Socialism Sucks!

[njlauren]

Or so go the MAGA idiots bleating all around. I have an idiot in my town with a sign saying "only you can stamp out socialism" with a picture of smoky the bear.

In todays Headlines: "Trump threatens gas retailers, tells them to lower prices to where they were before the Iran war,or else", claims it is price gouging. " The price of oil is currently in the 71 buck a barrel range, it was under 60 before the war. The price of gas is based on the cost of oil plus a premium, gasoline has its own price.

Telling a business what price to charge is socialism. Not to mention he is a fucking idiot, if there was gouging it would be in the food chain before the stations, not the stations. It is also idiotic to call it gouging, when the problem is not where the supply is limited and retailers take advantage of it, like after a storm where gas is scarce, the supply is there, it is just the global price has gone up. Might as well demand that the CME, ICE, and CBOE set the price of oil at 50 a barrel.....

 

[Sign54]

I was thinking of Cuba's power outages for an extreme example. Fidel Castro ruined Cuba.

 

[JohnEngelman]

The choice between capitalism and socialism is analogue, not binary. All modern economies combine elements of capitalism and socialism. I do not want the government to own and all businesses. I would like for the U.S. economy to move slightly in a socialist direction. Socialized medicine gets better results than the U.S. system of privately funded health care for less money.

 

[Chernosoth]

Declaring ethanol is a scam that costs energy and money and ruins engines has a political cost Trump can't pay yet, but someone official will need to say that eventually. The oil companies could take the initiative in offering to lower prices if the ethanol requirement is removed.

 

[rgraham666]

Socialized medicine gets better results than the U.S. system of privately funded health care for less money.

Back during the debate about the ACA Fox News directed its employees to call the ACA as 'government run' rather than 'public'. this was meant to stoke the fears of people who fear government (which is most people in the States).

Socialism, in the States, plays into the same fears.

The fact that the States is ruled by fear is what it is failing.

 

[Bray123]

Why is gouging gas prices so terrible but gouging soccer fans doesn't raise an eyebrow?

Is Trump getting kick-backs from the ticket sellers and rail companies as well as FIFA by any chance?

 

[njlauren]

I think people misread my reason for the post, I was pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump basically trying to implement socialism (government tellng businesses what price they can charge) while screaming and yelling "socialism" at anything they don't like.

Pure capitalism and pure socialism don't work, pure capitalism leads to incredible poverty and outrageous high concentrations of wealth among a few people , it leads to monopolies and greed is rampant. Pure socialism has a system where people are not incentivized to do well and usually the only people who benefit are people in the government, you see a concentration of wealth and it is in the government. Pure capitalism relies on the marketplace being even and people acting in the best interests of the market, whereas what you see in reality is greed and avarice and self interest ruling the roost. Pure socialism relies on people to give their best despite having limited returns while enriching the government people actually running the show. In the Soviet Union the party big wigs lived like robber barons and the people for the most part were not well off who made up like 98% of the population.

The people who cry socialism and look at for example the Bernie Sanders types winning elections (and for the record , I don't like candidates like that, Socialism is as rigid and stupid as predatory capitalism is) but they miss a big irony. MAGA is supposedly about people upset that things are going well for them, that jobs are disappearing, income hasn't risen, you name it and they vote that way thinking that Trump has answers for that. Well, the socialist Democrats are being voted for by people who feel they don't have a future, especially young people in gen z and younger gen x. They see a world where AI is starting to wipe out their chance of a good entry level job, a world where you can't say you got a good education and have hope for a good job. AI based job screening has made it very difficult even to get an interview because employers expect ridiculous experience (what this really is is cover for H1B visa hiring; they claim they can't get people with the right skills and bring in someone from India or wherever at a really cheap price; illegal but who is going to stop them? Government buys the bullshit there isn't qualified people here, it is all about cheap labor).

Socialism is a symptom of a disease, and we have a big one, Corporate greed/stockholder management has made the thought of actually creating well paying jobs sickening to the stockholder class. Used to be a company announced great earnings and they planned to hire people to meet demand, the stock price soared; do that today and the stock price drops because hiring new people is cost. Socialism usually creeps in because capitalism has failed because it is not broad based in who benefits from it. It is funny, the conservatives look back at the 1950's as a golden age, yet they leave out that one of the reasons was it was a time when everyone, management and labor, benefitted from the economy. Problem was those at the top hated that, and since especially the 1970s have done everything they could to bring the country back to the 1920's and before ie robber baron capitalism.

 

[njlauren]

Why is gouging gas prices so terrible but gouging soccer fans doesn't raise an eyebrow?

Is Trump getting kick-backs from the ticket sellers and rail companies as well as FIFA by any chance?

Price gouging legally is defined as overpricing for something when there is a shortage, artificial or real. For example, during a storm when gas is in short supply, dealers charging like 5 bucks a gallon when the price to them hasn't gone up and they had been charing 3.50.Basically it is gouging when they literally have a gun to your head.

FIFA tickets are not a necessity, that price you see is the price they set for an entertainment event. it is like the price of concert tickets, it is the price the venue/promoter sets and what people are willing to pay. There is no gun to your head to see a soccer match or a concert, so it isn't gouging. (That doesn't mean there aren't problem with concert tickets, there is a big problem when the promoter and the ticket agency exclusively handling the tickets are the same company, known as vertical integrated trust)

 

[Bray123]

Price gouging legally is defined as overpricing for something when there is a shortage, artificial or real. For example, during a storm when gas is in short supply, dealers charging like 5 bucks a gallon when the price to them hasn't gone up and they had been charing 3.50.Basically it is gouging when they literally have a gun to your head.

FIFA tickets are not a necessity, that price you see is the price they set for an entertainment event. it is like the price of concert tickets, it is the price the venue/promoter sets and what people are willing to pay. There is no gun to your head to see a soccer match or a concert, so it isn't gouging. (That doesn't mean there aren't problem with concert tickets, there is a big problem when the promoter and the ticket agency exclusively handling the tickets are the same company, known as vertical integrated trust)

But when they put a zero onto a train ticket to get there, and that affects ordinary travellers as well, that's gouging.

 

[njlauren]

But when they put a zero onto a train ticket to get there, and that affects ordinary travellers as well, that's gouging.

Ordinary fares did not change, that price is to go to the stadium only. It affects other commuters but it does not affect the price of regular tickets. The tickets to the game are to get to an entertainment event, it isn't commuting to work.

 

[JordynRose]

You do realize the poor pay for everything in a capitalist society, right? A social democracy and capitalism can exist and provide a very high degree of standard of living for all, Denmark, Sweden, Finland the Netherlands and others.

The problem in the USA is the decades long war on education by the Republicans party.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/15-socialist-countries-succeeded-130731664.html

 

[briancamdudetenger2018]

crazy how this all started when 3 people in the group dsa won in new york city which trigged both the the trump right wing orbit and the right wing media universe to have 24 7 atomic meltdowns

where the trump right wingers in the right wing media universe like fox news would be yelling and screaming on there news shows like the guests on the jerry springer show

then after that the left wing media orbit started to wonder about the infamous group in the democratic party the dsa

and what i mean by group in the democratic party is well there is still no multi political parties systems in the us of a politics

 

[phtlc]

The choice between capitalism and socialism is analogue, not binary. All modern economies combine elements of capitalism and socialism.

Bingo!

 

[phtlc]

Socialized medicine gets better results than the U.S. system of privately funded health care for less money.

For the most part I agree. That said, here in Canada some people think it is "free" health care. My opinion is that with the exception of minors, or people on assistance, there should at least be a user fee before going to the doctor. Much like an insurance deductible. This would make people ask if they really need to see a doctor. I was doing a follow up appointment at a walk in clinic (workplace injury), and I saw people there for headaches, blisters, sore muscles from working out, a cold.....etc. If these individuals had to fork over at least a bit of their beer money they might ask themselves "Does this merit using precious health care dollars"

 

[phtlc]

I agree with the posters here who say that most countries need some balance of the two (unless you want people paying market rate tuition for their kids to go to elementary school), but I feel Canada is moving frightening too far to the left. Increasingly here our government keeps offering to take care of us, while intentionally implementing policies that make it hard for Canadians to take care of themselves. Given the opinions expressed by many of our politicians, I don't see it as paranoia that many Canadians fear we are being forced in the direction of a nanny state.