Popularity of Socialism Spiking in US; 43 Percent Now Saying It Would Be Good for the Country

originally posted by: Freeborn


What is causing 'economic woes' then?

Genuine questions from a genuinely interested person.

In my experience, poor decisions were almost always the answer to this one. it's fun to find someone to blame for failures, but when you are the only one responsible for your direction, finding someone other than "you" to point at seems disingenuous.

originally posted by: Scifi2424

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: FamCore

Anything to address wealth inequality in this country is a good thing:

How strong can the country be if there are not enough good paying jobs and everyone is in so much in debt??????????

And how many of these "poor" folks have cable TV, smartphones, PS4, Xbox, climate control and eat fast food / junk food. From my observations, it's way up there. Are they really poor or just too lazy to manage their finances and work on improving their jobs skills because I see more fat people than starving people. I have not seen anyone truly starving to be honest. Maybe starving for exercise.
Strongest country on the planet.

a reply to: network dude

That doesn't explain economic and financial meltdown's that affect all of us but are completely out of our control.

Why socialism is becoming popular:

originally posted by: Stupidsecrets
For able bodied, the United States already has free college and healthcare. It's called the Armed Forces / Reserves.

The Reserves are one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer. Free college, paycheck, free schooling for a military skill and dirt cheap healthcare. There are other perks; free meals when on duty, discounts at stores, restaurants, free event tickets.

Why Democrats never bring this up I do not know. It's morally bankrupt to completely eliminate it from the conversation of free school and free healthcare since tax payers are already footing the bill for it. I would bash Warren, Bernie and Kamala over the head with it.

As a vet, I can tell you most of us don't want those kind of people in the military. Everyone else has to pick up the slack from these losers trying to breeze through for a few years to get their GI Bill money. Most of them don't wanna work and spend all their time causing problems. No thanks.

Lets take a look at economic systems.


All systems simply vary by degrees.

But you have to have a solid foundation before you go off changing things.

It's like ingredients in a recipe.

If you have good flour, sugar, toppings, and a good chef, you can have a great variety of different types of cake.

If you start out with a corrupt, rotted bag of flour, sugar with poo in it. . . then not matter the chef, you'll still end up with a crap cake.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: FamCore

It's communism.

Plain and simple.

What the morons don't get is that we have a corrupt bloated government now.

Making it bigger, "socialist", will just give us a corrupt bloated communist government.

They pretend they wanna stop at socialism and not get to communism. Communism is the natural end of socialism, according to Marx. No thanks.

a reply to: Freeborn

Wouldn't it be better to clear all student debt regardless of wealth or social standing upon achieving a previously determined grade?

Any idea what the total outstanding student debt in the US is?
studentloanhero.com...

$1.56 trillion in total U.S. student loan debt.

That's a lot of zeros.

44.7 million Americans with student loan debt 11.5% of student loans are 90 days or more delinquent or are in default

From that same website, it appears these debts are owned by the US Federal Government which loans the money out under various and sundry programs.

If you're curious to know what precipitated this debacle? The entry of the US Federal Government into the College Student Loan business in a big way started in 1976. The result was that the amount that could be loaned per student sky rocketed in the 1980's when the programs were expanded. Seeing all that money available the Universities, which had previously been publicly funded and were relatively low cost affairs, drastically raised their tuition rates and took on more and more administrators. Professor's pay went through the roof; previously Professors were paid very little because, well, they don't produce anything and spend an inordinate amount of time "defrocking" the pretty young co-eds.

If you want to be an expert on the matter, see:
www.usnews.com...

I applaud your restraint in engaging Americans on the topic of Socialism because its really rather pointless to discuss Socialism with Americans because of the fluidity of the definition of what Socialism is.

originally posted by: network dude

originally posted by: Freeborn


What is causing 'economic woes' then?

Genuine questions from a genuinely interested person.

In my experience, poor decisions were almost always the answer to this one. it's fun to find someone to blame for failures, but when you are the only one responsible for your direction, finding someone other than "you" to point at seems disingenuous.

Truth. And no one wants to help themselves. There was a member here who was having financial problems and I offered to help find charities and other programs that could help them. They weren't interested. They just want the government to take care of everything.

a reply to: FamCore

That's a super small sample size. 1000 people?

Newsweek has always been sensualistic trash. I wouldn't be surprised if they just didn't do a poll at all or faked it too.

It may be a more vocal minority but it is a tiny minority (who want socialism) I think it's much smaller than 40%. Knowing how dumb kids are nowadays, I put my money on around 25% max.

originally posted by: TonyS
The entry of the US Federal Government into the College Student Loan business in a big way started in 1976. The result was that the amount that could be loaned per student sky rocketed in the 1980's when the programs were expanded. Seeing all that money available the Universities, which had previously been publicly funded and were relatively low cost affairs, drastically raised their tuition rates and took on more and more administrators.

This right here happens with just about anything the government gets involved in funding, which is why "more government" should never be the answer. Once the government is paying, there is no more incentive to control costs. All this talk of "forgiving" student debt is irresponsible. There's literally kids who stopped paying their loans because they think it's going to go away someday. It's not. These kids need to be taught financial responsibility starting in high school, not taught how to be deadbeats that don't fulfill their obligations. You voluntarily took out the loans. Pay them. If you're mad at anyone, blame the brainwashing you received that made you think you can't get a job without a degree and that a degree in any dumb subject means an automatic 6-figure job.

originally posted by: chris_stibrany
a reply to: FamCore

That's a super small sample size. 1000 people?

Newsweek has always been sensualistic trash. I wouldn't be surprised if they just didn't do a poll at all or faked it too.

It may be a more vocal minority but it is a tiny minatory (who want socialism) I think it's much smaller than 40%. Knowing how dumb kids are nowadays, I put my money on around 25% max.

1000 people is what most of the polling agencies use for their national polls. I think it's too small as well, but they can't even bring themselves to admit they got 2016 wrong. "But the popular vote was about right." That's cute, since the popular vote doesn't matter. The state-by-state polling, which is what they used to project "no path to 270 for Trump" in the electoral college, was way off.

a reply to: TonyS

I don't profess to have the answers to student debt etc.

When the UK government introduced student debt as far as I'm aware almost exactly the same happened: an increase in tuition fee's, more administrators and more and more irrelevant and useless degree's.

University education has to be available and achievable for all without saddling the less wealthy with large debt but what we have at present clearly isn't working in both the UK and US.

I'm not sure if universal education is considered 'socialism' in the US....it's simply considered a right in almost every other country.

And I discovered a long time ago not to get into serious conversations with most American's about Socialism or anything ever remotely resembling 'leftist' thinking.
But I do enjoy watching them discuss it.

a reply to: face23785

These kids need to be taught financial responsibility starting in high school,....

Just like the students with wealthy parents who clear their debt with no obligation whatsoever to re-pay it?
Exactly how are they being taught 'financial responsibility'?

As with most things in this world it isn't so clear cut and black and white.

a reply to: face23785


Likewise, but, I will say they may just need some motivation they never got from mommy and daddy for whatever reason.

There will still be stragglers but most, it would be the best thing that ever happened to them. No longer fat cry babies. Working, paying for things themselves, learning new skills like how to work with people as a team instead of blowing a fuse when things don't go exactly their way. Bernie and Warren don't want this however. They need the weak and lazy to stay in power.

originally posted by: Freeborn
a reply to: network dude

That doesn't explain economic and financial meltdown's that affect all of us but are completely out of our control.

I think probably we both know the answer to that. Unfettered/unregulated free market capitalism tends to result in regular boom/bust cycles because......it tends to the inevitable rise in what I would call or describe as "ponzi scheme capitalism". Think: Bernie Madoff.

So if you look at the history of Capitalism in the US you see........the collapse of 1929, (and no that wasn't the first, there were 3 or more in the 1800's) which was precipitated by way too low margin rates which enabled people to borrow money to buy stocks with only 10% down payment. We had the Tech crash in 2000 caused in no small part by the Enron scandal. And then we had the 2008 "Great Recession" precipitated again by Ponzi scheme lending and borrowing on "derivatives" in the "derivatives market" where derivatives were actually loans made on "bundles" of sub-prime mortgages.

Anyway, that's my take on why the economic woes.
And, we're probably headed to another crash here before long; just a matter of time.

Ill finish my masters program without a single dollar of debt because of school, the options are there for people right now... but folks would rather drink and party through their liberal arts degree and have the fed forgive the debt than actually have a plan for getting through it.

Active duty, reserves, and Guard all have education benefits, there is the old school method of work your way through starting at community college and finishing at a major school, going to online over a brick and mortar is another option to shave a lot of debt off your plate.

but people have grown up with the idiotic stories playing on tv about drinking and partying at college and awesome it was and think everyone will have that experience.


EDIT:

Sorry student debt is a thing that bothers me, got derailed...

When you look at how people sit in their own little bubbles now pretty much 24/7 this climb in popularity was inevitable, when I was young the ideas being put forth for "democratic" socialism would have appealed to me as well, throw in people living on social media in their own bubbles getting constant positive reinforcement about their belifs from social media (and the stifiling of different view points on those platforms), and their more liberal leaning proffessors at school its only going to reinforce things, and stunt their individual growth, as any differing view point is presented as literally hitler.

a reply to: dfnj2015

So, that proves money makes money and the money stays on the top.

a reply to: face23785

For it to make any statistical/numerical sense they need to poll at least in the ten thousands. In this day and age with the internet it should not be that hard. One vote per IP or something.

a reply to: TonyS

I can't disagree with any of that.

I have no idea what the answer(s) is/are....just more of wash, rinse, repeat I fear.