Honest Question Re: Blaming Capitalism

An honest question. If people think there are capitalist elites out of control, why do people continue to deal with them? Why don't people understand that they are the power of capitalism?

My husband and I own a trucking company. If I came to deliver to your house or business, ran over the lawn, hit the house with the truck, charged double what I said and only hired $2/ day employees from another country would you hire us? Probably not.

Yet people whine about all the crap these big uncaring corporations do and conitnue to do business with them and continue to whine. Why?

Who forces anyone to shop at Walmart? Who forces anyone to work there? Who forces you to buy gas from Company A instead of company B or C? Who forces you to buy items made in China and cry out all the manufacturing is gone to China. Who killed Detroit by not driving North American vehicles because the Japanese ones are better? Who buys the Monsanto corn instead of planting seeds in their backyard?

It's the people. Everyone knows this, but noone changes their own behaviour and spending. Money is what drives capitalism. If you don't put your money into a business it cannot survive. It's like not putting food into a human.

Why sit in a park in an Occupy protest while your retirement and other investment money are invested into businesses that don't provide well for you? Take your money back and invest elsewhere. It's so simple.

There just seems to be such a lack of either knowledge or willpower in people it's like everyone has been brainwashed and has no idea what to do. There are choices in life and people won't make them and follow through. "We want hopey, changey Daddy."

I know it sounds bit$%y, but everywhere you go, complaints, complaints. Last week when the Walmart employees asked for backup in their protest of work conditions, wow. You can watch the videos online of their peers lining up overnight in parking lots to bust through the doors and "support those workers" . A few days later, "cheap Chinese goods are ruining our economy" "Walmart is destroying business". But I don't see Walmart execs with guns grabbing anyone out of other stores and forcing them into Walmart.

Why aren't people speaking up and making wise choices.

Excellent post. S&F! People, we are capitalism. If you do not like the way a business treats you, vote with your wallet and walk away. There are others who will treat you better and be happy for your business. My general rule is to work with the smallest, most local company that can meet my needs.

reply to post by icmom


Nothing wrong with capitalism as it was intended. I believe the problem started when companys grew big enough to bribe elected officials.........

Starting a business.....Good!
Becoming wealthy and successful with your creation.......good!
Buying off government officials.....................................NOT SO GOOD!

Just look at the small mom and pop businesses that become competitive with the major players. They seem to always be bought up and taken over by the big players.

Didn't we used to call that a monopoly?

Because people really don't understand how the system works. people don't realize its all their own responsibility, they expect elected leaders to speak for them and act for them.

Until people understand that the power lies with them, nothing will ever change.

Maybe not all are capable of voting with their wallet, there are lot of people who struggle everyday to surviving the rest of the month with the money they have earned, when you have family and less money you choose where you can buy cheapest.

Big corporations and companies are able to provide, for masses, products cheaper than a small companies, its not always the best in quality for example food supplies, but when raw materials are been bought it larger quantities they get discounts... discounts also make the final product cheaper. Also transportation is cheaper to big companies.

Its easier for general public to buy from big stores when they can find everything under one roof. It saves time.
So lets sum money needed, price offered and time saved.

Capitalism, when everyone has equal opportunity to succeed.. truth 1% succeeds as they were dealed better cards at the beginning with.

reply to post by dollukka


That is wrong. You have been brainwashed by the Occupy movement. What an absolutely hopeless statement. That line of thinking is killing the Us. I'm not even from the Us and I can't stand to see what is happening to the minds there. And it is Not true. Most of the biggest successes in North America started with nothing. They had drive and determination. They wanted it. They really wanted it. They wanted to make businesses and they did it.

It can be done. It has been done and it can be done over and over if people would grow a pair and be willing to make that happen. And there is such a thing as supporting one and making it happen.

My husband started with nothing. Kicked out of an abusive home as a teen halfway through grade 12. We had 2 kids at 22 in a one bedroom apartment and he worked part-time for a moving company while we had to collect welfare because he had lost his job in another town 400 miles away in a different province. We took the kids, the beat up car, and our clothes and left. Got this small apartment in a mid size city. A few months later he lost his job at the moving company because it was shut down because of zoning over where the owner had to park the truck. He couldn't afford to rent parking for it elsewhere and gave up.

We thought, we fought, we ran out of money. My husband borrowed a half ton, went around to the moving companies former customers and asked if they knew anyone who needed a mover. He went to other companies and asked for referals of the people they had to turn away once things get overbooked at month end. He got references and referals. It built slow. We went without to make it grow.And by without I mean we ate just basics, and I had to send my older daughters to my ex because we couldn't feed them. We didn't have anything nice for years. We bought our own old half ton with a 20ft trailer and when he made enough for the down payment an old 26 ft moving van we got one and used both trucks and hired some guys. Our trucks were crap, lol. But our business kept growing because my husband loved building that business and loved giving people the best service. He had to fire guys on the job and carry the furniture himself sometimes and when a guy can and will carry a deepfreeze down the stairs alone to make sure the customer gets their stuff word spreads.

I won't even go into how much we suffered for this business, but the fact we are still married is incredible.

When we got tire of owning a movie company we sold the trucks. My husband went into delivery instead of moving. This time we started with a better truck, though still older. Upgraded it after 5 years for a better and then put on then another one, a brand new one, and hired another driver. When our son turns 18 we will be putting one on for him. The upgraded truck we got in 2008. No one was giving loans to small business. He got micro loans from friends and did renovating on the side to come up with the money. Paid the friends back with 10% interest within 6 months by working 14 hours a day + a 45 minute commute each way.

It's not ideal work, I know but it will be something for our kids. Now that these trucks are making money my husband is getting into what he enjoys. He has started an artistic business no one else around here is doing. He has 6 customers lined up for spring by showing samples as he delivers to businesses. In spring we will put a driver in the truck he drives now and he will be semi-retired. He turns 40 next month and his back is wrecked. He also owns a renovating business that he hasn't been working at because we wanted to stabilise the trucking first as it pays better, so he will do some of that when he feels like it. That was also started with freebies and referrals and the wife's incredible computer skills learned freely online through hundreds of hours of reading, learning and tweaking.

We had 1 family vehicle until I was 30 and decided I wanted one. I got 3 morning paper routes and jogged papers from 4 am until 7 am until I had the money. Then my oldest daughter took the routes and while going to university also worked a few evenings a week in a care home until she had $10,000 in savings. She took the next year off and worked full-time to come up with tuition. This year she is going full-time and works two days a week caring for a disabled girl and casually in the care home on some weekends. She still has her original savings. We bought her a car when she started university. This year she bought a second car so her boyfriend can drive her old one. This year he works full-time and goes to school part-time. Next year they switch. They are 21. Between them they have $20,000 in the bank, 2 cars, they both have credit ratings in the 900s, credit cards with 0 balances and retirement funds set up for them and apparently she has one for me and my husband.

contd

reply to post by icmom


You started early when it was still possible, people today and young people today are not able as they can´t afford decent eduacation. they don´t get a decent job without it. Today where you come from and your hubby come from you would be denied any loans to begin with if you don´t have relatives to back you up financially.

Capitalism as a ideology is not wrong one, but where it had turned in US has no longer charachteristics of capitalism, its more like monarchy and feodalism. maybe what is happening needs a word on its own to describe it well.

1% rules them all. 99% have no or little value.

reply to post by icmom


Next daughter who is 20 is in her 3rd year of an engineering degree. She is at school 10 hours a day and studies, then studies 4-6 more after. In the summer she works for a bio diesel plant 3 hours from home. Because of her grades she was hired on at $22 an hour and reached $25 by the end of that first summer from hard work. She shovelled dirt, cleaned moldy rooms with a respirator that didn't fit and learned how to drive a bobcat. Second summer she designed and built a dirt road around the plant because trucks kept getting stuck. 3rd summer she got to desk work with the engineers and had her own office. She redesigned the piping system with no help by taking the work home every night. She now has a guaranteed job after graduation if she chooses to take it that pays $90,000.00/ year. She just got a job offer from a mining company though making $10,000 a month next summer She pays her rent and tuition cash after every summer for the full year. Parental contribution= "you're good at math, use that skill" She bought her own car. She is 19


I write, I have a kindle account to write into, an amazon account to sell from. I have 6 blogs and google adsense account. I have a craft business and 2 direct marketing businesses. Kindle and Amazon are free to get into as is google. Almost everything is done online and all are profitable. The second direct marketing business I only invested in yesterday. $40.00 I made that back this morning. All profit from here on in. Should make a couple hundred a month plus gets me 30% discount.

And no I am not trying to raise myself up. I am saying it can be done. You can start at 0 and do it. You just have to be willing to sacrifice for it. It's a mindset. Anyone can choose to do anything they want. We started at $0. I made my kids start at $0 so they would learn because I don't want them to ever think you have to put up with crap on a job or from some guy or depend on the system to make it. Almost everyone I know is business owners and this is how we all do it. The guy our business is contracted to only has grade 9 and also started with a junk and now provides 100 jobs after 15 years of building.

Nobody has to shop at Walmart or anywhere else they don't agree with. Buy a sewing machine, plant a garden, borrow a gun, shoot a deer, learn how to gut it on youtube

reply to post by dollukka


We didn't have any loans until we bought our house. We bought a junk house with broken everything for $30,000.00 and rebuilt it ourselves. I learned how to put up drywall, build walls, pour concrete, and paint.

And my kids are doing this now, so that's not true it can't be done now.

Anyone can do this anytime they want to.

Originally posted by icmom
reply to post by icmom

 

Next daughter who is 20 is in her 3rd year of an engineering degree. She is at school 10 hours a day and studies, then studies 4-6 more after. In the summer she works for a bio diesel plant 3 hours from home. Because of her grades she was hired on at $22 an hour and reached $25 by the end of that first summer from hard work. She shovelled dirt, cleaned moldy rooms with a respirator that didn't fit and learned how to drive a bobcat. Second summer she designed and built a dirt road around the plant because trucks kept getting stuck. 3rd summer she got to desk work with the engineers and had her own office. She redesigned the piping system with no help by taking the work home every night. She now has a guaranteed job after graduation if she chooses to take it that pays $90,000.00/ year. She just got a job offer from a mining company though making $10,000 a month next summer She pays her rent and tuition cash after every summer for the full year. Parental contribution= "you're good at math, use that skill" She bought her own car. She is 19


I write, I have a kindle account to write into, an amazon account to sell from. I have 6 blogs and google adsense account. I have a craft business and 2 direct marketing businesses. Kindle and Amazon are free to get into as is google. Almost everything is done online and all are profitable. The second direct marketing business I only invested in yesterday. $40.00

I made that back this morning. All profit from here on in. Should make a couple hundred a month plus gets me 30% discount.

And no I am not trying to raise myself up. I am saying it can be done. You can start at 0 and do it. You just have to be willing to sacrifice for it. It's a mindset. Anyone can choose to do anything they want. We started at $0. I made my kids start at $0 so they would learn because I don't want them to ever think you have to put up with crap on a job or from some guy or depend on the system to make it. Almost everyone I know is business owners and this is how we all do it. The guy our business is contracted to only has grade 9 and also started with a junk and now provides 100 jobs after 15 years of building.

Nobody has to shop at Walmart or anywhere else they don't agree with. Buy a sewing machine, plant a garden, borrow a gun, shoot a deer, learn how to gut it on youtube

Good for her. Not everyone has the opportunity. I work 14 hours/day 6 days a week for much less than minimum wage (plus a 2 hour walk to/from work each day because I can't afford a car) because that's what the jobs around here pay. I have 3 college degrees that I earned however the job opportunities quite literally aren't there. In 3 years of looking for another job I've gotten one entire interview. Sorry, but I'm skeptical when you say sacrifice. I went to college for 8 years and I work quite hard. It hasn't paid off yet.

reply to post by icmom


So wait, you bash people that are struggling, yet you admit to collecting welfare.

You seem to think the poor are the scourge of the earth, yet you admit you had to give you children to your ex to take care of because you could not.

You claim the other poster dollukka is wrong, yet you state that you do not live in the U.S., so how can you even have a sense on how things do or do not affect us?

And my bet is that since you do not live in the U.S., you have universal healthcare, which of course, we do not, and most likely other types of social programs that we here in the U.S. lack.

Good Grief.....I need not say more.

Originally posted by icmom
An honest question. If people think there are capitalist elites out of control, why do people continue to deal with them? Why don't people understand that they are the power of capitalism?

No the power of capitalism is the ability to make sure no alternative system is allowed to take hold.

My husband and I own a trucking company. If I came to deliver to your house or business, ran over the lawn, hit the house with the truck, charged double what I said and only hired $2/ day employees from another country would you hire us? Probably not.

Maybe not, but you'd have already had my business in order for you to deliver to my house or business. You're free to take the money and run, flipping me the bird through the rear view mirror, as you move on to someone else's lawn. I might be able to take you to court for the damage to the lawn but it wouldn't necessarily deter you from this business model.

Who forces anyone to shop at Walmart? Who forces anyone to work there?

Walmart does. By swamping 'mom and pop' stores, there's less opportunity to work or shop anywhere else. Same goes for all big name chains.

Who forces you to buy gas from Company A instead of company B or C?

It's a cartel that raise their prices in agreement and also prevent the development of alternatives to actually needing gas/petrol in the first place.

Who forces you to buy items made in China and cry out all the manufacturing is gone to China.

The multinationals who decide that, in order to maintain the highest profit margins possible, they'd rather take production abroad, as opposed to profiting slightly less, and showing loyalty to the workers who helped build-up the business in the first place.

reply to post by icmom


What forces us to shop at walmart and hire corporations we do not like is because they make where they are the only ones we can buy from. Walmart gives prices that you cannot compete against even though we know it is detrimental to us.

a place like walmart, at least in my city, has all but crushed any alternative. There are not many alternatives to buying coke or pepsi since the alternatives are owned by walmart or other mega stores.

Simply it comes down to them having a monopoly.

If we stopped shopping or working at those places we would be kicked out of our homes even if we own them due to taxes.

Both government and coprs work together to keep you on the hamster wheel. I used to be business owner and i used to dick employees over at the drop of a dime.

If you drop one corporation the only alternative is another one.

if you can't see that then ill just say "that will do pig that will do"

Originally posted by icmom
reply to post by dollukka

 

That is wrong. You have been brainwashed by the Occupy movement. What an absolutely hopeless statement. That line of thinking is killing the Us.

NO, it looks like YOUR the one who is wrong judging by the members here who overwhelmingly support the member you are debating and not your reply as we can see by the ton of stars given to that member and NONE given to you from the intelligent members here at ATS.

And the "line of thinking that is killing us" is the GREED and CORRUPTION of the fat-cats and big-shots who are taking this country down all the way into the GROUND while LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK while making detours along the way TO BRIBE OUR SELL-OUT POLITICIANS to help their UNLIMITED GREED screw the country over even more.

Some business type folks think that the Occupy movement is against Capitalism and against profit and a WHOLE LOT OF OTHER DELUSIONAL NONSENSE. They are NOT against that but are against the CORRUPTION and the UNFAIRNESS that is going on. They are just fighting for a FAIR SHOT for themselves, their children and grandchildren. A FAIR SHOT!!!!

Listening to NITWITS and DIMWIT NUTTERS such as Rush, and Beck, and Hanity, and O'reilly and Levin, and watching Fox news as well as falling for all the other RIGHT WING/ CONSERVATIVE PROPAGANDA PROFESSIONALS online (winky, winky...perhaps Koch Brothers??!! Hmmm) will give you those delusions by the way. Folks need to shut off the nonsense and THINK FOR THEMSELVES.

reply to post by icmom


sorry cant paste it
please see porn/obelisk thread
Capitalism - like technic and porn - are projections given to man, by evil, in order to rule

reply to post by Circumstance


I don't see how I am bashing the poor or people who are struggling by saying you can get out of it and showing how my family got out of it and others have also gotten out of it.

Yes we have universal health care which means we pay higher taxes to pay for that health care. In Canada we have two taxes on every product and service, and we pay higher income tax than in the States. That's what pays for the health care. It's not a government gift dropped out of nowhere. Everything in Canada costs more than in US.

reply to post by oper8zhin


Sorry, don't have Fox News. That probably eliminates the others I am supposedly listening to and being brainwashed by as well. Actually, I don't watch tv at all. No cable. Don't want my kids influenced by the idiots on there.

reply to post by votan


What are there no alternatives to? There are lots of little micro businesses providing many things but they aren't being supported. There are individuals who make and sell clothes. There are farmers markets. I won't go on and on "dog" but look around the internet at all the small businesses people are creating.

Argh! Lots of answers and all negative. How am I supposed to answer? Ya you're right, you're all screwed? Is that helpful?

If I say you can come from the bottom and do better, look we did it, and everyone gives excuses why they can't that says a lot more about those people than me. Maybe you feel right and maybe you won a debate, but apart from a momentary smug feeling your life stays the same.

And yes there is corruption at the top. There is also corruption at the bottom and in the middle. There are people ripping off the public through banks and there are people ripping off the public through the welfare system. There are rich people paying little tax on what they earn because they hide it and there are thieves and muggers and drug dealers also paying no tax on their wealth.

reply to post by oper8zhin

And the "line of thinking that is killing us" is the GREED and CORRUPTION of the fat-cats and big-shots who are taking this country down all the way into the GROUND while LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK while making detours along the way TO BRIBE OUR SELL-OUT POLITICIANS to help their UNLIMITED GREED screw the country over even more.

I think a lot of it has to do with how Americans like their things to be BIG. They like being the biggest most powerful country in the world with the most powerful military and the most powerful currency. They like being part of big political parties and think tanks, they like to be able to brag about working for big corporations holding big job titles. They like being on important boards and committees that wield power over others. They like having half a dozen prestigious college degrees. They like owning biggest home on the block and they are proud of holding credit cards with no limit.

The American Dream.