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[PompiPompi]

You say capitalism and "socialist-liberal" (whatever the fuck that means) like they are mutually exclusive, when you can have a capitalist system with socialism aspects. This is how the socialist states in Europe function, and is known as a mixed economy. A well-planned mixed economy is far more stable than an economy that leans more to one side or the other.

Also, there is no such thing as "generating wealth." Not in modern economies. Especially in capitalism. Economic growth is about redistribution of wealth, and in a capitalist system this redistribution is favored towards the rich by a large margin. In a socialist system, it's favored towards the middle class, and in a communist system it's favored towards the government.

Edit: Also, do you honestly believe investment bankers and venture capitalists are "talented, hardworking people?" Because I'll tell you who are talented hard-working people: the people who fix your sinks, repair your cupboards, and tune up your car. And they are increasingly being victimized by a little something called wage theft.

You are basically just repeating the same nonsense about "job creators" and "hardest working people" that the rich repeats about itself.

Somewhere along the argument someone said that "You could split US GDP between all it's citizens". I don't take that as very capitalist.
I agree you can have a certain degree of socialism with capitalism. I already said so. And you agree you don't have an issue with capitalism.
So what is the argument? If you are not arguing "Splitting the GDP between US civilians", and you are not against capitalism, then what are you arguing?
The US is not socialist enough? What would make the US more socialist, more taxation?
I guess you argue that the govrnment should take care of all the needs of it's citizens, regardless if they are working or not, or how lazy they are or not.
I argue that the govrnment shouldn't intervene that much, because it's not fair one person taxes will be used to make his neighbour compete against him.
Why would I pay for other peoples' education? Sure, I agree the govrnment should subside education to a degree, but there is a limit on how much it should. Giving free education is different than giving cheap education.

[Gizmonicgamer]

Pompi, you never answered my question. Let me answer it for you:
an economy is, fundamentally, a means of redistributing wealth. It is a means to bring supplies from one person to another person, to spread wealth and a means of living among others, to where it is needed, with "capital" acting purely as a form of compensation in our modern society. The point of doing so, the point of generating wealth and being competitive, is to try and provide better services, more advanced and more efficient products, and to innovate. Now, you may ask (you probably wont), why would one do that? What does this actually accomplish?

The answer is simple.

It is to increase the general well-being of a society as a whole. To become better. Better doesn't mean anything if it only affects one person, or a small group of people. An oligarchy like we have now is nothing but an indication of a sick economy.

Removing economics from psychology, removing economics from the welfare of the people, removing economics from the general happiness or quality of life of a nature, of those subjected to a particular economy, is fundamentally missing the point, is fundamentally missing the real-world application of these ideas.

[Superb Joe]

sup folks, subhuman garbage here with the scoop on the wild and woolly world of socioeconomics as seen through the clarifying kaleidoscope lens of not knowing what any important words or terms actually mean. did you know there's a dragon you can slay to help Ron paul?

[PompiPompi]

sup folks, subhuman garbage here with the scoop on the wild and woolly world of socioeconomics as seen through the clarifying kaleidoscope lens of not knowing what any important words or terms actually mean. did you know there's a dragon you can slay to help Ron paul?

How much of your money did you give to improve the world? Or do you only tell others to give their money to improve the world? Oh saint and moral one...

[PompiPompi]

Pompi, you never answered my question. Let me answer it for you:
an economy is, fundamentally, a means of redistributing wealth. It is a means to bring supplies from one person to another person, to spread wealth and a means of living among others, to where it is needed, with "capital" acting purely as a form of compensation in our modern society. The point of doing so, the point of generating wealth and being competitive, is to try and provide better services, more advanced and more efficient products, and to innovate. Now, you may ask (you probably wont), why would one do that? What does this actually accomplish?

The answer is simple.

It is to increase the general well-being of a society as a whole. To become better. Better doesn't mean anything if it only affects one person, or a small group of people. An oligarchy like we have now is nothing but an indication of a sick economy.

Removing economics from psychology, removing economics from the welfare of the people, removing economics from the general happiness or quality of life of a nature, of those subjected to a particular economy, is fundamentally missing the point, is fundamentally missing the real-world application of these ideas.

Why would the good of the world should be a private person's concern? It's reasonable not to slaugther each other, but why does a private person need to be concerned with the entire world and the good of the world?
How much of your time and money do you invest to "better the world" or do you only like to force others to improve the world for you?

Capitalism encourage FAIR COMPETITION. I am not suggesting RUTHLESS COMPETITION, but you want to cancel the competition part all together.
We set a set of rules to compete with each other, and then we compete to have better wealth under those set of rules. A private person shouldn't care about how much wealth other people has, as long as he is playing by the rules he can accumulate as much wealth as he wants.

[Fallsburg]

Fuck human compassion.

I don't know why people keep trying to argue with Pompi.  He is just so deep in his capitalism la-la land that nothing you say is comprehended by him.

[Nix]

Capitalism is also about texation and how to treat corporates and about free market. A socialist-liberal country that will sacrfice the same corporate structure, the same free market and the same taxation as the US, will make less wealth.

Sweden, Norway and Denmark have lower corporate taxes than USA (28% vs 39%). The EU on average has a lower corporate tax than USA (~22%). USA has one of the world's highest corporate tax levels, together with Japan. (2005 figures.) At the same time corporate income taxes represented 2.4% of Sweden's GDP, 8% of Norways's and 2.9% of Denmark's versus USA's 1.8%, which means that in spite of the highest corporate income tax level on the planet the same companies contributes less to the country finances.

Do you understand the implications and significance of this?

No, I don't understand, explain to me please.

GE has more tax analysts than the IRS. The biggest corporations in the country invest massive amounts of resources in weaseling out of the taxes they owe to the federal government. High tax rate or not, corporations are effectively allowed to do pretty much whatever they want. It would be great if they used that extra money to hire new employees, but they don't. At least not in the US. When a corporation expands nowadays, they hire Indian call-centers and Chinese factories. China has a booming economy because American corporations are essentially becoming Chinese. What else do corporations do when they get tax cuts? Sit on their cash, pay it out to stock-holders, and increase CEO salaries. History has shown that fewer taxes does not lead to more employment. Trickle-down Reagonomics don't work from anyone's standpoint but the richest and most powerful, and the reason that the government continues to support them is that they have the money to hire the best and most lobbyists. Lobbyist pressure is the driving force behind US politics today and lobbyists cost money, which means money = power. There's a reason that the government doesn't do a whole lot to help the poor. The poor can't hire very good lobbyists (and almost all of the programs in effect right now to help the poor have been around for a very long time since before corporate influence was as strong as it is today).

I do genuinely believe that the competitive market and corporate culture of America is part of the reason that we have such a high quality of life compared to other nations. But we have to wonder whether the extreme polarity between the richest and the poorest is necessary for that economic success. Many years ago the average American could get a job at a factory, work hard, and take part in the corporation's growth through stock options and a fair salary. Nowadays all that growth goes overseas at the expense of the working man so that the richest can get richer. That's just not right.

Edit: This doesn't apply directly to anything I said, but I just found it and it's really interesting if you're thinking about all this stuff: http://www.youtube.com/learnliberty

[Tumetsu]

Why would the good of the world should be a private person's concern? It's reasonable not to slaugther each other, but why does a private person need to be concerned with the entire world and the good of the world?

Simply because one lives in this world. I'm not any exemplary person or world saver but I also think that it is everyone's responsibility to do at least something for better tomorrow. Or at least not to do things which would lead to worse world. At least I hope I can give something back for my existence in this world.

Capitalism encourage FAIR COMPETITION. I am not suggesting RUTHLESS COMPETITION, but you want to cancel the competition part all together.
We set a set of rules to compete with each other, and then we compete to have better wealth under those set of rules. A private person shouldn't care about how much wealth other people has, as long as he is playing by the rules he can accumulate as much wealth as he wants.

I'm not sure about "fair competition". To me it looks like most successful people in capitalistic system are those who drive their business most ruthlessly. At least in past, nowadays we luckily are getting some of this "ethical & environmental awareness" which hopefully will change things a bit. To me capitalism in its "purest" form pretty much encourages ruthless competition.

Also, I don't think anyone could accumulate as much wealth as he'd like by just playing by rules. Usually success in business world requires along with skill luck, connections and most important some starting capital (which as it happens seems to be lacking for most of us to make any meaningful investments.) Think what you want, but capitalistic system doesn't give equal footing for people to build career/life, rich people will have edge, and great one too.

Btw, here is a nice chart about how income development and productivity in US:

[Superb Joe]

pompi what country do you live in and where are you from

[PompiPompi]

@Nix,

It's true corporates are very powerful and influencial. I am not sure the US can replace all the workers corporates outsource to other countries. I am concrned about outsourcing the R&D and basically the knowledge based jobs.
I know corporates teach the Chineese and give them a lot of knowledge and I didn't understand why. I guess they just don't mind to even outsource all the knowledge and R&D to other countries because that would make them even more powerful.
I am not sure though.

@Tumetsu
Well, it's fair in the sense that everyone plays under the same rules. You can argue which rules those should be, but you will never be able to give everyone an equal start.
People are different in their backgrounds, talents and many other things.
If someone is good in math, he will have a certain advantage over other people who are average at math and etc.
So yea, having rich parents is a big advantage, but it follows "the rules of competition".

[i wanna be the guy]

questions pompi hasnt answered:
1. see previous list, none of those were directly answered
2. pompi what country do you live in and where are you from

[Nix]

I know corporates teach the Chineese and give them a lot of knowledge and I didn't understand why. I guess they just don't mind to even outsource all the knowledge and R&D to other countries because that would make them even more powerful.
I am not sure though.

They do it because Chinese workers (even the "smart" ones) work for 1/6 the pay of US workers. The Chinese government works very hard to make sure that it's cheaper for US corporations to hire Chinese workers than US workers at the expense of the US middle class. You can't really blame the Chinese government for trying to grow its own economy, but you can blame the US government for helping it happen. There's a tax incentive to hire overseas.

Here's a fairly honest FAQ page for a prototyping/manufacturing firm that is owned by a British guy and run in China: http://www.star-prototype.com/faq/

[Tumetsu]

Well, it's fair in the sense that everyone plays under the same rules.

I don't think that any game where one side has large advantage for any reason could be called "fair". Sure, everyone has different skills and are not equal, but amount of starting wealth makes the most difference. One can be more stupid with his business if one has a few millions under the belt, than guy which starts with couple thousands of dollars. Problem with free capitalism is that since money goes to money, rich people are the ones who get the edge over and over again.

By what little I know about US's economy, it isn't anymore like the one in "american dream" where one can rise the ranks with their hard work and skills. Recent development has changed the situation where ones with most wealth and connections are the only ones who succeed.

I think I understand what you mean by these "rules of competition" but what I don't understand is how you seem to defend them while apparently seeing the flaws and injustice in them. Rules can and should be changed when needed. To me it is rather clear that free-market and pure capitalism is far from ideal system, or even a good one.

Also, PompiPompi is from Israel.

Are there any Indie developers from Israel over here?
(I am one).

[Nix]

By what little I know about US's economy, it isn't anymore like the one in "american dream" where one can rise the ranks with their hard work and skills. Recent development has changed the situation where ones with most wealth and connections are the only ones who succeed.

If you are really willing to put the effort in, you can rise above the ranks from the depths of poverty. Get good grades, get a scholarship to a good university, and go to business school. The big issue is that not everyone wants to be a rich and powerful business-person. Why should the librarian or the clerk have less political power and have to work harder than the the CEO just to get by, often barely? That's where the problem lies. Capital investment and business is far more favored by the US system than plain old hard work. Capitalism as it is now simply doesn't respect the "little people" who make the gears turn each and every day. We're always going to have people with more money than everyone else as long as we have capitalism, but those who aren't in the upper class shouldn't have to struggle every day to make ends meet. There are lazy people, sure. But there are also people who work three jobs from dawn to dusk and still have to buy instant mac&cheese with food stamps to feed their families. Let the rich be rich, but the poor shouldn't be so damned poor.

[Dragonmaw]

Saying that rich vs poor is fair is like saying an NBA team against a basketball team of 6-year olds is fair.

They are playing by the same rules guys! It's fair!