After Gamestonk will hedge funds now threaten U.S. solvency itself?

Generals

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Actually, a lot of lower income people in the US are indeed forced to turn to sex work by economic hardship.
I have no doubt that occurs in the US although I doubt it happens with as much prevalence. But this is actually neither here nor there as I do not wish to defend the USA's capitalist system and we could argue the Cuban populace suffers more than they should in part due to US sanctions.

Obviously, I wasn't saying that was the end of the question. There's a lot more to it. But throughout the last several hundred years, Europe has generally been in a stronger financial and geopolitical situation than have South America, Africa, and most of Asia. This isn't seriously debatable. Vast swathes of these (including socialist South and Central America, and "communist" Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba) have only themselves experienced independence and self-determination in the last century. This kind of thing hampers a nation's development.
Sure but Europe has had its fair share of struggles. What bugs me is that the colonial era is often used to entirely dismiss achievements while history is filled with events which both positively and negatively impacted prosperity. I could argue Western and Eastern Germany had a rather similar past and were ripped apart into Capitalist and Communist regions and if Capitalism was so bad why did people risk their lives fleeing from the Socialist Haven?
Economic history is extremely complex and also filled with myths based on people's ideological biases but one thing does remain true: the capitalist west is attracting people from all over the world and no socialist or communist country has had that appeal. So while I'll conceed capitalism has spawned atrocious systems as well, a great deal of bad systems it has also spawned the least bad systems. And as long as anti capitalists cannot give me a better alternative I do not see why Capitalism cannot be considered the superior economic system.



?

No. I'm against the principle, though the scale exacerbates it greatly.
Sounds a lot like something that would come from communist ideologues. But let's stop beating around the bush, what is the superior economic model you propose? If economic inequality is bad regardless of the scale than clearly any capitalist variant is a no-go.




This ignores the systemic prejudices within any given employment/ welfare system. A welfare system may be generous on paper, but research into the implementation of the UK welfare system have shown that advisors were heavily incentivised to find reasons to refuse applicants if they could. Then we have the issues of addiction (higher in lower income demographics, resulting from lack of support or opportunity) and outright disownment (there's a reason LGBT youth are far, far more likely to be homeless). Then we have temporary homelessness, owing to a precarious renting market and unstable, unpredictable contracts (like the growth in zero hour contracts here in the UK, providing employment one cannot rely on more than a week in advance.

This problem cannot be explained away through personal choices. It is systemic.
I cannot speak for the UK and as I said based on what I know and have heard it doesn't seem to be among the better capitalist systems.
I would also like to add that addiction is a direct consequence of a personal choice to consume addictive substances. And disownment is also an individual's choice (not the individual being disowned obviously). Do note however there are countries which have rendered total disownments illegal and children are de-facto entitled to a part of the inheritance.
So back to square 1: in a country with a generous welfare system (I guess the UK has a fake generous one) homelesness is at the very least mostly a matter of poor personal decisions and not the system.
 

Generals

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But to be less crass, what I'm describing fulfills that same motivation for more people, just without being the boss of someone else too.
As I thought, you do not understand entrepreneurs... You are confusing them with investors. Being the Owner-Manager of a business is totally different from being one of the many partial owners. Just think about it; you launch your business and work hard for 6 months to get things somewhat rolling, you hire two people and you now suddenly have a minority ownership claim. All of the suddent the two other employees could very well decide to fire you as they own 66% together. You are litterally incentivising people not to be an entrepreneur but to be employees by removing the only advantage being an entrepreneur gives you: being a business owner. Why be the one who takes the risks and has to go through the most uncertain phase of a company life cycle while you can just wait until someone else does it and have the exact same privileges as an employee.
 

Agema

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As I thought, you do not understand entrepreneurs... You are confusing them with investors.
Entrepreneurs are investors.

It's just some of them are also workers in the business that they invest in as well.
 

Generals

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Entrepreneurs are investors.

It's just some of them are also workers in the business that they invest in as well.
Technically right, but i would have expected it was clear from my post's context "investor" refers to those who only invest. Entrepreneurs actually set up businesses, they don't just throw cash at it. And there is a very different kind of motivation which drives both these actions. (Although many entrepreneurs also like to throw cash at other companies)
 

Seanchaidh

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As I thought, you do not understand entrepreneurs... You are confusing them with investors.
You described the entrepreneurial spirit as people wanting to be their "own bosses", not wanting to boss around other people. The former is great. The latter is often toxic.

Being the Owner-Manager of a business is totally different from being one of the many partial owners. Just think about it; you launch your business and work hard for 6 months to get things somewhat rolling, you hire two people and you now suddenly have a minority ownership claim. All of the suddent the two other employees could very well decide to fire you as they own 66% together. You are litterally incentivising people not to be an entrepreneur but to be employees by removing the only advantage being an entrepreneur gives you: being a business owner. Why be the one who takes the risks and has to go through the most uncertain phase of a company life cycle while you can just wait until someone else does it and have the exact same privileges as an employee.
Because people can recognize that someone deserves a little more for the effort they've put in if indeed they've put in more effort. And a person can use their right to association to insist on receiving compensation for their prior efforts (if they have not been suitably compensated already) as a condition of participating.
 

Generals

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You described the entrepreneurial spirit as people wanting to be their "own bosses", not wanting to boss around other people. The former is great. The latter is often toxic.
You are not your own boss if two others could easily boss you around if they were to band together. Decisions still need to be made, unless in your model everyone does whatever he wants?

Because people can recognize that someone deserves a little more for the effort they've put in if indeed they've put in more effort. And a person can use their right to association to insist on receiving compensation for their prior efforts (if they have not been suitably compensated already) as a condition of participating.
Can they? I'm sure many can but not all. Isn't that what people complain about nowadays? That shareholders & executives do not recognize the efforts put in by workers?
And sure they could demand that compensation, but what if the response is: "than you can leave"? People can be extremely petty, it is true now and it would be true in your hypothetical system.
 
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tstorm823

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The position you've ascribed to me & others is entirely fabricated, and your assumption of the solution is just ridiculous.

I remember a time when you did apply at least a modicum of respect to the people you debated with, here; it's now been replaced by wholesale batshittery.
You, personally and specifically, compared working a manufacturing job in Mexico to having your family kidnapped for ransom.
I'd make a comparison with the family of a kidnapping victim, handed a ransom by the kidnapper. They have agency, because they have the choice to pay or not to pay! They're willing to pay! So it's hardly exploitation to put them in that situation, then, is it!?
How do you seriously expect me to respond to that? Corporations go to a nation with lower costs all-around, and offer jobs that would otherwise not exist, and your response is to compare it to kidnapping? You think corporations offering competitive wages within a market is akin to kidnapping? Why do people work those jobs? Because they pay as well as the local employers. Is every business in Mexico taking away people's freedom, akin to kidnapping, by virtue of existing? Is every business in every country slavery? I know Seanchaidh thinks that, but let's be reasonable here.
 

dreng3

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I remember a time when you did apply at least a modicum of respect to the people you debated with, here; it's now been replaced by wholesale batshittery.
Storm har clearly tracked down Houseman and eaten his heart to gain the power to completely ignore words and make assumptions beyond any kind of logical reach.
 
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Silvanus

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Sure but Europe has had its fair share of struggles. What bugs me is that the colonial era is often used to entirely dismiss achievements while history is filled with events which both positively and negatively impacted prosperity. I could argue Western and Eastern Germany had a rather similar past and were ripped apart into Capitalist and Communist regions and if Capitalism was so bad why did people risk their lives fleeing from the Socialist Haven?
Because East Germany was not a socialist haven, but rather a brutal state-capitalist dictatorship.

The colonial era is not grounds to dismiss the achievements of a country such as Sweden or Norway. Their colonial holdings were relatively small, and we can never be certain whether they'd have done similarly well in the 20th Century regardless. My point was that you cannot merely compare a country such as Sweden, which has been relatively wealthy and has exerted self-determination for the majority of the past few centuries, with a country such as Vietnam, which is a developing country with only a few decades of independence. These comparisons are not grounds for concluding that the economic system followed in the former is automatically superior to any alternative. Alternatives have not, historically, had anywhere close to the same opportunities.


Economic history is extremely complex and also filled with myths based on people's ideological biases but one thing does remain true: the capitalist west is attracting people from all over the world and no socialist or communist country has had that appeal. So while I'll conceed capitalism has spawned atrocious systems as well, a great deal of bad systems it has also spawned the least bad systems. And as long as anti capitalists cannot give me a better alternative I do not see why Capitalism cannot be considered the superior economic system.
I suspect that's more to do with how much of the rest of the planet is governed by brutal authoritarians or riven by civil war and poverty, than it is to do with the inherent greatness of capitalism. Especially since a great many refugees are fleeing countries that have been enveloped in wars... which capitalist world powers have got themselves involved in and even sometimes formented.


Sounds a lot like something that would come from communist ideologues. But let's stop beating around the bush, what is the superior economic model you propose? If economic inequality is bad regardless of the scale than clearly any capitalist variant is a no-go.
Inequality will inevitably exist in any system to some degree; it cannot be entirely negated, only endlessly mitigated.

Anyway. I've already said where I stand, above: I'm a (democratic) socialist. I'm okay with private enterprise, so long as it's heavily regulated and underpinned by a solid welfare state and provisions to ensure income and prevent poverty/ great levels of disparity, and ideally to guarantee worker involvement in their running. But I would want all public utilities (energy, water, telecoms, infrastructure, the postal service, etc) to be state-operated.

I cannot speak for the UK and as I said based on what I know and have heard it doesn't seem to be among the better capitalist systems.
I would also like to add that addiction is a direct consequence of a personal choice to consume addictive substances. And disownment is also an individual's choice (not the individual being disowned obviously). Do note however there are countries which have rendered total disownments illegal and children are de-facto entitled to a part of the inheritance.
So back to square 1: in a country with a generous welfare system (I guess the UK has a fake generous one) homelesness is at the very least mostly a matter of poor personal decisions and not the system.
No, not back to square one. The scenario in which all of these factors is mitigated to the point where homelessness is just choice is distantly far off.

The idea that homelessness is all the fault of the homeless is a myth spun by people who don't want us to spend any money to help people worse off.
 

Avnger

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Storm har clearly tracked down Houseman and eaten his heart to gain the power to completely ignore words and make assumptions beyond any kind of logical reach.
I feel like it's more that he's just following the trend in Republican "intellectuals" that we've seen over the past decade+. The actual conservative thinkers abandoned the Republican party years ago at this point, and they're down to people like Gaetz, Cruz, and Jordan as "leaders." PragerU is considered a legitimate source of knowledge, and Project Veritas is held up as honest journalism....
 

Silvanus

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You, personally and specifically, compared working a manufacturing job in Mexico to having your family kidnapped for ransom.
A comparison of the logic that would be required in order to conclude that the individual has a free and fair choice. Not a comparison of the people in the hypothetical scenario.

Which is blindingly obvious to anyone approaching any of this in good faith.

How do you seriously expect me to respond to that?
"I was mistaken in my beliefs and I apologise. You're the best, and I suck".

Corporations go to a nation with lower costs all-around, and offer jobs that would otherwise not exist, and your response is to compare it to kidnapping? You think corporations offering competitive wages within a market is akin to kidnapping? Why do people work those jobs? Because they pay as well as the local employers. Is every business in Mexico taking away people's freedom, akin to kidnapping, by virtue of existing?
If a corporation has the means to pay a reasonable living wage to its employees, and is refusing to do so in the pursuit of higher profit margins, then it is acting in an exploitative manner to its employees. That's the same if it's a Mexican company or an American company. But there are two differentiating factors; 1) most American companies that do outsource their labour in this manner tend to be particularly large and wealthy ones, meaning they have more than enough means to pay a decent wage if they wanted; and 2) there's a certain level of immoral cynicism involved in rehousing yourself solely and specifically to underpay people; it shows some calculated intent.

People take the jobs, obviously, because the jobs market is poor so they have few alternatives.

This whole scenario really goes to show how hollow and false the notion is that the free market will act in peoples' best interests if we leave it to it. When presented with the chance, and excess revenue they could reinvest in the workforce, numerous large companies have instead taken enormous strides to pay their employees as little as possible and provide as little workplace protection as they can get away with.
 

tstorm823

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I feel like it's more that he's just following the trend in Republican "intellectuals" that we've seen over the past decade+. The actual conservative thinkers abandoned the Republican party years ago at this point, and they're down to people like Gaetz, Cruz, and Jordan as "leaders." PragerU is considered a legitimate source of knowledge, and Project Veritas is held up as honest journalism....
I've been making the same arguments longer than those things had online presence.
 

tstorm823

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If a corporation has the means to pay a reasonable living wage to its employees, and is refusing to do so in the pursuit of higher profit margins, then it is acting in an exploitative manner to its employees. That's the same if it's a Mexican company or an American company. But there are two differentiating factors; 1) most American companies that do outsource their labour in this manner tend to be particularly large and wealthy ones, meaning they have more than enough means to pay a decent wage if they wanted; and 2) there's a certain level of immoral cynicism involved in rehousing yourself solely and specifically to underpay people; it shows some calculated intent.

People take the jobs, obviously, because the jobs market is poor so they have few alternatives.

This whole scenario really goes to show how hollow and false the notion that the free market will willingly and of its own accord act in peoples' best interests. When presented with the chance, and excess revenue they could reinvest in the workforce, numerous large companies have instead taken enormous strides to pay their employees as little as possible and provide as little workplace protection as they can get away with.
You're not looking at this from both perspectives. The US corporations building manufacturing in Mexico are not only thinking "we can pay them less than US workers", they also have to also think "we can pay them more than they're making", because that is how you attract labor. By paying more than the alternative. You're comparing "offering a better option for work than otherwise available" to "holding people hostage".

And like, there's no winning once you've all set your mind here. If Amazon reinvests every cent it makes into the workforce, I'm told it's theft anyway. If corporations put jobs in Mexico, it's the corporations fault the people there are poor, such that lower wages justify the added cost of remote manufacturing.
 

Seanchaidh

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You're comparing "offering a better option for work than otherwise available" to "holding people hostage".
this is entirely appropriate for a systemic critique rather than a condemnation of individual companies. so yes, people are arguing against capitalism.

And like, there's no winning once you've all set your mind here.
If the workers control the means of production, that's the win.
 

tstorm823

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If the workers control the means of production, that's the win.
If a group of people democratically decide to pay themselves 50% of gross profit and use the other 50% to expand their business, you think that's great. If the exact same people do the exact same thing, but one person makes that decision, you think that's theft and exploitation. Your opinion is nonsense.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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If a group of people democratically decide to pay themselves 50% of gross profit and use the other 50% to expand their business, you think that's great. If the exact same people do the exact same thing, but one person makes that decision, you think that's theft and exploitation. Your opinion is nonsense.
That is the difference between democracy and dictatorship, yes.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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And like, there's no winning once you've all set your mind here. If Amazon reinvests every cent it makes into the workforce, I'm told it's theft anyway. If corporations put jobs in Mexico, it's the corporations fault the people there are poor, such that lower wages justify the added cost of remote manufacturing.
Yes, it *is* the corporation's fault that the people there are poor. That's how sweatshops *work*
 

Generals

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The colonial era is not grounds to dismiss the achievements of a country such as Sweden or Norway. Their colonial holdings were relatively small, and we can never be certain whether they'd have done similarly well in the 20th Century regardless. My point was that you cannot merely compare a country such as Sweden, which has been relatively wealthy and has exerted self-determination for the majority of the past few centuries, with a country such as Vietnam, which is a developing country with only a few decades of independence. These comparisons are not grounds for concluding that the economic system followed in the former is automatically superior to any alternative. Alternatives have not, historically, had anywhere close to the same opportunities.
Russia had been an independent power for centuries as well. Not really a country you'd like to live in right now.
Look, you simply cannot dismiss the importance of current politics in how things evolve. And right now social liberal systems have shown themselves to bring about the best results.



I suspect that's more to do with how much of the rest of the planet is governed by brutal authoritarians or riven by civil war and poverty, than it is to do with the inherent greatness of capitalism. Especially since a great many refugees are fleeing countries that have been enveloped in wars... which capitalist world powers have got themselves involved in and even sometimes formented.
Perhaps, but as I said, if all the rest sucks even more, isn't it de-facto "superior"?


Inequality will inevitably exist in any system to some degree; it cannot be entirely negated, only endlessly mitigated.
Sure but below you are describing a system which doesn't even aspire to get rid of the concept of inequality. Why not aspire to the communist ideal if inequalities are wrong?

Anyway. I've already said where I stand, above: I'm a (democratic) socialist. I'm okay with private enterprise, so long as it's heavily regulated and underpinned by a solid welfare state and provisions to ensure income and prevent poverty/ great levels of disparity, and ideally to guarantee worker involvement in their running. But I would want all public utilities (energy, water, telecoms, infrastructure, the postal service, etc) to be state-operated.
So far left social capitalism. See you have embraced the superiority of capitalism. Welcome to the dark side.

No, not back to square one. The scenario in which all of these factors is mitigated to the point where homelessness is just choice is distantly far off.

The idea that homelessness is all the fault of the homeless is a myth spun by people who don't want us to spend any money to help people worse off.
In most cases it is. At least, when there is a generous welfare system that protects most people if they are trying to seek help. You cannot help those who do not (truly) want to be helped.
 

Silvanus

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Russia had been an independent power for centuries as well. Not really a country you'd like to live in right now.
Look, you simply cannot dismiss the importance of current politics in how things evolve. And right now social liberal systems have shown themselves to bring about the best results.
Underlining mine. Unless you haven't noticed, Russia is currently ruled by a violently anti-socialist oligarchy, and has been for 22 years. It was run by a state-capitalist dictatorship for 82 years before that, between its time as a repressive monarchy and said oligarchy. You can't make the case you're trying to make by just pointing to a country that called itself communist, ignoring the context, and leaving it there.

Sure but below you are describing a system which doesn't even aspire to get rid of the concept of inequality. Why not aspire to the communist ideal if inequalities are wrong?
Because I do not believe that communism is better suited than other forms of socialism to ridding society of inequality (to the greatest extent possible).

So far left social capitalism. See you have embraced the superiority of capitalism. Welcome to the dark side.
The existence of private enterprise =/= unfettered capitalism. Unless you believe that Lenin post-NEP was also a "capitalist".

But yes, (some forms of) socialism and capitalism can coexist, if far-reaching compromises are made.


In most cases it is. At least, when there is a generous welfare system that protects most people if they are trying to seek help. You cannot help those who do not (truly) want to be helped.
This is just the regular old right-wing trope that seeks to blame the poor for their misfortune, so that we don't need to address the obvious systemic problems that brought us to this situation.
 
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Silvanus

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You're not looking at this from both perspectives. The US corporations building manufacturing in Mexico are not only thinking "we can pay them less than US workers", they also have to also think "we can pay them more than they're making", because that is how you attract labor. By paying more than the alternative. You're comparing "offering a better option for work than otherwise available" to "holding people hostage".
Yes, they might be forced to pay a few pennies more than other companies, though they'll try to undercut that at any opportunity. That's not an impressive concession that the invisible hand has gifted us with, and it doesn't change the fact that the employer has consciously chosen to place profit over an actual living wage.

And like, there's no winning once you've all set your mind here. If Amazon reinvests every cent it makes into the workforce, I'm told it's theft anyway. If corporations put jobs in Mexico, it's the corporations fault the people there are poor, such that lower wages justify the added cost of remote manufacturing.
Here's a way to win: pay people properly, commensurate with their work, and provide workplace protections.

Its not difficult. But companies like Amazon have proven themselves utterly unwilling to do so, and treat employees like dirt, limiting toilet breaks etc.

If a group of people democratically decide to pay themselves 50% of gross profit and use the other 50% to expand their business, you think that's great. If the exact same people do the exact same thing, but one person makes that decision, you think that's theft and exploitation. Your opinion is nonsense.
Almost as if self-determination matters!

"If someone chooses to become a miner, you think that's fine. But if someone else decides to make them mine against their will, suddenly it's forced servitude! Nonsense!"
 
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