Capitalism vs Socialism.

http://townhall.com/columnists/john...socialism_is_inferior_to_capitalism/page/full
http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-capitalism-better-than-socialism
http://www.culture-war.info/Socialism.html

Chew on this for a bit:
View of war

War, although good for select industries, is bad for the economy as a whole. It wastefully diverts resources away from producing that which would raise consumers' standard of living (i.e., that which is demanded by consumers), toward destruction.

Opinions range from prowar (Charles Edward Russell, Allan L. Benson) to antiwar (Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas). Socialists tend to agree withKeynesians that war is good for the economy by spurring production.


From http://www.diffen.com/difference/Capitalism_vs_Socialism

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 16, 2015, Original Post Date: Dec 16, 2015 ---

As you can see, I made no effort to hide my opinions. But I'd also like to hear your thoughts.

 

So, are we debating whether or not war is good for the economy, or are we just debating if capitalism or socialism is better?

Personally, I prefer capitalism. This might seem odd, because I typically have very liberal opinions, and liberals tend to lean towards socialism, but I'm definitely for capitalism. I mean, I can see why people would want socialism; however, I personally like the idea of the government being as separated from the economy as possible (of course, there are times when government intervention is necessary).

Now, if we're discussing war, I definitely wouldn't say that it always helps the economy, but it is something that can be good for the economy. It doesn't always take away resources from demanding consumers; there can be a surplus of the resources to the point that none are selling, and war can give the producers business again.

That being said, I'm still anti-war. Regardless of if it's able to help the economy, it wastes plenty of lives and time.

 

Primarily we are debating capitalism and socialism. The war thing is just something that came up.


With regards to war, it only really helps the economy if wartime industry is developed, and it also invents many many new materials, or takes rare materials and makes them common. Examples of this include plastics and rocket engines. And, of course, any war that develops wartime industry is such an enormous waste of American's lives, the only reasons worth fighting don't include developing the economy. They include things like the preservation of lives, liberty, and freedom.

 

As can be expected with such a short summary, the Keynesian view of war is grossly over-simplified.

The key component to Keynesian economics is the notion that the government can function as a sort of flywheel on the economy, by storing energy (in this metaphor, energy = money) during the easy times, and being able to reinput that energy during the difficult times. The end result is lower highs and higher lows, or great predictability and stability in the system. So the government should be capturing surpluses during economic boom times, saving it up for stimulus spending during the busts. Only with both components can Keynesian economics be successful.

After the Great Depression began, the Republicans stuck with their laissez-faire philosophy, and thinks got progressively worse. Then they elected FDR, the New Deal began, but prosperity was slow in coming. Many people still point to the New Deal failing to completely reverse the losses of the Depression as a demonstration of the failure of Keynesian economics, and say that the only reason we recovered was because of WWII... conveniently forgetting that the war effort involved a massive amount of government stimulus spending, and was therefore Keynesian economics on steroids.

But not all war is consistent with Keynesian economics, because remember, under this model, it is the responsibility of the government to bank surpluses for the next time of need. If you're cutting taxes during boom times, you're breaking the model. If you're fighting wars during boom times, you're breaking the model. And so, we had the Great Recession of 2007, because the government was introducing massive stimulus during economic boom times in the form of tax cuts and two simultaneous wars when they should have been banking a surplus, and all this stimulus fueled runaway speculation in the housing market.

The proper Keynesian view of war is that it is useful as a stimulus program when stimulus is necessary, and it is contrary to economic policy when stimulus is not called for.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 16, 2015, Original Post Date: Dec 16, 2015 ---

As for the proposal of capitalism versus socialism, my answer is, "It depends."

Capitalism does a wonderful job of distributing limited resources and spurring innovation, BUT:

- Greed can lead to all sorts of destructive behaviors, so government watch is essential
- The market must have competition, else the whole model collapses

Certain markets simply do not lend themselves to competition, and this is where socialism has a role. Education is one. Health care is another.

 

Want to say why you believe this?

 

Because in the case of healthcare, countries that have socialized it enjoy better quality care at far lower prices, and it's not even close. The US has socialized it for anyone over 65 (Medicare), and that population also loves its care far more than the rest of us do. Besides, with all the ridiculous over-complication of healthcare prices, it's impossible for a customer to shop around and find a great deal. And many customers are in no shape to shop around to begin with. How do you put a price on not dying? How do you make an informed decision when you're in shock/concussed/unconscious? Also, there are financial benefits to the entire economy when the populace is healthier, because they can be more productive. The number one cause of bankruptcy in the US is medical debt.

Although...

With the way things are going, it may soon be surpassed by student debt. The pay-for college model is hopelessly broken, as colleges add new football stadiums, sushi bars, and other amenities that have nothing to do with the mission of educating students, and the price has been steadily skyrocketing for the last 30-odd years as a result. State subsidized schools are not an exception, since they're competing for students with the private, for-profit schools. And there are a number of for-profit schools that are offering subpar educations and making fraudulent claims to attract students and their federally-subsidized massive student loan packages.

So, that's why. You can't have a healthy capitalism if runaway health and education costs (two basic goods) are capturing an oversized and increasing share of personal wealth.

 

Less than a sentence in, and you're on shaky ground. Healthcare costs what it costs, and the money must come from somewhere. In the case of socialized healthcare, it comes from taxes.

Alright. Now as a minor, I don't have a lot of experience dealing with healthcare, but the way I understand it is you choose a healthcare provider, and then when you get injured, you go to the hospital, receive care, and then after that you get billed. Your health insurance provider then picks up some of the bill. You don't have to make decisions after you get injured, you make them before.

It costs roughly 25k to go to an average, in state, public college for one year. http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064

So let's assume you're going for 6. That's 150,000 dollars, but included in that is room and board, as well as many other basic amenities. This is, of course, assuming you received no scholarships. Now, as of Jan 1 2016, the minimum wage in California (where I live) will be $10/ hr, meaning one makes just over $20,000 in a year. (You can check my calculations if you want). If you make under $30k in one year, you may apply for financial aid/ scholarships https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_331.30.asp up to 10,000 dollars. So in reality, you're paying 90k for 6 years of college now. In 6 years, you can make 120k at a full-time job, but that's a lot to expect from a student, so say it's more likely 80-90k from part-time. This doesn't include any additional scholarships or financial aid from parents/the school.

My cousin is currently wrapping up his college education, and he is debt-free. Just to show it can be done. I have a friend (in highschool) who's four siblings are all on full-ride scholarships for academics. Student debt is mostly a danger to those who don't work hard enough to stay out of it.

Which is why proper competition fostered through fewer regulations is so necessary. If it's made impossible for new businesses to start and grow, the old ones assume a larger share of the market, and can raise prices.

 

Why not somewhere in the middle? Free trade but reasonable regulation to ensure a stable economy and minimal corruption.

 

This is the hot topic. This is what nobody can agree over.

 

"Healthcare costs what it costs"? Has playing on an economy server taught you nothing about capitalism? The whole point of capitalism is to set your price as high as you can get away with.

Which explains, incidentally, why the US pays 2.5 times more per capita for healthcare than advanced OECD nations like France and the UK, and we get worse quality for the money: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/

As a not-minor who has paid way too many of these bills, I can assure you that the whole pricing scheme is a complete mystery until nearly a month after you receive care, and a bill arrives in the mail. It's rather difficult to make informed decisions that way.

It's an elaborate shell game:

- Hospitals have their ala carte prices, which are insanely ridiculous. That's what they bill to the insurance company, or to uninsured individuals. Uninsured have no idea that they're supposed to negotiate at this point.
- Insurance companies receive the ala carte bills, and have a good laugh. Then they tell the hospitals what price they'll really accept, based on well-established contracts. Every insurer has a different contract. Doctors and hospitals waste tons of time every year with this nonsense.
- Insurance companies then feed the bill through their ridiculously complicated formulas involving co-pays, deductibles, co-insurance, and what they just don't feel like covering. These rules are all in place to make sure that no matter what happens to you, they'll still make money off of you.
- Insurance company then decides what portion of the contract price they'll pay, and stick you with the rest.

I've even had the delightful experience of getting four different bills from four different companies for a single hospital visit. There are different bills for facilities, for diagnostics, for the doctor, etc. Good luck figuring that one out.

Every year the monthly premiums for insurance go up, and the benefits go down. This process has been playing out long before Obamacare.

It's currently estimated that a third of all healthcare spending in the US goes to support the medical billing industry. From a consumer perspective, it's entirely waste. Yay capitalism.

In 1978, you could work a summer job paying minimum wage and pay a full year's tuition at an in-state public university: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...omeone-minimum-wage-could-earn-enough-summer/

That's not going to happen in 2015. Every year you have to work harder and harder.

 

I have heard this xD.

And how does converting it into a government-run program make it any better? Government is notoriously inefficient, after all.

 

And yet, every government program is delivering medicine at far greater efficiency than the US free market, so it's time to rethink that maxim. Government can definitely be inefficient, but it's not this bad at it. That's not an accident, either... the free market has determined there's more money in it for them if they do it this way. It's easier to rip someone off if they don't know how they're being billed, and can't determine what another customer at the very same hospital is expected to pay. Highly confusing, obfuscated system equals profit.

One of the great benefits of government involvement is bulk buying power: http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/28/health/us-pays-more-for-drugs/

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 28, 2015, Original Post Date: Dec 28, 2015 ---

Socialism is not communism. They are different things.

 

I agree with you wholeheartedly on this. However, they do share some characteristics.

Netherlands costs about one-tenth less, just $23.
...

"Pharmaceuticals say high price reflects high cost of development


According to PhRMA, the pharmaceutical trade group, high prices are a reflection of the research and development costs it takes to bring a drug to market. PhRMA cites that on average, it takes more than 10 years and $2.6 billion dollars to bring a drug to market. They also point out that for every successful drug, there are handfuls of drugs that never make it to market.

But, Dr. Peter B. Bach, director of Director of Memorial Sloan Kettering's Center for Health Policy and Outcomes, says that pharmaceutical companies charge high prices simply "because they can." Bach added. "We have no rational system in the U.S. for managing prices of drugs."

In other words, it's someone claiming that the companies 'do it because they can', whereas the companies (who actually know why they charge a lot) are saying it's because of high development costs. Seeing as it costs a lot to develop a drug, and there are a lot of hoops to jump through, I have to agree with the companies on this, especially since they're the only ones who have an actual argument.

I would like to point out that CNN favors the left. Just so you know.

 

Even if that's true, you should still be outraged, because all of these foreign countries are performing a wonderful service for their people by getting all these developed drugs on the cheap, and the drug companies are passing on those development costs to the American consumer. I'm not a big fan of subsidizing the entire world, how about you?

If, on the other hand, the US market bargained from the same position of strength, then the prices for all those other countries would go up ever so slightly, as they paid their fair share of development costs.

But this is capitalism, and we should be smarter than to think that the drug companies aren't extracting every tiny ounce of profit they can, and research is a distant second priority. How does a 42% profit margin strike you?
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223

CNN does have a bias, but it's for sensationalism, not liberalism. That's why Trump is getting a lion's share of their air time... not because they like his politics, but because he says stupid things that draw attention, and thereby, ratings. Bernie Sanders even got them to admit it: http://www.politicususa.com/2015/12/24/bernie-sanders-confronts-cnn-admit-pro-trump-bias.html

For liberal bias, you have to go to MSNBC.

 

"In fact, the industry described above is responsible for the development of medicines to save lives and alleviate suffering, not the generation of profit for its own sake."
No, as with any industry, it's primary goal is to generate profit. People seem to have a sense of entitlement, as if everyone in the world owes them something. The fast food industry's primary goal: not to feed people, but to make money. Clothing industry: make money. Housing industry: make money. That's how the world works, and that's how a productive society, where people have an incentive to work, works.

I'm not sure about have to, but I agree with you, they're biased too.
Pretty much every news organization these days is biased one way or another. Most lean left, but some lean right (Fox News comes to mind), but there really isn't a 'middle'.

Yes, news stations will go for what gets them ratings. That's why news is depressing. http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2015/12/16/donald-trump-cnn-gop-debate-cnn-unprofessional-40.cnn
However, underneath the primary goal of ratings, you generally see a political agenda.

"Last night at the Republican debate, some of the hopefuls, they hope to get your job, they defended the practice of waterboarding which is a practice you banned in 2009. Herman Cain said, quote, 'I don't see that as torture.' Michele Bachmann said that it's, quote, 'very effective.' So I'm wondering if you think that they're uninformed, out of touch, or irresponsible?" CNN's White House correspondent Dan Lothian asked President Obama in Hawaii.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/09/17/cnn_republican_debate_it_failed_utterly.html

 

You have a choice to eat fast food, or something else. You have a choice to live in a particular place. Also, you get to see all the prices up front in both situations before you make a decision. In no case would you ever have to accept paying for a 42% profit margin, because there are so many choices and competition is fierce. This is the condition that exists when capitalism works well. The average profit margin for a full-service restaurant, for instance, is below 3.5%. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/average-profit-margin-restaurant-13477.html

How much profit is one human life worth? And how much more important are profits to human lives?

That's you drinking the Kool Aid. The liberal media bias is a myth, and the media bias is actually swinging further and further in the other direction, as the Trump/Sanders coverage illustrates. That's just one of a great many indicators, though:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/4/23/1204303/-How-to-Debunk-the-Liberal-Media-Myth

 

Notes: First thing I see when I go onto the site: a Popup saying "Sign if you agree with Bernie Sanders". Not looking good.

Yeah, even before I get into the meat of what the site says, I can tell you they're biased.
"Daily Kos/ˈkoʊs/ is an American politicalblog that publishes news and opinions from a liberal point of view." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Kos

Okay, so basically what this site is doing is bringing up a bunch of the "exceptions that make the rule", if you will. They're pointing out the times that the media did not have a liberal bias, and using that to predict a majority of the time.

I mean, if you're going to cite them, I'll cite Fox News:

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 31, 2015, Original Post Date: Dec 30, 2015 ---

"CNN is terrible... CNN... You're with CNN? Are you with CNN? *I am* O.K. good. You people do not cover us accurately at all. So they have a few protesters outside, and they have thousands of people [in here], and the first question from CNN is about protesters." -Donald Trump.

I think that pretty much explains their relationship.

 

Yes, Daily KOs is a liberal source, but all that page is doing is asking simple questions. If the mainstream media has a liberal bias, then why is this laundry list of things we, as liberals, actually care about, being ignored? And why are these completely-discredited conservative ideas still being treated as relevant or not being disputed?

They're fair questions. Can you answer them?

Also note: I didn't freak out when you cited Breitbart in the gun control thread, because while they're not going to report on any use of guns that makes the NRA look bad, it's just an article about one thing that happened, so as long as it's factual, it's fair use of a source that has frequently chosen not to let truth get in the way of telling an outrageously biased story.

 

Yes. The site is taking individual instances of when they weren't biased to prove that they aren't usually biased. It doesn't work. Fox provides a much stronger argument by showing all the journalists are unaffiliated or Liberal, and none are conservative. And the great part, the CNN journalists are the most liberal of them all. ABC or CBS seem to be the most politically-unaffiliated.