Chart that I can't get out of my head
- Thread starter VILEPLUME
- Start date
UncleBuck
Well-Known Member
who cares?
oh, just about anyone who is concerned about slipping into a banana republic type of plutocracy.
VILEPLUME
Well-Known Member
I know it is hard to talk about, but something really needs to be done. I know the whole 99% thing feels weird, but shit..it was 99 cents!
Apparently not for some......
ultraviolet pirate
Well-Known Member
its worth discussing when that top 1% is influencing policies that affect us.
deprave
New Member
agree, they shouldn't be however and they didn't before, at least not in the open.
some curb is natural, you know the old saying 'once you make your first million', today that is more like 'billion'. As the author of this video suggest the curb always existed only the discrepancy is much higher now. Why? It's anyone's guess, but I suspect corruption is the reason, I suspect that government colluding with corporations is the reason. No we don't "need to go all the way to socialism" as the narrator said to solve the problem but going more towards socialism/fascism/corporatism OBVIOUSLY increases the curb as evidenced even by this very video and its graph.
If this graph suggest anything....its that 'we are doing it wrong'...what have we been doing? Moving away from free market capitalism.
CaptainCAVEMAN
Well-Known Member
I just watched the documentary called 'End of the Road: How money became worthless'. The show details how the American economy is a giant ponzi scheme that will collapse within the next 10 years. Definitely worth a look.
I was apalled to learn that another one of Nixon's great accomplishments was to abandon the bretton system where the dollar was backed by gold.
Sure makes me glad that my wife and I recently opted out of the 401k our companies tried to force on us.
I was apalled to learn that another one of Nixon's great accomplishments was to abandon the bretton system where the dollar was backed by gold.
Sure makes me glad that my wife and I recently opted out of the 401k our companies tried to force on us.
Dr Kynes
Well-Known Member
it's EASY to talk about but impossible to change. even hardline marxist dictatorships have their own "1%"
the holders of capital have ALWAYS influenced policy, from the kings of Ur of the Chaldees, to the Pharaohs of Egypt, to the kings and princes of Europe, to the merchant houses of Venice and Valencia, to Wall Street. those with capital always have power, and that will never change.
free market capitalism inevitably produces inequities, but these inequities are far smaller than those created by any system ever used in history. the Utopian Dream of Communism has created an unrealistic expectation that wealth will somehow fail to give power, or that power will not produce wealth. this is counter to logic and historical observation.
Nixon merely finalized and legitimized the process which had been begun decades earlier by FDR and the Federal Reserve. Nixon is an easy target for your wrath, but in fact FDR and Woodrow Wilson created the conditions which placed nixon in an untenable position, we didnt have enough gold to back our notes, and the notes were already out there. by finalizing the severing of the dollar from gold, Nixon prevented a massive collapse when note holders called in their markers.I just watched the documentary called 'End of the Road: How money became worthless'. The show details how the American economy is a giant ponzi scheme that will collapse within the next 10 years. Definitely worth a look.
I was apalled to learn that another one of Nixon's great accomplishments was to abandon the bretton system where the dollar was backed by gold.
Sure makes me glad that my wife and I recently opted out of the 401k our companies tried to force on us.
replying in bulk to save space.
CaptainCAVEMAN
Well-Known Member
Nixon only prevented a massive collapse in his time.
Now we get to have a massive collapse pretty soon here.
Have you seen the documentary? I tried to find a link or embed a video but couldn't find one.One comment said it's on netflix.
While Nixon was only reacting to the situation his predecessors put him in, he coincidentally started the political behavior that is still practiced to this day - blame the predecessors, print and borrow more money, continue to spend as they wish, and just kick the inevitable collapse a little further down the road. He said the fiat currency system would be temporary...40 years since then and still counting.
Same guy that insisted marijuana be labeled as a schedule one substance. Thanks Nixon.
Now we get to have a massive collapse pretty soon here.
Have you seen the documentary? I tried to find a link or embed a video but couldn't find one.One comment said it's on netflix.
While Nixon was only reacting to the situation his predecessors put him in, he coincidentally started the political behavior that is still practiced to this day - blame the predecessors, print and borrow more money, continue to spend as they wish, and just kick the inevitable collapse a little further down the road. He said the fiat currency system would be temporary...40 years since then and still counting.
Same guy that insisted marijuana be labeled as a schedule one substance. Thanks Nixon.
Dr Kynes
Well-Known Member
Harry Ainslinger was the head of the drug war since Herbert Hoover, under dems and republicans. HE is the clown who put weed on the controlled substances list, not nixon, nixon simply kept that turd's successor in his office, where ainslinger had been neatly ensconced from 1930 to 1962. nixon's replacement for Ainslinger was just a cut rate version of the master of propaganda.Nixon only prevented a massive collapse in his time.
Now we get to have a massive collapse pretty soon here.
Have you seen the documentary? I tried to find a link or embed a video but couldn't find one.One comment said it's on netflix.
While Nixon was only reacting to the situation his predecessors put him in, he coincidentally started the political behavior that is still practiced to this day - blame the predecessors, print and borrow more money, continue to spend as they wish, and just kick the inevitable collapse a little further down the road. He said the fiat currency system would be temporary...40 years since then and still counting.
Same guy that insisted marijuana be labeled as a schedule one substance. Thanks Nixon.
again, nixon is an easy target for your wrath since he has been painted as a bastard (which he was) by every person who can grab a microphone.
nixon simply presided over the creation of the Controlled Substances Act which merely created the official designation of "Scheduled Drugs".
cannabis has been the whipping boy of every political hack from both major parties since the early 20's, and the Controlled Substances Act was created by BOTH SIDES, and has been used by BOTH SIDES to get cheap bumps in the polls by cracking down on "The Devil's Weed" whenever they wanted to look tough on crime.
UncleBuck
Well-Known Member
absolute nonsense from a wackjob bircher.
you're forgetting one system: our own before reagan and company came in and fucked it all up.
of course, you would want us to forget about that, since birchers spend their leisure hours making 3-D cutouts of reagan and then fellating faux-reagan.
bedspirit
Active Member
I appreciate the whole "telling it like it is" vibe you got going, but this statement is not actually true.
On one hand, you could argue that classically defined "free market capitalism" has never actually been successfully implemented anywhere, ever. It is a theory that free market capitalism might produce a more equal distribution of wealth when compared to a centrally planned economy, but there is no real data proving it.
Even if you were to be a little loose in your definition of free market, you'll find that the "free market" countries have much higher Gini coefficients than many socialist countries in Europe and Scandinavia. If I remember right, Norway usually ranks among the top of the list in equal wealth distribution.
Of course, none of it would matter if the people at the bottom still had it pretty good.
Dr Kynes
Well-Known Member
there are free markets al around us, since a free market is defined by a lack of government subsidies and government price controls.
every thursday in the summer and every weekend all year long i engage in free market activity at the farmer's market. \
i pay $50 a day for my stall, and can sell my vegetables and herbs for any price i choose. i could charge $50 each for my tomatoes, or i could charge a penny a dozen, and only the willingness of my customers to pay my price determines how many i sell.
i get no subsidies, and prices are determined solely by me, the producer/retailer.
diamonds also operate in a free market, with the prices determined solely by the producers, and what the market will pay. same with silver and gold, lettuce, turnips, tree nuts, lumber, furniture etc...
norway has a strong socialist system, restricting prices, levying heavy taxes and redistributing the wealth as the government chooses. they do a good job of controlling their markets and restraining capitalism's excesses, but they also restrain the ability of anyone who tries to get too far ahead of the curve, but they still engage in capitalism extensively. they likewise do a good job overall restricting the excesses of socialism, but this balance is tenuous at best, and if the pendulum swings too far in either direction their economy can easily collapse.
all centrally planned economies have one thing in common, they require a free market someplace to trade with or they become an isolated basket case like cuba where only the black market is free, and everybody is pretty eqiually fucked, except the top tier party apparatchiks, who always do well, or North Korea which is basically an autocratic monarchy with a splash of communist rhetoric to confuse the proles.
free markets tend to be healthy markets, with producers and buyers all enjoying the fruits of the market forces, until supply or demand outstrip their counterbalance.
compare modern market economies today to any other system and you will find no more equitable distribution overall save egalitarian tribal groups which are pretty much what marx describes as "Primitive Communism" but even those only work in small groups with strong social and familial ties.
even if you fall below the "Poverty Line" in america you are at no risk of starvation, youre unlikely to freeze to death in winter, and most likely live in a manner which would be considered the height of aristocratic luxury to medieval peasants.
we dont even realize how good we got it till we look at Somalia or North Korea.
why do you think all these mexicans, cubans, chinese, etc go through so much shit just to get to america? it's not so they can sit in a shitty camp outside wall street and chant for anarchy or socialism.
Dr Kynes
Well-Known Member
and instead of arguing a position on the subject you make another tired ad hominem, and spout some specious opinion which is of course followed by another lame ad hominem.
you dont long for the carter years or even the nixon years. youre trying to herald the "return" of the imaginary glories of the 50's and 60's, which were never as prosperous as you claim,, and which were rife with racism, oppression and segregation.
why so racist bucky? why are you trying to bring back the good ole days of jim crow and a Democrat Party that turns firehoses and attack dogs on their own black caucus?
so racist.
UncleBuck
Well-Known Member
nice try, my overdefensive, racist, bircher spouting friend. but i was talking economically, not socially.
you can notice how bircher demigod reagan start the fucking up.
Dr Kynes
Well-Known Member
yeah yeah yeah...
we have all seen your favorite charts again and again.
they are no more convincing now than they were the last 30 times you trotted them out.
we should tax everybody at 100% with only a $10k personal deduction, then NOBODY will make more than $10k and the government will be able to pay it's bills.
that totally could work.
yammer on bucky, yammer on.
we have all seen your favorite charts again and again.
they are no more convincing now than they were the last 30 times you trotted them out.
we should tax everybody at 100% with only a $10k personal deduction, then NOBODY will make more than $10k and the government will be able to pay it's bills.
that totally could work.
yammer on bucky, yammer on.
UncleBuck
Well-Known Member
that tax plan is clearly not what history shows us has worked.
that tax plan would turn the laffer curve into the laugher curve.
but you go on spouting specious opinions and trotting out tired and lame ad hominems.