Copenhagen Marxfest Cheers as Chavez Condemns Capitalism

You ever heard of adderall? its speed, they give it to kids like its candy. About as bad of **** as you can give a kid. Its all about profit, for a doctor to prescribe these drugs to kids like they do is mind-blowing. If we took out the profit based of prescribed drugs, and base it off patient health, it would be alot better. capitalism corrupts society. plain and simple

 

Actually there are many regulations that essentially codify wasteful practices and hamper innovations. For instance plumbing regulations have hampered the adoption of systems that would save water and recycle waste using things like grey water and composting toilets. Many zoning laws have helped foster sprawl by mandating low density construction.

Regulations are only as good as those who write and enforce them. There is no guarentee that regulations and regulators will necessarily act wisely.

 

Weighing in in general. Communism and even Socialism fails because it is impossible to predict or even control a large economy through a centralized government. Capitalism provides a means to create and distrubute resources without a central control. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have regulations only that we need to understand that any major attempt to control the market by the government is likely to fail.

 

It appears that you have missed the entire point of my post (shouldn't be a surprise), which was that government intervention has righted some of the most egregious wrongs in American history. The way insurance companies are allowed to act now (discriminating against preexisting conditions, dropping people when they get sick, spending up to 30% on overhead instead of care) is wrong and the government is the only entity that can correct these wrongs.

You are missing the point, government intervention gave women the vote.

And yet it is the insurer that is rated the highest among its customers. It spends a miniscule amount on overhead with virtually every dollar going to patient care. There are certainly ways that Medicare could be improved, but nobody, including conservatives, is talking about dismantling it. In fact, the GOP created the biggest expansion to Medicare ever with the prescription plan enacted a few years ago.

You really need to look at reality rather than the fabrications of right wing bloggers.

Really? Are you really arguing that senior citizens should live in poverty as they did by and large before the days of Social Security?

I am not arguing for a socialist system, just strong regulation of one of the most important industries out there, the one that is in charge of providing access to healthcare.

Are you arguing that the status quo is an acceptable situation? Oh, that's right, you are the one who thinks that the poor should "just die."

The hyperbole machine strikes again. Please go back to school and learn the definitions of the terms you use. Socialism is about government control of the economy and indentured servitude is more related to slavery than mandatory community service.

Get some education.

 

Thanks for giving me an example of the need for simple mindedness that I was referring to. Econ 101 is a dangerous course for the simple minded.

Don't worry there is still a God when sincere faith in one market under God fails. You simple minded libertarian/conservative types so remind me of the old Stalinists and their attempts to deny reality as it clashed with their sincere belief in their ideology.

 

A reasoned post until the bolded part in which you leap to a conclusion that I assume you see this as common sense since it is so widely propagated.

I'm not so sure of what you call "socialism" as the countries in Western Europe certainly have a good standard of living for a larger percentage of the population than we see in the US, despite more regulation of the market by government.

 

European countries have more regulation than US but they aren't to the point where the majority of the economy is controlled by the government. Such things as Airbus are private-public partnerships but still exist as for profit companies with stock ownership. When I talk about "socialism" I am talking about things like 5 year plans employed by USSR and formerly by the PRC to try to dictate industrial production and economic output.

 

Exactly. Even European nations aren't really socialist. They have more social programs, but they don't control much of the economy.

 

its different to "control" the economy than to regulate it. When you mention regulation, people shout and scream COMMIE!! Government controlling the country, when in fact all regulation should do is keep the money grubbing capitalists from profiting off people being miserable.