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Forums - General - Capitalism is broken

highwaystar101 on 09 November 2009
Chairman-Mao said:
Oh yeah capitalism is broken, socialism is so much better. Lets just tax the hell out of the rich and give all the money to unmotivated poor people so they can continue to live unproductive lives.

Capitalism is the only economic system that gives all people an equal opportunity to succeed. If you work hard and put in the effort you can make money. Unfortunately, most people these days are unmotivated and would rather take handouts.

I hope the US tried socialism for a few years so people can see how bad it is and then they come crawling back to capitalism.

I like your proposal at the end. I know it would never happen, but it would be very interesting to see the outcome and how people change.



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CommunistHater on 09 November 2009

REGULATION HAS FAILED

Regulation increases corruption and has brought us this recession. Regulation brought most of the bad loans that destroyed our economy.

Europeans regulated banks did not help them stop this reccession.

If u disagee u r a Communist



Repent or be destroyed

Chairman-Mao on 09 November 2009

Actually I changed my mind. Capitalism is broken. We should bring back the Soviet Union and all become communist. Then we can share the wealth, and people of all races can sing kumbaya together around a campfire and be friends.



Chairman-Mao on 09 November 2009
NKAJ said:
nice time to have this poll....right after a large reccision which left many jobless

best post so far. I bet if this took place in the 1990's/2000's when the housing industry was booming and anyone could get a mortgage the entire world would say capitalism is the best thing ever. 



Kasz216 on 09 November 2009
famousringo said:
Kasz216 said:

Yeah, i read that.

Really what I found shocking was that most people in the Ukraine now think the collapse of the USSR was a bad thing.

I guess because most of the people who didn't want to be part of the USSR were murdered way back when combined with the economic downturn.


I mean really what are we measuring here?  It's not so much what people feel about capitalism but what they feel about it right now. Ask the question 4-5 years earlier and i bet the poll practically flips.

 

I mean why is Germany at the bottom of the list?  Because it wasn't effected nearly as bad as the other nations polled.  Public opinion will swing back to normalcy with the economy.  Assuming the governments don't overregulate to the point of where it doesn't come back.

 

Well depending on the nation.  Places like Mexico and Spain will have high disatisfaction because they're countries are in general broken normally.  No offense to Spain, but it's unemployment numbers were insane before the crisis.

It seems pretty natural to me that people would start thinking more about fixing the roof or moving into a new house after the roof has collapsed rather than before. That being said, I'm not quite seeing the link between the impact of the crisis and distaste for capitalism that you claim to be seeing.

Despite Germany not being much effected, a staggering 70% or so of Germans seem to want more regulations. Meanwhile, the countries most content with pure capitalism (as if such a thing has ever existed) are amongst the most effected by the crisis. Pakistan has the shortest yellow + blue bar, despite almost being completely bankrupted by the crisis. The US comes in second, despite unemployment hitting levels not seen in fifty years.

So I'm not seeing a strong correlation between the impact of the crisis and people's opinion of capitalism. There's probably a link in terms of the change in negative opinions on capitalism, but you'd need a similar poll from a few years back to draw conclusions on that.

The US has hit hard times, but the majority of the people still hardly feel it.

Pakistan up until recently has been under the control of a dictator.

I don't think they wanna give the new guys too much regulatory power right away.

 

Don't you think this crisis was unavoiadable at some point?  It was all flow with no ebb with the economy with politians pushing harder and harder to get rid of any eb through numerous means.  That it caught back up with us one way or another is no surprise.



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Rath on 09 November 2009

What is with people seeing the economy as an either or thing?

There is a middle ground between capitalism and socialism you know.



famousringo on 09 November 2009
Kasz216 said:
 

The US has hit hard times, but the majority of the people still hardly feel it.

Pakistan up until recently has been under the control of a dictator.

I don't think they wanna give the new guys too much regulatory power right away.

 

Don't you think this crisis was unavoiadable at some point?  It was all flow with no ebb with the economy with politians pushing harder and harder to get rid of any eb through numerous means.  That it caught back up with us one way or another is no surprise.

If you're saying that the occaisional downturn is necessary in order that certain elements of the economy can restructure themselves to deal with changing needs, and that strong growth can't be perpetually maintained, I agree completely.

The point of regulation and other government involvement is to smooth out the curves. That means curtailing both the spikes and the troughs to improve the stability of the whole economy. Slow down the radical changes so that fewer people get hurt and the system itself doesn't collapse on a hard downturn. Otherwise you "ride the tail of the dragon" as the macroeconomists say.

I agree that one of the factors in this crisis was that the powers that be tried too hard for too long to stave off a recession. Interest rates were too low for too long, and if the economy had just been let down gently five years ago, things would be easier today.

Effective regulation is tricky business, and failure can have some negative repercussions, but I still feel it's essential to maintaining competition, preventing deception, and integrating externalities into the market.



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Kantor on 09 November 2009

Perhaps it is broken. In which case, what's the alternative? Communism? Where did that get us?



(Former) Lead Moderator and (Eternal) VGC Detective

highwaystar101 on 09 November 2009
Kantor said:
Perhaps it is broken. In which case, what's the alternative? Communism? Where did that get us?

How about a mixed economy?



Rath on 09 November 2009
Kantor said:
Perhaps it is broken. In which case, what's the alternative? Communism? Where did that get us?

A heavily regulated and partially nationalised economy maybe? I don't really know.