Democratic Socialism

[Orange_Crush]

Yeah... I may not have been paying attention to what I was quoting... I do this while in between e-mailing underwriters.

No worries. And I'm not trying to be a vocabulary nazi. I do think in times such as this, vocabulary is important.

The word "socialism" has been used with such laziness that now we have a *true socialist* winning the Dem ticket and most people have been numbed to what that actually means. Sanders is up there romanticizing Cuba and Soviet Russia and people are applauding. SMDH.

 

[Orange_Crush]

?? Clinton won the <$50K voter, and about twice as many of the <$30K vote than Trump. Trump won all voter income brackets >$50K. Republican voters earn higher incomes generally. CA has the highest rate of poverty in the U.S., DC the 2nd, and NY and HI make appearances in the 10 most poverty ridden.

Democrats used to break political bread with the "working man". Now they just break his balls (see Election 2016 and Rust Belt). It appears Jethro and Lulu work for a living and are more successful than Hunter and Megan.

Perhaps they should have attended community college instead of racking up $75K in tuition for a degree in social work or gender studies, only to job search in San Fran or NYC while being an activist for 'free' college education.

On the bright side, they have readily available street latrines!

You're taking no prisoners today. lol

 

[NCFisher]

"propping up"? More like purchasing them... and for at least a brief period, taking control of the decisions which were made in how to use those funds. That is what the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) did.

Yes, propping up. How many socialist agendas include investing in multinational conglomerates? Especially with the express purpose of making them healthy enough to buy their own stock back, and "rock on!" - ?

Doesn't sound very socialist to me.

 

[Wireless1]

We are not mixed. Trying to say that the US is a socialistic government is just a lie to make us feel it won't be too bad if we swing that way. We are an abundantly blessed nation of greedy and compassionate people. Some more than others, who have compassion and want to help those of us who are less fortunate. Help being the key word. Bernie is a communist. He knows that a communist would never get elected so he uses the word socialist, which makes it more tolerable so some and when he adds Democratic then a bunch more people think that's OK.
You can stand on your mountain and shout all you want about the differences but whether you call is poo, diarrhea, "Big Business," feces, or "San Francisco Plant Food, it's all the same thing

 

[AM64]

Sure it is; even "democratic" socialists know this:

We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own and control them.

Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives. Democratic socialists favor as much decentralization as possible. While the large concentrations of capital in industries such as energy and steel may necessitate some form of state ownership, many consumer-goods industries might be best run as cooperatives.

In the short term we can’t eliminate private corporations, but we can bring them under greater democratic control. The government could use regulations and tax incentives to encourage companies to act in the public interest and outlaw destructive activities such as exporting jobs to low-wage countries and polluting our environment. Public pressure can also have a critical role to play in the struggle to hold corporations accountable. Most of all, socialists look to unions to make private business more accountable. What is Democratic Socialism? - Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

They then go on to exclaim why they're not like the bad 20th century socialists, even as they outline how they'll have to be just like them.

We are still talking about Karl and not Groucho, right?

We certainly took care of some of that worry by shipping off metal production to China. Of course, when they refuse to send us steel and other metals, it's going to be difficult to manufacture the ships and airplanes we need to fight them. Then we'll get socialism done their way.

 

[BowlBrother85]

Yes, propping up. How many socialist agendas include investing in multinational conglomerates? Especially with the express purpose of making them healthy enough to buy their own stock back, and "rock on!" - ?

Doesn't sound very socialist to me.

Come on, man... you are arguing for the hell of it now. By definition, TARP involved the government's purchasing of troubled companies... but I love that you use that word "propping" up.

 

[Wireless1]

?? Clinton won the <$50K voter, and about twice as many of the <$30K vote than Trump. Trump won all voter income brackets >$50K. Republican voters earn higher incomes generally. CA has the highest rate of poverty in the U.S., DC the 2nd, and NY and HI make appearances in the 10 most poverty ridden.

Democrats used to break political bread with the "working man". Now they just break his balls (see Election 2016 and Rust Belt). It appears Jethro and Lulu work for a living and are more successful than Hunter and Megan.

Perhaps they should have attended community college instead of racking up $75K in tuition for a degree in social work or gender studies, only to job search in San Fran or NYC while being an activist for 'free' college education.

On the bright side, they have readily available street latrines!

And the good news is, after 4 years there are a lot more voters in the >$50K brackets

 

[NCFisher]

You're taking no prisoners today. lol

Just feeling amiably argumentative the last coupla' days. : )

 

[BowlBrother85]

We are not mixed. Trying to say that the US is a socialistic government is just a lie to make us feel it won't be too bad if we swing that way. We are an abundantly blessed nation of greedy and compassionate people. Some more than others, who have compassion and want to help those of us who are less fortunate. Help being the key word. Bernie is a communist. He knows that a communist would never get elected so he uses the word socialist, which makes it more tolerable so some and when he adds Democratic then a bunch more people think that's OK.
You can stand on your mountain and shout all you want about the differences but whether you call is poo, diarrhea, "Big Business," feces, or "San Francisco Plant Food, it's all the same thing

The United States is a mixed economy. Nobody is saying that it is a socialist government.

 

[Orange_Crush]

We are not mixed. Trying to say that the US is a socialistic government is just a lie to make us feel it won't be too bad if we swing that way. We are an abundantly blessed nation of greedy and compassionate people. Some more than others, who have compassion and want to help those of us who are less fortunate. Help being the key word. Bernie is a communist. He knows that a communist would never get elected so he uses the word socialist, which makes it more tolerable so some and when he adds Democratic then a bunch more people think that's OK.
You can stand on your mountain and shout all you want about the differences but whether you call is poo, diarrhea, "Big Business," feces, or "San Francisco Plant Food, it's all the same thing

Adding "Democratic" to socialist is just saying that they still think they have the right to the fruits of your labor, but they can't take it on their own, so they'll work together and use the government to forcibly take the fruits of your labor.

 

[Fun coupon VOL]

A socialist agenda is giving $426 billion of tax payer money to banks and other entities, in order to bail them out of a crisis which the banks were largely responsible for. Now, in 2014, the U.S. Treasury sold its remaining holdings of Ally Financial, essentially ending the program and the Troubled Asset Relief Program did recover funds totaling $441.7 billion from the $426.4 billion invested... but from 2008-2014, this was an example of socialism. What else would you call it?

The money they gave them was to keep you and me from losing our deposits.

 

[Wireless1]

A socialist agenda is giving $426 billion of tax payer money to banks and other entities, in order to bail them out of a crisis which the banks were largely responsible for. Now, in 2014, the U.S. Treasury sold its remaining holdings of Ally Financial, essentially ending the program and the Troubled Asset Relief Program did recover funds totaling $441.7 billion from the $426.4 billion invested... but from 2008-2014, this was an example of socialism. What else would you call it?

Repaying the bailout is repaying a loan. Under socialism the money just goes to the bank with no return...oh wait there would be no bank because the government owns it so how could they loan themselves money. Look at Venezuela, under this scenario they just print more money causing hyperinflation.

 

[BowlBrother85]

Repaying the bailout is repaying a loan. Under socialism the money just goes to the bank with no return...oh wait there would be no bank because the government owns it so how could they loan themselves money. Look at Venezuela, under this scenario they just print more money causing hyperinflation.

The funds from TARP weren't merely loans because the federal government had control over the allocation of these funds within each participating company.

 

[Wireless1]

The funds from TARP weren't merely loans because the federal government had control over the allocation of these funds within each participating company.

Yes, because the greedy B$#%%s couldn't be fully trusted to use the funds wisely. Compare it to a new home construction loan, bank makes you sign a note for the full amount but won't give you more at a time than they see you are making progress toward the agreed upon final product.

 

[AM64]

Repaying the bailout is repaying a loan. Under socialism the money just goes to the bank with no return...oh wait there would be no bank because the government owns it so how could they loan themselves money. Look at Venezuela, under this scenario they just print more money causing hyperinflation.

The way the banks acted prior to the crash goes in so many bad directions. There was one part about having arms twisted to loan money to people who didn't deserve it; that even had at least two influencing components ... risky loans themselves and the housing bubble that made profits seem like magic until they weren't. There was the deregulation component - chopping regulations that had served to protect banks from themselves resulting from the earlier round of investment stupidity back in the 20s. I'd like to think that without government regulation that banks would be responsible, but I just don't think that's so. The real shame is that nobody really explored a way to protect the public while simply letting the banks and the particularly the bankers themselves fail.

 

[NCFisher]

No worries. And I'm not trying to be a vocabulary nazi. I do think in times such as this, vocabulary is important.

The word "socialism" has been used with such laziness that now we have a *true socialist* winning the Dem ticket and most people have been numbed to what that actually means. Sanders is up there romanticizing Cuba and Soviet Russia and people are applauding. SMDH.

I need to create another account to Like this again. It's easy to quibble over semantics, but socialism has an inescapable core meaning.
Bernie's an old-line socialist being provided cover by people who say "he's not talking about Marxist socialism" or "how can he be this old and that ignorant of what it is"?
He isn't.

 

[NCFisher]

We are not mixed. Trying to say that the US is a socialistic government is just a lie to make us feel it won't be too bad if we swing that way. We are an abundantly blessed nation of greedy and compassionate people. Some more than others, who have compassion and want to help those of us who are less fortunate. Help being the key word. Bernie is a communist. He knows that a communist would never get elected so he uses the word socialist, which makes it more tolerable so some and when he adds Democratic then a bunch more people think that's OK.
You can stand on your mountain and shout all you want about the differences but whether you call is poo, diarrhea, "Big Business," feces, or "San Francisco Plant Food, it's all the same thing

I'll say this; if Bowl had stated mixed economy in that government does regulate and use the money supply to influence or manage large fluctuations, I would have agreed. That is one example of a mixed economy. But he qualified what he meant and linked it to socialism by stating:

"Too many posters also seem to be under the delusion that the United States isn't already close to being an even mixture of capitalism and socialism. Too many posters also don't seem to realize the numerous ways that Trump has implemented socialist policies... such as the bailout of the farming industry as an offset to the impact that his tariffs had on free trade." - a characterization I disagreed with.

The term "mixed economy" has no definitive meaning, but the left almost uniformly uses it to mean "oh, that's not so bad; we're already practically socialist!"
Just 'no'.

 

[NCFisher]

Come on, man... you are arguing for the hell of it now. By definition, TARP involved the government's purchasing of troubled companies... but I love that you use that word "propping" up.

What was the purpose besides ensuring the survival of those companies and stabilize the market economy? That's not socialist policy or agenda.

The entire exchange began by disagreeing with your contention that we are a nearly even mix between capitalism and socialism. If you meant to say something other than that, maybe we've no argument but I have been responding to that argument.

 

[NCFisher]

I'll have to admit I studied engineering and stayed as far away from subjects like political science and the like as possible, so I am completely lacking in some of the finer skills and definitions used for topics like socialism vs communism. To me it's just the same basic concept with a difference in the degree of enforcement. I just call it as I see it because I've never liked debate about thing that are seemingly based on nebulous definitions of gray.

It's the same with a lot of legal decisions; for example, the SC decided a Mexican boy's parents couldn't sue a US Border Patrol agent because the kid had skipped back across the border making it an international incident. My answer would be they can't sue because they aren't citizens and don't have the legal protections provided by our Constitution. We need answers that make sense rather than complexity that allows people arguing points to show off mental dexterity while being completely indecisive and hiding behind long winded blather.

Socialism and communism are two breasts trying to occupy the same cup in the witch's bra, while fascism settles in the other with "nah mayne; this is how you do it".

 

[BowlBrother85]

What was the purpose besides ensuring the survival of those companies and stabilize the market economy? That's not socialist policy or agenda.

The entire exchange began by disagreeing with your contention that we are a nearly even mix between capitalism and socialism. If you meant to say something other than that, maybe we've no argument but I have been responding to that argument.

It definitely is a socialist policy for the government to be purchasing a private company such as Ally Financial. During the financial crisis of 2008, the U.S. Treasury owned as much as 74% of Ally. Give me a break with this.

 

[NCFisher]

It definitely is a socialist policy for the government to be purchasing a private company such as Ally Financial. During the financial crisis of 2008, the U.S. Treasury owned as much as 74% of Ally. Give me a break with this.

Okay, break granted.
This horse is so beaten, IKEA wouldn't serve it.

 

[happy-go_vol]

It's communism wrapped up with a bow of words.

Democratic socialism is just socialism with the word democratic in front to make socialism seem better. Fact is once the socialist is in power, the democratic part will disappear.

 

[Orangeburst]

Elements of a market economy and a socialist economy can be combined into a mixed economy. And in fact, most modern countries operate with a mixed economic system; government and private individuals both influence production and distribution. I'm sure that you are familiar with Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations"... everyone who has ever had an economics class should be. In this book, Smith writes that there are only two archetypes in economic affairs - socialism and capitalism - and every real system is a combination of these archetypes. But because of the differences in these archetypes, there is an inherent challenge in the philosophy of a mixed economy and it becomes a never-ending balancing act between predictable obedience to the state and the unpredictable consequences of individual behavior. The United States is obviously, a mixed economy. I'm sure you will not argue, otherwise, if you do in fact know anything about economics.

You misattributed your quote to Adam Smith. Carry on.

 

[Rasputin_Vol]

Bernie says that he's not a Communist but he's more like a Scandinavian socialist. OK. It's time our media starts challenging him on that. For example in Sweden they tax you 70% for everything you make over $98K:

View attachment 263110

Sweden Has a 70% Tax Rate and It’s Just Fine

Let's see him defend that

Not much different if you live in the state of California, NJ or Illinois if you throw in state income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes and Federal taxes.

 

[Sea Ray]

Not much different if you live in the state of California, NJ or Illinois if you throw in state income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes and Federal taxes.

I get what you're saying but it's not really that way when you actually look at the numbers. With an income of $98K, your state income tax in California if you're single is about 6%. Your federal is about 22%

Free Income Tax Calculator - Estimate Your Taxes - SmartAsset

No way other taxes amount to more than 40%. Very unlikely that you own something that costs you prop taxes at $98K in California. Sales taxes might amount to 10% of what you spend, you're still nowhere near 70%...Folks in Sweden would love to have California's tax burden