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They called me a socialist.
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Feb 23, 2019 01:26:46   #
Robert Harrington
 
EconomistDon wrote:
Petey, why are you always on the short-sighted end of the conversation? Do you not realize that Socialism is a matter of degree? Certainly, socialist practices are essential to any civilized society. People help each other in a civilized system. We can see in the remains of individuals up to 10,000 years ago that old people with bad teeth could not have survived without someone else chewing their food and spitting it into their mouths. (Isn't history fun!!!) People working together and helping each other made civilization possible.

So a civilization always has socialist characteristics, but to what extent? With time, socialism grows, especially in a prosperous civilization. Help the poor and help the handicapped grows into free stuff for all. But as free stuff grows and capitalism fades, so does prosperity. This happens over and over through history. Argentina is a prime example. In the 1950s, Argentina was the gleaming example of prosperity in South America. They had it all, grand swaths of rich farmland, abundant natural resources, and a booming economy. But socialism was taking over, robbing the country of its potential. The straw that broke the (economic) camel's back in Argentina was free healthcare for all. As happens so often in socialist societies, Argentina was taken over by fascism under Juan Peron. The country has been an economic cesspool ever since.
Petey, why are you always on the short-sighted end... (show quote)


And you blame free healthcare. What about the rest of the free world. Healthcare is not free in most free world countries...they pay for it out of the tax’s they pay. Just because you don’t write a check to the for profit healthcare we receive doesn’t make it free. pure capitalism will eat itself.

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Feb 23, 2019 06:33:16   #
old marine Loc: America home of the brave
 
Nickolai wrote:
The capitalist either couldn't or wouldn't hire workers --millions of Americans were joining the socialist and communist parties. They and the labor unions were calling for federal intervention. Revolution was heavy in the air , something had to be done. FDR consulted with the economic elites and told them the government would have to intervene and put people to work and the would have to pay for it with increased taxes The FDR new deal included farm aid the WPA and the CCC and they hired 11 million people. Backed home mortgage allowing lenders to extend mortgages from 15 years to 30 years. They passed the Glass Steagall Act in response to 5,000 banks going down wiping out the depositors. It included FDIC all of these programs and much more had been pushed by the socialist party
The capitalist either couldn't or wouldn't hire wo... (show quote)


You are so wrong.

Socialist agenda is to destroy, not build or help. A perfect example is Venezuela. The poeple had enough snd overturned tne Socialist dictatorship and installed a Democratic Republic like America's.

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Feb 23, 2019 07:36:40   #
PJT
 
Back in 1987 Denmark ( I don't know situation there now) had a national tax rate on all of over 65%, plus high rates for gasoline, alcohol and cigarettes. And just those things were obvious to tourists.
So, No. Health care wasn't free.
They didn't have much military expenses as we funded NATO so highly. And they didn't have universal free college education.
They didn't have much border security.
Americans better learn the true costs of such programs.
Our Socialist I.E. Democrats propose "freebies" that would require a tax rate in ALL of way over 100% of income and assets.
Our poorest would have a living standard of small increase.
Our middle class would cease to exist.
All so our compassionate Democrats could rule over us in perpetuity...until the destructive revolution.
All this doesn't even take into account abortions, open borders and many other nutty programs inc. doing away with gasoline, nuclear energy, coal, airplanes, ships (unless they are sailing vessels or slaves to row them.
So, ladies, enjoy your free sex as abortions of the next generation will soar above the birth rate. As our quality of life deteriorates you may only have sexual activity for pleasure as is true in many countries with little freedom or
economic opportunities for its impoverished citizens.
I end my comments knowing a lot more examples and facts could be discussed...say replacing all commercial buildings and private homes for fuel efficiency
No, we aren't talking billions in additional taxes...more like trillions and quintillions.
Dint fall for the "over a ten year period argument" the next 10 yearsxwoukd cost way more.
Unless we grow money trees and print more money. (Read about Germany's inflation in the 1920s for the amazing benefits of inflation.)

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Feb 23, 2019 09:00:16   #
zillaorange
 
old marine wrote:
There were no politics in their era. No political parties until after the 1800's.


Good point, correction, being involved in Gov't. was hurting their business. Now the politicos live for office, not their constituents !!! TERM LIMITS A MUST !!!

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Feb 23, 2019 09:07:57   #
old marine Loc: America home of the brave
 
Robert Harrington wrote:
And you blame free healthcare. What about the rest of the free world. Healthcare is not free in most free world countries...they pay for it out of the tax’s they pay. Just because you don’t write a check to the for profit healthcare we receive doesn’t make it free. pure capitalism will eat itself.


My Medicare insurance is deducted each month from my Social Security check.

Medicaid is a free health care program for those that never worked emough to qualify for Social Security.

Social Security has absolutely nothing to do with Socialist.

Just another Socialist Dim-O-Crat lie to try and take credit for someone else's work.

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Feb 23, 2019 10:54:33   #
sbv0130
 
PeterS wrote:
The Conservative agenda is to sell fear of the Democrat agenda!


Thank you. It's good to know there are still some intelligent people out there.

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Feb 23, 2019 10:57:40   #
Nickolai
 
old marine wrote:
Anyone with a normal brain would agree with you. But Socialist Dim-O-Crats well they don't have a normal brain......Example Nancy Pelosi.

😏😁😎

🇺🇸 God bless America and President Trump.






Neurologists can do a brain scan and determin quickly if you lean toward the conservative or liberal political spectrum. It's in the genes and you poor buggers cant help it if you lean right. While social environment the way your raised plays a large roll in this determination 30 40 % of it is genetic

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Feb 23, 2019 11:06:45   #
Nickolai
 
PJT wrote:
PadreMike & Old Marine: if only CNN and CNBC ok but since its over 90% of the media, and there is no longer a Fairness Doctrine, I kinda favor a constitutional amendment repealing free press. Why should we be hypocrites?
If the GOP ever gets control of both houses and the presidency, and gets some guts, a strong law or constitutional amendment re Fairness Doctrine would be ok.






Those cable channels are doing their job of protecting the people and providing investigative journalism, holding leaders accountable A free press is a cornerstone of any free society. Lately, it’s been under attack, becoming the whipping boy of anyone looking for an easy target. Politicians and the press have an adversarial relationship, but there’s usually at least some semblance of respect. The current president has a particularly contentious relationship with the press, labeling anything he doesn’t like as fake news.


At one point early on in the administration, he went so far as to call the press “the enemy of the people” in an angry tweet. All of this is a response to journalists doing their jobs, which is to hold the powerful to account using facts. There is, after all, a reason why oppressive regimes—for instance, Vladimir Putin’s—crack down on the independent press and invest in state-owned media/propaganda machines. Our founding fathers understood how important a free press is to a democracy and enshrined it in the constitution. That doesn’t keep the current POTUS from railing against it at every chance he gets.

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Feb 23, 2019 11:11:07   #
Nickolai
 
TommyRadd wrote:
Hey, Crazylibertarian,
Perhaps PeterS ALSO had these exact things in mind when he set out to liken socialism to FDR, he just didn't want to mention them. Scary thought, huh?

One thing is for sure, he should know now and, from now on, any time he praises FDR or socialism we'll all know that he is perfectly fine with such "tolerable fascist side effects" as these, he just doesn't want anyone to point them out!





Fascism and socialism is an oxymoron

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Feb 23, 2019 11:15:28   #
Nickolai
 
badbobby wrote:
not many of you lived during the bgreat depression
I did
Though just a lad,I remember the hardships my parents had
just to feed and clothe their children was a monumental undertaking
There were no Jobs to be had
My step father who helped raise me was an excellent carpenter ,but there was no need for his expertise
he was forced to bootlegging alcohol to put food on the table for his family
then FDR was elected
he did outlaw gold
but nobody had much if any
but he started WPA(Works Progress Administration)
and my step father and my mother went to work for the WPA
they each made a dollar a day
and were thankful to get it
then FDR helped start the building of 'Casa Manana' in Ft Worth Texas
and my step dad got to put his expertise to work for a decent salary
when that job was finished we moved to Velasco Texas
where he worked building the Dow Chemical building
hard times were over
I don't feel that FDR was a socialist
he just provided jobs for America
not many of you lived during the bgreat depression... (show quote)





The government providing jobs is socialism. If capitalism cannot provide services to the people and government can that is socialism and if it works it is a good thing

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Feb 23, 2019 11:18:58   #
Bad Bob Loc: Virginia
 
sbv0130 wrote:
Thank you. It's good to know there are still some intelligent people out there.



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Feb 23, 2019 11:20:14   #
Bad Bob Loc: Virginia
 
Nickolai wrote:
Those cable channels are doing their job of protecting the people and providing investigative journalism, holding leaders accountable A free press is a cornerstone of any free society. Lately, it’s been under attack, becoming the whipping boy of anyone looking for an easy target. Politicians and the press have an adversarial relationship, but there’s usually at least some semblance of respect. The current president has a particularly contentious relationship with the press, labeling anything he doesn’t like as fake news.


At one point early on in the administration, he went so far as to call the press “the enemy of the people” in an angry tweet. All of this is a response to journalists doing their jobs, which is to hold the powerful to account using facts. There is, after all, a reason why oppressive regimes—for instance, Vladimir Putin’s—crack down on the independent press and invest in state-owned media/propaganda machines. Our founding fathers understood how important a free press is to a democracy and enshrined it in the constitution. That doesn’t keep the current POTUS from railing against it at every chance he gets.
Those cable channels are doing their job of protec... (show quote)



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Feb 23, 2019 11:24:28   #
The Critical Critic Loc: Turtle Island
 
Morgan wrote:
He certainly did end the depression and created a stable middle class,


FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate.

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

"Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."

In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.

"President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies."

Using data collected in 1929 by the Conference Board and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Cole and Ohanian were able to establish average wages and prices across a range of industries just prior to the Depression. By adjusting for annual increases in productivity, they were able to use the 1929 benchmark to figure out what prices and wages would have been during every year of the Depression had Roosevelt's policies not gone into effect. They then compared those figures with actual prices and wages as reflected in the Conference Board data.

In the three years following the implementation of Roosevelt's policies, wages in 11 key industries averaged 25 percent higher than they otherwise would have done, the economists calculate. But unemployment was also 25 percent higher than it should have been, given gains in productivity.

Meanwhile, prices across 19 industries averaged 23 percent above where they should have been, given the state of the economy. With goods and services that much harder for consumers to afford, demand stalled and the gross national product floundered at 27 percent below where it otherwise might have been.

"High wages and high prices in an economic slump run contrary to everything we know about market forces in economic downturns," Ohanian said. "As we've seen in the past several years, salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high. By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market's self-correcting forces."

The policies were contained in the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which exempted industries from antitrust prosecution if they agreed to enter into collective bargaining agreements that significantly raised wages. Because protection from antitrust prosecution all but ensured higher prices for goods and services, a wide range of industries took the bait, Cole and Ohanian found. By 1934 more than 500 industries, which accounted for nearly 80 percent of private, non-agricultural employment, had entered into the collective bargaining agreements called for under NIRA.

Cole and Ohanian calculate that NIRA and its aftermath account for 60 percent of the weak recovery. Without the policies, they contend that the Depression would have ended in 1936 instead of the year when they believe the slump actually ended: 1943.

Roosevelt's role in lifting the nation out of the Great Depression has been so revered that Time magazine readers cited it in 1999 when naming him the 20th century's second-most influential figure.

"This is exciting and valuable research," said Robert E. Lucas Jr., the 1995 Nobel Laureate in economics, and the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. "The prevention and cure of depressions is a central mission of macroeconomics, and if we can't understand what happened in the 1930s, how can we be sure it won't happen again?"

NIRA's role in prolonging the Depression has not been more closely scrutinized because the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional within two years of its passage.

"Historians have assumed that the policies didn't have an impact because they were too short-lived, but the proof is in the pudding," Ohanian said. "We show that they really did artificially inflate wages and prices."

Even after being deemed unconstitutional, Roosevelt's anti-competition policies persisted — albeit under a different guise, the scholars found. Ohanian and Cole painstakingly documented the extent to which the Roosevelt administration looked the other way as industries once protected by NIRA continued to engage in price-fixing practices for four more years.

The number of antitrust cases brought by the Department of Justice fell from an average of 12.5 cases per year during the 1920s to an average of 6.5 cases per year from 1935 to 1938, the scholars found. Collusion had become so widespread that one Department of Interior official complained of receiving identical bids from a protected industry (steel) on 257 different occasions between mid-1935 and mid-1936. The bids were not only identical but also 50 percent higher than foreign steel prices. Without competition, wholesale prices remained inflated, averaging 14 percent higher than they would have been without the troublesome practices, the UCLA economists calculate.

NIRA's labor provisions, meanwhile, were strengthened in the National Relations Act, signed into law in 1935. As union membership doubled, so did labor's bargaining power, rising from 14 million strike days in 1936 to about 28 million in 1937. By 1939 wages in protected industries remained 24 percent to 33 percent above where they should have been, based on 1929 figures, Cole and Ohanian calculate. Unemployment persisted. By 1939 the U.S. unemployment rate was 17.2 percent, down somewhat from its 1933 peak of 24.9 percent but still remarkably high. By comparison, in May 2003, the unemployment rate of 6.1 percent was the highest in nine years.

Recovery came only after the Department of Justice dramatically stepped up enforcement of antitrust cases nearly four-fold and organized labor suffered a string of setbacks, the economists found.

"The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes," Cole said. "Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened."

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409

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Feb 23, 2019 11:24:50   #
Nickolai
 
Tug484 wrote:
You also started a 3% income tax that was only supposed to last long enough to pay for the war. Look where we are now.
You also lent 3 million dollars to Russia and to this day they haven't paid it back.
I know because my relative was your VP
and he got to the point he didn't like you.
He refused to be your VP in your third term.
I know because I read a book on him.





At the end of the war the ND was 120 % of GDP by 1979 it was only 32 % of GDP yet Reagan campaigned whining about the debt being a stack of dollar bills from his hand to the moon. It was Reagan that started the nation living off of borrowed money by slashing taxes on the rich and running up the debt and with Trump we are back at it

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Feb 23, 2019 11:30:05   #
The Critical Critic Loc: Turtle Island
 
Nickolai wrote:
Social security, Medicare, public utilities, public libraries, national and state parks, public land development, internet service, health care centers, fire dept, police dept, public transportation, every branch of the military, roads and highways, public hospitals, public toilets, public drinking fountains, public parking , public everything are all examples of socialism


Government equals socialism — to those with no idea what socialism is...

A specter is haunting social media — the specter of witless tosh. All the powers of ignorance and bewilderment have entered into an unholy alliance to share it far and wide. It reads:

Socialist programs in the U.S.:

The Department of Agriculture, Amber Alerts, Amtrak, Public Beaches, Public Busing Services, Business Subsidies, The Census Bureau, The CIA, Federal Student Loans, The Court System, Dams, Public Defenders, Disability Insurance, The Department of Energy, The EPA, Farm Subsidies, The FBI, The FCC, The FDA, FEMA, Fire Departments, Food Stamps, Garbage Collection, Health Care, Public Housing, The IRS, Public Landfills, Public Libraries, Medicare, Medicaid, The Military, State and National Monuments, Public Museums, NASA, The National Weather Service, NPR, Public Parks, PBS, The Peace Corps, Police Departments, Prisons and Jails, Public Schools, Secret Service, Sewer Systems, Snow Removal Services, Social Security, Public Street Lighting, The Department of Transportation, USPS, Vaccines, Veteran Health Care, Welfare, The White House, The WIC Program, State Zoos.

The history of this meme is the history of rank stupidity. Tweeting it out yesterday, the documentarian and serial fabulist Michael Moore appended an approving jab of his own. “Outrageous!” Moore wrote in ersatz indignation, “my taxes are redistributed to plow someone else’s street! Socialism!”

Take that, capitalists! You’re all socialists and you don’t even know it!

To paraphrase the timeless Edmund Blackadder, this would all be extremely clever were it not for one tiny little flaw: It’s bollocks. Far from exposing America’s many liberty-conscious conservatives as a bunch of unwitting reds — or illustrating once and for all that the United States’ historical aversion to Fabianism is built, ultimately, upon quicksand — the claim serves primarily to demonstrate that there are far too many people in this country who do not know what the word “socialism” actually means. Per Merriam-Webster, “socialism” is one, or all, of the following:

1. any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property

b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

By this definition at least, the vast majority of the programs featured by the meme’s author are not “socialist” at all. Indeed, of the 55 items listed, I can count only a handful that have anything whatsoever to do with the abolition of private property, the nationalization of industry, the central planning of the economy, or “the governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution.” The vast majority are either “public goods” (i.e. “non-excludable” and “non-rivalrous” offerings such as the CIA, the FBI, the police, the military, the courts, street lights, public monuments, roads, sewers, etc.); quotidian government operations of the sort that are found in all political and economic systems (the Census Bureau); services that, in practice, can really only be provided or operated by the state (the IRS, the Secret Service, prisons, the White House); services that can feasibly be provided privately but toward which governments are inevitably tempted (NASA, the postal service, garbage collection); or welfare provisions that, while certainly redistributive in nature, are not necessarily “socialistic.”

#share#As for those items that fit the definition well — Amtrak, the Veterans Administration, the public-school system, public libraries, public transportation, state zoos, farm subsidies, PBS, NPR — well, I will leave it up to you to decide whether they help or hinder the case for government power . . .

By pretending that all government action is socialism and that we are thus haggling only over degrees, the meme’s makers hope to imply that there is a certain hypocrisy at play.

Semantic confusions to one side, the meme represents a lovely example of the lackadaisical manner in which many progressives have come to conflate limited government and anarchy. For better or for worse, there are only a small handful of Murray Rothbards and Ayn Rands among us, which is why our contemporary debate revolves not around whether the state should exist at all but around how big it should be, how it should be structured, and into which areas it should seek to intrude. By pretending that all government action is socialism and that we are thus haggling only over degrees, the meme’s makers hope to imply that there is a certain hypocrisy at play. “Given that you support roads and the sewage system,” this line of argument goes, “one has to wonder why you oppose nationalizing the health-care system, as has been done in Britain.”

This, of course, is an extraordinarily silly non sequitur, akin to proposing that because the authors of the Declaration of Independence conceded that government was necessary, they should have felt no real need to limit its power; or to asking somebody who strongly supports single-payer health care whether he wants the government to seize Apple, Google, and Ford. There is no good reason that a voter who is for private medical research should oppose the FDA, nor any solid cause for the man who wants to empower the FCC to hope also to nationalize CBS News. By sewing together ideas that deserve to be separated out, we make ourselves more stupid, less discerning, and decreasingly able to engage in a meaningful debate.

By: Charles C. W. Cooke

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