Democrats Abroad In Argentina For Bernie Sanders

[TheDonald]

@TheDonald: Thanks for taking the time. I am interested in your reasoning.

Republicans are not the capitalists they claim to be. They are in the sausage-making economics. Privatizing gains and socializing losses. Dems are republicans but lie about it pretending they are not.

I wish Bernie runs as an Independent Capitalist? I would like to see him not allow himself being labeled a "socialist"? He can save capitalism from both 1% servant clowns? I want him to make sure that the next time the too big fails again, they never get their hands on public coffers again for multi-million Dollar bonuses and hundred of Billions bailouts and Trillions of tax cuts. Makes sure public coffers stay dedicated only for public services and infrastructure: ... roads, transport, schools, colleges, healthcare, social security, etc. (all in shambles).

Capitalism is: "you live or die by your own merits". It is the best-known system. Fair, competitive and real. It is the pursuit of happiness but no guarantees. No such thing as too big to fail.

Why didn´t Obama bail out the homeowners instead of failed bankers in 2008? To add insult to injury after taking the handouts failed bankers turned around and foreclosed and took their houses.
Why is it ok to accept writing off 50% of Americans (people with wages below $30000)? Is it really true that 50% are genetically "weak-minded" and are not worth becoming productive members of society?
What does it mean that Jeff BOZO ($130 Billion worth) not only pays $0 taxes, but also he gets paid back tax credits from public coffers?
Why his employees in Amazon warehouses qualify and collect food stamps from public coffers?
What happened to the Roosevelt "New Deal" that believed in the public economy? Public spend every penny of their wages back in the economy, the 1% hoard and stagnate all the money, own the country, and the rest (the public) are written off.
Many many more why´s. But I´ll stop here.

Your take, if you are inclined.

I'm not much of a political scientist - economics is my interest. Pretty much everything I write on this site is economic, not political. Socialism is an economic theory, not a political theory; although socialism is being used as a political platform today.

I understand your frustrations with the response to the crisis in the US a decade ago. I share some of them. For me, there were two enormous missed opportunities during that time. First, no bank CEO was ever held personally liable for their bank's failure. Second, no legislation was ever enacted that would hold a failed bank CEO personally liable.

For capitalism to be effective, it must enforce consequences for mistakes. It must also make examples of people who err greviously. The economic crisis of 2009 failed to do this, in regards to bank CEOs. To me, both of those shortcomings were a damn shame.

The bank bailiouts had nothing to do with capitalism. It was socialism at its extreme. But those were extreme times.

Most people are not aware of this, but there were two government funded homeowner assistance programs - HARP (home affordable refinance program) and HAMP (home affordable modification program). You can look on wikipedia for details of each. Both programs were financed ultimately by Treasury, which means that they were paid for by taxpayers. Even though I never defaulted on a mortgage, I paid for many people who did, through my taxes. I agreed with these programs; not all socialist policy is ill-advised. As I wrote above, those were extreme times

The other side of the housing crisis was one of human behavior at its worst. Millions of homeowners defaulted on their mortgages despite having the means to pay. These were termed "strategic defaults." Where I come from, if you sign a contract, whether it be with an individual, a bank or a corporation, you are honor bound to maintain that commitment. Many Americans unfortunately felt otherwise and left their keys in the mailboxes, leaving the bank, its depositors, and ultimately all taxpayers to pick up the tab for this dishonorable conduct.

Personally, I view Jeff Bezos as a genius. He has revolutionized commerce. Not just in America, but worldwide. Alibaba, Mercadolibre and all the others are spawns of Amazon. I would argue that every single ecommerce platform today has been influenced to some extent by Amazon. They have shown the world how to do internet retail.

Yeah, the $0 tax payment is a problem. But Amazon employs over half a million people...and counting. Some of those jobs are difficult with low pay, but many of them are excellent jobs with big benefits and high pay. And all those people pay boatloads of taxes. Bezos' goal is not to harm lower level employees. I am certain of that. His goal is to build Amazon to last 50 years after his death. To do that, he needs the most competitive, leanest organization that delivers goods to consumers at the lowest possible cost. How many times have we gone to multiple websites for a good or service, found it for a dollar less, and bought it there to save that dollar? All of us have.

Amazon is not in customer service, like Starbucks or your financial advisor. There is no one at Amazon to "like." You hit click and the good shows up on your door two days later. It is an operations business. If it gets fat, if it doesn't deliver goods/services to consumers at the lowest possible cost (including price, time, ease of use, etc..) it will be destroyed by competition. Bezos knows this.

The fact that Amazon was born in the US and has changed the world in a positive way (in my opinion), is a testament to capitalism. If we take that incentive away, if we give out participation ribbons to every kid on the baseball field, so to speak, we take away the incentive and opportunity for such remarkable creations. In short, this is the difference between socialism and capitalism.

 

[deadOA]

You are absolutely wright and txs again for taking the time. I like understanding your point of view.

As you detailed the merits of "capitalism economic theory" I agree with you. Personally, I am not an economist, but it is easily obvious to me that "capitalism economic theory" is far more superior than "socialism economic theory".

The trick is not to conflate republicans as "capitalists". We should be careful not to make the mistake of conflating "reality" and "theory" purposely to confuse.

My reality on the ground questions were left unanswered (because you are not political). But sometimes when you give examples of countries like Venezuela, North Korea etc etc as "socialists" I don´t take it as theory talk. These are real political examples. These countries are under sanctions designed to bring people to their knees. Am I wrong to think that these examples are not good representative of "capitalism economic theory" vs "socialism economic theory". ?

P.S. I purposely left dems out of the discussion because they are liers and have no principal or anything to stand for. HRC (the entitled one) was handed the elections on a silver platter by cheating and deceit yet she lost to a reality TV show host. How more disgusting can she be?

 

[steveinbsas]

@[B]TheDonald[/B] I enjoyed reading your take on the financial crisis of 200 and your opinion of Jeff Bezos, but there was no mention of Bernie Sanders in your post.

Since his candidacy for president is the topic of this thread, I (and possibly others) would appreciate knowing your take on his economic views and what he proposes (and/or promises) to do if he is elected president of the USA in 2020.