# The End of Capitalism in Germany is here



## MisterPantsEyes (Aug 15, 2016)

So I think we all can agree that capitalism is the cancer that is killing us and that democratic socialism is what we need to have.

Now, I can bring you the happy news. It is pretty much confirmed that Germany will get a coalition of the SPD (Socialdemocratic Party Germany), Die Linke (The Lefts) and Die Grünen (The Greens) in 2017. For those who don't know what that means, all these parties are socialistic-minded and want to save the country from the cancer that is called capitalism.

And I'm so sorry for America, they must endure either Hillary "I take money from Wallstreet" Clinton or Donald "I'm a literal retard" Trump. Bernie could've saved them, but sadly too many Americans are blinded by capitalism.

What do you think?


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## Boogieboo6 (Aug 15, 2016)

'MERICA!


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## Catastrophic (Aug 15, 2016)

You can't _just_ end capitalism in a capitalist country. Fuck you on about?


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## Nightwish (Aug 15, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> For those who don't know what that means, all these parties are socialistic-minded and want to save the country from the cancer that is called capitalism.



That couldn't possibly be a more loaded post, could it? They're not socialist by any stretch, and capitalism doesn't have to be laisez-faire bullshit.
If it happens, and if they would quickly put an end to the current enrich the rich policies and decide for sane economic policy, they might still save the Euro and the EU.
Big ifs and big maybes, I still think it's too late.


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## Engert (Aug 16, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> So I think we all can agree that capitalism is the cancer that is killing us and that democratic socialism is what we need to have.
> 
> Now, I can bring you the happy news. It is pretty much confirmed that Germany will get a coalition of the SPD (Socialdemocratic Party Germany), Die Linke (The Lefts) and Die Grünen (The Greens) in 2017. For those who don't know what that means, all these parties are socialistic-minded and want to save the country from the cancer that is called capitalism.
> 
> ...



You have to take your country back because Merkel is turning your country into shit.


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## Deleted User (Aug 16, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> So I think we all can agree that capitalism is the cancer that is killing us and that democratic socialism is what we need to have.


Care to explain? Also I don't think it's just as easy to SAY "hey guys waddup we have stopped capitilizm in Germany". It's a economical system. Something what the country depends on. Not just something you say to be gone and that's it.


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## vayanui8 (Aug 16, 2016)

I love capitalism


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## Justinde75 (Aug 16, 2016)

Germany doesn't really have a democracy. They SAY they listen to us and make changes with us, but in reality they just do what they want. And usually its against us. They make things much more expensive, they want more taxes, or they give much less money to old people that can't work anymore because of thier age. Its sad that you see over 80 year old men and women running around and collecting bottles and stuff, since they can't pay for thier house, food etc. . Its just terrible


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## Logan Pockrus (Aug 16, 2016)

Capitalism is a must if you want to consider yourself (and your country) "free".


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## Futurdreamz (Aug 16, 2016)

Logan Pockrus said:


> Capitalism is a must if you want to consider yourself (and your country) "free".


To an extent. If you go too far, you get to the point where you're "free to exploit others" if you're rich enough. Why else could Clinton and Trump be the actual presidential candidates? The core assumption behind capitalism is that people are smart enough to make correct decisions on their own, which isn't always the case. If you had the choice of buying a car for $30,000 that meets current safety regulations or buying an identical car for $20,000 which doesn't meet any safety regulations, you will buy the $20,000 car convinced you will never be in danger - and then you die in an accident that you would've been unharmed in with the $30,000 car.


It's all about striking the right balance, and always has been. And even then there may be circumstances that the party cannot control or are ill equipped to handle. Here in Alberta we kicked out the Conservatives after 40 years because they were getting pretty corrupt, and elected the NDP. Immediately after we got hit _hard_ by the big drop in global oil price, which the NDP never anticipated or planned for. So now they have to reconsider the tax adjustments and social programs they were planing. I can't really verify how good of a job they are doing, and I doubt anyone else can. I'm fairly certain we will elect the Wild Rose Party next election, which we will then keep in power for decades until they start to get corrupt.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Aug 16, 2016)

From what I understand, Germany is part socialist, part capitalist, with the socialist part being weighted a little heavier. It's basically the opposite of America, where we are part capitalist, part socialist, with the capitalist part being heavily weighted

(I'm about to get a lot of hate mail for saying that America is a Social Capitalist country, aren't I?...)


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## Logan Pockrus (Aug 16, 2016)

Futurdreamz said:


> To an extent. If you go too far, you get to the point where you're "free to exploit others" if you're rich enough. Why else could Clinton and Trump be the actual presidential candidates? The core assumption behind capitalism is that people are smart enough to make correct decisions on their own, which isn't always the case. If you had the choice of buying a car for $30,000 that meets current safety regulations or buying an identical car for $20,000 which doesn't meet any safety regulations, you will buy the $20,000 car convinced you will never be in danger - and then you die in an accident that you would've been unharmed in with the $30,000 car.
> 
> 
> It's all about striking the right balance, and always has been. And even then there may be circumstances that the party cannot control or are ill equipped to handle. Here in Alberta we kicked out the Conservatives after 40 years because they were getting pretty corrupt, and elected the NDP. Immediately after we got hit _hard_ by the big drop in global oil price, which the NDP never anticipated or planned for. So now they have to reconsider the tax adjustments and social programs they were planing. I can't really verify how good of a job they are doing, and I doubt anyone else can. I'm fairly certain we will elect the Wild Rose Party next election, which we will then keep in power for decades until they start to get corrupt.


I agree with you, "to an extent" (as you put it).  Another important aspect of capitalism is "free market" (I'll save myself the effort of explaining what it is in detail, as I'm sure you already know).  It allows anyone, in any financial situation, to start a business, without government intervention.  Not only that, but you can choose from a multitude of different stores/shops/businesses to purchase whatever it is you need - what's important to note here is that monopolies are disallowed as well.

Anyway, it seems you won this round.  I can't seem to get my thoughts together right now.
(But what I was trying to say is, capitalism's advantages outweigh its disadvantages, in my opinion.)


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## BORTZ (Aug 16, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> So I think we all can agree


This is my favorite part


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## rasputin (Aug 16, 2016)

The same, self called elite rule us all, whatever puppets we call government.


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## vayanui8 (Aug 16, 2016)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> (I'm about to get a lot of hate mail for saying that America is a Social Capitalist country, aren't I?...)


No, there is definitely a socialist element right now. I personally believe very strongly that we need to get rid of it. Though based on some of your previous posts I'm guessing that you probably disagree with me on that


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## TotalInsanity4 (Aug 16, 2016)

vayanui8 said:


> No, there is definitely a socialist element right now. I personally believe very strongly that we need to get rid of it. Though based on some of your previous posts I'm guessing that you probably disagree with me on that


There's definitely a place for socialism, especially in the coming industry shifts (robotic workers, stuff like that)

I get both sides of the argument, though


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## Minox (Aug 16, 2016)

There is no way they're going to make such radical changes just because they get elected. They may make some changes, but capitalism will be alive and well.


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## ultramario1998 (Aug 16, 2016)

It doesn't matter what economic system your country has. Time and time again, history has proven that there will always be corruption, no matter what you do, no matter if you're capatilist, socialist, Maoist, or anything else. (Especially Maoist, did you see what those guys were doing?)

I can't speak for the current political state of Europe at all, and I CERTAINLY can't speak for any form of socialism. I do, however, think that even if socialist candidates were elected in Germany, very little would change. People are simply resistant to any sort of seismic change in general.

Shouldn't we be trying to get rid of that corruption instead of having our little circlejerk about governmental structure?


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## Engert (Aug 16, 2016)

Logan Pockrus said:


> Capitalism is a must if you want to consider yourself (and your country) "free".



Ahahah. I just shat my pants.


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## Flame (Aug 16, 2016)

people who don't love Capitalism are a Communist.

...





..


im looking at you @ComeTurismO


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## Nightwish (Aug 16, 2016)

Flame said:


> people who don't love Capitalism are a Communist.


Is that supposed to be an insult? You must really try harder.


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## Flame (Aug 16, 2016)

Nightwish said:


> Is that supposed to be an insult? You must really try harder.



insult?

its the truth.


fox news told me so.


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## Youkai (Aug 16, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> So I think we all can agree that capitalism is the cancer that is killing us and that democratic socialism is what we need to have.
> 
> Now, I can bring you the happy news. It is pretty much confirmed that Germany will get a coalition of the SPD (Socialdemocratic Party Germany), Die Linke (The Lefts) and Die Grünen (The Greens) in 2017. For those who don't know what that means, all these parties are socialistic-minded and want to save the country from the cancer that is called capitalism.
> 
> ...




Why the hell would you start a Topic like that in an English peaking forum ? -.-V

And actually you know that there is at least 3 lobbyists for every politician here in Germany ? and that these are not all just from the CDU/CSU ... the SPD and Grünen handed out lots of invites to those guys as well ...
How can you be so sure they will "win?" and cooperate ? if the SPD wants to create a new law and the Linken still say no to it together with the CDU they won't be able to do anything again as always.


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## RevPokemon (Aug 19, 2016)

So is Bernie Sanders the ruler of Germany now?


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## guisadop (Aug 19, 2016)

Well, I surely hope it does not come back. Germans don't deserve another dark age. East germans know what I'm talking about.

EDIT: actually, anyone who lives or has lived in a country in which socialism was practiced knows what I'm talking about. There is no "democratic socialism", it's authoritarian by definition.


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## Nightwish (Aug 19, 2016)

guisadop said:


> Well, I surely hope it does not come back. Germans don't deserve another dark age. East germans know what I'm talking about..


Yeah, I'm sure Germans are pretty happy at having no wage increases for 15 years while their banks do whatever the fuck they want, and are now broke.
Yay Capitalism with no regulation!


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## TotalInsanity4 (Aug 19, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> So is Bernie Sanders the ruler of Germany now?


For what it's worth, Sanders' plan was never to end capitalism, it was just to balance it a bit better for the middle class by implementing socialist policies


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## RevPokemon (Aug 19, 2016)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> For what it's worth, Sanders' plan was never to end capitalism, it was just to balance it a bit better for the middle class by implementing socialist policies


Of course I know that. Multiple times he sated that capitalism could work just under more regulations. I stated that as a joke, since some felt that he was the man who would end capitalism (which he was not nor would he)



guisadop said:


> actually, anyone who lives or has lived in a country in which socialism was practiced knows what I'm talking about. There is no "democratic socialism", it's authoritarian by definition.


Democratic Socialism and Bureaucratic Socialism are different. People advocate for the former and are against the latter



Nightwish said:


> Yeah, I'm sure Germans are pretty happy at having no wage increases for 15 years while their banks do whatever the fuck they want, and are now broke.
> Yay Capitalism with no regulation!


The bigger problem is crony capitalism.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Aug 19, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> The bigger problem is crony capitalism.


I'm gonna have to disagree there, the root of the problem really _is _capitalism with either no regulation or regulations that favor corporations. I say this because there will always be one asshole who will take advantage of the system provided to him when there are no repercussions, which instantly turns it into crony capitalism


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## RevPokemon (Aug 19, 2016)

I must first state that GBATemp of all places is not an ideal place to discuss such civic affairs, but nevertheless



TotalInsanity4 said:


> regulations that favor corporations.


Which is crony capitalism



TotalInsanity4 said:


> I say this because there will always be one asshole who will take advantage of the system provided to him when there are no repercussions, which instantly turns it into crony capitalism


Absolutely but consider that it also varies on the amount of abuse and ultimately is a thing that should be eliminated. 



TotalInsanity4 said:


> the root of the problem really _is _capitalism with either no regulation


This is where I disagree (and I feel you do/will disagree with me). Regulation generally causes harm to the economy in that it essentially tries to control the market and ultimately fails since its control is artificial, but that is a whole nudder topic in its self.


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## Pacheko17 (Aug 19, 2016)

You can't be happy about capitalism ending, you fucking dipshit! 

I live in Brazil, a country that tried to end capitalism for 13 years and look at the deep shit we're in right now, and how our new right wing capitalist government is making everything good again. 

Germany is doomed if that's the case, Germany has been doomed for a long time because of the stupid self hating left. 

Never thought I'd say this, but we need another Hitler.


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## TotalInsanity4 (Aug 19, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> Which is crony capitalism


My apologies, you're right, I thought it meant something else


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## RevPokemon (Aug 19, 2016)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> My apologies, you're right, I thought it meant something else


Out of curiosity what did you think I was speaking about?


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## weatMod (Aug 19, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> So I think we all can agree that capitalism is the cancer that is killing us and that democratic socialism is what we need to have.
> 
> Now, I can bring you the happy news. It is pretty much confirmed that Germany will get a coalition of the SPD (Socialdemocratic Party Germany), Die Linke (The Lefts) and Die Grünen (The Greens) in 2017. For those who don't know what that means, all these parties are socialistic-minded and want to save the country from the cancer that is called capitalism.
> 
> ...


i think you should go back to socialism
 national socialism


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## TotalInsanity4 (Aug 19, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> Out of curiosity what did you think I was speaking about?


Basically what I said, a bunch of people who take advantage of lax policies to get rich as opposed to an official government sanction


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## gbaboy123 (Aug 19, 2016)

We all need a small loan of a million dollars


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## RevPokemon (Aug 19, 2016)

TotalInsanity4 said:


> Basically what I said, a bunch of people who take advantage of lax policies to get rich as opposed to an official government sanction


Ok.

And another thing I forgot, we really need to prevent revolving doors.


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## MisterPantsEyes (Aug 19, 2016)

If anyone cares, I did a test on politicalcompass.org and this is the result:


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## Engert (Aug 19, 2016)

In case you've missed the news, most of Europe is socialist and I hope they vote Merkel out of office who's responsible for destabilizing Europe with her moronic policies on immigration.


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## KingpinSlim (Aug 19, 2016)

I think you have no idea what you are talking about and what is actually going on in Germany or Europe.
Germany is becoming a horrible cesspit of racism once again and Nazi-parties are once again getting elected.
How could you have missed that?
The execution of the refugee-crisis was handled poorly and a lot of germans are doing what they always do when they are scared... they vote for Nazis again.
No one took the time to check what kind of people we actually let in and now we don't just have people fleeing war and death... we also have dangerous criminals in our midst.
Germans are among the most peaceful people in the world until they no longer feel safe in their own homes and then they begin to lash out.

You think we are bout to become socialists again?
That we will live in harmony with others and share what we have?
Don't fucking kid yourself.
It's about to get much worse if this situation isn't resolved quickly.


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## Engert (Aug 19, 2016)

Whoa whoa whoa.
I think you and others here are missing the point which is "how did you get here"?
Cos no one is advocating Nazis again. I think it's pretty clear where that lead.
So the question is "why are you in this situation again?"
Because of fucking Merkel that's why. So you got no one to blame but yourselves.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Vote Merkel out, get a handle on immigration who is raping your female population and then we can go back to somewhat normal situation.
Not to mention here that at this point Merkel is such as pacifist that she can't even tell Erdogan to "fuck off" with his authoritarian rule.


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## Youkai (Aug 19, 2016)

KingpinSlim said:


> I think you have no idea what you are talking about and what is actually going on in Germany or Europe.
> Germany is becoming a horrible cesspit of racism once again and Nazi-parties are once again getting elected.
> How could you have missed that?
> The execution of the refugee-crisis was handled poorly and a lot of germans are doing what they always do when they are scared... they vote for Nazis again.
> ...



Finally someone living in reality ! (not a joke)

Most people really have no clue at all and just don't care, that's actually why the Brexit happened 

@Engert
So everyone is socialist in Europe ? that's news to me oO
Most Partys declare themself as Social that's true but in the end none of them is ...

And Socialism can never work anyways so who cares, everything a human does is actualy for Capitalism.
Else there would be much more Social workers doing it for free but there are rarely people doing social works especially when they don't get paid



Engert said:


> Whoa whoa whoa.
> I think you and others here are missing the point which is "how did you get here"?
> Cos no one is advocating Nazis again. I think it's pretty clear where that lead.
> So the question is "why are you in this situation again?"
> ...



You know that not Merkel made the War down there right ? it was mainly America and even the Turks and whatever fueling this since years

I don't like her and I never voted for her and I am not happy with all the foreigners coming in here especially not as they are not even ALLOWED ! to work even if they wanted so we have to pay everything for them -.-V

Still people blaming everything on here are just plainly wrong

I guess news in most part of the world only show a small part of the big thing and the first thing they usually show is Merkel telling everyone to come to Europe ...


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## Phantom64 (Aug 19, 2016)

cool with a far left wing Germany EUSSR would be a thing 


Spoiler: no thanks


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## Engert (Aug 19, 2016)

Sigh. @Youkai yes they're not socialist like Lenin or Stalin but they are socialist in policies and in the way government runs.
Compared to USA , Europe is socialist.


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## KingpinSlim (Aug 19, 2016)

Youkai said:


> Finally someone living in reality ! (not a joke)
> 
> Most people really have no clue at all and just don't care, that's actually why the Brexit happened
> 
> ...


You know what the worst part about all this is?
I am not happy here and i want to get out, but... where should i go?
Sure, it's horrible here and about to get much worse, but there really isn't a place that is any better.
I have no options.
So i stay, avoid the whole situation and hide.


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## Ray Koopa (Aug 19, 2016)

If you think that coalition will change or end capitalism, then epic slowclap, you're probably living in your capitalism-is-cancer dreams.


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## KingpinSlim (Aug 19, 2016)

Engert said:


> Sigh. @Youkai yes they're not socialist like Lenin or Stalin but they are socialist in policies and in the way government runs.
> Compared to USA , Europe is socialist.


That is not how this works and you simply do not grasp the words you are using.
Nothing is suddenly socialist just because you compared it to something else.
Something is either socialist, or it isn't.

Socialism is a political system that works by revoking ownership, controlling the economy and dictating peoples lifes.
I am clueless why you think europe would suddenly exhibit all of these aspects if you only compare it to the USA.
You can compare Europe to the moon and it still would not be acurate.
Your statement is ridiculously void of any merrit.
You do not understand what socialism is and i do not think you understand how comparisons work.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 19, 2016)

Capitalism and democracy do not exclude eachother - they exist alongside eachother and belong to separate categories. You don't have to pick, you can have both. Democracy is a system of government, capitalism is an economic model, so the whole premise of the thread is pointless. As for capitalism being the "cancer that's killing us", it's absolutely false - capitalism is the driving force of progress. Before the dynamic duo of capitalism and democracy came along, the history of mankind consisted of a 100 000 years of divisions into feifdoms and constant war over territory and resources. Today we live in some of the most peaceful times in history, crime rates are lowest since the beginning of time, education levels are highest they've ever been and we're not constantly on the verge of poverty anymore because some feudal d*ckhead took all our harvest as payment for an arbitrary tax. Thinking that capitalism causes problems exposes a fundamental lack of understanding how the market works. Capitalism is a system in which the customer is always right and companies are in a constant battle over who can provide goods and services more efficiently and at a better value, capitalism behooves you. Problems occur when corrupt idiots in governments enact regulations that restrict the mechanisms of the free market, create monopolies or make fair competition impossible. In a truly capitalist system citizens can band together against a shitty corporation and run it out of business by providing a better service, which is exactly what Uber is doing to taxi corporations as we speak. The invention and introduction of the capitalist model is one of humanity's greatest achievements and thinking otherwise is immature and naive. You'll grow out of it eventually, to be precise, you'll grow out of it when you'll achieve something in life and socialists will immediately neg you to share it with everybody else, even though they've had zero input into your success. Capitalism is the only system that incentivises initiative and self-improvement and rewards hard work and creative, inventive thinking - it's what we need more of, not less.


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## Engert (Aug 19, 2016)

@KingpinSlim  I think you are not being logical about this whole thing when you talk about schematics like this is a court room. 
When the government pays for schools and healthcare is called to be LIKE a socialist government. 
In USA government doesn't pay for schools for all its citizens and doesn't pay for their healthcare.
I think you need to get your perseptions straight.


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## KingpinSlim (Aug 19, 2016)

Engert said:


> @KingpinSlim  I think you are not being logical about this whole thing when you talk about schematics like this is a court room.
> When the government pays for schools and healthcare is called to be LIKE a socialist government.
> In USA government doesn't pay for schools for all its citizens and doesn't pay for their healthcare.
> I think you need to get your perseptions straight.


These are not hallmarks of socialism and you thinking that they are makes me sad, but doesn't suprise me.
If a goverment doesn't invest in the health and education of its citizens that makes it a shit goverment, but if a goverment provides these things that doesn't make it socialist in any way, shape or form.
It just makes it a marginably less shit goverment.
You are american, so i am not going to blame you for throwing around sensationalist "buzzwords", because thats what your politicians do. They don't know what they are talking about either and only do it to invoke some sort of emotion in the people when they hear "socialism" and they link any kind of social reform to that word, to keep them away from it.
Social Democracy, Social reform, socialism... it all has "social" in it. Must be the same thing, right?
right?


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## Foxi4 (Aug 19, 2016)

Engert said:


> @KingpinSlim  I think you are not being logical about this whole thing when you talk about schematics like this is a court room.
> When the government pays for schools and healthcare is called to be LIKE a socialist government.
> In USA government doesn't pay for schools for all its citizens and doesn't pay for their healthcare.
> I think you need to get your perseptions straight.


Correction - in both instances it's the citizens who pay for healthcare and education because the government doesn't have any money that belongs to it - the budget of a country consists of tax money. You're paying for both either way, it's just that the payment for public services is cleverly concealed. The problem with public healthcare and education is that you're not just paying for yourself - you're also paying for everybody else. In addition, the U.S. does have public schools and a degree of public healthcare via Medicaid and Medicare.


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## Engert (Aug 19, 2016)

There was a candidate called Bernie sanders who I was going to vote for in this election. 
He had socialist policies, so I know what they are but you're failing to undersand that these are not buzz words from an American but your failure as a people to allow yourselves to get in this situation by having an idealistic leader like Merkel who for the sake of an ideal is abandoning its countrymen.


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## KingpinSlim (Aug 19, 2016)

Engert said:


> There was a candidate called Bernie sanders who I was going to vote for in this election.
> He had socialist policies, so I know what they are but you're failing to undersand that these are not buzz words from an American but your failure as a people to allow yourselves to get in this situation by having an idealistic leader like Merkel who for the sake of an ideal is abandoning its countrymen.



The things you are talking about have nothing to do with Socialism.
Bernie Sanders used that word, too. I know.
He might BE a socialist, but he didn't want socialism for america.
All these things you mentioned are great social things to do.
But still social does not equate socialism.
Do me a favor and at the very least read the wikipedia article on socialism and social democracy, if you don't have the time to read actual books on the subject.
You will see that no part of europe is in the least socialist and that people use this word wrong, all the time and americans are by far the worst offenders here.


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## MisterPantsEyes (Aug 19, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> Capitalism and democracy do not exclude eachother - they exist alongside eachother and belong to separate categories. You don't have to pick, you can have both. Democracy is a system of government, capitalism is an economic model, so the whole premise of the thread is pointless. As for capitalism being the "cancer that's killing us", it's absolutely false - capitalism is the driving force of progress. Before the dynamic duo of capitalism and democracy came along, the history of mankind consisted of a 100 000 years of divisions into feifdoms and constant war over territory and resources. Today we live in some of the most peaceful times in history, crime rates are lowest since the beginning of time, education levels are highest they've ever been and we're not constantly on the verge of poverty anymore because some feudal d*ckhead took all our harvest as payment for an arbitrary tax. Thinking that capitalism causes problems exposes a fundamental lack of understanding how the market works. Capitalism is a system in which the customer is always right and companies are in a constant battle over who can provide goods and services more efficiently and at a better value, capitalism behooves you. Problems occur when corrupt idiots in governments enact regulations that restrict the mechanisms of the free market, create monopolies or make fair competition impossible. In a truly capitalist system citizens can band together against a shitty corporation and run it out of business by providing a better service, which is exactly what Uber is doing to taxi corporations as we speak. The invention and introduction of the capitalist model is one of humanity's greatest achievements and thinking otherwise is immature and naive. You'll grow out of it eventually, to be precise, you'll grow out of it when you'll achieve something in life and socialists will immediately neg you to share it with everybody else, even though they've had zero input into your success. Capitalism is the only system that incentivises initiative and self-improvement and rewards hard work and creative, inventive thinking - it's what we need more of, not less.


This is rediculous. You think that in a socialist society, there would be no new inventions or progress, but this is just wrong.

Here you can see what happens in a capitalistic country when your market is """free""": http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...g/news-story/bd82470b4e2984d2e36ffd42e3218ee1

And if I were rich, of course I'd share the money with others. There shouldn't be people who have millions while others are poor, I think it's the best when we just take most of the money from the rich and give it to the ones who really need it. 

PS: People here joke about how your country is ruled by piss.


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## KingpinSlim (Aug 19, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> This is rediculous. You think that in a socialist society, there would be no new inventions or progress, but this is just wrong.
> 
> Here you can see what happens in a capitalistic country when your market is """free""": http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...g/news-story/bd82470b4e2984d2e36ffd42e3218ee1
> 
> ...



If socialism is so amazing comrade, then explain to me why every communist nation in the world ended up like a spitting image of hell?
You are german, you know exactly what happened when east germany became socialist.
You should know better. You should know how these poor people suffered.
You are either uneducated or blinded by some kind of idealism. Neither option is good.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 19, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> This is rediculous. You think that in a socialist society, there would be no new inventions or progress, but this is just wrong.
> 
> Here you can see what happens in a capitalistic country when your market is """free""": http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...g/news-story/bd82470b4e2984d2e36ffd42e3218ee1
> 
> ...


There were dozens of alternatives to the drug, not to mention that this man is a con artist and he's been arrested for fraud. He's not a "model capitalist", he's a criminal. Not only that, there's nothing capitalist about the drug industry which is heavily subsidised by socialists like yourself who think it's appropriate to give multinational corporations "free money" for some inane reason. Capitalism, in and out of itself, takes care of the customer as dead customers don't tend to spend a lot of money. The system you claim to be faulty put this man in court. I also never said that there would be no progress, however it would be considerably slower. The birth of capitalism fueled the industrial revolution, the most prolific period of scientific discovery and technological development in the history of mankind. You have capitalism to thank for mechanised farming which solved our major problems with the sustainability of our food supply, among other things. Capitalism provides an incentive for development - profit. Socialism does not. I know a couple of fields where you could find better strawmen to beat up. You can make fun of my country all you want, at least I can spell properly. As for sharing, there's a difference between charity and pillaging or theft which you don't seem to understand. Nobody is entitled to the fruits of your labour - there is no public claim on income. "Boo-hoo, give me some of your moooney! I haven't done anything to deserve it, but I waaant it" - go earn your own. Rich people are rich because they and their entire family worked hard across multiple generations to get rich - it's not your money, nor should it be.


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## KingpinSlim (Aug 19, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> There were dozens of alternatives to the drug, not to mention that this man is a con artist and he's been arrested for fraud. He's not a "model capitalist", he's a criminal. Capitalism, in and out of itself, takes care of the customer as dead customers don't tend to spend a lot of money. The system you claim to be faulty put this man in court. I also never said that there would be no progress, however it would be considerably slower. The birth of capitalism fueled the industrial revolution, the most prolific period of scientific discovery and technological development in the history of mankind. You have capitalism to thank for when it comes to mechanised farming which solved our major problems with the sustainability of our food supply. I know a couple of fields where you could find better strawman to beat up.


I hate to admit that you are right. Not because i disagree with anything you are saying, but because i wish you were wrong.
Capitalism, for all intents and purposes is horrible and it makes me miserable, but it still is the best option we have.
Socialism SOUNDS better and i know that many people wish it could be real, but some things only work in books, not in real life.

There is no perfect system and there never will be, because every system by itself could in theory be absolute perfection and yet it will fail at actually being implemented as such.
The greatest enemy to prosperity is idealism.


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## grossaffe (Aug 19, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> So I think we all can agree that capitalism is the cancer that is killing us and that democratic socialism is what we need to have.


Well that's a bold statement to start out with.  An untrue one at that.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 19, 2016)

grossaffe said:


> Well that's a bold statement to start out with.  An untrue one at that.


We should probably start out by saying that we're having this conversation because several corporations had a vested interest in providing us with computer hardware and software as well as providing us with the Internet service that allows us to communicate over long distances. This conversation exists because it was profitable for someone to give us the capability to have it.


KingpinSlim said:


> I hate to admit that you are right. Not because i disagree with anything you are saying, but because i wish you were wrong.
> Capitalism, for all intents and purposes is horrible and it makes me miserable, but it still is the best option we have.
> Socialism SOUNDS better and i know that many people wish it could be real, but some things only work in books, not in real life.
> 
> ...


Capitalism *is* the perfect system, it provides standardised means of exchanging your labour (upon conversion into legal tender) for goods and services and creates a competitive playing field so that companies consistently try to one-up eachother in order to give you better value for your money. Problems arise when someone tries to f*ck with this simple and beautiful system by introducing corruption, cronyism, nepotism and other forms of f*ckery.


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## KingpinSlim (Aug 19, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> We should probably start out by saying that we're having this conversation because several corporations had a vested interest in providing us with computer hardware and software as well as providing us with the Internet service that allows us to communicate over long distances. This conversation exists because it was profitable for someone to give us the capability to have it.
> Capitalism *is* the perfect system, it provides standardised means of exchanging your labour (upon conversion into legal tender) for goods and services and creates a competitive playing field so that companies consistently try to one-up eachother in order to give you better value for your money. Problems arise when someone tries to f*ck with this simple and beautiful system by introducing corruption, cronyism, nepotism and other forms of f*ckery.


I respect your views, but i disagree.
Any system that offers rewards to humans also invites horrible misconduct.
Capitalism is a system that gives humans a lot of freedom.
Therefor in combination with democracy it is my favorite system as well, but to call it perfect is inacurate.
Any system that gives any human the freedom to abuse the system and do harm before he is punished has already failed once it has begun.
Humans, as a whole, are not able to ever reach perfection in anything they do.


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## MisterPantsEyes (Aug 19, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> Correction - in both instances it's the citizens who pay for healthcare and education because the government doesn't have any money that belongs to it - the budget of a country consists of tax money. You're paying for both either way, it's just that the payment for public services is cleverly concealed. The problem with public healthcare and education is that you're not just paying for yourself - you're also paying for everybody else. In addition, the U.S. does have public schools and a degree of public healthcare via Medicaid and Medicare.


This is so wrong that I got mad while reading it. No, you're not paying for everyone else. Poor people pay less money while rich people pay more. If you are poor, you can still have health care and go to university. In capitalistic shitholes, these things are only reserved for the elite and you couldn't afford it. Of course, if you are rich, you pay for others too, but then you still have much more than enough money.



Foxi4 said:


> As for sharing, there's a difference between charity and pillaging or theft which you don't seem to understand. Nobody is entitled to the fruits of your labour - there is no public claim on income. "Boo-hoo, give me some of your moooney! I haven't done anything to deserve it, but I waaant it" - go earn your own.


By reading this I came to the conclusion that you were born in very wealthy family and never experienced poverty and think that all people who aren't rich are just lazy and don't want to work. 

Every human should have enough to at least survive. And nobody should have millions, while there are humans who can't even feed themselves because they don't make enough money. I don't care if you call it theft, it'd be the best if the money from the rich would be taken and distributed to the poor. 

Ah well, what would Jesus do?







Foxi4 said:


> We should probably start out by saying that we're having this conversation because several corporations had a vested interest in providing us with computer hardware and software as well as providing us with the Internet service that allows us to communicate over long distances. This conversation exists because it was profitable for someone to give us the capability to have it.
> Capitalism *is* the perfect system, it provides standardised means of exchanging your labour (upon conversion into legal tender) for goods and services and creates a competitive playing field so that companies consistently try to one-up eachother in order to give you better value for your money. Problems arise when someone tries to f*ck with this simple and beautiful system by introducing corruption, cronyism, nepotism and other forms of f*ckery.


Here's something you should know: Life isn't all about profits and making money. You think that the Internet and computers were only invented because their creators wanted to get rich off it.


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## sj33 (Aug 19, 2016)

As a revolutionary socialist, a coalition of 3 social democratic/soclal liberal parties isn't going to bring Germany any closer to socialism.

They're still capitalist - even Die Linke, despite their roots in the Socialist Unity Party. They just believe in some smiley, happy furry capitalism with a social safety net rather than any kind of actual workers' emancipation or democratic workers' management or control of industries or services.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 19, 2016)

KingpinSlim said:


> I respect your views, but i disagree.
> Any system that offers rewards to humans also invites horrible misconduct.
> Capitalism is a system that gives humans a lot of freedom.
> Therefor in combination with democracy it is my favorite system as well, but to call it perfect is inacurate.
> ...


Abuse of the system is illegal. If a company uses unethical practices, it's an opportunity for the competition to run it into the ground. If it breaks the law with impunity, it's a failure of the government which is unable to execute its own laws and as such is unfit for its function - criminals should be behind bars, but someone needs to put them there. I will agree that the weak link here is definitely the human element, as it's the human element that's prone to corruption and vices.


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## KingpinSlim (Aug 19, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> Abuse of the system is illegal. If a company uses unethical practices, it's an opportunity for the competition to run it into the ground. If it breaks the law with impunity, it's a failure of the government which is unable to execute its own laws and as such is unfit for its function - criminals should be behind bars, but someone needs to put them there. I will agree that the weak link here is definitely the human element, as it's the human element that's prone to corruption and vices.


I agree. You can't blame goverments for everything.
Humans are simply horrible.
Maybe one day future generations will judge us for what we have done.
I only wonder if they will judge us for giving humans to much freedom, or not enough?


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## Foxi4 (Aug 19, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> This is so wrong that I got mad while reading it. No, you're not paying for everyone else. Poor people pay less money while rich people pay more. If you are poor, you can still have health care and go to university. In capitalistic shitholes, these things are only reserved for the elite and you couldn't afford it. Of course, if you are rich, you pay for others too, but then you still have much more than enough money.


Again, your response is uninformed and stupid. It is impossible to not pay into the system, even unemployed people pay into it via VAT. You cannot exist in a European country without paying taxes, so yes, everyone is paying into the pot. Moreover, the fact that everyone is paying for the services in this model rises healthcare and education costs as it's a natural market consequence of getting "free money". By eliminating any incentives to compete for the customer you've effectively created a government monopoly that can charge however much they want without you having a say and provide a shitty service as alternatives are unattainable under the current setup unless you're filthy rich since a private practice has to compete with one that gets "free money" which creates a disparity between their budgets that has to be accounted for when it comes to service fees - one has budget security, the other does not. I know it's hard to understand for a socialist, but perhaps grabbing a book about the basic principles of economy would help.


> By reading this I came to the conclusion that you were born in very wealthy family and never experienced poverty and think that all people who aren't rich are just lazy and don't want to work.


Assumption, and an incorrect one. I come from a working class family and I was brought up by a single mother as my parents divorced when I was very young, so money was always tight. Your crystal ball needs maintenance.


> Every human should have enough to at least survive. And nobody should have millions, while there are humans who can't even feed themselves because they don't make enough money. I don't care if you call it theft, it'd be the best if the money from the rich would be taken and distributed to the poor.


You have to explain to me why someone shouldn't have millions when they earned them and why someone should have anything at all just because they exist. Work is a necessary element of the equation, if everyone "has enough to survive" just by the virtue of existing, there is no reason to work at all.


> Ah well, what would Jesus do?


He would say "Render that which is Caesar's to Caesar and that which is God's onto God". Once again you're confusing charity and socialism - one is selfless, the other is the government telling you that that you're effectively going to work for free for 6 months out of the year because John from across the street, with whom you have no affiliation whatsoever, needs a new pair of shoes. You're the slave, not me.


> Here's something you should know: Life isn't all about profits and making money. You think that the Internet and computers were only invented because their creators wanted to get rich off it.


Not only because they wanted to get rich, but also because the infrastructure that enabled them to create and distribute computers was created by capitalism. Once again you fail to understand how capitalism works. Take Bill Gates as an example - when Microsoft started off, he was making computers in his garage - he was passionate and had a vision. He poured blood and sweat into his business to make it flourish. The capitalist model enabled him to make his vision a reality and because his solutions were more efficient than the competition's, his vision was embraced and he was rewarded for his entrepreneurship by earning billions. His entire fortune is a result of his labour, he deserves every last dollar of it and owes you nothing - in fact, I would argue that you owe him a great deal. He rendered the whole of humanity a huge service by creating the computing model we use everyday. His product enabled other people to make other products and also benefit, this includes you as practically every facet of our lives includes computers these days. His dedication created hundreds of thousands, if not millions of jobs, and not just in Microsoft, but in general due to the ubiquitous nature of computing. His work made our lives better in every way, and what does he do with his money? He's one of the world's biggest philanthropists and he played a major role in eradicating Polio in India. Using capitalist money, I might add. Money is the fuel in the capitalist engine, but the train is steered by people.


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## Engert (Aug 19, 2016)

@KingpinSlim i don't know what's happened to you in your personal life to become so miserable but the rest of us are quite happy and are especially happy with socialist ideas like Bernie Sanders put forth.
Reason you seem very miserable is because again you miss the point of this topics.
Let's reiterate and maybe use the google translator if you're having problems reading English.
The op says "Germany hates capitalism".
This could mean one of the following things:
1. He's trolling
2. He wants to go back to the Nazi era.
3. He wants to go back to communism.
4. He's sick and tired of the current state of affairs in Germany and is looking for alternatives.

Personally I'm gonna go with option 1 and 4. Now here you come out of the woodwork all miserable all day long and you start spewing stuff on the technicalities of what it means to be socialist or not when the rest of us who are perfectly happy with ourselves have a pretty good understanding of what we mean by socialist policies. We don't want Mao Zeng Dun, we don't want Stalin, we don't want Hitler but we just want a socialist country who can take care of its people.
Now the other thing you're missing here is that Merkel is taking care of your foreigners more than she's taking care of you for the sake of ideals like European Union and trying to be the leader of a tolerant society.
You gotta understand something. If you invite someone to your house not only that you expect them to say thank you and contribute to things that you do in your house but you expect them to pay you back in kindness at some point when you're gonna have a rough day. The people you're inviting over, not only they don't say thank you, not only they don't contribute but they're getting right down violent and your Merkel is saying "more . We need more ".

Good luck with your future and your children's future.


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## KingpinSlim (Aug 19, 2016)

The miracle child still does not realize what socialism means. Still thinks what Bernie Sanders wanted was socialism.
Oh praised be the miracle child who refuses to learn. We shall kneel to his holy ignorance.
His will is like iron. He shall not learn. No one shall teach him.
Hallelujah Brothers and Sisters, watch him refuse to learn from his errors.
He shall not be influenced by others, only his own foolishness shall lead him.
Forever shall he believe that Social Democracy is actually Socialism until he changes the meaning of the word and even Webster Dictionary bows to his mighty lack of education and grasp of his own language.

Now brothers and sisters, let us kneel.
For we are in the presence of the miracle child and we shall be freed by the bright light of his ignorance.

Hail @Engert for he freed us from knowledge and education.
Oh yay, watch as his ignorance spreads like cancer around the world.

One day his kind shall rule us.
May Lord @Engert forgive us for knowing what socialism meant before he changed the meaning of it.
May Lord €Engert forgive us all.

tldr: He still doesn't know what socialism means and he is never going to look it up. His ignorance is as deep as the oceans.


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## Engert (Aug 19, 2016)

Tldr; @KingpinSlim is lecturing his students at the university about the proper meaning of the use of the word "socialism" while a new wave of immigrants is breaking the university's windows and torching the last book in the library.


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## KingpinSlim (Aug 19, 2016)

Engert said:


> Tldr; @KingpinSlim is lecturing his students at the university about the proper meaning of the use of the word "socialism" while a new wave of immigrants is breaking the university's windows and torching the last book in the library.


You got issues kid.
Ones i can't help you with.
good bye


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## Engert (Aug 19, 2016)

KingpinSlim said:


> You got issues kid.
> Ones i can't help you with.
> good bye



Take care. Good luck with your country's future and for God's sake don't leave the room while the glass is shattering. The lecture is more important. 
Now I know why Merkel was voted in the first place, by people like you.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 19, 2016)

In @Engert's defense (I never thought I'd say that), public healthcare and education as implemented contemporarily entails a nationalised system instead of the way it should be, a points-based system in which private entities compete in order to get more grant money by providing increasingly good services. Since it's an instance of nationalised industry based on Robin Hoodism and "free money", it *is* a "socialist" policy by definition.


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## Nightwish (Aug 21, 2016)

Pacheko17 said:


> I live in Brazil, a country that tried to end capitalism for 13 years and look at the deep shit we're in right now, and how our new right wing capitalist government is making everything good again.
> 
> Germany is doomed if that's the case, Germany has been doomed for a long time because of the stupid self hating left.
> 
> Never thought I'd say this, but we need another Hitler.



You're not even wrong, you're just stupid fascist. PT did nothing to end capitalism; you did the same thing most other capitalist countries do, create a bubble fueled by cronyism and now the poor have to pay for it; your beautiful government has more people indicted for corruption than the previous one, starting right at the president.
And fuck Hitler - although he'd do more for the economy than any other idiot by just printing money and making money flow again.



Youkai said:


> Most people really have no clue at all and just don't care, that's actually why the Brexit happened
> [...]
> I guess news in most part of the world only show a small part of the big thing and the first thing they usually show is Merkel telling everyone to come to Europe ...


Brexit happened because people are tired of getting poorer and know nothing will change inside the EU. The riots will start when people are fed up of the rulers keeping the capitalists fed at the cost of everyone else.
Merkel allowing the immigrants in was probably the only humanitarian thing she did her whole life, but don't worry, she's more than willing to pay Erdogan do "deal" with the problem.



KingpinSlim said:


> Socialism is a political system that works by revoking ownership, controlling the economy and dictating peoples lifes.



Libertarian Socialism doesn't much care for any of that (other than a bit of control over the economy, because otherwise capitalists will keep getting most of it. I think it's the most likely form to be successful.



Foxi4 said:


> As for capitalism being the "cancer that's killing us", it's absolutely false - capitalism is the driving force of progress. Before the dynamic duo of capitalism and democracy came along, the history of mankind consisted of a 100 000 years of divisions into feifdoms and constant war over territory and resources. Today we live in some of the most peaceful times in history, crime rates are lowest since the beginning of time, education levels are highest they've ever been and we're not constantly on the verge of poverty anymore because some feudal d*ckhead took all our harvest as payment for an arbitrary tax.


Honestly, that was after socialism and social democracy appeared, unless you think the gilded age with robber barons and company towns was an amazing revolution: it was pretty much the same with different people and a nicer bow.
As for people not being on the verge of poverty... Have you been keeping up with the data since 2008, at least? Nevermind the fact that western wages have been pretty stagnant for the last 40 years.



Foxi4 said:


> As for capitalism being the
> Capitalism is a system in which the customer is always right and companies are in a constant battle over who can provide goods and services more efficiently and at a better value, capitalism behooves you. Problems occur when corrupt idiots in governments enact regulations that restrict the mechanisms of the free market, create monopolies or make fair competition impossible. In a truly capitalist system citizens can band together against a shitty corporation and run it out of business by providing a better service, which is exactly what Uber is doing to taxi corporations as we speak.


Oh, of course companies only form monopolies when the governments intervene! It certainly didn't happen often when they didn't... like the first three decades of the twentieth century. It was obviously governments that created eternal copyrights too.
I also feel terrible that government regulates food, medication and motor vehicles, let the death toll decide!



Foxi4 said:


> Capitalism is the only system that incentivises initiative and self-improvement and rewards hard work and creative, inventive thinking - it's what we need more of, not less.



That's not an argument about how useful any of that is, though, even if it where true. Capitalism has no issue with rewarding companies that don't invent anything and don't need a lot of work either. Not to mention financial companies that barely add anything except skimming from  everyone else for their own pockets (The Wolf of Wall Street), especially in the case of HFT.
In fact, inventors are hardly ever rewarded for several reasons: huge patent portfolio of dumb shit by big companies and patent holding companies; no money to sue anyway, and a lot of times not enough money to even patent or market; in some industries, they're always going to be too small to compete - like the processor industry, even AMD can't keep up; no one to invest in them, and no money from shitty wages to bootstrap themselves; venture capitalists, when they actually look at you, take a significant share even though in fact they don't do any work; regulatory compliance is a lot harder - yes, some of it is bought, most of it is necessary; higher costs of manufacturing due to efficiencies of scale, ...



Foxi4 said:


> Abuse of the system is illegal. If a company uses unethical practices, it's an opportunity for the competition to run it into the ground. If it breaks the law with impunity, it's a failure of the government which is unable to execute its own laws and as such is unfit for its function - criminals should be behind bars, but someone needs to put them there. I will agree that the weak link here is definitely the human element, as it's the human element that's prone to corruption and vices.


That's if the abuse is illegal, when economic liberals like you claim there's too much regulation.
The market certainly has no issue promoting unethical and law-violating companies - Pfizer, Oracle, Microsoft, GlaxoSmithKline, the seven sisters, Coke, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds, Goldman Sachs, Nestlé, Wallmart... And all these cunts. It even labels  boycoters as loonies.



Foxi4 said:


> Correction - in both instances it's the citizens who pay for healthcare and education because the government doesn't have any money that belongs to it - the budget of a country consists of tax money. You're paying for both either way, it's just that the payment for public services is cleverly concealed. The problem with public healthcare and education is that you're not just paying for yourself - you're also paying for everybody else.


Well, yeah, that's the point, and it's not concealed at all - it's right there, item by item on the national budget, which is much more detailed and with a lot less lies than most company reports. Even if predictions are wrong, you'll know the exact numbers by march next year.
You pay your fair share (in theory), and you'll be taken care of to some extent from birth to death. It's not a good deal if you're rich and never have any tragedies in your life - but then, neither is it a good deal for everyone else that you're paying your employes so little that everyone else has to take care of them. I suppose that if you aren't bothered with homeless, disabled, mentally ill, people with the wrong genes that give them terrible and debilitating diseases, minorities, etc dying, than it's great. It also stops them from ransacking your property to eat, but hey.



Foxi4 said:


> We should probably start out by saying that we're having this conversation because several corporations had a vested interest in providing us with computer hardware and software as well as providing us with the Internet service that allows us to communicate over long distances. This conversation exists because it was profitable for someone to give us the capability to have it..



We should probably start out by saying that without the US government's money there would be no internet and that we, at best, would be on different networks with tons of filters and control. There certainly would be no GBATemp, lol.



Foxi4 said:


> Again, your response is uninformed and stupid. It is impossible to not pay into the system, even unemployed people pay into it via VAT. You cannot exist in a European country without paying taxes, so yes, everyone is paying into the pot. Moreover, the fact that everyone is paying for the services in this model rises healthcare and education costs as it's a natural market consequence of getting "free money". By eliminating any incentives to compete for the customer you've effectively created a government monopoly that can charge however much they want without you having a say and provide a shitty service as alternatives are unattainable under the current setup unless you're filthy rich since a private practice has to compete with one that gets "free money" which creates a disparity between their budgets that has to be accounted for when it comes to service fees - one has budget security, the other does not. I know it's hard to understand for a socialist, but perhaps grabbing a book about the basic principles of economy would help.



How cute, you think private healthcare, education and transportation, at least, is cheaper on the private sector AND you still call others uninformed and stupid. You just haven't seen the numbers and the lengths of corruption that happen for that to _appear_ to be the case.



Foxi4 said:


> You have to explain to me why someone shouldn't have millions when they earned them and why someone should have anything at all just because they exist. Work is a necessary element of the equation, if everyone "has enough to survive" just by the virtue of existing, there is no reason to work at all.



Yeah, it's not like people want nicer houses, computers, consoles, games, cell phones, drinks, drugs, cosmetic surgery, nice furniture, a good tv, movies, music, a car, to go out, nice and comfortable clothes, gourmet food, go to the gym, have pets, provide a better life for their descendants. Man, if only...
It's a good thing money only goes to hard workers and not the mostly useless financial system and failed managers then. I mean, in my professional life hard workers are certainly the ones who get all the credit and wage increases and are definitely never fucked over. And I certainly haven't heard it from everyone else either.
It's not like most of the rich don't get there by either inheritance or fucking everyone else over. And like most of the rest had enough money from being born in the right family to be successful. Self-created millionaires is a myth in the 21st century economy.



Foxi4 said:


> Not only because they wanted to get rich, but also because the infrastructure that enabled them to create and distribute computers was created by capitalism. Once again you fail to understand how capitalism works.



Like the public road system, the education system, the police. Man, capitalism is great.



Foxi4 said:


> [Bill Gates] rendered the whole of humanity a huge service by creating the computing model we use everyday. His product enabled other people to make other products and also benefit, this includes you as practically every facet of our lives includes computers these days. His dedication created hundreds of thousands, if not millions of jobs, and not just in Microsoft, but in general due to the ubiquitous nature of computing.
> [...]
> He's one of the world's biggest philanthropists and he played a major role in eradicating Polio in India



Seriously, that's your role model? Don't you want to say he invented the PC, the GUI, the spreadsheet, word processing, gaming and the Internet as well? Are you fucking serious? The guy who lied to and betrayed every single business partner, abused and abuses their OS monopoly to force  people to use their software, bribed a lot of governments, killed all the credibility of ISO, funneled SCO's ridiculous lawsuit to get rid of competition, sold a console with defective hardware to have higher yield and more sales, killed fucking Nokia, helped create the wet dream of the NSA , lauched OS that purposefully didn't run software from the competition, created sharepoint, calls their software the most generic shit ever, feeds patent trolls, has products with terrible security history, created FUD and the embrace, extend, extinguish business model, wants a TPM and a boot locker in every computing device and so on? Because that made him successful (nevermind all the companies and jobs he trampled over) and he does some tax avoidance?

If only the talk of punishing unethical companies wasn't just complete bullshit talk from economic liberals, we could all be better off.



Engert said:


> Now the other thing you're missing here is that Merkel is taking care of your foreigners more than she's taking care of you for the sake of ideals like European Union and trying to be the leader of a tolerant society.


That's bullshit. Not only is it in the Human Rights Convention and in the European Human Rights, the right thing to do is to help fellow humans. That the EU has failed both the refugees and it's own citizens at the same time is just indicative that it has no idea of what it's doing (see also: the euro) and that it should soon implode.
That anyone thinks we should just let them die because they're different and a tiny number of them are violent is just sad and proof that we haven't evolved all that much from 19th century ideology (see also: economic liberals).


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## sj33 (Aug 21, 2016)

Nightwish said:


> Libertarian Socialism doesn't much care for any of that (other than a bit of control over the economy, because otherwise capitalists will keep getting most of it. I think it's the most likely form to be successful.



As a side note, great to see another libertarian socialist here on the Temp.


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## vayanui8 (Aug 21, 2016)

Nightwish said:


> You're not even wrong, you're just stupid fascist. PT did nothing to end capitalism; you did the same thing most other capitalist countries do, create a bubble fueled by cronyism and now the poor have to pay for it; your beautiful government has more people indicted for corruption than the previous one, starting right at the president.
> And fuck Hitler - although he'd do more for the economy than any other idiot by just printing money and making money flow again.


You reference cronyism, but the free market, left untouched by the government doesn't have that. Nobody is talking about a free market where the government is backing businesses, we're talking about the free market where the government has no influence at all. I also find it rather ironic that you talk about Hitler printing currency when he fixed the economy because the previous government, the Weimar Republic, had printed too much currency and completely devalued the German mark. I'm just going to assume you don't think he fixed the economy by printing more money and it just came across incorrectly.


Nightwish said:


> Oh, of course companies only form monopolies when the governments intervene! It certainly didn't happen often when they didn't... like the first three decades of the twentieth century. It was obviously governments that created eternal copyrights too.
> I also feel terrible that government regulates food, medication and motor vehicles, let the death toll decide!


It was government intervention that created the overbearing copyright laws that allowed businesses to create monopolies in the first place. There is also a significant difference between having a free market and having anarchy. Just because the government shouldn't be able to take away the money that I spent my time and effort to work for doesn't mean that theres an issue with giving someone a test before they are free to drive around a car that requires a certain level of skill to operate properly. Also, if you think that the food companies are going to put out a product thats going to kill you you're a fool. You are their customer, and they want you to come back. Sure, they may make a mistake, and some may cut a few corners to put out a cheaper product, but these aren't sustainable business models and if word spreads that X company's food is giving people salmonella, I can guarantee people will stop buying their product and they will go out of buisiness. If for some odd reason people decide to buy it anyways, thats their own problem for being idiots.


Nightwish said:


> That's not an argument about how useful any of that is, though, even if it where true. Capitalism has no issue with rewarding companies that don't invent anything and don't need a lot of work either. Not to mention financial companies that barely add anything except skimming from  everyone else for their own pockets (The Wolf of Wall Street), especially in the case of HFT.
> In fact, inventors are hardly ever rewarded for several reasons: huge patent portfolio of dumb shit by big companies and patent holding companies; no money to sue anyway, and a lot of times not enough money to even patent or market; in some industries, they're always going to be too small to compete - like the processor industry, even AMD can't keep up; no one to invest in them, and no money from shitty wages to bootstrap themselves; venture capitalists, when they actually look at you, take a significant share even though in fact they don't do any work; regulatory compliance is a lot harder - yes, some of it is bought, most of it is necessary; higher costs of manufacturing due to efficiencies of scale, ...


These companies wouldn't be making money if they weren't offering a service to someone. You can argue that their service is useless all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that someone is willing to pay them for it. If these services are so useless, then don't invest your money in them. Why should you care if someone else is throwing away their money on something stupid. 


Nightwish said:


> That's if the abuse is illegal, when economic liberals like you claim there's too much regulation.
> The market certainly has no issue promoting unethical and law-violating companies - Pfizer, Oracle, Microsoft, GlaxoSmithKline, the seven sisters, Coke, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds, Goldman Sachs, Nestlé, Wallmart... And all these cunts. It even labels  boycoters as loonies.


You can't abuse the system unless there are laws helping you. What do you define as abusing the system? The only way to abuse it is to put laws in place that deter competition, but the entire point here is that there shouldn't be laws either way. There shouldn't be alws that hurt the consumer just to benefit the company, and there shouldn't be laws that hurt the company just to benefit the consumer.


Nightwish said:


> How cute, you think private healthcare, education and transportation, at least, is cheaper on the private sector AND you still call others uninformed and stupid. You just haven't seen the numbers and the lengths of corruption that happen for that to _appear_ to be the case.


Its a hell of a lot cheaper when I don't want to buy into these systems. I have no intention of ever using public transportation. Why should I be paying for it. The government takes my money to fund services that I will never use, and have no desire to ever use. I would be much better off being able to choose what I spend my money on without someone forcing to buy into a service.


Nightwish said:


> Yeah, it's not like people want nicer houses, computers, consoles, games, cell phones, drinks, drugs, cosmetic surgery, nice furniture, a good tv, movies, music, a car, to go out, nice and comfortable clothes, gourmet food, go to the gym, have pets, provide a better life for their descendants. Man, if only...
> It's a good thing money only goes to hard workers and not the mostly useless financial system and failed managers then. I mean, in my professional life hard workers are certainly the ones who get all the credit and wage increases and are definitely never fucked over. And I certainly haven't heard it from everyone else either.
> It's not like most of the rich don't get there by either inheritance or fucking everyone else over. And like most of the rest had enough money from being born in the right family to be successful. Self-created millionaires is a myth in the 21st century economy.


Just because someone wants something doesn't mean they should have it. I would love to have 12 sports cars 5 houses and 142 65 inch 4k TVs, but I think everyone can agree theres no reason for me to have that unless I bought it all with my own money. Hard work often is rewarded. The only times where is when there is better work. Work smart and you'll be rewarded. For example, when I drive home theres a bottleneck with alot of traffic. However, theres a side route I can take that allows me to bypass it. if I use it and get ahead of everyone is it my fault for taking the better route? no, I simply took the most effecient route and anyone still sitting in the traffic should've taken it too if they wanted to get through it faster.


Nightwish said:


> Like the public road system, the education system, the police. Man, capitalism is great.


There is nothing that makes the public road system superior to a privatized one. There would be a demand for it regardless and it would simply be funded by people who use it and wish to support it, instead of having everyone pay. In fact, the biggest difference would be that the roads would probably be fixed a hell of alot faster because the employees working on them would need to work faster in order to preserve their job, instead of the current government employees who have no incentive to work quickly because they end up getting paid more the longer they take.


Nightwish said:


> Seriously, that's your role model? Don't you want to say he invented the PC, the GUI, the spreadsheet, word processing, gaming and the Internet as well? Are you fucking serious? The guy who lied to and betrayed every single business partner, abused and abuses their OS monopoly to force  people to use their software, bribed a lot of governments, killed all the credibility of ISO, funneled SCO's ridiculous lawsuit to get rid of competition, sold a console with defective hardware to have higher yield and more sales, killed fucking Nokia, helped create the wet dream of the NSA , lauched OS that purposefully didn't run software from the competition, created sharepoint, calls their software the most generic shit ever, feeds patent trolls, has products with terrible security history, created FUD and the embrace, extend, extinguish business model, wants a TPM and a boot locker in every computing device and so on? Because that made him successful (nevermind all the companies and jobs he trampled over) and he does some tax avoidance?


If you don't like Gates' product, don't buy it. He was successful because he released a product that worked well for a large consumer and business market. There are alternatives if you want them, they just tend to less ideal and versatile than his. Gates wanted to make money, so he created the product best suited to do that. The way that he did that was by making a product that appealed to the most consumers. Of course some people won't like his product, thats why companies like Apple offer an alternative, and why Linux has its niche.


Nightwish said:


> If only the talk of punishing unethical companies wasn't just complete bullshit talk from economic liberals, we could all be better off.


If people really hate the practices of a company that much, they will avoid them. However, the reality is that most people don't care. These things aren't as big of a deal as you make them out to be because people buy it regardless. I may dislike Apple for all of their proprietary hardware, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be able to produce it for the people who do like it. I will simply buy something thats better suited to my purposes. If their practices are really such a big deal to their consumers, they will lose money and it will change or they will be run out of business. People love to bitch about how a business gets away with something unethical, but the reason they get away with it in the first place is because most people don't actually give a fuck. It doesn't actually affect most people, so it isn't actually that big of a deal. People just complain because they can't get out of their idealistic bubble that everyone will be nice to them. If you really have a problem with it, then boycott it, and get everyone you know to boycott it. If you really want to change something, fight your own battle instead of expecting someone else to do it for you, especially when it isn't actually an issue for most people.


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## _Chaz_ (Aug 21, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> What do you think?



I think this is the funniest thread I've seen on this site.


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## HaloEliteLegend (Aug 21, 2016)

It's a cycle. No system is perfect. EVER. So people find fault with the current one, someone upturns it, and the cycle repeats. Once we as a whole can understand that there will never be one perfect system, we can go about finding a system that does work. Socialism causes more problems than it does otherwise. It rides off the coattails of capitalism until economies crash. Listen, reward-free communal living does not work. There's often no good incentive for people to go above and beyond. That leads to stagnation. Look at China. They've been forced to adopt capitalist systems and ideologies because the Chinese government knows that without them, they would stagnate in the face of the other capitalist nations.

Often times when people rant about how capitalism is bad, they're looking for an easy way out instead of tackling current problems head-on. Upturning the system isn't going to change much. We'll be back at it again in another century.


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## Jay Clay (Aug 21, 2016)

HaloEliteLegend said:


> It's a cycle. No system is perfect. EVER. So people find fault with the current one, someone upturns it, and the cycle repeats. Once we as a whole can understand that there will never be one perfect system, we can go about finding a system that does work. Socialism causes more problems than it does otherwise. It rides off the coattails of capitalism until economies crash. Listen, reward-free communal living does not work. There's often no good incentive for people to go above and beyond. That leads to stagnation. Look at China. They've been forced to adopt capitalist systems and ideologies because the Chinese government knows that without them, they would stagnate in the face of the other capitalist nations.
> 
> Often times when people rant about how capitalism is bad, they're looking for an easy way out instead of tackling current problems head-on. Upturning the system isn't going to change much. We'll be back at it again in another century.




No system is perfect, well, then you should know capitalism also has so many problems, mainly regulations, but anyway, I just don't want to go deep in this subject lol, I just need to state, nobody forced chinese adopt capitalism, in fact, when Xiaoping launched his program of modernization in 80's, chinese people felt like a liberation, that is why nowadays China is doing it so well in my opinion. I think each country has different needs and therefore different kind of government.


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## RevPokemon (Aug 21, 2016)

Nightwish said:


> And fuck Hitler - although he'd do more for the economy than any other idiot by just printing money and making money flow again..


The whole idea that printing money is a good thing is absurd and more or less destroys savings.



Nightwish said:


> Brexit happened because people are tired of getting poorer and know nothing will change inside the EU. The riots will start when people are fed up of the rulers keeping the capitalists fed at the cost of everyone else.
> Merkel allowing the immigrants in was probably the only humanitarian thing she did he


I agree that in theory Brexit was a good idea but its execution has been terrible  regardless, although to say that capitalism caused all the problems is insane



Nightwish said:


> Libertarian Socialism doesn't much care for any of that (other than a bit of control over the economy, because otherwise capitalists will keep getting most of it. I think it's the most likely form to be successful.


Libertarian Socialism is really a bad idea in that with syndicalism, each group of workers is supposed to own its means of production in common and plan for itself, while cooperating with other collectives and communes. Logical analysis of these schemes would readily show that *the whole program is nonsense*. Either of two things would occur: one central agency would plan for and direct the various subgroups, or the collectives themselves would be really autonomous. But the crucial question is whether these agencies would be empowered to use force to put their decisions into effect. At worst this is basically communism or at best is government by anonther name.



Nightwish said:


> Yeah, it's not like people want nicer houses, computers, consoles, games, cell phones, drinks, drugs, cosmetic surgery, nice furniture, a good tv, movies, music, a car, to go out, nice and comfortable clothes, gourmet food, go to the gym, have pets, provide a better life for their descendants. Man, if only...
> It's a good thing money only goes to hard workers and not the mostly useless financial system and failed managers then. I mean, in my professional life hard workers are certainly the ones who get all the credit and wage increases and are definitely never fucked over. And I certainly haven't heard it from everyone else either.
> It's not like most of the rich don't get there by either inheritance or fucking everyone else over. And like most of the rest had enough money from being born in the right family to be successful. Self-created millionaires is a myth in the 21st century economy.


Aside from the fact many of the things you listed are not considered needs in any sense, the issue is that wages should be based upon what the market states they should be not by artificial mandatory means. In a truly voluntary based sysgem people would more or less have individual bargaining rights and can deny wages they feel are unjust. Companies would react by paying thier true market value on wages.  Likewise it would encourage hard workers since they naturally have a higher true market value. Plus you have to understand market values are not "fair" in the sense it is based upon work but rather the classic law of supply and demand.



Nightwish said:


> Like the public road system, the education system, the police. Man, capitalism is great.


Depending on your views those things can all be nationalized under a capitalism as it is in virtually all capitalist societies. As for education, we have seen how private education works so to say tgat education HAS to be nationakized is foolish. Road. As for roads, there are many arguments that they could be more efficient if privatized much as certain other aspects of life are. If roads are a great ibterest and you do not understand how they could be privatized check  Prof. Walter Block. Police? Well many could say they also can be privatized and would benefit from the fact that there could be more local oversight and control then a centralized system. Ultimately even if you feel they should all be nationalized then consider minarchism




Nightwish said:


> only the talk of punishing unethical companies wasn't just complete bullshit talk from economic liberals, we could all be better off.


Thank God I can voluntarily chose not to support them.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Jay Clay said:


> hen you should know capitalism also has so many problems, mainly regulations, but anyway, I just don't want to go deep in this subject lo


The other issue that people over use capitalism to the point it is so overused and generic that it has no meaning. Likewise the REAL is certain individual economic policies within capitalism generally



Nightwish said:


> We should probably start out by saying that without the US government's money there would be no internet and that we, at best, would be on different networks with tons of filters and control. There certainly would be no GBATemp, lol.


Given the state of the internet and the Government's use of spying and ability to gather data it is not like you can say its perfect. Currently we do have alternative networks like GNUnet, Freenet, I2P and Tor Onion sites. To say you could not have the web without the government is absurd.



Nightwish said:


> If only the talk of punishing unethical companies wasn't just complete bullshit talk from economic liberals, we could all be better off


There is punishment from voluntarily means via boycotts. Plus what are ethics besides principles that are debatable? Even under capitalism as is currently the case companies are punish if they do things out of line and if there was no government they still would be under NAP and voluntary means.


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## HaloEliteLegend (Aug 21, 2016)

Jay Clay said:


> No system is perfect, well, then you should know capitalism also has so many problems, mainly regulations, but anyway, I just don't want to go deep in this subject lol, I just need to state, nobody forced chinese adopt capitalism, in fact, when Xiaoping launched his program of modernization in 80's, chinese people felt like a liberation, that is why nowadays China is doing it so well in my opinion. I think each country has different needs and therefore different kind of government.



Oops, didn't mean to imply that capitalism was perfect. No, capitalism definitely has its fair share of problems. I feel countries should choose the lesser evil for themselves. Governmental systems can vary between countries, and that's fine. Capitalism, socialism, etc. are economic systems. These are the sphere of economic theory, and I don't really want to get deep into it either, haha. I guess we'll leave things here.


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## Lucifer666 (Aug 21, 2016)

Logan Pockrus said:


> Capitalism is a must if you want to consider yourself (and your country) "free".


This kind of neoliberal thinking is exactly the mindset that the Assad regime possesses. Look at how well that went.


Pacheko17 said:


> You can't be happy about capitalism ending, you fucking dipshit!
> 
> I live in Brazil, a country that tried to end capitalism for 13 years and look at the deep shit we're in right now, and how our new right wing capitalist government is making everything good again.
> 
> ...



Few things on the internet have made me as uncomfortable as this post.

If economic reforms topple that doesn't necessarily mean the plan is bad; its execution was likely botched.



Foxi4 said:


> Capitalism and democracy do not exclude eachother - they exist alongside eachother and belong to separate categories. You don't have to pick, you can have both. Democracy is a system of government, capitalism is an economic model, so the whole premise of the thread is pointless. As for capitalism being the "cancer that's killing us", it's absolutely false - capitalism is the driving force of progress. Before the dynamic duo of capitalism and democracy came along, the history of mankind consisted of a 100 000 years of divisions into feifdoms and constant war over territory and resources. Today we live in some of the most peaceful times in history, crime rates are lowest since the beginning of time, education levels are highest they've ever been and we're not constantly on the verge of poverty anymore because some feudal d*ckhead took all our harvest as payment for an arbitrary tax. Thinking that capitalism causes problems exposes a fundamental lack of understanding how the market works. Capitalism is a system in which the customer is always right and companies are in a constant battle over who can provide goods and services more efficiently and at a better value, capitalism behooves you. Problems occur when corrupt idiots in governments enact regulations that restrict the mechanisms of the free market, create monopolies or make fair competition impossible. In a truly capitalist system citizens can band together against a shitty corporation and run it out of business by providing a better service, which is exactly what Uber is doing to taxi corporations as we speak. The invention and introduction of the capitalist model is one of humanity's greatest achievements and thinking otherwise is immature and naive. You'll grow out of it eventually, to be precise, you'll grow out of it when you'll achieve something in life and socialists will immediately neg you to share it with everybody else, even though they've had zero input into your success. Capitalism is the only system that incentivises initiative and self-improvement and rewards hard work and creative, inventive thinking - it's what we need more of, not less.



Ironically I find myself having to use the "better on paper than in practice" expression that is often tossed at socialist/communist ideologies. The reality of capitalism is that it relies on extreme financial inequalities to subsist. Suppose you had a sum of wealth that you split equally amongst a population. If certain members of society were to become richer, this comes at the expense of others' wealth, since there is a finite total. Your reference to lower crime rates and poverty neglect the harsh reality that capitalism thrives off of the exploitation of workers in developing regions. It's unpleasant to think about but necessary in a discussion of the benefits of socioeconomic systems. Before resorting to the argument of "Not all corporations" or anything to an effect that insinuates that ethical capitalist corporations do exist, take the time to consider that every multinational big name has a history of such activity. (Think Apple, IKEA, Unilever, etc.) I recall reading an article in one of my classes that left me horrified at the fact that there must be countless comparable cases that go unnoticed. It exposes how a UK budget supermarket chain is able to sell their highly affordable jeans. Of course many revel in the UK's "stable" economy (at least pre-Brexit). But put bluntly, it's because the people they decide to screw over lie outside their borders.

The entire idea of market equilibrium – where the supply and demand curves meet, only defines the point at which there is the greatest overlap between how many buyers are willing to pay X for a good/service and how many sellers are willing to provide at X. Unfortunately it does not inherently look into what benefits society as a whole; it merely maximises what works with the current system and does not take into account practices that many companies employ to increase profit margins.

You are of course right about capitalism bearing self-improvement at its core. But the debate at hand is whether or not the speed at which people in liveable conditions advance in technology and civilisation is worth the abuse and exploitation that capitalism fundamentally relies on to provide 'competitive' pricing, no matter how much people rave about hypothetical 'ethical regulations' that receive their 10 minutes of fame and support, never to be implemented or thought of again. All facts considered, I find it hard to respond to that statement in the affirmative. I'd gladly throw away my shiny iPhone 5S and undo decades' worth of technological progression if it meant redefining a future that isn't catered only to an elite minority.


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## Viri (Aug 21, 2016)

Spoiler


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## Deboog (Aug 21, 2016)

Dude. I can buy a bottle of soap for less than a dollar at Target. Capitalism is the bomb.


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## RevPokemon (Aug 21, 2016)

Lucifer666 said:


> Ironically I find myself having to use the "better on paper than in practice" expression that is often tossed at socialist/communist ideologies


To be fairly honest every single political system is better on paper although more so for certain ones than others. Although when judging the extent it largely depends on how it has been implemented in real world use. With Communism it has been largely negative (North Korea, USSR, and China prior to some of its reforms) and capitalism has been largely mixed although for most world econmies it is the law (the implementation and effects of are varried but still). Of course with any system you can defend it in many ways such as arguing it was not carried out right (communism supporters for example who argue the USSR was too beaucratic). The issue also is certain systems have not been tested so their real world worth is harder to find so it is all theoretical until the implementation.



Lucifer666 said:


> Suppose you had a sum of wealth that you split equally amongst a population. If certain members of society were to become richer, this comes at the expense of others' wealth, since there is a finite total.


The issue with this is that it is assuming that wealth is fixed at a point. There is no reason as to why some having more causes others to have less since wealth is not finite in society by any means. 



Lucifer666 said:


> Your reference to lower crime rates and poverty neglect the harsh reality that capitalism thrives off of the exploitation of workers in developing regions. It's unpleasant to think about but necessary in a discussion of the benefits of socioeconomic systems


Communism (while theoretically sound) is based largely upon the state and its ability to give the power to the people once it receives such power. The problem is that the official exploit thier power to the point that it most often becomes an extreme beaucracy. As stated before you could argue that historic examples of this are just  exampkes of poor implementation of a great idea but that is debatable although if you did then understand capitalism would deserve tge same benefit of the doubt.



Lucifer666 said:


> s. Before resorting to the argument of "Not all corporations" or anything to an effect that insinuates that ethical capitalist corporations do exist, take the time to consider that every multinational big name has a history of such activity. (Think Apple, IKEA, Unilever, etc.) I recall reading an article in one of my classes that left me horrified at the fact that there must be countless comparable cases that go unnoticed. It exposes how a UK budget supermarket chain is able to sell their highly affordable jeans. Of course many revel in the UK's "stable" economy (at least pre-Brexit). But put bluntly, it's because the people they decide to screw over lie outside their borders.


The other argument is in the cases stated that it would be better to have a mixed capitalist where workers have rghts to make CBA's and government's set laws to protect workers. 



Lucifer666 said:


> The entire idea of market equilibrium – where the supply and demand curves meet, only defines the point at which there is the greatest overlap between how many buyers are willing to pay X for a good/service and how many sellers are willing to provide at X. Unfortunately it does not inherently look into what benefits society as a whole; it merely maximises what works with the current system and does not take into account practices that many companies employ to increase profit margins.




 Utilities and costs of different individuals cannot be added or measured. Hence, the very concept of social costs and benefits is illegitimate. However what is immoral of invasion of those rights to person or property, regardless of which person or group commits such violence or the reasons as to why.



Lucifer666 said:


> You are of course right about capitalism bearing self-improvement at its core. But the debate at hand is whether or not the speed at which people in liveable conditions advance in technology and civilisation is worth the abuse and exploitation that capitalism fundamentally relies on to provide 'competitive' pricing, no matter how much people rave about hypothetical 'ethical regulations' that receive their 10 minutes of fame and support, never to be implemented or thought of again. All facts considered, I find it hard to respond to that statement in the affirmative. I'd gladly throw away my shiny iPhone 5S and undo decades' worth of technological progression if it meant redefining a future that isn't catered only to an elite minority.


A capitalist society is a consumers democracy in that the power to dispose of the means of production, which belongs to the entrepreneurs and capitalists, can only be acquired by means of the consumers' ballot, held daily in the market-place. Meaning a consumers we are given the ability to influence business decisions and actions regarding multiple aspects. It is much more logically to achieve the (ultimately unrealistic af) goal of equality via using market based solutions then by arguing for a society in which is ruled by a central governing agency that is lead by corrupt officials.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 21, 2016)

@Nightwish Your comment is far too lengthy for me to reply to on mobile and a lot of your concerns were answered by other posters already, so all I'm going to say is that you're posting a lot of assumptions. You seem to be under the impression that I'm against all regulation - I'm not. Customer protection needs to be in place, trade standards are necessary and monopolistic practices need to be discouraged and penalised. I also never said that public roads should be private, nor did I vocally oppose public healthcare or education - I opposed their current implementation which lacks incentives to compete. It's easy to argue against arguments that were never made in the first place - you're arguing with yourself. It's that kind of black and white thinking that makes liberals come across like crazy people.

@Lucifer666 Other posters already intercepted your questions so there's nothing to add. It's true that the amount of wealth is finite, but there is no logical reason for it to be shared "equally". It's a resource like any other - you earn it, you save it, you spend it. If you worked for it, it belongs to you and nobody has the right to take it away from you - you worked hard for it.


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## Clydefrosch (Aug 21, 2016)

spd being anti-capitalist? since when?


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## MisterPantsEyes (Aug 21, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> Abuse of the system is illegal. If a company uses unethical practices, it's an opportunity for the competition to run it into the ground. If it breaks the law with impunity, it's a failure of the government which is unable to execute its own laws and as such is unfit for its function - criminals should be behind bars, but someone needs to put them there. I will agree that the weak link here is definitely the human element, as it's the human element that's prone to corruption and vices.


I hope you don't think that everything bad that happens under capitalism is illegal. If you do, educate yourself about planned obsolescense.



Foxi4 said:


> Again, your response is uninformed and stupid. It is impossible to not pay into the system, even unemployed people pay into it via VAT. You cannot exist in a European country without paying taxes, so yes, everyone is paying into the pot. Moreover, the fact that everyone is paying for the services in this model rises healthcare and education costs as it's a natural market consequence of getting "free money". By eliminating any incentives to compete for the customer you've effectively created a government monopoly that can charge however much they want without you having a say and provide a shitty service since alternatives are unattainable under the current setup since a private practice has to compete with one that gets "free money" and thus has a better budget security. I know it's hard to understand for a socialist, but perhaps grabbing a book about the basic principles of economy would help.


Where did I say anything about not paying taxes? You don't understand it because you only look at it from an upper class's view. Not everyone pays the same, the poor pay much less them it would cost actually cost them. You say universities aren't free because they are paid by taxes? Ok, but you still don't fall in debts like in America. Health care also isn't free? Ok, but it still costs much less than it would if it wasn't socialized. And do you think there are no monopolies in capitalism? You invent something that people will need, patent it so only you can produce it and then you can want as much money as you want for your product.



Foxi4 said:


> Assumption, and an incorrect one. I come from a working class family and I was brought up by a single mother as my parents divorced when I was very young, so money was always tight. Your crystal ball needs maintenance.


I don't believe you.



Foxi4 said:


> You have to explain to me why someone shouldn't have millions when they earned them and why someone should have anything at all just because they exist. Work is a necessary element of the equation, if everyone "has enough to survive" just by the virtue of existing, there is no reason to work at all.


Your work just can't be worth millions. Someone who works all his life in a shit job for 8 hours every day, which means a third of his life is just work, makes maybe 700k€ in his whole life. You shouldn't earn millions or even billions by investing in stocks or building a company, your work just isn't worth that much. And what will you do with all the money that you have? Get a villa? A jet? While other people don't even have enough money to buy their food?
About the reason to work, that may be true, but in the future, how much work will even be there? Everything is getting automated, machines and robots are replacing us more and more.



Foxi4 said:


> He would say "Render that which is Caesar's to Caesar and that which is God's onto God". Once again you're confusing charity and socialism - one is selfless, the other is the government telling you that that you're effectively going to work for free for 6 months out of the year because John from across the street, with whom you have no affiliation whatsoever, needs a new pair of shoes. You're the slave, not me.


In the capitalist world that you want, it's more like "John works 50 hour weeks at my company and gets 2€ for every hour. There is no minimum wage as the market is free and John has no choice than to keep working, or he'll get homeless and starve. We can't help him out because if we would, there'd be no reason to work at all! Now about the yacht I wanted to buy..."


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## barronwaffles (Aug 21, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> Your work just can't be worth millions. Someone who works all his life in a shit job for 8 hours every day, which means a third of his life is just work, makes maybe 700k€ in his whole life. You shouldn't earn millions or even billions by investing in stocks or building a company, your work just isn't worth that much. And what will you do with all the money that you have? Get a villa? A jet? While other people don't even have enough money to buy their food?
> About the reason to work, that may be true, but in the future, how much work will even be there? Everything is getting automated, machines and robots are replacing us more and more.



Who are you to place the value of someones labor over the value of others?



MisterPantsEyes said:


> In the capitalist world that you want, it's more like "John works 50 hour weeks at my company and gets 2€ for every hour. There is no minimum wage as the market is free and John has no choice than to keep working, or he'll get homeless and starve. We can't help him out because if we would, there'd be no reason to work at all! Now about the yacht I wanted to buy..."



Now the market is dead because all the poor Johns can't afford any products that BigJohnCo manufacture - perhaps paying enough to ensure the existence of a consumer class is beneficial?

But nah, fuck capitalism - it's clearly the systems fault I have poor impulse control.


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## Engert (Aug 21, 2016)

@Nightwish 
Don't take things to the extreme when having a debate against immigration. I'm not against helping people, I'm against helping other people before helping my own first. This is the problem with some politicians like Merkel, for the sake of their careers or their legacy they want to solidify their names in the history books at the expense of their own citizens.
Here's a simpler example to illustrate my point. I mentioned this in the Brexit topic as well.
There is a flood in your neighborhood but your house survives. You want to take one of your neighbors in and his family while his house is repaired.
Wouldn't this put a strain for your family and living space? You'd have to arrange sleeping areas and buy more food for an extra set of 3-4 people. How would the dynamics of your house and your family change while you have your neighbors in?
Now think of this on a larger scale.
What if 2 or 3 more neighbors want to move in? Now you're talking 12-15 more people in your house!
But wait here's more. Not only some of your neighbours are not thankful for what your doing to them but they are being rude in your house, they're not contributing at anything and some of them are getting violent against your and your family. 
What would you do then? Would you quote the Geneva convention?
At this point you have a choice to make. 
You can either take more people in and ruin your house and your family or you put a stop to it and also kick out those who are ungrateful. 
Choice is yours but if you depend on your ideals more than being realistic than it's you who's going to suffer more and everything that you've build.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 21, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> I hope you don't think that everything bad that happens under capitalism is illegal. If you do, educate yourself about planned obsolescense.


Planned obsolescence is a standard market strategy - you want your product to be better than the competition''s, but not better than whatever you're planning to release afterwards so that you don't steal your future product's thunder. What exactly is "wrong" with that?


> Where did I say anything about not paying taxes? You don't understand it because you only look at it from an upper class's view. Not everyone pays the same, the poor pay much less them it would cost actually cost them. You say universities aren't free because they are paid by taxes? Ok, but you still don't fall in debts like in America. Health care also isn't free? Ok, but it still costs much less than it would if it wasn't socialized. And do you think there are no monopolies in capitalism? You invent something that people will need, patent it so only you can produce it and then you can want as much money as you want for your product.


I'm not *from* the upper-class, and even if I was, that still wouldn't make my statements false - something is either true or it isn't, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with poorly concealed ad hominem attacks. Yet again you're being misinformed or disingenuous. You said that in a socialist system healthcare and education are free, I objected to that and said that they are not free and are funded from taxes. You said that it's the rich paying them and, once again, I objected as everyone is paying taxes and the particular skew is irrelevant. Stop moving goal posts. As for people getting into debt, nobody told anyone to take out a college loan - that's a choice. Moreover, they absolutely are getting into debt, they just don't know about it. It's called "national debt" and it can spin out of control very easily. It doesn't "cost less", you're just spreading the tab across the whole society. Your patent argument has two glaring flaws. The first flaw is that patent law is controlled by the government, not corporations, so corporations are not to blame for its effects. The second is that corporations absolutely should protect their intellectual property because the invention of "X" cost them money, which is why the government gives them *a limited window of time* to capitalise on the patent.


> I don't believe you.


You don't believe many things that are demonstrably true, so that's not a big surprise.


> Your work just can't be worth millions. Someone who works all his life in a shit job for 8 hours every day, which means a third of his life is just work, makes maybe 700k€ in his whole life. You shouldn't earn millions or even billions by investing in stocks or building a company, your work just isn't worth that much. And what will you do with all the money that you have? Get a villa? A jet? While other people don't even have enough money to buy their food?
> About the reason to work, that may be true, but in the future, how much work will even be there? Everything is getting automated, machines and robots are replacing us more and more.


More crying. Your work is worth as much as others are willing to pay you for it.


> In the capitalist world that you want, it's more like "John works 50 hour weeks at my company and gets 2€ for every hour. There is no minimum wage as the market is free and John has no choice than to keep working, or he'll get homeless and starve. We can't help him out because if we would, there'd be no reason to work at all! Now about the yacht I wanted to buy..."


Some economists consider the minimum wage to be one of the root causes of poverty and unemployment in the lower classes of society as it provided a static legal bottom line of payment in a dynamic market and eliminated any possibility for wage negotiation between the employee and the employer. In order for minimum wage to work, it would have to be reviewed yearly and adjusted to the value of national currency - since that's not the case, the minimum wage legitimises giving people a below-poverty-level wage and you can do nothing about it. Of course I haven't even mentioned that the minimum wage kills jobs, reduces economic activity, lowers the GDP and thus lowers the value of your currency, so you still earn the same amount of money, it just isn't worth anything. Boy, oh boy - this is pretty basic stuff. Just out of plain curiosity, how old are you? I'd love to find out before this conversation ends since I have no desire to continue it.


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## MisterPantsEyes (Aug 21, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> Planned obsolescence is a standard market strategy - you want your product to be better than the competition''s, but not better than whatever you're planning to release afterwards so that you don't steal your future product's thunder. What exactly is "wrong" with that?
> I'm not *from* the upper-class, and even if I was, that still wouldn't make my statements false - something is either true or it isn't, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with poorly concealed ad hominem attacks. Yet again you're being misinformed or disingenuous. You said that in a socialist system healthcare and education are free, I objected to that and said that they are not free and are funded from taxes. You said that it's the rich paying them and, once again, I objected as everyone is paying taxes and the particular skew is irrelevant. Stop moving goal posts. As for people getting into debt, nobody told anyone to take out a college loan - that's a choice. It doesn't "cost less", you're just spreading the tab across the whole society. Your patent argument has two glaring flaws. The first flaw is that patent law is controlled by the government, not corporations, so corporations are not to blame for its effects. The second is that corporations absolutely should protect their intellectual property because the invention of "X" cost them money, which is why the government gives them *a limited window of time* to capitalise on the patent.
> You don't believe many things that are demonstrably true, so that's not a big surprise.
> More crying. Your work is worth as much as others are willing to pay you for it.
> The minimum wage is often mentioned as one of the root causes of poverty in the lower classes of society as it provided a static legal bottom line of payment in an dynamic market and eliminated any possibility for wage negotiation between the employee and the employer. In order for minimum wage to work, it would have to be reviewed yearly and adjusted to the value of national currency - since that's not the case, the minimum wage legitimises giving people a below-poverty-level wage and you can do nothing about it. Of course I haven't even mentioned that the minimum wage kills jobs, reduces economic activity, lowers the GDP and thus makes your money be worth less, so you still earn the same amount of money, it just isn't worth anything. Boy, oh boy - this is pretty basic stuff. Just out of plain curiosity, how old are you? I'd love to find out before this conversation ends since I have no desire to continue it.


You're wrong.

May I ask if you are one of these 2 people?






Because what you say sounds like piss propaganda.

I won't engage in this discussion with you anymore, but since you really want to know, I'll reveal my age. I am 18 years old.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 21, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> You're wrong.
> 
> May I ask if you are one of these 2 people?
> ￼
> ...


That's all you've got? I'm not even a PiS supporter, this doesn’t "hurt" me in any way. It also doesn't sound like PiS propaganda because PiS does not follow laissez-faire principles. In fact, they've introduced even more welfare into the system - their social and economic policies are not "capitalist". I wouldn't even call the party right-wing - they're traditionalists, if anything. The right-wing has been eviscerated in my country, it no longer exists, but that's neither here nor there. As for your age, that explains a lot. In 10 years time, once you achieve something and have some wealth to call your own, your point of view will drastically change. Don't worry, I'll still be there to defend it from hawks who'd like to sink their talons into it.


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## TheCasketMan (Aug 21, 2016)

Socialism is the first step to communism.  Enjoy paying high taxes just to support the unemployed on welfare.


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## vayanui8 (Aug 21, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> That's all you've got? I'm not even a PiS supporter, this doesn’t "hurt" me in any way. It also doesn't sound like PiS propaganda because PiS does not follow laissez-faire principles. In fact, they've introduced even more welfare into the system - their social and economic policies are not "capitalist". I wouldn't even call the party right-wing - they're traditionalists, if anything. The right-wing has been eviscerated in my country, it no longer exists, but that's neither here nor there. As for your age, that explains a lot. In 10 years time, once you achieve something and have some wealth to call your own, your point of view will drastically change. Don't worry, I'll still be there to defend it from hawks who'd like to sink their talons into it.


For some reason I doubt he's going to be successful even 10 years down the line. He's going to be too busy taking other people's money from socialized programs. He even said it himself. https://gbatemp.net/entry/i-want-to-be-a-neet.11333/


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## RevPokemon (Aug 21, 2016)

vayanui8 said:


> For some reason I doubt he's going to be successful even 10 years down the line. He's going to be too busy taking other people's money from socialized programs. He even said it himself. https://gbatemp.net/entry/i-want-to-be-a-neet.11333/


If you are NEET for long term and are happy about it then 

1. You are taking crazy amounts of welfare to live off of relatively well

2. You have family or  friends to depend on

3. You have crappy living conditions or are homeless but don't give a f about working


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## Futurdreamz (Aug 21, 2016)

Venezuala. 

/mikedrop


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## Deleted member 361703 (Aug 21, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> So I think we all can agree that capitalism is the cancer that is killing us and that democratic socialism is what we need to have.
> 
> Now, I can bring you the happy news. It is pretty much confirmed that Germany will get a coalition of the SPD (Socialdemocratic Party Germany), Die Linke (The Lefts) and Die Grünen (The Greens) in 2017. For those who don't know what that means, all these parties are socialistic-minded and want to save the country from the cancer that is called capitalism.
> 
> ...


Im sorry but if you lived in America you would know that the President doesn't matter that wont save us or hurt us. We in America are practically an open market-esk government where the buying and selling of goods for a profit is more important


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## XDel (Aug 21, 2016)

In the past century, all mega-Communist and Socialist Governments eventually partook in Capitalism which is very much apparent today where as it went less noticed, or un-contemplated yesterday though ever bit as real, as seen in this film by old school journalist, John Pilger:

At any rate, it is greed, dishonesty, being out of touch with nature, our selves, arrogant, materialistic, detached, and so on, that is causing the world's problems, and in our misery we become oppressive tyrants unto our selves, and elect from a pre-screened and pre-selected few, in order to have them also lord it over us.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 21, 2016)

vayanui8 said:


> For some reason I doubt he's going to be successful even 10 years down the line. He's going to be too busy taking other people's money from socialized programs. He even said it himself. https://gbatemp.net/entry/i-want-to-be-a-neet.11333/


I've never heard of this term before. This attitude is shocking to me, I don't know what to say.


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## emigre (Aug 21, 2016)

So yeah, social democracy and mixed-economy for the win.

Lulz at the SPD as anti-capitalist.


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## RevPokemon (Aug 21, 2016)

emigre said:


> Lulz at the SPD as anti-capitalist.


The problem is the people are largely uninformed and often consider anti-capitalism, social democracy, socialism, and communism (along with its various flavors) the same even when they are so different it is not even funny.


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## grossaffe (Aug 21, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> I've never heard of this term before. This attitude is shocking to me, I don't know what to say.


Just read through the comments and I'm sure you'll find the words you're looking for.


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## AlanJohn (Aug 21, 2016)

Watching people discuss world politics on a gameboy hacking forum is amazing.


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## RevPokemon (Aug 21, 2016)

AlanJohn said:


> Watching people discuss world politics on a gameboy hacking forum is amazing.


Well better then reddit where you can have a serious debate over socialism vs capitalism and then look at a random AMA where the most asked question is what the person's favorite bagel is.


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## AlanJohn (Aug 21, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> Well better then reddit where you can have a serious debate over socialism vs capitalism and then look at a random AMA where the most asked question is what the person's favorite bagel is.


I don't know, after seeing a couple of posts in the vaccination thread I literally lost hope in humanity, then I remembered I was on GBAtemp. Reddit discussions are somewhat more coherent.


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## emigre (Aug 21, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> The problem is the people are largely uninformed and often consider anti-capitalism, social democracy, socialism, and communism (along with its various flavors) the same even when they are so different it is not even funny.



I'm a politics grad so Temp politics threads are pretty amusing at how literal everything is interpreted, especially at how the political landscape has changed to be more vague and less defined. I would regard myself as a socialist but anyone whose read my political views here wouldn't associate me as a fucking Lenninst.

Lulz at anyone who thinks China are Commies. They're State authoritarian capitalists lads.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 21, 2016)

grossaffe said:


> Just read through the comments and I'm sure you'll find the words you're looking for.


I can't quite grasp how someone can say that without any shame and propose a system in which everyone is doing nothing as a "NEET", gets an "equal share" as a member of society and gives nothing in return. The only appropriate term that comes to mind is "parasite".


emigre said:


> Lulz at anyone who thinks China are Commies. They're State authoritarian capitalists lads.


Correct, it hasn't been truly communist since the times of Mao. Its economic policy is based on aggressive capitalism under the heel of the party, except instead of having companies compete with eachother for the Chinese customer's favour, they're pushed by the state to not so much compete, but completely undercut western competitors, even at the cost of safety, product quality and often times at barely profitable rates. It's the exact opposite of a free market. They want us addicted to the country's manufacturing base, and when they're getting too much traction, they just artificially devalue the currency to drop the costs again. It's all government f*ckery.


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## RevPokemon (Aug 21, 2016)

AlanJohn said:


> I don't know, after seeing a couple of posts in the vaccination thread I literally lost hope in humanity, then I remembered I was on GBAtemp. Reddit discussions are somewhat more coherent.


True although regardless reddit has some really damn strange areas depending on how you go.



emigre said:


> I'm a politics grad so Temp politics threads are pretty amusing at how literal everything is interpreted, especially at how the political landscape has changed to be more vague and less defined.


Very true. If you look at people uniformed about economies and politics, they almost always believe that there is Socialism/Communism (used interchangeably) and Capitalism (generally viewed as having little to no regulations). This has no regards for the fact that communism and capitalism both have multiple variations. Anyway you know all of this but personally as a Poli Sci major it upsets me to know how stupid the public is regarding civics.



emigre said:


> Lulz at anyone who thinks China are Commies. They're State authoritarian capitalists lads.


Again very true. The problem is that it assumes state control of industries = communism, which is not true. Personally I prefer to say that China is historically communist (prior to the 80's or so) but currently is capitalist with large amounts of state control.


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## Engert (Aug 21, 2016)

AlanJohn said:


> I don't know, after seeing a couple of posts in the vaccination thread I literally lost hope in humanity, then I remembered I was on GBAtemp. Reddit discussions are somewhat more coherent.



Haha. No shit eh? I never thought I'd see this post from you. 
Aren't you due to film Jackass 4 or something?


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## Viri (Aug 21, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> Well better then reddit where you can have a serious debate over socialism vs capitalism and then look at a random AMA where the most asked question is what the person's favorite bagel is.


Reddit? Won't a post people disagree with just get down voted into oblivion, to the point where the place just becomes an echo chamber?


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## RevPokemon (Aug 21, 2016)

Viri said:


> Reddit? Won't a post people disagree with just get down voted into oblivion, to the point where the place just becomes an echo chamber?


More or less but atleast some parts have self rules which discourage that behavior although it is rampant still


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## Futurdreamz (Aug 21, 2016)

/mikegrab


Again, look at Venezuela. It was an attempt to do away with Capitalism and now in a last attempt at survival the government enacted "Right to Work" policies which are literally slavery.

Capitalism is required for international trade. You need to pay China money to buy Betty Crocker waffle irons. Any country that avoids capitalism is forced to close it's borders so that it's citizens don't sell their free swag to get products not available for free, and even then it becomes a losing cycle. Have you stopped to consider which countries avoid capitalism entirely? Off hand there's North Korea and Venezuela, neither of which is a place to raise a family.

Even the computer you are using now would not be available if it wasn't for capitalism.


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## MisterPantsEyes (Aug 22, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> That's all you've got? I'm not even a PiS supporter, this doesn’t "hurt" me in any way. It also doesn't sound like PiS propaganda because PiS does not follow laissez-faire principles. In fact, they've introduced even more welfare into the system - their social and economic policies are not "capitalist". I wouldn't even call the party right-wing - they're traditionalists, if anything. The right-wing has been eviscerated in my country, it no longer exists, but that's neither here nor there. As for your age, that explains a lot. In 10 years time, once you achieve something and have some wealth to call your own, your point of view will drastically change. Don't worry, I'll still be there to defend it from hawks who'd like to sink their talons into it.


That's all because this discussion is getting nowhere. For you life is all about money and profits, that's what you call success. I'm not like you.

Anyway, if you all like it or not, socialism is happening.


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## BORTZ (Aug 22, 2016)

AlanJohn said:


> Watching people discuss world politics on a gameboy hacking forum is amazing.


Its been a while since I have heard truer words


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## Foxi4 (Aug 22, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> That's all because this discussion is getting nowhere. For you life is all about money and profits, that's what you call success. I'm not like you.
> 
> Anyway, if you all like it or not, socialism is happening.


If that's what you inferred from our conversation, it goes to show that your reading comprehension is rather poor. As a person who's unemployed, no longer in school, not receiving any training, acquiring your groceries from dumpsters, pirating all your digital content and living under someone else's roof with no means to support yourself you're contributing nothing to society whatsoever - in fact, one could argue that your connection to it is parasitic. As such, you're not only not qualified to speak on matters of economic policy as you have no experience in dealing with money, you also have no claim to the society's public funds as you don't participate in it in the first place. You're a walking, talking argument for a meritocracy.

The purpose of social policies is to help those who have fallen through no fault of their own or forces beyond their control - get them back on their feet in their time of need. I'm a busy man - I work 6 days a week and I take pride in my work. Earning gives me satisfaction, I know that every single coin in my pocket is there because I worked for it. You don't need "help", you're not a victim, you chose to lay down and do nothing. As such, the mere thought of you getting any money that I worked for at all disgusts me. Your attitude lacks any form of pride, self-respect, aspirations or even decency. It's truly shameful. The mere implication that you deserve an "equal share" is preposterous - an equal share necessitates an equal contribution, within your capabilities.


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## Black-Ice (Aug 22, 2016)

So how about building that wall guys.


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## gbaboy123 (Aug 22, 2016)

Black-Ice said:


> So how about building that wall guys.


I doubt the us congress will approve that and I doubt you can even build a wall that size. people are too ignorant and actually believe that trump can do that.


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## Black-Ice (Aug 22, 2016)

gbaboy123 said:


> I doubt the us congress will approve that and I doubt you can even build a wall that size. people are too ignorant and actually believe that trump can do that.


One does not simply stop the wall.


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## gbaboy123 (Aug 22, 2016)

Black-Ice said:


> One does not simply stop the wall.


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## RevPokemon (Aug 22, 2016)

gbaboy123 said:


> I doubt the us congress will approve that and I doubt you can even build a wall that size. people are too ignorant and actually believe that trump can do that.


The GOP rules congress and if elected he could pick a conservative Judge so it is theoretically easy for that to happen if we elect him since he will be able to do whatever he wants.


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## gbaboy123 (Aug 22, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> The GOP rules congress and if elected he could pick a conservative Judge so it is theoretically easy for that to happen if we elect him since he will be able to do whatever he wants.


Still American people are not electing a king. trump cant do whatever he wants, the congress will have to approve this wall and that will never happened. do you actually think this is going to stop people from crossing the border. you know I heard this story from this guy who knew that drug lords used tunnels to get a cross the border and people use it as well. building the wall is truly stupid and how Is he going to build a wall so big


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## Glyptofane (Aug 22, 2016)

I'm afraid National Socialism is the only prayer Germany has left at this point and it either won't happen or will be too little, too late. Whoever controls the EU has decided to sacrifice it.


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## gbaboy123 (Aug 22, 2016)

The weird thing with trump is that he throws shit to latinos saying he will make the wall and all of that and black people hate him but if we actually figure it out those people were never going to vote for trump on the first place so he is like trying to keep the hardcore republican people on his side and all the people who are sick of paying more taxes. Hilary only wants to get taxes to give it to people she is a very socialist person. it will never work. people with Hillary become takers who are used to get everything with out much effort and that will never work you cannot take the money from the rich to give it to the poor it will never work even if US is the worlds biggest economy it will never work. I personally hate trump he such a stupid ignorant motherfucker but Hillary is fucking evil demon and we all know that so US needs trump. socialism will never work (don't take it personal if you love socialism please)


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## RevPokemon (Aug 22, 2016)

gbaboy123 said:


> Still American people are not electing a king. trump cant do whatever he wants, the congress will have to approve this wall and that will never happened.


If congress is controlled by the GOP it could happen provided they have enough votes



gbaboy123 said:


> do you actually think this is going to stop people from crossing the border


Absolutely not, I personally support open borders BUT I was saying if he was elected he could create the borers since the GOP would rule congress and vote for whatever he wants



gbaboy123 said:


> ou know I heard this story from this guy who knew that drug lords used tunnels to get a cross the border and people use it as well. building the wall is truly stupid and how Is he going to build a wall so big


Absolutely


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## gbaboy123 (Aug 22, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> If congress is controlled by the GOP it could happen provided they have enough votes
> 
> 
> Absolutely not, I personally support open borders BUT I was saying if he was elected he could create the borers since the GOP would rule congress and vote for whatever he wants
> ...


I get your points


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## Dark Ronin (Aug 22, 2016)

Boy oh boy)
You guys should visit us (russia) once in a lifetime to get the full meaning of raging capitalism in here. Oh wait, it's already a monarchy, yes.
President, oh forgive me, his highness King Putin himself doing whatever he wants, no matter what. Thiefs getting richier, poor - poorer, and it goes under the rock slowly but unavoidingly.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 22, 2016)

So the Chinese build a wall and it's one of the 7 Wonders, Trump wants to build a wall and people give him sh*t - how's that fair?


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## Dark Ronin (Aug 22, 2016)

Chinese built a wall to protect their country from invaders from the outside.
Trump wants to protect his ass from US former citizens. How's that?


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## RevPokemon (Aug 22, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> So the Chinese build a wall and it's one of the 7 Wonders, Trump wants to build a wall and people give him sh*t - how's that fair?


China didn't expect Mexico to pay for it


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## gbaboy123 (Aug 22, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> China didn't expect Mexico to pay for it


hahahaha so true


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## Foxi4 (Aug 22, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> China didn't expect Mexico to pay for it


He has to one-up the Chinese somehow. He always does, he's very good with the Chinese, his deals are great, the best.


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## gbaboy123 (Aug 22, 2016)

am voting for donaldo trumpez


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## grossaffe (Aug 23, 2016)

clownb said:


> I'm afraid National Socialism is the only prayer Germany has left at this point and it either won't happen or will be too little, too late. Whoever controls the EU has decided to sacrifice it.


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## vayanui8 (Aug 23, 2016)

Dark Ronin said:


> Trump wants to protect his ass from US former citizens.


How are they former citizens? Honestly confused here


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## FeverishJackal (Aug 23, 2016)

Capitalism is the best. I wrote a poem about it
*ahem*
Everything I own is a product of capitalism
I like everything I own
fuck communists
-Feverish "Boob-loving" Jackal


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## MisterPantsEyes (Aug 24, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> If that's what you inferred from our conversation, it goes to show that your reading comprehension is rather poor. As a person who's unemployed, no longer in school, not receiving any training, acquiring your groceries from dumpsters, pirating all your digital content and living under someone else's roof with no means to support yourself you're contributing nothing to society whatsoever - in fact, one could argue that your connection to it is parasitic. As such, you're not only not qualified to speak on matters of economic policy as you have no experience in dealing with money, you also have no claim to the society's public funds as you don't participate in it in the first place. You're a walking, talking argument for a meritocracy.
> 
> The purpose of social policies is to help those who have fallen through no fault of their own or forces beyond their control - get them back on their feet in their time of need. I'm a busy man - I work 6 days a week and I take pride in my work. Earning gives me satisfaction, I know that every single coin in my pocket is there because I worked for it. You don't need "help", you're not a victim, you chose to lay down and do nothing. As such, the mere thought of you getting any money that I worked for at all disgusts me. Your attitude lacks any form of pride, self-respect, aspirations or even decency. It's truly shameful. The mere implication that you deserve an "equal share" is preposterous - an equal share necessitates an equal contribution, within your capabilities.


You've read my blog and its comments, so you should know that I actually am looking for a source of income and have no plans to rely on the state.

But anyway, you still don't seem to understand socialism. It's not about giving money to those who don't want to work. While you may not know it, many workes that work 40 hours a week (or even more) are poor because they get paid MUCH less than other people. And why is that? For one reason, it's because people like you who are against a minimum wage. What would be the reason you are against it? Well, you claim that it's a job killer (which it is NOT, learn german and read this article: http://www.br.de/nachrichten/mindestlohn-erfolg-100.html TL;DR: Minimum wage is a success and people are happy), but we all know the actual reason people like you don't want it. You don't want to pay your employees more, but have all the money for yourself. "They get only 4€ for an hour of work? Their problem! :^)". And if you don't have a business, you don't want to pay more for their services, which is practically the same. More money for you, less for them.

If we look at it, you are against a minimum wage and help for those who don't want to work. So if someone refuses to work for 1€/hour, he deserves to lose his home and starve. Got it.


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## RevPokemon (Aug 24, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> TL;DR: Minimum wage is a success and people are happy), but we all know the actual reason people like you don't want it. You don't want to pay your employees more, but have all the money for yourself. "They get only 4€ for an hour of work? Their problem! :^)". And if you don't have a business, you don't want to pay more for their services, which is practically the same. More money for you, less for them.



Minimum wage laws hurt the poor, because their dollar is worth less even though the number of dollars in their pay check has gone up (not necessarily consistently, because full time is often times 30 hours at some places). Owners suffer because to own a domestic business, they need to pay higher rates than they would to run a foreign one. At least in terms of production. The people who win? Other countries' CEOs/politicians, because of the corruption that enables them to have a freer market. Also think about it if an employer was able to raise prices and maintain the same level of sales he already would have.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 24, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> You've read my blog and its comments, so you should know that I actually am looking for a source of income and have no plans to rely on the state.
> 
> But anyway, you still don't seem to understand socialism. It's not about giving money to those who don't want to work. While you may not know it, many workes that work 40 hours a week (or even more) are poor because they get paid MUCH less than other people. And why is that? For one reason, it's because people like you who are against a minimum wage. What would be the reason you are against it? Well, you claim that it's a job killer (which it is NOT, learn german and read this article: http://www.br.de/nachrichten/mindestlohn-erfolg-100.html TL;DR: Minimum wage is a success and people are happy), but we all know the actual reason people like you don't want it. You don't want to pay your employees more, but have all the money for yourself. "They get only 4€ for an hour of work? Their problem! :^)". And if you don't have a business, you don't want to pay more for their services, which is practically the same. More money for you, less for them.
> 
> If we look at it, you are against a minimum wage and help for those who don't want to work. So if someone refuses to work for 1€/hour, he deserves to lose his home and starve. Got it.


My country's already been through your feel-good socialist dream once - no thanks, you can keep it.

You relying on public healthcare and being a recipient of public education has already tapped into the system, a system that you're yet to contribute to.

40 hours a week is nothing, full-time employment equals 48 hours a week, 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. Anything less than that seems low to me. Unfortunately the current job market, created by your social dem buddies by the way, makes it impossible to reach those results to most workers.

I don't have "employees", I *am* an employee and I already explained what the problem with minimum wage is - it destabilises the whole system. If you think you're being paid too little, perhaps it's time to get new qualifications, change your employment or consider self-employment by opening a business. You already have experience in whatever you were doing - go out there and compete.

I don't have to learn German, I *know* German. I also know French and English, because I went to school and believe that broadening my horizons is more constructive than sitting on my ass. Crazy, I know.

I already explained what the problem with minimum wage increases is - it destabilises the market. It puts a cleaner who used to earn $8 per hour and now earns $15 on the same level as a software developer who earns $15 and does not receive the same wage increase despite investing in his education and spending a significant amount of money to get educated in his craft. All of a sudden the two get the same amount of money for vastly different jobs and once living costs increase, which they inevitably do, the software developer becomes just as poor as a cleaner, if not poorer due to college debt or other loans. It drains the market of jobs, increases prices across the board and it's not a hypothetical.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...ment-up-this-isnt-working-is-it/#6975981d3712

As for me wanting to pay less for goods and services, *of course* that's part of the equation. I purchase quality goods and services for a fair amount of money, I aim at getting the best value I can and *everyone should* because the money you earn and then spend is the quantum of life. I want to get as much as possible out of my earnings, that's logical. If someone provides equally good services or goods to you for less money, I'll go to them until you reevaluate your business model because you're inefficient.

I'm not sure if there's any reason to continue this conversation considering the fact that you clearly have no idea how the market works. Makes sense, considering the fact that your buddy Marx spent his life supported by Engels and his other buddies since he was too busy "thinking" to get employable skills or build a career.


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## emigre (Aug 25, 2016)

Yeah, no. The minimum wage is an essential part of worker protection. No disrespect Foxi, but your arguments against it is complete bollocks.

Will go into more detail later.


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## dpad_5678 (Aug 25, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> So I think we all can agree that capitalism is the cancer that is killing us and that democratic socialism is what we need to have.
> What do you think?



Hug me.

Also, whoever is getting asshurt: Socialism =/= Democratic Socialism.


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## Foxi4 (Aug 25, 2016)

emigre said:


> Yeah, no. The minimum wage is an essential part of worker protection. No disrespect Foxi, but your arguments against it is complete bollocks.
> 
> Will go into more detail later.


It's a nice story. I'm all for a safety net, but you can't establish a "living wage" when living costs constantly fluctuate. Minimum wage eliminated the possibility for low earners to negotiate wages - either you work for the bare legal minimum or you don't work at all. It stripped unions of a lot of their power as they can no longer pressure companies into giving low earners higher wages. Not that unions were helpful in the first place, they're just another corrupt cog in the system. If minimum wage is supposed to function and protect workers, it has to float to the value of currency and living costs, otherwise it's a huge loophole for abuse of the lowest social classes. I'm not totally against it, I can see its value as a protective mechanism, but its current implementation where it doesn't change for a decade or more when living costs do, especially in times of recession, is asinine.


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## Captain Library (Aug 25, 2016)

Sadly from my perspective, I think the UK is tipping more and more to the right. Our democratic socialist Labour Party is falling apart and our Conservatives look set for a long, long spell in power. It looked like the left might re-emerge under Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, but actually he's just inept and his parliamentary party have refused to help him from day one. The Greens (despite having the best MP in our Parliament - their only MP) won't increase their number of seats under our antiquated First Past The Post voting system. More creeping privatisation of our public services it is, then.


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## RevPokemon (Aug 25, 2016)

Foxi4 said:


> I'm all for a safety net,


As an Anarcho Capitalist I feel compelled to ask what is a "safety net" that you think is good?


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## vayanui8 (Aug 26, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> As an Anarcho Capitalist I feel compelled to ask what is a "safety net" that you think is good?


I'd assume charity


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## Foxi4 (Aug 26, 2016)

RevPokemon said:


> As an Anarcho Capitalist I feel compelled to ask what is a "safety net" that you think is good?


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.


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## Nightwish (Aug 27, 2016)

vayanui8 said:


> If people really hate the practices of a company that much, they will avoid them. However, the reality is that most people don't care. These things aren't as big of a deal as you make them out to be because people buy it regardless.



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.



RevPokemon said:


> The other issue that people over use capitalism to the point it is so overused and generic that it has no meaning.



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.



Engert said:


> @Nightwish
> Don't take things to the extreme when having a debate against immigration. I'm not against helping people, I'm against helping other people before helping my own first. This is the problem with some politicians like Merkel, for the sake of their careers or their legacy they want to solidify their names in the history books at the expense of their own citizens.



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.



TheCasketMan said:


> Socialism is the first step to communism.  Enjoy paying high taxes just to support the unemployed on welfare.



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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## geishroy (Aug 27, 2016)

I think fascism went pretty well for you guys.


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## RevPokemon (Aug 27, 2016)

Nightwish said:


> 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.


I agree as most every term nowadays is so mixed that they almost have no meaning.


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## vayanui8 (Aug 27, 2016)

Nightwish said:


> 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.


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.


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## Nightwish (Aug 28, 2016)

vayanui8 said:


> 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).



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.



vayanui8 said:


> If you really hate how these companies act, make a new company.



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.


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## vayanui8 (Aug 28, 2016)

Nightwish said:


> 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.


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.


Nightwish said:


> 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.


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.


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## Nightwish (Aug 29, 2016)

vayanui8 said:


> 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.


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.


vayanui8 said:


> What if I don't care about global warming or pollution, and would rather get a cheaper product instead?


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.



vayanui8 said:


> 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.


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.


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## vayanui8 (Aug 29, 2016)

Nightwish said:


> 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.


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.


Nightwish said:


> 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.


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.


Nightwish said:


> 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.
> ...


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.


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## Nightwish (Aug 29, 2016)

vayanui8 said:


> 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.



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.


vayanui8 said:


> That is the cost of freedom. As for GMOs, I don't see any reason they have to be labelled. [...] I personally have no issue with a product being a GMO, and it won't affect my willingness to purchase it.


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).



vayanui8 said:


> I also don't believe in bailing out the banks.


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.


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## MisterPantsEyes (Sep 7, 2016)

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.


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## Youkai (Sep 7, 2016)

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.


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## Foxi4 (Sep 7, 2016)

@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.


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## MisterPantsEyes (Sep 9, 2016)

Youkai said:


> 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.


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).


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## Foxi4 (Sep 9, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> 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).


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.


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## Nightwish (Sep 9, 2016)

MisterPantsEyes said:


> I'm 18 and things haven't changed because they aren't in power yet. This will change in 2017...



Yes you are, which is noticeable by the fact that you expect anything to change soon, and peacefully at that.



Foxi4 said:


> 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,


That's because they were.


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## Foxi4 (Sep 9, 2016)

Nightwish said:


> 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.


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## Nightwish (Sep 13, 2016)

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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## Foxi4 (Sep 14, 2016)

Nightwish said:


> 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.


It's even funnier to see everyone try to split what doesn't belong to them among those whom they've arbitrarily chosen as the oppressed class instead of allowing it to prosper financially by leaving what belongs to the people alone and letting them sign mutually beneficial agreements without a tremendous waste of public resources spent on keeping a rod over their heads while they do it. God forbid they just want to be left alone, that's not permissible.


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## Autz (Sep 14, 2016)

This debate is pointless without even pointing out what Socialism even means. Everyone seems to have very different ideas of the same thing.

If you want to see """"Democratic Socialism"""", you should look at Cuba.


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## Foxi4 (Sep 14, 2016)

Autz said:


> This debate is pointless without even pointing out what Socialism even means. Everyone seems to have very different ideas of the same thing.
> 
> If you want to see """"Democratic Socialism"""", you should look at Cuba.


We've already defined what it is - the only viable method of time travel, perfect for taking a visit to your own country in the 60ies.


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