AOC is socialist. Is that bad?

dear it has nothing to with ideology. Europe has half our income so they spend half on healthcare. THE idea is to switch healthcare to capitalism to cut price by 80% or so

 

yes its a tiny zip code. Europe is identical to scandinavia in geography political philosophy and lives at 50% or GDP. Case closed. 1+1=2

 

so you're saying opposite of Europe since they live at 50% of our GDP despite our inventions and military protection?

 

Healthcare in the USA is grotesquely overpriced because our politicians in both parties are in the tank to every phase of the health care business.Doctors,Insurance companies,drug companies medical device makers,it is a completely CORRUPT system.

 

do you realize that capitalism is when business and govt are separate to make corruption impossible?

 

this is what we call socialism. Do you understand?

 

I was working in Venezuela in the late 80's In the 60's-70's Venezuela was the most prosperous nation in South America.
Then the new government decided it could control the economy, and through that, control the people- and that capitalism wasn't fair.
So, they decided to nationalize their oil industry. As they have the largest proven reserves in the world, that is a big thing. However as most of that oil is of a nature that is difficult to produce and harder to process than most crude, their oil industry required some high-tech expertise. When they nationalized- they threw out the American and European contractors that had been making it pay- and decided they could do it to. However, that proved to be beyond their capabilities, so production and profits dropped instead of increasing. Still it was a huge asset.

First, they subsidized prices in their economy- and that was welcome. However, the manufacturers and importers of products began to complain, and then pull out- because they couldn't make money; costs of production were not regulated, only selling price. Everything you bought in Venezuela had a maximum price notation. A can of Coke for example was marked "4B's" in the 80's, meaning the most it could be sold for was 4 Bolivars. Given the situation of losing the supply side of their economy- they decided to subsidize that too, go to an artificial economy. To do this, they would pay the supply sources money to make up for the loss of profits- and draw that money from their oil income.

Then, the oil market crashed- something most commodities do from time to time; a predictable thing. They could no longer finance the subsidies, so they started borrowing money from the world bank and others. This debt continued to grow until they used up their credit and extensions. At that time, the lenders told them that there would be no more credit until they made their economy a free market- capitalism. However, the government didn't know how to back out of the mess they created. So they started removing price controls in increments, selectively. Each week, a new list of goods would come out which would no longer be price controlled. In most every case, the market price of those goods immediately went to where they should have been competitively, sometime quite a bit more. However the incremental thing was not done logically. For example, they removed price controls on fuel- but no on taxi and bus or freight services, all of which were privately operated. So the cost of fuels skyrocketed, but income from consumers didn't move. So- all the services like that went on strike, and shut down the economy. When government didn't move to change that, riots broke out. On the day I flew into Caracas, over 500 people had just died in riots, martial law had been declared, and a nationwide curfew went into effect.

My job was to manage the renovation and refit of a 100 ft yacht in a boatyard. I needed to buy all the supplies. However, nobody would sell us anything, because by holding inventory until the price controls were removed, the prices would double. We couldn't get money transfers out of the bank, because the bank was betting on currency exchange rates making them a lot of money, and were delaying the process waiting on it to happen. I was there for a month, and we were never able to get anything done because of those issues. The Owner couldn't get payments through to the boatyard who was doing some major hull work either- and the delays caused the loss of some pre-paid charters at $15,000 a week. The shipyard seized his boat. He was unable to pay me half of what I was owed.

Now one would think that such a disaster would have taught them a lesson- but, it did not. The government reconfigured, made more promises it couldn't keep, and increased it's control over the people, the money, the industries. Guns were collected from private owners. In the continuing determination to pursue socialism, the value of the Venezuelan dollar- the Bolivar, began to fall- and went from about $0.33 USD when I was there in 1989 (3 Bolivars equal 1 US Dollar) to where they are now, which is 250,000 Bolivars to the US Dollar- but getting worse fast.

It took almost 50 years of misery to destroy Venezuela- and it started with the initial move to socialism, the government take-over of the means of production of it's biggest resource- Oil.

Chavez didn't become president until 1999. He took the socialistic policy further- creating a new constitution, nationalizing more industry. By 2010- he declared an
"economic war" because of shortages... but actually due to his deficit spending and price controls, which were unstainable. Venezuela destroyed itself by indulging in socialist policies. Other than that, they had it made. Lost it all because of short-sighted politics.

America became the envy of the world and most powerful nation in the world because it has embraced capitalism and the free- market system. Why would anybody want to discard the system that had outperformed all others, and turn to something that had only destroyed others?

Too many of us value the promise of free things and the easy life- and sell ourselves out hoping that something-for-nothing will be true. It never is.

 

Please clarify what you are talking about by a link to whatever you are talking about,

 

That is the spin of an ideologue.

In reality, keeping the profiteers' bottom-line bureaucrats out of medical decisions demonstrably results in covering everyone at far lower cost (Trump's stated promise.)

In no advanced nation do you see the populace clamoring for coverage that is about twice as expensive and fails to cover a large portion of that populace as is the case in the US.

 

Sorry you are not aware of reality.

 

To the extent that is in the interes

If you are saying that, you can, of course.

I am saying that all advanced democracies have achieved universal health care coverage at far less cost that the US spends whilst failing to cover tens of millions whose bloated expenses are routinely dumped on the taxpayer. Their pragmatic paradigm actually works better. It is not dictated by ideological dogma.

 

@Natty Bumpo
@james M
et al

WHAT IS A SOCIALIST?

As in Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics
or
Norway / Sweden style SOCIALIST
or
is National SOCIALIST German Workers Party meant?


Bernie Sanders has clarified he means Norway / Sweden SOCIALIST.
I doubt AOC would manage anything more than the first or third of the above.

The mere word, Socialist conveys too little for honest communication.
Si?


Moi
Socialist
Not the kind!

Don't ize,
Across an immense, unguarded, ethereal border, Canadians, cool and unsympathetic,
regard our America with envious eyes and slowly and surely draw their plans against us.


​

Do the young folks know pink from red?
Such an ancient reference from the 20th Century.

 

All without having to use any substantial part of their wealth for defense.

If the U.S. became isolationist and withdrew this defense umbrella, none would be able to provide the level of health care as U.S. taxpayers are able to provide.

Of course, I would expect many of these nations to disregard any semblance of a competent military; rather, they would simply become client states of whichever power decided to own them.

 

Europe lives at 50% of our per capita GDP and that is who the libsocialists want to copy??

 

1) What HItler and Sanders say before they have power means nothing especially when trying to fool a free people
2) Norway Sweden are politically and geographically European and Europe lives at 50% of our GDP so it would be really dumb to copy them. Ever heard of East/ West Germany and 132 other example? Socialism does not work well. 1+1=2

 

better english please

 

obviously if they have 50% of our GDP they are not going to spend what we spend. Further we hold 70% of all recent health care patents. Without us they have no health care or military. Socialism does not work. ever hear of East WestGermany??

 

Haha ... a Socialist. Good comedy!

 

Which is not Socialist.

 

Exactly. It's Capitalism which affords those 'free services'.

 

Economic fundamentals have changed so fundamentally, I think it's time for a serious reconsideration of just what "socialism" means today and where its place actually is in today's economic environment. The working classes need greater government protection than ever before. Industry is transforming rapidly with the rapid evolution of high technology.

 

Scandinavia is politically, culturally, geographically European and Europe lives at 50% of our GDP so it would it be really stupid to copy them.

 

Because they have no idea what Socialism is/means. They LITERALLY think it would be exactly the same, but with extra benefits. We're talking about people whose only exposure to Socialism is Utopian ideas spouted by rich people with too much time on their hands.

 

Because socialism/communism removes market pressures. They're still there, of course, but because they aren't susceptible to the market, they always fall behind, and inevitably end up with far too many body bags and not enough toilet paper.

The market keeps those things in tune with everything else. For example, if I am selling toilet paper, I'm going to become quite adept at figuring out how much toilet paper is required. If I produce too much, it's just sitting there, and that involves money spent that is producing no income.

In a socialist/communist economy, there is no reason why I should care about how much of my money is spent producing stuff that nobody wants, or everybody wants. There is no real incentive to do that because the central planners have already figured out what the best price is for what I produce, and those central planners are idiots!

 

protecting and crippling them makes them worse off 1+1=2