Understanding Socialism

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About Tony Heller

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204 Responses to Understanding Socialism

  1. Steve Case says:

    Get a grip, the picture on the right is an illustration of automation and capitalism throwing men out of work.

    • Michael 2 says:

      Yes, I have a grip. I can have two before I run out of hands.

      Capitalism hearks back to Adam Smith, and his example was a machine to make nails rather than men making nails. As a consequence of better and considerably cheaper nails, those men could then take those nails and build houses and other things; a much more worthy labor than pounding out nails one at a time.

      It does create a problem for the man that the only thing he can do is pound out nails by hand one at a time. Of course, socialism creates the problem that nails are extremely expensive and almost no one has nails.

      For now, you are free to choose your society. Your name does not seem to be Russian or African. Perhaps you are a beneficiary of capitalism. Perhaps you would rather relocate to a nation exemplified by bread lines.

      Capitalism merely refers to the use of “capital” to stimulate or power-up an economy, usually by building machines. People don’t consume capital, machines and buildings consume capital, they are capital.

      What that means is you can combine socialism and capitalism as happens in Sweden for instance. Communism also has capitalism; but it is the state that buys the machines and builds the factories. It is still capital, just not privately owned.

    • dmmcmah says:

      The luddite idea has never come to pass. More jobs are created from the invention of technology than are lost from destruction of previous industries. That’s a fact you can look up.

      • PJ London says:

        Sure, toolmakers, diemakers, tailors, seamstresses and all skilled craftsmen can now wait tables at McDs at minimum rate, or go on welfare (for a short while) until they drop out of the system. Skilled workers, such as coachmakers, were re-skilled to work as drudges on motor factory assembly lines.
        It is “A brave new world” out there.

        Unemployment figures have dropped by 100,000, “we have created 100,000 jobs”. No you just stopped counting those whose unemployment benefits have run out, and you pretended that they were now employed. True, but they are they are now employed in scavenging in dumpsters for food.

        As for your “that’s a fact” nonsense, agricultural workers declined, all kinds of transport worker changed and many declined, thousands were re-employed as “Navigators” digging canals and making roads. The work changed, because there were many more people, (the adult males emigrated to America and the colonies looking for work, Ireland and Scotland were almost denuded of workers) and the women had many more children, same as when thousands of men are killed in wars.
        Work expands to fill the hands available. When work or starve (and by some accounts millions did starve) is the order of the day, then people (as young as 6) find work. That is as dumb as saying that the depression created thousands of jobs, because that is a fact too.

        • rachase says:

          Jobs are not lost with advancing technology. The skills required just become different. That is FACTUAL history of our advancement from the Stone Age. Some of you would seem to prefer that the human race had remained back in those “halcyon” days!

      • PJ London says:

        “jobs are not lost from technology” Are you really that dumb?
        How can jobs not be lost?
        There were perhaps 100,000 farriers and maybe 30,000 blacksmiths in 1899, how many farriers and blacksmiths are there today? How many motor mechanics are there compared to 1960?
        Nobody wants to go back anywhere or anytime, we just wish that the BS would stop.
        technology destroys jobs, end of.
        You cannot or will not understand that your job, whatever it is, will be destroyed, and no there will not be a replacement one.
        Please tell me how many more jobs have been created in the motor manufacturing industry by the introduction of robotic assembly.
        My computer programs and the introduction of bar-codes has put tens of thousands of people out of work. How has this created jobs in the retail sector?
        This is the cause of the ridiculous entertainment industry, you can become the next Michael Jackson, oh sorry you can’t, that is being done by animation these days. Well you can become an animator, well er no that is being computerised and we do not need you anymore.
        Wake up dummy. I am not saying this is good or bad, it is just reality. You are the one distorting “facts”.
        You may want to quote the number of Americans “in the fulltime workforce” not the BS “unemployed figure” to disprove my assertions, please do so, not your impressions with the comment “it is a fact” without any source of numbers.
        The only thing keeping America going is the illegal drug industry. Hundreds of thousands of do nothing jobs. Oh and the TSA war on terror another hundred thousand or so.

        • Doug says:

          PJ, there is an easy solution to the technology problem. Simply outlaw tractors and other powered farm equipment. Everyone who doesn’t starve to death in the next six months (or die in the fighting) will have all the work he wants grubbing in the dirt with his hands. Paradise!

        • Keitho says:

          And yet there are more people employed in the world than ever and their standard of living is higher than that of their predecessors. Government revenues from legal working people are at an all time high and yet you claim that jobs are being destroyed and degraded when it is obvious to anyone that the opposite is true.

          Do you have an agenda you would like to share?

        • Michael 2 says:

          Keitho “Do you [PJ London] have an agenda you would like to share?”

          I also been trying to pry that out of PJ. It’s obvious but I want to see if he is willing to blurt it out.

        • PJ London says:

          @Keitho
          Duh There are more people than at any time. So of course are “more” jobs.
          There are also many more people out of the workforce and not “unemployed” than ever before, so what? There are more people!
          Of course the standard of living (for some) is high. Do you want me to list the standard of living in Libya under Gaddafi, and compare it to after Gaddafi? Please explain how the “standard of living” is so wonderful for the millions of children living in poverty and the million or so homeless, and the tens of millions of refugees, or are you only counting the people on your street?
          What “agenda”?

          Under “god” times (ancient Egypt et al) people kept 90% of their production.
          Under feudal rule in UK, for instance, people kept 80% of their production.
          Under the great capitalist democracy you may get to keep 3 – 4 % of your production. (not your wages, but your production)
          The machine owner will keep 50%, the government first deducts 20% from the owner-worker before you get your wage, then will tax 50%, and then will charge you another 100 or more levies on fuel, food, house and utilities. Finally will arrange cartels and crony deals for your water and light and education, your entertainment and information, and finally will steal whatever is left after death from your estate.
          You failed to read “jobs expand to fill the hands available”
          Full employment under communism, so what?

        • Michael 2 says:

          PJ London wrote “Under god times people kept 90% of their production. Under feudal rule in UK, for instance, people kept 80% of their production. Under the great capitalist democracy you may get to keep 3 – 4 % of your production.”

          Got cite? Got point? It seems like you are trying to make a point but it is not clearly established. Once I have a better sense of the point you are trying to make I might feel like arguing some of these convenient numbers.

          But my production in a factory isn’t really “my” production; after all, Obama says “you didn’t build that”, which means, me pushing a button on a machine in a factory is my production. The machine produces a lot. I produce a button push.

        • PJ London says:

          @michael 2
          No I do not have an “agenda”. WTF is an agenda in a comment section of a blog.
          Take your sanctimonious “blurt it out” and learn to read.
          I merely present facts, that any with the least intellect can both understand and investigate, but that is clearly beyond you.
          I will not engage with you as you are clearly trolling for the sake of causing disruption.
          You are being incredibly stupid if you think that pushing a button builds a car or anything else, either dumb or disruptive.
          I fully understand that this a circle jer* with all of you agreeing to agree. No individuality or disagreements allowed and you all finish up learning nothing but feeling so righteous.
          If any one doesn’t agree, they are “libertarian” or Socialist” or have an “agenda” god forbid they should actually cause you to think.
          Trolling my comments with snide little remarks and never engaging in actual debate. Using “your” definitions and not dictionary definitions, changing meanings and then changing the subject.
          Too ignorant to know the definitions of “free market” , Capitalism” (and no Dhead, they are not the same and in fact are often inimical), socialism, communism, fascism, wouldn’t know the difference between Keynesian and Miltonian if it slapped them in the face, have absolutely no idea of the function or practises of Central Banking, couldn’t begin to describe the function of money, or the differences between M1, M2, and M3, couldn’t begin to describe “moral Hazard” or “Systemic Risk” and yet feel it incumbent to sneer at those who can.
          You are right I don’t belong here, I belong with the honest section not with deceitful and insincere trolls.

        • gator69 says:

          Yes, PJ presents “facts” like this…

          As always, US waited until the war was won, and then jumped in on the winning side to grab as much of the spoils as possible.

        • Michael 2 says:

          PJ London “No I do not have an agenda.”

          Yes, you do.

          “WTF is an agenda in a comment section of a blog.”

          An agenda is what drives you to comment on a blog particularly if you have a minority viewpoint.

          “I merely present facts”

          No, you do not. Where exactly did you get the 90 percent of your productivity you get to keep in the age of gods?

          “that any with the least intellect can both understand and investigate”

          It appears to be a requirement to have “least intellect”. More than least produces the suspicion that you are inventing numbers, toward some non-obvious purpose, some point that you never quite express in words.

          “I will not engage with you”

          Yes, that is the problem. You complain rather than engage.

          “You are being incredibly stupid if you think that pushing a button builds a car or anything else, either dumb or disruptive.”

          One moment you are speaking of the evils of automation the next moment denying any such thing. On a CNC machine you push “start”. That’s about it.

          “Trolling my comments with snide little remarks and never engaging in actual debate.”

          Debate can take place only between rational individuals. But in lieu of that, I will accept your description of the Perfect World.

        • gator69 says:

          PJ’s gold standard of info comes from the likes of Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie who lost every libel case thrown at them.

        • Trolling my comments …

          It’s called fisking and it’s what people do to dishonest morons who act like Fisk.

    • sleeptastic says:

      Meanwhile, the picture on the left is an illustration of 100% employment. How’s that guaranteed job feeding you lately, comrade?

    • jokin says:

      Geez. can someone possibly utter something more ignorant than this mini-rant? It seems that just about everyone who contributes on this blog has a greater “grip” on the reality of how the power of free markets improves every aspect of the overall quality of life- excluding yourself, of course.

    • In addition to what ‘Michael 2’ and ‘dmmcmah’ said, the picture on the right is also an illustration of automation and capitalism creating MORE food at LOWER prices so more people can afford to buy it.

      Socialism destroys jobs and human motivation … capitalism creates jobs and motivates people to do more.

    • SkepticGoneWild says:

      Steve,

      As a young college student, I visited East Berlin before the wall fell. I traveled the length of Yugoslavia . I experienced the misery first hand. Grocery stores with little selection. Restaurants that did not have a menu, since they did not know what would be available each day.

      Whole families In Yugoslavia hitchhiking along the road because they could not afford a car. I had rented a brand new VW Golf for my European trip, and people were waving at me as I passed them along the highway. And I thought, wow, these are friendly people. Turns out that “waving” is like sticking your thumb out for a ride. So I picked up a father, mother, and young girl and took them to the city where they wanted to go. They spoke some broken English. Their story was disheartening. Their story was the face of socialism. And their miserable story was typical of that country as a whole.

      You can argue all you want, but it’s another thing to witness the misery first hand, and even worse for those poor human beings trapped in such a tragic system of government.

      • PJ London says:

        Sounds just like America and UK in the 1930s.

        • Gail Combs says:

          PJ London says “Sounds just like America and UK in the 1930s”
          ……………………

          That was thanks to the traitors imported from Europe – Paul Warburg and the international Banking Cartel.
          Much of the history of the USA has been about the fight to remain free of the influence of the European Bankers.

          The vilified, Congressman Lindberg said in a Congressional Record dated, December 22, 1913, vol. 51, “This new law [the Federal Reserve Act] will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation. It may not do so immediately, but … if the trusts can get another period of inflation, they figure they can unload the stocks on the people at high prices during the excitement and them bring on a panic and buy them back at low prices… The people may not know it immediately, but the day of reckoning is only a few years removed.”

          That day of reckoning, came in 1929 and the Federal Reserve has since created an endless series of booms and busts by the strategic tightening and relaxation of money and credit. This allows those in the know to sell high and buy low, transferring wealth from the middle class to the wealthy elite.

          The Great Depression was deliberate.

          “Regarding the Great Depression, … we did it. We’re very sorry. … We won’t do it again.” Ben Bernanke, November 8, 2002, in a speech given at “A Conference to Honor Milton Friedman … On the Occasion of His 90th Birthday.”
          In 2002, Ben Bernanke, then a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, acknowledged publicly what economists have long believed. The Federal Reserve’s mistakes contributed to the “worst economic disaster in American history” (Bernanke 2002). Federal Reserve History Org: The Great Depression

          Paul Warburg is considered the chief driving force behind the establishment of America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve.

          Paul Warburg moved to New York City from Germany to joined his father-in-law’s company, Kuhn, Loeb & Co., as a partner overseeing international loans to several governments. He was one of the top authorities on central banking in Europe. After the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, which he mostly wrote, he was sworn in as a member of the first Federal Reserve Board on August 10, 1914 and was appointed vice chairman on August 10, 1916. He continued to serve the Federal Reserve as a member of the Federal Advisory Council (1921–26) serving as president of the advisory council in 1924–26. He was the first chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Acceptance Council in 1919. In 1921, he organized the International Acceptance Bank to promote US government financing of reconstruction in Europe following the war.

          Warburg was director of the Council on Foreign Relations at its founding in 1921, remaining on the board until his death. He was a trustee of the Institute of Economics (1922–27), and a trustee of the Brookings Institution.

          His son James Warburg (1896–1969) was a financial adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt He also was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He gained some notoriety in a February 17, 1950, appearance before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in which he said:

          “We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest.”

          You see another glimpse of the traitors in Pascal Lamy’s recent article.

          The reality is that, so far, we have largely failed to articulate a clear and compelling vision of why a new global order matters — and where the world should be headed. Half a century ago, those who designed the post-war system — the United Nations, the Bretton Woods system, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) — were deeply influenced by the shared lessons of history.

          All had lived through the chaos of the 1930s — when turning inwards led to economic depression, nationalism and war. All, including the defeated powers, agreed that the road to peace lay with building a new international order — and an approach to international relations that questioned the Westphalian, sacrosanct principle of sovereignty
          http://www.theglobalist.com/pascal-lamy-whither-globalization/

          That would be President Franklin D. Roosevelt doing the agreeing. (Presidential term: March 4, 1933 – April 12, 1945) The Bretton Woods system is the world banking system hashed out between Fabian, John Maynard Keynes and the Soviet Spy in the US treasury, Harry Dexter White.

          Also See : Secrets of The Federal Reserve and no it was not written by a ‘capitalist’ It was by Eustace Mullins, former member of the staff of the Library of Congress at the request of Ezra Pound. Pound was indicted by a federal grand jury for treason against the United States of America for which he would have been put to death so his friends whisked him into St. Elizabeths. link

        • Gail Combs says:

          A bit more on the Anti-American actions of the Federal Reserve.

          On May 23, 1933, Congressman, Louis T. McFadden, brought formal charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank system.

          “Mr. Chairman, we have in this Country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks….

          These twelve private credit monopolies were deceitfully and disloyally foisted upon this Country by the bankers who came here from Europe and repaid us our hospitality by undermining our American institutions. Those bankers took money out of this Country to finance Japan in a war against Russia. They created a reign of terror in Russia with our money in order to help that war along…..

          “The Federal Reserve Bank destroyed our old and characteristic way of doing business. It discriminated against our 1-name commercial paper, the finest in the world, and it set up the antiquated 2-name paper, which is the present curse of this Country and which wrecked every country which has ever given it scope; it fastened down upon the Country the very tyranny from which the framers of the Constitution sough to save us.

          …when the second Bank of the United States, founded on the same false principles of those which are here exemplified in the Fed was hurled out of existence. After that, in 1837, the Country was warned against the dangers that might ensue if the predatory interests after being cast out should come back in disguise and unite themselves to the Executive and through him acquire control of the Government. That is what the predatory interests did when they came back….

          “The Fed Note is essentially unsound. It is the worst currency and the most dangerous that this Country has ever known… They should not have foisted that kind of currency, namely, an asset currency, on the United States Government. They should not have made the Government [liable on the private] debts of individuals and corporations, and, least of all, on the private debts of foreigners. “…

          “Roosevelt ordered the people to give their gold to private interests- that is, to banks, and he took control of the banks so that all the gold and gold values in them, or given into them, might be handed over to the predatory International Bankers who own and control the Fed.

          “Roosevelt cast his lot with the usurers. “He agreed to save the corrupt and dishonest at the expense of the people of the United States.

          “He took advantage of the people’s confusion and weariness and spread the dragnet over the United States to capture everything of value that was left in it. He made a great haul for the International Bankers. [Roosevelt criminalize the possession of gold by any individual, partnership, association or corporation.l by Executive Order 6102. People had to exchange their gold money for Federal Reserve notes.]

          “The Prime Minister of England came here for money! He came here to collect cash!

          “He came here with Fed Currency and other claims against the Fed which England had bought up in all parts of the world. And he has presented them for redemption in gold. [And then that American Gold was sent to the Bank of England.**]

          “Mr. Chairman, I am in favor of compelling the Fed to pay their own debts. I see no reason why the general public should be forced to pay the gambling debts of the International Bankers….

          ** In 1869, Lionel’s son, Alfred de Rothschild (1842–1918), became a director of the Bank of England, a post he held for 20 years. Alfred was one of those who represented the British Government at the 1892 International Monetary Conference in Brussels. The Bank of England, formally the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world. The Bank was privately owned by stockholders from its foundation in 1694 until nationalised in 1946.

          From the Groiniad

          All this started with the Napoleonic wars when the government borrowed money to fund the war. Income tax was created to pay the interest ans the capital has just gone on growing and growing. Incidentally, trading in those bonds at the time of the Battle of Waterloo made the Rothschild family a fortune and became the major creditor of the UK Govenrment. Since then, the family of Lord Rothschild has continued to call the shots in Government and at the Treasury and the Bank of England¨. Debt-based money is the biggest single issue and the reason for the mess in which we find ourselves, really.
          http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-6754,00.html

          And we see a repeat of those 1930s actions today.
          The Federal Reserve’s Covert Bailout of Europe

          America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, is engaged in a bailout of European banks. Surprisingly, its operation is largely unnoticed here.

          The Fed is using what is termed a “temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangement” with the European Central Bank (ECB)…..

          This is where the US Bank Bailout money went and why the Fed resorted to threats when Ron Paul tried to have the Fed give an accounting of WHERE the bailout money was going.

        • Trajan says:

          The lack of automation etc. was due to the depression, and because many of those things were new.
          That being said, Henry Ford paid his workers enough to buy the products they were making, In addition I think that post was referring to a period In the 80s or 90s, wherein those folks should have been able to afford cars.

        • Beale says:

          Unfortunately, Gail Combs has Ben Bernanke all wrong. His theory, which he got from Milton Friedman, is that the Federal Reserve was responsible for the Depression because it didn’t cause enough inflation. That’s the mistake Bernanke promised not to repeat.

    • Gail Combs says:

      Steve Case,

      Looks like I am the only one who understands you are being sarcastic.

    • I just don’t get the mentality of socialists. Somebody had to build all the equipment and somebody still has to maintain and operate it. The object is not to work more it is to work less and make more money. If the government takes that money from you you can never get ahead. Hence why 100,000,000 today live at or near the poverty lines and government cost us $4 trillion a year. Socials always have been just thieves trying to rob the Treasury of the Citizens hard earned money.

      • Gail Combs says:

        I call the socialists/communists/progressives Parasites.

        They use bafflegab to try and convince the producers (us) to support them and the Predators. The Preditors are the Elite who want to be totalitarian rulers of a world government. These Predators exploit the greed and laziness of the Parasites and use themas foot soldiers to convince the hard working masses that they want to wear a slave’s collar.

    • darrylb says:

      A couple of facts only
      1) Two days ago a newspaper column stated that in the Twin Cities area (Minneapolis/St. Paul and suburbs) in the next decade 21 times more people will be entering retirement than will be entering the work force. — Wow, regardless of how accurate

      2) About six years ago, talking to a tool and die person who has worked for a local manufacturing company for a long time, stated “There used to be 13 of us, now I am the only one and production has gone up 35% —- Automation”
      I have encountered similar things in many areas, but not in the service areas like food services and medicine

      –Just sayin

      • Michael 2 says:

        darrylb wrote: “Just sayin”

        –Just writin!

        • darrylb says:

          Mike 2,,,, Can’t you just here my words???? I have an adopted boy, special needs, that always ends with ‘just sayin’

        • Michael 2 says:

          darrylb “I have an adopted boy, special needs, that always ends with ‘just sayin’

          My S.O. does it also. After saying something, she will say, “Just sayin!” but I’m not sure what it means. Of course she is just saying. I am pedantic, I like words to mean something and I like to know that what I have heard or read is what was intended by the speaker or writer; so when something is too obvious and redundant I think I have missed something.

          Maybe I should try saying, “just listening!” every time she says “Just sayin!” and see what happens. Probably nothing good 😉

    • Steve Case, I like your style.

  2. Pathway says:

    Excellent description. Freedom allows the human mind the time to dream great dreams.

  3. Reblogged this on UZA – people's courts, forums, & tribunals and commented:
    In both images there is a small group of “elite” other than we, the people running the show; put the power of banking safely back in the hands of we, the people as the state and the living body of the state, return to trial by jury courts at natural law jurisdiction and all shall be equal before the law once again; at natural law, all are equal and accountable as peers and cannot hide behind legal fictions called government or corporation;

    “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but of the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” – Thomas Jefferson

    Towards a government by the people, for the people, of the people; in peace

    • If our founders were unable to make a democratic republic work under such a specific and stringent Constitution, there are no words that can restrain the nation state. If the Citizens are willing to continue to embrace the nation state after all the history of deception and tyranny this system has fostered, how can you expect liberty to prevail. To many are obviously willing to except the social and economic chains for money and perceived security. The best we can do is not participate as Gandhi showed us in both So. Africa and India. We need to rally behind a common cause or two. I personally like the abolition of the Federal Reserve Bank and Federal Income Tax. In my book The Achilles Heel; IRS Notice of Federal Tax Lien we now have fairly simple evidence that can be used to defeat the Notice of Tax Liens thus much of their enforcement activities.

      The NFTLs (liens) are invalid because one of the essential elements required by both Federal Statute under Title 5, Administrative Procedures Act. and case law is not on them. You can probably guest that it is their authority. The pesky activity Congress is supposed to do before a tax can be levied on Citizens of the 50 States; an Act of Congress and signed by the Pres. If there was such a law the IRS would not have spent so much trying to defeat our case and would also perfect the liens but they will not.

      I and others try five different methods including a law suit and the Gov. would not provide us the Law and the Courts agreed that the Administration didn’t have to answer our questions in our formal Petition, even though it is a right to Petition for Redress of Grievances under the First Amendment. You think I’m kidding? http://www.givemeliberty.org for the entire process that took from 2002 to early 2008. I was one of the named Plaintiffs.

      Who cares though the Liens are invalid thus we can start attacking in State Courts and stay out of the grasps of the Feds. A couple of causing of action are available but probably more are possible with good Attorneys. I am not an attorneys so please disregard everything you have just read. Instead go to your local courthouse and pull up some Notice of Federal Tax Liens (public records) and see for yourself. No authority is noted on any of the over 200 I researched. That means almost all of them are invalid as legally sufficient liens.

  4. jccarlton says:

    Reblogged this on The Arts Mechanical and commented:
    It’s really that easy. My Polish friend Art had a word for it, but it can’t be used in polite company.

    • PJ London says:

      Except all the peoples of Iraq, Libya and Syria, made homeless and orphaned by the great democratic and capitalist ideals of USA.
      If you don’t give us your oil and buy our crud, we will bomb the sh1t out of you.

      • That’s a load of crap. The US has paid (dearly) for every drop of oil we got from the ME, and we sure as Hell never bombed, or threatened to bomb, anybody if they didn’t buy our goods and/or services. Where do you people get this SH*T, anyway?

        • PJ London says:

          The USA has stolen and pillaged for the last 75 years (or more). You wouldn’t know crap as you lap it up at every opportunity to turn on your idiot box.

          “Bush-Cheney/Big Oil and Afghanistan’s Taliban negotiated for MONTHS over running a Caspian Sea oil pipeline through Afghanistan. Talks began in February and continued right on until only one MONTH before New York City’s World Trade Center towers were demolished.

          DURING the course of these negotiations, the two parties were unable to agree upon a deal, MAINLY because Bush/Big Oil agents constantly upped the ante on the rather naive Taliban representatives: playing intimidation, bait & switch, and “shell” games relentlessly. The Taliban negotiators, understandably, became distrustful of the entire process, and less and less confident they were being dealt with in good faith.

          In the beginning of August, the Bush administration and its Big Oil cohorts delivered what amounted to an ultimatum to the Taliban.

          The Taliban representatives were reportedly told by Bush/Big Oil: Accept our offer of “a carpet of gold or you’ll get a carpet of bombs.”

          That’s a DIRECT quote, according to French authors Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, who’ve just written a thoroughly-researched and heavily-documented book about the entire extraordinary business titled “Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth”

          “The US before the first Gulf War gave Saddam to understand that it would not interfere in its quarrel with Kuwait. US Ambassador April Glaspie conveyed the message to Saddam that the US ‘had no opinion’ on Iraq’s future intentions with regard to Kuwait. (Kuwait as a state separate from Iraq was a creation of the British to protect their oil interests.) The book makes the situation painfully clear: Washington sent many messages to the Iraqi leader, all of them with the same theme. ‘We won’t interfere. We apologise for anything the nasty journalists have written about you, we prefer you to those fanatic Iranians.’ This is the ‘how’ of American diplomacy.”
          http://rense.com/general69/41.htm

          Just because you either wear red-white-blue glasses or can’t be bothered to read any modern history, merely makes you ignorant, not correct.

        • gator69 says:

          Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie lost every libel case thrown at them over their book of lies…

          We, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquié, are the authors of Forbidden Truth, a book circulated widely since it was first published in the autumn of 2001. I, Jean Charles-Brisard, am also the author of a Report entitled Terrorism Financing published in December 2002.

          The Book and the Report contain very serious and highly defamatory allegations about Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz and Sheikh Abdulrahman Bin Mahfouz, alleging support for terrorism through their businesses, families and charities, and directly. As a result of what we now know, we accept and acknowledge that all of those allegations about you and your families, businesses and charities are entirely and manifestly false.

          The allegations were based on information which we have now been able to establish has been largely withdrawn or refuted in the intervening years since Forbidden Truth was first published, and to our knowledge has never been verified. We did not anticipate at the time the Book and the Report were written that the information which we relied upon would later be withdrawn or refuted. Notwithstanding research into terrorism financing, we have learnt nothing since the publication of the Book and the Report which suggests there is any evidence supporting the allegations. We therefore now unreservedly withdraw all of the allegations about you both in the Book and the Report and confirm that we will never repeat them.

          We appreciate the very serious damage that has been caused to your reputations by these allegations. We also accept that the allegations caused you and your family very great distress. For all of this we are truly sorry.

          Guillaume Dasquié
          Jean-Charles Brisard

          Once again PJ shows just how FOS he is, and how he got there.

        • Oh. Great. A follower of Jeff Rense. Conspiracy theorist. I should have picked up on that sooner.

          It’s late. I’ve had a couple beers. That’ll teach me …

        • PJ London says:

          You are obviously drunk or perhaps terminally stupid. If you actually could read, you would have seen that both quotes were from renowned books which are investigating the causes of modern warfare.
          But your myopia and USA USA USA, means that you are incapable of independent thought or action. Pay your taxes, watch your TV, vote whoever the parties put in front of you, drink your koolaid and say goodbye to your minuscule intellect.

        • gator69 says:

          Dick Cheney, George Bush and capitalism caused this peaceful muslim to fight for his life…

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc1f2dfiiZ4

          Of course it is never about Islam.

        • Gail Combs says:

          Pj London says “The USA has stolen and pillaged for the last 75 years (or more).”
          ………..

          WRONG!

          The International Bankers were the puppet masters behind what you are claiming Americans did. (See my comments above) Prior to 1913 the USA heeded Washington’s advice to remain aloof of foreign entanglements. After the international banking cartel took over that changed. Once the Federal Reserve Act was law the next step was to get the USA into wars so the international financiers could make money funding both sides. While JP Morgan and friends in the munitions business bought up the influential news papers in 1915,so they could warmonger, Congressman Lindbergh’s books were censored and destroyed.

          On a spring day in 1918 several government agents entered a printshop at Washington, D. C., where the original edition of this book was being printed. “Destroy all the Lindbergh plates in your plant,” they told the head of the institution. He was forced to comply. The hysteria of war-time brooked no delays. Not only were the plates of this book “Why Is Your Country at War ?“ destroyed, but also the plates of Congressman Lindbergh’s book “Banking and Currency,” written in 1913 and attacking the big bankers and Federal Reserve Law. So was the pat painstaking effort of months wiped out. Only a few hundred copies of this book had been printed….
          http://www.truthofthematter.org/pdf/Your_Country_At_War.pdf

          Morgan has been in control of the US media ever since. link

          Even Top Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin says bankers “own” the U.S. Congress.

        • Beale says:

          PJ London says “Kuwait as a state separate from Iraq was a creation of the British to protect their oil interests.” In fact, Kuwait existed as a state before Iraq did.

        • PJ London says:

          @Beale re Kuwait
          Please provide your source, as it in my history books, “Kuwait” was a “province” or area under the governance of the Ottoman caliphate until 1920 (Sykes Picot) and was administered by “Iraq” governor from Bagdad.
          I agree that, like all the tribal areas, the Al Sabahs had been the tribal chiefs since they were invited by the “kuwaiti” fishermen to come and protect them from pirates and predation from the Arabs of what is now Saudi Arabia. This happened in 1750 and the warrior family have been in control ever since. But that is tribal and of no more historical consequence that of the Al Eneezi tribe or the Hussein tribe.
          Half of what was the “Kuwait” province was stolen and given to Al Saud in the re-deliniation of 1920-23. All of Arabia was re-drawn at this time but my comment was that the area now called the “State of Kuwait” was part of the Iraqi Governate under the Ottoman’s prior to 1920.
          Before that Kuwait was a tribal area not a state or country.

      • gator69 says:

        PJ can’t read! Oh the huge manatee! 😆

        • PJ London says:

          And where did all this chicanery take place? That is right, in Washington, with the JP Morgan, Chase and Rockefeller banks. Your bankers, your greed, your problem, which you impose on the whole world.
          I can read, and unlike you I have worked in Central Banks around the world, I know what goes on. I have also worked in Commercial banks and left when I understood just how manipulative and evil they are.
          However the centre of all this is Washington and the American public.
          “I will use the full power of the CIA and the U.S. military to steal the resources of any country who opposes the intrusion of Wall Street bankers, oil magnates and transnational corporations.
          “If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes.” Noah Webster
          Mary Elizabeth Lease exclaimed: “Wall Street owns the country…Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us…Money rules.”
          Thomas Jefferson
          “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered…I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies… The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

          Aristotle is to have said, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

        • gator69 says:

          Thanks for the conspiracy word salad. It was delicious! 😆

          We know misery loves company, but you are like in-laws. It is not that we hate you, we just wish you would go away.

        • PJ London says:

          But I at least can and do read. You really should try to be original, and not just recycle my jibes.

        • gator69 says:

          Which of the war refugees to whom you referred were fleeing free market capitalism? Hmmmm?

          Why do you continue to come here if you find us so unpleasant? Why come here and start crap? What does that make you PJ?

        • PJ London says:

          I started by making informed comments about Socialism and Capitalism, you then descended into personal attacks. Whilst I really don’t give a damn, what else is there to do on a dull Sunday, but to mock the afflicted.
          (They were all fleeing the American form of Free markets and Capitalism, Give us your oil and take our crud.

          Let me quote Frederick Douglass
          “Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”

        • gator69 says:

          They were all fleeing the American form of Free markets and Capitalism

          Bullshit. They were not fleeing a JC Penney’s! 😆

          Let me quote me:
          “You are making a jackass of yourself.”

        • PJ London says:

          Oh dear gator forgot to close his anal sphincter as he submerged.
          America is not JC Pennys (not any more, if it ever was) , it is Exxon and BP and Lockheed and Grumman. It is Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. It is Boeing and Hellfire missiles and Craft and Blackwater.
          Before 2003, Kuwait dealt with a dozen banks in handling their foreign exchange, after 2003 only Bushbabys bank was allowed. Noriega wanted to have Panama for the Panamanians, silly fellow, Bush wanted his hotels and apartments. Hussein wanted to open his oil industry to all (including China and Russia) well you sure showed him. The fact that 2 million Iraqis were killed “we think it was a price worth paying”.
          Look in a mirror and see what stupid ignorance and evil looks like.

        • gator69 says:

          My bad. I forgot that when debating a leftist, I am to allow them to define eveything as they see it in their warped and odd little world.

          Got it. Do proceed, wrongway . 😆

        • PJ London says:

          No, grown-ups do not allow you to operate in your nursery rhyme world, but insust that you use a dictionary.
          “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’??’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’??’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

          ? Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

          You are not the master.

        • gator69 says:

          Yes, we all know that you want to be the master, and control us all. Got it.

          Now run along wrongway.

        • PJ London says:

          Gail, please show where or when I supported any of the acts of the USA.
          ” Federal Reserve Act was law ” passed by the US Congress, and the US Senate and signed into law by the US president. Aw, boohoo, “the English made us do it”.
          I know it is hard to face up to the fact that it is the USA that has created most of the worlds misery, but being in denial merely means that you are putting off the day when your eyes are opened to the truth.
          As for the BS that somehow the US saved Europe in WW1 or WW2, that is simply ridiculous.

          As always, US waited until the war was won, and then jumped in on the winning side to grab as much of the spoils as possible. Typical bully behaviour. Before the US started in, the Russians had defeated the german army in the east, Britain had ensured that the Germans could not expand into England, they had pushed them out of North Africa, and the rest of Europe were happily under occupation, selling the Germans wine and cheese.
          Even in mainland Burma and China, the Japanese were contained and then retreating before the US forced Japan into war, but hey, if John Wayne and Audi Murphy makes you feel good, go ahead and believe their stuff.

        • gator69 says:

          As always, US waited until the war was won, and then jumped in on the winning side to grab as much of the spoils as possible.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVSRm80WzZk

        • Michael 2 says:

          Scary! I’m trying to detect sarcasm but I think PJ is serious:

          PJ London believes “Before the US started in, the Russians had defeated the german army in the east, Britain had ensured that the Germans could not expand into England, they had pushed them out of North Africa, and the rest of Europe were happily under occupation, selling the Germans wine and cheese.”

        • Henry Arnold says:

          Pj London, what a load of revisionist BS. I guess we bombed Pearl Harbor, the same way GW Bush ordered to airliners to crash into the World Trade Center. Without the US money, industry and energy, Western Europe, The United Kingdom and even the Soviet Union would have lost the war. Socialism is a failing experiment and it is taking the World Economy down with it, the road to ruin is paved with good intentions.

          When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”
          ? Benjamin Franklin

          “The business of America is business.”
          Calvin Coolidge

          “History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.”
          Thomas Jefferson

        • Henry P says:

          hI Henry,
          are you perhaps related to William Arnold, who wrote a paper in 1985 setting out the climate cycles occurring on earth resulting from changes on the sun.

      • Bob123 says:

        I certainly hope you are a foreigner. The thought of an American hating scumbag like you getting any benefit from this country sickens me.

        • PJ London says:

          I see that the level of discourse has risen above your ability to understand. “Scumbag” indeed.
          I suppose you want me to share the benefits that the Iraqis, Afghanis, Libyans and Syrians obtained.
          The only problem with Americans is that they won’t just go home and stay there.
          Whilst you sit bemused by Fox, in the real world the vasty majority of peoples view America as the greatest danger facing the world today.
          You are like in-laws, it is not that we hate you, we just wish you would go away.

        • Michael 2 says:

          PJ London “it is not that we hate you, we just wish you would go away.”

          How many of you are in there? 😉

          The hallmark of a socialist is frequent use of unqualified “we”. I have never met a socialist that considered himself sheep; rather, each considers himself a shepherd of sheep, the elite, not the proletariat. But that is impossible, for there can be only one shepherd and many sheep.

        • Gail Combs says:

          PJ London says:
          January 10, 2016 at 1:59 pm

          And where did all this chicanery take place? That is right, in Washington, with the JP Morgan, Chase and Rockefeller banks. Your bankers, your greed, your problem…
          >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
          PJ can not read much less do independent research.

          The problem CAME from EUROPE dude.

          Hearst’s Chicago Evening American commented on Dec. 3, 1923: “The Rothschilds can start or prevent wars. Their word could make or break empires.” Reeves notes, “The fall of Napoleon was the rise of Rothschild.”

          Six leading New York banks: Chase, National City Bank, Guaranty Trust, J.P. Morgan, Hanover, and Manufacturers Trust were the principal banks controlled by the House of Rothschild through their American agents: J.P. Morgan and Kuhn, Loeb Co. These were also the six New York banks which bought the controlling stock in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1914. They have held control of the stock ever since.

        • PJ London says:

          Gail “and where did this ….” you admit that it took place in US, the fact that you were pawns in the hands of smarter and more rapacious people does not in any way detract from what I said.
          I have never suggested that the Americans did this on their own, But you do not see the Swiss rampaging around the world bombing people. The City of London is quiet and very relaxed, they let the greedy noisy bumbling yanks do the work.
          You see, it is a club, and you are not in it. (G Carlin)

        • Bob123 says:

          PJ I understand quite well. I understand that the US has been the greatest force for good in the modern era. Most of Europe would be German speaking now we’re it not for the US. The Soviet threat was kept at bay mainly by the US an capitalism.

          We have at times been led by flawed men, and yes, we most certainly have at times acted in our own self interest. That said, we own no one any apology.

        • Gail Combs says:

          No PJ, I did not “..admit that it took place in US..”
          >>>>>>>>>>>>>
          What I said was AMERICANS WERE ROBBED! That the MONEY that funded the wars was stolen from Americans. And they were Robbed by your nice quiet Bank of London. Of course it is nice and quiet. Why ever would the International Bankers in the City of London or Switzerland wish to live in the chaos they create?
          >>>>>>>>>>>>>

          “…the fact that you were pawns in the hands of smarter and more rapacious people does not in any way detract from what I said.”

          YEAH, and those ” more rapacious people” were BASED IN THE CITY of LONDON.

          What you are say ins this child DESERVED IT!

          https://themuslimissue.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/behead_child-vi-300×280.jpg
          Because she was apawn in the hands of smarter and more rapacious people.

          You are barbaric. You think it is perfectly acceptable for the “smarter and more rapacious people,” the Predators, to rob and kill. That the raping and maiming and killing of children is perfectly OK.

          But that is what I would expect of the supporter of Socialism/Communism/Progressivism and Death by Government. You complain of war but YOUR philosophy has killed 262,000,000 people in the 20th century. People killed by their own government for the sin of not being communists or socialists. Governments who murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign and internal wars of the century

  5. PJ London says:

    Neither picture has anything to do with Socialism or Capitalism.
    One shows shortages, common situation, could just as easily be people queuing for jobs, or food or or to catch a bus or the lottery payout, the other shows automation, could have been in any country including the USSR (when it existed), China or England, under socialism.
    By the look of the pictures, both depict the UK in the 50s, 60s, most dingbats forget that there was rationing, (I was entitled to 3d per week of sweets). Everyone had to queue for everything, became the great British pastime.
    Stupid, nonsensical BS.
    Capitalism is where you are dependent on someone else’s money to provide the means to produce, Socialism is where the community takes responsibility for the poor and helpless.
    Capitalism will die under the greed of those with money, Socialism dies from the greed of those without money. Either way, after some time, Sh1t happens and you have to start again.

    • Robertv says:

      1945-51: Labour and the creation of the welfare state

      http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/mar/14/past.education

      “It became clear that the lumbering machinery of economic planning could not deliver what the voters had demanded and Labour had promised: full employment, secure jobs with fair wages, an end to wartime rationing and – above all perhaps – decent homes for all.

      It has sometimes been argued that the Attlee government’s main disadvantage was that Britain had been on the winning side in the war. British cities and industries had been bashed around by German air raids, but had not suffered the wholesale destruction which allowed the renascent German economy to start from a clean sheet. More importantly, British economic class structures – and bitter enmities – survived the war unscathed, in contrast to those countries which had been traumatised by invasion and occupation (none more so than Germany) into rethinking their economic cultures.

      But there were other obstacles in the path of Labour’s would-be revolutionaries. The country, to put it brutally, was broke. It had poured its wealth into the war effort and in 1945 was groaning under a mountain of debt.”

      • PJ London says:

        True, politicians lied, full employment, fair wages and homes for all. The fact that this was what they joined the army for was irrelevant.
        The real difference was the bankers.

        “Under the London Debts Agreement of 1953, the repayable amount was reduced by 50% to about 15 billion marks and stretched out over 30 years, and compared to the fast-growing German economy were of minor impact
        West Germany’s debt at the time was well below the levels seen in Greece today. But German negotiators successfully argued that it would hinder efforts to rebuild the country’s economy – much as Greek governments have in recent years, in vain. Under a crucial term of the London Agreement, repayments of the remaining debt were made conditional on West Germany running a trade surplus. In other words, the German government would only pay back its creditors when it could afford to – and not by borrowing even more money. Reimbursements were also limited to 3% of export earnings. This gave Germany’s creditors an incentive to import German goods so they would later get their money back, thereby laying the foundations of the country’s powerful export sector and fostering its so-called “economic miracle”.

        Germany ‘the biggest debt transgressor’

        “Germany’s resurgence has only been possible through waiving extensive debt payments and stopping reparations to its World War II victims,” economic historian Albrecht Ritschl”

        The Uk on the other hand;
        “The Anglo-American Loan Agreement, was a post World War II loan made to the United Kingdom by the United States on 15 July 1946, and paid off in 2006”, no wonder we have a “special relationship”. (in 2014 they paid off the final payment from WW1!)

        Whilst Britain, Russia and Germany made sacrifices, USA made money.

        No social system works for ever.
        Different strokes for different societies at different times.

        (With regard to German and Japanese ascendancy in the 60s, my take is that ALL the machinery and tooling was taken by the allies from Germany and Japan at the end of the war. The losers were reduced to using hand tools and scrap metal. When the factories started again in the 1950s all equipment was brand new and modern. This meant that car doors were built to within 2-3 mm rather than the 1/2 inch (if you were lucky) tolerance on British and American cars, using tools, presses and dies of the 1920s. This using of modern equipment and techniques meant that they could outperform any of the “allies” manufacturing. If the Americans and Brits really wanted to win the war, they should have dumped all the old machines on Germany at the end of the war, and created new stuff. This would have put Germany – Japan behind for 50 years rather than ahead in 20).

        • jokin says:

          //// This would have put Germany – Japan behind for 50 years rather than ahead in 20 ////

          Apparently, at least one person here fails to recall the devastating consequences of the Treaty of Versailles.

    • Michael 2 says:

      PJ London “By the look of the pictures, both depict the UK in the 50s, 60s, most dingbats forget that there was rationing, (I was entitled to 3d per week of sweets). Everyone had to queue for everything, became the great British pastime.”

      Thank you for that excellent description of socialism: Entitlement thinking, queues (long lines) and government control of production and consumption.

      By the way, what does 3d of sweets actually get you? If it is a lot maybe I’ll have to re-think socialism.

      “Capitalism is where you are dependent on someone else’s money to provide the means to produce”

      Whereas in socialism you are also dependent on someone elses money and don’t even think about producing!

      “Socialism is where the community takes responsibility for the poor and helpless.”

      By taking money from anyone that still has some to give to the poor. Soon you run out of Other People’s Money and that’s when the long lines start.

      If my neighbor came to me and took my money, that’s robbery. If he compels me to give him money, that’s extortion. It is unclear at what magical point he suddenly becomes “community” and can take the fruit of my labor and just give it to someone else.

      Can you explain that? If anyone can, it would be you.

      • Gail Combs says:

        Michael 2,

        That is why PJ switched the definition of Capitalism. As we know the Progressives/Socialists/Communists use redefining words to control the conversation.

        Simplified:
        Capitalism is the use of your own labor, wealth and raw materials (aka capital) to create more wealth.

        More formally by another source.

        DEFINITION of ‘Capitalism’

        A system of economics based on the private ownership of capital and production inputs, and on the production of goods and services for profit. The production of goods and services is based on supply and demand in the general market (market economy), rather than through central planning (planned economy). Capitalism is generally characterized by competition between producers.
        http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capitalism.asp?layout=orig

        Masses of unnecessary regulations and laws along with confiscatory and complicated taxes are what keep people in chains unable to work for themselves. This forces them into having to work for the big corporations and the glut on the labor market forces wages down.
        Since the corporations can now pick and choose you have high unemployment which was the goal in the first place.

        Immigration and H1b visas is all about the same goal. Forcing down wages by increasing a glut on the labor market.

        Socialism, high taxes and massive regulations is the DIRECT cause of unemployment.
        Regulations are choking small business engine of growth: It’s time for red-tape reduction

        Small businesses drive job creation, growth

        US Gov InfoTop Ten Reasons to Love US Small Businesses

        Small businesses create more than 50 percent of the non-farm private gross domestic product (GDP).
        Small businesses employ about 50 percent of all private sector workers.

        The latest figures show that small businesses create 75 percent of the net new jobs in our economy.

        Small business are the REAL Capitalists because Small Businesses are Self-Financed

        Yeah, big surprise there — NOT! International Banks/Corporations are a Big Cluster F…K
        since the banks control the big corporations and want no competition.

        Bankers Rule the World: “The Network of Global Corporate Control” “The study says 147 powerful companies control an inordinate amount of economic activity – about 40%. Among the top 50, 45 are financial firms. They include Barclays PLC (called most influential), JPMorgan Chase, UBS, and other familiar and less known names…”

        PJ seems to think we are ignorant rubes like the people he usually cons.

        • JJ Reuter says:

          PJ. Name one oil well inside the borders of Afghanistan. You are an uninformed dope.

        • PJ London says:

          @Reuter
          “Bush-Cheney/Big Oil and Afghanistan’s Taliban negotiated for MONTHS over running a Caspian Sea oil pipeline through Afghanistan. ”
          I know that you have difficulty reading , but if you concentrate real hard and ask someone to explain the big words, you will see that the oil is in the Caspian and the war is over a “pipeline” through Afghanistan.
          Why is it that people who are really stupid call others “uninformed” and “dopes” when even a one minute pause to think would have pointed out the error in their position?
          I guess it must be because a) cognitive dissonance and b) they really are stupid.
          Go back to your “safe space” where everyone tells you how clever you are and how you are exceptional.

  6. Steve Case says:

    Once again, I see I need to use a tag.

  7. Steve Case says:

    This   ?

  8. CheshireRed says:

    Perfect summary!

  9. Gail Combs says:

    PJ London’s problem is that Fabian Socialism/Communism promotes a two caste system, serfs and the elite Aristocracy. To keep the serfs under control it is needful to keep them too busy to rebel so advancement is not wanted.

    In a capitalist society there is private ownership of wealth that fosters the use of that wealth to produce more wealth. This gave rise to the dreaded Middle Class – The Bourgeoisie! It also gave rise to leisure and more and more inventions which as we have seen the Progressives hate because leisure (plus the ability to read) encourages an independent mind. This is the last thing the want to be totalitarian elite want.

    The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors,’ and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, callous ‘cash payment.’ It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

    The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.
    ? Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

    • gator69 says:

      Even these people get it. You don’t need to be highly educated to know that competition brings out the best products, and therefore raises the living standards of everyone…

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6wXwRWl_DY

      The full documentary The Ultimate Resource (well worth the time, simply undenialble) can be found here…

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_lx8QsrvvM

      Serious about helping the poorest? This is how.

    • PJ London says:

      Holy crap, “promotes a two caste system,”, unlike the Capitalist system which produces a two caste system, the 0.1% and the poor bastards trying to survive.

      How stupid can you be, the “bourgeoisie” are the owners, the capitalists and Marx (although wrong on most things) perfectly described in your quote, the system.

      “In Marxist philosophy the bourgeoisie is the social class that came to own the means of production during modern industrialization and whose societal concerns are the value of property and the preservation of capital, to ensure the perpetuation of their economic supremacy in society.”

      If your quote does not describe America right now, then I don’t know what does.

      • Gail Combs says:

        PJ, the American system is NOT capitalism. It ceased to be capitalism in 1913 when the International bankers placed a short circuit across the entire system and diverted the wealth produced by the USA into the pockets of the elite.
        They have been robbing us ever since and using some of the funds to buy politicians around the world. On top of that it is SOCIALIST Regulation starting with FDR’s New Deal, that lowered real GDP growth by 2% per year since 1949 and made America 72% poorer.

        And yeah Socialism/Communism IS a two class system of serfdom! Straight from Fabian co-founder George Bernard Shaw.

        KILLING THOSE “UNFIT TO LIVE”
        “The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it … If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way. Is it any wonder that some of us are driven to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations?”

        Source: George Bernard Shaw, Prefaces (London: Constable and Co., 1934), p. 296.

        “Under Socialism, you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live, you would have to live well.”

        George Bernard Shaw: The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, 1928, pg. 470)

        Sure sounds like SERFDOM or a better description SLAVERY to me!

        The only thing hidden is what Shaw means by ‘the community’
        He of course means ‘The State’ Either of those terms is actually a euphemism for ‘the rulers in control of the country.’

        If you believe ‘The State’ should be served by the individual you have Sparta:

        Ancient Spartan Communism

        “..Plutarch’s description is of interest because, waiving the question of its historical accuracy, it gives a very adequate definition of the ideal communistic state, as ideally imagined by countless later generations. In general, he says,

        …he trained his fellow-citizens to have neither the wish nor the ability to live for themselves; but like bees they were to make themselves always integral parts of the whole community, clustering together about their leader, almost beside themselves with enthusiasm and noble ambition, and to belong wholly to their country.

        …the Spartan state was probably unique in some respects in the record of political institutions. It is difficult to recall any other state in which the individual was so completely subordinated to the general ends of the community — and such subordination is, of course, of the very essence of socialism in its general sense, as distinguished from that species of socialism generally referred to as communism. From the day of his birth, when he might be not merely subordinated but suppressed for the good of the state, the young Spartan continued to be disposed of in one way or another until death opened up for him a way of escape. The common education, which began at the age of seven, was wholly designed to make good soldiers, to teach men to suffer uncomplainingly the extremes of heat and of cold, of hunger and of pain, and in each was implanted the conviction that he belonged not to himself, but to the state.

        >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
        Therefore it all depends on whether your view point is that the individual should serve ‘The State’ or whether ‘The State’ is there to protect the rights of the individual. Slavery or Freedom, it really is that simple.
        >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

        • PJ London says:

          Gail, your comments are nonsensical. What about the fact that the banks and 1913 and all the other stuff, stops the American system from being capitalist?
          If you mean that it is not “free market” then I would agree. However the “capitalists” being the controllers of money and production are in command.
          What if I don’t care about the state or even recognise it except as some theoretical entity.
          I do what is neccessary to minimise the state’s interactions with me, as long as it does not cross my personal ethical beliefs.
          So far so good, I leave them alone and for the most part they leave me alone. I pay for car licences etc, and wear a seatbelt, not because I support such crap, but because it is not worth hassling over such small stuff.
          I have no intention of saving the world, nor actually of pissing off the yanks, but their arrogance and stupidity sometimes gets up my nose and I enjoy jerking their chain. It gets them so flushed.

        • Michael 2 says:

          PJ London writes “I enjoy jerking their chain.”

          I wonder how many notice or care. I’ve mentioned it before but libertarians do not have a chain, at least none you can jerk. You have your opinions and I have mine.

        • Gail Combs says:

          P.J. says “If you mean that it is not “free market” then I would agree. However the “capitalists” being the controllers of money and production are in command….”
          >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

          Different definition of “capitalists” and the one promoted by the International Banker/Socialists to lay the blame on others. (And yeah the International Bankers ARE socialists.)

          First the Federal Reserve Act instituted the LEGALIZED THEFT called Fractional Reserve Banking and has ZERO to do with capitalism.
          Short explanation and long explanation

          The actual definition of Capitalism.

          Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

          The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control.

          Obviously the creation of money out of nothing, which is the essence of Fractional Reserve Banking, is a major violation of a person’s right and it is backed up ILLEGALLY by the force of the US government. (Gold and silver as money is specified in the Constitution.) As I said FDR confiscated the wealth of American’s (gold) and gave it to the international bankers. Since then the Fed has been trading their worthless funny money bank notes printed out of nothing for our labor and resources.

          Also note that originally the corporations had ONLY a twenty year life/charter. It is only recently they have become immortal allowing a major accumulation of wealth and power.

        • PJ London says:

          Alternatively, you could use the generally accepted definition.
          “Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods and services for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labour and competitive markets.”
          Nothing about force that is nonsense in a economic system. (There has been no economic theory of Piracy and Brigandage as an economic system)
          Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production. All else is sophistry.
          All government, all society, regardless of what you call it, is based on force.

        • Gail Combs says:

          PJ London “…All government, all society, regardless of what you call it, is based on force…”

          WRONG AGAIN! The US Constitution was written to get rid of that problem as much as possible. THAT is why we have freedom of speech, the right to bear arms AND the jury system that ALLOWS citizens to nullifiy the laws passed by Congress. The fact that the Predatory International Bankers from England have managed to completely mangle and undermine the American System of Government and deliberately turn it into a Socialist Government does not detract from the fact it was not set up that way.

          You forget the Senators were elected by the states before 1913 and the Federal government could not tax citizens before 1913. And thanks to FDR the Supreme Court no longer held the US Federal Government to the Constitution.

          On top of that the Irish DID 9,000 years of anarchy in Ireland

    • PJ London says:

      President Woodrow Wilson.  He admitted very plainly that “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”

      Bloody Communists

      • gator69 says:

        Yep! I despise Wilson, because, among other things, he was a socialist

        From his early years as a professor of political science, President-to-be Woodrow Wilson dismissed the American Founders’ dedication to natural rights and limited government. Claiming that the country was beset with monstrous challenges unlike any other seen before in history, Wilson concluded that Americans must overcome their sentimentalism toward the past and fundamentally change their government, making it in theory as powerful as the socialists of his day speculated. In this unpublished essay written before he was 31, Wilson advocates “practical means of realizing for society the principles of socialism” by unshackling state power.

        http://www.heritage.org/initiatives/first-principles/primary-sources/woodrow-wilson-on-socialism-and-democracy

      • jdseanjd says:

        PJ London, the banksters founded & funded both Fascism & Communism.
        They like to fund both sides of wars, because wars require interest-bearing loans.
        This results in taxes on the people, & profits for the financiers, munitions manufacturers & other corporations.

        Both these totalitarian systems equate to, effectively, a dominant minority with a serf majority. A well regulated capitalism, built on respect for individual rights including free speech & individual property rights, is, IMHO, the best way forward.

        Gail Combs has identified the single greatest problem, Fractional Reserve Lending, the creation of money from thin air.The need for a value based currency which cannot be inflated away is paramount.

        May I recommend you read “Pawns in the Game”, by William Guy Carr?
        Carr spent 41 years researching why, despite huge progress in the fields of science & engineering, medicine & art, the world was not prospering. The answer in one word?
        Banksters.

        Anonymous European financiers put William of Orange on the throne of England & in return won the right to establish the Bank of England & tax the populace to service William’s debt, then £1,250,000. The start of England’s National Debt & central banking.

        Carr correctly identifies the main problem with a Khazar predatory mindset.
        Khazars were forced to adopt either Judaism, Christianity or Islam, & chose Judaism.
        They are Jews in name only, & hold no allegiance to any faith or country.
        Carr makes the lazy error of using the word Jew too often in this book, please bear this in mind.

        Also youtube & Bill Still Money Masters, a 3.5 hour documentary.

        • PJ London says:

          But the Banksters also created capitalism!
          When money rules and people are greedy, them with the money rule.
          Not a very difficult concept.
          What the “little people” don’t understand is that ANY group that exploits others for the members’ gain is wrong.

          From a Syrian, Libyan, Iraqi et al. perspective Jews and America look very much alike.
          So do Masons, Broederbonders, Bilderbergers, cartels, mafia, government and silly bloggers who reinforce the nonsense sold to them sio that they will buy prepper crap.
          They conveniently forget the Requirement.
          “I implore you to recognize the Church as a lady and in the name of the Pope take the King as lord of this land and obey his mandates. If you do not do it, I tell you that with the help of God I will enter powerfully against you all. I will make war everywhere and every way that I can. I will take your women and children and make them slaves…The deaths and injuries you will receive from here on will be your own fault and not that of his majesty nor of the gentlemen that accompany me. –“The Requirement”, read by Spaniards (in Latin) to native tribes they encountered in the New World
          Please explain to those whose children died in the carnage, whose homes have been destroyed and who now face a winter in a field with no food, the difference between ISIS and US coalition.
          “In addition, we have learned that on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge,” the analysts said.
          “Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, now used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army and their foreign sponsors.”
          The analysts claimed that senior opposition commanders who came from Istanbul pre-briefed the regional commanders on an “imminent escalation in the fighting due to ‘a war-changing development,’ which, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria.”
          The analysts said that the opposition leaders then were ordered to prepare their forces to “exploit the U.S. bombing” and march into Damascus to remove the al-Assad government.

        • jdseanjd says:

          I agree with every word.
          From my reading, the US & Israel are being duped into becoming the pariahs of the world.
          They will be blamed for starting WW III, & will be destroyed, as per Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya & now Syria, Yemen etc etc.
          All nations will be destroyed, a cast world depopulation will be, is being, forced, & a Fascist one world govt will be instituted.
          This is the Banksters wet dream.
          It’s called UN Agenda 21 & is cloaked behind Environmentalism & Sustainability.
          Try “Agenda 21 for Dummies”.

        • Michael 2 says:

          jdseanjd wrote “All nations will be destroyed, a cast world depopulation will be… This is the Banksters wet dream.”

          A problem with your conspiracy theory is that a depopulated world with all nations destroyed eliminates any utility for banking. Banking depends on large numbers of productive citizens and nations of laws beneficial to banking.

        • jdseanjd says:

          The banksters are no longer interested in large populations or money. Power is all they want.
          The Pope’s main lay scientific adviser is (knighted by the queen) John (Hans Joachim) Schellnhuber, on record as saying there are 6 billion too many on the planet.
          Obarmy’s main science adviser is John Holdren proud co-author in the 70s with Paul Ehrlich saying the world was overpopulated then. The book: Ecoscience advised forced abortions & sterilizations, & anti fertilisation agents in the drinking water.
          Look into the 50 million deaths caused, mostly women & children in 3rd world ,by EPA ban on DDT. Agonising deaths through malaria. June 1972.
          Look at the 50 million deaths in US through abortion since Roe vs Wade, 1972.
          Look at millions dead in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya Syria, Yemen, Somalia etc in the West’s mad wars on Muslims.
          Youtube: Monckton UN Globalist Death Plan for Humanity.
          I can give you plenty more, but you have to join the dots. Look into vaccines & autism. Autistics mostly don’t breed. Look into chemtrails:
          http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org

        • jdseanjd says:

          2nd thoughts, PJ London: I can’t agree that the Banksters created Capitalism.
          I would rather say that human nature created free enterprise, which the Bankster parasites hate. There is a Rothschild quote I’ll dig out.
          PS: cast depopulation should be vast depopulation.

        • Michael 2 says:

          PJ London wrote “When money rules and people are greedy, them with the money rule.”

          Yes. Money rules greedy people. It does not rule not-greedy people. Which are you?

          “What the little people don’t understand is that ANY group that exploits others for the members’ gain is wrong.”

          So what is wrong with your understanding? You are a “little people” too. Why should I believe your claims as to what is wrong? Are you a god or prophet? No; one moment you are a little person, another moment you are not a little person but also not a bankster. So what are you?

          “Please explain to those whose children died in the carnage, whose homes have been destroyed and who now face a winter in a field with no food, the difference between ISIS and US coalition.”

          I am willing to explain it to you; I am not going to try to find people in the middle east whose children died in the carnage. I’m certainly not under your command.

          But I am not going to do that until we (you and I) have established your purpose in being here and any utility for this conversation.

        • PJ London says:

          3rd thought.
          Are you suggesting that capitalism (see definition above) is the same as Free Enterprise?
          I can take my shovel and go into business as a grave digger, that is free enterprise.
          If the only way to dig graves (by law or any other coercion) is to use a large expensive caterpillar digger owned by the someone else or by a bank, then that is capitalism, nothing to do with free enterprise, free markets or any other system.
          Of course “free” anything doesn’t work
          The so-called self-regulating market, as the economist Karl Polanyi wrote in “The Great Transformation,” always ends with mafia capitalism and a mafia political system. This system of self-regulation, Polanyi wrote, always leads to “the demolition of society.”
          Or my namesake
          Jack London describes the perception of “the great mass of the people [who] still persisted in the belief that they ruled the country by virtue of their ballots,” when “[i]n reality, the country was ruled by what were called political machines. At first the machine bosses charged the master capitalists extortionate tolls for legislation; but in a short time the master capitalists found it cheaper to own the political machines themselves and to hire the machine bosses.”

        • Michael 2 says:

          PJ London wrote “Are you suggesting that capitalism (see definition above) is the same as Free Enterprise?”

          No. Free enterprise is an important aspect of capitalism. There would be no point in building a factory to make nails if the owner of the factory was not permitted to sell nails and to buy iron.

          “I can take my shovel and go into business as a grave digger, that is free enterprise.”

          If indeed you go into business, and are permitted to do so without excessive regulation, and people by their own free choices hire your services, then yes.

          “If the only way to dig graves (by law or any other coercion) is to use a large expensive caterpillar digger owned by the someone else or by a bank, then that is capitalism, nothing to do with free enterprise, free markets or any other system.”

          Yes. Regulations reduce freedom in one sense, but exist to expand freedom in another sense. In a perfectly free libertarian market the man with the backhoe can outproduce manual labor. If the cost of the machine is less than the increase in productivity, he has an advantage and could easily displace dozens of manual diggers. His freedom is increased, theirs is decreased.

          “Of course free anything doesn’t work”

          Incorrect. Free anything always works for some and not for others. Perhaps you have a special meaning for “work”.

          “The so-called self-regulating market… always ends with mafia capitalism and a mafia political system.”

          Many people write many things. Evidently you believe him to be correct. Why is that?

          “At first the machine bosses charged the master capitalists extortionate tolls for legislation; but in a short time the master capitalists found it cheaper to own the political machines themselves and to hire the machine bosses.”

          So it seems.

          Once again I wonder if you are trying to make a point. If so, would it be such a challenge to just lay it out?

        • jdseanjd says:

          I’ll agree. Do you realise that money is borrowed into existence as debt? did you read the 1862 quote I referenced?

        • PJ London says:

          @jdseanjd : Debt
          No, not all money is “debt”, some is created as credit (debt), some is created for goods or value received, and some is just accounting entries.
          Some debt is counted as “money” and some is not.
          An organisation can establish money as a means of exchange.
          This is the original form of money, and was issued based on valuables held by the issuer. IE “Gold Standard”
          Money
          1. A medium that can be exchanged for goods and services and is used as a measure of their values on the market, including among its forms a commodity such as gold, an officially issued coin or note, or a deposit in a checking account or other readily liquefiable account.
          2. The official currency, coins, and negotiable paper notes issued by a government.
          3. Assets and property considered in terms of monetary value; wealth.
          You may be conflating Money, Credit, and Fiat Currency.
          Pretty shells and beans have been money in the past.
          The Rothschilds are the big bad boogies, but only because we let them be boogies.
          Simply, I refused to have any debt or credit some years ago, complicates parts of my life but simplifies other parts.
          Moved away from savings and banks and looked at real assets as far as possible.
          Doesn’t matter now, the economy is so screwed it cannot be recovered. Consumer economy requires consumers. This requires consumers to either produce (gone overseas) or the receive credit (maxed out). Production has stopped (is slowing and will stop) for all non-essentials. An economy cannot exist by “taking in each others washing”.
          Movement of goods has slowed and is stopping. Baltic Dry Index, American rail stats, Ship movements, container handling being warehoused indefinitely.
          Demand is dead. people have lost the “need” for more toys. (other than I-Phones.)
          Credit has stopped, countries are no longer willing to play the Bretton Woods game and are going back to basics.
          Tough sh1t.
          Have fun people, if you are in a town or city, you will have lots of fun.

        • Michael 2 says:

          PJ London, I am impressed by your awareness of money and economics and grasp of impending doom. In my experience that’s unusual in a socialist. Maybe you aren’t really a socialist.

          “Have fun people, if you are in a town or city, you will have lots of fun.”

          Movie recommendation: “The Book of Eli”. Science fiction book recommendation: “Folk of the Fringe” by Orson Scott Card. Both deal with post-apocalyptic USA.

        • jdseanjd says:

          You make some good & valid points.
          Being more precise, ~97% of money is created as debt, ~3% as coins & notes, & there is a push on for a cashless society, ie 100% debt based money.
          May I recommend this chap:
          http://www.charleshughsmith.blogspot.co.uk
          & suggest you scroll down to 2016 theme#3, the rise of alternative currencies?

          I applaud the steps you have taken in your life.

          I spent 10 years working in a socialist organised company, in my 20s.
          based around my Father & 3 brothers plus myself, we were employing ~18 guys. It did not work. In the end, after 10 years, we were all keen to get away & row our own boats.
          Why do you reckon communist countries need barbed wire borders to keep people in?

        • PJ London says:

          @Michael 2
          Socialism : “… systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production.”
          I am not now nor have I ever been a socialist.
          Of course most people have absolutely no idea what “Socialism” consists of.
          I am a true Liberal, not the misguided definition that serves Americans but
          1. willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas.
          2. (of education) concerned with broadening a person’s general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.
          I am also a confirmed Libertarian, such that I have delivered opinions and speeches to gathering of Libertarians nationwide.
          America (and most of the world) is run on the basis that people are only motivated by fear and greed. Thanks to Bernays, this is fostered at every level. The moment you realise that you will die and that there is nothing to fear, that you realise that you can only sit in one chair, sleep on one bed, eat enough for one, then you are free.
          “Teach your children to be brave. This century of ours has been marked most conspicuously by cowardice of the people everywhere. It was by our cowardice that we were betrayed into the hands of corrupt men who promised to make life”safe’ for us and devoid of hazard, and robbed the adventurousness by which the spirits of men are strengthened. It was by our poltroonery that we lost our liberties. It was by our fears that we almost died. A brave people never become slaves.” –Taylor Caldwell,”The Devil’s Advocate”(1952)
          “But the virtuous man does do everything wisely; therefore he alone is free.  And indeed the man whom it is not possible either to compel to do anything, or to prevent from doing anything, cannot possibly be a slave; and one cannot compel or prevent the virtuous man.”
          Philo
          The rich, if the constitution gives them power, are apt to be insolent and avaricious
          Aristotle
          Emanuel Swedenborg, –“It is no proof of a man’s understanding to be able to affirm whatever he pleases; but to be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false,–this is the mark and character of intelligence.”
          You have a population who do not what the word “tithe” means, who have not and cannot study, who accept egregious slavery (‘Serfs in the Middle Ages had to give up 20% of their income yearly and that made them virtual slaves. Today the average American pays 53%. ’”
          (1995 House of Representatives) and since then the taxes have increased to about 85-90% including hidden taxes and monopoly suppliers.
          They cannot and will not take time to study as they are too busy repeating to everyone the lies that they were fed in school and church and TV reality shows. They think that Hollywood produces historical documentaries and that Film Stars have intellect.
          They love Donald Trump, and they deserve him.
          Americans are dogs : “You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, “My God, you’re right! I never would’ve thought of that!”” – Sean Connery

          I had hoped that a blog with the words “Real” and “Science” would attract rational beings, but alas.

        • Michael 2 says:

          PJ London writes “I am also a confirmed Libertarian”

          I consider myself an unconfirmed libertarian (small-L).

          “but to be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false,–this is the mark and character of intelligence.”

          It is also amazingly difficult to discern what is true and be reasonably sure that it is true.

          “You have a population … who have not and cannot study”

          It is what it is. The religious (Christian) response is to be harmless as doves (don’t attract attention) but cunning as serpents (deal with the attention you get despite Part A.).

          I suspect the actual rate of taxation will follow the pattern established by the Iron Law of Wages. Taxes will rise until they cannot be increased without impoverishing everyone. You want to impoverish only half although it isn’t a simple gaussian function.

          The profit motive is to capture the surplus at any point where surplus exists. The factory owner produces something, people buy it, if there’s a surplus they wrangle over who gets it. If the item is “commodity” then the buyer largely regulates the price hence the surplus benefit (and it is that surplus that is taxable). If the item is not commodity, or even a monopoly produced item, then all of the surplus is available to the manufacturer and that is where the incidence of taxation can take place.

          As I have participated in these arguments over the years, many people seem to forget an important principle: Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. If you use “debt money” which is the most common kind, it exists because of the banking system. People choose to use “the system” in part because no meaningful alternative exists but also because it is convenient. My children love the way Facebook robs them of their privacy although they don’t see it that way.

          Sweden is seriously contemplating eliminating currency entirely. The long heralded, and feared, prophecy about not being able to buy or sell without the number of the beast is at hand although, slightly off topic, I think that chapter has been and gone. It was the Jews in Germany between the wars that were subjected to all of the tribulations; they were tattooed with registration numbers and had to present it. There were two beasts; Germany of World War 1, and the second beast was created on its ashes. The Rapture is a very bad thing; when it says that some Jews would be taken up to heaven, well that’s true but via Auschwitz. It describes sudden takings; two will be in a field, one taken the other left standing. It doesn’t say which is the better thing other than best not to be there at all. Flee to the mountain and hope it wasn’t winter. Then it talks about a 7 year period; the first half is peaceful then the beast abrogates the peace and causes war. That’s the 1938 Munich Treaty “peace in our time” Sir Neville Chamberlain thank you very much, and about 3.5 years later, the Blitzkreig. End of war in 1945, Treaty of Yalta, 7 years!

          That sidebar is to illustrate that bad things are *so* predictable that it pays to be cunning as serpents, keep a watchful eye on things, and fly below the radar of the beast.

          “Americans are dogs : ‘You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, ‘My God, you’re right! I never would’ve thought of that!” – Sean Connery”

          My dog was smarter than that. She had an amazing ability to know when we were teasing her or telling her something hokey. If hokey then she’d look at me somewhat sideways in disapproval. She had an impressive vocabulary, she understood several dozens of words without having to see visual cues in addition to the words. She was pretty good at untangling herself. At first she would wrap her leash around a table or chair leg. The usual human response is to do the untangling but then it becomes a game for the dog. I just keep a bit of tension on the leash, she cannot go forward, eventually gets bored (happens fast with a terrier), and realizes she is going to have to figure it out. After that she started anticipating situations likely to lead to entanglement and avoid it, like cutting across diagonally under the table, she quickly learned to go around the table knowing that I also was going around the table.

          “I had hoped that a blog with the words “Real” and “Science” would attract rational beings, but alas.”

          There is no alas. You have seen many rational beings here. Different motivations of course that can mask one’s judgment of such things. The socialist point of view, for instance, is rational and its only problem is that it doesn’t work on a large scale for a long time. The capitalist views are also rational, work well enough on various scales but make no attempt or apology with regard to anything social.

          Religion is, or is not, rational depending upon the experiences of the religious person and those experiences are not a thing you can judge. My religion is rational. Your mileage may vary.

          To recalibrate your sense of rationality, spend some time at Huffington Post or DailyKOS; then return and report 🙂

          Or Townhall I suppose. Any website whose existence is “Me smart, you stoopid!”

        • jdseanjd says:

          PJ, you cannot blame Americans for being what they have been trained to be.
          Look up the Rockefeller/Dewey effect on the US education system.
          Youtube Charlotte Iserbyt.

          I reckon about 97% of people are ~ 97% emotion & 3% logic.
          & about 5% of humans? are psychopaths. 🙂

      • Martin Smith says:

        That isn’t communism, PJ, and Wilson was not a communist. He was a social democrat. Those are people who believe in using collectivism where it works well: public education, public transportation, health insurance, that sort of thing.

        • PJ London says:

          You don’t do Sarcasm, do you.
          Convince the rest of them. They think that any regard for anyone but yourself is Socialist/communist/heathen/anti-American and just plain nasty.
          It is all the Jews fault!
          About as much rational thinking as a turnip.

        • Michael 2 says:

          PJ London wrote “You don’t do Sarcasm, do you.”

          I do not understand “do you don’t you” statements. If I say, “yes”, have I affirmed the do or the don’t?

        • Martin Smith says:

          I apologize, PJ.

        • PJ London says:

          De Nada compadre

        • Michael 2 says:

          Martin Smith “Wilson was not a communist. He was a social democrat.”

          That’s what you call a communist before he has totalitarian authority. They are identical in purpose, goals, aims; differing in how exactly this goal is to be achieved.

          The proletariat rules nothing and never will. It does not know how. The French discovered this in the Time of Troubles. The proletariat will always have masters and rulers! The real effect therefore, and presumably the actual goal, is to concentrate power into the hands of the actual rulers, the leaders of the socialist state, the party leaders (compare to Samuel Gompers).

          These things are easily found out by the publications of the Left. They use language rather oddly so it isn’t all that easy to read. As you have seen particularly with PJ London as he talks about the “little people”, clearly he does not consider himself a “little person” and neither does anyone else.

          The richest of the rich tend to be Leftwingers; the elite of the socialists, the leaders of the proletariat. An example is Hillary Clinton pretending to be a Little Person, sometimes doing her own shopping! Bill Gates, George Soros, the Kennedys.

          https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1927/sdc.htm

          “the working class would have to avail itself of democracy—the power of the masses over the State. It is therefore understandable that the Party founded by Lassalle laid claim to the significant name of social democracy: this name expressed the Party’s goal, that is, democracy with a social purpose.”

          “the Communist Manifesto was their programmatic work, Marxism was their theory, the class struggle their tactic, the conquest of political power by the proletariat–the social revolution–their goal.”

          “It was not, at first, compelled to consider a violent transformation.”

          “the new communism is not just a new edition of the theory of radical social democracy.”

          “the difference between social democracy and communism was already evident, although not under that name. This difference involved the tactics of the struggle.”

        • David A says:

          Michael, I agree. The natural progression of Socialism to Communism is inevitably established in human nature. Many academics have recognised this, and Marx did as well.

          Capitalism has no aversion to selflessness as PJ implied. Indeed, it depends on it. George Washington said that a nation of liberty can only work in a just and moral nation.

          Giving is a part of that morality. Goverment mandated forcefull confiscation destroy giving and are not charity.

          The duality of human nature inevitably functions in all political and social systems. Statism insures that the dark side of human nature achieves dominace.

          The last century of human history as documented in Romnel’s writings on democide, (death by government) establish this as fact.

        • Martin Smith says:

          “Michael, I agree. The natural progression of Socialism to Communism is inevitably established in human nature. Many academics have recognised this, and Marx did as well.”

          There is no natural progression from socialism to communism. Socialism has private property. Communism doesn’t have private property. There is no natural progression from private property to no private property. If you disagree, describe the natural progression.

        • Michael 2 says:

          Martin Smith “There is no natural progression from socialism to communism. Socialism has private property. Communism doesn’t have private property. There is no natural progression from private property to no private property. If you disagree, describe the natural progression.”

          I will try to make this as succinct as possible which creates the possibility of inaccuracy or failure to acknowledge nuances. But, here goes.

          1. Initial settlement. A family or clan settles some land. Nuances exist as to whether the land is already claimed, either by animals or other humans.

          2. Property rights are absolute and equal to life itself. As you have an absolute right created by your DNA to your own life, that right also covers your land. I accept that a natural limit exists on that right; namely that which you actually need. It is not “right” for one man to occupy all of North America and claim it for his own.

          3. Cities come into existence because of the surplus of farming. If there is no surplus of farming there is also no city. Citiies provide entertainment and processing centers of use to the farmer but that’s his interest in them. City dwellers do not require land for life, they need only shelter and squabble endlessly over how much is appropriate.

          4. Socialism arises in the cities as a solution to the “tragedy of the commons”. One must deal with impoverished persons one way or another. One way is with stout walls topped with broken glass (a common sight in Mexico) another is to feed and shelter the poor so they are less likely to storm your house.

          5. Latitude makes attitude: In Mexico it is possible to live NOT in someone else’s house so they are quite willing to put up stout walls. They are everywhere to be seen. In subarctic climates shutting people out will probably cause them to die, and since at any moment you too could be homeless, there’s a sense of choosing the feed-and-shelter the poor in more northerly climates. That is why socialism appears to always start between the latitudes 45 and 60 degrees.

          6. The poor become numerous. Having absolutely nothing to do but breed and eat someone else’s bread and live in someone else’s house, soon they overwhelm democratic institutions by sheer number. First it is a district in a city, then the city, then the state, then the nation.

          7. Production declines both in absolute terms and also per-capita. The “deadweight loss” of welfare and taxation is enormous shifting production out of the city, out of the state and eventually out of the nation; or simply ceasing to produce when revenue is less than the cost of production.

          8. This “death spiral” in the economy leads to communism when the government nationalizes industry so that it cannot cease to produce and it cannot leave the domain. Industry itself is then propped up by the very same social system created to feed and shelter the poor; must now feed and shelter industry itself. People scavenge for food and shelter; private enterprise ceases entirely.

          Note: Many nations around the world experience this process and are at various stages in this progression. Some recognize the danger and avoid complete disaster, seemingly always by the simple process of restoring some property rights. “Atlas Shrugged” is a book, and now movies, that explore this progression. I have not read the book or books but the movies are persuasive and easily seen to be accurate in describing this progression.

          9. But wait, there’s more! Communism itself collapses, usually with an enormous loss of human life and property value. 50 million or so Russians died prematurely during Lenin and Stalin’s regimes, about that many Chinese died during Mao’s regime.

          10. Property rights are restored in large or small parts, the economy takes off and the nation rebounds (China, somewhat less for Russia).

          11. It is the exceptions that help prove the rule. Small nations that depend on the sea for life tend not to have a strong sense of property rights; the Quilleute of Washington state for instance. Neither exists mandatory conscription of property for redistribution; but in its place is the potlatch where the wealthiest individuals, or chief, gives away much or all he has. The more he can give away the greater his prestige.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch

          An optimum exists that will not produce an economic death spiral while at the same time providing a “safety net” for suddenly unemployed persons The exact nature of this safety net depends quite a lot on local or regional circumstances. But even in that sense there is still a deadweight loss.

          This appears to be well recognized by the great socialists who recognize that a significant portion of a society transitioning to socialism must simply be killed, for if not, then an even greater number will simply die when consumers outnumber producers and the choice is between everyone dying and some dying. A herd is formed, friend and foe identified, kill the foes. The foes may just be another herd with the same idea. That leads to uncivil war.

          Thus, the differences between socialism and communism amount to nuances, while the similarity is the summum bonum, the entire deal, the wants of the many outweigh the wants of the one. Republics slice the “many” into smaller units that handle group needs more efficiently and libertarians simply don’t acknowledge duty to group except as each libertarian makes a choice to do so.

          Much of religion exists to persuade people to make that free-will choice to serve others. The Boy Scouts of America places great emphasis on this also in its oath “Help other people at all times” and slogan “do a good turn daily”.

          But these are choices made individually; in socialism and in communism your personal preferences, your choices, aren’t even on the table.

        • David A says:

          Google “private property, a prerequisite for classic capitalism”

          It is human nature to strive for power. This is fine,ok and understandable. It is only dark when it becomes the desire for power over others.

          It is human nature in government to strive for power over others. Most all evil is based on power over others. Theft, rape, murder, etc are all expressions of power over others.

          “Government is a necessary evil” The US aim was to limit group power over others in all forms, be it religious or goverment, or corporate. This partially failed in the cooperate world, monopolies, robber barons, etc, has progessively failed in goverment, and largely suceeded in religion, with some recent exceptions with the aversion of Islam.

          Such is the nature of the Tyrant, when he first appears he is a protector” (Plato)

          You see the progression from Socialism to Communism is natural, not in the external ism, but in human nature. What is happening in the E.U. today is a classic deterioration of property rights, soverign property rights and borders, personal property rights, free enterprise property rights (some residences have been forcibly confiscated for refugee housing) etc… per the link you will find if you research!

          Presentl Gail may be along to give you a long list of links and quotes to deterioration of property rights in Europe and the US, to which you will respond, not relevant, wrong link, lies, and tmi. Google agenda 21 as well as my first suggestion if you are sincere.

        • Martin Smith says:

          David, you have reordered the words you said before, but the new ordering still doesn’t support a natural progression from socialism to communism. Socialism does not limit the right to private property. Communism eliminates the right to private property.

        • Michael 2 says:

          Martin Smith “Socialism does not limit the right to private property. Communism eliminates the right to private property.”

          While many kinds of socialism exist, I can think of none that places your right to private property over the “common good”. The difference between socialism and communism is one of degree; and since socialism is on a continuum, its upper end is communism.

        • Gail Combs says:

          David you are correct. Socialism is turning to Communism in Europe.

          Here are the first signs….
          BBC NEWS Hamburg to seize commercial property to house migrants

          Hamburg has become the first German city to pass a law allowing the seizure of empty commercial properties in order to house migrants… The Hamburg region’s leftist government [is]a coalition of Greens, Social Democrats (SPD) and Die Linke….

          Confiscation will only take place if the property owner refuses to hand it over willingly

          Ingrid Carlqvist at Gatestone reports from Sweden

          The question is: Where will they live? More and more people are now worrying that the government will confiscate the homes of Swedes and give them to asylum seekers. In 1992, the “Threat and Risk Assessment Commission” (Hot- och riskutredningen) established that the government should have the option to seize property, especially summer homes, from the Swedish people in a time of crisis. In early September, editorial columnist Anna Dahlberg of Expressen, one of Sweden’s largest dailies, urged Swedes to “make way” and “hand over the keys to their apartments to those in greater need.”

          This is not new. From October 2014

          the municipality should go a step further and use the right to expropriate to seize primarily single-family homes and condominiums owned by Swedes. The homes, the municipality must then give to refugees, he says. “The whole community should join in solidarity to give received refugees housing and integration.” the letter said.

          Anders Wilhelmsson says that something “radically” must be done if Halmstad municipality shall be able to provide homes for the 450 new Muslim refugees, plus their families, who is on their way to Sweden.

          Voluntary is best, but something radical is needed. It says in the Constitution that expropriation may take place if it is for the public good, and I think housing and integration for these people is more important than taking land to build roads, Wilhelmsson says to Hallandsposten.
          http://www.barenakedislam.com/2014/10/29/sweden-socialists-want-to-seize-private-homes-of-swedish-citizens-and-give-them-to-muslim-immigrants/

          In Germany the mayor of at least one small town has discussed forcing residents to give up property to refugees.

          Cities such as Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen and Tübingen have all declared that confiscations cannot be ruled out in emergency situations. In February in Olpe, a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, a family inn was subject to compulsory purchase for migrant accommodation, although in that case negotiations for sale were already underway.

          The mayor of Salzgitter, Frank Klingebiel (CDU), has decided to restrict” temporarily “the fundamental right to property. Due to the massive influx of asylum seekers, the mayor intends to requisition empty private homes.
          http://sheikyermami.com/2015/08/eurabia-governments-are-planning-to-take-your-property-to-make-it-available-to-refugees/

          >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

          If you have ever rented a home you will know the property WILL be a total write-off after the ‘poor’ get through demolishing it and stripping it of salable assets. We just had a $100, 000 property turned into a piece of junk we sold for $2,500. This was after just three years of allowing a needy family to live in it. (And no they DID NOT pay rent, they were supposedly doing some minor cosmetic work in lieu of rent.) These people would be classified as middle class (She was an RN and he ran a construction company till the recession hit.)

          My Father-in-law, a Merchant Ship Captain, carried muslims (french) from Africa to Europe during WWII. The major complaint of the merchant ship captain’s was the pigsty conditions left. Human feces and pee all over the ship among other problems. Therefore you can guarantee ALL of the property taken will be completely demolished by these muslims.
          ………….

          A cheery thought, Marty may be forced to provide housing space for some muslims in his own home….

          It is always fun to watch when intellectual socialists find THEY are the ones who have to sacrifice instead of someone else…. I think I can here the screaming from here.

        • Gail Combs says:

          PJ London says:
          “….They think that any regard for anyone but yourself is Socialist/communist/heathen/anti-American and just plain nasty….”
          >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

          This is an excellent example of trying to apply Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals

          RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
          >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

          Hate to tell you dude American is the most generous country and Republicans are much more generous than Socialists (aka Democrats) Practically every one on this board who is not a socialist — many are not republican but libertarian — has donated not only money but time, often on a routine basis.

          Socialists are only generous with OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY, not their own. They much rather ROB others to buy votes and atta-boys than to actually do a good deed themself. Ted Kennedy was an excellent example as is Hiltery Clinton. The little people who have had to actually deal with them hate their guts. Just ask the Secret Service about Hitlery. Or the flight crew who caught Kennedy buying third class airline tickets and sitting in first class. When they requested he sit in his assigned seat he had the entire crew fired. When discussed on a talk show many many other shop clerks, waitresses and others who had dealings with Kennedy called in to express their outrage at his nasty treatment of them. It was quite a show to listen to.

        • Martin Smith says:

          “David you are correct. Socialism is turning to Communism in Europe.”

          No, Gail. You are wrong again. Look at your sources, please. And don’t use racist sources again. It demeans you.

        • Michael 2 says:

          Martin Smith wrote “don’t use racist sources again. It demeans you.”

          Sources do not demean a person. You do the demeaning. That is pretty much the whole point of this left/right thing; choosing for someone else the sources they are to use is an elitist phenomenon.

        • Michael 2 says:

          Somewhat off topic but a question has popped into my mind — was your father a beekeeper in Washington near Moses Lake and (earlier) Yakima?

        • Gail Combs says:

          Marty says:
          “No, Gail. You are wrong again. Look at your sources, please. And don’t use racist sources again. It demeans you.”
          >>>>>>>>>

          WOW now Marty is calling the BBC RACIST! Oh MY!
          Well he probably called that one right.

          Still doesn’t detract from the not so slow creep from socialism to communism as private property is confiscated and given to people moving into the country who have not paid a dime for it not out right and not in taxes. People who will not appreciate the generosity and instead will willfully trash the property at best and will rape, murder and rob as news events in Europe are already showing.
          ……………
          And Marty, I will use what ever sources I dam well please from the Russian Times to the Groniad to Huff and Puff and anyone else who might reveal a bit of truth.

          Unlike you I do not believe in censorship!

        • Martin Smith says:

          The difference between socialism and communism is not a matter of degree. It is true that socialism does place the common good over the individual, but that is rarely about confiscation of private property. And you are again talking about socialism as a political system. It’s an economic system. I’ll bet you don’t talk about capitalism as a political system. Rightly so. It’s not a political system. Or, when it becomes political, the result is fascism.

        • Martin Smith says:

          Michael, that is nonsense and you know it. Whatever it is, it is not a natural progression. It looks like very bad management to me. Is that what you are getting at?

        • Michael 2 says:

          Martin Smith “Whatever it is, it is not a natural progression. It looks like very bad management to me. Is that what you are getting at?”

          Now that you mention it, yes I suppose so. Socialism cannot be done “right” for any length of time; human nature does not permit it. Neither can communism be done “right”. The Christian ideal seems to be communism, perhaps better rendered commune-ism, people living together cooperatively. No attempt at this has ever succeeded for very long. The Mormons tried really hard at first and no mix of persuasion or compulsion could make it work despite being among people that for the most part really wanted the benefits that come from social cooperation.

          On another note, Mormons have a “flat tax” concept, it is not “progressive” and if you earn more, you keep more, the same proportion always. Thus no dis-incentive to earn. I suspect Mitt Romney pays a huge tithing.

          As to the progression; it isn’t my idea. Karl Marx but I think more specifically Lenin intended for socialism to be the stepping stone to communism. Socialism requires democracy and supersedes it although the skeleton of democracy can remain so long as it is compliant with the “common good”. But who defines common good? That will be the elite, the rulers, and that is where corruption inevitably creeps in.

          Communism is supposed to be state-less, socialism *is* the state; so in that sense communism isn’t just socialism writ large; but it is a progression. The idea is that once a nation is socialized so that government owns everything, suddenly you have a revolution, no more government and now “the people” own everything. But how does that actually work? Well, obviously, it doesn’t. There is no such thing as “the people”, instead there is “the person”! On a good day The Person represents what he believes is the will of some of The People. But probably not a simple majority, especially when half the population is below 100 I.Q. by definition thereof.

          So it is inevitable that The Person will be counseled by The Elite, which at first are all smart, talented experts but it doesn’t stay that way very long when An Elite tells The Person that an idea is wrong. So, using Lenin again as the poster child, he got rid of actual experts and surrounded himself by sycophants (yes sir, that’s just what I was about to say!) and down the rosy road to extinction they went.

          Then the time came to go “stateless”. Well, the state is like a living thing, it has a collective will to live, all those bureaucrats and government employees don’t want to just stop doing the only thing they know.

          So the Soviet Socialists never succeeded in going full-on “communist” and neither will any other nation because you have to have a “state”. It is inescapable. A hundred million people with perish in chaos almost overnight without some sort of social organization.

          The stages of history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_history

          2.1 Primitive communism
          2.2 Slave society
          2.3 Feudalism
          2.4 Capitalism
          2.5 Socialism
          2.6 Communism

          Capitalism: Private property: The means of production are no longer in the hands of the monarchy and/or the nobility, but rather they are controlled by the bourgeois and the petit-bourgeois classes. The bourgeoisie and the petit-bourgeoisie control the means of production through commercial enterprises (such as corporations) which aim to maximize profit.

          Socialism: Common property: the means of production are taken from the hands of a few capitalists and put in the hands of the workers.

          “Marx explained that, since socialism, the first stage of communism…”

          On to insanity and mushroom dreams:

          “Eventually the state will wither away and become obsolete, as people administer their own lives without the need for governments or laws. Thus, stateless communism or pure communism, which may be considered the Sixth Stage, is established, which has the following features:

          Statelessness: there are no governments, laws, or nations any more.

          Classlessness: all social classes disappear, everyone works for everyone else.

          Propertylessness: there is no money or private property, all goods are free to be consumed by anyone who needs them.

          The proper question therefore is in what way does communism differ from anarchy!
          No governments, laws or nations? Really? A sitting duck for the first person to come along with an army.

          All social classes disappear? I’ve never seen it, not even in a Sunday School class with only four boys.

          All goods are free to be consumed by anyone who needs them? Sign me up! By the way, I see there is no mention of who is MAKING any of this stuff to be freely consumed.

          Maybe a new “ism” is needed to describe carefully considered public services that benefit the nation without impoverishing it at the same time, and these services ought to be regionally administered for the very different conditions that exist in a large nation such as the United States.

    • Gail Combs says:

      Gator,
      Even the Soviets figured it out. They allowed small plots of land for private use and this is what fed Moscow and other cities! <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1991-02-17/news/mn-1949_1_state-farms"link

  10. Naomi Klein’S Watermelon Bible
    PC title “This Changes Everything”
    Common Core Required reading?
    Bernie’s first freebie?

  11. Gail Combs says:

    Michael 2,
    I am all for the USA ‘going away’. Let’s just close the borders. NO more immigration, No more exporting of food ( we provide over 25%) No more import of CHEAP SHODDY third world goods….

    We have the Uranium and coal and natural gas to provide energy. We have the raw materials, we have the food we have the ingenuity.

    So yes Lets just close the doors and let Europe deal with Russia and the middle east by their lonesome. I am ALL FOR IT!

    But first we kick out the darn socialists, lawyers, politicians and International Banksters/corporate elite…

    • Gail Combs says:

      OH, I forgot I want all the American money that was loaned to European governments over the last 100 years RETURNED… IN GOLD.

      • Beale says:

        How about returning, in gold, all the money that has been loaned to the U.S. Government over the same period?

        • Michael 2 says:

          Beale wrote “How about returning, in gold, all the money that has been loaned to the U.S. Government over the same period?”

          I do not understand “how about” comments. Do you wish to know something? Do you wish me to do something? Perhaps you are wondering if this is possible. I doubt it. If you return the principal that cancels the debt, but it also eliminates all “real” money. That leaves the interest. Nothing is left to pay the interest.

          Then there’s the question of present value. Shall the money be returned as originally denominated, or shall the principal float with inflation? Iceland is the only nation I have read indexes the principal amount of a loan; thus a person can end up owing more than they borrowed.

          With these thoughts to guide you, perhaps you could form a more useful question. I doubt I can answer it since I have very little to do with government lending and borrowing.

        • Gail Combs says:

          … Beginning in 1917, the U.S. began to extend cash and supplies to its European allies, expending more than $7 billion in government funds by the time of the armistice in November 1918. Following that, an additional $3 billion was directed to relief and reconstruction efforts of both the Allies and new European nations…

          15 agreements that contained terms based upon the debtors’ abilities to pay. In aggregate, a final principal amount of $11.5 billion was accepted, to be paid off over 62 years with interest rates averaging slightly above two percent. If paid in full, this would have yielded more than $22 billion.

          The US was virtually debt-free before World War One —with debt just 2.7% of the economy in 1916…..

          ….The war left a curious issue, in that the UK and France borrowed huge amounts from the US but could not pay them back, as they were owed huge amounts by Germany, which was broke.

          So the solution to this was brokered by the future US vice-president Charles Dawes, who in 1924 proposed that the US lend money to Germany to fund its reparation payments to France and the UK, who in turn would use the money to repay their war debts.… the plan worked…. —until Hitler defaulted on the loans.

          SO the USA was virtually debt free until we got dragged into WWI and WWII and saved the necks of the European countries. Most of the rest of the current debt is also from wars we got drug into all over the world by the Banksters interested in making a buck out of war.

          The money has certainly not gone into the building and maintenance of US infra-structure.

          All the debt was incurred AFTER the international banksters got their much desired Central Bank. Most of the debt was from involvement in foreign wars. Prior to 1915 the USA kept the heck out of ‘foreign entanglements’ This is why J.P. Morgan and the war materials industries got together and bought the most influential US news papers. To convince the American people to go to war. The Banksters have been making $$$ off the blood of Americans ever since.

        • Gail Combs says:

          Actually Large Scale War was the invention of the Fractional Reserve Bankers. Before that war only made sense if the land and goods were worth more than what was spent to get them. The peasants took a very dim view of large taxes so a king could go to war. That meant he had a rebellion at home while he was away if there was no profit in the war.

          Enter the Fractional Reserve Bankers. By convincing Kings to charter central banks, the Fractional Reserve Bankers could issue fiat currency that was backed by nothing. Via inflation more money could be extracted from the peasants without them realizing it. And via government debt all future peasants would be enslaved, paying interest with their labor for the fairy dust the Fractional Reserve Bankers lent to the government a hundred years before they were born.

          Get rid of the Central Banks and Fractional Reserve Banking practices and watch wars disappear because there would be no money to be made.

        • Keitho says:

          Who decides the value of gold? How does that differ from any other valuation of anything including US$ ?

        • Michael 2 says:

          Keitho wrote “Who decides the value of gold?”

          I do. If I value gold above its cost, I buy gold. If I value it less than you value it, I sell my gold to you. In that way, gold settles somewhere in the middle of what buyers collectively and sellers collectively value it.

          “How does that differ from any other valuation of anything including US$?”

          It doesn’t.

          You can price your gold as you please. You set the price, the buyer sets the value.

        • Gail Combs says:

          The value of gold was decided by the Rothschilds. Specifically NM Rothschild was founded in London in 1810 by Nathan Mayer Rothschild.

          The investment bank that has chaired the London meetings setting the world gold price since 1919….

          NM Rothschild was founded in London in 1810 by Nathan Mayer Rothschild, who helped finance the Duke of Wellington’s army in the Napoleonic wars through gold trading.

          The company hosts and chairs twice-daily meetings which effectively set the world’s gold price. The meetings are held in a plush chamber in the bank’s offices at St Swithin’s Lane in the City. The other four firms involved are Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Canada’s Scotia Bank and Societe Generale….. link

      • John Doran says:

        Reading Paul Craig Roberts, the gold price is being suppressed by naked short sales on the PAPER GOLD futures market. This manipulation is being done to preserve the value of the $US, in order to shore up the technically bankrupt US Empire till, IMHO, Russia & China are subjugated.

        • Gail Combs says:

          PAPER GOLD isn’t worth the paper it is printed on. It is just recycling the original Fractional Reserve system put in place by the gold smiths of antiquity to cheat people.

        • PJ London says:

          Nostradamus Century 8, Quatrain 28:

          The copies of gold and silver inflated,
          which after the theft were thrown into the lake,
          at the discovery that all is exhausted and dissipated by the debt.
          All scrips and bonds will be wiped out

        • Gail Combs says:

          “Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money.” — Sir Josiah Stamp, Director of the Bank of England (appointed 1928). Reputed to be the 2nd wealthiest man in England at that time.

          http://www.themoneymasters.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/BOOT.jpg

          ““The purpose of this financial crisis is to take down the U.S. dollar as the stable datum of planetary finance and, in the midst of the resulting confusion, put in its place a Global Monetary Authority [GMA – run directly by international bankers freed of any government control] -a planetary financial control organization”Bruce Wiseman

          That idea is backed up by all the stuff written by Pascal Lamy, French Socialist, former WTO Director-General and perhaps the next EU president.

          FIAT MONEY

          In a fiat money system, money is not backed by a physical commodity (i.e.: gold). Instead, the only thing that gives the money value is its relative scarcity and the faith placed in it by the people that use it….

          In a fiat monetary system, there is no restrain on the amount of money that can be created. This allows unlimited credit creation. Initially, a rapid growth in the availability of credit is often mistaken for economic growth, as spending and business profits grow and frequently there is a rapid growth in equity prices. In the long run, however, the economy tends to suffer much more by the following contraction than it gained from the expansion in credit….

          Hyper-inflation is the terminal stage of any fiat currency. In hyper-inflation, money looses most of its value practically overnight. Hyper-inflation is often the result of increasing regular inflation to the point where all confidence in money is lost. In a fiat monetary system, the value of money is based on confidence, and once that confidence is gone, money irreversibly becomes worthless, regardless of its scarcity. Gold has replaced every fiat currency for the past 3000 years.

          The United States has so far avoided hyper-inflation by shifting between a fiat and gold standard over the past 200 years….
          http://kwaves.com/fiat.htm

          The fiat money system is terrifyingly easy to crash.

        • Michael 2 says:

          Gail quotes kwaves.com, a website in need of a proofreader: “In hyper-inflation, money looses most of its value practically overnight.”

          Loose money loses value. 🙂

        • Gail Combs says:

          A couple words I also screw-up if I am not careful. Ain’t Progressive edukashun Wunerful?

          In passing I saw something about the international banks buying up gold. Maybe it is the PAPER GOLD. The BRICS countries have certainly been buying and mining gold esp China.

          a company controlled by the Chinese government sought a 51 percent stake in a tiny Nevada gold mining operation in 2009. Hillary Clinton’s brother landed lucrative gold-mining permit in Haiti…

    • Latitude says:

      I”m still trying to wrap my head around our unemployment rate……kids can’t pay their tuition because they can’t find a job, over 2 million blacks out of work, etc etc……and we have to import illegals from Mexico and Central America to do the jobs we won’t do… and at the same time, pay for their welfare, medical, education, etc.
      That is when the teck companies are complaining that they find find people here smart enough….that are willing to work cheap

      Importing uneducated backward……and they bring their culture with them….people, is really the sin…taking the easy way out

      I guarantee, if we closed the borders, we would find a way to put these people here to work.

      • Gail Combs says:

        You are correct.
        Get rid of welfare for the able bodied after the first year. It used to be an unwed mom either supported her kid or placed it up for adoption. Now the kid is looked on as a money maker. I know one black guy with 52 illegitimate kids (he collected $$ from the moms instead of working) and a girl who had five babies by the time she was 18. Working Americans paid for them all. I know third and fourth generation welfare families. First kid is free for the first couple years, second kid you get your tubes tied and you get kicked off the dole. Actually charity should go back to the churches where it belongs!

        Get rid of 95% of the regulations so people can easily work for themselves without the tangle of red tape tripping them up. The USA has a thriving Black/Gray Market operating under the table because people just can’t figure out how to operate legally. Simplify the darn tax code. I would like to see a straight sales tax. That would let people see the REAL tax rate is 70 to 90%.

        https://media2.stickersmalin.com/produit/100/stickers-devil-smile-R1-143760-2.png

        Which is why the tax code will NEVER be made simple.

  12. Henry P says:

    in an ideal world, [the] church would use their collected money (tithes) to take care of the poor.
    Acts 2:44-45
    Acts 4:32
    That part of “being” church seemed to have gone lost over the times. Instead, too much money [was] is being spent on properties and buildings. What a waste. NT teaching should have made it clear that God does not live in dwellings made of stone but rather in the hearts of their people./

    • Henry P says:

      sorry
      in the hearts of their people./
      that should read
      in the hearts of His people

    • Gail Combs says:

      Agreed. We are not religious but the only charity we give to is the Salvation Army. The top manager makes less than $50K plus housing while at least at one point the highest paid salary in the USA went to the head of the Red Cross. My father who was a Red Cross/Army liaison during WWII hated Red Cross.

      • gator69 says:

        All my donations now go to feeding those that the UN has abandoned in favor of world domination under the guise of saving the planet. I once gave to environmental causes as well, but then I realized I was choosing trees over humans.

        I highly recommend checking your charities out with this helpful site…

        http://www.charitynavigator.org/

        And this is where the vast majority of my donations go…

        http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3691#.VpKdgfkrLIU

      • Henry P says:

        Gail says:
        ….We are not religious….
        Henry asks
        so which one is it
        Luke 18 vs 7
        or Luke 18 vs 8?
        [that applies to you]

        • Henry P says:

          we agree,
          just click on my name….

          comment was directed @gator69

        • Gail Combs says:

          Good for you Henry.

          Heart for Children has the correct idea. Children really do need individual care and love which they can not get in orphanages.

          Like Gator, I am disgusted at all the money and time and talent wasted on the CAGW scam when there are real problems that can be solved if the same amount of effort was applied to them. Speaking of which you might be interested in this from E.M. Smith. link It is about applying simple innovations that allows people to get themselves out of the hole of poverty. This information has been known from the 1970s, yet has not been applied.

          Technology is all well and good but simple technology that can be easily made from native materials by the local people is the first step. Who knows it may help Heart for Children if they are unaware of the study.

      • Michael 2 says:

        Gail Combs commented on Understanding Socialism.

        in response to Henry P: in an ideal world, [the] church would use their collected money (tithes) to take care of the poor. Acts 2:44-45 Acts 4:32

        “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”

        That didn’t last very long 😉

        Soon you are out of property and possessions! Many poor, few believers.

        • Gail Combs says:

          The best way to take care of the poor is to give them the knowledge and tools to take care of themselves and the freedom to do so.

          To some extent the old county homes in the USA worked that way. They were farms and the residence did as much of the labor as possible. Mom used to volunteer a couple days a week to teach art. Some of the people were quite talented and their work could be sold to give them cash for their own use. Others in town taught wood working and carpentry and other salable skills.

          The the socialists stepped in and raised a major fuss saying it was cruel and inhuman to make these people WORK for their keep. So the county home had to hire cooks and maintenance and farm workers while the residents were made to feel useless.

          “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” — Maimonides (Jewish medieval scholar)

        • gator69 says:

          “I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
          -Benjamin Franklin, 1766

        • Beale says:

          Margaret Thatcher said “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”..

  13. Observer says:

    BEHOLD! PJ London — prime example of a species of Internet troll with an inscrutable circular logic and tautology that reeks of spurious intellect. Ironically, its contemptuous and egoistic spewings are pointless and absent of constructive elucidation on a political system that would supplant the existing one it so despises, nor does it accurately depict the historical facts surrounding the erosion of the American ideal. Rather, it appears to relish the uninformed seething hatred in which it simmers and would seek to foment this same murderous hatred unto the point of homicidal political pogrom against the evil “Amerika.” Its kind are increasingly common. They are dangerous, cowardly and venial creatures that have been brainwashed and indoctrinated from an early age to embrace either the religion of regressive socialism or the fantasy of Anarcho-syndicalism .

  14. R. Shearer says:

    Apropos to this topic and discussion. Replace “The Country” with “The Intergovernmental Panel” and you’ll see what I mean. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/08/the-country-that-tricked-the-world/

  15. macha says:

    Anyone interested in understanding the wealth and health of the world needs to view Hans Rosling U-tube videos. Basically the we are getting wealthier and living longer, ang the more this continues, birthrates will be closer to 2 and population plateau at about 10 billion. Outlook is bright given huge cereal stockpiles and cheap shale oil in USA alone. Even India has huge grain exports- mainly to under developed countries. Honestly, check out Hans Rosling statistics.

    • Jason Calley says:

      Hey macha! There is so much bad news out there that many of us are tempted (or compelled) to embrace pessimism. On the contrary, for the first time in human history, we have the means, the information and the technology to feed the world, and to make the world peaceful and prosperous. Why don’t we? Because we are still stuck in (at best) medieval government and finances. We claim that the US is a constitutional republic, but really it is a sort of serial-monarchy with each king selected by an oligarchy. The sad fact is, sociopaths tend to rise to the top of every large power structure. Until we as a species learn how to prevent that, we will be fighting an uphill battle. Just my opinion, but if we could solve the problem of having sociopaths in power, the rest would fall into place.

      • Gail Combs says:

        Unfortunately you are correct. Sociopaths rise to the top because they are focused only on the goal and the heck with everything and anything else.

        My brother who is a full blown sociopath (per three psychiatrists) is a multibillionaire while I just barely missed having my home foreclosed on by selling much of my stuff. His wife, even admitted they had offed seven elderly relatives after getting the wills changed in my dear brother’s favor! He is one very very scary dude as I have good reason to know. It is shear luck I managed to survive childhood around him. I still have scars -literally.

        He is the reason I can spot this stuff so easily.

      • Michael 2 says:

        There is no WE. (8 sentences, 7 “we”).

        Human beings form natural gangs of seldom more than 12 people. If there is to be more than 12 organized, you create hierarchy; twelve-of-twelves and so on.

        The obvious natural hierarchy is family, then clan (families of families).

        Within a family, siblings are rival. Within a clan, each family is rival to the other families. All clans are rival to all other clans. While many people act like sheep or bees, even in those cases they are not all in the same herd or the same hive.

        To paraphrase Master Yoda: Do, or do not. There is no WE.

        • Gail Combs says:

          Yes there is Michael 2, It is just that the WE is the twelve at the top of the heap.

          Our problem is we have never been able to identify that Twelve. We only catch glimpses of the twelve-of-twelves, hierarchy since the French Revolution scared the crap out of them.

          During WWI, J.P. Morgan was thought to be the richest man in the U.S. But upon his death it was factually revealed that he only owned about 20% of his “interests” and the Rothschilds owned the rest.
          link (Usual grain of salt)

          The Bilderberg group members, Club of Rome, Council on Foreign Relations are nothing more than high placed foot soldiers.

          excerpts from
          The New Freedom
          a book by The Traitor Woodrow Wilson, 1961

          …Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.
          They know that America is not a place of which it can be said, as it used to be, that a man may choose his own calling and pursue it just as far as his abilities enable him to pursue it; because to-day, if he enters certain fields, there are organizations which will use means against him that will prevent his building up a business which they do not want to have built up; organizations that will see to it that the ground is cut from under him and the markets shut against him….
          http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_World_Order/WWilson_NewFreedom.html

      • Michael 2 says:

        Jason Calley “we have the means, the information and the technology to feed the world, and to make the world peaceful and prosperous. Why don’t we? Because we are still stuck in (at best) medieval government and finances.”

        Good science fiction material. The problem is that “we” don’t actually have the means, the information and the technology to feed the world.

        Do you have any of that? Probably not.

        So who does? Who is this “we”? Farmers, that’s who.

        As of 2008, less than 2 percent of the population is directly employed in agriculture. In 2012, there were 3.2 million farmers, ranchers and other agricultural managers and an estimated 757,900 agricultural workers were legally employed in the US.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_States

        The problem with “we” thinking is that you imagine their reason for existing is to “feed the world”.

        Then there’s the problems of storage and transport. Why would anyone build trucks, ships, harbors, railroads, grain elevators at billions of dollars of labor investment to haul Minnesota wheat and give it away in Uganda?

        You are free to do that with anything you build or grow, but remember Obama’s words, “you didn’t build that”. I don’t use bad language but I really want to when I consider those words.

        • Gail Combs says:

          Michael 2,
          Thank you for pointing out the concepts of socialism we absorb without even knowing it.

          As I said before, charity should be left to the churches. If you really want to help those in Uganda, ‘teach them how to fish.’
          Teach them simple things that allows them to drag themselves out of the subsistence farming hell hole.

          This method has been know since the 1970s could easily be used by church or other missionaries without much $$$ imput. Just some seeds and knowledge.

          Back in the ’70s or so I saw an article. I’ve forgotten where and I’ve forgotten “about whom”….

          The basic thrust of the article was about a place in India where there was a lot of “Desertification” happening. They had photographs of a Dr. Rmamumblemumblemumble who had ‘fixed it’. What “stuck in my brain” were the method…

          The agronomy system is simple, and very straight forward. By present methods and understandings, nearly quaint….

          Before, the goats ran free and ate and and all things that tried to grow. Nothing got very far. Women would spend hours / day walking the hills looking for wood to use in cooking. Children were poorly fed, and both women and children had a variety of eye and lung ailments from being inside poor huts while cooking over dung (there being not much wood…).

          Several negative feedback loops were at work here….

          …started with the goats. Pen the goats.

          Now plants could grow without destruction. This can then shade the dirt so rains soak in rather than evaporate. The wet cycle starts toward the positive.

          Goat Poo is collected and, instead of burning it, fermented in an anaerobic digester (made of local materials – bricks in a hole in the ground, IIRC) and the resultant methane gas piped to the huts to a “stove”. The stove was made of dried mud. Little more than shaped mud where the methane from fermentation, “Gobar Gas”, was mixed with air in a very low pressure ‘jet’ and burned under a pot, that sat in a hole in the dried mud. There was a “clay” (dried mud) chimney that took the exhaust gasses out of the hut. The stove was maybe the size of a can of stew and the chimney about the diameter of your wrist.

          Now the “sludge” from the fermenter is GREAT fertilizer. It gets spread on a garden area. Any excess gets spread on the “field….

          in that open desert area, a special tree was planted. Leucaena leucocephala. A “bean tree” from Mexico…. Leucaena, is rather “special” in several ways.
          First off, it grows incredibly fast.
          Second, is a nitrogen fixer.
          Third, it’s from a warm place where it can grow in areas with a lot of water, or not all that much.
          Finally, the pods and leaves are (marginally) edible. There is a toxic amino acid in the seeds that can cause “issues” for some animals. In Mexico, very young pods and shoots are cooked (which breaks down some of the toxins) and eaten. More importantly, as long as you give them time to have their gut flora adapt … goats can eat the leaves.

          Oh, and they “coppice” well. That means if you chop of the main trunk, it resprouts many more trunks from that stump. Nice “poles”….

          “tie it together”. The children, instead of chasing goats, collect small twigs and leaves and take them to the goats in the pens…..

          As the tree fixes nitrogen, soil improves. More grasses can grow under the trees. As the “fermented poo” makes for a great garden, and the goats are getting ever more ‘bean tree leaves’ and grasses, the village develops a surplus of vegetables, meat, and milk. As the women are no longer hunting for fuel, they turn these materials into more salable products. Cheeses, soaps, and fresh produce. Even jerky and fresh meat. A cycle of prosperity where before had been only desperation.

          But it’s not done yet…

          The canopy of the ‘been tree’ shades the ground. Rains that fall do not evaporate. They act as a wind break. The soils do not blow away. The roots hold hillsides in place. Erosion is halted. Now the rains don’t run off, they soak in. Evapotranspiration from the trees leads to even more rains (water cycling). The “desert” turns first to “savanna” and eventually to “tropical forest” or “agroforest”.

          At that point, the cycle is complete. A desert eroding to barren rocky dry wasteland reverts to lush forest and grasslands. Poverty becomes prosperity. It really can be that simple.

          (you can read the rest HERE)

  16. Gail Combs says:

    I think it is time to haul out E.M. Smith comment on Economics, Captialism, Socialism and Communism. (And yes Economics is his degree so he knows what he is talking about.)

    Realize that the corporate urge is not toward a competitive market. It’s the very LAST thing any corporate wants. What a corporate wants is a monopoly where they can achieve the profit maximizing price point. Not competition. No “market” with many sellers.
    So watch what GE does, as an example. It is always on the hunt for a market it can “dominate”. It uses political leverage to get its products mandated and the competition banned. It doesn’t want a market, it wants a ‘company store’.
    Internalize that, and a lot of things “fit” better
    Monsanto pushing legislation to ban private traditional seeds and seed sharing, and promoting GMO products. (Why would a seed company want to ‘destroy’ a seed market? So you must come to the company store…)
    EPA is used to forbid all sorts of things that can be done easily and cheaply, and where the alternative is very expensive ….
    Once corporations figure out that it is cheaper and easier to get the competition banned and them mandated, than to create new products; and that they can make lots of money as the sole provider of a crappy product but not that much making good products in a competitive market; well, lets just say that the campagne contributions flow
    Oddly, you can look at Communism as the “limit case” where there is ONE corporation and it IS the government. At the other extreme is “laissez faire” with huge numbers of competitors. As you move toward Communism you pass through stages of ever more “concentration” of control. Just shy of communism is Classical Socialism with it’s state planning boards and commissions. A bit more toward L.F. you get “Market Socialism” (with some sub-types in between).
    The USA until about 1990 was a “Mixed Economy” with some “natural monopolies” under government “control” via “regulation”; and with many competitive markets. We’ve moved to more central planning and more central “regulation” (in some cases as a cover for the “planning” word that has gotten tied to Socialism… so is political to some extent). With the nationalization of GM and the bank “bailout” / “rescue” that was really more of a ‘take-under’ in some ways; we moved to a Lange Type Socialism.
    The result of the last 50 years has been more companies in markets with Oligopolies that are essentially guaranteed by the government. Who dominates the Home Mortgage Market? Fanny & Freddy – Gov’t Corporations. Who dominates the Student Loan Market? Sally Mae – a Gov’t Corporation. Who dominates US Autos? GM – a Gov’t Corporation via Nationalization, but now being sold off. (Though Ford is doing well too.) And who “Calls the Tune” for the Banks in America? ALL of them? The Federal Reserve Bank – a Gov’t sponsored corporation. And there are a whole lot more of them. Try taking a train from coast to coast for example…
    At the next tier down, we have Gov’t dependent Oligopolies. Say you wanted to make airplanes. First off, you need that dozen lawyers to work the FAA for you. Next up, you need some friends in the Military to feed you contracts. Don’t think so? When Boeing gets a $B contract to ‘study’ or ‘develop’ and you need to design your new tech from scratch on your own money: Who do you think will win? So the government basically decides how many companies it wants, and who they will be, then funds them “to plan” with contracts. (This is NOT a hypothetical… I’ve watched them flat out announce “We’d like Lockheed and Martin to merge” or “we don’t want…” usually when one of them is ‘having issues’ and the topic is raised. Then the gov’t casts the one vote that matters…)
    And so it goes…
    This is, dare I say it…. basically the same way the Fascist “Third Way” worked. (And it DOES work). FDR and Wilson both had high praise for The Third Way and you can see how they shifted America from a ‘free market’ toward “Third Way” government – corporation “cooperation” … It was this same process / tendency that Ike warned about in the “Military Industrial Complex” speech.
    So we’ve moved away from straight up competition (and with good reasons… it is less profitable and more destructive in some ways and it is prone to monopoly practices) and toward that Classical Socialist end of things; with exact placement varying over time. And we called it a “Mixed Economy” at the ‘tepid’ end; as the name “fascist Third Way” got a bit tainted during W.W.II …. that tendency for Mussolini and Hitler to stir in a load of Nationalism and for the Nazi’s a double helping of Racism spoiled the soup for the Third Way “Socialist Lite” folks like FDR.
    And the propaganda worked.
    We’ve now got a “Progressive” and a “Third Way” government that IS a form of Socialism. (Now being rebranded as “Market Socialism” in the Eastern Block and Euro zones; called “Regulation” in the USA and sometimes poking it’s head up under “Rescue” as well with the most recent bits called “Social Justice”… all the pieces as slices of salami, but no overall Big Picture of it… we like to keep our socialism hidden in tiny bites with different names.) But just don’t ever point out that it’s basically the same “Third Way” process, using what’s properly called “Corporatism”, to achieve the Socialist agenda; that was first innovated by the Fascists… After all, it doesn’t fit the propaganda paradigm “Fascists bad, WORLD Socialists good” put out by Stalin…
    And that is the root cause of your pondering. Corporations are very happy under a Socialist Third Way / Progressive / Market Socialism / Fascist / “Government regulated Coopetition” (whatever you name you like to apply to the same beast) system. They are not very happy with wide open competitive markets. See all of Europe for an example of “Managed Markets” (yet another name…) The French are masters of this technique, and the Germans not far behind. The Japanese innovated the Keiretsu as a way to limit competition to manageable chunks with government supervision.
    Like I said, it DOES work. What galls me is just that we run around putting 20 different names on the same process and that just hides what’s really going on. All for political reasons. Very “un-tidy”… You’d think these folks had something to hide…
    At any rate, I’d like our economy to move back more toward a “Mixed Economy” with less of it “regulated and rescued” and be a bit further from a Lange Type Socialism and more like the Socialism Lite we used to be. Somehow some folks think that means I want laissez faire (which is prone to other evil failures); even more folks think Corporations must be laissez faire machines and tools of the Evil Right Wing; when the reality is that they are much more useful to the Third Way Socialists of the world… and make much more stable profits under them.
    Hope that helps you see why “corporations would want to destroy their own markets”… Just need to change it around a little and it makes a lot of sense:
    “Why would corporations want to destroy the competitive nature of their own markets?”…
    http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/forget-gen-x-now-its-generation-hot/#comment-14483

    • Gail Combs says:

      I very much agree with E.M. Smith

      …At any rate, I’d like our economy to move back more toward a “Mixed Economy” with less of it “regulated and rescued” and be a bit further from a Lange Type Socialism and more like the Socialism Lite we used to be. Somehow some folks think that means I want laissez faire (which is prone to other evil failures); even more folks think Corporations must be laissez faire machines and tools of the Evil Right Wing; when the reality is that they are much more useful to the Third Way Socialists of the world… and make much more stable profits under them….

      We need reins on ‘capitalism’ so we harness its good points — Innovation and Competition — and minimize it’s bad points — Consolidation of wealth and thus power.

      Originally the USA charted corporations for twenty years and corporations were not given ‘personhood’ and a bevy of privileges.

      • Jason Calley says:

        Hey Gail! Quoting Chiefio, you say, “Once corporations figure out that it is cheaper and easier to get the competition banned and them mandated, than to create new products; and that they can make lots of money as the sole provider of a crappy product but not that much making good products in a competitive market; well, lets just say that the campagne contributions flow…”

        Very true — but maybe more appropriately called fascism or mercantilism, than socialism or communism.

        “Originally the USA charted corporations for twenty years and corporations were not given ‘personhood’ and a bevy of privileges.”

        That is a point which I do not often see — and one that bears repeating. Many — no, make that most — of the ills which are blamed on capitalism or on the free market, are actually the result of corporations collaborating with legislators to subvert the free market. Every socialist I have ever spoken with reels off a list of “capitalist evil” and pretty much all of it is NOT due to either capitalism or to free markets.

      • Jason Calley says:

        Oh, and corporations were not easy to charter. You could not form a corporation for a shoe store or a fish market. The corporation had to justify why it was necessary to incorporate, why the normal market could not otherwise fill the same function. Classic examples would be corporations formed to dig a major canal, or construct a highway — things that were so large and expensive that it was not reasonable to expect a single individual or even a few partners to finance.

        Today, corporations can be formed for almost any purpose and are effectively immortal. In fact, if they get big enough and wealthy enough, they become “too big to fail” and your tax dollars will be used to bail them out — even if they are competing against you!

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