For some reason, many millennials (and even some older adults, like the actor Jim Carrey and politician Bernie Sanders) believe that capitalism is the cause of all of America’s woes, and that socialism is the solution.
Those who advocate for socialism fail to accept Venezuela as a cautionary tale, claiming that “other” problems caused the collapse of that country. Funny, because even Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has admitted that his socialist economic model has “failed” amid food and medicine shortages and failing infrastructure. The inflation rate in Venezuela is forecast to reach 1,000,000% by the end of 2018, and the country’s GDP is set to plummet 18%.
Proponents of socialism often claim that Nordic countries like Sweden are examples of socialism “working”, but what they do not understand is that those nations actually are “capitalist societies with a welfare state,” as Daniel Lacalle explains in Face It, Nordic Countries Aren’t Socialist. In Nordic countries, Lacalle writes, “Private property is guaranteed by law and citizens’ savings are fully private and free of government control. All Nordic countries have been lowering the tax wedge and — until the recent US tax cuts — had lower corporate tax rates than the US.”
In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance’s Julia La Roche, Ken Langone – the billionaire investor, businessman, and philanthropist co-founder of Home Depot – cited the market crash that followed the demise of Lehman Brothers as the reason many millennials have a negative view of capitalism.
To the millennials who favor socialism, Langone has a message:
“I’ll put you in my plane and I’ll fly you down to Venezuela, and let’s see how good socialism is doing down there.”
Lagone, whose new book, I Love Capitalism! was published in May, explained that the criticisms many millennials have of capitalist systems were likely borne out of growing up through the Great Recession. One of the most visible effects in the wake of the recession has been the increasing burden of student loan debt, which has caused some young people to delay life milestones.
“But that wasn’t capitalism,” Langone said of the market crash and recession. “That was a system that’s gone amok.”
If socialism is taxpayer funded for the less fortunate [the poor], then how come the Great Recession bailout of the so-called capitalists institutions had to be taxpayer supported and funded? Is that not socialism for the rich?
no, thats called crony capitalism. Look it up.
“Socialism for the rich”. Is that even a logical phrase?
Actually, here… Because no one seems to even know what socialism is (and no, its not “helping the poor” LOL):
Crony capitalism is an economy in which businesses thrive not as a result of risk, but rather as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business class and the political class.
Socialism any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2a : 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
Capital, as we know it, comes from a 5th plank lending monopoly, and trickles down through cronies of whichever administration.
http://jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20Government/Communism/10_planks.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEPman
No it’s called end stage capitalism because this is where capitalism always ends up. Capitalism gives all the power to capital and none to workers and eventually none even to voters! Capitalism always becomes crony capitalism. It’s in its genes. Capital uses its power to accumulate more capital and more power. Eventually holders of vast amounts of capital control the government and use the government to continue to increase their vast holdings of capital. This is capitalism
Yeah, capitalism sucks sometimes and it isn’t perfect…but it works a heluva lot better than all the other schemes that have been tried over the centuries.
The USA has been moving toward a more collectivized society for a long time and, curiously, the problems we have always get worse and new problems constantly arise. But, we’re told, socialism will fix all of these problems. Yeah. Sure. Any day now.
Republicans aren’t blameless. by any means, but their contribution to the decline of American civilization pales in comparison to the damage wrought by the socialist Democrats.
p said, “Capitalism gives all the power to capital…”
Yes, were does it come from.
(typo.)
(No edit function allowed for minor errors.)
Suffice it to say that big business took progress backwards, to slavery, neo feudalism, and cottage industries.
Malthus is knocking at the door.
At our local Home Depot, the fake manager job is filled by a Latina womyn, who likes to play top 40 pop music over the musak intercom.
This is where Mexican contractors go, to buy cheap mystery metal screws and hollow, plastic, architectural elements.
Whatever this company once was, it is now under the all-too-familiar business model of laundering subsidies.
You don’t hire from family-friendly demographics, at family friendly wages, so, afaic, drive social decay and illegitimacy.
Quality is typically sub-mediocre, unless you hunt down a specialist, away from fake, chain franchises. Fake. An eyesore, full of fake, plastic garbage. The open field, which existed before your salesfloor, had more socially-redeeming value.
Last time I was in Home Depot I saw a female employee with purple hair.
She was standing there holding the wall up. In other words, time stealing.
Meanwhile, they won’t hire people that actually want to work.
I avoid that place as much as possible.
Selling piles of cheap junk. That’s one way to get rich.
Most retail items sold in this country are garbage.
That said, I have family that worked for HD, they are very very good at treating their employees well. The hire from all demographics, and pay above average wages considering the level of experience.
I assume you were beaten up by a latino roofer wearing orange at some point in your life…?
N said, “Most retail items sold in this country are garbage.”
Stage props, used to launder corporate welfare. For the sake of discussion, forget that it’s a store and there is hardware there, for a moment. Think of it, in terms of a generic, corporate shell or financial conveyance. The boxes may just as well be empty, for reporting purposes.
Company website → corporate → Investor relations
Or, sit in business meetings. Do you think sales covers the cost of overhead? Why, namely? Resale margins are not much.
N said, “They hire from all demographics…”
Protected classes, or you don’t go to full time.
A local, generational Satanist has reported, test dirty on purpose, during evals, ask for “help,” get on the rehab quota.
This,until the color of the town changes.
N said, “That said, I have family that worked for HD, they are very very good at treating their employees well.”
Military service, on the dole, ex con.. What color are they, or what box did they check, on the job app, saying they are a protected class.
N said they “…pay above average wages considering the level of experience.”
If you will be using a warm, human body, in one of your positions, objectivity demands life support. I believe we’ve been over all of this, already. Every last item.
N said, “I assume you were beaten up by a latino roofer wearing orange at some point in your life…?”
Not successfully. The prevailing wisdom, of finding the largest guy in the prison yard (or wherever) and making a name for yourself, is not a good strategy.
Generally, the more-experienced savages and street people have a 6th sense about who is the quiet one, that will go down swinging and biting, even when the match is very unfair.
This used to be orchards, farms, and ranches, in recent years. I absolutely blame pinkos for ghetto-izing this place, in a single generation. Would you like me to deny that. Sorry, not sorry.
I dislike buying things anymore. Quality isn’t there and I don’t buy bottom end. Maytag dishwasher (4 years), clothes washer (5.5). Samsung fridge, ice tastes like plastic, unusable. Everything is shit today including the establishments who sell it.
K2,
I live in the poorest county in Hawaii state.
There is always a way to get a good deal
legal, I don’t do illegal.
I generally don’t buy anything new. That which I buy new
I generally repair till I can no longer get the parts.
My repair list is many pages long, and my shop full
of broken things, but I have tools and lots of “stuff”.
Recycle should be my middle name.
If I can do that out in the middle of the Pacific
with all the shipping hassles you mainland guys should
be twice as good at it.
rellik
New at one time meant it would work for at the least a decade. We had an old refrigerator bought new by my grandparents in 1947. It ran virtually continuous never needing a repair until 2000 when it was given to the local fire department as a beer fridge. It’s still working as far as I know. First home had a Maytag washer/dryer new in 1965. They ran at least until 1991.
The parts weren’t worth the repair. The dishwasher mother board controls failed, $200 part, main bearing in clothes washer; simply not worth it. New Samsung fridge, ice tastes like plastic. Gave up dealing with them so I buy ice. Bottom line, stuff made today is shit.
Like to hire you.
Oh…it was given to the fire house in 2000 not needing a repair in 2000. To the best of my knowledge its never been repaired.
I hope that beer fridge doesn’t have a negative effect on the fire departments response time.
Same here,My make do with what you have, Reuse Repurpose Recycle.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Short sweet and true.
Student debt is the result of interest on these loans. Usuary is a sin against God and man. It must be ended entirely. Banks should be allowed to make a one time fee for any loan, period.
As for student debt. When the principle is paid, the debt is gone.
I like this man’s name Lagone. I’ll call him Long-gone.
As for Nordic Socialism, economically it is similiar to National Socialism.
_
BFC,
It took me 17 years to get my first diploma( high school).
It took me 17 years to get my second diploma( BS STEM degree).
I went to extraordinarily expensive private schools.
All along I had a family, worked full time, and prospered.
I graduated with no student debt.
It can be done.
Mormon missionary acquaintances (I don’t believe that way) were lynched in those countries, by Islamists. What planet is this Boomer pinko living on?
Brute labor, as by the sweat of your brow, is not a “real” job. They complain about the welfare cheese socialism, which feeds their labor. Not about the champagne socialism.
I don’t personally differentiate, between Lagone and wetbacks, who gather outside of the Home Depot, and in the distant parts of their store, and in their restrooms, and getting fast tracked for employment, in your business, until the entire town looks different.
If you’re going to game the system, at least, don’t be all virtue-signally about it. Lol’ing in real life.
Socialism sucks for sure, but our current system sucks as well. We currently have Popeye’s “Wimpy” system. Hamburger today, pay you later.. The young today see the terrible expense of school and the system pushes kids into college with tactics, word definition play, and peer pressure. Real capitalism has died slowly and people think they will like socialism better. I wish I knew what the answer was, but I kinda think we are all fucked eventually regardless. I think any president could make all of us feel better if we just borrowed over one trillion per year. Let’s see how things go when we can no longer increase the national debt (assuming that there is an end to the borrowing/printing) Who the hell knows.
Ken, just make sure you leave them there when you head back to the states.
Socialism only works in previously non socialist, usually capitalist, systems.
And even then it only works until it consumes the wealth left over from those previous non socialist systems and nothing is left.
Venezuela is a very good example of this, but it’s eventually the same with all the others who sometimes last longer because they had more left over capitalist wealth to consume to start with.
They really should understand socialism before they die trying to implement it.
Offered for consideration, only. Not an endorsement —
http://vamosjuntos.org/home-depot-day-laborers/
This is a long running joke, in *every small down, where they have shoe horned a mini mall.
This newish district (10-20yrs) is now slummy, here. Cardboard boaxes and sleeping bags, all around the busstops shelters and landscaped parts.
You need live, human bodies to do different jobs. You won’t cover the cost of life support. This works like a math problem. Who covers the remainder.
Alot of Dust Bowl like hobos, wherever the freight trains brake.
You want to round up these same people, make them an offer of prison with forced labor or a halfway house with forced labor.
You can’t even work in any of the nationalized chain franchises, unless you come from a protected class or you tell hr that you’re on a govt program. Slavers, imo.
In antebellum times, they rationalized it as a charity. That’s what chain franchises do, now.
Some of the shifts in your stores look like low security asylums (and for good reason), and the fake placeholder employees are trying to act formal and bossy with thinking, hygienic, paying customers.
Good for this guy. Anyone remember when all the leftie snowflakes were crying over Castro’s death? Kids have always been stupid but these kids today are a very special kind of stupid. One of the greatest feelings I’ve ever had was right after I beat the living hell out of three early 20-something punks. “Please don’t kill us” was all they could think of to say. Damn, that was a good day!
Hyper predatory capitalism has ruined America because no amount of profit is enough even if two thirds of the nations people struggle financially. How is this a surviving future? It’s not, not by a long shot. Third world America rapidly developing. Unions no longer represent workers. The press ignores the problems revealing their masters. The game is to leave most people destitute in their native homeland. The future is bleak indeed and none of the solutions from above solve anything.
aljamo
They’re self destructive and eat their young.
This is one lucky guy. Started out digging ditches and just rose to the top to be a philanthropic billionaire.
Kids have always been a special kind of stupid, but the ones who got over it had a couple of parents around to smack them (figuratively; I’m not advocating child abuse) out of it. Even though I talked some pretty good smack in my yout’, I’m grateful for my Depression-baby parents and their parents that provided me with guidance, even though it took me a while to grow up. Today’s kids have Boomer parents and grandparents who appear to be so entranced by the fact that their offspring can work a smartphone that they’re not steering them in any good direction. I was a corporate trainer for years and got to see the “best and brightest “ right out of college. Good common sense was in short supply.
People fail to grasp their terms and thus they do not understand what socialism or communism is.
The Nordic Model is Social Democratic. Not socialism. So, what is the difference?
Socialism is collective control of EVERYTHING with all decisions taken COLLECTIVELY. Communism is an authoritarian political party, the Communist Party, that rules over a system where there is no such thing as private anything. Communism and Socialism have been enacted in various forms in countries since 1917. Soviet Communism has had many outstanding achievements, including beating the US to many milestones in science and technology. China today is doing the same thing. Socialism, where it has been implemented, Cuba for example, has not been as dynamic because it is the diffussion of power, rather than centralizing of power as happens under Communism.
Social Democracy is another thing. Social Democracies identify through democratic means what are societies priorities and what would boost the well-being and wealth of the individual. They actually place a great deal of importance on individual rights and autonomy, including for private property, wealth accumulation, privacy etc. They allow many different economic models to exist: there is capitalism, there is the cooperative movement, etc. This was badly disrupted in 2014/2015 by the flooding in of millions of Muslims into those countries. The notion in social democracy that you have an obligation to give back as much as take from society was broken, as Muslims and Africans did all the taking, while complaining that they had no duty to give back, ’cause “whitey”.
Fascism is the collusion between corporations and the state against everything else. Fascism uses that power to achieve its common goals. There is private property and wealth accumulation but also social goals, ie: having more white babies, full employment, free school meals etc.
America is a hybrid between Fascism (the rule of corporations) and Financialization (the rule of private finance). These two forces work to form an Oligarchy headed by an appointed gangster corporate goon (the President). They call it “Capitalism” but real capitalism takes a back seat to keeping the existing wealthy and corporations flourishing.
the whole problem with this conversation is that people nitpick over definitions. No one wants what Venezuela has, and most people want what the Nordic countries have. Oh, but they aren’t socialist! So what? You’re hung up on some nitpicking definition instead of listening to what the young voters are saying. They are sick of our sick system, they want change, they see what some countries in Europe are doing and they want that. Argue all you want about some technical definition, but you’re missing the point.
Agree most young people want what the Nordic countries have. But for this to work they will have to embrace the President’s border control plans and his drive to increase Made-in-America. These in fact are the same policies that built up the Nordic countries to have the highest quality of life in the world.
It is not possible to have these social democratic policies and have open borders and low IQ low-lifes entering the country in the millions. Social democracy only works with reciprocity: you receive great support from society but you have to give back, either through taxes or through your work. No taking of welfare and doing nothing.
There will also have to be some sort of scientific plan to imrpove the gene quality of the population in order to raise IQs and physical health and quality.
There is something to be said for the that Fred Flinstone job, where you take the oldschool lunchbox to the sound of the steam whistle, probably, out of junior highschool.
Once companies like yours ruined everything, all of the not intentionally under employed people became basket weavers, potters, soapmakers. Expecting to be poor, they wanted to have ‘experiences’, atmosphere, provenance, so have been using foods, woods, and fabrication techniques, not at the Red Chinese boxstores.
You are not sustainable, materially speaking, not liked, and not needed in a freemarket economy. gfy
I actually had a socialist democrat here in Colorado tell me on a Denver7 facebook post the other day that socialism isnt what went wrong in venezuela, it was putting all their eggs in the one basket of oil…..LMAO He also told me that libertarians don’t understand economics…LoL