My problem with Union-supporters/communists/tax the rich-types

reply to post by Imhotepsol

Not to outrightly disagree with you but a lot of the snippets presented seem to show just the controversial points without clarifying or qualifying them.....

And you go on to defend "Socialism"

CAPITALISM

First the USA has not had "Capitalism" for over one hundred years. The present system is a type of "socialism" where wealth is taken from the population by various methods and redistributed as the countries leaders see fit. Think of FDR and the confiscation of private gold that was turned over to the bankers to be given to "the city of London" followed by the "New DEAL" a bunch of "socialist" laws.

Around the world, the bulk of the wealth is not taken via taxes but through wage deflation and price inflation. The US dollar has lost 96% of its value. AIER.org/the-long-goodbye-the-declining-pu rchasing-power-of-the-dollar

Those SAME leaders are not going to take a hit in the wallet of course.

In 1976 A typical American CEO earned 36 times as much as the average worker. By 2008 the average CEO pay increased to 369 times that of the average worker. timelines.ws...

This is the real world face of "Socialism" The wiping out of the middle class and the confiscation of their wealth by "well meaning" Fabian Socialist leaders like George Soro (graduate of the London School of Economics) and David Rockefeller.

As a sop to the rank and file "Progressives" we have "Social Programs" such as welfare, SS, Medicare and now Obamacare. These cost the leaders nothing and actually help put more wealth and CONTROL in their hands. About half of the US federal debt is OWED to the bankers thanks to the social programs and wars. Wars the bankers help cause. Remeber we only have large scale wars because governments can BORROW the money needed from the bankers.

The best definition of Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned, and the government's role is to PROTECT those rights for EVERYONE not just the privileged few.

Therefore Capitalism is a free exchange of goods and services.

However with governments forcing Fractional Reserve Banking upon society all of a sudden a group of people (Bankers) are trading useless slips of paper or worse a few key strokes for huge amounts of good, services and labor!

Buddies of the bankers can now "borrow" large quantities of these useless slips of paper and use them to completely disrupt the normal flow of economic exchange.

This "STOLEN" wealth, and regulations favoring big corporations, not capitalism is the reason huge transnational corporations exist.

Anyone who has dealt with livestock knows there is an "optimum size" For example human giants die early. The optimum size for equines is about 58 inches or 14 hands 2 inches. SURPRISE - this is the historical size of the Arabian, the Morgan, the Quarter Horse and the Haflinger, a versatile horse originating in the Austrian Alps.

Businesses are the same:

US Small Business Administration states:

Small firms:

* Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.

* Employ just over half of all private sector employees.

* Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.

* Have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.

* Create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).

* Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers).

* Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.

* Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 30.2 percent of the known export value in FY 2007.

* Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.

...Typically small businesses are more flexible, creative, nimble, innovative, and responsive. By proportion small companies deal with fewer challenges and incur less cost. Small companies are more open to change and can get things done faster. Because they are not mired down in a lot of bureaucracy they have the ability to ... quickly implement a plan of action. Speedy implementation leads to quick and measurable results. theinstituteforsustainability.com...

How many times have we heard that large farms are more productive than small farms, and that we need to consolidate land holdings to take advantage of that greater productivity and efficiency? The actual data shows the opposite --

small farms produce far more per acre or hectare than large farms.

.....Large farmers tend to plant monocultures because they are the simplest to manage with heavy machinery. Small farmers, especially in the Third World, are much more likely to plant crop mixtures -- intercropping -- where the empty space between the rows is occupied by other crops. They usually combine or rotate crops and livestock, with manure serving to replenish soil fertility.

Such integrated farming systems produce far more per unit area than do monocultures. Though the yield per unit area of one crop -- corn, for example -- may be lower on a small farm than on a large monoculture farm, the total production per unit area, often composed of more than a dozen crops and various animal products, can be far higher.....

Small Farms in Economic Development

In farming communities dominated by large corporate farms, nearby towns died off....

Where family farms predominated, there were more local businesses, paved streets and sidewalks, schools, parks, churches, clubs, and newspapers, better services, higher employment, and more civic participation. Recent studies confirm that Goldschmidt’s findings remain true.....

www.foodfirst.org...

So the data shows that "small" has the economic advantage over “large” therefore WHY do we have these transnational firms????

m.guardian.co.uk...


That's a good read on why unionisation is good for all of us.

reply to post by Imhotepsol

Now as for Socialism. I really don't see any other reason then the residual programing of your grandparents generations during the Cold War for you to be against it. Other than of course a lack of real knowledge as to what Socialism actually is.

I do understand what Socialism/Collectivism is. My brother was a Marxist and I have friends I made while living in MA who were "card carrying" Communists. The University of Massachusetts by the way "is the home of some of the finest Marxist scholars in the world." I was proudly told.

In capitalism our rights descent from the rights of the individual who gives the government what rights he sees fit.

The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

....We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed....

In ALL forms of collectivism "RIGHTS" do NOT belong to the individual but to the group. This is the essential difference between capitalism and the various forms of collectivism.

The problem is the STATE is the largest group so all rights belong to the state and the well being of the state is considered THE most important factor. ANY rights the individual has are granted to him by the State and therefore can be removed at any time.

"Oligarchy" is a form of government in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. Socialism, Communism, Marxism, or Corporatism (our present form of government) are ALL Oligarchies. Only with Capitalism, with its basis grounded in individual freedom and property rights, is there any hope of not devolving into some form of Oligarchy.

"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government." -- Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837

We Americans were duped by our so called representatives, newspapers, (OWNED by J.P. Morgan) our schools and Universities into gradually giving up our rights until we are now a de facto Oligarchy run by the likes of the Council on Foreign Relations , the Committee on Economic Development, various foundations and NGOs all instruments of the bankers and corpaprate CEOs.


An early experiment in collectivism show just how flawed the whole idea is:

...In his 'History of Plymouth Plantation,' the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."

....The harvest of 1623 was different. Suddenly, "instead of famine now God gave them plenty," Bradford wrote, "and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God." Thereafter, he wrote, "any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day." In fact, in 1624, so much food was produced that the colonists were able to begin exporting corn.

What happened?

After the poor harvest of 1622, writes Bradford, "they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop." They began to question their form of economic organization.

This had required that "all profits & benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means" were to be placed in the common stock of the colony, and that, "all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock." A person was to put into the common stock all he could, and take out only what he needed.

This "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was an early form of socialism, and it is why the Pilgrims were starving. Bradford writes that "young men that are most able and fit for labor and service" complained about being forced to "spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children." Also, "the strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak." So the young and strong refused to work and the total amount of food produced was never adequate.

To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines.... mises.org...

If the pilgrims, forming a Religious Refuge could not make "collectivism" work than it WILL NOT work for a more diversified group who have even less motivation.



Motivation is the key. It is what makes "Capitalism" work and "Collectivism" fail.

The elite are still wrestling with this problem, trying to come up with a system where THEY are in control and stealing as much wealth as possible while convincing their victims to work their hearts out. Hence "progressivism" and the grafting of "capitalism" onto China's communism. It is also the reason the Soviet Union had its props pulled out from under it. It was a failed experiment by the Fabian bankers. (Cargill, a private US corporation, was busy shipping American food to the Soviets during the entire cold war.)


You then go on to say:

It should be pretty obvious by that definition that the only people who wish to defend the current system of being able to manipulate wealth distribution are those who are fiddling the system. Anyone who cannot understand the value of being able to take a full share for your effort.....

I am NOT defending the present system! I think the Federal Reserve board and banks/bankers should be tried for high treason! The same goes for people like Dan Amstutz, Dwayne Orville Andreas, and the lobbyists and the Congress members they bought.

...Yes they talk about eugenics and gassing people but ours is not a society which can think clearly about topics such as these. They are a necessity however for any advancing civilization to consider....

This is the type of thinking that the Fabians through groups like "Animal Rights Activists" have been subtly promoting. The idea is to demote the RIGHTS of humans to the same level as animals and then TREAT us as animals. SHEEPLE if you will. That is what John Dewey's intentional dumbing down of Americans was all about. Turning us into a herd of easily manipulated Sheeple. Forget innovation, invention and independent thought.

How do "Animal Rights Activists" treat "unwanted" animals???

....In 2005 Newkirk killed 90% of her defenseless captives and adopted only 6% - a ratio far worse than almost any pound in the country. Read her own grim statistics: [go to article for the statistics] www.nokillnow.com...

How have the "Collectivists" treated humans???

...Note that I completed this study in November 1993 while still engaged in collecting democide data. Not all the democide totals I mention here may be complete, therefore....

...the Soviet Union appears the greatest megamurderer of all, apparently killing near 61,000,000 people [61 million]

Communist China .... is the second worst megamurderer. [From TABLE 35,236,000]

Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot and his crew likely killed some 2,000,000 Cambodians...odds of an average Cambodian surviving Pol Pot's rule of slightly over just over 2 to 1.

In sum the communist probably have murdered something like 110,000,000, [110 million) or near two-thirds of all those killed by all governments, quasi-governments, and guerrillas from 1900 to 1987.... www.hawaii.edu...

Perhaps the worst part of this was the cover-up by western media news of the murder by hunger of 7-10 million Ukrainians While the starvation was going on this is what was printed in the news:

...“This visitor has just completed a 200-mile trip through the heart of Ukraine and can say opsitively that the harvest is splendid and all talk of famine now is ridiculous." www.ukrainiangenocide.com...

Ukrainian Genocide: NY Times Still Covering Up - 24 November 2008

So yes I do understand Collectivism/Socialism. It is all about farming us like cattle.

reply to post by SprocketUK

That's a good read on why unionisation is good for all of us.

I much rather see the factories/ corporations OWNED by those who work in them - True capitalism if you will.

It gets rid of all the antagonism and has the whole "team" interested in pulling in the same direction. A win/win for the workers and consumers.

Edit to add.

The best company I ever worked for was not the two union companies but the one who actively encouraged eveyone to become part owner. 10% of your salary could be used to purchase stock and the corporation would GIVE you 1 share for every one purchased (15% of your salary) if you also elected the reinvestment program you could end up with a large chunk of stock by retirement age.

This policy served them in good stead when they were hit by a Corporate Raider. The stock holder/employees had a vested interest in NOT seeing the company broken up and sold off for a one time profit.

The problem is 1% of the population of earth owns 99% of it's wealth. If taxation was fare, say 1% of that wealth, it would mean at 1% of the worlds population would be liable for 99% of that tax.

As those same people control the taxation, it's never going to happen, unless people start stringing them up in the streets.

The reason that we shouldn't have unions is because we shouldn't need them. Everything that unions stand for should be part of the national law governing all employment. Wages that support a decent standard of living, health and denttal care, retirement, etc. are rteally just a basic human right. Forbid companies from going overseas on any product that can be made in the USA. It really is just common sense and those that refuse to embrace it are sending our country down the crapper. We have the resources for everyone to enjoy a fine life.

I've given up trying to persuade those who lean left politically. They will not do the required reading, and will continue believing that they are intellectually superior because academics lean left and "educate" them. If they did the required reading they would see the inherent problems with those policies, both practically and idealistically. One would then see hypocrisies in his point of view and would have to lean towards anarchism/liberatarianism. I've done the required reading to debunk liberatarians and I had become one myself. But I cannot convince others to try the same; they just wave their hands away and don't open their minds to points of views different from the ones they've been exposed to since they first started attending school. They will not do the required reading and automatically accuse people who disagree with them as being "selfish" and "bigots" and pretend to have the moral higher ground.

I suggest you resign too. Let them have their "utopia". I don't care anymore if the whole world goes to hell.

reply to post by yakuzakid

The problem is 1% of the population of earth owns 99% of it's wealth.

Actually it is the Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule of statistics. 80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population. However thanks to Fractional Reserve Banking I think the Banksters have managed to cirumvent this natural state of affairs.

WASHINGTON -- A recent analysis of the 2007 financial markets of 48 countries has revealed that the world's finances are in the hands of just a few mutual funds, banks, and corporations. This is the first clear picture of the global concentration of financial power, and point out the worldwide financial system's vulnerability as it stood on the brink of the current economic crisis....
www.insidescience.org...

Of mergers and acquisitions each costing $1 million or more, there were just 10 in 1970; in 1980, there were 94; in 1986, there were 346. A third of such deals in the 1980's were hostile. The 1980's also saw a wave of giant leveraged buyouts. Mergers, acquisitions and L.B.O.'s, which had accounted for less than 5 percent of the profits of Wall Street brokerage houses in 1978, ballooned into an estimated 50 percent of profits by 1988...
THROUGH ALL THIS, THE HISTORIC RELATIONSHIP between product and paper has been turned upside down. Investment bankers no longer think of themselves as working for the corporations with which they do business. These days, corporations seem to exist for the investment bankers....

In fact, investment banks are replacing the publicly held industrial corporations as the largest and most powerful economic institutions in America....

THERE ARE SIGNS THAT A VICIOUS spiral has begun, as each corporate player seeks to improve its standard of living at the expense of another's.
Corporate raiders transfer to themselves, and other shareholders, part of the income of employees by forcing the latter to agree to lower wages. January 29, 1989 www.nytimes.com... New York Times

Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none is so effectual as that which deludes them with paper money. It is the most perfect expedient ever invented for fertilizing the rich man’s fields by the sweat of the poor man’s brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation, these bear lightly on the happiness of the community compared with fraudulent currencies and the robberies committed by depreciated paper. Our own history has recorded enough, and more than enough, of the demoralizing tendency, the injustice and intolerable oppression on the virtuous and well disposed, of a degraded paper currency, authorized by law, or in any way countenanced by Government.
~ Nelson W. Aldrich, United States Senator [sponsor of the first try of the Federal Reserve Act.] at a New York City dinner speech on October 15, 1913 IV Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science #1, at 38 (Columbia University, New York (1914)). www.linuxtoday.com...

This quote was originally from Andrew Johnson (Jackson???) State of the Union Address (December 9, 1868)


I really really hate the Bankster as you may have noticed

Is it me, or those that claim Unions are bad or evil ... never worked in a Union before?

In my experience i would go as far as to suggest that capitalism.causes.poverty.
Corporations care about one thing - Making money. And they do it at the expense of the worker. Cheap labour + inflated price = profit. Thats it. They dont care if there workers live in shacks. They dont care if there workers can barely feed themselves, they dont care if they can afford and education. They care about how long they can stand to work and how efficiantly. There workers well being costs money and according to them, Thats not there problem.

Also, corporations can be bad for small businness. For example, WallMart moves into a district and others cannot compete with price - In the short term the consumer wins, but after a while, after all competition has been destroyed, local resisdents then become dependent on Wallmart which gives them more room to menouver - Also in this situation there is less of a variety of jobs, so anyone who hates working for Wallmart doesnt have much of a choice so it becomes a "Put up and shut up or leave"

In destroying all competition, you can expect to make alot more money then what you were in the beginning. If wealth truly does "trickle down" as they say, then why are people kept on minimum wages? Ahh yes of course, because corporations are not responcible for the wellbeing of their workers. If there workers dont like there wage they should find another job. But wait, there are no other jobs because all competition has been destroyed? Well, what are you, as the worker, going to do? Nothing. You are boxed in and told that its your fault in the beginning because you "didnt get a good education"

Really now, the world is #ed up and it pisses me off because there is only one thing that drives this kind of inhumane vicious cycle - Greed.

Originally posted by SearchLightsInc
In my experience i would go as far as to suggest that capitalism.causes.poverty.
Corporations care about one thing - Making money. And they do it at the expense of the worker.

This is exactly why corporate profits need to be taxed appropriately.

They control such a large percentage of natural resources and politicians that taxes are needed to balance out the massive centralization of power and control.

Capitalism is great, but a fundamental part of the system is taxing the wealthy.

reply to post by filosophia


The thing about unions... is that they are ORGANIZED to fight for things that non-union members also benefit from... without paying the union dues. And if you think long and hard about some of the positive effects of unions... you'll realize that they are what make non-union employees a more competitive and efficient workforce. They have to be to survive.

I do understand what Socialism/Collectivism is. My brother was a Marxist and I have friends I made while living in MA who were "card carrying" Communists. The University of Massachusetts by the way "is the home of some of the finest Marxist scholars in the world." I was proudly told.

Yeah thats the Cold War programming I was talking about right there. I said clearly enough that we have never had true Socialism in this world as of yet. I also stated that we are not capable of thinking rationally about these topics and you replied with another half page of emotional prejudice. We've never had these systems in their proper forms, we've always had usurpation.

I am NOT defending the present system! I think the Federal Reserve board and banks/bankers should be tried for high treason! The same goes for people like Dan Amstutz, Dwayne Orville Andreas, and the lobbyists and the Congress members they bought.

It seems like you are. Sorry.

...Yes they talk about eugenics and gassing people but ours is not a society which can think clearly about topics such as these. They are a necessity however for any advancing civilization to consider....

This is the type of thinking that the Fabians through groups like "Animal Rights Activists" have been subtly promoting. The idea is to demote the RIGHTS of humans to the same level as animals and then TREAT us as animals. SHEEPLE if you will.

That is what John Dewey's intentional dumbing down of Americans was all about. Turning us into a herd of easily manipulated Sheeple. Forget innovation, invention and independent thought.

Hello; newsflash PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS. Yes there are a few of us that possess a level of developed intellectualism and intelligence but for the most part people are no better then talking animals. A lot of them are Pavlovs Dog with neither the sense nor the ability to use REASON to overcome their animal natures. I have no problem with Animals being treated as such and Intelligent beings being treated accordingly.

Let me give you a mild example. I had a room mate who was the epitome of a monkey. He lived in my country for 10 years and couldn't speak english. He thought he was a "real man" and so decided after he'd had enough of his girlfriend and had broken her sufficiently (he never worked and forced her to do so for him) that he would start in on my GF. As a result of this I and a few of my friends beat the ever loving # out of him with the same compassion I would give to a wild animal that was trying to attack us.

In a modern society these people would be rehabilitated and encouraged to use reason. If that proves to much for their little minds then why not put them in Zoos, forced labor camps or anywhere else. Why have them free to do as they please when it impacts negatively on everyone else?

So yes I do understand Collectivism/Socialism. It is all about farming us like cattle.

No its not. Its about farming out those who should be cattle whilst providing everything needed for a beautiful life for those capable of thinking. A beast can pull a plough but not take us into space. Everything in its proper place!