Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics The Debate: Is America’s future capitalist or socialist?

Capitalism loves socialism!

Soon, probably by Easter, the massive big government socialist rescue will have paved the way so that unregulated free-market Capitalism can resume its proper and healthy role in Making America Great Again. Could even be some more tax cuts in our future!

One oddity I can't figure out - why do the store shelves look like Venezuela?

Almost as if an imperial power has deployed siege warfare around our country and is trying to overthrow our elected government thru propaganda both domestic and internationally to gain access to our resources?...

But yes, one thing I’ve noticed is the acute class consciousness among the wealthy and the way it has been verboten for working class and poor. A Bipartison accomplishment of our market oriented politics, imo. Maybe we need a corporate funded think tank to explain our situation to us.

'How will you pay for medicare for all?!' -Democratic front runner/party, corporate media ask Dem Socialist candidate relentlessly.

1,000,000,000,000/day for financial healthcare- 'crickets'....

Death cult energy...

Given the national debt, one has to wonder just what any party will be able to do if it costs money. I was concerned when I discovered that our national debt is already more than our annual GDP and, the way its going it may actually, by the end of the end be double that! This is going to mean that its unlikely anybody will buy our bonds until we start to deal with that one. Trump, the self proclaimed "Master of Debt", a 6 time bankrupt, may try and deal with the debt, if re-elected, the Trump way - just not pay the debt. If that happens, the current mess in the market will seem seriously pale to what will happen if that were to happen.

All in all asking how we pay for medicare is the least of the problems. I suspect you will be hearing, pretty soon, another question, "how can we pay for our military?" and "how can we pay for anything but the debt?" and "how can we pay to continue underwriting our agriculture?" or all the rest of it? I know, we have Covid-19 to deal with (and doing a lousy job of that too). So, we can't pay our bills, and can't deal with our own healthcare, how to we keep paying for our wars, and our schools are failing, and, and, and........... WTF!

I suspect its really time for those who would govern to sit down and start figuring out how to survive and then let us know how its gonna be?

Sorry - a bit too negative I think.........

Everywhere along the supply chain, people are staying home. That toilet paper doesn't make itself, put it in box cars, deliver it to stores by truck. stock the shelves, etc.

And everyone still thinks that if they don't stock up on what's left, it won't be there in the morning, even though what does make it through does wind up there on the shelves for a few minutes.

I saw a picture yesterday of the Publix Supermarket distribution center, trucks were four wide and stretched 22 long. They're doing their best out there.

Chunks posted a great video on this earlier today. The solution is to hit the Great Debt Reset Button. It's been a useful tool throughout history.

I had similar thoughts beginning years ago, but didn't have the mental horsepower to assemble any supporting material. My simple thinking on it is that all money, including negative money (debt), is nothing more than agreements. That's why having something like a gold standard isn't the solution to monetary instability - the value is set by agreement, and agreements can change.

Forgive all debt; that would be a major redistribution of wealth and would claw back the inexorable creep flood of dough to a tiny portion of the population.

We just have to agree the problems away (but the rich folks won't like it...)

Is cooperative freedom the answer?

Very interesting data informing what is effective in controlling the spread of the virus. Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea have done a remarkably better job of it than the U.S. without locking down society. An important element is that those three governments implemented rigorous testing and tracking protocols very early in the outbreak.

I believe the difference between them and us is cultural - they are conditioned and comfortable with what I am thinking of as “cooperative freedom”, where absolute independence, and a resistance to being told what to do, are not existing as obstacles to cooperation.

I suggest that the same cultural qualities can explain why the U.S. has a gun violence problem much greater than any other country, why we don’t have universal healthcare, and why the left and the right can’t get along.

Unqualified “freedom” is anarchy and gets in the way of the benefits of cooperation, which is what government should be all about.

I’ve stated numerous times in the past how JGW and leftist economists have areas of basic agreements. Unfortunately, I don’t think he can bring himself to give that economic analysis any serious consideration. To bad, as I’ve found classical and Marxist economic analysis to be very helpful in understanding who’s interests are being served and why.

Modern economic theory, on the other hand, is coercive and often gets applied at gun point. We have many examples of this application in the current economies of the world, our own included.

It’s my chief objection to liberalism. Conceit at best, lethal at worst.