United States Heading towards a Depression?

I think he's still pissed about Windoze Vista. LOL
Whatever one thinks of Bill Gates they should at least give the man some credit for giving a lot of his wealth. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation have already given away billions.

 

He makes many socialist comments and statements, look them up if you want. I f*cking hate rich people like that who once they get to the top, want to change the system so that others can't have the same chance he did. Plus Microsoft sucks, he should consider using his charity money to make it not suck so bad.

I model myself after the typical, hardworking, smart small-business owner, not some dorky hypocritical socialist.


*Was not sober during time of post.

 

Socialism isn't communism, why do Americans always speak as if they are the same thing. You can have the same oppertunitys as bill gates in socialism.

 

The Labor Department said the Producer Price Index rose by 1.2 percent in July - the higest level in 27 years. In 1981-1982 the Fed was forced to raise interest rates to 20% to fight inflation and the US has the most severe recession since the Great Depression.

LEH 4 Billion in losses for the 3rd quarter.

Housing starts are at their lowest since the 1991 recession.

 

Bill Gates would not be known if the US was socialistic. The guy would still be small fries or the government would own MS.



Did thraxed just get unbanned or something? He sure is making a mess out of this forum. Mods, do you have a mop for this mess? Puke starts to stink if left to sit too long.

 

You should use that as your sig!

 

It is interesting to me, purely on a social-historical basis, how much the very word "socialism" has such connotations in the U.S. It simply isn't seen as the force of pure evil in, for examples, the nordic social democracies; mostly, I would say, because it worked out pretty well for those societies - a decent resolution to the inevitable discord between producer and labor, at the historical birth of industrialization.

I think Gates is alright, and I do applaud his generosity and initiatives - the epitome of philanthropy. Funniest bit I ever saw, however, was at Second City, in Chicago - a skit wherein Gates comes out beaming his goofy smile, and proclaims, to celebratory fanfare, he wants to buy the color red.

 

A long term consequence of the cold war era brainwashing machinery - recall McCarthy

 

I'm not sure about that. Socialism is more mainstream now than it ever has been after WWII. It's in the schools, and it's in popular culture.

The reality about socialism, is that it eventually decays and fails. It can't be maintained in a sound money system, which means it has to exist in a debt economy, and it is a system with diminishing returns because of all of the economic miscalculation that occurs under central planning.

Socialism is cool if it is voluntary. Unfortunately, when it starts to fail, it gets violent and repressive. It leads to revolution and anarchy.

Before anyone tells me laissez-faire or capitalism have failed, that would be false. Laissez-faire has never had a good run, and capitalism today is actually corporate fascism. In fact, one could argue with what is going on with the banks and economy, socialism is alive and well, as the government spreads the losses amongst every person, tax payer or not, again by using debt money through inflation to pay for what cannot be afforded directly.

Everyone who wishes to honestly argue socialism, please take a little time to learn about Mises' work on economic calculation. It's simple, rational and will change how you look at things economically in such a profound way. No longer will economics seem to be a series of accidents or inevitable market crashes. It's really eye opening.


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Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says Gold is entering Phase II. A lot of people believe this. I don't know. I was scared to buy back in at $990. I'm having a hard time believing $825 is a deal. But his argument is fairly sound.

 

I would agree, and quite often, in my experience, a general lack of knowledge of history as well. Whether Gaullist France's dirigiste solution, Modern Germany's mixed economy ("sozialmarktwirtschaft") (also, briefly discussed here), the aforementioned social democracies of Northern Europe (that become so nearly a century ago, during the interwar period - with a historicall, relatively successful conclusion) many other successful models of socialist and mixed socialist/free-market systems obviously exist and have been historically embedded in many countries, without carrying the normative baggage that the word "socialism" carries here.

I find the issue is less "socialism," "free-market," "capitalism," etc., as concepts in an ahistorical vacuum, and more, the particular form of the political economic system, given the particular history of the country in question.

History has legacies that inform the specifics of later developments - for example, the solutions achieved in the nordic countries in response to their newly mobilized, relatively cohesive working class (over the last portion of the 19th century, WWI, and the interwar period), cannot be easily applied elsewhere, just as what has come to fruition in the States - historically, a fragmented/relatively weak labor movement, and the collusion of concentrated capital and the state, as another example - cannot be easily applied elsewhere.***

Regardless, I do not find the word anathema on the face of it.


*** An earlier post somewhere over the last couple of days, referencing a post of mine describing the historical "catfight" between American producers and labor, should probably extend the analogy to the nordic countries, which I would characterize as having had relatively calmer industrial relations in working out common needs - maybe a bit more congenial than even the German notion of Konfliktpartnerschaft, "adversarial partnership"; acknowledgment of both the differing interests of producers and labor, and the gains to be achieved by seeking out common, often national-economic, goals.

 

What are these long-term socialist nations that have achieved economic stability and propsperity without debt? The longest running financial system I can see is Norway since 1949 when the democratic socialists took over - and fully 25% of their economy is oil exports.

Sweden fell into a debt-bubble in the '90s, about 80 years after their own socialist revolution. 500% interest rates to fight off currency runs? That doesn't happen in nations ranking high on the economic freedom indexes. Which, by the way, would include Ireland and Denmark - two other north European states touted for financial success & high standards of living with low tax & debt loads.

 

Will the US nationalize the financial sector in response to a financial collapse?

Former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said today that a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months and the worst is yet to come.

"We're not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we're going to see a whopper, we're going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks," said Rogoff.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080819/bs_nm/usa_banks_crisis_dc;_ylt=Amd8TBny2bIV8aYQ4UUJ0yBv24cA

 

Korr, I'd have to disagree across many things.

Firstly, I'd ask to you to re-read Norway's history again. The social democrats first gained plurality power in the interwar period, 1927, in fact, and with few exceptions, has been at the helm since.

It is true that several things happened to some of these economies in the 1990's - in Finland, the collapse of the Soviet Union deeply hurt its trade picture, and you mentioned the Swedish interest (and, by extension, banking) crisis, which took place after 100 years of socialism in Sweden - given that in Sweden, socialism has been the name of the game for most of the period since 1889, I'd say, in the world of national economies and the imperfect world of mankind, a century of successful helmsmanship isn't a bad mark.

You neglected to mention that in Denmark, as with the other nations, the social democrats first came to power in the interwar period, and sustained coalitional management for most of the last century, though last holding power in 2001.

Also, not sure where you include Denmark as a "low tax" country, as at least through 2002, here is what I have for personal tax rates alone:

#1 Denmark: 53.2%
#2 New Zealand: 42.3%
#3 Iceland: 38.6%

Weighted average: 26.1%

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/tax_com_of_tax_per_inc_tax-taxation-components-personal-income-tax

(See also: http://www.nationmaster.com/country/da-denmark/tax-taxation).

(More recently, see: http://www.oecd.org/document/44/0,3343,en_2649_34597_40080044_1_1_1_1,00.html)

The Heritage Organization lists Denmark's "Fiscal Freedom" at 35%:

http://www.heritage.org/Index/country.cfm?id=Denmark

At any rate, again, I think a re-read of the specific history of socialist solutions among these countries, over the entirety of their stewardship, perhaps yields a different picture from the one you have by looking at the exogenous shocks of the last 15-20 years alone.

Beyond this, I'd again offer a look at both Germany and France, with the mixed approach ("dirigisme" in Gaullist France, "social market economy" in Germany), and successful outcome.

My point is not a glorification of socialism, nor is it a condemnation. My point is again that for specific nations, with specific histories, specific historical solutions have been achieved in response to the rise of industrialization and the newly mobilized working class resulting from it. These solutions, which have included both socialist and mixed socialist/market systems, have historical legacies, and many of those legacies have resulted in sustained, successful periods of political economic health (to include a high degree of producer-labor cooperation), by any reasonable standard of appraisal. Interestingly, along these lines, I just came across this article (see its conclusion, summing up the notion of specific histories/specific solutions):

http://www.valt.helsinki.fi/staff/jproos/Nordsocp.htm

Bottom line, for me, I conclude now as I did with my original post, the very word "socialism" is not the bugaboo among many nations that it seems to be in the U.S.

 

Socialism was the former bogeyman and Islam is present time bogeyman. In reality both words are a tool in the hand of the elite and most Americans hardly know the difference between the two and only know that they should be afraid of it.

 

Hit the nail on the head.

 

UK is another example of socialism in Europe. By the 1970's all the major companies were nationalized and the country was almost bankrupt. It was until the conservatives came to power and starting privitization that the UK began to recover.

I don't see how nationalizing freddie/fannie is going to help the taxpayper.

Fannie's stock is down 87 percent so far this year, while Freddie has lost 90 percent of its value.

"They don't have insight on how bad losses are going to get," Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. analyst Paul Miller said in an interview Tuesday.

The Bush administration on July 13 unveiled a plan to provide unlimited government loans to the two mortgage giants and to purchase stock in the two companies if needed for a period covering the next 18 months. Congress ultimately adopted those proposals as part of a broader bill that also seeks to help keep 400,000 households from losing their homes to foreclosure.

Critics charged that the open-ended nature of the support for Fannie and Freddie would expose taxpayers to billions of dollars of potential losses.

The Barron's report said the government is likely to buy preferred stock in the companies, wiping out common shareholders. Paulson has declined to comment on whether a rescue is imminent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080820...ants_crisis;_ylt=AtVB9JinQQ6c1ee1z.qQoBes0NUE

 

Wrong. The tories destroyed the economy, society and everything along with it.

 

Bogart, firstly, I'd like to repeat my earlier contention, namely, there isn't one thing called "socialism." The socialism you refer to in Britain isn't the same thing as socialism as it came to fruition in the countries I've discussed.

Secondly, let's take a simple causal approach. If socialism is an independent causative variable, and is "unitary" - i.e., all "socialisms" are alike - we would expect a similar outcome across polities. In fact, there is not. Pretty hard, seems to me, to name socialism as a universal bad when it has resulted in close to a century (or more) of sustainable political economic health in many societies. To this end, it is important to look at the particulars in place, and analyze them accordingly. Each of these "particulars" arose, and have been informed since, around a very key political-economic phenomenon: industrialization, the cluster of existing social structures, and the manner in which the newly-mobilized player, the working class, was brought into the national fold. Came across this earlier today - I think it serves as an example of my contention - that the very notion of a unitary bugaboo, whether "capitalism," or "socialism," is itself flawed; specific histories, specific legacies, specific outcomes:

http://micro5.mscc.huji.ac.il/~inequality/Esping-Andersen_Three_Political_Economies.htm

Finally, as Thraxed aludes to, the verdict on Thatcherism is far from universally positive, by many indicators (industrial production, unemployment, massive increase in the percentages of those living below the poverty line, for example - so much so that Labor's much vaunted "turn to the Thatcher right" was stemmed by Blair's adoption of certain traditional socialist principles - his own "war on poverty" initiatives under the public weal being but one).

There isn't one thing called "socialism," anymore than the word itself isn't universally evil incarnate across the modern industrialized nations - some have in fact enjoyed tremendously workable solutions to their historical development, over a sustained period of time. These are my main points.

 

All natural resources such as oil and gas should be owned by the people and managed by the government, with their revenues going to the Treasury. Revenue gained from natural resources must be used for the interests of the people, and the House of Representatives will advise the government on where the money is spent.

A modern efficient Health Service must be provided free of charge to the people. This includes free dental care, optician costs and prescriptions.

 

As someone that lists their location as England, are you sure you want to encourage others to follow the free dental care option?