Is the US headed towards a socialist government?

[Kevin]

Hi,
Yes, I know that 'you', kandrathe, do. Part of the reason why I respect you. And thank you.

But I was addressing a larger 'you'. Those that think 'freedom' is the right to believe as they do. To act like they do. Those that do not, cannot, see why the symbols of their belief on my money, on my patriotism, on my justice, on my place of gathering is distressing to me.

--Pete

I'm with you on that one. Nothing to add, but people miss this point so often that I had to stick my nose in and post me too just like a braindead AoLer (Thanks Weird Al). It has nothing to do with how I feel about religion. I'm not even fully consistent in my views (well I think I am but most others don't). I'm actually fine with Christmas plays in public schools. I'm also fine with with stuff for Jewish holidays, Muslim holidays, pagan holidays, etc. But I'm not for God in the pledge of allegiance or on my currency or in my court rooms. I'm not against the moral codes of most religions either (though that is a trickier subject). Fair voluntary representation I'm good with is what it boils down too. But as mentioned so many people don't even see how we are swimming in religion, sponsored by the state.

Ah well I'll butt back out now. I don't have the energy to bother to keep my thoughts coherent enough to contribute and most of what I would say has been said (like with this post) but as mentioned this is just one of those things I had to chime in on.

[kandrathe]

That's not the concern - the concern is my peers discriminating against me for my beliefs. Subjecting me to their morality. Refusing me medical treatment, based on their personal belief system. You know. That sort of thing.

Are you saying that government should not protect me against that?

There is limited protection in some things, like hiring. But, the government should not be in the business of protecting you from having your feelings hurt by your peers. Civil Rights laws do protect against some classes of discrimination (race, gender, color, national origin, religion, age, disability), but probably not the kind you are experiencing.

[kandrathe]

I'm with you on that one. Nothing to add, but people miss this point so often that I had to stick my nose in and post me too just like a braindead AoLer (Thanks Weird Al). It has nothing to do with how I feel about religion. I'm not even fully consistent in my views (well I think I am but most others don't). I'm actually fine with Christmas plays in public schools. I'm also fine with with stuff for Jewish holidays, Muslim holidays, pagan holidays, etc. But I'm not for God in the pledge of allegiance or on my currency or in my court rooms. I'm not against the moral codes of most religions either (though that is a trickier subject). Fair voluntary representation I'm good with is what it boils down too. But as mentioned so many people don't even see how we are swimming in religion, sponsored by the state.

Ah well I'll butt back out now. I don't have the energy to bother to keep my thoughts coherent enough to contribute and most of what I would say has been said (like with this post) but as mentioned this is just one of those things I had to chime in on.

As a Swede, I'm still pretty happy about the days of the week, although I think we should bring back Lördag (bath day), instead of Saturday. Who is this Saturn anyway? A day for the Sun, the Moon, one for Tyr, one for Woten, one for Thor, one for Freya and bath day!

[--Pete]

Hi,

As a Swede, I'm still pretty happy about the days of the week, although I think we should bring back Lördag (bath day), instead of Saturday. Who is this Saturn anyway? A day for the Sun, the Moon, one for Tyr, one for Woten, one for Thor, one for Freya and bath day!

Isn't it wonderful how the Jewish week, imported into Christianity, honors the Norse gods?:) Reinforces my belief that Catholicism is just a collection of pagan rituals translated into Latin :w00t:

--Pete

[Kevin]

As a Swede, I'm still pretty happy about the days of the week, although I think we should bring back Lördag (bath day), instead of Saturday. Who is this Saturn anyway? A day for the Sun, the Moon, one for Tyr, one for Woten, one for Thor, one for Freya and bath day!

I should ramp up my petition to have Monday changed to Myday and have it be a perpetual holiday. This of course would not change how Saturday and Sunday are viewed and it would not change income levels. It would just reduce everything to a 4 day work week. I mean you can't work on Myday. That's My day! See it works for everyone.:)

Oh don't point out what happened to the Roman society when they made about half the year holidays and no work got done. Just give me Myday. :)

[kandrathe]

Isn't it wonderful how the Jewish week, imported into Christianity, honors the Norse gods?:) Reinforces my belief that Catholicism is just a collection of pagan rituals translated into Latin :w00t:

Let me roll the bones, to see what that portends...

[Taem]

I love this guy:

The senior official said this new government regulator will "be able to look through any structure, any complexity to the actual substance of what any major financial organization is doing that could impose a systemic risk on our country."

This after asking for the power to assert new rules and regulations he sees fit over large corporations. I don't think this is exclusive to just the ones the US government has loaned money, but all corporations based in the US. I like how he makes it sound that the new system will only:

"It is what you do and the risk you could impose, not the structure or the complexity of your organization or your efforts to compete or choose a different regulator," the official said. "After what the country has seen with AIG (American International Group) I think a far larger amount of Americans understand the danger of allowing enormous amount of credit default swaps and derivatives to be placed without oversight or regulation."

But honestly, will it only be used to monitor credit, and why should the government be involved in the Stock Market to such an extent anyways, and with corporations they haven't loaned money? Really, need I say more? That is some potential long-reaching power to make up laws and rules he feels will help the US. Here's the entire article if your interested.

[kandrathe]

I don't have a problem with the government regulating a thing, like a "Credit Default Swap". What has me more worried is the rumbling in DC related to corporate salary structures. It would be appalling government to go into a corporation and tell it that its pay structure is wrong, even though we may not like it, it should not be some bureaucrats role to tell corporations how to be structured. That's the board of directors and the stockholders job. And, also chilling is the bureaucrats pushing punitive legislation targeted at taxing certain people at over 90%. Is that not obviously unconstitutional use of targeted taxation? It's a good thing Congress doesn't wield a cadre of brown shirts to go beat up those AIG executives and fire bomb their houses.

[Swiss Mercenary]

I don't have a problem with the government regulating a thing, like a "Credit Default Swap". What has me more worried is the rumbling in DC related to corporate salary structures. It would be appalling government to go into a corporation and tell it that its pay structure is wrong, even though we may not like it, it should not be some bureaucrats role to tell corporations how to be structured. That's the board of directors and the stockholders job. And, also chilling is the bureaucrats pushing punitive legislation targeted at taxing certain people at over 90%. Is that not obviously unconstitutional use of targeted taxation? It's a good thing Congress doesn't wield a cadre of brown shirts to go beat up those AIG executives and fire bomb their houses.

Until the government has a stake in my company, they won't be dictating my pay structure.

However, once I start being reliant on life support from it... That's a different story.

But honestly, will it only be used to monitor credit, and why should the government be involved in the Stock Market to such an extent anyways, and with corporations they haven't loaned money?

Because what AIG has done, was play with other people's money, without sufficient assets of their own to back their gambles up. There's nothing wrong with leverage... But there's plenty wrong with the kind of leverage that's been happening for the past... 10 years? There's nothing wrong with risktaking... There is something wrong with risktaking when you've got no skin in the game.

Civil Rights laws do protect against some classes of discrimination (race, gender, color, national origin, religion, age, disability), but probably not the kind you are experiencing.

And exactly what kind of discriminations are Christians experiencing? Because we've just had five pages of back-and-forth about what seems to amount to people getting their feelings hurt when told to do their jobs.

[eppie]

I don't have a problem with the government regulating a thing, like a "Credit Default Swap". What has me more worried is the rumbling in DC related to corporate salary structures. It would be appalling government to go into a corporation and tell it that its pay structure is wrong, even though we may not like it, it should not be some bureaucrats role to tell corporations how to be structured. That's the board of directors and the stockholders job. And, also chilling is the bureaucrats pushing punitive legislation targeted at taxing certain people at over 90%. Is that not obviously unconstitutional use of targeted taxation? It's a good thing Congress doesn't wield a cadre of brown shirts to go beat up those AIG executives and fire bomb their houses.

I think you are underestimating the power of these big financials.
You are scared of anything a government might do but when a bank does things with great consequences you dismiss it as 'their own business because we live in a free country'.
When a bank is so big that it bankruptcy would mean a huge crash of the economy, in other words, it opperates without risks and can, as you say it, decide its own salary structure....even when they get their money directly from the people of the US, we have a company that is just as powerful as a federal state. It is probably even fair to say that eg AIG is more powerful than many of this worlds countries (meaning that if eg AIG would completely crash the effect on the world would probably bigger than when eg moldavia would dissapear from the face of the earth.

I think federal goverments should be able to influence at least the salary structure of these companies....especially after a bail out. Higher pay and bonusses of these managers that we are talking about has no proven possitive effect on the business of a company (exept for the psychological effect of rising stock prices because shareholders think that a comnpany that pays a lot for their managers is apparantly a serious company).

[kandrathe]

I just don't like the sound of Congressmen saying things like, "We need to do something about these corporations that are too big to fail".

Like what? Make them smaller? That way, only other nations will have the big corporations. Yeah, that will show them! Well, just trade "too big to fail" for "too small to succeed".

[Jester]

I just don't like the sound of Congressmen saying things like, "We need to do something about these corporations that are too big to fail".

Like what? Make them smaller? That way, only other nations will have the big corporations. Yeah, that will show them! Well, just trade "too big to fail" for "too small to succeed".

The thesis being that market power is an essential part of their business model? Or that the optimal cost-efficient size for a financial corporation is such that its collapse would bring down large chunks of the real economy with it?

If the first is true, I'm not sure it's in society's interest to have them that large anyway. Market power in the hands of corporations is basically monopolistic. If the second is true, then countries have to weigh the benefits against the risks, and I'm not sure that calculation is particularly obvious. Did allowing financial corporations to grow to the size they did really help out the US, given the enormous impact their collapse has had?

I'm fairly certain there's plenty of room for competitive businesses in between "too big to fail" and "too small to succeed".

-Jester

[Occhidiangela]

To answer the OP:

The government is buying an interest in capital intensive industuries. Smells like fascism, not socialism.

So why is that conceptual model being overlooked? Business and government fused used to be called fascism.

Anyone care to comment on that?

Occhi

[--Pete]

Hi,

The government is buying an interest in capital intensive industuries. Smells like fascism, not socialism.

A cesspool by any other name?

There may be a shade of distinction, though, depending on whether it is the government buying the institutions or the institutions selling themselves to the government.

Not even sure of how it pertains, but the old saw, "if you owe the bank a hundred thousand, the bank owns you. If you owe them a hundred million, you own the bank.", comes to mind. Adjusted, of course, for inflation and government numerology.;)

--Pete

[Jester]

To answer the OP:

The government is buying an interest in capital intensive industuries. Smells like fascism, not socialism.

So why is that conceptual model being overlooked? Business and government fused used to be called fascism.

Anyone care to comment on that?

Probably because Obama is seen as being 'from the left'. If Bush was doing the same, I'm sure we'd hear a lot less about Lenin and a lot more about Mussolini.*

I think this is less socialism or fascism than a phenomenon not particularly associated with either, a kind of ad-hoc managerialism created by the perceived (and probably real) need for government intervention, but no particular ideological desire for it. Nobody is really for government ownership qua government ownership, it's just that people have different opinions about what's necessary to keep the economy from imploding (further).

-Jester

*(Well, okay, probably not Mussolini, but Godwin's Law. :rolleyes:)

[eppie]

I just don't like the sound of Congressmen saying things like, "We need to do something about these corporations that are too big to fail".

Like what? Make them smaller? That way, only other nations will have the big corporations. Yeah, that will show them! Well, just trade "too big to fail" for "too small to succeed".

Well to do actively about it, I am not sure. I was just trying to explain that there is not muchg difference between a government and a company that is so large that it drops the world in an economic crisis when it fails.


Another thing; in Holland we had 10 years ago this incredible urge to privatize all state owned companies (health insurance, water, mail, telephone, electra etc) because that would be so great for competition etc. etc. Now 10 years later it has become clear that there all those companies have been buying eachother and we end up with more or less the same situation as before....only we have more commercials on TV now.


Where many leftish people are affraid of 'big bad industry' and people like you affraid of 'big bad government'......I think finally everybody is just affraid of to powerful entities....being a government or industry.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Where many leftish people are affraid of 'big bad industry' and people like you affraid of 'big bad government'......I think finally everybody is just affraid of to powerful entities....being a government or industry.

Yes, I think you're right. I think the solution lies with private industries that are well regulated by the government. Sort of a free market with rules, where there is a clear separation between the players and the rule makers. The tricky parts are getting the rules right and keeping the government and commerce separated. I think the past eight years in the USA were an object lesson of what happens when the players and referees are the same people. There wasn't even an attempt to get the rules right or to enforce the rules there were -- and the present economy is largely due to that.

Of course, under a free market, no matter how well regulated, there will always be some who cannot afford the basics of life. If we assume that it then becomes society's responsibility to provide for these (and that is yet another issue and debate) then there are two basic ways of doing so. Either the free market is forced to do so as part of their charter, or the government can supply those services. Both solutions have their drawbacks. A particularly pernicious drawback of having the government provide those services for the indigent is that soon the government is expected to provide that service for all, which of course is socialism. If the government could provide the services well and at a reasonable cost, there would be no objection to socialism other than idealogical. However since competent and efficient governmental agencies are as common as unicorns, socialism usually works much better in principle than in practice.

As always, there are mostly simple, easy to understand, wrong answers. It's the right ones that are scarce.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

To answer the OP:

The government is buying an interest in capital intensive industuries. Smells like fascism, not socialism.

So why is that conceptual model being overlooked? Business and government fused used to be called fascism.

Anyone care to comment on that?

Occhi

I view fascism as a type of socialism... National Socialism to be exact. You'd need a charismatic leader, the government taking over major industries, encroachment on individual rights...

Hey!

[eppie]

Meat, this clip answers all your questions.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jh...ckholm-syndrome


So I hope they spare you our faith.
:D

[FireIceTalon]

Socialist? No, not at all (unless you mean socialism for the rich, capitalism for everyone else). More like fascist.