It’s a microcosm of America, in one little state.

Great article. Let me know when I can come out of the broom closet.

What else can we do? We fiddle as Rome burns, since there’s nothing else we can do. Hopefully people will start humming along…

I prefer christians [small c is deliberate, as they are christian the way Jesus was, love thy neighbor as thyself, etc.] Even Muslims who observe the “five pillars” of their faith e.g., sheltering strangers, giving alms, etc. seem more christian than so many of the “religious” right.

I still have family and friends in the Springs but I hate going there to visit. It’s so sad.

Can you think straight?

Libertarians want no fucking robber barons. We want the exact opposite. A constitution enforced. You’re all so enamoured by your phony economic models that you don’t see reality.

Dickensian corporate practices were government sponsored for fucks sake! Victorian british empire is what you think libertarians want? What the fuck do they tell you guys?

You just talk inanely about borderline psychotic bullshit, how libertarians want to drink the blood of orphans. You do not address any actual facts. You’re just an ideologue.

Also that 10k US the government takes is not “forked out” it’s fucking TAKEN BY FORCE. So yeah I expect 10000 USD worth of stuff in return IMMEDIETLY. Because whenever I pay someone money that’s what fucking happens.

“I’m sure we’ve all known friends or loved ones who would have been out on their ass if they didn’t have unemployment covering them while they tried to get back on their feet. Would you rather they become homeless so a billionaire Lockheed shareholder can ferret his tax break to Cayman accounts?”

They could live with me. It’s always someone else that has to do the good stuff for you leftists, right? Never YOU. You helping your friend/loved one directly never even fucking crossed your mind. “But I can’t afford it!” Well then how could I afford it? How could half a nation afford it for the other half?

Or do you think that things change when the scale gets larger? Does value magical sprout from the ground at Obama’s command? All that changes is the TIME it takes to realise you can’t afford it. As america is about to find out with medicare. Thanks Lyndon B Johnson. Eversince that guy has delcared “war on poverty” americans have been getting poorer and poorer. Excellent work.

The facts on the ground are against any socialism and support libertarianism. Try to refute that. Point me to a socialist model that has benefited anything ever. Cmon just bust out Sweden.

WWJD indeed.

It’s as close as you can get to functioning LibCap. A Monarch (absolute property rights) who acts and thinks like a CEO instead of a Lord.

“it’s a totalitarian dictatorship that infringes basic human rights.”

Sounds like the LibCap ideal to me.

“And don’t link me to that keynesian soothsayer Davis.”

Mike Davis is a Socialist and not a Keynesian. Please tell me you know the difference?

Listen, I won’t bother you anymore if you just go hide in your bunker where the evil hooded tax collectors can’t get you. Polish your guns all you want, just never vote again. Deal?

ANYWAYS…

There’s a lot of what I like to call “cynical superiority” here where people like to denounce everything to hedge their bets that they’ll never turn out to be “wrong” about something and look like a fool. That’s where you get a lot of this “both sides are just as bad!”, which is the closest thing you’ll ever get to a conservative minded person admitting that they were wrong about something.

But seriously, is spending money on programs to establish infrastructure and a social safety net REALLY just the same as pouring hundreds of billions into the military industrial complex? Who exactly is getting “rich” off of social programs? Most of it goes to bottom income earners and any money they make is pretty much immediately pumped back into the economy. I’m sure we’ve all known friends or loved ones who would have been out on their ass if they didn’t have unemployment covering them while they tried to get back on their feet. Would you rather they become homeless so a billionaire Lockheed shareholder can ferret his tax break to Cayman accounts?

You show me any country with a huge disparity of wealth and no social safety net, and I’ll show you a place that’s a shithole for 90% of the populace. I know you Tea Party types hate Mexico, and I can’t think of a closer example of a country with massive wealth concentration (something like half a dozen families control over half the national wealth, and the top one just passed Bill Gates for richest person in the world).

Another thing is the more you dismantle those safety nets and the more people you leave out to dry in abject poverty, the more the haves start pumping into non-producing security jobs to keep all their loot safe from the unwashed masses. Again, take a look at Mexico and the ridiculous amount of security and bodyguards anyone with money spends on there. It all ties back into the conservative mindset of being absolutely terrified of anything that makes them look weak. Compassion = weak, so fuck poor people. Military/police = things you can do a lot of tough chest thump woofing over so it makes you strong. Billions for the military, not a cent for social programs. Millions for the drug war, not $100k for a rehab center.

I swear, everyone crying out for deregulation and “smaller government” (whatever that means) would honestly be happy with a return to robber barons, Pinkerton strike breakers, and early industrial age Dickins’ London. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the tea party crowd is old enough to be cranky, but not old enough to remember that era or the great depression.

ballsach –a far better solution than many.
May not be perfect, but I’d go for it in a heartbeat over what
we have now. Natch, the powers-that-be would NEVER go for it,
limits their power ya know…
Amazing that you qualify for any aid…they wouldn’t give me anything
other than a hard time when I was down…(being flat strapped didn’t
qualify me for anything in those days…and I was down for a LONG
time).
Joe Blow -yea, you’ve got the numbers right, BUT
I remember when perot ran for office (and every media outlet made
him out to be a nutcase….course, if you actually LISTENED to what
he had to say you found out he left the other contenders flopping
in the dust…Note: some of what he said I didn’t agree with, but
he wasn’t in the same class as the professional liars/politicians
by any means….), BUT, I remember him saying that he paid less in
taxes than his lowest-paid warehouse worker, and that THAT was a
problem. If you’re on the bottom, you’ll pay (you might get something
back, but you WILL pay), if you’re in the middle, you’re hosed.
If you’re at the top, you’re in a whole different catagory,
the laws are made by those who are paid by that top couple percent
and -naturally- are written in their favor. Yea, the numbers show
that they’re highly taxed, but that is what trusts, investments,
and tax lawyers are for. Note that if you’re at the top and are
stupid enough to try to really cheat, they’ll hit you hard,
but there’s no real need to do that. Invest, open trusts/foundations
and writeoff. hey, after a point it’s all a game anyway.
The “left” keep yelling “take their money, they STOLE it!”
but they want to give it to the biggest crooks in the country,
somehow thinking that they can control those in charge.
Never happened, never will. That’s REALITY.
Even if they could, the social programs they want are too big to pay for.
THAT’S reality too.
The “right” thinks that they can get the big government that they
like to rah-rah for (mostly military) but they want almost the same as their
buddies to the left of them, big government but with the money spent differently.
and they want to get it by cutting social programs…
Again, doesn’t work that way and for the same reasons.
Last audit of the military showed that $7 out of $8 was just flat
unaccounted for. (remember what rumsfeld said about the money on 10 Sept 01?,
forgot, didn’t ya? know what else was being investigated in the part
of the pentagon that got hit? Go look it up.) Both parties believe it’s
their “destiny” to run the world…left to solve it’s problems, the right
to control it. And both want us (the people with jobs) to pay for it.
It will never happen. Not the way they want to do it.
They’d do far better to just hand out blue jeans and rock music for a couple
generations.

Merchantilism is not capitalism.
Politicians will always say whatever it takes to get into office.
(Look at what they ALWAYS do, not what they say.)
Once there, the BEST they can do is steal from one group to and to the other.
And the whole time, they’ll be skimming the vast majority off the top
to line the pockets of themselves and their buddies.
That’s reality.

The best we can hope for is to keep them as weak and powerless as possible.
yea, may cause problems. Yea, may be issues getting services in some areas
via private enterprise, etc
but compared to being a slave to a bunch of elected psychopaths?
I’ll take those problems ANY day over the alternative.
I don’t care to be a slave to anyone, whether they’re a private individual
or an elected/appointed official (the little “D”, “R” or even “L” next to
their name doesn’t make the least bit of difference).
Naturlly, the people currently in charge (and those that also want to be)
don’t agree….

Okay on to 49. You’re not the one to tell what is a living and what is not, you bleeding-heart nancy. Asia is doing very well right now and in 20 years they will have a higher standard of living then you or your kids. Why? Because they work. They work for what their work is worth. So they build – because people give them jobs.

It’s better to work 3 dollars an hour then not to work at all.

Do you think OUR civilization wasn’t built this way? Do you think western standard of living just sprouted out of the ground?

“In reality, short term slash and burn corporate profits are often a higher priority than actual sustainable productivity. You CANNOT afford that kind of shit with vital infrastructure and services.”

That is pure bullshit. Short-term profit at the cost of long-term productivity makes your company go under. UNLESS Obungobungo beats the money drum and Witchdoctor Bernanke conjures your company some free fiat cash. Yeah, then we have a problem.

The current system IS fucked but from the exact opposite direction you think it is. All these big corporations get away with being big money pits because the government thinks they are “too big to fail.”

Let me tell you a little story of the great collapse of 1920. No, not 1929. Nineteen-twenty. The stock market crashed, way worse than it did in 1929. Unemployment skyrocketed and the economy was completely in tatters. So what did the government do to fix this insane problem? Nothing. One year later the entire thing FIXED ITSELF. This crash was WORSE than the crash of 1929.

You are just not seeing the big picture of how things really operate. You’re looking at one aspect alone like a complete idiot. “Oh if workers have more money that’ll be good!” No it won’t because that money will have to come from somewhere. Somewhere where it might’ve paid off better.

Capitalism isn’t something you can force, it isn’t a system you either have or not, it is reality. Capitalism is simply the most accurate depiction of how the economy really works. Capitalism is when you stop trying to fight against other people.

The soviet union was also under the sway of capitalist forces. It was just one big shitty corporation that finally went bankrupt. Capitalism is reality simply because you cannot make something out of nothing. The laws of physics apply to the economy aswell. If the government could just make stuff out of the ether and give them to people then sure, the gov would be a force of great good. Unfortunately the only thing the government gives back to the people are things it stole from them in the first place.

If you think the money just comes from big bad evil nasty rich people you’re a delusional clown.

America has become more and more socialist ever since 1913 and the standard of living has been going down gradually. A single blue collar job used to be able to sustain an family with a house. Now you need two jobs and some debt on top.

FEAR AND MONEY IN DUBAI by Mike Davis
http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2635

A nice little glimpse of what was going to be the role model of a Libertarian (“Anarcho”Capitalist/Monarchist?) city State, before the global economic crisis hit.

Hey it is cheaper to live outside of the city after all!