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As an Anarcho Capitalist I feel compelled to ask what is a "safety net" that you think is good?
The End of Capitalism in Germany is here
- Thread starter MisterPantsEyes
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There's a variety of safety nets that we all know are required and that work. At some point we have to be humane. For instance, a doctor has taken an oath and should stick to it - saving a patient's life in the event of a life-threatening emergency should come first, regardless of whether the patient can be identified, has means of payment or even insurence. Legal protections should also exist for employees who are affected by such events so that they're not met with dismissal or disciplinary action upon their return to work, for the simple reason that accidents are beyond our control and there's absolutely no reason to terminate someone's employment based on dumb luck. I know of cases in the UK where workers faced disciplinary action because they didn't call in sick *due to having a heart attack and not being conscious*. Some common sense is required here, we can't stick to policy like robots when the circumstances are extraordinary and clearly not envisioned by whoever wrote the disciplinary protocol. Similarly companies should be prevented from collaborating against consumers behind closed doors - the capitalist system only works if companies in the same sectors of the industry compete. If Time Warner, Comcast and a bunch of other telecoms band together and say "we're going to f*ck everyone and still take subsidies to build the network and thus we'll operate at 93% profit and almost no operating expenses" which is happening right now, someone needs to crack the whip.
You really went out of your way to distort everything single thing I said and answer complete non-sequiturs, so I'll just add this. Monopolies/oligopolis have a way of infiltrating themselves so that it is really hard to avoid them, not to mention squashing the competition. I cannot get a PC without paying the MS tax (mac's are way too expensive... and shit, as far as I'm concerned). You can't avoid companies who treat their employees like shit, because they're fucking everywhere. You can't avoid companies who exploit poor people, because they're everywhere. You can't avoid companies who treat nature and the climate like shit because they're everywhere, and you can't avoid paying for oil one way or the other.
Like Socialism, Democratic Socialism, Communism, Nationalism, Liberalism... I could probably go on for a while. For example, you, vayanui8 and Fox4i are not consistent with each other, and you're all capitalist and mostly liberal.
That's why I said the EU managed to fuck the immigrants and it's citizens. The bucket, as usual, was kicked forward and now there's too many buckets for most people to believe in it anymore.
1º It's not
2º More than happy to. I also donate to UNICEF monthly and regularly give beggars money to eat, sometimes a fair bit. EDIT: I also pay the (somewhat small) tuition of an Angolan girl so she can study.
What have you done for humanity lately?
As to everything else... I'm not good at convincing anyone of anything, and you're not the kind of persons who would hear it (some of you probably never searched the numbers), I just wanted to add my view of how the world works, since no one was getting there. If you believe 19th century-style capitalism will end differently this time, go ahead. Everything that I've said is from lots of reading and some research of history, the effects of economic policy (especially about the past 8 years, how the crisis came about, and how very, very soon will get another bubble on top of this one), how the IMF manages to always fuck up countries, how wealth has nothing to do with capability in the post-soviet era, how companies actually work, and on and so forth.
BTW, I don't believe capitalism is inherently bad, I'm mostly saying it's current implementation is completely out of whack with the needs of the people and that it really doesn't work and thus is not going to be around for much longer.
If you don't believe in any of it, it doesn't matter, not anymore, there's nothing that can stop the myriad of crises that are going to happen pretty soon. So, GG, HF, HAND and enjoy life.
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I agree as most every term nowadays is so mixed that they almost have no meaning.
You can buy PC's that come pre installed with linux instead of windows, its just rare because not many people want them. You aren't required to pay microsoft anything when you get a pc, there are alternatives. You can build your own, have someone build one for you, you could even buy a mac, though I know you don't like that option(nor do I). Most PCs come with windows preinstalled because its what most people want. The vast majority of PC users want windows on their system because it is a good product for them. Prebuilt PCs aren't aimed at power users, they're aimed at people who have absolutely no idea what they're doing.
As for avoiding companies, the entire point I'm making is that the reason you can't avoid companies with bad practices because people don't really care about those bad practices. Its easy to criticize them and try to take away their freedom in order to get what you want when you don't have to make any sacrifices yourself. If you really hate how these companies act, make a new company. Advertise it for the new, better policies. If people really care, if they really want that change, they will support you instead of your competition. The cold hard truth is that people don't support these companies because they don't care as much as they say they do. saving a few dollars on the product matters far more than how the employees are treated. I'm not saying you don't care, I'm not saying nobody cares, but if most people don't care, then change won't happen, and it shouldn't happen. You shouldn't just demand change at someone elses expense, you have to make sacrifices yourself if you really have a problem.
With all that said, I probably got a little impassioned during my previous post, and probably sounded too harsh.
Building my own is not a terrible idea, except for laptops. When there were around in Portugal (maybe there is another shop by now?), they weren't terribly good.
Mac's are unmaintainable and have limited hardware by design, so that's a non-starter.
Me making a new company isn't really going to do anything about global warming, waterbed pollution, our country's huge amount of fires, make Lisbon livable after an earthquake like 1755, stop bank owners from committing crimes and other things that always involve everyone else paying and so on and so forth.
Ok, so people don't care, well, they are starting to care because their standards of living keep going down.
Laptops tend to have pretty bad longevity unless you put alot of money into them. If you're looking for a PC that will last you a long time I'd definitely recommend a desktop. Building your own will always net you a good deal, so I'd definitely recommend it.
What if I don't care about global warming or pollution, and would rather get a cheaper product instead? Without putting these laws in place, I have the choice to support the company I prefer, and you have the choice to support the company you prefer. We both get to support the practices we like, and if one is far more popular the other will potentially go out of business because there wasn't any real demand for it. By your standard you simply get rid of the option I prefer, because you think its wrong. Its nothing but forcing your own views on others.
As for Bank some of the other issues, I'd really need to see what you mean by crimes, as that can be rather vague. Keep in mind that I am not arguing for 100% anarchy here, I just believe that we need an absolute minimum of laws, and that any laws that aren't necessary should not exist.
Asus usually does my fine. If I hadn't dropped my 3 year old laptop, it'd hum for a while (even then, it was just the screen). I'm doing my master's degree, so I need a laptop. The desktop is upgraded with faster parts whenever. I never spend all that much, and due to the games I play, I don't really "need" to.
You might not care now about many things, but that doesn't mean you won't have to deal with it, especially with global warming. And if GMO stop being labeled, good luck figuring out how not to be debilitated with IBS or several allergies.
Sure, it's not like it usually makes the headlines.
All American Banks created derivatives of sub-prime loans and promised great returns, not studying whether that would be true or outright lying. In simple terms, they made mortgages that were very likely to not be paid off, bundled them up into financial products and sold them off as profitable. It was so successful and profitable (for a decade) that it created a huge real-estate bubble that made home prices rise sharply and increased the risks off default, while becoming a huge percentage of bank's worth. Sometime in 2008 someone started selling enough that it crashed hard, leading to closure of the American Stock Market and a huge recession, because a ton of money didn't actually exist and the economy doesn't deal well with it. All the American banks were technically bankrupt within a day. No one was criminally held accountable, the banks got a huge loan to fix themselves up (except one who was the scapegoat and got split), including one bank who knew how bad things would turn out that it bought financial products that bet it's own products would bottom out. The law didn't change, so subprimes are again starting to be a big part of the American economy.
Also, American student loans are a huge bubble now, with the country backing the loans which cannot be defaulted, no matter what. Being backed by the country, tuition has risen immensely leaving students in debt for half their career and the money pretty much has not been spent on education quality. Thanks, Obama!
The Libor scandals, which you're better off reading the wikipedia than me trying to explain.
And now for something more close to home, since it's probably not very well known outside the country. Most of our private banks loaned money to family, friends, and heads of other banks, since they couldn't lend to themselves. This was done through a lot of shell companies and tax heavens so that no one could tell what was going on. Since the loans went through foreign banks, they could lie and hide when investments failed and money disappeared. A lot of this money went to finance the construction industry, who would spend it all in outsourcing to companies of the same group and then declare bankruptcy without much of anything having been built. When the crisis came, the banks were quickly found to be bankrupt, with the amount of missing money increasing steadily as the ledgers (right term?) were investigated. No one is in jail, with the most likely person to do so being clearly senile scapegoat by now. No money was ever traced. A few days before the failure of the biggest bank (BES), the president and the central bank promised the bank was ok, while a clairvoyant major share owner company linked to politics somehow got rid of their shares. Before the latest bankruptcy, when everyone knew BANIF wasn't well due to state intervention, a media company said that it it would close down, causing a crash and the need of an immediate resolution. Mysteriously, a major stock holder of that company ended up with the bank paying very little to the state, solving their own money problems because of BANIF's assets.
The big public bank was also run somewhat in the same way, but I don't know the details, I don't think much of it is out yet. It was managed by people who came from other banks...
Then there's the Icelandic banks... And deity knows what's going on with Deutsche Bank. Well, I'm sure Scheuble has nothing to do with it.
Ah, thats always a bit of an issue. Hopefully when you finish up you'll be able to have a bit more freedom with your purchase since you won't be restricted to a laptop. Asus is a pretty solid brand though. I've had good experiences with alot of their products.
Like I said, I just don't care and I'm willing to take the risk. I should be able to do that. Global warming will likely have no effect in my life time and there are some debates as to whether its an issue at all. If I make a choice and regret it later, so be it. That is the cost of freedom. As for GMOs, I don't see any reason they have to be labelled. Even if they aren't required to be labelled, many companies will be willing to label them, as it makes a wonderful advertising campaign for someone to put that it isn't a GMO. I personally have no issue with a product being a GMO, and it won't affect my willingness to purchase it. You don't have to worry much about GMOs because if something isn't a GMO, theyll make sure you know. It makes it sell very well to people who are concerned with such things.
It seems we definitely have some common ground here. Like I said, I am not an anarchist, I just believe we need to have as little regulation as possible. Things like theft, falsely labeling products, and breaking contracts are not things I support. To use your GMO example from earlier, while I do not believe everything has to have a label on it, that doesn't mean I think your should be able to sell something that is genetically modified and put a giant label on it saying it isn't. Thats false advertising and that isn't acceptable. I also don't believe in bailing out the banks.
There is no scientific debate about global warming, and very little on whether it's human caused. There is also not much debate about the consequences - BTW, the latest studies have been finding we've been too conservative in the estimates. We kinda need a miracle by now, not to prevent human extinction, but to prevent big migrations and find out where food will grow.
Well, lucky you not having a debilitating disease. I'd rather not having to pay more to keep my condition worsening, gluten-free is expensive enough. Well, I suppose I'll always have the freedom to kill myself to deal with it.
Seeing that doctors have little idea about how it works or why it's spreading along with miscellaneous allergies, or, IMHO, don't have much of a clue why people have issues eating stuff, I'd prefer we didn't meddle more with stuff that makes me sick (whatever it is, doctors are just dismissive, and I've been to a lot of them and did a lot of annoying exams).
There was no other choice. If a major bank closes overnight, since they are really, really big, the economy will stall and banks runs will quickly make the rest of the banking system collapse (they only have a small percentage of the money since they can create money by duplicating a significant fraction of deposits) . Without banks, there's a quick death of capitalism and society. In the middle of a huge recession, you wouldn't even need a big bank, even the closure of a tiny one like BPP caused a bit of a panic here.
Nationalizing them wouldn't solve it either, since the money has to be taken from somewhere else to continue fueling business and guarantee deposits. Either we have something like Glass-Steagall, a lot of real oversight and stop having a revolving door between government, financial system and central banks, or we have to have much smaller banks. If not, it will just happen again. Keep in mind a hell of lot of the mess was created by things that are completely legal. What's the EU solution? Remove all incentive to investing by making creditors the first losers in case of bank bankruptcy while in the middle of a huge recession bordering on secular stagnation that's making pretty much every single European bank have cash flow problems. Well done, again, Germany, I'm a total believer of Euro survival now!
This is the kind of thing that I mean with 21st century capitalism, BTW - no oversight, no responsibility, revolving doors and governments having to pay the bill to avoid societal collapse.
Watching the parliament, this guy is utterly based. He talks about how we need a 'millionaire tax', that Apple and other capitalist businesses need to pay taxes already and that billionaires shouldn't exist at all. Socialism is drawing nearer every day.
Lol they can talk as much as they want and nothing will change ... how old are you ? They are promissing so much for so long and nothing happened most of the time.
plus you see groups like the "AfD" getting 20+ percent and you think it will result in a better future ?
Even your "Die Grünen" could not get over the 5% hurdle any more and I doubt it will stay with only that one Bundesland in Germany.
plus you see groups like the "AfD" getting 20+ percent and you think it will result in a better future ?
Even your "Die Grünen" could not get over the 5% hurdle any more and I doubt it will stay with only that one Bundesland in Germany.
@Lucifer666, I've been reading my responses in this thread and I noticed that I made a critical mistake which I'm compelled to correct as it's a necessary element of the capitalist equation. You said that there is a finite amount of wealth and that distributing it equally makes sense, as unequal distribution creates injustices and inequality, to which I responded that wealth is finite, but there is no reason as to why it should be distributed equally when people do not contribute to society equally, or even comparably, having the variety of industries and trades available in mind. I want to clarify that by "wealth" in that particular instance I meant specifically money, which is finite at any given time until more of it is printed (and even then money still consistently changes in value, so it's hard to equate "wealth" to the amount of pieces of paper that represent it as what this paper is worth is subject to market fluctuations). Wealth itself is not finite at all and can be created - in fact, we do it all the time, that's the basis of economy. When your mother takes a loaf of bread, slices it, spreads some butter on it and adds some ham and cheese, the sandwiches she made are "worth" more than each of the ingredients individually, or all of the ingredients put together. Her labour transferred directly into an increase in value, she took base components and improved upon them. If she were to sell them, she would receive money for her labour, thus "creating" wealth. A bunch of clay is worth nothing, but it can be reworked into an intricate vase that does have value. The idea that wealth should not be accumulated is flawed as wealth is not finite - society creates wealth all the time.
I'm 18 and things haven't changed because they aren't in power yet. This will change in 2017...
About Die Grünen, they got over 30% in BW.
BTW, here's a must see: A capitalist explains what's so """""great""""" about America (CRINGE WARNING).
Last edited by MisterPantsEyes,
God forbid employees fulfil contracts that they willingly agreed to and signed. You're acting as if it's the socialists who came up with a 5-day work week, when in fact it was introduced by Henry Ford, who wanted to attract experienced workers to his factory. He also paid them double the average wage, the filthy capitalist. It's almost as if employers were competing with each other in order to get the most qualified employees.I'm 18 and things haven't changed because they aren't in power yet. This will change in 2017...
About Die Grünen, they got over 30% in BW.
BTW, here's a must see: A capitalist explains what's so """""great""""" about America (CRINGE WARNING).
Yes you are, which is noticeable by the fact that you expect anything to change soon, and peacefully at that.
That's because they were.
Oh? So unions were broadly ignored, previous laws were not enforced and Ford was the first to actually introduce a programme like this that guaranteed 8-hour work days and 5-day work weeks for his employees in order to be more competitive? So I didn't make a mistake? Great. I'll give it to you though, the idea was floating about in the aether earlier, so there's that.
It's baffling how there's so many people who so willfully disregard and mock the selfless blood, sweat and tears shed by our forbears to give us a better civilization, but we are what we are.
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