support for capitalism flagging in America

[Malarky]

I'll probably live to regret getting into this but...

What do you propose is better?
I have worked my ass off all my life. I worked my way out of poverty. I live a nice life in a nice neighborhood. I made good and bad decisions along the way. Some I prospered from, some I paid for.
Capitalism has made this possible.
When I had no money, I lived in a boarding house with lawn furniture and no TV. I didn't think that I deserved more than I had. I'm glad to have earned what I have.
My kids get to do the same. They get to work their way up from where they start. I will give them some things, but they don't get start where I am now.


<<stepping off soapbox...sorry, a bit wobbly...haven't been up there for a while>>

*Edited for spelling.

[parker1b2]

Karma for you Malarky!!

[mpd402]

Capitalism has become an ugly word these days. People still support it, but no one wants to talk about it. If we admit that we want to work hard an make more of ourselves, there will always be a liberal hiding around the corner waiting to tell us how selfish we are, and that we need to give more to the destitute and needy welfare mommas, illegal immigrant students, disabled dolphins, color-blind painters, etc. Once we completely run out of $$ and socialism falls out of fashion, we capitalists will come back out of the closet.

[Deleted]

Apparently people are as clueless about the definition of capitalism... as they are the definition of socialism...

[Malarky]

I'm not ashamed to be a capitalist, although I am much more willing to argue the cause in real life than here, generally.

I'd like to think that if I were here during the American Revolution, I would have been one of those who stood up for the rights we enjoy today. Maybe I would have been too wimpy, who knows?

I just know that I haven't seen any other form of government/society that works better. Have you looked at Europe or the Middle East lately?

Flaws? Yes. Have you seen the deficit our government is running? I'm really not comfortable with this. We need to make cuts and if I don't feel them, you didn't cut enough.


If you have some easy answer I'm listening. If you want to take away all the things I worked so hard for and give it to people who "deserve" it, I'm the one with my fingers in my ears singing "la, la, la, la, I can't hear you..."

[formerexpat]

The rich and the powerful were the first to desert capitalism in favor of Kleptocracy.

But to have kleptocracy, you have to have a complicit government, no? Then we best be sure not to give them more of our hard earned dollars to misappropriate.

[phil5185]

I was surprised and heartened to see the numbers so high (80% in 2002 and 60% now). After the US's embracing of european socialism in Nov 2008, and the barrage of anti-business sentiment during the last two years (Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et al), I thought that capitalism was way out of favor. IMO, 60% is good, way better that Congress's and Obama's approval ratings.

[Politically_Incorrect12]

I didn't realize there were political type threads on this board. I'll have to try and visit more often.

As to the OP, I think your definition more aptly describes what liberals (extreme ones at that) think is the definition of capitalism. I didn't say Democrats, because most of them know better...admitting it just doesn't get them the same number of votes.

[Politically_Incorrect12]

This message has been deleted.

Duplicate Post

[Deleted]

Sorry I am a capitalist and not ashame of it.

My grandmother on my mom side used to be a maid, my mom used to support 2 kids making $2/hr.

Now in my generation we are 6 to have college degrees (first generation to go to college) and some of us make more than our parents.

My step dad went from driving a taxi to now owning 7 medallions.

I was raised to work your ass off to succeed / support your family and your job in life is to get one step further than your parents did.

[Havoc]

Well, first, assuming that the survey is correct, I would suggest that if insist on making it political, "Republicans" should be struck and replaced with "politicians". Bush may have started the bail-outs, but Obama has continued them.

Secondly, if support for "capitalism" is flagging, I would bet that a good amount of it is from people assuming that what is happening in today's business world (in America) is capitalism, when it is not.

In a capitalist market, banks that lose on big bets on mortgage-backed securities, derivitives, etc., go out of business. Their assets are marked to market and sold or divvied to the creditors, and some other entity steps into the void to provide the services the failed bank once did, if it is profitable to do so. Banks are NOT bailed out en masse, with their worthless assets bought at face value by the US taxpayer.

In a capitalist market, government does not buy the majority of a single company within a market. Nor does it, when putting the company through bankruptcy, force senior creditors who are LEGALLY ENTITLED to certain assets to take less than they are entitled to so that the government can give that portion to a union, which wasn't even an unsecured creditor (talking about GM here).

I could go on... but will spare your eyes...

[Deleted]

"anti-business sentiment during the last two years"


lmao

Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/economy/24econ.html?_r=1

Profits have surged 62 percent from the start of 2009 to mid-2010, according to the Commerce Department. That is faster than any other year and a half in the Fabulous ’50s, the Go-Go ’60s or the booms under Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

Read more: www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44268.html#ixzz1JBKsy6CI

[cronewitch]

I am a capitalist always have been and always will be. It is the only system that works and you can't stop capitalist. When it is illegal you will have black markets.

[ontrack]

I'm sorry, but capitalism means privatized profit and privatized risk. Some people in this country only believe in the privatized profit, with society bearing the burden of the risk (i.e. bailed out investment banks). If that's what we now call capitalism, I don't want it, as it's a raw deal for anyone but investment bankers.

[Havoc]

Apr 11, 2011 8:16:15 GMT -5 ontrack said:

I'm sorry, but capitalism means privatized profit and privatized risk. Some people in this country only believe in the privatized profit, with society bearing the burden of the risk (i.e. bailed out investment banks). If that's what we now call capitalism, I don't want it, as it's a raw deal for anyone but investment bankers.

Exactly. I get ill when I listen to the long line of Goldman Sachs alumn in the treasury department over the past few years justifying why we have to bail out their Wall Street former-and-future co-workers only to read about their obscene profits and bonuses... that were made once all of the toxic waste they engineered (and were paid huge dollars to create) are offloaded onto the taxpayer via the Fed or Treasury programs.

[Deleted]

Like others have said, I don't oppose Capitalism. I oppose whatever this thing we have now that puts so much of the money (and power) in the hands of so few.

[workpublic]