How the rich get richer...

[Qdrop]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4440125.stm

America's rich rise against tax

By Stephen Evans
BBC North America business correspondent

Only taxes and death are certain - except for taxes, that is.

"Only the little people pay taxes"

It won't seem that way to the millions of Americans who file their tax returns by the deadline on Friday, but there is a mountain of evidence that tax avoidance (the legal variety) and even tax evasion (the illegal variety) are growth industries.

Accountants in the field have even come up with the term "tax avoision" to describe the grey areas in between. It was Leona Helmsley who said famously that "only the little people pay taxes".

You might forgive her cynicism. The assertion was over-stated but not completely wide of the mark.

Tax burden shifting

According to David Cay Johnston, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his study of American taxes, there's an industry that squirrels away billions of dollars that might otherwise head for the public purse.

Trust funds enable wealth to be passed tax-free between generations or enable income to be disguised.

Tax-breaks for pursuits like flying in private jets help minimise the burden at the top. Entities are created so that profits are apparently earned where taxes are low. Losses are borne where taxes are high.

On top of that, Mr Johnston, who covers taxation for the New York Times, says the tax burden has shifted downwards through decisions by government.

Ten years ago the richest Americans paid thirty cents of each dollar of their income in federal income tax (about the same as middle earners did).

Five years ago, that had fallen to 22 cents on the dollar.

In recent years, the trend has continued.

Tax havens

The non-partisan Tax Policy Center calculated that half of Mr Bush's tax cuts this year will in effect go to the wealthiest 10% of tax-payers.

Filling in tax returns is not an equitable exercise

Companies too are off-loading their burden.

According to the journal Tax Notes, big corporations based in the United States increased the proportion of profit earned in low or no tax countries.

More of their profits were earned in "tax havens" than in the areas where they actually did business and where taxes were higher.

Equitable taxation

The change has come with a big intellectual shift in recent years.

What once seemed like a fringe argument that all taxes were a form of theft from hard-working individuals now has political credibility, at least in America.

There are groups who oppose all income tax who would have been shouting in the wilderness 20 years ago.

Today, they lobby in the corridors of power.

From the Greeks through a string of eighteenth and nineteenth century philosophers, there was a sense that there should be "equity" in the taxation of different groups.

Today, this philosophical basis for proportionately heavy taxation on the rich compared with the poor is debatable.

The counter idea, that taxes represent an unfair confiscation by the state, has grown along with the view that taxing the top penalises success.

Disguised income

On a baser level, politicians have realised that attacking the tax collector is very good business indeed.

That has made it easier to pare the resources of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and to brand investigations as a form of heavy-handed pursuit of the powerless.

The former Commissioner of the IRS, Charles Rossotti, says that the agency's enforcers end up scrutinizing ordinary tax-payers who depend on easily-tracked wages rather than the rich who can disguise income more easily.

Mr Rossotti says in his book, Many Unhappy Returns, that the IRS is "like a police department that was giving out lots of parking tickets while organized crime was running rampant".

He adds that it "picks on the little guy" while ''largely overlooking an ocean of money hidden in business entities for which the owners, rather than the businesses themselves, were supposed to pay taxes.''

[Schmeltz]

Qdrop, why do you hate freedom?

[Qdrop]

Qdrop, why do you hate freedom?

hey, Assman already cornered the market on "snarky, sarcastic, dissmisive" comments..
;)


i just wish i was rich so that I didn't have to pay taxes anymore.

[Ace42]

i just wish i was rich so that I didn't have to pay taxes anymore.

Just a shame that you are so stupid that you don't deserve to be rich.

Because that's why you're not rich, right? Because you don't deserve it?

[Qdrop]

Just a shame that you are so stupid that you don't deserve to be rich.

Because that's why you're not rich, right? Because you don't deserve it?

i'm assuming sarcasm on this one.....


"deserving" isn't the term really....."haven't struck into enough of the variables to attain such wealth" is really how it is....

diligence being one.....luck being another...among many....

[EN[i]GMA]

What percentage of the overall taxes should the top 1% pay?

Should it be higher or lower than the 34% they recently payed?

And anyone can put their money overseas, into corporations or into tax free trust funds.

It isn't being riched that allows them to get passed this, it's knowing HOW.

I could just as easily (And most likely will) bypass most Federal Taxes, legally.


But truthfully, these tax loopholes need to fixed. If they were plugged, overall tax rates could be lowered, which is infinitely better.

And corporate taxes should be abolished. The entire concept is non sensical. If you tax Ford at a 30% rate for their cars, they're just going to increase the price of their cars by 30% to make up the defecit meaning the consumer will just pay 30% more.

The corporate tax is nothing more than a deft way to take more of the middle classes money through hidden, disengenious means.

[Qdrop]

GMA']What percentage of the overall taxes should the top 1% pay?

Should it be higher or lower than the 34% they recently payed?
let's just start with having them pay it and not find loopholes to avoid paying...then we'll deal with what percentage they should pay.


I could just as easily (And most likely will) bypass most Federal Taxes, legally.
that's kinda shitty, in my opinion.
unless you truly think that ther is nothing patriotic or ethically/economically responsible about paying taxes....and see just basic commerce as your way of supporting the machine that supports you.


But truthfully, these tax loopholes need to fixed. If they were plugged, overall tax rates could be lowered, which is infinitely better.
well, yeeeeeeaaaaah.


And corporate taxes should be abolished. The entire concept is non sensical. If you tax Ford at a 30% rate for their cars, they're just going to increase the price of their cars by 30% to make up the defecit meaning the consumer will just pay 30% more.

The corporate tax is nothing more than a deft way to take more of the middle classes money through hidden, disengenious means.
how should a gov't get it's income? there are costs of operation.

i'm sure you believe in smaller gov't with far less lard...but it still requires supplemental income to operate.

[EN[i]GMA]

let's just start with having them pay it and not find loopholes to avoid paying...then we'll deal with what percentage they should pay.


But they already PAY 34%.


that's kinda shitty, in my opinion.
unless you truly think that ther is nothing patriotic or ethically/economically responsible about paying taxes....and see just basic commerce as your way of supporting the machine that supports you.

First, I don't think there is legal precedence for them to tax me on my income. I'm no Constitutional Scholar, but I've heard some say there isn't and I truly believe there isn't. For example:

...Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union...

Down some:

Section. 8.

Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;


The Federal Government can only lay taxes that are uniform. It also stipulates that impost and excise taxes should be layed, leading me to say, 'Use those'.

It says only STATES can lay direct taxes (Sales and Income). The Federal Reserve is not a state. Congress is not a state.

Second, I don't support the majority of what the government does. I refuse to support it. Paying your taxes is consenting.

Third, we're not taking in nearly enough to pay up anyway, so me paying my taxes doesn't matter. We're so far in debt, even if we all payed our taxes and rates were increased we would still be drowned under the massive debt.

Fourthly, the government doesn't use tax money to pay for things, it prints new money for that. Tax money is destroyed, taken in by the Federal Reserve. This goes along with it not being constitutional.

Someone needs to absolutely prove to me why I should pay my taxes before I ever will.



how should a gov't get it's income? there are costs of operation.

i'm sure you believe in smaller gov't with far less lard...but it still requires supplemental income to operate.

Lower the costs or just tax people directly. Once people realize they are really paying 50%+ in taxes ALREADY, they will demand change.

It's robbery as it is.

[Ace42]

GMA']But they already PAY 34%.

Heh, you are such a dumbass.

If vast amounts of their wealth is squirrelled away in tax havens, then they are *NOT* paying it.

They are paying 34% of the stuff they can't *avoid* paying. That's not 34% of what they *should* be paying - according to the article it's not even close.

[EN[i]GMA]

Heh, you are such a dumbass.

If vast amounts of their wealth is squirrelled away in tax havens, then they are *NOT* paying it.

They are paying 34% of the stuff they can't *avoid* paying. That's not 30% of what they *should* be paying - according to the article it's not even close.

You would be the dumbass in this situation.

The top 1% pay 34% of all IRS tax revenues. Out of the 100% of taxes taken in, 34% of that is payed for by the richest 1% of the people.

It should be more, as the article noted, but that's how it stands currently.

[Ace42]

GMA']
The top 1% pay 34% of all IRS tax revenues. Out of the 100% of taxes taken in, 34% of that is payed for by the richest 1% of the people.


Firstly, if *that* is what you are saying, then I demand a source as I find that argument very shonky, and you have a habit of making up percentages on the spot. For example stating that all adult males in Switzerland have guns. Let alone that I do not trust you to correctly interpret statistics even if you have them.

Secondly, it is immaterial as they should still be spending more.

Thirdly, over the entire tax-paying population of America, 1% is still a LOT of people, most of whom will not be anywhere near as rich as those at the tip of the pyramid.

[EN[i]GMA]

Firstly, if *that* is what you are saying, then I demand a source as I find that argument very shonky, and you have a habit of making up percentages on the spot. For example stating that all adult males in Switzerland have guns. Let alone that I do not trust you to correctly interpret statistics even if you have them.

Secondly, it is immaterial as they should still be spending more.

Thirdly, over the entire tax-paying population of America, 1% is still a LOT of people, most of whom will not be anywhere near as rich as those at the tip of the pyramid.

Firstly, http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=124324&page=6

or if you don't like Stossel, use The American Enterprise Institute: http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.18411/article_detail.asp

Secondly, unsubstantiated opinion.

Thirdly, the richest 1% is people making over $300,000 a year.

[Qdrop]

look, ethics of tax paying aside....

the top 1% of the population (the richest) pay around 34% of the taxes....
why is that bad?
it doesn't advesaly effect them the way it does someone of much lower income...

really simple math: if 30% of your income goes to taxes, them compare that to someone who makes $40k a year...and someone who makes 2million a year.

30% of 40k is 12k....leaving you with 28k to live on....
30% of 2 million is 600,000....leaving you with 1.4 million.

gee....i think the guy with 1.4 million is doing well still...

how about the guy with only 25k left?

the net end result is what really matters here....
from there, you can go into tax ethics and so forth....

[Ace42]

GMA']Firstly, http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=124324&page=6

or if you don't like Stossel, use The American Enterprise Institute: http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.18411/article_detail.asp

I don't like either of those. The first one is cited along side such illuminating facts as "we have more free time than we used to". The second is from the same people who brought you:

Those of us who spent much of 2003 and 2004 urging Americans not to give up on Iraq can attest that those two years were stained with many harsh attacks, much niggling criticism, and abundant disdain for America's aggressive efforts to reshape the dysfunctional governments of the Middle East into more humane and peaceful forms. From the very beginning, of course, the Bush administration's left-wing enemies in the U.S. and Europe were hysterically opposed to the push for Middle Eastern democracy. A significant number of right-wing pundits also proved themselves to be sunshine patriots of the worst sort--bailing out of the hard, dirty work of war and cultural transformation as soon as the predictable resistance arose.

I ask for steak, and you give me tripe.

Secondly, unsubstantiated opinion.

How much anyone should pay in taxes is clearly an opinion, as there is no "natural law" to determine an artificial construct. And thus "Unsubstantiated" is a tautology.

I am of the opinion that you pay what you can, not what you have to. Regardless of the percentage, the rich have more money than is necessary, and as such have more to give. If the richest 3 men could afford to comfortably cover the taxes of every single person in America, they should.

Thirdly, the richest 1% is people making over $300,000 a year.

And that is why I think your two articles misrepresent the facts. One out of every hundred people makes over 300k? And these $300,001 per annum people cover 34% of the nation's taxes? What about the $350,000 ?

What about those like Tricky Dick who are turning over millions per year *in retirement* ?

What about the *properly* rich people?

Lumping in a conveniantly large body of people who are in an abominably different league to the people (and corporations) who owe BILLIONS is dishonest and dilutes the facts.

[Ace42]

30% of 40k is 12k....leaving you with 28k to live on....
30% of 2 million is 600,000....leaving you with 1.4 million.

gee....i think the guy with 1.4 million is doing well still...

how about the guy with only 25k left?

the net end result is what really matters here....
from there, you can go into tax ethics and so forth....

I msut say, I never picked you to be the one saying this. Seems there is a little bit of a socialist in you...

And I swore I wear a condom...

[EN[i]GMA]

I don't like either of those. The first one is cited along side such illuminating facts as "we have more free time than we used to". The second is from the same people who brought you:


That dissapoints me.

I would think AEI would be anti-war like the other libertarian think-tanks.

Oh well.


How much anyone should pay in taxes is clearly an opinion, as there is no "natural law" to determine an artificial construct. And thus "Unsubstantiated" is a tautology.

I am of the opinion that you pay what you can, not what you have to. Regardless of the percentage, the rich have more money than is necessary, and as such have more to give. If the richest 3 men could afford to comfortably cover the taxes of every single person in America, they should.

Some opinions are 'substantiated' others are not.

It could be my opinion that the Queen of England is backing the world Zionist revolution but that wouldn't very sensible.

Anyway, I'm not really disagreeing with you, merely asking how you differentiate that from robbery?

How can you take more from rich people, morally? Is it more or less right to physically rob rich or poor people?



And that is why I think your two articles misrepresent the facts. One out of every hundred people makes over 300k? And these $300,001 per annum people cover 34% of the nation's taxes? What about the $350,000 ?

What about those like Tricky Dick who are turning over millions per year *in retirement* ?

What about the *properly* rich people?

Lumping in a conveniantly large body of people who are in an abominably different league to the people (and corporations) who owe BILLIONS is dishonest and dilutes the facts.

Nation's income taxes, not all taxes in general. It would be lower if it were all taxes in general.

But no, the facts aren't diluted, it says exactly what the facts say, that the richest 1% 34% of the income tax.

No more, no less.

[EN[i]GMA]

look, ethics of tax paying aside....

the top 1% of the population (the richest) pay around 34% of the taxes....
why is that bad?
it doesn't advesaly effect them the way it does someone of much lower income...

really simple math: if 30% of your income goes to taxes, them compare that to someone who makes $40k a year...and someone who makes 2million a year.

30% of 40k is 12k....leaving you with 28k to live on....
30% of 2 million is 600,000....leaving you with 1.4 million.

gee....i think the guy with 1.4 million is doing well still...

how about the guy with only 25k left?

the net end result is what really matters here....
from there, you can go into tax ethics and so forth....

Let's rob that rich fuck, he doesn't need it!

What gives you any right or authority to tell somone else how much money it's 'fair' for him to keep?

[Qdrop]

I msut say, I never picked you to be the one saying this. Seems there is a little bit of a socialist in you...
yeah well people have been pegging me wrong from the start....
i have no problem with wealth in itself....i just have a problem with the wealth not doing thier part.....
i consider taxes to be retribution to the system.
if you're filthy rich....you used that system fairly well....now give back proportionately....and don't cheat.


And I swore I wear a condom... vile beast!

[Ace42]

GMA']What gives you any right or authority to tell somone else how much money it's 'fair' for him to keep?

The same thing that gives us the right and authority to tell someone else how old the kiddies have to be before you can touch them. The same thing that gives us the right and authority (as part of the electorate) to deny people the right to extort money.

Now, if your mean *MORAL* right and authority, then it is the simple fact that no-one who is morally sound can have any surplus income in a world when a child dies every three seconds through poverty.

[Qdrop]

GMA']Let's rob that rich fuck, he doesn't need it!

What gives you any right or authority to tell somone else how much money it's 'fair' for him to keep?

again: "i consider taxes to be retribution to the system.
if you're filthy rich....you used that system fairly well....now give back proportionately....and don't cheat."

the system (your country, your economic system, your gov't) is you "car".
if you drive the car well, drive it harder and farther than others....and go longer....
you should put more oil (taxes) back into it when your done.

the more you operate in the system, the more you should pay for it's upkeep.
sounds ethical to me.

[EN[i]GMA]

The same thing that gives us the right and authority to tell someone else how old the kiddies have to be before you can touch them. The same thing that gives us the right and authority (as part of the electorate) to deny people the right to extort money.

Now, if your mean *MORAL* right and authority, then it is the simple fact that no-one who is morally sound can have any surplus income in a world when a child dies every three seconds through poverty.

Hardly an apt comparison.

Saying the authority that prevents people from being robbed and taken advantage of is to be used to rob and take advantage of people doesn't line up well.

Shouldn't the individual deal with that moral question and decide to donate money on his own volition?

Don't people have a right to be wrong?

[EN[i]GMA]

again: "i consider taxes to be retribution to the system.
if you're filthy rich....you used that system fairly well....now give back proportionately....and don't cheat."

the system (your country, your economic system, your gov't) is you "car".
if you drive the car well, drive it harder and farther than others....and go longer....
you should put more oil (taxes) back into it when your done.

the more you operate in the system, the more you should pay for it's upkeep.
sounds ethical to me.

So after the man invents a new product that enriches the lives of everyone, employs thousands of workers, creates untold amounts of wealth, funds schools and parks and pays millions in taxes, directly and indirectly, you say he should do MORE to help society out?

This is all seeming quite arbitrary to me.

Let me say this: I think some wealth redistrubution is necessary and possibly even ideal, but I can't find any way to back it up logically or morally.

[Ace42]

GMA']
Shouldn't the individual deal with that moral question and decide to donate money on his own volition?

Yes, however selfish and stupid people foul this up. These are people who, like criminals, abuse the freedoms they are given.

Don't people have a right to be wrong?

Do people have a right to gun other people down if they don't mind risking getting caught and prosecuted?

[Qdrop]

GMA']So after the man invents a new product that enriches the lives of everyone, employs thousands of workers, creates untold amounts of wealth, funds schools and parks and pays millions in taxes, directly and indirectly, you say he should do MORE to help society out?



oh come now....
like i said, if you use the system more and push it harder, you should put more "oil" back in.
but let's be honest....it ain't punishment. even though he pays more....he still has millions left over....he's doing just fine in the "rewards" dept., and gets plenty of accolades (which they often deserve).

see my earlier post here about percentages....

don't cry for the "rich guy"....it's pathetic.

[Ace42]

GMA']I think some wealth redistrubution is necessary and possibly even ideal, but I can't find any way to back it up logically or morally.

That's because you are a tool. The wealth isn't theirs. Taxation isn't taking what is someone elses, it is the state taking back what is the state's.

It is a logical and as moral as a company increasing the cost of their products, something they do all the time. It is as justifiable as someone demanding their debtors start repaying the full amount of their debt, instead of the pitifully small amount that *out of pure generosity or ignorance* that the loaner was previously allowing them to.

[EN[i]GMA]

Yes, however selfish and stupid people foul this up. These are people who, like criminals, abuse the freedoms they are given.

Agreed.

But how can you force them to be good?

That's coercion.


Do people have a right to gun other people down if they don't mind risking getting caught and prosecuted?

No, they don't.

That would be what that whole 'caught and prosecuted' thing would be about.

They are clearly infringing on the rights of others.

You have a right to believe 1+1=3 though, correct?

[EN[i]GMA]

That's because you are a tool. The wealth isn't theirs. Taxation isn't taking what is someone elses, it is the state taking back what is the state's.

It is a logical and as moral as a company increasing the cost of their products, something they do all the time. It is as justifiable as someone demanding their debtors start repaying the full amount of their debt, instead of the pitifully small amount that *out of pure generosity or ignorance* that the loaner was previously allowing them to.

How is the wealth the state's?

You honestly make me sick. Everything is the state's? Fuck you and fuck the state.

And don't compare this to a free market. In a market, you can refuse to buy the product. With government, you can go to jail if you don't want to pay.

Great comparison.

[Ace42]

GMA']How is the wealth the state's?

How is it "theirs" ?

Because one man who has nothing to do with them goes into a shop they've never been in, purchases a product they've never seen, used, heard of from a person they've never met?

Yet because of some abstract concept of "ownership" which is not tangible in any way shape or form, this transaction means the profit belongs to them, even though they were unaware of it even occuring? Hah...

You honestly make me sick.

Of course I do. I'm not sucking your cock telling you that it's ok and right and sensible to rip off other people.

Everything is the state's?

Everything is the people. They produce it, they buy it, the consume it, they use it, they invent it. In a democracy the state clearly is representative of the people, so of course everything is the state's.

Fuck you and fuck the state.

Ok, move out of the state. See how well you do on your own without a load of hicks to fleece. Not so easy to be prosperous when there's no poor, is it?

And don't compare this to a free market. In a market, you can refuse to buy the product.

Bullshit. "I refuse to buy petrol." Well, guess that means you can't get a job then...

"I refuse to by food" - well, starvation is in this year I gather.

"I refuse to buy clothes" - see how many streets you can walk down before you get arrested.

The free-market doesn't exist, it's a lie created to seperate economists from the unemployed that they find so distasteful.

[EN[i]GMA]

Because one man who has nothing to do with them goes into a shop they've never been in, purchases a product they've never seen, used, heard of from a person they've never met?

Yet because of some abstract concept of "ownership" which is not tangible in any way shape or form, this transaction means the profit belongs to them, even though they were unaware of it even occuring? Hah...

And the alternative is it belongs to millions of people who know even less about the transaction than this?


Of course I do. I'm not sucking your cock telling you that it's ok and right and sensible to rip off other people.

No, because you're a statist fuck who would have us all be slaves to the state, or the mjaority or some other group that has none of my interests at hand.


Everything is the people. They produce it, they buy it, the consume it, they use it, they invent it. In a democracy the state clearly is representative of the people, so of course everything is the state's.

Everything is individuals. Individuals produce things, buy things, consume things, use things and invent things. In a republic, the state is clearly a representitive of the Constitution that instituted it, so of course the State's actions are limited.


Ok, move out of the state. See how well you do on your own without a load of hicks to fleece. Not so easy to be prosperous when there's no poor, is it?

Or I could just live in a better state.

Living without a state is easier than living in bad a state.



Bullshit. "I refuse to buy petrol." Well, guess that means you can't get a job then...

"I refuse to by food" - well, starvation is in this year I gather.

"I refuse to buy clothes" - see how many streets you can walk down before you get arrested.

The free-market doesn't exist, it's a lie created to seperate economists from the unemployed that they find so distasteful.

But gas, food, and clothes from someone else.

You're FREE to decide.

These false dichotomies are wearing on me.

[Schmeltz]

you're a statist fuck who would have us all be slaves to the state, or the mjaority or some other group that has none of my interests at hand.


Whatever, you'd have us all be slaves to the rich (even more so than we already are). How is that any better? At least we can elect the state, which we can't do with the rich.

[EN[i]GMA]

Whatever, you'd have us all be slaves to the rich (even more so than we already are). How is that any better? At least we can elect the state, which we can't do with the rich.

The prime difference is that isn't slavery.

[Ace42]

GMA']And the alternative is it belongs to millions of people who know even less about the transaction than this?

Part of the state (the people conducting the transaction) will know it as perfectly as anyone can. The owner described will never know it at all.

If you weren't being so backward, you'd know this.

No, because you're a statist fuck who would have us all be slaves to the state, or the mjaority or some other group that has none of my interests at hand.

No, that's what you'd like me to be so you could feel self-righteous about your facile arguments. And at least states are ruled by the electorate of which the individual is part. Corporations are not.

Or I could just live in a better state.

You mean "a better state for you" - IE you could move to a state where you have slaves to work for your dollar. Of course, this pre-supposes there is a state with people willing to accept the injustices you feel you have a right to inflict upon them.

Well fuck you, and fuck your state.

Living without a state is easier than living in bad a state.

How'd you know? You haven't even lived in your own state. Say that when you've got hairs on your knackers.

But gas, food, and clothes from someone else.

And if they all rip you off equally? Then your problems go away?

You're FREE to decide.

To be free to decide there must be a choice. Companies are very careful not to offer a choice to avoid precisely this sort of problem.

Of course, I can always choose between AOL, Time and Warner, right?

And I can choose between MSN and NBC...

These false dichotomies are wearing on me.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=dichotomy

And, BTW, you're a twat.

The prime difference is that isn't slavery.

Throw the nigger a dime and he ain't a slave. Buy the girl some chocolates, and she wasn't raped.

[Schmeltz]

The prime difference is that isn't slavery.


How do you figure? If I don't market my labour to the wealthy, increasing their profits in return for as minimal a portion of them as they can get away with giving me, I will starve. This is your version of freedom?

[EN[i]GMA]

Part of the state (the people conducting the transaction) will know it as perfectly as anyone can. The owner described will never know it at all.

If you weren't being so backward, you'd know this.

'the part of the state'?

Just like the cashier, the purchaser and the person who produced the item?

It's the exact same people, just on a different payroll.



No, that's what you'd like me to be so you could feel self-righteous about your facile arguments. And at least states are ruled by the electorate of which the individual is part. Corporations are not.

Corporations are owned by the investors. Individual investors.


You mean "a better state for you" - IE you could move to a state where you have slaves to work for your dollar. Of course, this pre-supposes there is a state with people willing to accept the injustices you feel you have a right to inflict upon them.

Well fuck you, and fuck your state.

My injustices are better than your injustices!

Nuh-uh!

Mine are!


How'd you know? You haven't even lived in your own state. Say that when you've got hairs on your knackers.


Ha, he said knackers.



And if they all rip you off equally? Then your problems go away?

I see your logic.

Giving ALL the power to the government would prevent ANYONE from EVER being ripped off.

"Down with monopolies and oligolopies, give all the power to this one entity"

State's are better at ripping people off than any corporation, look at how they piss away our money.

War's in Iraq, Afghanistan, Trashcanistan, Star Wars, it's fucking insane.


To be free to decide there must be a choice. Companies are very careful not to offer a choice to avoid precisely this sort of problem.

Of course, I can always choose between AOL, Time and Warner, right?

And I can choose between MSN and NBC...

Or Fox, CNN, Yahoo, Al-Jazeera or the hundreds of other news organizations out there.

But you're right Ace, letting the State control the media has worked so well in the past!

Just look at Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Maoist China!

With a track record like that, you can't go wrong!



http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=dichotomy

And, BTW, you're a twat.

A dichotomy is a set of two mutually exclusive, jointly exhaustive alternatives. Dichotomies are typically expressed with the words "either" and "or", like this: "Either the test is wrong or the program is wrong."

A false dichotomy is a dichotomy that is not jointly exhaustive (there are other alternatives), or that is not mutually exclusive (the alternatives overlap), or that is possibly neither.


You're trying to make the choice between buying it or not buying it, not buying it from seller A, seller B, seller C, or not at all.


Throw the nigger a dime and he ain't a slave. Buy the girl some chocolates, and she wasn't raped.

Yeah Ace, that's exactly what I was saying.

And what a coincedence, this article being released just now: http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3861190

[EN[i]GMA]

How do you figure? If I don't market my labour to the wealthy, increasing their profits in return for as minimal a portion of them as they can get away with giving me, I will starve. This is your version of freedom?

Or you can start your own business, sell you services directly to consumers and keep 100% of your profits.

Be a freelance programmer or something of the sort.


Which is the true face of capitalism? Pick your bias.

[Ace42]

GMA']'the part of the state'?

Just like the cashier, the purchaser and the person who produced the item?

It's the exact same people, just on a different payroll.

Let me guess, in "Enigma-land" the Cashier, the purchaser and the labour all go around to the owner's mansion and have cocktails at his pool *on him*.

It's the same people, minus one (or twenty if it is a board) - the profit goes to The People, not to a rich old fart who doesn't know it is even going on.

Corporations are owned by the investors. Individual investors.

Except for the ones that aren't. And this is beside the point. One Billionaire, a thousand millionaires, whatever.

My injustices are better than your injustices!

I think you mean "my conditions are better than your conditions."

Clearly capitalism is intrinsically unjust as the people who do the work do not get the profit from their work.

Giving ALL the power to the government would prevent ANYONE from EVER being ripped off.

Giving all the power to *the people*.

"Down with monopolies and oligolopies, give all the power to this one entity"

This one all encompassing entity. This one entity that consists of everyone. This one entity, which by definition, can be the only entity.

Yeah.

State's are better at ripping people off than any corporation, look at how they piss away our money.

Ok, I will.

British Rail was nationalised, and it was a cheaper, safer and more reliable service than any of the current private alternatives.

British Water was nationalised, and it was cheaper, safer and more reliable than any of the current private alternatives.

Now I have looked at it, I can say you are wrong.

Now you can stop reciting your bullshit capitalist mantras which are totally divorced from reality and actually join us in pragmatic discussion.

But you're right Ace, letting the State control the media has worked so well in the past!

The BBC is not privately owned and is one of if not the best news service in the world.

Now, let's check Fox... Owned by... That's right, a corporate elite!

Oh look, once again *reality has proven your opinions to be total bullshit*

A dichotomy is a set of two mutually exclusive, jointly exhaustive alternatives.

No, a dichotomy is a division into two *often* exclusive units.

You're trying to make the choice between buying it or not buying it, not buying it from seller A, seller B, seller C, or not at all.

And you are implying that there must be a seller that is not ripping you off. This is wrong. I can provide numerous examples of industries where there is clear and blatant price fixing, or no choice at all.

You do not have an opportunity to buy a rail ticket off "seller C" as you cannot have two trains running on the same track at the same time.

Clearly there IS a dichotomy in the case I suggested, as if there was a choice to "buy a product off vendor C in a perfectly satisfactory arrangement" then there would be no problem and all business arrangments would be perfectly satisfactory.

None of the oil companies provide what I consider to be a good deal. I rely on my car for work, and I rely on work for an income with which to buy food. If there are so many alternatives, how do I "punish" these companies?

Oh let me guess, it's a false dichotomy because I forgot that *in Engima's mind, there is choice E - buy petrol off the magic petrol genie who only gets his oil from ecologically sound, fair trade, sources with the most rigourous health and safety protocols, and charges a reasonable price for it with a minimum amount of profit for himself*

Well all the world's problems are sorted then, just as long as we all live in a world where we disregard what actually happens in the world in favour of dogmatic bullshit.

And what a coincedence, this article being released just now: http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=3861190

Flat tax is closer to being fair, but an exponential tax would be fairer still.

[EN[i]GMA]

Let me guess, in "Enigma-land" the Cashier, the purchaser and the labour all go around to the owner's mansion and have cocktails at his pool *on him*.

Exactly Ace, you've got it all figured out.


It's the same people, minus one (or twenty if it is a board) - the profit goes to The People, not to a rich old fart who doesn't know it is even going on.

Why should the profit go to 'the people'? What did you or I do to facilitate this trade? Nothing at all.

Why then are we deserving of anything related to it?


I think you mean "my conditions are better than your conditions."

Clearly capitalism is intrinsically unjust as the people who do the work do not get the profit from their work.

I was joking.

And clearly socialism is unjust as the people who do not work get profits from the people who do work.


Giving all the power to *the people*.

Has this ever worked before?


Ok, I will.

British Rail was nationalised, and it was a cheaper, safer and more reliable service than any of the current private alternatives.

British Water was nationalised, and it was cheaper, safer and more reliable than any of the current private alternatives.

Now I have looked at it, I can say you are wrong.

Now you can stop reciting your bullshit capitalist mantras which are totally divorced from reality and actually join us in pragmatic discussion.

It worked so well in Soviet Russia too!


The BBC is not privately owned and is one of if not the best news service in the world.

Now, let's check Fox... Owned by... That's right, a corporate elite!

Oh look, once again *reality has proven your opinions to be total bullshit*

"Dr. Goebbels, do we have permission to show this film?"


And you are implying that there must be a seller that is not ripping you off. This is wrong. I can provide numerous examples of industries where there is clear and blatant price fixing, or no choice at all.

You do not have an opportunity to buy a rail ticket off "seller C" as you cannot have two trains running on the same track at the same time.

Clearly there IS a dichotomy in the case I suggested, as if there was a choice to "buy a product off vendor C in a perfectly satisfactory arrangement" then there would be no problem and all business arrangments would be perfectly satisfactory.

None of the oil companies provide what I consider to be a good deal. I rely on my car for work, and I rely on work for an income with which to buy food. If there are so many alternatives, how do I "punish" these companies?

Oh let me guess, it's a false dichotomy because I forgot that *in Engima's mind, there is choice E - buy petrol off the magic petrol genie who only gets his oil from ecologically sound, fair trade, sources with the most rigourous health and safety protocols, and charges a reasonable price for it with a minimum amount of profit for himself*

Well all the world's problems are sorted then, just as long as we all live in a world where we disregard what actually happens in the world in favour of dogmatic bullshit.

Again, you're artificially limiting the group. Add in cars, planes, bikes and all other modes of transportation and the situation doesn't look as bleak.

As for oil, do you know how much of that price is tax?


Flat tax is closer to being fair, but an exponential tax would be fairer still.

Don't substantiate that or anything, not that I would want you to.

[Pres Zount]

Yes, Enigma, nationalisation of railways and hydro worked quite well in Soviet Russia. I guess you were tring to be sarcastic, but it didn't really work.


"OH AND APPLES GROW ON TREES TOO! :rolleyes: "

[EN[i]GMA]

Yes, Enigma, nationalisation of railways and hydro worked quite well in Soviet Russia. I guess you were tring to be sarcastic, but it didn't really work.


"OH AND APPLES GROW ON TREES TOO! :rolleyes: "

And so did nationalization of the farms in the Ukraine!

Oh wait, that caused the deaths of 20 million people.

Never mind that though, they had awesome trains for taking dissenters to the gulags!

And according to P.J. O'Rourke the trains sucked: http://print.google.com/print?id=qXAPpIP45ioC&lpg=155&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3DTrain%2BRussia%26ie%3DUTF-8%26id%3DqXAPpIP45ioC&pg=155&sig=HUkYp8WoLQXtOfaXzxALb9otsuU

[Ace42]

GMA']Why should the profit go to 'the people'? What did you or I do to facilitate this trade? Nothing at all.

What, apart from manufacturing, purchasing, and living with (the production and usage and bi-products of) the product in question?

What did some stodgy old fart in his inherited mansion do to facilitate this trade? *Nothing at all*.

Why then are we deserving of anything related to it?

Because all rich people make sure their factories only pollute the air directly over their mansion on tropical desert islands. They also make sure that when their companies close down factories for takes avoidance reasons, the communities that go down the shitter and become rife with crime and drug use are the rich communities they live in.

Of course, the rich have private fire-fighters and police to work for them. Of course the rich always buy people replacement products if what they bought fell apart short of its projected lifespan.

Of course, Bill Gates (or any billionaire) works 10,000,000 times harder than anyone who works for him.

And clearly socialism is unjust as the people who do not work get profits from the people who do work.

Because people have a right to be shitty to everyone else, right? Because life is only fair if you are free to fuck over everyone else.

Bullshit.

Has this ever worked before?

Democracy? I gather it is quite popular.

It worked so well in Soviet Russia too!

And privatised healthcare in the US works so well too!


"Dr. Goebbels, do we have permission to show this film?"

Are you suggesting that the BBC, one of the best respected news agencies in the world, is a naziesque propaganda engine?

Or are you just bullshitting because you know you are fucked?

Again, you're artificially limiting the group. Add in cars, planes, bikes and all other modes of transportation and the situation doesn't look as bleak.

Yeah, if you don't like the quality of service offered by the train service, you can *spend vast ammounts of money on learning to drive, buying a car, paying road tax, buying petrol, paying for parking, etc etc.*

Clearly that is a cost-effective alternative to catching a train. Or you can ride a bicycle to work, even though you will have to be cycling for several hours per day *on top of your time spent working* - brilliant. Better yet, I could get a short-haul flight to commute to work!

Well, that's every commuter's problems solved!

Twat.

As for oil, do you know how much of that price is tax?

Irrelevant. Oil companies are boasting record profits, which means there is ample money to be used to reduce costs.

Don't substantiate that or anything, not that I would want you to.

Yeah, because proving that 100% of Swiss male adults don't own guns really was an effective use of my time.

I've proved you to be a lying wrong-minded bullshit artist on numerous occasions, and quite frankly I do not have the time and inclination to do the same thing right this second. While spending hours on a point by point refutation of your arguments is often appealing, it invariably degenerates into you conceeding point after point until you are left with nothing. Then a few days later, BAM, another thread in which you maintain a similar position to the one that has previously been debunked.

Consider yourself a lost cause. You're going to eat corporate turds and call them chocolate Gateaux regardless to how many orbitting flies or chunks or partially digested corn I point in it.

[EN[i]GMA]

What, apart from manufacturing, purchasing, and living with (the production and usage and bi-products of) the product in question?

What did some stodgy old fart in his inherited mansion do to facilitate this trade? *Nothing at all*.

Every single person on earth equally manufactures, purchases and lives with that product?

No, you mean a few people make it (And get payed for it), one person buys it (And pays for it) and only a few people live close enough to said purchaser to really 'live with' the product.

And that old fart very likely designed the product, or put the capital to facilitate it's production, or played golf all day as his daily riches appeared through no action of his own, foisted upon him by the autocratic and unfair capitalist system.

It's probably one of those three.


Because all rich people make sure their factories only pollute the air directly over their mansion on tropical desert islands. They also make sure that when their companies close down factories for takes avoidance reasons, the communities that go down the shitter and become rife with crime and drug use are the rich communities they live in.

Of course, the rich have private fire-fighters and police to work for them. Of course the rich always buy people replacement products if what they bought fell apart short of its projected lifespan.

Oh yes, blame it all on the big businessman.

None of that is the fault of the people laying this exorbitant taxes, no, it's just greed.

Don't mention the fact that if they didn't move, they would either go out of business or have to raise prices, meaning that fewer poor people can indulge themselves in this product, just ignore that.


Of course, Bill Gates (or any billionaire) works 10,000,000 times harder than anyone who works for him.

Of course.


Because people have a right to be shitty to everyone else, right? Because life is only fair if you are free to fuck over everyone else.

Bullshit.

Ah, I see! Ace here knows exactly how everyone should behave! Exactly how to make EVERYTHING fair!

Shit Ace, you're only the thousandth fucking person today to make that asinine claim.

Tell me Ace, how can you be free if every decision you make is no longer your decision, but the decision of someone else, in the guise of the public interest?

What you support isn't freedom, it's slavery to being good.


Democracy? I gather it is quite popular.

It's not, actually.

I think you mean Republics are quite popular, Republics like the USA, UK, France, Germany, Sweden and almost every other Western Nation.

But I doubt you'd know the difference anyway.

And privatised healthcare in the US works so well too!


Medicaid? Medicare? Yeah, those free-market programs sure are failing.

Are you suggesting that the BBC, one of the best respected news agencies in the world, is a naziesque propaganda engine?

Or are you just bullshitting because you know you are fucked?

No, I was making light of the fact that every tyrannical regime has made use of a state-controlled media for propaganda and brainwashing.

I never said anything about the BBC, it's quite a good news source in fact.

Of course with the amounts of money it's given, it should be doing well.


Irrelevant. Oil companies are boasting record profits, which means there is ample money to be used to reduce costs.

Bullshit: http://www.conocophillips.com/newsroom/other_resources/energyanswers/oil_profits.htm


Yeah, because proving that 100% of Swiss male adults don't own guns really was an effective use of my time.

Almost as an effective use as constantly beating a dead horse.


Perhaps if you weren't such a wet douche, whose socialist tripe rings hollow with the experience of the last 100 years, you would have an intellectual leg to stand on in regards to our discussions.

[Ace42]

GMA']Every single person on earth equally manufactures, purchases and lives with that product?

No, you mean a few people make it (And get payed for it), one person buys it (And pays for it) and only a few people live close enough to said purchaser to really 'live with' the product.

I think you'll find that the rich who can afford to be totally divorced from: Production; retail; manufacturing are in an *INCREDIBLE* minority.

Off the top of your head, how many poor people live near to a factory that is (probably legally) polluting? Shitloads. How many rich people live in the run-down industrial areas that their work-force lives in?

NOT FUCKING ONE.

The conditions are good enough for "the poor" but not good enough for them. That is hypocrisy.

And that old fart very likely designed the product,

Bullshit. Companies have research and development branches for that. And if you knew *ANYTHING* you'd know that it is not the people in R&D that make the big bucks, it is the people in managerial roles.

or put the capital to facilitate it's production

Or had their *broker* put capital into it, without their knowledge, etc. So in effect they did *nothing* - it was done *for them*. Just as people who work in "their" factories labour on their behalf, for their profit.

or played golf all day as his daily riches appeared through no action of his own, foisted upon him by the autocratic and unfair capitalist system.

Change "foistered upon him" to "amassed for him" and you'd be much closer.

It's probably one of those three.

And all three involve rich people getting money for no other reason than "they were wealthy to start with."

*How the rich get richer* to emphasise the topic of the thread.

Oh yes, blame it all on the big businessman.

no, it's just greed.

And in capitalism "greed is good" (Gordon Gecko). Yes it is greed that is the problem, and greed is symptomatic of capitalism.

Wake up call, snot-nose, greed is not good.

Don't mention the fact that if they didn't move, they would either go out of business or have to raise prices, meaning that fewer poor people can indulge themselves in this product, just ignore that.

Yeah, of course the company that can afford the give the managers swanky cars and massive mansions can't afford to keep a plant open.

Let's ignore the fact that most of the companies who outsource do so (or have done so) to countries with ridiculous working conditions. But who cares if kids are working in sweatshops and being beaten, and exposed to all manner of dangers, just so long as "more people get to indulge themselves in the product."

Even though they cannot afford the product because they have no money *BECAUSE THEIR PLANT CLOSED DOWN SO THAT THE MANAGERS CAN GET MORE MONEY TO PAD THEIR BONUSES WITH.*

As Mikey Moore is fond of pointing out, numerous companies that downsize / outsource are companies that do so whilst boasting *RECORD PROFITS*.

But hell, we can't let the well being of the people whose work MAKES the company get in the way of the company accrewing more wealth for the investors who are totally divorced from the actual working of the company.

Of course.

Hah, it doesn't surprise me that a simpering fool like you would say that.

Ah, I see! Ace here knows exactly how everyone should behave! Exactly how to make EVERYTHING fair!

Making things fair is only complicated for people like you who are morally bankrupt. But yeah, I do know exactly how everyone should behave. It involves such things as not randomly assaulting people, or breaking into their houses, or raping, murdering, etc etc.

But hell, I guess me having such expectations about moral conduct makes me a totalitarian despot!

Tell me Ace, how can you be free if every decision you make is no longer your decision, but the decision of someone else, in the guise of the public interest?

Yeah, because under an equitable society you aren't allowed to choose what flavour sauce to have on your burger.

Twat.

What you support isn't freedom, it's slavery to being good.

No, that's what you think I support. Because you are a fool who puts more stock in ridiculous preconceived dogmatic bullshit than actual common sense.

And clearly *any* law is "slavery to being good".

Let's all do away with laws so we can all be truly free! Of course, then there would be nothing stopping the great unwashed from storming the winter palace and taking all the wealth from the rich minority.

It's not, actually.

I think you mean Republics are quite popular, Republics like the USA, UK, France, Germany, Sweden and almost every other Western Nation.

But I doubt you'd know the difference anyway.

Hah, I think you'll find that all of the above are democracies.

de·moc·ra·cy Audio pronunciation of "democracy" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-mkr-s)
n. pl. de·moc·ra·cies

1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
4. Majority rule.
5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.

"Or through elected representatives."

All of the above governments are ruled by elected representatives.

Fucking moron.

Medicaid? Medicare? Yeah, those free-market programs sure are failing.

You yourself said that the US healthcare system overcharges for an inferior service. As the other thread showed, numerous nations have vastly superior healthcare services while paying less.

No, I was making light of the fact that every tyrannical regime has made use of a state-controlled media for propaganda and brainwashing.

So Fox news has become state-controlled now?

Bullshit:

It is YOU who is talking bullshit (again):

BP has reported a 26% rise in annual profits to $16.2bn (£8.7bn), after benefiting from high oil prices.

Last week, rival Shell reported an annual profit of $17.5bn - a record profit for a UK-listed company.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4249181.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4245509.stm



Almost as an effective use as constantly beating a dead horse.

Perhaps if you weren't such a wet douche, whose socialist tripe rings hollow with the experience of the last 100 years, you would have an intellectual leg to stand on in regards to our discussions.

Maybe if you weren't such an insipid whiney brat, whose capitalist tripe rings hollow with ANY experience of the real world, you'd have an intellectual leg to stand on in regards to our discussion.

Of course my "socialist tripe" isn't convincing to you - my stance is based on events in reality, not on ridiculous propoganda and wrangling.

For example, your assertion that "governments can't run business as efficiently as corporations." - now you say that "the experience of the last 100 years" proves this.

Actually, it does quite the opposite. As I showed quite clearly, the privatised UK industries all offer an inferior service and greater costs than the nationalised alternatives. This proves catergorically that you are living in a dogmatic fantasy land.

And if you didn't get all your facts from "Conservatives with money dot com" and took the precaution of *ACTUALLY STICKING YOUR HEAD OUTSIDE THE WINDOW FOR ONE FUCKING SECOND* you'd wake up and smell the fucking coffee.

But don't let reality interfere with your neat little dream of how the world works. Your sheltered and infantile delusions are much too pretty to be interupted with cold harsh reality.

[EN[i]GMA]

I think you'll find that the rich who can afford to be totally divorced from: Production; retail; manufacturing are in an *INCREDIBLE* minority.

Off the top of your head, how many poor people live near to a factory that is (probably legally) polluting? Shitloads. How many rich people live in the run-down industrial areas that their work-force lives in?

NOT FUCKING ONE.

The conditions are good enough for "the poor" but not good enough for them. That is hypocrisy.

Any great ideas for getting rid of pollution, Ace?


Bullshit. Companies have research and development branches for that. And if you knew *ANYTHING* you'd know that it is not the people in R&D that make the big bucks, it is the people in managerial roles.

Yes Ace, the soon-to-be-capitalist tinkering with his product in his garage didn't do anything at all, he just hired some R&D firm to design this product.

It's what Jobs and Wozniak did you know!


Or had their *broker* put capital into it, without their knowledge, etc. So in effect they did *nothing* - it was done *for them*. Just as people who work in "their" factories labour on their behalf, for their profit.

No, Jeff Bezos got his own capital to put into Amazon.com


Change "foistered upon him" to "amassed for him" and you'd be much closer.

'Amassed for him'? Without any effort on his part? Incredible.


And all three involve rich people getting money for no other reason than "they were wealthy to start with."

*How the rich get richer* to emphasise the topic of the thread.

Oh yes, blame it all on the big businessman.

If rich people only got rich because they were already wealthy, logically, how are they any rich people at all, when at one point everyone was equally poor?

Hmm, well that throws in wrench in that argument, not that I expect you to revise anything.


And in capitalism "greed is good" (Gordon Gecko). Yes it is greed that is the problem, and greed is symptomatic of capitalism.

Wake up call, snot-nose, greed is not good.

I was being sarcastic.


Yeah, of course the company that can afford the give the managers swanky cars and massive mansions can't afford to keep a plant open.

Let's ignore the fact that most of the companies who outsource do so (or have done so) to countries with ridiculous working conditions. But who cares if kids are working in sweatshops and being beaten, and exposed to all manner of dangers, just so long as "more people get to indulge themselves in the product."

Even though they cannot afford the product because they have no money *BECAUSE THEIR PLANT CLOSED DOWN SO THAT THE MANAGERS CAN GET MORE MONEY TO PAD THEIR BONUSES WITH.*

As Mikey Moore is fond of pointing out, numerous companies that downsize / outsource are companies that do so whilst boasting *RECORD PROFITS*.

But hell, we can't let the well being of the people whose work MAKES the company get in the way of the company accrewing more wealth for the investors who are totally divorced from the actual working of the company.

Did you know that CEO payments are down considerably in recent years?

Not that I expect the revalation to matter to you.


Hah, it doesn't surprise me that a simpering fool like you would say that.

What else am I to do with your absurd arguments?

The argument isn't whether Bill Gates works harder than any of his employees, it's that he created the company, and owns the company, and can do full well what he pleases with it.


Making things fair is only complicated for people like you who are morally bankrupt. But yeah, I do know exactly how everyone should behave. It involves such things as not randomly assaulting people, or breaking into their houses, or raping, murdering, etc etc.

But hell, I guess me having such expectations about moral conduct makes me a totalitarian despot!

And of course I'm for all of things.

Can't get enough random assualts!

Are you even going to attempt to say something meaningful or just continue to dance around the issue?

You knew full well what I meant and willfully chose to ignore the spirit of my message.

You think you know what's best for everyone, as to be expected from an arrogant fuck like yourself.


Yeah, because under an equitable society you aren't allowed to choose what flavour sauce to have on your burger.

Twat.

Choose the most socially beneficial one of course!


No, that's what you think I support. Because you are a fool who puts more stock in ridiculous preconceived dogmatic bullshit than actual common sense.

And clearly *any* law is "slavery to being good".

Let's all do away with laws so we can all be truly free! Of course, then there would be nothing stopping the great unwashed from storming the winter palace and taking all the wealth from the rich minority.

Yes Ace, clearly laws that put Jews in concentration camps enslave people to goodness.

Fantastic argument.

And most laws aren't slavery to being good in that they don't require you to actively do anything, they just state "Don't kill people", something that requires no effort on your part.


"Or through elected representatives."

All of the above governments are ruled by elected representatives.

Fucking moron.

re·pub·lic Audio pronunciation of "Republic" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-pblk)
n.

1.
1. A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president.
2. A nation that has such a political order.
2.
1. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them


Fucking dumbass.


You yourself said that the US healthcare system overcharges for an inferior service. As the other thread showed, numerous nations have vastly superior healthcare services while paying less.

And we don't.


So Fox news has become state-controlled now?

No.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4249181.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4245509.stm

Almost as an effective use as constantly beating a dead horse.

But how does this affect the price? Those articles mentioned how much their production has grown in the last 15 years, could that have happend without profits?

Why do you want profits lowered but not taxes? Taxes are a bigger chunk of change than profits. You're showing selective bias: http://www20.cera.com/gasoline/


Maybe if you weren't such an insipid whiney brat, whose capitalist tripe rings hollow with ANY experience of the real world, you'd have an intellectual leg to stand on in regards to our discussion.

Of course my "socialist tripe" isn't convincing to you - my stance is based on events in reality, not on ridiculous propoganda and wrangling.

For example, your assertion that "governments can't run business as efficiently as corporations." - now you say that "the experience of the last 100 years" proves this.

Actually, it does quite the opposite. As I showed quite clearly, the privatised UK industries all offer an inferior service and greater costs than the nationalised alternatives. This proves catergorically that you are living in a dogmatic fantasy land.

And if you didn't get all your facts from "Conservatives with money dot com" and took the precaution of *ACTUALLY STICKING YOUR HEAD OUTSIDE THE WINDOW FOR ONE FUCKING SECOND* you'd wake up and smell the fucking coffee.

But don't let reality interfere with your neat little dream of how the world works. Your sheltered and infantile delusions are much too pretty to be interupted with cold harsh reality.

Didn't British Steel and British Leyland not do so well under nationilization?

You seem to be the one with perception problems, forever languishing in your contrived ideas and theories that were abandoned by the masses long ago.

You seem so willing to sell us to the government, so blissfully ignorant of the destruction caused by governments over the course of human history that you think the success and vitalization of the Western World -- and of your own dim life -- were borne by something other than industrial capitalism.

You accuse me of being blind to the harsh realities of life, but it's you who is closing his eyes at the reign of free enterprise and the beneficial effects ushered in by it.

In your quest for villification of capitalism you fail to recognize your propinquity to it.

How you can demonize capitalism to such an unreasonable level, when it is the social system that has enriched us all, smacks of childish ungratefulness and a total lack of perspective.

[ASsman]

Anyone need more vaseline.

[Ace42]

GMA']Any great ideas for getting rid of pollution, Ace?

That is beside the point. The point is that the people who get the most benefit from creating pollution are also the people less likely to be effected by it. This is *unfair*.

Yes Ace, the soon-to-be-capitalist tinkering with his product in his garage didn't do anything at all, he just hired some R&D firm to design this product.

Clearly he did something. But of course, as people like this only exist in your mind, they don't really count.

But, let's have a quick look around my room... Grundig TV set - the profits from that didn't go to "a soon to be capitalist tinkering with his product in a garage."

My Philips monitor, ditto. My PC, same again. My Joystick, ditto. Here's a cruncher, Windows XP - owned by your favourite garage tinkerer Bill Gates.

However, Bill Gates didn't write A SINGLE LINE OF XP CODE. Etc etc.

It's only because you are a delusional fuck that you think the people who profit from a corporation need have any tangible connection with its workings. It is also patently false. And you can cite as many Ben and Jerrys as you want, fact of the matter is that as soon as company gets to any sort of size (IE, when they become 'rich') the people make money solely by virtue of ownership, not because they do any work.

Thus you could equate owning a company with having a slave. His productivity benefits you by virtue of ownership. By your argument the slave-owner deserves all the wealth because he has the "hard" job of overseeing the slave(s) and had to stump up the capital to get the slave in the first place.

I don't think that ownership would thus convey a right to productivity.

No, Jeff Bezos got his own capital to put into Amazon.com

Ahhh, so because one person put capital into amazon.com, that means that brokers no longer invest? Someone should tell them that.

'Amassed for him'? Without any effort on his part? Incredible.

Clearly you don't know many rich people. For example, someone who won the lottery and was living off the interest and did no work at all. By your argument, because he is wealthy, he must've done *so much work*.

Bullshit. His money does the work, he sits on his ass. What about college boy whose daddy gave him the business? What about the "silent partners"?

Clearly being a silent partner and, by definition, doing SWEET FUCK ALL while the bucks roll in is very hard work.

Or does the phrase "silent partner" not exist in Enigma land? Because it never happens.

If rich people only got rich because they were already wealthy, logically, how are they any rich people at all, when at one point everyone was equally poor?

Hmm, well that throws in wrench in that argument, not that I expect you to revise anything.

No, it doesn't. If you pulled your self-congratulatory head out of your ass for one second you'd see jsut why your argument is stupidly facile.

Did I say "All people were equally poor" to start with? No. Infact you KNOW that before capitalism there was a disparity of wealth. Before capitalism, Feudalism was hierachical, and thus financially stratified.

While I am not saying that all wealthy people today inherited their money from feudal structures, that argument still "throws a wrench" in your contrived straw-man argument.

However, would you care to share with the class how many of the richest men in the world started with nothing?

Did you know that CEO payments are down considerably in recent years?

Not that I expect the revalation to matter to you.

It doesn't matter to me for several reasons:

1. "Considerably" is subjective, and you'd say that a drop in the ocean was "considerable" if it would put a positive spin on your argument.

2. You have a habit of lying.

3. You have a habit of misintepreting / misrepresenting facts.

What else am I to do with your absurd arguments?

By all means carry on as you are: IE misrepresenting them because you cannot answer them head on. Or ignoring them, that works well for you.

The argument isn't whether Bill Gates works harder than any of his employees, it's that he created the company, and owns the company, and can do full well what he pleases with it.

The argument is precisely that. Pay should directly correspond to the work you do. This is "fair." The money Bill Gates does not correspond to the work he does (he wrote an OS in his garage ten years ago. By your argument Linus Torvalds deserves as much wealth as Billy G) therefore it is not fair. QED.

And of course I'm for all of things.

Where you stand on the matter is irrelevant, as you clearly implied no-one has a right to decry other people's anti-social behaviour.

Are you even going to attempt to say something meaningful or just continue to dance around the issue?

I am saying meaningful things, you are just too busy with your only little preconceived notions to actually think about it.

Presumably this little outburst means you think people in a society have a right to legislate against civil injustice. There is no reason why this doesn't equally include financial injustice.

You consider it "dancing around" because, no matter how many holes I poke in it, you are unwilling to put down your flawed pro-capitalist belief structure.

For example, I give some clear real-world examples of nationalised industries that were better run than when they were privatised. According to you, it is the *world* that is wrong, not your facile belief that "governments can't run industries as well as private companies."

You knew full well what I meant and willfully chose to ignore the spirit of my message.

I know what you meant. When you said "Ace here knows exactly how everyone should behave!" you were trying to imply that me expecting people to abide by a moral code that I am in agreement with would by necessity be totalitarian.

I did not ignore the spirit of the message, I saw the spirit of the message quite clearly. The spirit of the message was "I want to get Ace42 to say that his beliefs are better than everyone else, and then I can compare him to Hitler and make him look silly" - while I can't blame you for trying, I do find it laughable that when I see it coming and preempt it, you throw a childish hissy fit which amounts to "wah wah wah, you didn't say what I wanted you to, thereby ruining my rebuttal."

Fact of the matter is that society (of which I am part) has every right to dictate what behaviour and practises are and are not morally permissable.

You think you know what's best for everyone, as to be expected from an arrogant fuck like yourself.

If you weren't a dipshit, you'd know "what is best for everyone" too. However, leaving your straw-man to one side for a moment - even children know the difference between fair and unfair. Why is it such a problem for you to understand? Perhaps it is because you are a hypocrit who should learn some humility.

I think that making murder illegal is "best for everyone". By your argument, that makes me arrogant. Anyone else think that murder being illegal is "for the best" ? Well, guess that makes you all arrogant. According to the all mighty enigma, everyone who isn't a total anarchist or a psychopath is "arrogant" for thinking they know what's best. Well, I'll be.

Yes Ace, clearly laws that put Jews in concentration camps enslave people to goodness.

To being a "good" nazi, yes.

If what you were implying by "slavery to being good" was literally "you want everyone to be obliged to be morally Good people." then clearly, by definition that cannot be a *bad* thing.

Do you see? You are arguing that "people being bad" is "Good" - a sort of Orwellian paradox, especially when you consider that is people being bad is "Good" then people being "bad" makes them as much a slave to "Good" as being obliged to do good things.

Fantastic argument.

Coming from you, paradox-boy?

And most laws aren't slavery to being good in that they don't require you to actively do anything, they just state "Don't kill people", something that requires no effort on your part.

And how is "don't draw an exhorbitant salary" or "don't produce substandard products" or "don't take more than your fair share" any different?

re·pub·lic Audio pronunciation of "Republic" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-pblk)
n.

1.
1. A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president.
2. A nation that has such a political order.
2.
1. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them


Fucking dumbass.

Firstly, the UK and many European nations have constitutional monarchies, and that monarch is the head of state.

Dumbass.

Secondly:

I said "I gather democracy is quite popular"

You said:

"It's not, actually.

I think you mean Republics are quite popular, Republics like the USA, UK, France, Germany, Sweden and almost every other Western Nation."

de·moc·ra·cy Audio pronunciation of "democracy" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-mkr-s)
n. pl. de·moc·ra·cies

1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.

As all of those countries you listed are "governed through elected representatives" they are clearly all democracies.

Just face it, you spouted off some shit, got busted, and refused to acknowledge something written in clear and simple English because you are an arrogant prick and a dumbass, you refused to admit you were wrong.

Did I say the countries I listed were not republican in their political arrangement? No. Whether they are or not is beside the point.

Did you say they were *not* democracies? Yes you did, like a dumbass fucker. Just like you said 100% of adult male Swiss have guns. Like a dumbass motherfucker.

But how does this affect the price? Those articles mentioned how much their production has grown in the last 15 years, could that have happend without profits?

You are under the misconception that the profits they post are (nearly?) all ear-marked for expansion. This is a fallacy. I am positive that the profits cited are *net* profits, and thus the money to be used for expansion, maintenance, etc etc has all been accounted for already. You are looking at money that is going into pockets, not into the company.

Why do you want profits lowered but not taxes? Taxes are a bigger chunk of change than profits. You're showing selective bias:

No, I am showing common sense. Taxes are necessary, they fund all sorts of equitable and beneficial roles. Profits, by definition, are superflous. If you cut the tax on petrol, that is money going out of the public purse. If you cut profits, that is money going out of a fat cat's mansion, tropical home, etc etc.

I am not against paying a fair price for a fair product. However, I am against taking money out of *my wallet* and saying "well, I've paid for the oil, I've paid for the labour, transport and production. I've paid for the taxes, which pays for the police, the firemen, the NHS, and all the other public services I love so much. Now let me just reach deeper into my pocket and give you a nice hefty bit extra just so that some rich men in suits can drive a new bentley."

Didn't British Steel and British Leyland not do so well under nationilization?

They did not do any better when privatised. If you check Rover, you'll see they have been in dire financial straights all on their privatised lonesome. Nationalisation has nothing to do with it.

British Steel and British Leyland both got asset-stripped when they were privatised, causing massive unemployment. While keeping them operational to try and keep jobs is rather commendable, I concur that there is no point in flogging a dead horse or throwing good money after bad. I fail to see why the nation selling failing companies is any more indicative of a bad-management than any other private parent-corporation selling a failing branch. It happens all the time.

Or are you trying to suggest that nationalised industries have to fair better than privatised counter-parts in order for you to consider them "equally as good" ?

And *I* am the biased one, right?

You seem to be the one with perception problems, forever languishing in your contrived ideas and theories that were abandoned by the masses long ago.

Yeah, I am sure that capitalists like you get a great view of the world from your ivory towers.

As you do not know what *my* theories are, clearly it is you who has the perception problem. When I discuss things with you, I keep it to demonstrable logic and observable fact.

That British Rail was safer, cheaper, and more reliable than its privatised sucessors is not "a contrived idea and theory" it is observable fact.

It is your *theory* that "nationalised industries must be less efficient than privatised companies" and it is a theory which is demonstrably false.

Face it, you are trying to accuse me of your worst failings, even though you don't have a leg to stand on.

I know a strong offense is the best defense, but really your accusatory arguments all fall flat for the simple reason that I have not been arguing for a position contrary to yours, I have been refuting your position.

No doubt this is why you have been misrepresenting everything I say. Because I have not given you an ideology to rail against, you have substituted your facile understanding of obscure Russian communism for my actual position, and have been arguing against a straw-man.

This is also probably why you are stubbornly clinging to patently false arguments. Despite the logic-flaws being pointed out for you, exceptions highlighted, etc etc, you still maintain "but, but, but my pro-capitalist literature tells me communism doesn't work, so my argument MUST be right"

Now *that* is a false dichotomy, and it is a false dichotomy that you persistantly argue against. Unsurprising, as you have an incredibly juvenile understanding of the subject.

For example, I never said that the nations you listed were not Republics / Republican. That argument is totally irrelevant.

It is rather sad that you feel the need to ascribe stances to other people, just so you can regurgitate your cosy pre-conceptions at them.

Actually, scratch "sad" - replace it with "childish".

You seem so willing to sell us to the government

Since you must know (not that you have ever asked, not that it is relevant at all) I believe that a truly socialist / communist society must be ruled by referendum, not a proxy government, in order to be truly egalitarian. As I said, there is no "government / people" divide in *true* communism.

So, really, what you are saying is that "I seem so willing to sell us to ourselves" which makes no sense at all, much like your arguments.

You accuse me of being blind to the harsh realities of life, but it's you who is closing his eyes at the reign of free enterprise and the beneficial effects ushered in by it.

Like sweatshops for example?

In your quest for villification of capitalism you fail to recognize your propinquity to it.

My "kinship" / "nearness" to it? I live in a socialistic country if you remember. And it is precisely my exact nearness to capitalism that allows me to see it for what it is. As a kid, and a yank kid at that, you are isolated at the "comfy" end of capitalism. Not everyone can be at the thin end of the wedge, you know.

How you can demonize capitalism to such an unreasonable level, when it is the social system that has enriched us all, smacks of childish ungratefulness and a total lack of perspective.

Enriched us all? Enriched you and me. The chink that manufactured my screw-driver set in a force labour camp isn't enriched. The kid that sewed my Nikes isn't enriched.

You are the one with the total lack of perspective, because you think that us being in a privilidged minority (let alone the REALLY rich people who live in oppulence) equates to "enrichedness for all."

But then, that's because you are a selfish ego-centric fuck. To whit, a capitalist.

[SobaViolence]

sweet jesus, this is getting to a new level of ridiculousness.

[Ace42]

sweet jesus, this is getting to a new level of ridiculousness.

I agree. I, like several other posters I have spoken to, preferred it when Enigma had fucked off. For starters posts didn't take hours to compose.

[Qdrop]

getting back to how the rich get richer:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/view/

[EN[i]GMA]

The problem is very simple, that for whatever reason, I can't reconcile what you're saying with what I believe.

It's a very basic difference, you think CEOs don't deserve their profits and I do, you don't think people should be free to amass wealth at the exlusion of others, I do.

I don't see how I can reconcile any of this with you, and these are the very basic issues these arguments rest on, because quite simply, I disagree with you.

Call it blindness or whatever you will, I cannot honestly look around and see what you seem to see.

I'm not sure how much if it is me whitewashing things, and how much of it is you whitewashing things, but I really don't see how I can come to any median with you, though I honestly would like to.

Instead of this 'infantile' bickering, instead, tell me what I should do to see things your way.

I really am attempting to, I'm not stupid, but I honestly listen to your arguments and very generally rail against them because they seem so divorced from what I know to be true.

Am I miseducated, or are you just spitting garbage?

And of course this I cannot answer because I'm to prideful to admit the former and to intelligent to believe the latter.

I honestly fail to see how you can look at the world and see the things you do, and I don't know why.

[EN[i]GMA]

I agree. I, like several other posters I have spoken to, preferred it when Enigma had fucked off. For starters posts didn't take hours to compose.

Nothing is impelling you or anyone else to respond to my posts.

[Ace42]

Am I miseducated, or are you just spitting garbage?

I honestly fail to see how you can look at the world and see the things you do, and I don't know why.

I think a lot of it is because of the age that you are at. Too young for Ethiopia, Too young to remember what it was *really* like under Thatcherian politics.

A fair bit of it is because of your media. The anti-communist rants, the villifications.

But, I do think you are in a big way "miseducated."

As I keep saying, you assert that "privatised companies are always more efficient than nationalised industries."

There is no reason why this *should* be true, and there are numerous examples where this can be seen to be patently false.

This is not to say that nationalised industries are *more* efficient, merely that your statement is incorrect and thus needs refinement.

For starters, much of our mutual governments are made up of people who are in big business. Clearly, by your argument these people are the people most likely to make an efficient business.

British Rail had its problems, and the Tory party said these problems were due to nationalised industries being "wasteful" as you claim. Now that BR is privatised, conditions have declined, track maintenance (sub-contracted) is appalling and has resulted in numerous fatalities (Google for Hatfield, Potter's Bar, etc) in recent years, worse punctuality, worse conditions, and more expensive fares.

Because BR was a national industry, the wealthy lines subsidised the less profitable rural lines, thus allowing for a *fair* balance of costs across the network. The system was "joined up".

Now because the industry is privatised, more trains need to be run, more changes need to be made, the profitable lines are milked for all that they are worth, and instead of improving quality *across the board* the money goes straight into the pockets of investors and the managers (Precisely the bureaucrats that are supposed to make these industries so inefficient).

This is not idle speculation or pro-socialist propoganda, if you had been around to compare the two services, you'd see the decline.

Even just in my personal experience, there is a stark contrast. As a student I would've gotten free transport to college, and there were more carriages laid on. After privatisation, students had to pay the full fare (infact, to keep costsdown, they had to buy a season ticket, which means that if there are delays you are unable to claim a rebate) and every single day the two carriages (a woefully inadequet amount) were crammed to bursting, corridors filled, no room to sit down, into precisely the same old dirty carriages that we were told was the "product of a nationalised industry."

We were promised more reliable, cleaner, cheaper services, and it was a crock of shit.

It's been well over a decade since privatisation, and conditions have been getting worse and worse.

Now take the water-board. The water-board was privatised, and South-East Water is now owned by one of the wealthiest (water trading) multinationals in the world. And yet there has been next to *no* investment into the infrastructure of London Water, resulting in numerous cases in recent history of excrement over-flowing out of storm-drains, making many people's homes uninhabitable.

This is *LONDON* we are talking about, and the conditions are comparable to areas that have been hit by a flash-flood.

Or Yorkshire water, that was bought out by a french interest, and for some inexplicable reason, after some of the heavy rainfall in recorded history, come summer their resevoires were all dry, forcing their customers to pay through the nose to import their water from...

Dumdumdum

FRANCE.

Now, would you care to guess how many of the UK privatised industries had majority shares bought out by companies with Tory MPs on their board of directors? The same Tory MPs that used precisely the same arguments you voice for privatisation? The same Tories that sold off valuable national assets that we, the de facto owners of, failed to see a red cent of?

That can be your homework.

The UK general public have been indisputably ripped-off by privatisation, and (with some highly publicised exceptions) even with "PFIs" (Private Finance Initiatives) there is a backlog of delays, poor price quotations, over-spending, and precisely the "waste" you seem to think that is part and parcel of nationalisation.

Again, I don't have the access to dig out the Private Eye PFI exposé special anymore, just as I can't find my Have I Got news For You privatisation special at the moment. I do not have the time or inclination to spend several hours once again proving something that any UK citizen with a memory of more than 10 years should be able to tell you straight out.

[EN[i]GMA]

But surely you must condede that government has a less than ideal track record in many areas, including control of industries.

Did you know the EU subsidies every single cow in the EU with more money than it would take to take to take a person in Africa out of starvation?

Take the computer industry for instance. Speculitively, could the government have ran the entire computer industry in a manner that would have been demonstrably better than the scenario free market machinations provided for?

Would we have better, faster computers with a wider array of programs?

I very seriously doubt it.

And very honestly, I don't know enough about said incidents to really comment, though I have no reason to doubt things have gotten significantly worse since privitization was established.

Were there any problems in the way the transition was handled? Were the companies given to people who were not capable of running them, people who merely had the cash to buy them and didn't know the first thing about their operation?

Do these private companies still maintain a government controlled monopoly on their respective products/services?

I mean it's obviously very hard to compete with a train company if you're not allowed to lay any tracks.

[Ace42]

GMA']But surely you must condede that government has a less than ideal track record in many areas, including control of industries.

Compared to what? "No government" ?

Did you know the EU subsidies every single cow in the EU with more money than it would take to take to take a person in Africa out of starvation?

I'd check your facts again if I were you. The different nations in the EU have different things subsidised at different rates. For example the Spanish fishing fleet has shitloads of cash pumped into it. The UK fishing industry gets nearly none.

Take the computer industry for instance. Speculitively, could the government have ran the entire computer industry in a manner that would have been demonstrably better than the scenario free market machinations provided for?

Would we have better, faster computers with a wider array of programs?

I very seriously doubt it.

MS - Intel monopoly has resulted in intentionally crippled produce. For example, MS get preferential access to intel technology in exchange for upping the system requirements, fuelling demand for more expensive intel components.

I have seen some benchmarks that suggest around 40% wasted due to intentional lack of optimisation, etc.

So, even if the government produced PCs that were 40% slower than our current ones, due to the lack of anti-social limitations built in, they would perform EXACTLY as well as the current ones.

Of course, this is all speculation, but it illustrates just how simple your thinking is.

Secondly, a nationalised industry need not prohibit private alternatives. There are numerous private alternatives to the NHS for example. If there was a nationalised government monopoly, then that is no different to a massive multi-national corporate monopoly (IE MS, etc)

Were the companies given to people who were not capable of running them

They were sold, not given.

people who merely had the cash to buy them and didn't know the first thing about their operation?

These people are making millions of pounds in salaries. By your arguments, they clearly know what they are doing. And people who "merely have the cash" can buy out any corporation.

Do these private companies still maintain a government controlled monopoly on their respective products/services?

Not especially. Of course there are laws restricting these businesses, just as there are laws restricting all manner of businesses that have nothing to do with nationalisation.

I mean it's obviously very hard to compete with a train company if you're not allowed to lay any tracks.

They could law tracks and make stations, theoretically, but of course that would be a really stupid thing for them to do. If they were to run a parrallel service to another rail provider (IE running parallel tracks, etc etc) not only would there be prohibitive costs, but they'd also split the market.

Much much easier to keep their hands "clean" and simply cut corners on their own holdings than entire a war with other rail providers.

[Pres Zount]

GMA']And so did nationalization of the farms in the Ukraine!

Oh wait, that caused the deaths of 20 million people.

Never mind that though, they had awesome trains for taking dissenters to the gulags!

And according to P.J. O'Rourke the trains sucked: http://print.google.com/print?id=qXAPpIP45ioC&lpg=155&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3DTrain%2BRussia%26ie%3DUTF-8%26id%3DqXAPpIP45ioC&pg=155&sig=HUkYp8WoLQXtOfaXzxALb9otsuU

When did PJ catch the trains? 1950 or 2000 something? :rolleyes:

His problems lie with hygene and lack of comfort - not the running of the industry, moron. The trains still ran, there were enough trains, the industry didn't prove to be a bankrupt cause - something that can't be said about many failed private train enterprises in the same years.

Also, the more "abstract" problem he has is not with a democratic, socialist nationalisation of the trains but the fact that "They were built to satisfy the whims of the people in the Kremlin". Stalinism.

Your problems with nationalisation stem from nationalisation of industry UNDER A CAPITALIST SYSTEM, or to a lesser extent, a Stalinist system. Arguing about nationalisation of British water or whatnot is useless because the problems of this type of nationalisation process stem from a bourgeoise government and a capitalist economy. Ace; don't water down your arguments for enigma's understanding sake.

[EN[i]GMA]

When did PJ catch the trains? 1950 or 2000 something? :rolleyes:

His problems lie with hygene and lack of comfort - not the running of the industry, moron. The trains still ran, there were enough trains, the industry didn't prove to be a bankrupt cause - something that can't be said about many failed private train enterprises in the same years.

Also, the more "abstract" problem he has is not with a democratic, socialist nationalisation of the trains but the fact that "They were built to satisfy the whims of the people in the Kremlin". Stalinism.

Your problems with nationalisation stem from nationalisation of industry UNDER A CAPITALIST SYSTEM, or to a lesser extent, a Stalinist system. Arguing about nationalisation of British water or whatnot is useless because the problems of this type of nationalisation process stem from a bourgeoise government and a capitalist economy. Ace; don't water down your arguments for enigma's understanding sake.

I believe it was '88 or '89.

So the industry didn't go bankrupt. Would it have gone bankrupt in a free-market situation?

And if you can maintain that all the problems stem from the taint of capitalism and a bourgeoise society, why can I not claim the problems stem from creeping socialism and a proletarian society?