Who do you plan to vote for: Obama or McCain?

[thewhills]

and Why of course?
Also your pick for VP of your candidate?

I don't like either really, I think Obama is going hurt the economy by overspending with random programs and taking needed tax cuts away from business who themselves are struggling. Not to mention his want to delay the Orion program is unheard of. but I agree with a lot of his views.

McCain on the other hand is worse. The Iraq war is pointless, even Iraq wants us out. That is a HUGE waste of money. I like the fact that he is liberal republican, but he is still too conservative

I still pick Obama and for his VP...this is tough...Wesley Clark, incredibly qualified. His military experience outdoes McCain. This guy graduated top of his class at West Point and then went to Oxford to study PPE. He is internationally respected and has many rewards.

I would like to write in Al Gore, but I doubt that will happen.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

If I vote it will be for Obama. Mainly because I can't stand McCain.

 

[WarPhalange]

I don't think I can vote for Obama, him being as skinny as he is.

 

[Jordan Joab]

H. Clinton.

 

[WheelsRCool]

McCain; Barack Obama is too socialist for me.

 

[OrbitalPower]

Neither candidate could be classified as "socialist." Plus, McSame actually would implement a lot of the failed spending programs that Bush wants to continue, and corporate welfare, which is three times the amount of social welfare.

http://www.conservativenannystate.org/

Both Obama and McCain are center right, but too far right for me. I prefer Nader, but if I had to choose between those two it would be Obama.

 

[WheelsRCool]

Neither candidate could be classified as "socialist." Plus, McSame actually would implement a lot of the failed spending programs that Bush wants to continue, and corporate welfare, which is three times the amount of social welfare.

http://www.conservativenannystate.org/

I definitely wouldn't classify Obama as "center-right," but I fully agree that McCain will likely continue many of the same programs as President Bush, unless he really adheres to his "crackdown on pork" theme. It just seems Barack Obama will spend even more. I believe GWB outspent every previous President on alternative energy for example, which Barack Obama wants to increase spending on, I do not think his universal health insurance program will be cheap, etc...for me, it's just choosing between two turds.

The Republican party unfortunately was hijacked by big-spending neocons.

Both Obama and McCain are center right, but too far right for me. I prefer Nader, but if I had to choose between those two it would be Obama.

See now to me, they're both too far to the Left! :D

 

[plutonium11]

I'm not in the states but I much rather see Obama than McCain. Obama seems more pro-science to me and I really don't want to see another war on science by a president again.

But if I could pick anyone, it would be Ron Paul. I'm just reading his book now, "The Revolution". He's so different from any other politician out there. Go Ron Paul!

 

[OrbitalPower]

Obama's and Hillary's plans have been estimated by economists like Gruber to be paid for by things such as redistributing spending in the health care system and cutting back on wasteful spending, with perhaps an increase on a certain negative tax.

Plus, these plans, esp. Obama's, simply require people to be insured. They are not overly expensive, and could easily be paid for.

The republican party has always engaged in big spending, such as Reagan, a conservative hero, who tripled the deficit, and was engaged in illegal operations such as selling arms to the Iranians and giving it to the contras.

Obama's right-wing policies include not wanting to end the death penalty, encouraging failed trade policies, back tracking on the environment, increased security measures, not calling for a complete withdrawl of all troops and military bases, and so on.

The "left" supports egalitarianism and equality, systems such as anarchism, democracy, utilitarianism, and socialism, whereas the right is reactionary and supports traditional, hierarchical systems such as capitlaism and fascism.

I don't know any political science definition that contradicts this.

 

[drankin]

McCain, because I know where he stands, for the most part. More than I know where Obama stands. Obama says a lot that doesn't really define a position on anything. Too vague a candidate for me.

 

[WarPhalange]

McCain, because I know where he stands, for the most part.

On his head? He's flip flopped on every issue he ever stood for, to the point of voting against his own bills.

 

[Gokul43201]

McCain, because I know where he stands, for the most part.

Time to play:Where, oh where, does McCain stand?ROUND I: SOCIAL ISSUES

Q1. Where does McCain stand on overturning Roe v. Wade?

<<For his 2000 campaign, he was against it. Now he is for it. Where will he be tomorrow? >>Q2. Where does McCain stand on the influence of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the Religious Right?

<<In his 2000 campaign, he called them "agents of intolerance". Now he says they are not and specifically sought Falwell's endorsement, spoke at his school, and hired his debate coach. McCain also sought endorsements from pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley during the primaries. After he won the Primary, however, he denounced their bigoted messages and rejected their endorsements. Where will he be tomorrow? >>Q3. Where does McCain stand on teaching Intelligent Design in schools?

<<For his 2000 campaign, he was against it, opposing GWB's stance. Now he is for it. Where will he be tomorrow? >>Q4. Where does McCain stand on the issue of the Confederate flag (and related race issues)?

<<During the 2000 primaries, he supported SC flying the Confederate flag, calling it a "symbol of heritage". A couple years later, he said that it "should be taken down". Over a similar time frame, he opposed a MLK holiday before he supported it. But on the issue of Affirmative Action (AA), he switched the other way. In 2000, he supported AA and rejected ballot measures to ban it. Today, he supports the Arizona ballot measure to ban AA. Where will he be tomorrow? >>Note: These are mostly well-known or easily Googled. If required, specific references will be provided upon request.

Stay tuned for...

ROUND II: CAMPAIGNING
ROUND III: ECONOMY
ROUND IV: FOREIGN POLICY
ROUND V: ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT

 

[WheelsRCool]

I agree regarding McCain on the social issues, but I think he would be better for the economy and foreign policy than Obama. Like I said though, both are turds to me.

 

[seycyrus]

I can easily come up with websites that document and discuss Obama's multitude of flip-flops.

 

[Riogho]

I'm voting for McCain for the simple reason that he makes more sense.

Energy is the real problem. The economy will recover when our energy problems decline. The wars will take care of themselves, it's just a matter of time. It's energy that is our problem.

Obama opposes drilling and nuclear power. Which is simply stupid. While neither may be the best long-term goal, we need something to get us there.

When we have giant pools of oil, and shale in the Rocky Mountains (Which is estimated to be between 700 billions and 3 trillion barrels, more than in Saudia Arabia), it is just foolish not to drill. I'll vote for the candidate that will drill for oil, and will use nuclear power.

Oh yea, and universal healthcare is retarded. I'm not paying for your kid's braces.

 

[WarPhalange]

The wars will take care of themselves, it's just a matter of time.

lol

Obama opposes drilling and nuclear power. Which is simply stupid.

It's also simply not true.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2034620420080620?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

When we have giant pools of oil, and shale in the Rocky Mountains (Which is estimated to be between 700 billions and 3 trillion barrels, more than in Saudia Arabia), it is just foolish not to drill. I'll vote for the candidate that will drill for oil, and will use nuclear power.

Do you have a source for those amounts of oil?

Secondly, do you have any idea whether that will even be beneficial in the short term? It takes a LONG time to build a nuclear plant and an oil rig. Moreover, oil companies already have a lot of land they can tap into but choose not to.

Oh yea, and universal healthcare is retarded. I'm not paying for your kid's braces.

Okay. I won't pay for your police force, then. Or fire department. Or roads. Or military.

 

[WheelsRCool]

Secondly, do you have any idea whether that will even be beneficial in the short term? It takes a LONG time to build a nuclear plant and an oil rig. Moreover, oil companies already have a lot of land they can tap into but choose not to.

It could be; oil prices are partially determined by oil futures. If the market thinks more drilling will start up, the price should drop instantly.

Okay. I won't pay for your police force, then. Or fire department. Or roads. Or military.

The taxpayer is not supposed to have to pay for people's healthcare. Infrastructure, military, police, firefighter, etc...are things that are always paid for via taxes and handled by the government. We couldn't have privately-controlled militaries, and having different police companies or firefighter companies just probably wouldn't be a good idea. One maybe could try having firefighting companies that would be paid by taxpayer dollars to handle fires and chemical spills and so forth, and one could perhaps try private police companies that compete for cities/towns to pay them to patrol and do policing, but in general, it probably simplifies things to have those entites under government (local government).

The market is supposed to handle healthcare. The problem is that the healthcare industry is so heavily regulated that it pretty much can't be considered a free-market system. But the United States government is the last entity I want controlling the healthcare system.

Remember, economic freedom is a necessary component for political freedom and social freedom and healthcare is 16% of the U.S. GDP. While Barack Obama's plan isn't to outright nationalize healthcare at the moment, I cannot see how it would not end up being nationalized in the future. There is no way he will be able to provide good, quality healthcare to all Americans. Healthcare has to be rationed, either by prices (market), or by bureaucratic fiat (government). Right now it's kind of a combination of both.

I do not want government eventually taking control of 16% of the economy. Saying that we can provide "universal healthcare" is like claiming that we can give everyone beachfront housing.

 

[OrbitalPower]

Economic freedom has not been a "necessary component" for political freedom. The Nazis privatized many industries and opened up trade, there was not an increase in political freedom. Economic freedom is now booming in China, and there is not a vast amount of "freedom" there either.

Shifting power into the hands of private tyrannies is not freedom, although this is another matter.

As for heatlh care, the US already spends more per capita than most other industrialized nations. The profits, however, are indeed privatized, making the industry more geared towards selling drugs and other profiteering shenanigans than prevention. The US could save a lot on prevention alone.

The "market solution" has already failed and is disaterous, so indeed I think it is time for someone else to come up with a new solution, even if it is a weird collusion between the insurance industry and the government (not true UHC).

 

[WarPhalange]

We couldn't have privately-controlled militaries, and having different police companies or firefighter companies just probably wouldn't be a good idea. One maybe could try having firefighting companies that would be paid by taxpayer dollars to handle fires and chemical spills and so forth, and one could perhaps try private police companies that compete for cities/towns to pay them to patrol and do policing, but in general, it probably simplifies things to have those entites under government (local government).

I suggest you go learn some history. We already had a privatized firefighter system, and it completely flopped. The firefighters would fight over who gets to put out the fire while the building burns.

We now have a privatized healthcare system which is sucking pretty bad. Trying to make it government controlled could be beneficial. At least if we try it we'll know for sure which was better.

The market is supposed to handle healthcare.

What is this "supposed to" business? Where does it say that?

 

[OrbitalPower]

I do not want government eventually taking control of 16% of the economy. Saying that we can provide "universal healthcare" is like claiming that we can give everyone beachfront housing.

More "voodoo economics." The government would not be controlling 17% of the economy, first of all, and they really would be no more involved in the health care system than they are now with this corporate system we have in place (for health care, or any other system).

Hillary's plan, which would actually be more expensive to implement than Obama's, was estimated to cost about 110 billion to implement.

According to health care econonomists like Jonathan Gruber at MIT, it could be paid for by rolling back Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, and the savings generated by improvements in chronic disease management, prevention, and electric record keeping. This would generate about half the income for the "UHC" plans. This is not a "tax increase" because without congressional action the cuts are set to expire in January, 2011.

Obama, since he requires only children to be covered, would likely be even cheaper to implement, as only the poorer children's families would be getting the tax credits back.

Another thing interesting about Hillary's plan was that she wanted to cap primiums between 5 to 10%.

Right now, the average cost of a family policy is about 10% of the median family income of about 60,000, while some families pay as much as 16% of their median income. But, Hillary said she might require insurers to spend a heavy proportion of primium dollars on health care as opposed to overhead and profit.

http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

This is another inventive solution to the health care plan. These type of plans were deemed "realistic" by economists like Jonathan Gruber, who only disagreed with HIllary on on naot varying the premium cap according to income.

It's important to note that governors like Schwarzenegger etc. have already talked about doing things like this, and Massachusetts already has a mandated insurance plan and they were able to manage it.

You could also up the tax on cigarettes to help pay for an Obama plan, which, again, would be cheaper.

So which health economist says that it is "unrealistic" and it amounts to the US controlling 16% of the economy by requiring children to be covered?

 

[WarPhalange]

Oh yea, and universal healthcare is retarded. I'm not paying for your kid's braces.

Would you rather pay for a kid's ear infection medication or ER expenses when the kid's infection gets much worse?

Because right now you're paying for the latter. People don't have money for doctor visits, so they don't go. Then it gets worse, so they go to the ER. It would be cheaper to pay for prevention than for fixing problems.

 

[Gokul43201]

I can easily come up with websites that document and discuss Obama's multitude of flip-flops.

Feel free.

 

[Gokul43201]

It could be; oil prices are partially determined by oil futures. If the market thinks more drilling will start up, the price should drop instantly.

Is there a single serious study or a single reputed economist that calculates the effect of such announcements on the price of oil? Our own DoE says there is not going to be any noticeable change in price for several years.

 

[russ_watters]

Not to worry, guys - Obama supports drilling now!

Obama's proposal includes two reversals of positions he has taken in the past: He had fought the idea of limited new offshore drilling and was against tapping the nation's emergency oil stockpile to relieve gasoline prices that have stubbornly hovered around $4 a gallon.

On Monday, Obama pushed for drawing from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and reiterated an offshore drilling position he first revealed Friday: He could live with it if it is done in an environmentally sound way and as part of comprehensive, bipartisan legislation on energy.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-04-obama-oil_N.htm

That's as of Friday, though. Where will he be tomorrow? Stay tuned...

 

[russ_watters]

If required, specific references will be provided upon request.

Yes, I would like to see them.

 

[russ_watters]

I can easily come up with websites that document and discuss Obama's multitude of flip-flops.

That's more difficult with Obama since he doesn't take specific positions on a lot of issues. I guess you could say more wavers than flip-flops. For example:

Obama opposes drilling and nuclear power.

It's also simply not true. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2034620420080620?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

During a meeting with U.S. governors, Obama noted that nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases and therefore the United States should consider investing research dollars into whether nuclear waste can be stored safely for its reuse.

But he said, "I don't think that nuclear power is a panacea."

It is interesting they don't quote him on his actual position, but the paraphrase just says we should 'consider' it. So really, he's taken no position at all there.

Here he says "I don't think we should take nuclear power off the table, but...". Not exactly a ringing endorsement. http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2008/01/barack-obama-on-nuclear-energy.html

The part about Obama being against offshore drilling was true before last Friday.

 

[rootX]

Why do you want candidates to have firm opinions?

I think they should have dynamic opinions because of the non-static environment+factors.

Personally, I prefer Obama because he is/looks/(speaks like) young.

 

[WarPhalange]

There's a dynamic opinion and then there is flip flopping and then there is just not having an opinion, which is not desirable either.

A candidate never changing his mind is stupid. When you know a guy who thinks the same thing on Wednesday that he did on Monday, regardless of what happened on Tuesday, you call him a stubborn idiot. But if it's a politician, he's suddenly a good leader?

Flip flopping is when a candidate held a firm position on a subject for a while and suddenly switches in order to get more votes. You don't see flip flopping during the "off season", when people aren't campaigning. If they change their mind, it's either because they really believe it or someone is lining their pockets.

Not having an opinion is what Obama is in danger of being portrayed as. He is kind of vague and it seems like he hasn't thought much through. On the other hand, he is fairly new, so it could just be a matter of him not having enough experience, which is another flaw of his. McCain is a seasoned politician, so he shouldn't be vague on anything at this point.

 

[WheelsRCool]

Economic freedom has not been a "necessary component" for political freedom. The Nazis privatized many industries and opened up trade, there was not an increase in political freedom. Economic freedom is now booming in China, and there is not a vast amount of "freedom" there either.

Privatization alone does not equate to a free society when the government regulates prices, wages, and production quotas, as the Nazis did.

Monopolies and oligopolies took over the various industries. Economic freedom, political freedom, social freedom, all require that the government, for the most part, keep its hands out of the economy and stick to its job of national defense, enforcing contracts and the law, etc...regulation is needed here and there, but for the most part, government should stay out of the economy.

Remember, for an economy to be truly a free-market and capitalist, the rationing of resources must be done by the natural fluctuations of the price system.

Shifting power into the hands of private tyrannies is not freedom, although this is another matter.

Neither is shifting it into the hands of a government tyranny, only the difference with the government is, there is nothing you can do to stop them. With a company, you can stop buying their products, and if you don't like your employer, the worst they can do is stop paying you. That's a heck of a lot more lenient compared to a bureaucrat with the force of the government backing them up.

And "private tyrannies" do not form in free markets. Go read about all the "big businesses" such as store chains, supermarket chains, etc...that were huge in the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s. Most of them are either gone or much smaller than they used to be, because markets change, companies rise and fall. One can only create a monopoly, for the most part, through government regulation.

You look at all the industries with monopolies or near monopolies and they are highly regulated, such as farming, airlines, pharmaceuticals, health insurance, etc...

This isn't always the case, sometimes a private monopoly forms anyhow, and if that is the case, occasionally you must have government intervene and force this private monopoly not to gouge prices. It depends. Sometimes one must choose between a private monopoly or a public monopoly. Both are bureaucracy, both become very corrupt.

As for heatlh care, the US already spends more per capita than most other industrialized nations. The profits, however, are indeed privatized, making the industry more geared towards selling drugs and other profiteering shenanigans than prevention. The US could save a lot on prevention alone.

You are correct, the U.S. system spends about twice as much per capita on healthcare I believe. But the drug industry, the health insurance industry, etc...are all dominated by a few very large, very powerful companies because those industries are so heavily regulated.

The "market solution" has already failed and is disaterous,

No it didn't. It worked pretty fine until the government started getting more and more involved in healthcare. Remember, around 45% of current healthcare in the U.S. comes from Medicare and Medicaid. The other 55% is privately-controlled, but not really a free-market.

so indeed I think it is time for someone else to come up with a new solution, even if it is a weird collusion between the insurance industry and the government (not true UHC).

They can try, and I believe they will fail.

I suggest you go learn some history. We already had a privatized firefighter system, and it completely flopped. The firefighters would fight over who gets to put out the fire while the building burns.

Exactly; that's why I said "one could maybe try" having privatization for things like firefighters, but it likely would be a lot simpler for the government to control it, and as you have stated, that was proven correct (I am thinking "Gangs of New York").

Nothing in economics is absolute; some things, the government is better at. But healthcare, in my opinion, is not one of them.

We now have a privatized healthcare system which is sucking pretty bad.

It is privatized, but it is not really a free-market because of the heavy regulation. I'm not advocating no regulation or oversight, but too much regulation hampers any industry. It isn't as if we have a free-market healthcare system that for some reason isn't working right.

The aspects of healthcare that are subject to the free-market, such as laser eye surgery, are decreasing in price while increasing in quality. Health insurance, drugs, etc...are not.

Imagine what the computer industry would look like if it was as regulated as the healthcare industry. We'd still be using vacuum tube computers most likely.

Trying to make it government controlled could be beneficial. At least if we try it we'll know for sure which was better.

I do not think it would be; but on another aspect, what if it wasn't? What do we do then? You really think the government will give up 16% control of the economy. They aren't joking when they said that there are two things infinite: the universe and a government agency/program.

I would say we know which are better simply by looking at the healthcare systems of foreign countries, or Canada, or Massachusettes even. Far more people then expected ended up signing up for that universal healthcare plan (Massachusettes), thus overloading it and driving up costs:

http://www.boston.com/business/heal...urers_businesses_seek_to_limit_costs_in_mass/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/us/05doctors.html

There is only a limited number of doctors. Canada has experienced a shortfall of doctors and nurses as of late because of the strain on the system there.

One is supposed to be able to pay for healthcare with their own money or buy health insurance, but buying health insurance is nothing like buying car insurance or homeowner's insurance.

Remember also, California, the 7th largest economy in the world, wanted to implement a universal healthcare program, but axed it, concluding that it would bankrupt the state. If California cannot do it, how would it be done for the entire United States of America?

More "voodoo economics." The government would not be controlling 17% of the economy, first of all, and they really would be no more involved in the health care system than they are now with this corporate system we have in place (for health care, or any other system).

If we eventually moved to a full nationalized healthcare system, yes they would. And if they aren't going to be anymore involved under Obama's plan than now, than how would the system be any different? Much of the system now rations in much the same way as a government would, accept that it uses corporate bureaucracies, rather than a government bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is bureaucracy, except in a free-market, corporate bureaucracies are subject to market forces, which they are not right now.

According to health care econonomists like Jonathan Gruber at MIT, it could be paid for by rolling back Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, and the savings generated by improvements in chronic disease management, prevention, and electric record keeping. This would generate about half the income for the "UHC" plans. This is not a "tax increase" because without congressional action the cuts are set to expire in January, 2011.

From my understanding, Bush did not cut taxes solely for the wealthy.

The tax rates pre-Bush were:
10% (income of $0 to $7,550), 15% ($7550 to $30650), 28% ($30,650 to $74,200), 31% ($74,200 to $154,800), 36% ($154,800 to $336,550), and 39.6% ($336,550 and up)

Here is what they went down to after Bush cut taxes:
10% (income of $0 to $7,550), 15% ($7550 to $30650), 25% ($30,650 to $74,200), 28% ($74,200 to $154,800), 33% ($154,800 to $336,550), and 35% ($336,550 and up).

The only reason the majority of the benefits of the Bush tax cuts went to the highest-earning 1% of the population is because the highest-earning 1% pay the majority of the tax revenue. The bottom-earning 50% pay virtually nothing.

If you cut taxes by 3% for someone earning $30,000 a year and someone earning $300,000 a year, the person earning $300,000 a year saves more money.

Once one makes over $100,000 a year, they are in the highest-earning portion of the population, however, there is still a large amount of hardworking professionals who make $100K, $150K, $200K, etc...who are far from wealthy, especially if they live in one of the expensive areas of New York or California. If you live in Manhattan for example, $300K a year is solidly middle-class.

I also do not believe it is morally right for the government to take so much of a person's money under the pre-Bush tax rate. Pre-Bush, if you are a hardworking lawyer making say $150K a year, 39% of your income alone goes to the Federal government; then you throw in state and local taxes, and you are talking about 50% or more of your income going to the government, and that's without sales taxes for things purchased to.

It's important to note that governors like Schwarzenegger etc. have already talked about doing things like this, and Massachusetts already has a mandated insurance plan and they were able to manage it.

As I said, California axed theirs and Massachusettes is experiencing an overload on their system right now.

So which health economist says that it is "unrealistic" and it amounts to the US controlling 16% of the economy by requiring children to be covered?

You have to remember that many of these economists function in the world of theory. While economists views are to be considered, one has to be careful; for example, during the Dot Com boom, I believe two Nobel Prize winning economists said it was a "new economy" and that stock prices would not go down; I also read, in a defense of people who thought that housing prices during the housing bubble would keep going up, that there were economists who did sound analysis and concluded that housing was not in a bubble; so I mean, take what economists write with a grain of salt and remember the basic laws, like supply/demand. If you have a limited supply, but an increase in demand (and when something is "free", people demand more of it, in particular if the "wealthy" are mostly paying for it), you will have to ration resources one way or another.

Is there a single serious study or a single reputed economist that calculates the effect of such announcements on the price of oil? Our own DoE says there is not going to be any noticeable change in price for several years.

Not totally sure; one reason I say prices should drop that is because when President Bush lifted the moratorium on drilling, the price began to drop, and the price increased a good deal for a while as well due to speculation, but I could be wrong; one another thing, is the DoE a reputable source, as aren't they mostly bureaucrats...?

One other thing though: even if drilling would not decrease oil prices for say ten years, why not start now? And at the same time, work on alternative energy? If we had started say in 1998, it would likely be helping right about now, for example. Ten years seems far out, until it arrives.

 

[OrbitalPower]

Privatization alone does not equate to a free society when the government regulates prices, wages, and production quotas, as the Nazis did.

The Nazis did not interfere with the profits of some of their largest corporations, such as IG Farben, Krupp, Siemens AG, and so on. I don't know what you're talking about. These corporations were pretty much free to run amok.

Again, the Nazis PRIVATIZED far more industries than what had existed under the Weimar republican, and their problem, if anything, was giving corporations too much freedom -- such as the freedom to use slave labor.

Economic freedom, political freedom, social freedom, all require that the government, for the most part, keep its hands out of the economy and stick to its job of national defense, enforcing contracts and the law, etc...regulation is needed here and there, but for the most part, government should stay out of the economy.

I disagree. Both economic freedom and political freedom depend on how the government is protecting the power structures in a society, and who they are protecting.

There is more "government intervention" in European countries than the US in the economy, but I would classify them as more free because of the more diverse media options, less indoctrination, and more social freedoms.

Slavery often had a weak government, but it was more tyrannical than modern America, which is a more powerful government.

Feudalism, capitalism, all require the government to play a role -- which is why I'm opposed to these systems, as despots have no place in politics.

Neither is shifting it into the hands of a government tyranny, only the difference with the government is, there is nothing you can do to stop them.

Wrong. With a government, you can vote, with a corporation, you cannot vote, as the resources are already so controlled by them they force you to buy goods (you have to have goods to survive), forcing you to work job x just to get resource y.

"Voting with your dollars" is nonsense because it favors the wealthy heavily, whereas democracy is "one person, one vote."

Imagine a car manufacturer that has two lines of cars going. Say about 1,000 rich people want their first car, car A, and 90% of them will go out and buy it within the next few weeks. Say 10,000 people want car B because car B has better gas milage. Well, only a fraction of them can afford to pay for it right now, only a few buy it within the next few weeks, and so the car manufacturer decides to put car A on its main production line, forcing up the price of car B, or discontinuing it altogether. This happens even though more people wanted car B and could have even made the company more profits.

Or, imagine a TV set, and the company wants to sell it to 100 people at a higher price than they could sell it to a 1,000 people at a lower price, equal profits.

Such happens all the time in capitalism and in this kind of "voting" favors the rich, which is tyranny, which is despotic and not democratic.

With a company, you can stop buying their products, and if you don't like your employer, the worst they can do is stop paying you. That's a heck of a lot more lenient compared to a bureaucrat with the force of the government backing them up.

Wrong.

These companies came into existence before I was even born and I do not get to vote on them at all. They were already put in place by government grants, land theft, and are just the way the rich structured society. After all, I must use resources, and I must use the resources that are provided, thus I would be forced into this market tyranny. In a government, I am allowed to choose who I want to be the "CEO" of America incorporated, in a captialist economy, I never get to choose the CEO.

And even if there were more alternatives, it wouldn't matter because the alternatives don't get to compete on a level playing field. In an electoral democracy, everything is "reset" every two to four years, or six years, in a capitalist system, nothing is reset.

So, you actually have far more freedom in a public government than in a private corporation, which, again, is protected by the government anyway.

And "private tyrannies" do not form in free markets. Go read about all the "big businesses" such as store chains, supermarket chains, etc...that were huge in the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s. Most of them are either gone or much smaller than they used to be, because markets change, companies rise and fall. One can only create a monopoly, for the most part, through government regulation.

Those monopolies existed before anti-trust and anti-monopoly legislation was passed. They existed before the new deal. With the new deal, there would have been a decline in monopolies.

With Reaganism, of course, we began once again to see a consolidation of resources.

You look at all the industries with monopolies or near monopolies and they are highly regulated, such as farming, airlines, pharmaceuticals, health insurance, etc...

This is simply because capitalism has never worked completely on its own, as capitalism requires a government to back it up.

From my understanding, Bush did not cut taxes solely for the wealthy.

The tax rates pre-Bush were:
10% (income of $0 to $7,550), 15% ($7550 to $30650), 28% ($30,650 to $74,200), 31% ($74,200 to $154,800), 36% ($154,800 to $336,550), and 39.6% ($336,550 and up)

Here is what they went down to after Bush cut taxes:
10% (income of $0 to $7,550), 15% ($7550 to $30650), 25% ($30,650 to $74,200), 28% ($74,200 to $154,800), 33% ($154,800 to $336,550), and 35% ($336,550 and up).

The tax cuts certainly did favor the wealthy. The wealthy pay about 33% of the income tax yet saw a majority of the tax cuts, and their tax rates decreased by a higher percentage rate than that of the poor and middle class.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/16/politics/main636398.shtml

The only reason the majority of the benefits of the Bush tax cuts went to the highest-earning 1% of the population is because the highest-earning 1% pay the majority of the tax revenue. The bottom-earning 50% pay virtually nothing.

The bottom pay a lot of money into other taxes like social security and so on, which are regressive and which thus favor the rich. The rich are less likely to be hurting from a progressive tax cut than the poor are from a regressive tax cut, such as Bush's.

This weakens demand and thus leads to economic disaster, as we are seeing.

I also do not believe it is morally right for the government to take so much of a person's money under the pre-Bush tax rate. Pre-Bush, if you are a hardworking lawyer making say $150K a year, 39% of your income alone goes to the Federal government; then you throw in state and local taxes, and you are talking about 50% or more of your income going to the government, and that's without sales taxes for things purchased to.

I don't think it's morally right for the government to protect corporations at all. Howerver, since they do do this, I believe it is best to make the system as efficient and as fair and democratic as possible, and the way to do this would be to vote for Obama.

You have to remember that many of these economists function in the world of theory.

Yes, people in the "Austrian school" of economics work on unproven assumption and pseudo-sciences like "praxeology," while attacking the logic and reasoning of mathematics, whereas real economists have important work to do and analyze, and why the "Austrian school" is almost universally rejected in economics, even though economics is a highly conservative field as compared to the real sciences.

 

[russ_watters]

OrbitalPower, you have a pretty thin understanding of capitalism. The basic issue I see repeated several times in that post is this:

With a government, you can vote, with a corporation, you cannot vote...

The fact of the matter is that about half the population of the US owns sock in most of the major companies in the US. That's ownership, which includes voting rights. The American public owns the companies and makes the decisions by which they do business.

 

[Benzoate]

Ron Paul because he is the only candidate who is addressing how to prevent the dollar from continue to inflate . He is one of the few candidates who realizes that as the government continues to create money that is not in the hands of a taxpaper in order to pay off expenses, this money will continue to circulated thus driving up the prices of goods and services.

Ron Paul would not expand and create new government programs because he knows we are in debt and cannot borrow money from countries like China. Do you know how much power China had over the US when we request a loan from China? China can lie and say that the US owes more money than we borrow. All the other candidates just want to continue to expand the role of government even if we really do not have the money to fund these incompetent policies are candidates are proposing.

And of course not only does Ron Paul want to withdraw our troops from Iraq, He wants to only trade with other countries and not get entangle in Foreign Affairs. I don't think we would be hated as much around the world if we didn't have our military tanks parked on the soil of other countries.

 

[Crosson]

OrbitalPower, you have a pretty thin understanding of capitalism. The basic issue I see repeated several times in that post is this:

With a government, you can vote, with a corporation, you cannot vote...

The fact of the matter is that about half the population of the US owns sock in most of the major companies in the US. That's ownership, which includes voting rights.

OrbitalPower made a valid point, and I think your rebuttal is highly deficient. The truth is that 50% of American households hold stock only if you include mutual funds and retirement accounts, which of course do not grant voting rights. Furthermore, even most of the direct stock holdings of the American public do not grant voting rights to those companies, they are so called 'preferred shares' which have a higher rate of dividend payments, in contrast to 'voting shares.' A typical fraction of ownership that would grant some voting rights in some American corporations is 3%. In other words, it is completely false to say that 50% or even 1% of Americans have any direct voting control over any of the major US corporations.

The American public owns the companies and makes the decisions by which they do business.

Are you trying to be intentionally deceiving? Dictionary:

"Public is of or pertaining to the people; relating to, or affecting, a nation, state, or community; opposed to private; as, the public treasury, a road or lake."

Ownership of the corporations by the American public is tantamount to communism; what you meant to say is that 'various Americans privately own the companies and make the decisions by which they do business.' We could also add that this private group is less than 1% of the general population. Who is the one with "a thin understanding of capitalism?"

 

[WheelsRCool]

The Nazis did not interfere with the profits of some of their largest corporations, such as IG Farben, Krupp, Siemens AG, and so on. I don't know what you're talking about. These corporations were pretty much free to run amok.

Again, the Nazis PRIVATIZED far more industries than what had existed under the Weimar republican, and their problem, if anything, was giving corporations too much freedom -- such as the freedom to use slave labor.

Yes, but again, privatization alone doesn't mean the corporation is "free to run amok." The Nazis and the fascists in Italy heavily regulated all of industry. And the Nazis threatened some firms/industries that were at first resistant to the Nazi regime with outright nationalization if they didn't comply.

The problem is when you regulate too much, you make it impossible for entrepreneurs to start up companies that can challenge the existing big businesses in the industry.

For example, in the computer and software industry, there is nothing preventing you or me from starting our own company that could eventually challenge Google or Microsoft.

But with the drug industry, if you or me wanted to start our own drug company, well first, you have to send the drug through about ten to fifteen years of FDA regulations. Now if you are an entrepreneur, are you really going to wait that long just to get the drug passed, in order to start your company?

Or look at it from a legal and accounting standpoint. With excessive regulations, what happens is that the big businesses, with their multimillion-dollar accounting and legal budgets, can afford to comply with these regulations, whereas the small business can't. For a big business to comply, they might have to raise their prices maybe a cent or so. For a small business, they would have to raise their prices a lot more, thus driving them out of business.

Why do you think Wal Mart favors a higher minimum wage? This is Wal Mart, the company that supposedly doesn't care for its workers. Do you think they favor a higher minimum wage because they care about their workers? The reason is because Wal Mart, being a multinational corporation, one of the largest in the world, can absorb a higher minimum wage easily. They would maybe need to raise prices half a cent. But a small mom-and-pop business cannot. A higher minimum wage for them means they will either have to fire workers or pay them significantly less, or yank up their prices, all things that can drive them out of business (which is what Wal-Mart wants).

I disagree. Both economic freedom and political freedom depend on how the government is protecting the power structures in a society, and who they are protecting.

There is more "government intervention" in European countries than the US in the economy, but I would classify them as more free because of the more diverse media options, less indoctrination, and more social freedoms.

I think we'll just have to "agree to disagree" on that one.

Slavery often had a weak government, but it was more tyrannical than modern America, which is a more powerful government.

Yes, and slavery was very wrong. After the Civil War was when the national government became more powerful than the states. We do need a strong national government, what we don't want is a national government that is too powerful.

Feudalism, capitalism, all require the government to play a role -- which is why I'm opposed to these systems, as despots have no place in politics.

Feudalism is an opposite of capitalism. Feudalism works by having the vast majority of the population work their whole lives to serve a very small group of elites who rule over them, with no hope of escape.

Capitalism requires the opposite: to get rich in capitalism, you must serve the masses. If you start a company that provides millions of people with some good or service that helps them a lot, you will become very wealthy. Hence the plethora of companies making everything from shoes to appliances to electronics to furniture to retailing to things like frozen food, canned goods, candy, automobiles, etc...that is why the general standard of living with capitalism always increases. Because the whole way people get wealthy in the capitalist system is by providing for the masses.

Even Hitler, in a sense, said this, admiring Henry Ford, saying, "...he produces for the masses. That little car of his has done more than anything else to destroy class differences." (Ann O'Hare McCormick, "Hitler Seeks Jobs for All Germans, New York Times, July 10, 1933, p. 6).

And he was correct. The Ford Model T gave millions of Americans, for cheap, a luxury once afforded only by the wealthy elites. Although Hitler did not like Western capitalism and the free-market, he inadverdently pointed out that in the capitalist system, one gets rich by providing for the masses, as Henry Ford was very, very wealthy. Ford didn't get rich by keeping people down.

(remember the Nazi idealogy was to take the best elements of capitalism and mix them with socialism, because they believe pure laissez-faire capitalism was a failure, from the Great Depression. The Nazis liked neither pure socialism or laissez-faire capitalism).

Henry Ford also invented another great product: Kingsford Charcoal.
(Ford, however, was a rabid anti-Semite and Nazi lover).

Hershey brought another product to the masses once only afforded by the wealthy: chocolate, with his milk chocolate bars.

Yes, at first, in the very early days, you had factories that had horrible working conditions and unsafe machinery, but because of the freedom of the capitalist system, people organized, form watchdog groups, social movements formed to have the government regulate companies to at least provide safe working conditions, and so forth, meanwhile the capitalist system improved the security and safety and efficiency of the machinery used in said factories, etc...whereas in socialism, this could not happen. If you were forced to work in a horrible factory in the Soviet Union, tough. If you didn't like your boss, tough. If you tried protesting, the Soviet military or police would come out and shoot you.

One cannot deny the efficacy of capitalism. North Korea, Cuba, China in the communist days (and still much of it), the Soviet Union, etc...all resemble a feudalist society, with a small group of elites ruling over the masses. South Korea, Hong Kong, the United States, Australia, Canada, etc...are all predominatly capitalist countries, with the highest standards of living ever given to humanity.

These examples were almost complete perfect social experiments: capitalist Hong Kong versus socialist China, capitalist West Germany versus socialist East Germany (the Soviets had to put up a big wall and armed guards to get people to stop leaving East Germany!), capitalist South Korea versus socialist North Korea.

Heck, even more socialist Mexico versus capitalist United States, where people are fleeing Mexico for America.

Even economists who during the Cold War era were socialists have all begrudgingly admitted capitalism works.

The argument is over things like what should taxes be? Should you have high income taxation and a low corporate tax (as some nations do it) or low income taxation and a higher corporate tax? How much should the economy be regulated by government? What industries should be nationalized, as not everything can be privatized (this debate especially rages regarding healthcare as we've seen).

Wrong. With a government, you can vote, with a corporation, you cannot vote, as the resources are already so controlled by them they force you to buy goods (you have to have goods to survive), forcing you to work job x just to get resource y.

If you have a government agency in charge of a certain industry, you can't vote for those bureaucrats. And no corporation can force you to buy goods unless it's a needed good, like say water, in which case, if one company controls the water and gouges the price, the government must step in. But for the vast majority of industries, there is competition.

Sometimes a monopoly will form temporarily, and eventually die off, however, if the temporary period is too long and it's for a very needed good, government will have to step into regulate properly. But again, this is an exception to what normally occurs.

One of the strange ironies of capitalism is that it allows what communism aspired to do, that is, public ownership of the corporations.

I'm sure you've heard of the so-called "huge windfall profits" Big Oil is making. Many believe Big Oil is really owned by a small group of elite businessmen (who are supposedly hogging all this money), and that it should be nationalized so that the "public" owns it (some Democrats have suggested nationalization). In reality, if nationalized, the government would own it, not the public. Big Oil as is, is in fact, majority owned by the American public: http://www.sonecon.com/docs/studies/0907_WhoOwnsOilCompanies.pdf

"Voting with your dollars" is nonsense because it favors the wealthy heavily, whereas democracy is "one person, one vote."

Imagine a car manufacturer that has two lines of cars going. Say about 1,000 rich people want their first car, car A, and 90% of them will go out and buy it within the next few weeks. Say 10,000 people want car B because car B has better gas milage. Well, only a fraction of them can afford to pay for it right now, only a few buy it within the next few weeks, and so the car manufacturer decides to put car A on its main production line, forcing up the price of car B, or discontinuing it altogether. This happens even though more people wanted car B and could have even made the company more profits.

Or, imagine a TV set, and the company wants to sell it to 100 people at a higher price than they could sell it to a 1,000 people at a lower price, equal profits.

Such happens all the time in capitalism and in this kind of "voting" favors the rich, which is tyranny, which is despotic and not democratic.

If you have a monopoly, yes, but the automotive industry, and the electronics industry in particular, are very competitive, with manufacturers constantly trying to offer lower prices than their competitors.

Cars for wealthy people generally are not profitable. The most expensive, exclusive luxury car companies oftentimes have to either be subsidized (either Aston Martin or Bentley, I forget, is subsidized by the British government), or take a loss. For example, the $1 million Bugatti Veyron, that car is costing Bugatti a lot of money. It made no sense, from a profit standpoint, whatsoever to manufacture it, except for bragging rights of having engineered and built the world's fastest car. Also Bugatti is historically an elite wealthy-people's car manufacturer, so to them, profit likely isn't as important. They probably view their cars more as art.

It is much more profitable to offer cheap, affordable cars and trucks to the masses. With a monopoly, one can charge what they want, but with competition between firms, prices get driven down (and wages up).

You see prices of electronics going down all the time. I remember about eight years ago I paid $200 for a portable CD player. Now, you can get a much more capable IPOD for less. Prices of flat screen TVs are coming down, DVD players used to be ultra-expensive, now they're cheap. Because constant competition, again, drives the prices down (and the quality up).

cont'd...

 

[WheelsRCool]

Wrong.

These companies came into existence before I was even born and I do not get to vote on them at all. They were already put in place by government grants, land theft, and are just the way the rich structured society. After all, I must use resources, and I must use the resources that are provided, thus I would be forced into this market tyranny. In a government, I am allowed to choose who I want to be the "CEO" of America incorporated, in a captialist economy, I never get to choose the CEO.

You can vote with a capitalist system. If you own shares in a company, you can vote for the corporate governors, and if you feel you're being swindled somehow, you can take action, band with others calling for shareholder rights and so on. You can also vote with your wallet and not buy their products.

BTW, it was the financial revolution inspired by the policies of Ronald Reagan that made corporate governance a lot more accountable to the shareholders. Before, many big companies used to do waste money on unprofitable projects, bloating up the sizes of the companies, and so forth. With the Reagan financial revolution, in which companies were loaded up with debt and streamlined, America corporations became far more efficient, competitive, and because of the debt to pay off, answerable to the shareholders. CEOs could lose their job for not making sure to pursue profitable projects to pay down the debt.

And even if there were more alternatives, it wouldn't matter because the alternatives don't get to compete on a level playing field. In an electoral democracy, everything is "reset" every two to four years, or six years, in a capitalist system, nothing is reset.

In a free market economy, without much government intervention, it is a level playing field. Companies are free to start up, grow, and eventually die if they don't compete right with the competition. Individuals are free to engage in contracts with one another.

Big businesses have certain advantages, when they get big, that small businesses do not have (such as economies of scale), but small businesses also have certain advantages that big businesses do not have (such as being able to customize and adapt for local markets far better). Both thrive in a free market.

One belief used to be that big businesses would wipe out all the small businesses and take over. Now we know this is not the case, that this is impossible in a free-market, but such a thing does occur if you over-regulate the market, control prices and wages, etc...

But when big businesses see government coming to regulate them, they get very cozy with each other, and big business gets favors from the government which they shouldn't.

So, you actually have far more freedom in a public government than in a private corporation, which, again, is protected by the government anyway.

In a free-market economy, no corporation is protected by the government. Companies are born, grow old, and die in a free-market.

Those monopolies existed before anti-trust and anti-monopoly legislation was passed. They existed before the new deal. With the new deal, there would have been a decline in monopolies.

Wasn't it Theodore Roosevelt who started trust-busting and so forth? That was before the 1920s I believe. Also, remember, the New Deal by FDR was partially based off of the policies of the Nazi party and the Italian fascist party, and both gave FDR praise for doing things that resembled their policies. The Nazi Party's official newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter, even stated that "many pages in his book Looking Forward could have been written by a National Socialist. In any case, one can assume that he feels considerable affinity with the National Socialist philosophy." (Schivelbusch, Three New Deals, pp. 23, 24, 19).

With Reaganism, of course, we began once again to see a consolidation of resources.

Would have to disagree there; with Reagan, we saw the boot of the government taken off the throat of the economy and an explosion of economic growth and the standard of living. Wall Street and big business became more accessible to the average joe willing to work hard as well, and industries such as the airlines, telecommunications, electronics, computers, finance, etc...all greatly improved and advanced.

This is simply because capitalism has never worked completely on its own, as capitalism requires a government to back it up.

You are correct; capitalism can't function with no government. Government is required to enforce contracts and enforce the rule of law. No government is pure anarchy. The idea is to keep the government as limited as possible.

The tax cuts certainly did favor the wealthy. The wealthy pay about 33% of the income tax yet saw a majority of the tax cuts, and their tax rates decreased by a higher percentage rate than that of the poor and middle class.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/16/politics/main636398.shtml

From my understanding, the estimate is the wealthy pay anywhere from 40% to 80% of the total tax burden.

Here is a chart from the CBO, you can see the highest-quintile provides the government with their lion's share of revenues: http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/taxdistribution.cfm

The bottom pay a lot of money into other taxes like social security and so on, which are regressive and which thus favor the rich. The rich are less likely to be hurting from a progressive tax cut than the poor are from a regressive tax cut, such as Bush's.

The thing is, is that Social Security is supposed to be a program that the middle-class pays into their working lives, and gets out what they paid into it. This isn't really the case. The people paying into it are who are supporting the people taking out from it at the moment. But you are supposed to get out what you put in.

So ask yourself, if you start taxing people earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for SS, would that make sense? Because then, technically, SS has to pay to those high-earning people (who may not even need SS payments later on), what they put into it. So what you'd get is middle-class folks paying in average sums, and getting out average amounts, and wealthier folk paying in large sums, and getting out large sums.

I could imagine the outcries: "What does a guy making $500,000 a year all his life need such huge Social Security payments for!? He can afford his own retirmement! blah blah blah" well yes, but that assumes that SS is a welfare program, which it isn't supposed to be. It's supposed to be your own retirement program, but you are forced by law to pay into it.

The government knows they could never start taxing wealthier folk for SS and then start paying out larger sums to those wealthier people later on. It would be political suicide, because too many people assume SS is an entitlement welfare-type of program. If they increase SS taxes but put a cap on who can receive SS benefits, then SS becomes a de-facto welfare program, one that punishes the successful people. It would also mean the masses would be getting to vote for a program that gets paid for by a small minority, which isn't fair, but if Obama gets elected, seems will happen. It will be de-facto wealth redistribution, i.e. a small minority works hard their lives to earn good incomes, which then, by government force, get taken from them partially to be re-distributed to the masses, who didn't earn them.

And what's worse is that Social Security was plenty solvent. The government went and stole a bunch of money from it, thus putting it in dire straights. So the notion that the wealthy need to pay into SS to keep it functioning isn't true. SS was plenty solvent with the middle-class paying for it, and it serving the middle-class. But then the government stole money from it.

I don't think it's morally right for the government to protect corporations at all. Howerver, since they do do this, I believe it is best to make the system as efficient and as fair and democratic as possible, and the way to do this would be to vote for Obama.

I agree on the don't protect corporations-aspect, but I disagree Obama would do this, whether he means to or not. he will do so through things like more protectionism if he is serious about reforming NAFTA, a higher minimum wage, etc...

Yes, people in the "Austrian school" of economics work on unproven assumption and pseudo-sciences like "praxeology," while attacking the logic and reasoning of mathematics, whereas real economists have important work to do and analyze, and why the "Austrian school" is almost universally rejected in economics, even though economics is a highly conservative field as compared to the real sciences.

Austrian and supply-side economists are real economists, they're just more rare. And they work on a very proven assumption, which is that humans respond to incentives and rationality.

Also, one thing to remember is that economists too often assume the economy will function according to pure logic and mathematics. It doesn't. There are other factors involved. Math IS a huge factor, but one can't reason the economy purely by math. Sometimes what is rational to a person or an incentive doesn't go with the math. Or sometimes what appears to an economist working on models to be the rational choice, ends up not being rational to the people in practice. The reason the Austrian School is almost universally rejected is because for most of the 20th century, most economists were socialists. Keynesianism was the dominant form of capitalist economics. Only the Chicago School, which was ridiculed, had the audacity to promote capitalism and limited government, which in the long run turned out to be correct. However, many universities around the world still lean in a more Leftist direction economically.

But there is a reason the U.S. economy is the best in the world, I believe it is from the basic monetarist and Austrian principles, not the Keynesian model or socialism. And Europe is slowly turning in the direction of Reagan and the Chicago School, with lower taxes and less regulation. Countries like Ireland, Switzerland, and Iceland have seen their economies blossom with lower taxes and less regulation.

And I disagree with those Austrians who believe in no Federal Reserve and a return to the gold standard.

My point ultimately though was just to take what economists say with a grain of salt with regards to certain things, because they have been wrong before, and that goes with both monetarists and Austrians, along with Keynesians and so forth. I mentioned the Dot Com bubble and the housing bubble, well another one could be Long Term Capital Management, the hedge-fund run by brilliant Ph.d's and two (at the time) future Nobel Prize winners in economics; LTCM collapsed and almost brought down the world financial system in the process! So economists can make mistakes :D

Although I am sure plenty of economists can work out sound analyses for why a universal healthcare plan should work, I think they would, being human, miss out on certain variables that would pop up and take the system by surprise, as has happened with the Canadian and Massachusettes system. I believe Germany just switched to a fully state-funded program because their quasi-public system was becoming too strained. If you read "The Undercover Economist" by Tim Harford, he also explains some of the problems the British health system is experiencing right now. My fear is simply that economists would create a system that, on paper, looks great for America, but in practice, could become a disaster.