patrick.net

Strategist says

Only capitalism can create wealth for society. Anything else will only suck up the wealth.

Care to back those two assertions up with any evidence or reasoning?

Do you realize how incredibly stupid it is to make a statement in the form only x[1] can do y when there are literally an infinite number of alternatives not tried and only three extremely similar ideas have been tried? It's like saying
        Only ball-sack flavor ice cream tastes good. Any other flavor would taste worst.
when the only three flavors of ice cream you've ever tried or even heard of are ball-sack, ass, and Santorum. There might be other possible flavors like vanilla and chocolate that taste better than ball-sack.

The Sharing Economy is an abused term. For example, Uber is not a sharing economy. When you are trolling for fares, you are not "Sharing" anymore than an ordinary Taxi Driver or Livery Service.

Sharing Economy would be like open source, with donations to the developers.

Dan8267 says

socal2 says

That would be a shame as Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other ideology or man-made economic construct in modern history.

This is complete ideological bullshit. It is technological advancement, not capitalism, that has taken people out of poverty.

Those damn capitalists, they invented everything worth buying. :)

Dan8267 says

Satisfying economic needs boils down to two thing: production per capita and distribution of wealth created.

Which only capitalism has managed to achieve in large quantities.
You worry me, Dan.

thunderlips11 says

The Sharing Economy is an abused term. For example, Uber is not a sharing economy. When you are trolling for fares, you are not "Sharing" anymore than an ordinary Taxi Driver or Livery Service.

Sharing Economy would be like open source, with donations to the developers.

Sharing like Airbnb doesn't mean you don't make a profit. It means you share something you already have anyway for a profit: an apartment, a car ride, etc...
Because it is incidental, relatively informal and peer to peer, it short cuts all the usual parasites: states, unions, etc...
It returns the economy down to the pure human level.

Heraclitusstudent says

Sharing like Airbnb doesn't mean you don't make a profit

Or, when you realize an expensive asset like a car sits idle 90% of the day. We could share one instead, and reduce car purchases and save space on roads, streets and garages.

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

Only capitalism can create wealth for society. Anything else will only suck up the wealth.

Care to back those two assertions up with any evidence or reasoning?

Do you realize how incredibly stupid it is to make a statement in the form only x[1] can do y when there are literally an infinite number of alternatives not tried and only three extremely similar ideas have been tried? It's like saying

        Only ball-sack flavor ice cream tastes good. Any other flavor would taste worst.

when the only three flavors of ice cream you've ever tried or even heard of are ball-sack, ass, and Santorum. There might be other possible flavors like vanilla and chocolate that taste better than ball-sack.

Show me an example of a non capitalistic country ever succeeding.
All successful economies practice some form of capitalism, with variations. But trying a different version of socialism will only lead to the same results. Cuba....Soviet Union. N Korea, and Greece.

CL says

Or, when you realize an expensive asset like a car sits idle 90% of the day. We could share one instead, and reduce car purchases and save space on roads, streets and garages.

Most cars are barely driven 1 0r 2 hours a day, and in California you need three of them. Self driving Uber cars could reduce the number of cars needed by 80%. They will all be electric.

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

Only capitalism can create wealth for society. Anything else will only suck up the wealth.

Care to back those two assertions up with any evidence or reasoning?

Here is more evidence. Google added $66 billion to the wealth of the America in a single day.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/google-having-best-day-in-history-of-wall-street-investors-gain-65-billion-2015-07-17

It’s official: Google books biggest day in history, adding $66.9B

https://www.youtube.com/embed/iKEZoY-TMG4

"Turns out the Socialism is for them & the capitalism is for us."

Hey, you just found Jazz's car.

Heraclitusstudent says

Sharing like Airbnb doesn't mean you don't make a profit. It means you share something you already have anyway for a profit: an apartment, a car ride, etc...

Because it is incidental, relatively informal and peer to peer, it short cuts all the usual parasites: states, unions, etc...

It returns the economy down to the pure human level.

Airbnb is renting, often surreptitious sub leasing in places like NY and SF or generating some money off a Pied a terre. It's been going on for ages, just only made more convenient with an internet app.

Sharing means you play with my toy sometimes while I play with yours. It doesn't mean you give me $20 to play with my toy while I play with another toy of mine.
(Ex: Airbnb'ing your place while you're own vacation somewhere else paying a hotel chain to stay there, not swapping with the person who is staying at your place)

The former kind of arrangement is a fraction of the latter, which is what people use AirBNB for most of the time. Usually by breaking every rule in their condo to boot.

People loitering in an area, picking up people off the street to make a fare - not because they are going in the same direction anyway and getting some gas money - aren't sharing. They're black market cabbies.

thunderlips11 says

Sharing means you play with my toy sometimes while I play with yours.

Are we talking about the birds and the bees?

thunderlips11 says

It doesn't mean you give me $20 to play with my toy while I play with another toy of mine.

It's called trade. Money is the medium of exchange.

Strategist says

It's called trade. Money is the medium of exchange.

Commerce != Sharing.

When I give you a banana for an apple pie, that's trade. If I buy your apple pie for $5, that's trade. If we split the banana and apple pie between us, that's sharing.

thunderlips11 says

When I give you a banana for an apple pie, that's trade.

No that's stupidity. An apple pie is worth 6 bananas.

thunderlips11 says

If I buy your apple pie for $5, that's trade.

Nope. That's a purchase.

thunderlips11 says

If we split the banana and apple pie between us, that's sharing.

Yup. It is.

No wonder Putin screws up. You guys must have had the same lousy Econ teacher.

Two Rep/Con/Tea unfunded wars costing ~$6 Trillion.Now that's brilliant economic policy.
Their economic teacher must have been a retard.
These fuckers can't escape their stupidity.

there, I fixed it for ya....

tovarichpeter says

T the end of capitalism has begun

Didn't the communists say that? Did communism take over the world?

thunderlips11 says

Sharing means you play with my toy sometimes while I play with yours.

I don't want to argue about the terminology and the meaning of the word "sharing".
airbnb / uber is often called the "sharing economy".

Strategist says

thunderlips11 says

It doesn't mean you give me $20 to play with my toy while I play with another toy of mine.

It's called trade. Money is the medium of exchange.

Exactly and it's a lot more convenient than finding something I have that you happen to need.
I give you money, you go find something you need, at the end we both got something.
Done between peers, it basically comes down to sharing.

Strategist says

All successful economies practice some form of capitalism, with variations. But trying a different version of socialism will only lead to the same results. Cuba....Soviet Union. N Korea, and Greece.

Absurd bunch of nonsense. All successful economies practice "SOME" form of capitalism. Wow, is that a profound statement or what? Sort of like the sun rises in the east. Does that include very socialist economies like Germany? or China? What about all of the poor countries out there that aren't socialist at all? Why aren't they successful? This is a crazy thread with a bunch of blind people describing an elephant. Capitalism is an economic system, not a political system. Capitalism is defined as when trade, industries, and the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned. Certainly that is true in Greece. Saying all successful economies practice capitalism isn't the same as saying all capitalistic economies are successful. Socialism isn't defined just by high government spending.

The lifting of people out of poverty the last 30-50 years had a lot less to do with capitalism than with modern transportation and communication allowing the outsourcing labor to the poorest places on the planet. The standard of living for the western capitalistic countries have stagnated or declined at the same time. The .1% have seen an enormous jump in wealth exploiting poverty around the world, but the rest of western society has lost ground even with the huge gains in productivity provided by technology.

in liberal dominated academia, word meanings are in a constant state of flux.
it is a useless exercise to argue word definitions.

Heraclitusstudent says

I don't want to argue about the terminology and the meaning of the word "sharing".

airbnb / uber is often called the "sharing economy".

bob2356 says

Absurd bunch of nonsense. All successful economies practice "SOME" form of capitalism. Wow, is that a profound statement or what? Sort of like the sun rises in the east. Does that include very socialist economies like Germany? or China? What about all of the poor countries out there that aren't socialist at all? Why aren't they successful? This is a crazy thread with a bunch of blind people describing an elephant. Capitalism is an economic system, not a political system. Capitalism is defined as when trade, industries, and the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned. Certainly that is true in Greece. Saying all successful economies practice capitalism isn't the same as saying all capitalistic economies are successful. Socialism isn't defined just by high government spending.

Lets make it simple:
The more a country practices capitalism and democracy, the greater will be it's economic success.
I welcome evidence that shows otherwise.

Heraclitusstudent says

I don't want to argue about the terminology and the meaning of the word "sharing".

airbnb / uber is often called the "sharing economy".

But it isn't, which is my point. It's a misleading propaganda term to make it sound like it's some kind of new, hippy dippy paradigm, when it's ordinary commerce.

I'm not debating the merits of Uber and Airbnb here, just saying it isn't sharing.

Strategist says

I welcome evidence that shows otherwise.

Merry Xmas.

Also of interest:

Strategist says

Lets make it simple:

The more a country practices capitalism and democracy, the greater will be it's economic success.

Are you saying greece and argentina aren't capitalistic and democratic. Last I checked both held free elections and neither had nationalized their businesses. Did I miss the memo?

thunderlips11 says

Merry Xmas.

China started practicing capitalism. The moment it did, it's economy took off. They now have 100+ billionaires.
Eastern Europe, after the fall of communist Soviet Union, started practicing more and more capitalism. Their economies began to rapidly improve.
Saudi Arabia......he he he. Allah is merciful. Happy Ramadan. :)

bob2356 says

Strategist says

Lets make it simple:


The more a country practices capitalism and democracy, the greater will be it's economic success.

Are you saying greece and argentina aren't capitalistic and democratic. Last I checked both held free elections and neither had nationalized their businesses. Did I miss the memo?

You missed part of the memo.
The key word in my statement was "more". Capitalism and democracy creates incentives for individuals and businesses to innovate, be entrepreneurs, create economic efficiency, all of which are necessary for society and the world at large to create wealth and prosper. It can only happen when man is free to pursue whatever it is he wants to pursue.
Take the example of East Germany for 40 years after WW2, and compare it to W Germany. Look at N and S Korea.
All humans have a skill that can help man progress. There is probably a girl in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan who might have the answer for the ever elusive cancer cure. But we will never get it because that girl will be restricted from discovering that cure.
The greatest loss to humanity is what these restrictive countries, be it communism, religion or dictatorship, could have invented. We need to reverse that.

bob2356 says

Does that include very socialist economies like Germany?

What a goofball statement, are you really this dense? I am sure that "very socialist" country is forcing Greece to practice more socialism through rapid privatization. We might as well say up is down from today.

"Greece does about-face, pledges big privatization push"
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/greece-does-face-pledges-big-privatization-push-120537760--finance.html

Here is a good joke for Tovbot and other token socialists. If you just replace the word "businessman" with "socialist", it will be even funnier.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A West German businessman was driving his Mercedes through East Germany. It was a rainy night, and his windscreen wipers stopped working.

He stopped at a garage where the East German mechanic explained there were no Mercedes windscreen wiper motors in the German Democratic Republic. Nonetheless he thought he would be able to fix it.

The man returned the following morning, and found his wipers were now working perfectly.
"How did you find a Mercedes windscreen wiper motor in the East?" he asked the mechanic.

"We didn't," replied the mechanic, "We used the engine from a Trabant."

Moscow in the 1970s. Deepest winter. A rumour spreads through the city that meat will be available for sale the next day at Butcher's Shop no. 1.

Tens of thousands turn up on the eve of the event: wrapped up against the cold, carrying stools, vodka, and chessboards, they form an orderly queue.

At 3 am the butcher comes out and says, "Comrades, I've just had a call from the Party Central Committee: it turns out there won't be enough meat for everyone, so the Jews in the queue should go home."

The Jews obediently leave the queue. The rest continue to wait.

At 7 am, the butcher comes out again: "Comrades, I've just had another call from Central Committee. It turns out there will be no meat at all, so you should all go home."

The crowd disperses, grumbling all the while: "Those bloody Jews get all the luck!" Andrew Vornic/Julian Cox

Three workers find themselves locked up, and they ask each other what they’re in for. The first man says: “I was always ten minutes late to work, so I was accused of sabotage.” The second man says: “I was always ten minutes early to work, so I was accused of espionage.” The third man says: “I always got to work on time, so I was accused of having a Western watch.”

gsr says

ob2356 says

Does that include very socialist economies like Germany?

What a goofball statement, are you really this dense? I am sure that "very socialist" country is forcing Greece to practice more socialism through rapid privatization. We might as well say up is down from today.

No more goofball than your random intermixing of the concepts of capitalism, democracy,socialism, and communism into some kind of super simplistic catch all sound bite. There are countries with a high degree of what would be traditional socialism (not communism you seem to be very fuzzy on the difference) that are very well off. There are countries with a great deal of democratic freedom that are very poor. Countries need a good legal system and low corruption, a good financial system, a stable non wasteful government, good resources, and a lot of luck to have the potential to become wealthy. Most don't even with all the ingredients. The bullshit about add more democracy (does that mean people vote more often?) and add more capitlalism (the most capitalistic place on earth was post fall russia) wealth will flow, is just that, bullshit.

Strategist says

Show me an example of a non capitalistic country ever succeeding.

Feudalism and communism, the only other two economic systems ever tried. The first lasted hundreds of years and the second is the basis of the largest production in the world. Everything we buy is from Communist China.

Of course, your question presupposes a definition of success. If merely letting the world continue to scrap by is your criteria for success, then all three of those economic systems are resounding successes. If your definition of success is allowing every willing person to be a productive member of society, free from poverty, then none of those three economic systems are remotely successful.

More importantly, it is a lie that we must choose only between those three, almost identical systems. There are an infinite number of unnamed possibilities. You are simply too small minded to consider that there may be alternatives. Your religion doesn't allow for innovation.

bob2356 says

No more goofball than your random intermixing of the concepts of capitalism, democracy,socialism, and communism into some kind of super simplistic catch all sound bite. There are countries with a high degree of what would be traditional socialism (not communism you seem to be very fuzzy on the difference) that are very well off. There are countries with a great deal of democratic freedom that are very poor. Countries need a good legal system and low corruption, a good financial system, a stable non wasteful government, good resources, and a lot of luck to have the potential to become wealthy. Most don't even with all the ingredients. The bullshit about add more democracy (does that mean people vote more often?) and add more capitlalism (the most capitalistic place on earth was post fall russia) wealth will flow, is just that, bullshit.

There is a short answer to your jibber jabber with absolutely no data.

First, from http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
The economic freedom index lists USA at 12, and Germany at 16. So they are quite close in terms of degree of socialism, while the USA is slightly less socialistic. So please don't call the current Germany as a socialist country. You may as well call our country socialist as well.

Second, be careful what you wish for. Germany may have additional centrally planned government programs, but unlike California, they are very FRUGAL by nature.
I remember 100F with high humidity days in Frankfurt where public Buses were running with NO air conditioning only two years ago. I am sure they are like that even today. And very hot summer days in Frankfurt or Berlin are not uncommon.
And, you whine about lack of good Internet bandwidth here, remember German Internet and mobile Deutsche Telekom are far worse in terms of bandwidth. So not everything is paved with milk and honey under the German system.

gsr says

There is a short answer to your jibber jabber with absolutely no data.

First, from http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

The economic freedom index lists USA at 12, and Germany at 16. So they are quite close in terms of degree of socialism, while the USA is slightly less socialistic. So please don't call the current Germany as a socialist country. You may as well call our country socialist as well.

gsr says

Second, be careful what you wish for. Germany may have additional centrally planned government programs, but unlike California, they are very FRUGAL by nature.

I remember 100F with high humidity days in Frankfurt where public Buses were running with NO air conditioning only two years ago. I am sure they are like that even today. And very hot summer days in Frankfurt or Berlin are not uncommon.

And, you whine about lack of good Internet bandwidth here, remember German Internet and mobile Deutsche Telekom are far worse in terms of bandwidth. So not everything is paved with milk and honey under the German system.

So no ac on buses and low bandwidth trumps public health care and free universities. Who's talking jibber jabber here? Sorry, but I'll take a hot bus over 1000 a month premium with 50 copay 5000 a year deductable for health insurance and 25k a year for public university. That's a pretty big socialist step up over the US. Where did you get the bandwidth thing anyway, I've hosted hundreds of german students over the years and have never heard a single complaint about bandwidth in germany.

Be careful what data you use and who compiled it. I note that New Zealand is #3 on the heritage hit parade. That means NZ is a lot less socialist and has a lot more economic freedom than the US. Bullshit. I lived there a long time and am a citizen. Business is much more regulated than the US, labor is more unionized and more regulated, there are far more social programs, land use is much much more regulated, construction is ridiculously regulated and hugely expensive. In NZ tradesman can't legally go up on any type of ladder, not even 1 rung, without a safety harness. You can't do any electrical work, plumbing work, foundation work, roofing work, masonary work, or structural carpentry without being licensed. Not even on your own house. Get caught and you are out on your ass for insurance and the council will force the work to be redone and fine you heavily. The town councils actually have aerial survey's done looking for unpermitted work. Roofing can only be done with a scaffold entirely around the building, even for 1 story house. There are 9 structural grades of lumber with essentially a bible about where each grade can be used. There are specific very detailed regulations on what type of fasteners can be used and where, framing, flashing, window installation, ties, the list goes on and on. My building permit (120 pages long) for remodeling was 8000 dollars and plans had to be submitted by a licensed architect who charged 9000 to draw up the blueprints and submit the application. I had to contribute 20k to the town parks and infrastructure to subdivide my lot into 2 lots. All businesses and people pay heavily into the governments accident compensation commission (no fault accident insurance) with a sliding scale depending on the hazards involved. My annual rego for my hiace van had 330 acc levy, a motorcycle would be 1000. It cost my friends tons of money and over a year to convert their sheep farm to dairy. The fees and paperwork were huge with hundreds of pages of detail on every aspect of the conversion, especially water and waste. Heritage.org says NZ banks avoided the worst effects of the financial crises. That's interesting, NZ doesn't have any banks, they are all Australian banks with NZ branches. Heritage.org says you can start a business in one day. Unless you are a fishing guide or kitesurf instructor this is total nonsense. Here's a primer http://www.business.govt.nz/starting-and-stopping/entering-a-business/starting-a-business . Workers at almost any type of business must have certifications. If you work at mcdonalds for example you have to take a course (classroom, online is not acceptable) and get a food handling certification. Delivery drivers and couriers using vans need a National Certificate in Commercial Road Transport (Courier Driver) which is a real course taking a pretty good number of classroom hours. Over 8k gross weight and you need a commercial license (also means no uhaul type operations). The list goes on and on. It's always nice to know what you are talking about. Heritage.org doesn't have a clue.

Call it Crazy says

Hey Bob, there's this thing called paragraphs..... Go ask your 10 year old to help you format your posts...

Punctuation lessons from the person who is patnets standing joke on the subject...................................................... Perfect........................................................

Maybe.......................................................... Just once,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, you should try adding content to the discussion.........................................................

bob2356 says

So no ac on buses and low bandwidth trumps public health care and free universities. Who's talking jibber jabber here? Sorry, but I'll take a hot bus over 1000 a month premium with 50 copay 5000 a year deductable for health insurance and 25k a year for public university. That's a pretty big socialist step up over the US. Where did you get the bandwidth thing anyway, I've hosted hundreds of german students over the years and have never heard a single complaint about bandwidth in germany.

There is a big difference in believing that the grass is green on the other side and living on it. Please go live there at least experimentally as a real resident. The average wait time for doctors is 4 months.
And like I said, irrespective of their few centrally planned programs, Germans are FRUGAL in many other respects, unlike the West Coast socialists. Check out down-payment requirements on their mortgages. You have to see why Germany does not have housing bubble while every other neighboring country does.
Their internal monetary policy is always quite tight.There is no such thing called a free lunch. I don't know why we have to repeat this all the time.

Read the Akamai state of the Internet report. USA is at a pretty good place in terms of the internet speed given the size and the sparseness of the country.BTW, it is also a fact they have started investing on it quite a bit since 2011. Deutsche Telekom has also started offering decent deals since then due to competition.

bob2356 says

Be careful what data you use and who compiled it. I note that New Zealand is #3 on the heritage hit parade. That means NZ is a lot less socialist and has a lot more economic freedom than the US. Bullshit.

You are disputing the data from Heritage based on your anecdotes. There are many aspects of economic freedom. In some aspects, New Zealand is indeed more free. If you want a detailed balanced view, you can read this. http://www.westga.edu/~bquest/2000/nzealand.html

But pretty please, thinking that the entire western world excluding the US is a socialist paradise is extremely naive at best.This could be expected from a west coast SJW, but not from a Patnet reader.

gsr says

Check out down-payment requirements on their mortgages.

Yes, more regulations = less capitalistic. So, you're actually making Bob's point. It was the free market that brought you zero down payment and negative amortization.

Not exactly, @Tatupu
The free market would never have brought such unqualified and risky loans without being able to pawn such loans off on government entities like FNMA and eliminate its investor risk. So government actually enabled free market excesses, as it has done with globalism and free trade, favored trade partner status with China's predatory industries, and NAFTA. Capitalism can only take the greed so far before market forces kick in to stabilize things. It takes government intervention to create the kind of clusterfuck responsible for the housing crash and following "Great Recession."

Quigley says

The free market would never have brought such unqualified and risky loans without being able to pawn such loans off on government entities like FNMA and eliminate its investor risk. So government actually enabled free market excesses, as it has done with globalism and free trade, favored trade partner status with China's predatory industries, and NAFTA. Capitalism can only take the greed so far before market forces kick in to stabilize things. It takes government intervention to create the kind of clusterfuck responsible for the housing crash and following "Great Recession."

Come on---they would and did. Otherwise we wouldn't have had the financial crisis. It would have simply been a FNMA problem. The fact is almost all TBTF banks, Wall St., insurance agencies were all eye deep in it. The government agencies were actually very late to the party and had less exposure than private industry. Government had NOTHING to do with it save reducing regulation and allowing the free market to do what it does.

Call it Crazy says

bob2356 says

Maybe.......................................................... Just once,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, you should try adding content to the discussion.........................................................

Why????

You NEVER do!!!!

My you are cranky. Are the sheep having PMS and won't let you have any nooky? Why don't you see if your neighbors will wife swap with their 11 year old daughters/wives?