4 in 10 now say socialism would be good for US: Gallup poll

"And that takes us down to the very obvious reason that teabaggers relentlessly try to conflate the word "socialism" with Joseph Stain, Fidel Castro, Cuba, and the USSR."

There is no USSR, there is the Russian Federation and all of those mentioned were Socialists. You can include Maduro too.
 
Bill said:
The "part" can fluctuate, but the fact that we spend far, far, far more than everyone, ALMOST COMBINED is a problem, would you agree??

Everything helps the rich, is there a way around that?? The programs are designed, as you pointed out to help out farmers etc...

Stores didn't want free cheese, & the folks getting snap wanted choice, & the stores wanted in, que sera, sera..
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Without the rich there would be no jobs for the farmers, truckers, food processors, and grocery store employees and no taxes to pay for these services. Having an anti-rich attitude is counter-productive and based too much on envy and believing others are preventing us from all being beautiful, rich, and famous. Liberals blame the rich like conservatives blame the media, unions.............
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
And the systems work for PEOPLE, for average citizens, not just the aristocracy. Isn't it odd how our American conservatives claim to love individuality and freedom, but want to hand the keys to the kingdom to the 1%?
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Nice work.

It has always been about class, wealth, and privilege. That is not to say that that defenders of the aristocracy are limited to conservative reactionaries; historically they can and do include some liberal elite.

This has been going on for thousands of years; in the antiquity of Greece the contest between the oligarchies and the democracies, between the Greek aristokratia and the middle/lower classes was always the major source of contention, civil wars, and social strife. And that is an issue that remains with us today.

What I think the social welfare states of the liberal democracies of northern europe have done, is to alleviate to some extent the extremes in socio-economic classes and softened some of the harder edges of the free market and successfully restrained the immorality of unrestrained capitalism.

Albert Einstein: Why Socialism?

Einstein demonstrated his own resolve in the face of hostile criticism in 1949 when he published the influential article “Why Socialism?” in the inaugural issue of Monthly Review Einstein’s socialism was that of the democratic left, which distinguished itself from the communist left by its deep commitment to constitutional, electoral procedures and gradual social reform.

Einstein noted that democratic government under capitalism cannot be trusted to protect ordinary working people because political parties are financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who constitute an “oligarchy of private capital.” The worst evil of capitalism, he wrote, was “the crippling of individuals.”
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Flash said:
Without the rich there would be no jobs for the farmers, truckers, food processors, and grocery store employees and no taxes to pay for these services. Having an anti-rich attitude is counter-productive and based too much on envy and believing others are preventing us from all being beautiful, rich, and famous. Liberals blame the rich like conservatives blame the media, unions.............
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Without workers, there would be no rich. It is they who create value and products. JKG said execs are ratifiers. The workers establish all the information and all the stats. Then they explain them to the exec, who makes the decision. But the data already made it. He merely says yes to the one that is on the top of the list.
Any big execs I have met told me the higher they got, the less work they did and it was easier.
 
Gonzomin said:
Without workers, there would be no rich. It is they who create value and products. JKG said execs are ratifiers. The workers establish all the information and all the stats. Then they explain them to the exec, who makes the decision. But the data already made it. He merely says yes to the one that is on the top of the list.
Any big execs I have met told me the higher they got, the less work they did and it was easier.
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You actually got a chance to speak to an assistant manager at a McDonalds? After reading your posts I highly doubt you even got that far.
 
Gonzomin said:
Without workers, there would be no rich. It is they who create value and products. JKG said execs are ratifiers. The workers establish all the information and all the stats. Then they explain them to the exec, who makes the decision. But the data already made it. He merely says yes to the one that is on the top of the list.
Any big execs I have met told me the higher they got, the less work they did and it was easier.
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It better be easier. One has to work very hard and learn a lot from their work and experience that got them to the top. Once there, there are a lot more responsibilities to make consistent and correct decisions over the workers under them. So, while the job itself might be "easier" because of the wealth of information they've grasped over the years, they now have to be sure they maintain a high degree of sound decision-making for an entire company.
 
Gonzomin said:
Without workers, there would be no rich. It is they who create value and products. JKG said execs are ratifiers. The workers establish all the information and all the stats. Then they explain them to the exec, who makes the decision. But the data already made it. He merely says yes to the one that is on the top of the list.
Any big execs I have met told me the higher they got, the less work they did and it was easier.
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Then the workers should be establishing the business, doing the marketing, and taking the risk.

Both are obviously needed--it is not necessary to divide them into imaginary good and evil categories. If you think the management or workers are evil we have the freedom under capitalism to refrain from doing business with that corporation. But most Americans care more about having a cell phone than learning about a corporation's business practices.

Most of those execs in your description are not among the rich.
 
Flash said:
Without the rich there would be no jobs for the farmers, truckers, food processors, and grocery store employees and no taxes to pay for these services. Having an anti-rich attitude is counter-productive and based too much on envy and believing others are preventing us from all being beautiful, rich, and famous. Liberals blame the rich like conservatives blame the media, unions.............
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Oddly enough when the commie republican Ike was running the show the rates were much, much, much higher & the economy was booming, there was a strong & vibrant middle class & the CEO was not taking home hundreds of times more than the average employees..

Sure, they contribute, & so does the middle class-they are the backbone of the economy, not ZILLIONares......
 
Bill said:
Oddly enough when the commie republican Ike was running the show the rates were much, much, much higher & the economy was booming, there was a strong & vibrant middle class & the CEO was not taking home hundreds of times more than the average employees..

Sure, they contribute, & so does the middle class-they are the backbone of the economy, not ZILLIONares......
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The federal income tax marginal rates were much higher but the effective tax rates were about the same because of all the deductions. If you look at the federal revenue and expenditures in the 50's and 60's as a percent of GDP you will see they were both lower. Maybe that booming economy was due to government taking less and spending less of our money.

The economy in the 50's was not booming as much as today. The middle class is smaller today because more Americans have moved into higher income brackets according to IRS studies.
 
Wolverine said:
4 in 10 say now say socialism would be good for the U.S, the other 6 passed History!
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And if you ask them what industries they want government to nationalize they look at you in horror. They do not know what socialism is and think it means somebody is going to pay for their college and health care.
 
Flash said:
And if you ask them what industries they want government to nationalize they look at you in horror. They do not know what socialism is and think it means somebody is going to pay for their college and health care.
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Your fellow teabaggers called Obama a "socialist" for a decade, because he wanted to establish a tax payer supported health insurance program.

How many times have we heard Medicare and Medicaid refered to as socialistic?

You are going to have to stop changing the definition of what you mean by "socialism". In my experience, people who are constantly re-defining words, changing the parameters of the debate, and moving the goal posts on a whim, either have no principled positions of their own, or they are not confident in the strength of their own arguments.
 
Flash said:
The federal income tax marginal rates were much higher but the effective tax rates were about the same because of all the deductions. If you look at the federal revenue and expenditures in the 50's and 60's as a percent of GDP you will see they were both lower. Maybe that booming economy was due to government taking less and spending less of our money.

The economy in the 50's was not booming as much as today. The middle class is smaller today because more Americans have moved into higher income brackets according to IRS studies.
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Then who paid for all these roads & bridges they built?? Mexico I guess.....:viol:
 
Cypress said:
Your fellow teabaggers called Obama a "socialist" for a decade, because he wanted to establish a tax payer supported health insurance program.

How many times have we heard Medicare and Medicaid refered to as socialistic?

You are going to have to stop changing the definition of what you mean by "socialism". In my experience, people who are constantly re-defining words, changing the parameters of the debate, and moving the goal posts on a whim, either have no principled positions of their own, or they are not confident in the strength of their own arguments.
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Your post is based on completely false assumptions. I have posted many times saying socialism is the government ownership of the means of production and distribution. I said both the left and the right use the term to apply to social welfare programs which are not necessarily related.

Medicare and Medicaid are both privately run programs paid largely by government funds. I never claimed it was socialism. I agree people need to stop changing the definition. Having socialism does not usually mean equality, universal healthcare and college, less income inequality, or worker run businesses. The most socialist nations (Cuba, China, North Korea, the former Soviet Union) had few of these characteristics but had large-scale government ownership of major industries.
 
Bill said:
Then who paid for all these roads & bridges they built?? Mexico I guess.....:viol:
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Nothing I said is contrary to the government paying for the roads (although federal and state gasoline taxes paid for most of it rather than federal income taxes). In your 1950's utopia for the American middle class they did not have Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Earned Income Tax Credit, college loans and grants, poverty programs, etc. Maybe that extra money paid for the roads and bridges.
 
Flash said:
Nothing I said is contrary to the government paying for the roads (although federal and state gasoline taxes paid for most of it rather than federal income taxes). In your 1950's utopia for the American middle class they did not have Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Earned Income Tax Credit, college loans and grants, poverty programs, etc. Maybe that extra money paid for the roads and bridges.
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What about the 800 billion we spend on defense??
 
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