Double_R

Projection much? You are the ad-hom factory on this site.

It’s not projection when I’m explaining exactly why I’m making the point that I’m making. do you have a response to the actual point, or does the mindless retort of “projection” satisfy your need to feel like you sufficiently handled my post?

Again, Obama promised this wouldn't happen with his 40+ televised lies defending ACA about keeping your capitalized health care choices.

Why do you want more of this?

Want more of what? Healthcare for people who weren’t previously able to afford it? Please explain.

I'm so glad you're amused

That’s probably the only sentence you read.

Let me get that straight. Are you for the current Obamacare or the program Obama proposed initially?

My answer was not ambiguous.

I am for the ACA in that it was better than what we had before. When a politician passes legislation that *improves* our situation, that’s a good thing and I grade it as such.

I also said I (probably) prefer a single payer system. In other words, old system - bad, ACA - better, single payer - best.

I don’t think I can make that any clearer.

Because Obama proposed more taxes for the Obamacare. That proposal was refused but the current program operates in a similar way which is to force people to subsidize the medical insurance of the rest.

Yeah, that’s how every society under progressive taxation works. If that’s socialism, then every developed nation on earth is a socialist country.

I'm catching a whiff of socialism in your argument, to be honest. It's also possible that as the Democrat militant that you are, you don't want to make Obama look bad.

This is just stupid, and frankly pointless little quip to throw out there. I will say though, that what I would criticize Obama for is not going far enough. He had a democratic super majority and could have passed a single payer system, but he thought it was so important to bring republicans to the table.

He wanted this bill to have bipartisan support because he believed that the longevity of the law would be protected only if republicans joined in, so he did everything he could and made every concession he could get away with to court their votes, and ultimately passed what on paper republicans should have cheered - a free market system that forced everyone to pay into, only for them to all vote against it anyway and then go on to use their own unified opposition against him to claim he was the most divisive president ever. So pathetic.

Then make that argument.

I don’t need to, this isn’t a matter of opinion. Look up the definition of socialism, look up what the ACA actually does, note that there is no overlap whatsoever.

—> I would prefer a single payer system,

Oh, while you are at it, argue that this isn't socialism either.

It’s a lot closer to the socialism that the ACA, but under single payer all medical providers and drug makers are still privately owned, the only thing the government takes over is the insurance market. You can call me a socialist for that if you want to, it just makes your definition essentially meaningless which is why I’ve asked over and over and over again in this thread for you guys to start talking about the policies and underlying philosophy itself, but you all prefer to just talk about labels. Cause apparently that’s where you can own the libs, or so you seem to think.

The ACA isn’t socialism genius. That’s the difference.

My respionse is oiften filtered througth a legal perspective, which does address the variable levels of "good" and "bad." Sorry if that confuses you by a myriad of grays in your black and white.

This is so hilarious.

This dispute began when I pointed out something egregious about republicans to which you made the point that “democrats suck too”, and by that you simply meant “there’s bad on both sides and therefore they’re effectively the same” totally ignoring the fact that one of three groups is meaningfully worse than the other.

And now, without any substantive clarifications whatsoever, all of a sudden you’re the one who’s being nuanced and I’m the one confused because everything’s not black or white.

When I talk about people a this site being unserious, this is exactly what I’m talking about.

I'll respond to whatever the hell I choose

That’s your right, I’m just pointing out that you consistently choose to respond to the points that are irrelevant while not responding to the points that would actually challenge your world view, which is pretty cowardice. But again, that’s your right.

So you are a socialist

Got it. So according to Shorsey;

Socialist: someone who supports the ACA

I will make note of that so that I can chuck in the trash any concept that you calling someone a socialist is meaningful.

I think you're confusing socialism with social assistance. I said it in my past comments but it seems you don't pay attention.

My god dude.

I spent the beginning of this thread (see posts 23, 32, and 39) trying to get through to you and others that the term socialism doesn’t mean what most of you are using it to mean, why the debate over socialism vs capitalism is stupid, and trying to get you to engage in a conversation about the ideas rather than the labels. All I got from you was “ah so you’re a socialist but just don’t want to admit it…”.

So no, I am not a socialist, glad you finally joined me. Now would you like to meaningfully respond to any of the multiple paragraph substantive posts I provided in this thread?

I suppose you're against the Obamacare as the non-socialist that you are. Right?

I am for Obamacare in that it is better than the alternative we had in place at the time.

I would prefer a single payer system, but never really looked that deeply into it to say if it’s the best alternative.

Did 4th grade tell you who determined good and bad for groups A and B? 

The question of how “bad” was determined is irrelevant within a conversation where both parties except the premise that X is bad.

Your point was that democrats suck *too*, so the background crap you’re trying to use to wiggle out of the conversation is irrelevant.

There is logical fallacy attached to your logic.Where it is not currently true that you have an invisible dragon in your house, therefore, to ask your alien-believing neighbor to prove you do not have such a dragon, using a false statement to prove that the result proves your neighbor's fallacy is a real logical error.

If you have no arguments left to support your beliefs and you just want to run away from the conversation, you could just not respond.

To me a socialist and a woke (soft socialist) are the same shit because all of them long for communism.

And yet neither I, any prominent left winger here or any prominent left wing figure want communism, so your whole beef is with a figment of your imagination.

So, you were telling that you want a bit of socialism, right? Tell us, what kind of socialism you want for the US?

Let’s start with social security and Medicare. Do you approve of these programs?

The fact that I am a child of God, and all the above, is all of my net worth.

God, the people you call friends, the experiences you’ve had… are all totally irrelevant to a discussion about capitalism vs socialism. This is a comically stupid way to respond in this context, and I think you know that.

If an analogy does not represent reality, of what worth is it?

Because analogies help us test the logic of our conclusions by stripping away the factual basis our arguments are working with and thereby allowing us to clearly see the structure of our thinking model.

For example, if someone claims they believe aliens exist because no one has proven otherwise, I can ask them to prove that I don’t have an invisible dragon in my house. The invisible dragon thing is purely made up, so of course silly and has no connection to reality, but the logical test it exposes; prove the non existence of something; can be a valuable lesson to the person claiming aliens exist.

Let me know if you’d like me to expand further what analogies are and why they’re useful.

No, it isn't, simply because of my answer above re: analogy. Final score is not the only measure, as evidenced by two teams playing each other more than once in a season. Sometimes, one team always wins, sometimes they split victories. Either one demonstrates better skill by more than score. What is not real about your basketball scoring is that it expects that everything worthy of having reduces to a dollar value in capitalism. Nope. Observe the list above about my true net worth. Observe, as well, the encounter of Christ and the rich young man who wanted…

My god dude, this is just unserious. I asked you how to explain the meaningful difference between my analogy and capitalism, instead you started talking about regular season dynamics pivoting to the Bible. This is really starting to be a waste of time, even for someone like myself who doesn’t mind responding to silly arguments.

You seem to value money a lot since that's your singular view of capitalism, by your basketball game. It's all about money.

Yeah genius, that’s what the debate of capitalism vs socialism is literally about… money. No way you’re being serious.

How do you arrive at that conclusion

By applying what I learned in 4th grade.

If 9 out of 10 people in Group A do something bad, and 2 out of 10 people in Group B do something bad, then Group A is worse.

Logic 101.

—> Okay… so democrats suck too, what’s your point?

Uhhh, that.

Then you have no point at all.

*Some* democrats voted *with* republicans to do [Bad thing X], therefore democrats and republicans are equally bad.

Logic fail.

Are you at least willing to concede that a good chunk of today's 1 percenters are there because of an extraordinary personal assimilation to a culture of delayed gratification?

Yes

would you concede that a good chunk who grew their wealth instead of shrank their wealth did so through an extraordinary commitment to delayed gratification?

Yes

Which system provides greater opportunity to convert delayed gratification into increased personal wealth: one that allows individuals to retain more of the resulting gains, or one that progressively redistributes more of those gains?

The former

If you can show me the mechanism, or at least some real-world examples where a one-percenter spent his entire yearly income and still grew his wealth that year, I'd be willing to concede on my part.

I probably could not

Glad to. Show me how I am robbing the poor in my extended area when I contributre 20% of my increase annually directly to…

I’ve never said, suggested, or even hinted that I view you or anyone as “robbing the poor”, so yet again the only thing you’ve corrected is a strawman.

You said that you see the fact that 1% of this country owns more wealth than the bottom half combined as proof that the 1% know how to create wealth that much more. Please explain how this should not be interpreted as “I believe people are nothing more than the sum total of their net worth”.

Your "basketball" game [inconsistent rules with reality, because that's not how either basketball, or a free market economy works]. That said, your scoring is manipulated to support your argument, which is not real, either.

Well I have to start with… no shit it’s not consistent with reality, that’s why we call that an analogy. Stay with me here.

Please answer the very simple question (is this a game set up to test which team is actually better) and then explain what is the meaningful difference between this and capitalism.

The fact is simple, the normal course of wealth is to beget consumption. The rare course is to delay gratification.

None of this has anything at all to do with anything I’ve argued in this thread.

Do you even know what the argument is that you’re arguing against?

Yes, but you must recall that Democrats [granted, not all, but enough] voted with Republicans to pass legislation allowing tax-exempt and tax-deferred investments that add to the 5%'s annual income, which is not the same as their net worth. It ususally akes two to tango, even to political music.

Okay… so democrats suck too, what’s your point?

All those expenditures you listed [a dad who can barely put food on the table or a single mom stuck caring for her children and her aging parents] are choices. Choices to take their wealth... and consume it all. Saving not even a penny.

[1% of the nation owns more wealth than the bottom half combined] just tells me that 1% of society knows how to create wealth better than the other 99%.

We can stop pretending that this debate has anything to do with policy. This is really simple, you guys really believe that we are all nothing more than where our financial positions ended up. Luck and/or good fortune have nothing to do with it. Advantages built into our capitalistic system don’t exist, and therefore any policy that attempts to provide any kind of benefit for those towards the bottom is inherent theft from their wealthier

Please correct me if I’m wrong.

If not, I’d like to ask you a hypothetical. I’m sure you’re familiar with the basics of how basketball works. Each basket is two points, for this analogy we’ll set aside 3’s and FT’s…

Imagine a rule that each basket scored will be worth 2 points plus the size of your lead (if you have the lead). So Team A vs Team B, A scores first, B misses, A scores again. A now leads 6-0 (the second basket was worth 4pts [2pts plus the 2pt lead]). Next possession B scores, then A scores. That means so far, Team A is winning 10-2.

Play this game out. How does it end? Or more to the point; are these rules put together to measure which team is actually better?

Answer this question, then we can discuss how it relates to the conversation.

You said you are against the concentration of wealth and the gap between the poor and the rich. I mean, is there something more socialist than this? To me it's very clear, you're a socialist who doesn't have the balls to come out of the closet.

This is so painfully stupid.

Since you would later in the same post refer to an alternative as “soft socialism” it’s clear that you understand that there are very different degrees of “socialism” and insist on painting me with the most extreme brush you’ve got despite me being absolutely clear that it doesn’t describe my views.

This is what happens when you have no arguments. When you do not understand what you are actually talking about beyond the labels you were taught to throw around. You haven’t contributed a single meaningful thought throughout our conversation. Let me know when you have an actual idea to break down instead of a derogatory epithet.

For capitalism to work people need freedom and unfortunately socialism doesn't provide that to people.

For the, what… third, fourth time(?), the “socialism” that I advocate for not only doesn’t contradict capitalism/freedom, it works within it. You would understand this of you actually understood any of the words you keep throwing around.

Capitalism and socialism are like oil and water so I don't know how you think to reconcile those ideologies.

Read the words I write and maybe some of them will penetrate.

Again, those people are one Dylan Mulvaney ad away from losing all or most of that. Mom and Pop have way less to lose on one bad decision.

You really think you’re onto something with this Dylan Mulvaney example. Cute. BTW I just bought a case of Bud light last week. Still on the shelves.

I think this point that you’re raising is extremely telling though. You see risk taking as proportionate to the dollar amount one has to lose. It’s this kind of thinking that is exactly the problem. Major companies can lose millions of dollars in a deal and it won’t make a difference to the lives of a single shareholder. A mom and pop store losing 10k in some cases could be enough to put them out of business.

So no, the major company will not lose more in any meaningful sense.

This also pertains to everything else in this conversation. You keep going back to risk taking, most people are in no position to take any risks at all. The husband and father who is barely able to pay rent and put food on the table is in no position to put $2k into a stock account or towards a business venture. The single mom who has to raise her kids and care for her aging parents isn’t able to set aside funds for that online store she dreamed of. Those kinds of risks are only practical for people who already have the means, which is why every single time there’s some economic downturn those are the folks who survive. That’s not an accident, that’s how the system is designed.

I know you really want the "wealth begets wealth" to be a truism, but the above and the real world prove it can never be.

That’s because you consistently engage in black or white fallacies, which is why you’re unable to tell different things apart from each other.

Wealth begets wealth is one of the most basic facts about capitalism, it’s not a controversial statement at all and it is so easily observable. You literally live in a society where 1% of the nation owns more wealth than the bottom half combined and you don’t think statement is true, that is incredibly absurd.

Your problem is that you keep trying to turn the statement into an absolute, as if I saying it’s true in every example even though I’ve clarified for you multiple times that’s not what I’m saying. It’s a personal choice at this point to not understand what I’m telling you.

I am arguing that neither communism nor socialism knows how to create personal wealth by policy.

Then you are talking to yourself because this doesn’t address a single thing I’ve argued in this thread.

What I’m arguing here is that capitalism has a natural progression where as it matures, the wealth within that society will become concentrated to the point where a minuscule fraction control vast amounts of that society’s wealth. This is a problem for capitalism because the more a society’s wealth becomes concentrated the less the people actually doing the hard work which makes the system function are incentivized to contribute. Taken to its extreme end, this will collapse the system.

This doesn’t mean we abandon capitalism. It means we need to introduce a force to counteract the force I just described. That means things like… social security, medicare, progressive taxation, you know… policy ideas that help working people. You can demonize those kinds of things as socialism all you want, they’re still necessary in a mature capitalistic system.

And not for nothing, but you should be cheering those kinds of things on. The harder it is for the working class while the rich continue to fly around in their private jets and more trillionaires are created, the more people are going to turn to socialistic policies and accept nothing less than to burn it all down. This is exactly the kind of sentiment that created the biggest moron as president we’ve ever seen. They thought he was fighting for the little guy which is why they all flocked to him. They didn’t give a damn about small government and conservative values. Once the dust settles with him they will move on, and it won’t be to the party of tax breaks for the rich.

inmorality is not inherent to capitalism but to human nature.

Correct, and I hate to break it to you but capitalism is a system run by human beings.

The entire point of “socialism” is to introduce a force that counters that inherent trait in human nature for the betterment of all of society.

Socialim is diametrally opposed to capitalism because it seeks a utopian equality by means of coercion.

This is just a jumbled mess of incoherence.

You continue to shift back and forth from socialism in its most extreme form (which no one and certainly not myself is defending) to socialism as you and all your right wing cohorts are defining; it which is basically any form of government intervention in our economy that seeks to provide a safety net for anyone. This is why your strawman attacks are so pervasive, and also why I keep quoting “socialism”, because you guts continue to make up your own words.

Maybe you are thinking that social assistance is part of socialism. I don't think so. To my knowledge, the US always had social assistance and it was never considered a socialist policy.

Then why are you calling me a socialist of you don’t think my policies are socialism? Have you paid attention to a single word I’ve word I’ve written?

So, it's a fallacy to say that capitalism creates poverty.

Don’t know a single person arguing that.

there will always be someone more capable than you when it comes to productivity and wealth creation. That's a fact and we don't have to feel sorry about that.

No one does. No one is saying every person contributes equally.

Do you even know what I’m for? Have you bothered to ask me a single question to better understand what I’m telling you? Or are you right now just arguing with “the left”? Cause if that’s the case I’ll just leave the two of you alone.

Walmart has to take many more risks and work much harder than mom-and-pop to keep its market share.

Walmart isn’t a person, in fact the person who started it and took the bulk of those risks to make out what it is has long passed. Yet a handful of billionaires his creation created still live above the rest of us while aspiring Mom and Pop store owners don’t stand a chance.

You’re right that it has to work hard to maintain its market share, perhaps you should ask yourself how it was able to attain that market share in the first place. It’s not because they were really just that much better than everyone else, it’s because the bigger you get the easier it gets to continue getting bigger. No, it’s not an absolute rule, which you will no doubt default to responding with, it’s a force for which individual results may vary but the overall trend is certain. As one billionaire put it, “turning one thousand dollars into two takes a great amount of work, turning a billion dollars into two is inevitable”.

the real flaw of C/S is that it does not know how to create personal or collective wealth; it can only spend, not make

Yet again, what you are calling socialism is not an alternative to capitalism, it’s a set of policy ideas that exist within capitalism. So your separation of these two things leads to nothing but incoherence, you’re attacking a strawman.

The reason is not that capitalism is evil and C/S is good, but that both can be corrupted by greed.

Correct, greed is the issue. That’s exactly why any system in which the attainment of power can be used to increase one’s own power only has one eventuality - that power will continually end up in the hands of an increasingly minuscule portion of the population. That’s the entire point of what you guys are calling “socialism”. It’s about introducing an opposing force to ensure we can live in a society where everyone has a realistic chance at success if they work hard enough and contribute enough to their society.

Forced occupation of another's wealth is not creating wealth; it is simple theft.

Attaining wealth is only possible in an organized society that operates based on rules defining how wealth can be attained in the first place. You call it theft because you disregard that and pretend as if every person who became wealthy did it on their own. Bill Gates did not invent the internet. Elon Musk did not invent electric cars or space rockets. Every person who has ever became obscenely wealthy did it by utilizing the advances the society they were born into provided for them. Setting up the rules in such a way that says those people should be required to give back to that society is not unreasonable in the least, and sure as hell isn’t theft.

DoubleR is describing the result of accumulated investment as though the accumulation required no sacrifice, risk, competition, or restraint to create.

No, I was describing something entirely different, this is where your mind took it, and it only shows that the point went way over your head.

The implication isn’t “unfair”, it’s a demonstration of how in a capitalistic society those who accumulate wealth become better positioned to attain even more wealth. You talked about how Walmart accumulated that wealth over generations, that’s exactly my point. Folks like yourself love to talk about capitalism as a system where winners and losers are purely the result of one’s own abilities plus work ethic. My whole point is that it’s not.

Once upon a time, if you wanted to open up your own hardware store you’d find yourself competing against the other guy who opened up his own hardware store. In those days, hard work was likely to win out.

Today, if you want to open up a store of any kind you’re now competing against Walmart, Home Depot, Target, etc. These multi billion dollar companies are likely to crush you with their advertising, massive workforce and prices they’re able to offer due to their bulk purchases. Your best bet is probably not to compete with them, but rather to work for them.

This is why it rings hollow when people act like if you’re not rich it’s basically your fault. “Look at all these other people who did it”. Yeah, and look at how those people are an increasingly small piece of the population. That’s not an accident, that’s how capitalism works. That’s the point.

Shifting the words wealth and power to say that “power is largely zero-sum” reveals the deeper error. Political power is zero-sum... Prosperity isn't.

No one is claiming prosperity is zero sum. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about political power or economic power. Power by definition, is zero sum.

Do you deny they economic power is a real thing?

That's why I will NEVER see inequality as evidence that capitalism has failed.

Yet again, failing to understand what this conversation is fundamentally about. The question is about what kind of society we want and how much government intervention is necessary to attain it.

You don’t see inequality is an issue because in your mind it’s purely a result of work ethic ability, and life choices. The part people like you often blind yourselves to are the headwinds I talked about earlier. We do not ask come into this world with the same opportunity to succeed. Some get way more of a headstart, some barely ever had a chance. That’s the foundation of what we’re actually talking about.

I don't know how you come to that conclusion

Then perhaps you should have read the very next two paragraphs where I gave you two very detailed examples.

Maybe you're refering to what entrepreneurs can do with their money which has nothing to do with capitalism.

Nothing to do with capitalism? That literally *is* capitalism. What are you talking about?

So, capitalism is a tool, and as any tool that the man invents, we need a set of rules that prevents abuse from the people, because human beings are very corruptible.

Yeah, that’s literally what the “socialists” have been arguing for years now.

I really don’t think you have any idea what this conversion is actually about. Despite my clarifications earlier that socialism (as you are defining it) and capitalism are not separate things. Socialism exists within capitalism, the only question we have yet to settle on is how much socialism we want. You have yet to present a single argument to answer that question or even demonstrate that you are grasping the concept.

The top 5% pay 60% of income taxes in spite of your claim.

The top 5% of U.S. households also own 66% of the country's wealth.

You should have said from the get-go that you are one of these Democrats who identifies as socialist

And perhaps you could have said from the get go that you’re an unserious clown not interested in adult level conversations, cause that’s what this is giving right now.

I’ve never in my life identified as a socialist, and I made explicitly clear in my last post that the national debate over the label is itself pretty stupid because it doesn’t address what people are actually disagreeing about in the first place. I would then challenge you to tell us what you think should be done and you don’t have time for that. No, you had time to attack people for believing government has a larger role to play in our economy but no time to address a better path forward. That’s awfully telling.

So, I wouldn't say capitalism is the problem because this system is the most natural for human beings.

The problem with capitalism is something inherent within it. In a capitalistic society, money = power, and basic human nature will always default to using that power to attain even more power. To put it more simply, wealth begets wealth.

Ask yourself a question, why does Walmart have the best prices? Answer: because they have more money, which means they have more power. Because they are such a large retailer they can demand their suppliers to sell them goods for less than they would charge anyone else. Their suppliers can’t afford to lose Walmart cause they’d go out of business, so they have to squeeze themselves to remain employed.

Imagine you have a house for sale, listing price $300k. A buyer comes along and offers you asking price. That buyer now has to apply for a mortgage, which requires inspections, insurance applications, lender approvals, etc. That could take months and possibly get denied leaving you still looking for a buyer. Here comes private equity fund offering you $270k in your bank account tomorrow. What are you likely to do? Most would take the $270. More money equals better purchasing power.

This is why, under any capitalistic system, eventually the wealth within that society will wind up being concentrated amongst a very small few, because the more powerful they get the more power they will be able to attain. And power is largely a zero sum game. Eventually, that gap will become unsustainable and result in economic collapse. The only entity with the power to address this is government. So to claim right off the bat that government intervention has no place is absurd. That collapse is inevitable, government is the only thing left that can stop it.

This doesn’t mean we just give money to the poor and declare our problems solved. It means we need a very serious conservation about not whether government needs to intervene, but what that intervention should look like and how do so while preserving a system that rewards the things we value, like innovation, risk taking and hard work. To dismiss that merely because it falls under a label you’ve been taught to demonize is what’s unserious.