Far-left, Anti-Austerity Party Triumphs in Greek Election.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

The issue is not the wisdom of running a business on a margin, the issue is the fundamental economic fault of Socialism that destroys entire economies.

Except that it's not socialism by any accepted definition. No modern western democracy is socialist, in terms of the state owning and controlling the means of production.

Your beef really involves certain actions of government, possibly involving excessive taxation and/or excessive spending on social programs, or possibly excessive, clumsy government regulation of private enterprise. In some cases I may even agree with your particular criticism. But don't pretend it is socialism you are attacking, unless you like swiping at non-existent phantoms...

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

The issue is not the wisdom of running a business on a margin, the issue is the fundamental economic fault of Socialism that destroys entire economies.

Except that it's not socialism by any accepted definition. No modern western democracy is socialist, in terms of the state owning and controlling the means of production.

Strawman evasion.

Your beef really involves certain actions of government, possibly involving excessive taxation and/or excessive spending on social programs, or possibly excessive, clumsy government regulation of private enterprise. In some cases I may even agree with your particular criticism.

Yup, socialism. Or you can call it collectivism if you like. A distinction without a difference.

[pErvinalia]

How's that any different from the rich spending it?!?

It's how and upon what the rich spend it that's important. The dependent class don't have the aggregated capital to invest in large-scale projects that create jobs and products, they spend it on day-to-day items, which while the OPM exists continues the circulation of the money in the economy, but only to the extent of supporting the industries and business that provide the kinds of essentials that the dependent class can afford to buy with their "found money."

It doesn't matter what industries it supports, the money spent there is value adding to the economy, and the profit is still available as capital.

If I have ten million dollars I can build a factory or a hospital and use it to generate wealth.

Not if there is no demand (due to an impoverished majority). THIS is the point you just don't seem to get.

Fuck off, troll. As Hermit said, you're a broken record, and as I said, you haven't had an original thought in a decade.

Sure I have, I just don't produce them here for you to peruse...

You are validating our dismissal of you. Thanks for agreeing with us.

[pErvinalia]

Seth wrote:

The issue is not the wisdom of running a business on a margin, the issue is the fundamental economic fault of Socialism that destroys entire economies.

Except that it's not socialism by any accepted definition. No modern western democracy is socialist, in terms of the state owning and controlling the means of production.

Strawman evasion.

I'm sorry, but Chief Strawmanner doesn't get to tell other people they are strawmanning. Particularly when you roll out the idiotic "socialist" canard for the 4 millionth time. No one here supports socialism. You have no idea what socialism actually is. Hence JimC's comment is right on the money.

Your beef really involves certain actions of government, possibly involving excessive taxation and/or excessive spending on social programs, or possibly excessive, clumsy government regulation of private enterprise. In some cases I may even agree with your particular criticism.

Yup, socialism.

Nope. Welfare capitalism.

Or you can call it collectivism if you like. A distinction without a difference.

Except it's neither of those.

[rainbow]

Yup, socialism. Or you can call it collectivism if you like. A distinction without a difference.

I expect you do know that a tomato is a fruit.

Would you put tomatoes in a fruit salad?

[Seth]

How's that any different from the rich spending it?!?

It's how and upon what the rich spend it that's important. The dependent class don't have the aggregated capital to invest in large-scale projects that create jobs and products, they spend it on day-to-day items, which while the OPM exists continues the circulation of the money in the economy, but only to the extent of supporting the industries and business that provide the kinds of essentials that the dependent class can afford to buy with their "found money."

It doesn't matter what industries it supports, the money spent there is value adding to the economy, and the profit is still available as capital.

Er, the point is that socialism drives the value of money down until there is no profit left.

If I have ten million dollars I can build a factory or a hospital and use it to generate wealth.

Not if there is no demand (due to an impoverished majority). THIS is the point you just don't seem to get.

Even if there is demand, without the free capital to build it, it doesn't get built. But you're quite right, under socialism the majority quickly becomes impoverished because it is dependent on the government for it's survival, and no government can tax the markets enough to keep an increasingly large dependent class provided for without destroying the markets in the process.

Fuck off, troll. As Hermit said, you're a broken record, and as I said, you haven't had an original thought in a decade.

Sure I have, I just don't produce them here for you to peruse...

You are validating our dismissal of you. Thanks for agreeing with us.[/quote]

Who cares what an idiot like you thinks anyway? I don't post here for your benefit, I know you're to intellectually challenged to understand anything I have to say, much less respond with a rational reply, which is why you're more of a broken record than you accuse me of being. You claim I haven't had an original thought in a decade? Well, you haven't had an original thought since you were a zygote in your mommy's womb.

So there! Pffffft. I fart in your general direction.

[Seth]

Yup, socialism. Or you can call it collectivism if you like. A distinction without a difference.

I expect you do know that a tomato is a fruit.

Would you put tomatoes in a fruit salad?

Depends on one's individual tastes. A nice tart-sweet cherry tomato might make an interesting contrast.

Anyway, you demonstrate my point most excellently. A tomato is a fruit even if it doesn't appear to be at first blush just as Socialism is Marxism, even though it doesn't appear to be so at first blush. To someone with no taste, it's impossible for them to distinguish between a ripe tomato and a rotten tomato just as a dependent class Marxist useful idiot is unable to detect the rot of Marxism in Socialism

[pErvinalia]

How's that any different from the rich spending it?!?

It's how and upon what the rich spend it that's important. The dependent class don't have the aggregated capital to invest in large-scale projects that create jobs and products, they spend it on day-to-day items, which while the OPM exists continues the circulation of the money in the economy, but only to the extent of supporting the industries and business that provide the kinds of essentials that the dependent class can afford to buy with their "found money."

It doesn't matter what industries it supports, the money spent there is value adding to the economy, and the profit is still available as capital.

Er, the point is that socialism drives the value of money down until there is no profit left.

If I have ten million dollars I can build a factory or a hospital and use it to generate wealth.

Not if there is no demand (due to an impoverished majority). THIS is the point you just don't seem to get.

Even if there is demand, without the free capital to build it, it doesn't get built. But you're quite right, under socialism the majority quickly becomes impoverished because it is dependent on the government for it's survival, and no government can tax the markets enough to keep an increasingly large dependent class provided for without destroying the markets in the process.

Fuck off, troll. As Hermit said, you're a broken record, and as I said, you haven't had an original thought in a decade.

Sure I have, I just don't produce them here for you to peruse...

You are validating our dismissal of you. Thanks for agreeing with us.

Who cares what an idiot like you thinks anyway? I don't post here for your benefit, I know you're to intellectually challenged to understand anything I have to say, much less respond with a rational reply, which is why you're more of a broken record than you accuse me of being. You claim I haven't had an original thought in a decade? Well, you haven't had an original thought since you were a zygote in your mommy's womb.

So there! Pffffft. I fart in your general direction.

Troll.

You missed the pertinent points in my post. ONCE AGAIN, no one is talking about socialism. Taxing people is not "driving the value of money down". That's just more "zero sum game" bollocks. And you still haven't got the point about supply vs demand. Without demand, supply is pointless and a waste. That's what's happening with your economy. The majority of people have become impoverished via being stripped of wealth by the 1% etc. When you have no customers, no amount of investment is going to create profit. This is such a basic point, even you should be able to get it.

[pErvinalia]

Yup, socialism. Or you can call it collectivism if you like. A distinction without a difference.

I expect you do know that a tomato is a fruit.

Would you put tomatoes in a fruit salad?

Depends on one's individual tastes. A nice tart-sweet cherry tomato might make an interesting contrast.

Anyway, you demonstrate my point most excellently. A tomato is a fruit even if it doesn't appear to be at first blush just as Socialism is Marxism, even though it doesn't appear to be so at first blush. To someone with no taste, it's impossible for them to distinguish between a ripe tomato and a rotten tomato just as a dependent class Marxist useful idiot is unable to detect the rot of Marxism in Socialism

To someone with no brain it's apparently become impossible to distinguish between an economic conservative and a Marxist dupe.

[Seth]

Troll.

Trollbait.

You missed the pertinent points in my post. ONCE AGAIN, no one is talking about socialism. Taxing people is not "driving the value of money down". That's just more "zero sum game" bollocks. And you still haven't got the point about supply vs demand. Without demand, supply is pointless and a waste. That's what's happening with your economy. The majority of people have become impoverished via being stripped of wealth by the 1% etc. When you have no customers, no amount of investment is going to create profit. This is such a basic point, even you should be able to get it.

Now who's playing the zero-sum game?

I thought we agreed that wealth is not in finite supply. And your notion assumes that the 1% take their wealth and stuff it into their mattresses, thereby making it unavailable to the markets. That's simply not the case.

[pErvinalia]

Just because wealth isn't a zero sum game, doesn't mean that wealth can't be stripped off the majority and directed towards the rich minority. And that's the exact thing that has happened in the US with median wages and wealth declining in real terms for the last 30 odd years. And we've been through what the wealthy do with their money. Don't make me smash my computer up out of frustration that you still can't fucking read after all these years.

[Seth]

Just because wealth isn't a zero sum game, doesn't mean that wealth can't be stripped off the majority and directed towards the rich minority. And that's the exact thing that has happened in the US with median wages and wealth declining in real terms for the last 30 odd years. And we've been through what the wealthy do with their money. Don't make me smash my computer up out of frustration that you still can't fucking read after all these years.

Nonsense. The wealthy spend and invest their money in things that support business and workers and create new products and jobs. They don't "take" anything from anybody that the individual involved does not willingly give to them in exchange for a product or service they want. Should the "majority" be forbidden from buying what they want on the theory that allowing them to do so makes somebody else wealthy and that should not be allowed for reasons of Marxist "share the pain" egalitarianism?

Only government takes from people involuntarily and without their consent and gives them precious little back in return.

Now please, please, pretty please with sugar on it, smash that computer to flinders and fuck off somewhere else...India for example.

See you when you get back!

[piscator]

Yep. It's not very entrepreneurial to get into a cutthroat business where your future is in the hands of everyone but you. That's a lot closer to slavery than socialized roads and crop insurance.
In fact, Seth's business should have figured out long ago they were working for everyone but themselves - suppliers, competitors, customers, the government - and only keeping a percent or two of the taxable gross. In fact, it sounds like the market as a whole would benefit from the loss of such a marginal operation, particularly one so brittle it can't pass on costs or pry a percent or two of evidently unforeseen tax on their 1% profit from the bonus and perks packages of the stiff-necked managers who took the company there instead of to greater profitability. It was just a matter of time as it was. Maybe they can sell their losses to a real company and manage some black ink?

Here soon I expect a retort from Seth where he'll quote some stat he misremembers from Junior Achievement 1958 about some astonishingly low margins of X, Y, or Z sector of the business world. What he swallowed along with that knob was those figures bandied about in the "You Can SELL Anything!" books about how tightly wired the business world is at the top are typically post-tax margins, after everyone else gets paid, including the government and the shareholders and the consultants and the capital reserves and the skyscrapers full of Wharton & Rutgers-educated accountants.

Your and Jonno's arguments are merely diversionary rhetoric. The issue is not the wisdom of running a business on a margin, the issue is the fundamental economic fault of Socialism that destroys entire economies

Question begging, Old Sport. You've merely assumed that municipal airports and national flood insurance are the sort of Marxism that kills the free market economy, but haven't shown your assumption to be true. You merely asserted a half-witted and hypothetical example of a marginal business in a cutthroat market having to fold 'Because of a percent or two of taxes' on their tiny, but righteous and hardworking profit as high-volume middlemen.

Don't try to teach your momma how to suck eggs, son. Both Jonno and I know way more about business and money than you, and were merely pointing out the absurdity of your extrusions, while sharing our nuts with the elephant in the room.



Now if you'd like to make a point via an analogy or hypothetical, first begin by making a sound analogy or a reasonable or creditable hypothetical, or at least one that might have some basis in reality, or your argument will suffer.

[JimC]

piscator wrote:

Both Jonno and I know way more about business and money than you

Jonno?

[piscator]

piscator wrote:

Both Jonno and I know way more about business and money than you

Jonno?

Jonno can hold a job for more than a week or two...