Redistribution of Wealth

#81

Oh, where to begin… Let me use that format and let me take his claims and call them myths.

Myth #1 in this video: Companies give people jobs.

Business has never created a single job. Business would not even exist without consumer demand. An investor would not invest in a business that did not have a business plan that would return their investment back to them. Without consumer demand, there would not be any jobs.

They don’t hire people to pull them out of poverty and allow them to live civilized lives. No. They have to hire people to get a job done. But they can’t hire people for nothing. They know that, in order to get the job done, they have to pay a certain amount of money to the employee.

Myth #2: Regulation hurt business and capitalism.

Regulation does not hurt business. Regulation helps business. Regulation such as anti-trust regulation ensures competition which Miron claims capitalism needs. Lack of regulation REDUCES competition.

Myth #3: Capitalism rewards people for being productive.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Capitalism, “true capitalism”, that is “laissez-faire capitalism” does NOT “reward” people for being productive. You can become rich without even breaking a sweat and working your fingers to the bone will not guarantee wealth.

Myth #4: Regulation hurts the less-skilled.

This is just silly. He just asserts this without evidence.

Myth #5: Government interferes with capitalism.

No. Capitalism is like fire. Controlled, it is a spectacular tool that does wonders. Uncontrolled, it becomes a spectacular apocalypse.

Myth #6: Government intervention caused the economic crisis.

Oh, please. It was LACK of government intervention that caused it. Almost every economist agrees with this. Government did not incentivize risk-taking. They allowed risk-taking by REMOVING REGULATION. He implies that government made business take risks. He is absolutely right that bad policy caused this economic crisis. But it was reduction of regulation, not government interference that caused it.

Myth #7: Governmental bailouts incentivize failure.

Actually, governmental bailouts lessen the blow from failure. Without bailouts, the economy would’ve been much worse and far more in the hole and would take us much longer to get out of. What Miron ignores is that when a business becomes very large, if that business fails, the economy suffers. We suffer when the business fails. We have a right, do we not, to protect ourselves from those that will hurt us? The risk-takers would not have paid the price even if the bailouts had not happened.

I do not advocate socialism or communism. Nor do I advocate laissez-faire capitalism. We got just a taste of laissez-faire capitalism during 2001-2008 and it brought us the economic crisis. We don’t need that again. We need capitalism, but we need to have rules on how it works.

Look at an intersection with a traffic light. If the traffic light goes out, without something to control the flow of traffic, it quickly becomes a snarl of traffic. I witnessed this just a few months ago. With the traffic light, it would take me about 3 minutes to get through the intersection. I’ve been through that intersection many times. This time, the light was out (bit spooky, too, since I had just left watching “Super 8” in the theater, but that’s not important right now), and I was in the intersection for twenty minutes before finally getting through it.

We need a balance of control and capitalism. Laissez-faire capitalism is the malfunctioning traffic light. Real capitalism, the kind that Miron attacks in this video, is what raises all boats.

Miron ignores reality.

#82

You are so far away from reality… Let us begin.

If businesses don’t create jobs, then where do they come from?

Yeah uh that’s kinda how capitalism works. You see, most of us don’t want to farm our own food, build our own houses and make our own clothes. People work in a specific field to get something done while in return they receive payment with which they can buy the things needed to make a living.

:facepalm:

I don’t know about you, but most people work for a living. They need this thing called money in order to make a living. If you don’t work, you get no money, that’s how it goes for most of us. For those few people who come from wealthy families it’s a different story, but you make it sound as if that means capitalism does not reward ANY people for being productive. That’s just bullshit.

No that’s not silly, regulation does hurt less-skilled people. For example, because of minimum wage laws an employer might not consider to add another employee. Most people start at the bottom and work their way up, but if you force companies to pay a specific amount of money then they will think twice before hiring another person. This leaves the person without a job.

What complete utter bullshit, the government is a cancer to capitalism. It does nothing more than spend all the wealth created by the people. It takes money from one group of people and gives it to another (money redistribution). Just look at the amount of debt for crying out loud, all the endless billions pouring into fancy government programs that I’m sure you love so much. The government does NOTHING else, they NEVER create wealth, they get it all from the working population.

Every economist agrees lack of government was the cause of the crisis? You’re just pulling that out of your ass.

Just like unsuccessful species go extinct in nature, bad businesses go down if they can’t keep their feet above the water. Where do you think all that money for the bail-outs came from? You live in your little government dream world where we can just print money out of thin air (well it’s actually done digitally now) and do whatever we want. Well guess what, it has consequences. It devaluates the currency, people lose their purchasing power, and you probably know what that means for the economy. The bail-outs made everything worse and just delayed the inevitable.

lol

Comparing a nations economy to a traffic light. Totally.

#83

Why are you still alive, Jeannot.

You know what’s the most amusing, you’re using the exact same rhetoric as some of the liberoid tards that would never stop at contaminating my country with bullshit until someone pulls their tongues out and stab the shit with a rusty screwdriver©

They never STFU, blame the bloody State for everything and all as one have that irrational love for capitalism and irrational hatred for the population which is perceived stupid, uncivilized, unintelligent and generally not sophisticated enough to understand all the bling and riches of democracy, free markets and capitalism.

Problem? They are all political corpses.
No one listens to those laughing stocks, except for the likes of Ole’ Mike McFaul and those former ‘political advisor’ retards that were told to GTFO in mid 90s - now zealously supporting the piss-poor pathetic opposition.

It really brings a smile to my face.

#84

Consumers.

Yes, but they wouldn’t hire someone to stand around to do nothing, would they? That’s just stupid, right?

:facepalm: No shit, sherlock.

So, Warren Buffett is one of the richest people in the world. Does that mean that he work millions of times harder than a maid in a hotel? Bullshit.

Wait, what? WHY? If they need someone to wash the dishes and they can’t pull anyone off to wash dishes because everyone else is currently busy doing other things, why would they not hire a dishwasher?

What complete utter bullshit.

Most of which was caused by government spending and tax cuts. Seriously, you need to open your eyes, Jean. You are so full of shit.

Horse. Shit. Don’t pull that crap on me. These “fancy government programs” are something that we demanded the government create because we’re not as stupid as you are. We know that these “fancy government programs” make us the envy of the world and help create civilized society that lessens the blow caused by irresponsible capitalism that creates recessions…like what we just recently saw.

No business creates wealth either. The consumer and employee does. The consumer provides the money and the employee provides the sweat. That’s how business makes money. Do you need a refresher course in basic economics?

Prove it.

So, if a bad business goes down, you don’t believe that will have ANY effect whatsoever outside that business? Get real.

Us. To protect ourselves from this shit:

We have a right to protect ourselves.

I guess Republicans should’ve thought about that before they did the stupid crap that forced us to do this.

No. It lessened the blow.

Sorry. I didn’t realize you were such an idiot and couldn’t understand what an analogy was.

Face facts, Jean. It is your economic policies that caused this crisis and now you’re blaming us for having to spend money to fix the problem.

In the United States, those “laughing stocks” are sometimes in positions of power.

#85

And here we are in loops again. And the sad thing is, people like ODB and DSG get a negative view of capitalism / free markets because those of us (including myself) who are still babes in the philosophy are far too closedminded in our application.

I’m gonna address a couple things and go for now:
The housing crisis was predicted a few years before anyone else saw it coming by the free market thinkers and some politicians like Ron Paul, citing the flawed economic policies which were (at the time, and still) contributing to it.

Now, Daniel, you are absolutely right that if we applied a pure free market system tomorrow, we’d all die (figuratively) because we are so dependent upon government assistance. But you need to realize that there are only so many bandaids you can put on a system before you need to revert to a better foundation.

I’m not wise enough to know how to get from where we are to where we need to be, but the solutions we are employing are only temporary and exasperating the problem in the long run.

No system is perfect, but I am so far convinced freer markets are better ones.

#86

I do not have a negative view of capitalism or free markets.

Do you agree or not that we’re allowed to protect ourselves from fallout from mistakes (or malicious actions) of others?

#87

Well, pure capitalism. Go look at England during the industrial revolution. That’s pure capitalism. Mix some socialism in there, and we have our modern society. Both extreme ends have been tried during history (Capitalism and Communism), and both didn’t work out well. We learned from history, and we got better. At least we think we did.

#88

Consumers create jobs huh? Lol. So all you need is a guy ready to consume a product that hasn’t yet been made and jobs magically appear out of nowhere?
Maybe after watching this you will realize how wrong you are about consumers creating jobs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G3Qefbt0n4&t=6m15s

You’re the one who said they’re not being rewarded for their work (being productive), so don’t “no shit” me. Your comment stating capitalism is not rewarding to those who work is bullshit.

Meh here you go again, stating capitalism does not reward people because there’s a few billionaires around. As I stated earlier, most people work for a living and they get rewarded for doing so. I thought you would have gotten that by now.

Lol most companies don’t even hire dishwashers anymore, they buy a washing machine. You know why? Because the minimum wage laws make it cheaper for them to buy dishwashers rather then to hire a person. You just proved my point.

Way to ignore my statement, you simply can’t get around the fact that the government NEVER CREATES wealth. They get ALL of their real wealth from the people through taxation. When will you finally understand this?

LOL so governments are all so deep in debt because they didn’t take enough money from the people? Well hey, why don’t you make an example by giving all your income to the state. And if you know government spending causes debt, then why the fuck are you being such a poster boy for bail-outs and government liabilities? Contradict yourself much. And he says I’m the one whose full of shit. This is getting more hilarious by the hour!

I’m not denying the morality behind these programs, looking at it from such a point I would certainly agree those programs are for the good of the people. BUT, that doesn’t change the fact that they are unsustainable. These programs are by far the largest portion of government spending, and pretty much every nation is in debt. The US is the primary example of just how hard these liabilities have failed. Yes they are nice, no they are not sustainable. Again, the government creates absolutely no wealth. It’s the people that work that create the wealth. But if you think printing money out of thin air is going to pay the bills, you might want to check out Germany 1923 again.

You sound like a religious person: “prove that god doesn’t exist!”
It’s your fucking statement, you have the burden of proof. So prove it.

It will, but don’t even think for one second that printing money that doesn’t exist to ‘save’ the business will do any different. Otherwise we might as well bail-out every single business on this planet that fails, but they’re not doing that. For obvious reasons.

Forced the government to do what they did? Lol. All they had to do was cut spending on the liabilities or simply default because by now default is inevitable anyway (unless you cut spending). You’re pathetic, spending endless piles of money on government liabilities and then blame the others for putting us in this horrible situation of ridiculous debt. Wow. Just wow.

So next time anyone goes down all we have to do is print some extra money and save them! Holy shit daniel you’re a genius. Why do we even work! Lets go to the bank. Free money! YAYYYYYYYYYY!

Debt. Government created debt. That’s all I have to say.

#89

Oh, okay, I guess debate over then, huh.

Oh my gosh. Will you drop it already? I’ve already seen the concluding point you drew from this, which is that we have the right to pool money together to protect ourselves from business. I agree. If you decide it is a good idea to join forces with like minded people on bailing out failing businesses, then start a nonprofit for goodness’ sake. But I don’t agree that you or anyone else gets to decide how I spend my money. Is this not clicking for you, bud? Don’t use the police to force me or anyone else who doesn’t want your misguided “protection” to pay into your fund.

Honestly how old are you? You’re regurgitating a high school class lesson. The laws passed during the industrial revolution were done so after the markets had already weeded out the poor working conditions, etc. I’ll paraphrase a quote: “Government is the person who jumps in front of a parade and pretends to be leading it.”
Sure, there were some fringe areas that still were not up-to-date with this concept and were positively affected by the laws passed; but it just doesn’t make pragmatic sense to put laws down on the books which are supposed to hold up to future conditions. Inefficiency is the word I’m looking for. In the long run, the laws tend to provide hindrances to progress and have a greater negative net effect.

Temporary bandaids.

#90

actually, I’d just ignore this whole clusterfuck of a thread. cut it out already, you arejust saying the same things over and over again and not getting anywhere.

#91

isnt that how it goes in all the massdebate threads?

#92

Sadly ;__;

#93

Really? That’s what you tried to pull on me? Really? This illustrates that you know nothing about business.

Think about it. Why does Starbucks exist? Microsoft? Walmart? Target? Coca Cola? Kraft? TDK? Arm & Hammer?

Why do all these companies exist? To make a profit.

How do these companies make a profit? Selling goods or services.

They cannot sell a good or service without consumers and employees. This island analogy is completely idiotic and does not represent the real world at all.

A business is in business to make money. They provide an idea for a good or service and pay employees to make that good or conduct that service and sell it to consumers. In return, that business makes a profit. A very healthy profit.

Excuse me for a minute. I said that they weren’t rewarded. I never said that they weren’t compensated.

No, it really isn’t. You expend the sweat of your brow and/or the knowledge in your brain. You are compensated for your efforts. You are NOT rewarded for your efforts.

And you completely miss the point. They hire people because there’s a job that needs to be done. And, no, they didn’t buy a machine to do it because of minimum wage laws. Don’t be stupid. A machine is there so that they don’t have to pay an employee at all. Or train an employee. Or give them time off for sickness (unless they break down). They don’t need breaks. They don’t have families. THEY AREN’T HUMAN BEINGS.

That is why businesses buy machines. Not because of minimum wage laws.

I never said government creates wealth. Where are you pulling this one from?

Like CEOs and other executives. They do not create wealth; they get all their real wealth from the people through their work. When will you finally understand this?

Not quite. You’re missing a very important part of the equation. Do you know what that is?

And this is a completely dumbass statement to make. And you know it.

If you think murder or rape is wrong, then you can voluntarily give yourself over to the authorities and voluntarily stay in jail. No. We request a service from the government (I know you can’t get this through your thick skull) and we have to pay for that service.

To get something and not pay for it is theft.

Hold up a moment… Government spending does not necessarily cause debt.

No contradiction. You just don’t understand the subject. Government bailouts help soften the blow to the economy when stupid people (such as yourself) create a recession by completely insane economic practices.

Oh you know this is true. Don’t try to deny it. If a business grows to a certain size and then fails, it takes the economy down with it. We’ve already seen this happen with the subprime crisis. Business fails and the economy suffers. Open your eyes!

Yes, you are full of shit. Because you are saying that the moon doesn’t exist when you’re looking right at it.

There is a reason that these programs are currently unsustainable. Do you know what that reason is?

No. They haven’t failed.

So, you agree with me, then call me full of shit? Hilarious!

I never said that.

Let me ask you this: Why were lending institutions permitted to make risky loans and then gamble on those loans through things like Credit Default Swaps?

Good gravy. You’re still on this “printing money” thing, aren’t you?

I see. You think we’re not allowed to protect ourselves.

Yes. Forced. Unless, of course, you think that not paying your bills is somehow fiscally responsbile.

Like what? Careful on what you cut because what you cut may have an inverse effect on the economy: cutting spending on one program will cause a downturn in the economy. So what do you cut?

Defaulting is a TERRIBLE solution. Seriously? You’re advocating defaulting? And I’m pathetic?

Yes, government created debt. There are two parts of the formula and for you to completely ignore a portion of the formula that is damaging to your talking points makes you disingenuous.

Well, you don’t have to read this thread, do you? :stuck_out_tongue: I don’t go to threads that don’t interest me and then say “I’ll just ignore this thread.” :3

#94

Where do consumers get the money to buy goods or services? By working for companies. So, in effect, it’s the companies that give consumers the ability to consume, and therefore create jobs. You could say, then, that businesses create jobs.

You can go as far back as you want (inception lol) but the reality is that it’s the businesses that create the jobs, influenced by consumer demand.

#95

this. you are merely going in circles.

#96

The issue here is that people are taking the “I am right and you are wrong” approach to debating.

#97

The issue is that the arguments supporting that “I’m right and your wrong” approach have been the same for the last 3 pages.

#98

guys guys the chicken came first

#99

nuh huh

the egg was first

#100

Actually, the chicken definitely came before the egg as we know it. This is scientifically proven.

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