USA Capitalism is no Longer working

Well written, my writing sucks, I know.... This will happen again, only it wont happen for another 10 - 20 years, maybe longer. China will be well ahead of us by then, Everything here will cost much more, while deflation will hit hard in our asset values. Todays home at 280k will be worth 100k again.
That happened once already here in Port Saint Lucie. Our first home, now a rental, is worth 250k now, bought in 98 for 70k, had on the market in 2006 for 280k, by 2012 it had dropped too 120k valuation.
1998 - 80k
2002 - 140k
2006 - 280k
2009 - 200k
2013 - 120k
2019 - 240k
2030 -120k

 

That must be why you cannot refute even a single sentence I wrote...

Still waiting for my first check....

For union members. Non-union workers and the unemployed, not so much.

No it isn't. In Japan and South Korea unions are very weak, but their economies are much more equal than union-dominated economies like Germany. China has no unions at all, but its people have almost all escaped poverty much faster than they ever did in union-dominated economies like the UK. In your philosophy, that is impossible. In mine, it is inevitable. Why am I objectively right and you objectively wrong? You refuse even to consider what the reasons might be because your unionism is a religion, not science.

You have yet to identify a single false statement I have made.

I'm talking science, not politics. You just don't know the difference any more than those 500 workers do. What are the conditions that result in them making $12/hr? And unlike union demagogues, I would not presume to judge the owner until I knew exactly HOW he had obtained the homes, cars and billions.

They could and did.

The cycle is what happens when you paper over privilege with countervailing privilege instead of solving the problem with liberty and justice.

That is a typical shallow, ill-considered, and uninformed interpretation.

 

Unions as voluntary associations of workers in similar jobs for their mutual benefit are natural and beneficial. It is when they are legally privileged to deprive others of access to economic opportunity that they become rentiers.

 

You are of course cherry picking comments and data. Always happens from the rich right wing. You are using Japan as an Example ? Does their DEBT, money printing count for nothing ? You cant Glaze over the world and pick what you want and compare Apples to Apples. Thus it makes the rest of ALL your statements BOGUS and ill informed not worthy of the argument.

China has most of it's people OUT OF poverty because almost ALL OF THEM were in Poverty. It isn't difficult to move them out if you change the threshold and force all to take a job. It is that simple. But you, use it as PROOF to your comments or theory. Germany has a GREAT equality to ALL type of Economy. The type the rich right winger hates. One where they look after their own people, not look after thy self.

It isn't about the WORD UNION. It is about workers right and a fair honest pay day vs what the Owner and Board members make on a daily basis. That is why Unions were started. They look at Mr. Ford, Mr. Rockfeller, Mr. Getty and said, you are not taking care of your employees, you are working them 6 days a week, 12 hours a day. Then renting them houses you own for ridiculous prices. Their response : "I dont care what you think or what you think I should do for my employees" Thus, people fought back. Again, it is that simple... You try to turn it into DRIVEL :

Unions as voluntary associations of workers in similar jobs for their mutual benefit are natural and beneficial. It is when they are legally privileged to deprive others of access to economic opportunity that they become rentiers.

That is garbage at best.... Probably pulled from some RW supported site. While America falls apart, people are losing to the million and billionaire each day. Guy like you just dont care, it isn't your problem, thus, you dont care. There was a day when other Americans cared about their fellow American. You can't have it both ways, call yourself an American, then piss on other Americans and wave a flag demanding freedom and constitutional rights. They, or should we say FDR had it all fixed. Ragan allowed the Globalist Jewish Bankers to change it all so that is slowly destroyed the working class. Here we are, even worse. I said it in 1992 and Clinton did very little to help, Bush push it back the way it was. Obama promised to fix it, he too did very little and Trump cut taxes again on large corps. and businesses, plus himself and the wealthy while bragging that the reg. guy got 2k.
It is nothing short of a disaster and a joke on Americans.

Throw some more philosophical BS out there if it make you feel smart. Facts are facts, Jobs suck, medical benefits sucks and costs are way out of control by 3X factor. The market is manipulated, the FED is Printing and handing to friends, Gold and Silver are highly manipulated by the Bankers, you get to save nothing with a return of .5% and yet, guys like you pretend things are getting better, and that if we continue down the same path they will get even better. It is Laughable at best.... to anyone with an education.

ANd by the way, Japan was smart for borrowing and buying their own businesses. Why ? Because they take care of their own people unlike here. We print and give it to the rich. They print and buy their own stocks and help their people, we dont. It is several trillions in difference.

Please, Go watch Gordon Long, or any of the other HONEST economist to fix what you dont know.

 

He doesn't want Unions, like so many on the right. Their argument use to be... You dont need them, they take fees that you can keep for yourself. If you work hard, do your job, why do you need a union. So, the gullible voted them out or let them lax. The business owners waited the proper amount of time and then pounced in the late 90s, early 2000s. Taking away most of the benefits that had been negotiated over the course of 50 years to help the worker. They then went legislative and got politicians to rid of worker laws. Allowing them to fire, or LAYOFF whomever they want whenever they want.
Thus, now common place for workers to get within 2 - 3 years of a Pension they were promised in the 70s and 80s only to have AT&T lay them off at the age of 55 or 60. No repercussions, nothing. just slam the door shut on the poor working class guy...

I for one am surprised they have not been more one off shootings of CEO's and others...

 

Still waiting for my first check....

Just because you write this does not make it so. Should I suspect a pair Internet poster would acknowledge he is such ? Is that your point here ? Everyone should trust those reporting for think tanks as if their Opinion matches the think tank they work for today ?
Or that Russian disinformation comes directly from Putin ? Of course not....

How can someone come to this site and Post 75,000 times over a couple of years ? Who has time for that in the real world ? Nobody, nor does anyone care that much to support a tyrant in Donald Trump. We do know there are thousands of paid people that post for the right side, the corporate side, the big money side...

 

Just because you accuse me of being a paid shill does not make it so, either. The problem is, if you read all my posts you will find I have even more venomous disagreements with apologists for privilege on the right than on the left.

Read all my posts, and ask yourself who would pay for such an idiosyncratic mix of unpopular views.

I don't know, someone with nothing else to do? I learned not to judge people on the Internet many years ago, when I met someone in person that I had only known through a bulletin board, and was shocked to learn it was a 10-year-old kid who was obviously never going to be getting out of his wheelchair. I've posted just under 6K messages in 4.5 years, for an average of less than four messages a day. But I've had a lot more time on my hands since the pandemic.

Lots of people have time for that other than people who are paid to do it. If I had nothing else to do, or was being paid, it would be a trivial matter to post 100 messages a day. That's just one every five minutes.

If you had read very much of my stuff, you would know that I am the very last person they would want to encourage.

 

You're talking old, worn out theory. I'm talking historical facts. Employers can lower incomes by keeping them flat while inflation surges ahead. That is what has happened for about 40 years. The real median wage has been flat. And that fact has reduced the greater buying power of a two-income household from what it was when women began their employment surge that many years ago, to the level of near-sustainability today. Two incomes used to provide median households with a comfortable lifestyle and some additional disposable income. Not anymore. Today they struggle to get by. That is a case of employers reducing incomes to bare sustainability as Marx said would happen under capitalism.

 

Only if workers are first forced into a disadvantageous bargaining position by being deprived of their liberty rights to access other economic opportunities. That is the role of the privileged, especially landowners. Capitalist exploitation was only made possible when the Enclosures stripped workers of their right to use the land to survive.

What stops workers from just leaving and working for themselves, hmmmmm?

But Marx was wrong about how it happens. "Control of a man's means of livelihood is control of his will." True. But it is not the factory owner or employer who owns the workers' liberty rights to access the means of livelihood. It is the landowner. The employer/factory owner only offers the worker access to economic opportunity he would not otherwise have, while the landowner only DEPRIVES the worker of access to economic opportunity he WOULD otherwise have. Socialism consists in refusal to know that fact.

 

All you have done is confirm what I said. As more women entered the workplace, there were more workers and therefore an ability to not pay more money.

 

I should have said socialism consists in refusal to know the former fact, capitalism in refusal to know the latter.

 

When quoting particular information, it would be nice if you gave a reference. In fact, one with credibility.

I'm not saying the above is wrong, but I fear your misgivings may be greatly exaggerated. Prior to Covid, the economy was doing fine:


And as a result of Covid (which came upon the US at the beginning of this year) the US economy has has turned upside down. Which is no fundamental economic fault given the originating factor.

Given time, and the passing of Covid, the economy can and will recover. Regardless of who is elected tomorrow. This will take about another 3 to 4 months but the economy WILL recuperate ...

To my mind the real problem is not if and when the economy will start growing again. But its fundamental unfairness. Too much of the economy is going to the upper-classes and the lower-classes are suffering greatly.

And only fundamental changes in upper-income taxation can repair that unfairness ...

 

THE POVERTY THRESHOLD

That aint necessarily so. The consequence you make above depends upon the nature of Supply&Demand for workers. As long as Demand is sufficiently high, then producers will want to meet the demand for goods/services. Yes, the problem has been (over the past 30/40 years) that a New Country (called China) has become a major provider of low-cost produce for the American marketplace.

And, yes, this has reduced the demand for workers in that category. Which means what?

This: Now - more than ever - we must produce a higher level of student graduates with degrees that the workplace nationally is seeking. And that is typically at much higher levels of student learning. Moreover, given family incomes at the lowest level,not all students at those levels will be able to afford the education.

We must obtain that supply for higher-level work-categories from a postsecondary education that is nearly free, gratis and for nothing. (In Europe a postsecondary degree costs anywhere from free to $1200 a year.) For American families, the average state school postsecondary degree in the US around $14K. Which is out-of-reach for the poorest families living below the Poverty Threshold

Note below the spread of incomes for categories below the Poverty Threshold. These families earning the incomes below will not be sending their kids to obtain university degrees. Some categories of families living at or below the Poverty Threshold in the US simply cannot afford the educational cost beyond high-school because they live below the Poverty Threshold - which nowadays looks like this:


The US evidently needs what Europe has already - subsidize the poorest for an education level that will allow them to obtain a decent standard of living ...

 

Your title and first post are in conflict. The content of your post is government (and FED) failure, which is exactly the reason that capitalism may have appeared to fail in the minds of some. The purpose of our Constitution and Bill of Rights was to keep government as small as possible so that individuals and capitalism could thrive. Small government and individual freedom is how we became the economic powerhouse of the world and raised many billions of people around the globe to higher standards of living.

By voting for incrementally bigger and bigger government and more regulation, we essentially gave approval for government power to suck the life out of capitalist opportunities.

Why people were ever fooled into thinking that elected government officials would be any less greedy and self-interested than citizens in the private sector who wished to build a successful business unencumbered by government strangulation is beyond me.

Anyway, I agree with the content of your post but not the title. The failure of an increasingly more powerful government has caused the failure of the country. Call it "democracy". We gave the citizens' power and autonomy away willingly to people who work in their own self-interest, not ours.

 

Tax rates on the top brackets fell from c.80% in the 1950's to c.40% in the 1990's. Is that "bigger government"?

"In November 1999, President Bill Clinton publicly declared "the Glass–Steagall law is no longer appropriate". Some commentators have stated that the GLBA's repeal of the affiliation restrictions of the Glass–Steagall Act was an important cause of the financial crisis of 2007–2008".

Is that "more regulation"?

But anyway, why would government interfere with a system that was functioning just fine? What government wants to "suck the life out of capitalist opportunities"?

Obviously.

Rather silly of us, wasn't it.

Certainly unregulated capitalism cannot function in a global economy subject to ever increasing environmental, waste, and resource pressures.

 

We never had enough years of unregulated capitalism before we started voting authoritarian government officials in to power to start "regulating". You can't say capitalism failed when it wasn't given a long enough chance to succeed.

So Glass-Steagall was not "more" regulation. It was, still, government control and government lack of ability to make good decisions about what should happen in the private sector, who should win, and the motivations of politicians for making their decisions.

We were never supposed to have in intrusive government behemoth.

Thanks to big government and corporate lobbying, the two have formed a partnership which cannot be beaten by the average citizen.

The World Economic Forum is a bunch of globalist politicians, who have partnered with major banks and the largest global corporations to "reset" the global economy soon. This will go under some false guise of "capitalism", but it is nothing but top-down government run corporatism, picking winners and building powerful corporate monopolies. The free market is done.

The end is near, and Joe Biden is on board the global takeover train:

https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/

Look at the list of "Our Partners"....all major corporations, many of which should have failed, but were bailed out by government with our money. This is not going to produce economic freedom or "equity" for the vast majority of billions of people, the way they are trying to fool the world into believing. This is the final global Monopoly win. Plan for serfdom.

 

To debate that point would require the selection of a date when capitalism started. But the "golden days of capitalism" are generally agreed to be 1945 to c.1970.

"In 1933, in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash and during a nationwide commercial bank failure and the Great Depression, two members of Congress introduced an act, known today as the Glass-Steagall Act (GSA), that would separate investment and commercial banking activities".

Ie Glass-Steagall was regulation of private banking introduced at the height of the GD, after the greatest failure of unregulated capitalism in history. And when it was repealed in 1992 ......guess what... we ended up with another of capitalism's great crises, only 16 years later.

Government establishes rule of law; corporate lobbyists who have greater access to law-makers than you or me is a failing of the rules of governance. Nevertheless the only way to achieve an economy that works for all is a government guarantee of above poverty employment, because individuals competing in the private sector look after themselves first, not their competitors.

The unregulated free market, by itself, cannot produce satisfactory social outcomes in a modern global economy, with 'just in time' global production. ....We cannot revert to having a smithy in every village...

Thanks for that link.

"the Great Reset initiative has a set of dimensions to build a new social contract that honours the dignity of every human being".

Note: Governments don't need "our money", but I won't go into that at present; meanwhile the dignity of every human being" can be realized via a well-designed public sector - private sector partnership.

 

Well, I disagree with you and believe that the Great Reset will result in the exact opposite of what they are promising. Socialism/Communism always starts with beautiful promises of roses and rainbows and ends with wage slaves and genocide for dissidents. Always.

The World Economic Forum intends to remove national sovereignty from countries and put them under one authoritarian rule in partnership with monopoly corporations. Believe they have our best interests at heart, at your own peril. Actually, it probably doesn't matter what you want to believe. It looks like we are toast soon no matter what we think.

 

Capitalism in not a "belief". It is an economic mechanism, and that's all it is.

The above sentiment is an unacceptable exaggeration of the factual evidence. Lifespans in Europe are generally higher by four to five years more than in the US - which is due to the fact that National Healthcare Systems are affordable (because they are government run) to all citizens.

"Capitalism" is a mechanism that replaced barter a long, long time ago. It is the very same "system of exchange" in the European Union as it is in the US. And has nothing whatsoever to do with either of the two key-aspects assuring humans a long life. Namely an adequate Healthcare System and very low-cost Tertiary Education for all citizens.

Your comment is thus factually off-base. I live in Europe and my family benefits from a first class healthcare system as well as virtually free tertiary education. And I have no worry whatsoever that my kids will die in a useless war somewhere on this planet.

As will their children as well ...

 

Capitalism is simply having trade and industry in the private sector.

The 'private sector' is not only intertwined with the public sector but also dependent on the public sector. For example, has the public sector provided best-in-class infrastructure? Has the public sector provided best-in-class education? Has the public sector provided best-in-class health care? Has the public sector provided best-in-class management of Covid-19? Has the public sector negotiated and secured and protected win-win international trade agreements? Has the public sector made good monetary decisions including management of runaway debt? And this list goes on and on and on.

IMO our public sector is failing the private sector and all Americans...

 

You are looking backward at history, and erroneously concluding there is no alternative (the TINA fallacy), because you are steeped in an erroneous neoliberal economic orthodoxy.

Toast? (I don't think you accept climate change science...).

Anyway, another thing we must accept: absolute national sovereignty is obsolete, in the modern global economy.

International cooperation is the necessity if we are to achieve sustainable prosperous development in all nations, as opposed to "America First". So the task is to seek and strengthen the machinery to enable successful international co-operation.

 

That statement aint necessarily so. Most economies today are hybrids of both private enterprise and government. Only the degree of government intervention distinguishes them.

Definition of capitalism (off the web):
*Capitalism is an economic system in which private individuals or businesses own capital goods. The production of goods and services is based on supply and demand in the general market—known as a market economy—rather than through central planning—known as a planned economy or command economy
*Capitalism is an economic system. In it the government plays a secondary role. People and companies make most of the decisions, and own most of the property. ... The means of production are largely or entirely privately owned (by individuals or companies) and operated for profit.

The degree to which government provides goods/services determines the extent of capitalism within the private-sector. In fact, today in Europe, both capitalism/corporatism and "governmentalism" have learned to live comfortably together. For instance, a doctor's degree from a European university does NOT cost an individual $330K as it does in the US. So, doctors just out of university are not scrambling to pay off a humongous debt (as in the US).

And that can be said for a good number of different professions in the private sector.

All your questions above are highly pertinent. The answers are somewhat difficult to give precisely. Except as regards healthcare, where the private sector fails miserably in the US compared to the public-service offering in Europe. Also note that whether one graduates with a doctor's degree in medicine or education will determine two very different outcomes pay-wise. And yet, are not both educations key to a successful economy?

There is, then, the individual view - that is, of one who is trying to determine what sort of degree to pursue (which will determine more or less his/her level of income). From a larger view, however, of what should a country be deciding to subsidize depends upon a more general attitude of what SHOULD a country be providing. In Europe that question has been answered in a manner very different from the US.

From Investopedia here:

True enough, taxation is higher in Europe. I can attest to that fact. But, such is the price to be paid to have a both a functioning Healthcare and Tertiary-level Educational systems ...

 

It all depends upon the unique make-up of the employment-equation state by state and professional sector by sector. And that is a general rule throughout any mixed economy in any developed nation ...

 

Yes, true enough, if Uncle Sam does not get off his ass and implement key programs. What "key programs"?

It should be obvious by now that all the cheap-labor production that once abounded in the US is gone forever (to Mexico or China and thereabout). That production has found a "new home" and it aint comin' back. So, what's a country to do?

The answer is obvious. It has to go "up-market". That is, to higher levels of services/production that generate jobs at decent salaries. For which, a higher education is an absolute must.

Given those two facts above, it is perfectly obvious that a post-secondary schooling (called Tertiary-level Schooling) is absolutely essential. And, just like secondary-schooling it should be free, gratis and for nothing. By that I mean the entire spectrum that constitutes post-secondary education. Meaning the most basic of work-types including construction, cooking, construction, electricity, etc., etc. Our kids must be prepared with more than what a high-school degree offers them today. (That is, the basic level of preparation for a decent job with which to bring up a family.)

Tertiary level degree studies require a solid secondary-school education. Meaning we cannot spend enough money on secondary schooling. And given that more than half of government Discretionary Spending goes to the DoD as shown here:



For what real benefit?, one might ask. To hire people who have no vocational schooling? We must reconsider the wisdom of such expenditure wholly swallowed by the DoD.

Where's the war? What's the benefit?

That discretionary-spending is perhaps better employed preparing our children for the challenge of getting out of Secondary schooling and into a Tertiary-level education - which should also be free, gratis and for nothing ...

 

Meanwhile, under " socialism with Chinese characteristics" :

"Xi called for sticking to expanding domestic demand as a strategic underpinning and fostering a positive cycle of the national economy. He also called for a supply system more compatible with the domestic demand.

The new development pattern will by no means be a closed domestic circulation, Xi said, stressing that it is instead an open dual circulation involving both domestic and foreign markets.

Promoting a large-scale and smooth domestic economic circulation will help better attract global resources, meet domestic needs, elevate industrial and technological development and foster new advantages in global economic cooperation and competition."

So which system will more likely achieve universal access to higher education?

The private sector free market system funded by private banksters, or an open market, encompassing BOTH private and public enterprise funded by a public national bank?

And as we have seen again tonight, the first system pits citizens and sectors against one-another, leading to irreconcilable partisanship and dysfunction.

So good luck with funding your free education plan in the US.