  Getting into a who is less or more evil than another is pointless.  Perhaps even evil.   

The people being capitalized on (I assume you mean employees)

No I don't mean employees.  I mean whoever is being taken advantage of by someone else and lacks the means to secure a fair return on their energy/material/time/expertise investment.  The western lifestyle is predicated on someone somewhere doing the dirty work for pennies per hour.  Anyone who champions maintaining huge wage differentials is championing another evil.

Same goes for collectivism in all it's various forms. .

I'd love to see the math equation you worked out on "collectivism".  Does me swapping fruits with my neighbour for more variety in my diet count as "collectivism".  Why is it mathematically bound to collapse?  As Atash alludes to, a system predicated on fiat money (representing wealth) withh interest is a mathematical anomaly running on borrowed time.  The equation doesn't compute, ergo is must collapse like the ponzi scheme it is.  I'd love to see the math showing how my fruit swap among equals is a ponzi scheme....

So in other words you would have everybody add value according to their means and avoid profiting from it, effectively giving the added value to everybody else according to their need. That is what socialism is, and far from being entirely new, it's been tried in many places and it has a track record of 100% failure. Ironicly, the chief failure of socialism is that it places higher value on money than on human well-being which is your primary complaint against capitalism.

No, I wouldn't do as you suggest.  Socialism is as fundamentally flawed as capitalism (and any other western--ism you care to mention).  I would swap things of equal value.  This is world away from "giving added value to everyone else".  Thus the value I add is the value I enjoy, as does the person I do business with.  We both come away enriched by diversity rather than profit.  I don't want or need any central planners to regulate my fruit swaps.  A useless idea.  Even as all the monies in the world come to be seen as the worthless proxies for value they are, a guava will still be a guava - a contributor to human well being.  I'll leave you to convince me of the doom to follow for living outside of a western box...as I enjoy the fruits.  I don't fit into any of these boxes.

As a footnote, it is also worth mentioning that every economic system used to date has a 100% failure rate.  How you classify one 100% failure above or below another 100% failure is beyond me.

[opsec]

Does me swapping fruits with my neighbour for more variety in my diet count as "collectivism".

No, that's an example of free trade.

[The Future]

I gave this economic model more thought and realized that I can actually make a 'profit' by trading something of "equal" value.  How?  Well if I have 300 mangoes and can only make use of 250 but could make use of say, the same mass of guava equivalent to 50 mangoes, I've given up something of low value to me and gotten something useful to me.  But wait it gets better.  The same goes for the lady with the 600 guavas who swaps be 100 of them for 50 mangoes.  The guavas are not much use to her and yet she receives a bounty of 50 mangoes.  We both 'profit' by trading things of equal value.

[offdalip]

unless Danielle or earl wipe out your mangoes/guavas

be safe.....

[Lady Lilya]

Future, that is the whole point of free trade.  Things don't have fixed value.  We each value them differently (especially at different times). 

I bought a car today.  The other person valued the dollars more than the car, and I valued the car more than the cash.  Nobody was taken advantage of.

[Eddie]

Future, that is the whole point of free trade.  Things don't have fixed value.  We each value them differently (especially at different times). 

I bought a car today.  The other person valued the dollars more than the car, and I valued the car more than the cash.  Nobody was taken advantage of.

That's probably not the best analogy for global free trade. Maybe you glanced over what Future had said: "The problem is companies failing to compensate their employees for the full value of their time. Capitalism is the one economic theory that recognizes this for the theft that it is. Contrast that with any centrally planned economic system in which human exploitation is baked into the system".

Power is shifted into the companies favor to exploit the cheap labor creating a race to the bottom for wage earners globally. So eventually everyone in the middle class bracket gets hosed, and cheap labor abroad remains stifled for the most part, or  does not even come close to the cost of living.

[opsec]

Maybe you glanced over what Future had said: "The problem is companies failing to compensate their employees for the full value of their time. Capitalism is the one economic theory that recognizes this for the theft that it is. Contrast that with any centrally planned economic system in which human exploitation is baked into the system".

*ahem* [cough..cough]