White Guilt

Originally posted by 44soulslayer

........................Liberty means free-market capitalism...........................

- Congressman Ron Paul, 2002.

Obviously your not an economist LOL and neither is Ron Paul. You sound like a barrister don't mean to be rude and it's not that I know better but hahahaha!!!

Sry for detracting from the thread.

reply to post by carslake


Huh.

The doctrines of Friedman, Hayek, Rand, von Mises and Buchanan would humbly like to disagree.

Shall I assume you are of the red flag persuasion? Closet communist perhaps?

reply to post by 44soulslayer


He was never my candidate, BUT

BRAVO

Well said and complete.

Semper

Don't assume anything.

Okay if you were an economist you wouldn't believe in the free market economy because it doesn't exist, any economist worth his salt would consider that a niave way of thinking. Free market economies are a great idea in a perfect world but it needs to be protected in law against profiteering and exploitation.

I think your mixing up ideals and reality.

This is an example of the free market economy gone wrong.

At the end of the 1950’s, in the last days of Eisenhowers presidency………. The large internationally orientated New York banks had already begun preparing to abandon U.S. investment for greener pastures abroad.
Henry Ford once stated that he would gladly pay the highest wages in industry, sell the cheapest car, and in the process become the world’s richest man-all by using the most modern technology.
Unfortunately, by the early 1960’s the most influential voices in the U.S. policy establishment had forgotten Fords lesson. They were to obsessed with making a ‘quick buck’ by the typical merchants game of ‘buy cheap sell dear’.
By the end of the 1950’s the U.S. establishment had walked away from investment in rebuilding American cities, from educating a more skilled labor force and from investing in a more modern factory production and improving the national economy.
Instead, their dollars flowed out of the United States to grab up, ‘on the cheap’ already operating industrial companies in western Europe, South America or the emerging economies of Asia.
Systematic cheating on product quality became the fashion of the day. Milton Friedman and other economists preferred to call this ‘monetarism’ but it was nothing other than the wholesale infestation of ‘buy cheap sell dear’ methods into America’s productive base. Pride in workmanship and commitment to industrial progress began to give way to the corporate financial ‘bottom line’ a goal calculated evry three months for corporate stockholders.
By 1958, the amount of steel used in a General Motors Chevrolet was cut to half that of the 1956 model. Needless to say, highway death rates soared as one result.
…………U.S. blast furnaces poured out 19 million tons of steel for automotive use in 1955, but by 1958 this had fallen to 10 million tons. By the early 1960’s, ‘what’s good for General Motors’ was becoming bad for America and for the world.
U.S. industry had been persuaded to commit systematic suicide, cheating the customer to make up for falling profits.
…………………………most Americans would not realize the real implications of this 1960’s ‘post-industrial’ drift for another ten and twenty years.

And I'm a Socialist because we have no other choice, we have to care for our societies, evrything else is inconsequential in the long run.

If you want I can go on and on maybe add some more that directly links the economic environment with social tension .......this white guilt thing.

Im sorry but the OP is extremely uninformed.

Im 100% white and I didnt do anything to your people. Its not fair to look at anyone who didnt have something to do with it in a bad way.

You continue the racism and its no ones fault but your own.

I personally dont like living next to black people because they continue this culture of disrespect, you are continuing that. Racism is in the eye of the beholder.

I do not see it in my everyday life and its quite hard to find. Maybe because there are laws against it?

Grow up.

[edit on 17-5-2008 by Memysabu]

reply to post by carslake


Your economic beliefs are closer to Keynes than socialism.

It is your highly subjective opinion that the free market does not work. Indeed, one could draw upon direct evidence that a shift towards free market economics has a positive impact as:

1. Post war economies were based on Keynesian ideas of governmental oversight of the market. The economies were grim and did not allow social mobility and prosperity because of the entrenchment of wealth within those governmental institutions and established industries.

2. Reagan and Thatcher moved towards the economic concepts of Hayek and Friedman. They dismissed the Keynesian ideas which had held back their economies. Thus 1980s onwards, the economies of those two countries expanded with a massive leap forwards.

Addtionally consider:

3. India had a socialist model of government and economics. Their economy was pathetic for a very long time. Compared to the free market based economies of the tiger nations (Taiwan, Singapore, S. Korea etc), who achieved real growth rates in excess of 10%.

4. India switched to free market based economics via a series of liberalization policies, which opened up their economy. I'll leave you to judge the fruits of that action... I think the rampant nature of their economy does somewhat speak for itself.

Socialism does not engender freedom because in its core it relies upon the government to be the answer for everything. Socialism reduces a human to being a number; a part of a group; a mob which appropriates the hard earned wealth of others.

Free market capitalism believes in meritocracy- the American dream- the ideal that a man can have whatever he works for and if he is worth his salt.

Feel free to respond with a counterpoint if you wish, but I highly doubt you will be able to convince me, or indeed anyone, that socialism is true freedom!

[edit on 17/5/08 by carslake]

[edit on 17/5/08 by carslake]

Originally posted by 44soulslayer
reply to post by carslake

 

Your economic beliefs are closer to Keynes than socialism.

It is your highly subjective opinion that the free market does not work. Indeed, one could draw upon direct evidence that a shift towards free market economics has a positive impact as:

Did you not read the external quote or did you not understand what was being communicated.

1. Post war economies were based on Keynesian ideas of governmental oversight of the market. The economies were grim and did not allow social mobility and prosperity because of the entrenchment of wealth within those governmental institutions and established industries.

The monies did not lie in the hands of government or industry it lay in the hands of the NEW YORK banks who financed the war. Instead of re-investing in American infrastructure it was used to rebuild Europe, because the Europeans were willing to accept high interest loans. So there's more money to be made investing somewhere else, instead of using it to modernise in your homeland, I know it smacks of protectionism but atleast America would not have had the boom and bust cycle.

2. Reagan and Thatcher moved towards the economic concepts of Hayek and Friedman. They dismissed the Keynesian ideas which had held back their economies. Thus 1980s onwards, the economies of those two countries expanded with a massive leap forwards.

Thatcher’s eleven year rule in Britain had produced equally disastrous results. Real estate speculation and a vastly increased financial services ‘industry’ in the City of London obscured the fact that Thatcher’s economic policy severly discriminated against industrial investment, and against modernization of the nation’s deteriorating public infrastructure, such as railways and highways.

Obviously you weren't here for the 1980's we were in recession from late '86 onwards. The boom then bust cycle caused through manipulation of the money market.

3. India had a socialist model of government and economics. Their economy was pathetic for a very long time. Compared to the free market based economies of the tiger nations (Taiwan, Singapore, S. Korea etc), who achieved real growth rates in excess of 10%.

It's called the middle way, little bit of socialism, little bit of capitalism. India has a slower rate of economic growth which in the long run is excellent it implies sustainable growth.

4. India switched to free market based economics via a series of liberalization policies, which opened up their economy. I'll leave you to judge the fruits of that action... I think the rampant nature of their economy does somewhat speak for itself.

Its not rampant, it's growth is half that of China and it's more sustainable in the long run.

Socialism does not engender freedom because in its core it relies upon the government to be the answer for everything. Socialism reduces a human to being a number; a part of a group; a mob which appropriates the hard earned wealth of others.

Socialism is an ideal like I said earlier in the post, it needs to be tempered by capitalism and visa-versa, you know the middle way, the third way.

Free market capitalism believes in meritocracy- the American dream- the ideal that a man can have whatever he works for and if he is worth his salt.

Wow say that to Rasobasi or AshDenton, thats a pipe dream it doesn't exist anymore I doubt it ever did maybe in the 1920's. Your implying there's a level playing field who can afford to be educated in America?

Feel free to respond with a counterpoint if you wish, but I highly doubt you will be able to convince me, or indeed anyone, that socialism is true freedom!

I'm sure anybody who is disenfranchised in this day and age would rather have Socialism than corporate gangsterism any day of the week.

And anyway what the hell has socialism got to do with it I am a socialist only because we've gone too far to the other side.

Maybe consider, politics doesn't mean anything anymore, politics is an interface between economics and the societal elements of human activity.

Carslake this is getting rather unstructured and is moving away from the original point of the thread.

Please U2U me if you are interested in a debate challenge match on this subject (Free Market vs Keynes/ third way). I think a challenge match would offer more structure to this and is something I would be interested in.

I agree and I apologise to the other members for taking the thread off on a tangent.

I was hoping to make amends by steering it back on track, but it won't happen now.

It would be an honour to lock our intellects against one another in a debate, however I won't debate because I gave up competing with people(lofty ideal I know) along time ago.

If you'd join me in a thread, you could start it I'd be happier with that.

reply to post by BlackOps719


and i suppose that every time i see a white person i should cross the road assuming that they are a serial killer or a child rapist because lets face it majority of those offences are white but i bet it doesn't say that in your government statistics ?