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Butterfly

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.

Panda

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.

lom

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

Butterfly

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

Panda

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

Butterfly

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

Norton

Striking the balance between unfettered capitalism and a stagnant socialist economy is the answer. Question is how is this to be implemented? A tremendous amount of political will is in order to make decisions to curtail abuses in existing capitalistic countries where big business has a stranglehold on politics.

No question there needs to be government oversight in some areas but to much regulation can result in economic stagnation.

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BruCru

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!

Carnwadrick

^ 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"

Norton

Provide a link to substantiate your claim.

Carnwadrick

^ 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

tsicar

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

Carnwadrick

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

Butterfly

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,

Butterfly

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%

Bugs

I hesitate posting in a thread in which the OP gives any credibility to the idea of nationalization of entire industries out of fear of providing any kind of validity to the thread. But I digress.

Here is a link from the IRS in regard the the precentage of taxes paid by precentile (latest data year 2005):
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/05in05tr.xls
Percentage breakdown is at the end of the chart.

In order to top the 90% point one needs to include nearly 50% of all tax payers, and I doubt anyone would venture to say that 50% of those that pay tax are rich. In any case with the current trend it is probably pretty scary for those towards the top as it looks like the top 1% are on their way to paying over 40% of the entire tax bill. And much of what Obama has talked about will do nothing but grow that number.

The one question I come away with after reviewing the numbers is if 50% of the tax-payers already account for nearly 97% then why not bump the tax bill for everyone in the top 50% and just eliminate income tax completely on the bottom 50%? Seems this would be reasonable even to the uber rich.

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Butterfly

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...

sabang

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

Butterfly

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

kingwilly

surely you aint serious?