Thread: Socialism Reloaded: The only future available

With the speculative mess we have been witnessing for the last 12 years, it's pretty obvious that there is too much money floating around, and not enough opportunities or resources to exploit or grow. This is only happening because since the fall of the Berlin wall international and local corporations have been given a blank cheque by our governments for running their businesses without the social responsibility that comes with it. Today we are paying the price for it.

By maximizing profits, corporations have put a lot of pressures on available resources, optimizing not only their returns, but their costs. By producing more with greater of economies of scale, they lead to a situation where society as a whole has not fully benefited from a greater share of income. Instead it has lead to a greater divide, with a few getting richer than ever, and more getting poorer in relative terms, destroying in between a strong and stable middle class.

Today, high inflation, speculations on commodities, and an upcoming crash in growth, is a direct consequence of excessive money from the "rich" chasing "limited" resources in a limited capacity society. Instead of paying more taxes and distributing more income to the masses through decent wages, the "rich" have used their excesses of cash to "play" the markets, only to spoil it with massive losses when their game came to an end. The conclusion is simple. Like the poors, the "Rich" do not know what to do with their money when they have too much of it, and that is a case when they become irresponsible and complacent.

It's time to re-nationalize and regulate industries (banks, oil) again, confiscate the excessive assets of the extremely wealthy, and force corporations to prioritize their social responsibilities by giving employees priority over the shareholders. Capitalism when unregulated is like Communism, it is self-destructive, and it will face eventually the same Berlin wall that destroyed Communism.

Hopefully, western democracies in Europe are starting to see the writing on the wall, and are acknowledging the failure of the unregulated and obscene American system.

It works in the short term. But unregulated capitalist greed eventually runs off the rails. Communism has been shown to be a failure too. The middle ground is the only way to ensure long term economic sustainability.

^ The problem is human greed and it is present in any system.
The nastiest one of the 7 deadly sins in my opinion.

^ it's not greed per se, but the need to dominate, greed comes after

Individualistic human greed can be a good thing for society so long as it is harnessed and regulated to benefit the community as well.

^ this is the definition of socialism, not communism, and this is exactly what the future will be

What a crock of sh*t!! Show me anywhere in the world where socialism has been successful! It was not the capitalist that caused the current market conditions in the US, it was the leftist that forced mortgage financing for those that could not afford it. Those 'poor' people then went out and bought high priced houses that they could not sustain! The high price of oil is the direct result of the leftist wackos in the US who have not allowed for new exploration and refining. It is basic supply and demand (something you communists do not understand)... the less supply there is, the higher the price!

You say that the rich do not pay enough taxes but you are wrong! In the US, the rich pay 90% of ALL taxes. Along the way, they are the ones who are using THEIR wealth to create jobs for the "poor".

Your logic is flawed and because of human nature will always fail! Don't forget that other deadly sin... envy! You leftist ENVY success so much that you wish to take it away!

^ Welcome BruCru and bravo on your well articulated post..the rich should just take all their money out of the big bad corporations and let the government run the companies into the ground then who will employ the "Poor downtrodden worker"

Originally Posted by BruCru

the rich pay 90% of ALL taxes.

Provide a link to substantiate your claim.

^ I thnk the number is even higher than 90% (broadcast on radio & TV all the time) but I will do a search for an official link if BruCru doesn't have it handy

yeah! screw Bill GATES, Donald Trump and all the other selfish bastard rich people!
nationalise their companies and let the people with REAL drive to succeed run the companies that were built on their greed!
the world doesn't need rich people, doesn't need poor people. we should all be on a par. why the hell should we not all be able to live on the dole, why strive for more, like the greedy rich bastards, whose mega businesses employ thousands of people. who needs something to strive for, why not remove a businessman's incentive (greed) to expand his empire. just tax the shit out of anybody who makes any more than anybody else. soon they will have learned their lesson, and there will be no greed, no rich people, just mediocrity and unemployment.
the world needs rich people, needs poor people, too
screw social responsibility and communism and it's thinly disguised little brother: socialism

Link to who pays the taxes in te USA
http://www.tomsusan.com/tom/blog/2006/05/who-pays-taxes-in-usa.html

The rich do not pay taxes, that's why they have accountants,

Your blue collar worker probably pay more in taxes than most self-made billionaires,

Originally Posted by Carnwadrick

Link to who pays the taxes in te USA
Philosopher Stone: Who Pays the Taxes in the USA

300K per year is hardly a billionaire, very comfortable, yes, but not ultra rich

how about those making more than 1m per year, how much they contribute, probably less than 5%

The top 1% pay 34.3% (these are people with an adjusted gross income of about $300,000 or higher)

Actually, on that topic, the tax scale is completely bent, and rightly so. At one end, the poor do not pay taxes because they can't, while the middle range of income is highly taxed, and the extremely rich at the other end do not pay any just because they can

Normal distribution, basic statistics distribution, nothing to do with greed, or human nature etc...

Originally Posted by BruCru

Show me anywhere in the world where socialism has been successful!

It is important that we define what you mean by Socialism. If you mean Communism, I can not really think of one. If you mean nations with some Socialist policies (social Democracy), I can think of several-

Sweden, Norway, & all of the Scandinavian nations
Singapore
Germany
modern China

Originally Posted by Bugs

the top 1% are on their way to paying over 40% of the entire tax bill

so the top 1% are only paying 40%, while 99% below them are paying 60% ? yeah, thanks for proving my point

Originally Posted by Butterfly

It's time to re-nationalize and regulate industries (banks, oil) again, confiscate the excessive assets of the extremely wealthy, and force corporations to prioritize their social responsibilities by giving employees priority over the shareholders.

surely you aint serious?

Originally Posted by sabang

Sweden, Norway, & all of the Scandinavian nations

Could the UK and France (and prolly a few others) be included in that list?

Originally Posted by Butterfly

so the top 1% are only paying 40%, while 99% below them are paying 60% ? yeah, thanks for proving my point

And what is your point and how does the progressive tax have anything to do with nationalizing banks and oil companies?

There are already socialistic aspects of most of the industrialized societies (SS systems, various health care systems, progressive nature of many tax systems, etc). But I am very much against nationalization of nearly any industry.

Only 40%?
WTF the top 1% paying 40% of the tax bill ain't fair enough for you? Think the top 1% should carry the whole load?

And the bit about the other 99% paying 60% does not come near to painting the entire picture.

2005:
Top 1% paid 39.38% - 99% paid 60.62%
Top 5% paid 59.67% - 95% paid 40.33% (numberrs are droping quickly)
Top 10% paid 70.30% - 90% paid 29.70%
Top 25% paid 85.99% - 75% paid 14.01%
Top 50% paid 96.93% - last 50% paid a whopping 3.07% of the tax bill

I got no truck with making those that have/make more pay more. But how much of the burden can a society justify making the top 1%/5%/10% carry?

I would be all for a simplified tax code that eliminates ALL loopholes by eliminating ALL deductions and exemptions. I would even go so far as to eliminating all separate income categories (ie eliminating categorizing and taxing capital gains seperate/different from other types of income), and making all forms of income simply what it is income.

I said in my earlier post that it seems it would be pretty easy to bump the tax on all in the top 50% and eliminate the tax on the bottom 50%. It would probably not be much of a stretch to bump the tax bill on the top 25% (already footing 85.99%) to eliminate the tax burden on all in the bottom 75%.

Not really on topic but I would also be all for eliminating the tax free status of ALL religious organizations (unless we allow all who belief in fairy tails to claim tax free status).

Capitalist competition in the market place is generally a good thing for everybody.
Its when these pricks get too big and monopolize their market niche that problems start. Corporate profiteers have no social conscience and are not answerable to the general public. There has got to be some government checks and balances to make it work for the benefit of everybody.

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Could the UK and France (and prolly a few others) be included in that list?

Good point, France definitely, but the UK not really, at least not as much as France. But the Nordic countries are definitely more advance in that regard than we are. I don't particularly like the Nordic version of Socialism.

Originally Posted by Panda

And what is your point and how does the progressive tax have anything to do with nationalizing banks and oil companies?

My point is that the very rich are getting away with it, and the very rich are often major shareholders in key strategic industries. Their pressure on management performance make management commit all kind of abuses in the name of profit maximization and cost minimization. Oil and Banking certainly fit that pattern. Those industries are not serving the public and their customers, but only serving their shareholders. A company role is to reconcile its internal objectives with those of the public. If they can't, then they become a burden to society. They should be taken or heavily regulated and even nationalized. Nationalization works, and it will soon be the only future we have. When we hit our Berlin wall, and industries start to collapse, we will be all too happy to have the government nationalize companies.

Originally Posted by Bugs

WTF the top 1% paying 40% of the tax bill ain't fair enough for you? Think the top 1% should carry the whole load?

I don't want to derail this discussion on the tax issue too much, as it's really a tangent. That said, it's an interesting topic and very related to the abuses of our capitalist system. Is 40% fair enough you ask ? you are only looking at Aggregate Tax Revenues, not the Effective Tax Rate. These are two different things, and I hope you are not confusing the numbers above with the tax rate. The extremly rich will have an effective Tax Rate as low 2%, that is how much they actually pay taxes over their overall income.

Now why would a struggling middle class family pay as much 30% of their income as tax, that would only represent a very minor share of all tax revenues, while an extremely wealthy individual making millions every year, and enjoying all kind of luxuries he doesn't really need, pay only 1% in effective tax rate, yet representing a bigger share of all tax revenues. Now is that really fair ? can you the see the imbalance here at the individual level ? where is the Principle of Equality ? Don't we expect everyone be treated the same regardless of religion, race, or background ? if our Legal System is based on such principle, then why not the tax system ?