Thread: Chavez seeks power to rule by decree for 1 year

Originally Posted by Takeovers

greed

Originally Posted by Takeovers

Sadly I have to agree.

Imo, we should keep this as focal. Don't start blaming systems and ideologies, it comes down to people and greed.

Originally Posted by socal

Crony capitalism is not capitalism. Interest rates and currency values are set by governments and central banks. Furthest thing from capitalism.

That's not a bad post by your standards, Social. They are not, however, so far apart, at least in name and in propaganda, in practice they have been moved very far apart by individuals, groups of individuals and their overpowering greed,

Originally Posted by Cthulhu

Capitalism applies to a market / business model, not an economic or political model.

People spend money, buy goods and create markets; they'e the markets and they are society. Discretely banding areas that can then be sperated from real people and real societies is one of the central problems of Western 'thinking', imo. A holistic Eastern 'thinking' is much closer to the pulse. This is one of the many areas that are used for corrupt gain, for example: seperating individuals from companies, thus companies are accountable to a certain extent while individuals are not; hence, financial institution CEOs can consistently break laws for the sake of greed without punishment; the company gets punished and the market pays; the CEOs benefit - of course they are the same people (in some instances) or same group of people who put the laws in place to seperate company from individual. Criminal.

Originally Posted by hazz

You need both capitalism as the bases of production and socialism as the basis of society.

Please see above. Firstly, you need to control (stop?) greed. You also need to integrate all elements of culture and social systems in a way that is centred around individual and equal opportunity. Likelwise, individuals must be accountable. For example, when Blair decides to break British and EU and UN laws to go to war, and he does so by blatantly lying and creating disinformation which he knows is false, then he, not a political system, needs to be held accountably, preferably in a country that has the death penalty...

Originally Posted by hazz

During these 30 years the 99% have seen their share of income drop by a third, whilst the top 1% are taking 300% more.

Greed. Corruption. Crony capitalism. Individuals and groups of individuals. Greed. Lack of accountability.

Originally Posted by hazz

^To be honest, all of the ideologically based political and economic systems have failed to deliver, mainly because the proponents for these systems have routinely rejected real life evidence over ideology.

I wouldn't agree. Systems are corrupted by people and greed. That is why we need strong and independant institutions to hold the system up. Two parallel examples:

1) Thailand, judiciary. This essential institution is not independant and is a political device used for greed by a group of individuals that are literally raping the nation.

2) US/UK/Eourope, financial regulators - this seems to be more visibly corrupt in the US -, This essential institution has been infiltrated and now works for the financial companies (banks, investment cos, stockbrokers, etc), and has become a political device used for greed by a group of people who are literally raping the world.

If the Thai courts were truly independant and worked 'blindly' for society, then we'd be in a much better place, although a small group of people would have less access to wealth and greed.

If the US/UK/EU financial regulators (and governments) were truly independant and worked solely for society, then we'd be in a much better place, although a small group of people would have less access to wealth and greed.