Are we still a capitalistic society?

[Deleted]

This country promises in it's declaration of independence certain things. Among these is the "pursuit" of happiness.

That means different things to different people, but to me, it means that you have enough money to enjoy some of the finer things in life. You have friends and family to enjoy it with, and you face the challenges of everyday life with a smile, and an attitude of we can get it done.

But capitalism means that people have to "work" to make thier life better. They are responsible for pursuing those things in life to make their existence easier and more enjoyable.

Everyone gets "basically" the same chance. Yes...for some, being born into wealth relates a whole different set of rules, but those are the "exeptions", not the majority. Not one of my friends was born into wealth, and yet, it seems many have worked their way into a very upper middle class lifestyle.

What we (my friends and I) are finding, is that many cant or dont want to compete in the capitalistic world in which we live. They want government to take care of them. This wasnt a problem for a while....as there was plenty of those hard driven, successful, responsible ones, to take care of the few on the other side.

But the numbers have exploded on the other side, and fewer and fewer are on "my side". What used to take just a fraction of wealth to deal with, now takes considerably more.

For some i guess this is what they wanted, as we move closer and closer to a socialistic way of life. For me, and my friends, this is taking away what used to set America apart from other countries. The dream of one day being successful enough to one of the ones giving, instead of taking.

[verrip1]

"Are we still a capitalistic society?"

Mostly. Except for poop-for-brains, Hugo Chavez type wannabees who want the government to nationalize all of industry.

[silverguy25]

The mindset is skewed on this. Capitalist I am, hell yeah! But what about the too big to fails who got bailed out? That wasnt capitalism. If it were they would be broke and still owing money, not the other way around with debt spread out on a public balance sheet.

Call it what you want, but its not pure anymore. The capitalist cocaine of the 80's is gone, man!

[maui1]

MIRAMAR, Fla., Jul 26, 2011 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) -- Following the elimination of several taxes on airline tickets on July 23rd, Spirit's customers began saving up to $50 roundtrip. As a result, the volume of tickets sold jumped over 22 percent week over week in the first three days.

The Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau found that one full-time job is created for every 90 additional visitors to the area. An increase in Spirit's load factor of just two points, easily achieved by the tax break stimulation listed above, would result in 1,000 new jobs if this tax holiday lasted a year, and Spirit carries only about 1% of the nation's air travelers. Do the math.

[decoy409]

Well I would disagree as to many simply want a 'free lunch' pass. Have a look and discuss these two simple examples with your friends.

McDonalds Hires 62,000, Turns Away Over 938,000 Applicants For Minimum Wage, Part-Time Jobs

This is what the US economy has been reduced to: McDonalds reports that as part of its employment event to hire 50,000 minimum wage, part-time (mostly) workers, subsequently raised to 62,000 it received a whopping 1 million applications, or a Tim Geithner jealousy inducing 6.2% hit rate (h/t X. Kurt. OSis). Alas, the US economy is now so pathetic that the bulk of the population will settle for anything. Literally anything. And the saddest part: over 938,000 applicants were turned away. Here’s hoping to Burger King needs a few million janitors in the immediate future too. And yes, aside from reality, things in America are really recovering quite nicely.

From Bloomberg:

McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the U.S. after receiving more than one million applications, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Previously, it said it planned to hire 50,000.

The April 19 national hiring day was the company’s first, said Danya Proud, a McDonald’s spokeswoman. She declined to disclose how many of the jobs were full- versus part-time. McDonald’s employed 400,000 workers worldwide at company-owned stores at the end of 2010, according to a company filing.

Earlier this month, McDonald’s said sales at stores open at least 13 months climbed 2.9 percent in the U.S. after it attracted more diners with items such as beverages and the Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus burger. The fast-food chain has about 14,000 stores in the U.S. and more than 18,000 abroad. About 80 percent of all McDonald’s stores are franchised.
McDonalds Hires 62,000, Turns Away Over 938,000 Applicants For Minimum Wage, Part-Time Jobs

[zero hedge]

Job listings say the unemployed need not apply

Hundreds of job opening listings posted on Monster.com and other jobs sites explicitly state that people who are unemployed would be less attractive applicants, with some telling the long-term unemployed to not even bother with applying.

The New York Times' Catherine Rampell said she found preferences for the already employed or only recently laid off in listings for "hotel concierges, restaurant managers, teachers, I.T. specialists, business analysts, sales directors, account executives, orthopedics device salesmen, auditors and air-conditioning technicians." Even the massive University of Phoenix stated that preference, but removed the listings when the Times started asking questions.

The concerted shunning of unemployed Americans by prospective employers was a common theme that cropped up in the thousands of responses that poured in when we asked Yahoo! readers to share their experiences of unemployment for our "Down But Not Out" series.


Reader Susan W. said she was being treated "as if it were my fault I was unemployed, regardless of the fact that I had put out hundreds of resumes and applications."

Legal experts told the Times that explicitly barring unemployed people from applying does not qualify under the statutory definition of discrimination, since unemployment is not a federally protected status like age or race. But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently set out to establish whether employers were discriminating against certain protected groups because they are overrepresented in the ranks of the unemployed, such as African-American and older workers. (We covered that meeting here.) New Jersey recently passed a law barring employment ads that seek to rule out applications from those who are unemployed.

Even if the practice of weeding out unemployed applicants doesn't fit the legal definition of discrimination, it sure feels unfair for the more than 6.3 million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months to be told they are automatically disqualified for the few openings that are out there. "I feel like I am being shunned by our entire society," Kelly Wiedemer, an unemployed information technology specialist, told the Times.

news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/job-listings-unemployed-not-apply-133143362.html

[Deleted]

Yes. The means of production are privately owned.

[maui1]

our gov't today, stands in the way for our capitalistic society.

this did not take place by the 'peoples' conscious choice, but by a slow process of govt's need to control the population thru dependency, in order to maintain gov't growth. which is bureaucratic life survival instinct.

[jarhead1976]

Yes , read palmbeachpauls thread ... " We will talk later, maybe." That is as capital as it gets.

[lifewasgood]

We are a greedy, unethical, dishonest, society that puts the rich banking and corporate on a different playing field than the rest of the society.

The evidence is everywhere. GE no Tax bill, Lifewasgood, big tax bill? Just even the field, that is all I ask!

[maui1]

the only way to level the field is to change our tax system, and the only way to do that is to change the people that the present tax system favors, and that is our politicians, and the only way to fix our politicians is thru short term limits, so the lobbyist system we have now, breaks down.

[Deleted]

Yes, but the creep toward socialism seems to be accelerating. Kind of scary for me.

[maui1]

we can't get to socialism.

we, as a country die 1st.

after the social revolution, and destruction of capitalism, then, and only then, can the door open to socialism.

fyi.........not something i want, but where we are headed, just the same.

[Deleted]

Jul 29, 2011 12:51:19 GMT -5 @lifewasgood said:

We are a greedy, unethical, dishonest, society that puts the rich banking and corporate on a different playing field than the rest of the society.

The evidence is everywhere. GE no Tax bill, Lifewasgood, big tax bill? Just even the field, that is all I ask!

Do you try to limit your tax exposure?

I do

And every corporate manager worth his salt does the same exact thing. Companies dont write the rules...but they have to abide by them as far as taxes go.

We use dependents, and mortgage interest, and charitable deductions to lower our tax bill.

They use government regulations, and keep their foreign profits out of America, and therefore they pay lower taxes. Lobbyists are paid big bucks to keep their special interests going....

[maui1]

Do you try to limit your tax exposure?

I do

you think you are, but your unpaid share of the tax burden is building thru our national debt. you are up to about 130k and this is for every american tax payer.

how are you doing on that part of your tax burden? give me some advice, as i would like to limit that part of my obligation, as i don't seem to have much control over it's growth.

[lifewasgood]

What?

Social Security = Socialism
Medicare = Socialism
Food Stamps = Socialism
WIC program = Socialism

We don't call this Socialism, it is called entitlements in this country.

[verrip1]

Jul 29, 2011 13:32:15 GMT -5 @lifewasgood said:

What?

Social Security = Socialism
Medicare = Socialism
Food Stamps = Socialism
WIC program = Socialism

We don't call this Socialism, it is called entitlements in this country.

I just thought of an appropriate term for the movement to let the poor and old die.

'Social Unconsciousness'.

[domeasingold]

So Roosevelt was a socialist?
How the heck can social security be deemed socialism or entitlement when it is pre-paid?
It looks to me that it will now and forever be considered an entitlement because people in our government are labling it that way.
So goes the world. Previous generations enjoyed pensions....enjoyed company retirement funds...now those are drying up and what little social security is paid to an individual may not be there because someone stole those trusts. What gives? Quit giving the money away to non-citizens!

[maui1]

Do you really think he couldn't cut prices whenever he liked and keep them low? The lower prices simply shifted demand. People are buying now instead of later.

two questions here........

no i don't think spirit can cut their already low prices by 50 a ticket, and yes people are buying because of the lower ticket prices, have simulated prices, but not because the time is short, but because the price is lower.

i contend that if prices stay low, air travel stays high........it might be at the expense of road travel, but that might be a good thing overall.

[verrip1]

Jul 30, 2011 13:15:03 GMT -5 domeasingold said:

So Roosevelt was a socialist?
How the heck can social security be deemed socialism or entitlement when it is pre-paid?
It looks to me that it will now and forever be considered an entitlement because people in our government are labling it that way.
So goes the world. Previous generations enjoyed pensions....enjoyed company retirement funds...now those are drying up and what little social security is paid to an individual may not be there because someone stole those trusts. What gives? Quit giving the money away to non-citizens!

Social Security Retirement is one thing. Social Security Disability is quite another.

If you look at the history of the retirement side on the Social Security Website, you can read several of FDRs key speeches defining the system. To start such a program anew, clearly there would be no funding for people who were already in retirement or very close to it. Therefore it would start out as out-of-pocket expenditures for those folks, using those actuarial predictions. For everyone else, it was pay in now, and get the benefits of your contribution later. In one speech, FDR focused on the need for reformatting SS Retirement into government held individual annuities in a few years after the drawdown to unpaid retirees was lower due to their ultimate death. At that time, each person would have their own personal account formed from their and their employer's contribution. As we all know, that never happened. Instead, Congresses kept it a program of the whole, not a program of the individual. It allowed them access to that money for other purposes, as long as the incoming cash flow was sufficient for the designated payouts. Something would eventually have to be done, but they didn't really care about the future. It's actually quite similar to what Bernie Maddoff did. My conclusion is that SS Retirement was supposed to be a capitalist structure, but Congresses made it socialized by messing with the accounting of it.

Now, SS Disability was socialized from the get-go. Other than any excess contributions from earners, the payouts would have to come from the General Fund. It was a money loser from the first day, with no hope of ever being even partially paid for by the recipients.

[verrip1]

If you look back a few years, there was a major hoopla over GW Bush's proposal to privatize SS Retirement. Ooooh, did Nancy Pelosi not like that idea one bit. What the Dems focused on was the idea that some of each person's account could be assigned to equities. No specific proposals about how, but I recall that there was talk about some sort of US equity index that might be created for the purpose.

Except for suggesting that equities might be part of each person's account, the Bush proposal was exactly what FDR talked about in his expectation of individual annuities. Yes, that is the exact wording used by FDR. 'Annuity'.

I remember to this day the repeated assertions of Pelosi and Reid that Social Security did not need any reform, and would not for several decades (the number 40 years comes to mind, but I'm not certain how far out they really said it was). I also recall the Congressional testimony of investment advisor Ric Edelmann at the time, who told Congress that the American people were simply too dumb to be able to structure a simple, 3 option plan for their future.

I find it quite amusing that Pelosi and Reid were so adamantly opposed to accomplishing what FDR wanted in the first place. Even if Edelmann actually believes that Americans are that dumb, it's rather stupid of him to say so in front of Congress. I can't imagine many people wanting to hire an advisor who thinks they are dumbfucks.

[bumpybumpington]

We are a greedy, unethical, dishonest, society that puts the rich banking and corporate on a different playing field than the rest of the society.

Hey fti,

look... I'm a victim of society.


As long as we provide the same protections under law to the "rich" as everyone else, we are a capitalistic society.

[Deleted]

Aug 28, 2011 23:03:55 GMT -5 @wxyz said:

An indictment of the NEA and the liberal education establishment that have hijacked our educational system turning it into a government and social propaganda system. Given a choice between an incompetent, politically correct, system and a good basic education there is little doubt which one most parents will choose.

Government needs to shut up, sit down, and get out of the way. That is capitalism.

Just be prepared to hear a lot of this

biggovernment.com/bhealy/2011/08/27/no-class-vandals-union-protesters-disrupt-successful-choice-school/

over and over and over........

[smackdown]

"An indictment of the NEA and the liberal education establishment that have hijacked our educational system turning it into a government and social propaganda system. Given a choice between an incompetent, politically correct, system and a good basic education there is little doubt which one most parents will choose.
Government needs to shut up, sit down, and get out of the way. That is capitalism."

Too much pickle juice in this rant. Over the last 15 years, the "education" system stopped being one and became a depository for administrators who made their positions important by making a simple teach-and-learn scenario become so entirely confusing that only "they" could manage it. Eliminate the massive waste that is the Superintendent, board and state departmental oversight and replace them all with a simple WARRANTY system. I would gladly pay teachers to teach and even foot the bill for refresher courses each summer. In an era of technology, we're still allowing administrative crooks to authorize new textbooks each year with 6 words changed out, at a nosebleed cost that is more and more being pushed on the parent and stuffed in an overweight backpack ALONG WITH the laptop. We STILL have seniors who can't read because TEACHERS can't flunk them or recommend anything because an "administrator" has to do it.
Exactly like the INFECTION corrupting our businesses, we pay the paper pusher but don't challenge the pushed paper and have no venue to afford the DO-ER with a voice, empowerment or legitimacy in facilitation processes that cannot survive with someone DOING something (action) to create a required (reaction).

If you can't be deployed to DO at a moment's notice or have a career-long track record of performance that translates to wisdom, you have no business in an executive or supervisory role. When all the superintendents are retired teachers again, it will AMAZE you that our education budget falls back in line. As for the broken drum you beat about the NEA... I challenge YOU to identify who's interests are undermining it. It absolutely ISN'T parents... we loved it when teachers TAUGHT and got paid to do so. Today, teachers fight an uphill battle to just know what they've been ORDERED to teach. Is it subject-matter our kids need to know? HARDLY... for the past THREE YEARS, freshman nationwide have FAILED basic Gen-Ed studies because all they were taught in High School is how to get a better grade on the ACT & SAT.

Dubya gave us-- No Child Left Behind. We need to get Corporate Interests out of government and all aspects of fundamental freedom and to start paying GENUINE TAXES on the TRUE income they make. Nothing more. If they can't stay out of the classroom, they need to be divested. Our current educational problem stems from wealth dictating to cultivate a New World Order. The only "order" we need is the one dissolving links between having too much idle cash and thinking that translates to wisdom of our educational process.