Is the American system broken?

So, wear that name with pride.

I was once called a pinko by a family member for voting for Clinton.

make them? If it walk like a duck and quacks like a duck....

with a system that claims that *everyone has the same opportunities*, *you just have to work hard*, *blah blah blah bootstraps blah blah blah*...when anyone with two eyes (or even one, for that matter) and a brain can see that that is CLEARLY not the case. Yes, there are those who start with nothing and rise to great power and wealth, although that's as much dumb luck as anything. If that was REALLY all it took, the poor migrant farm worker who puts in a 16 hour day would in no time be sailing 'round the Caymans the yacht his 'hard work' and 'pulling himself up by his own bootstraps' had yielded.

My Grandfather was a blue collar worker back in the forties. My Grandmother stayed home and rasied 5 children. They lived in a nice four bedroom home. Today many white collar workers can't even pay the rent. How bad do things need to get?

brokering, fair dealing, giving good weight.

America...just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. Hunter S. Thompson

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."--John Kenneth Galbraith

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, if you listen carefully, you can hear her breathing." -- Arundhati Roy

Labor is compensated for less than half its value and is taxed at double the rate of profits from the labor of others.

It's Plantation Economics.

Remember when "laborers" were imported? Exporting "labor" is the same as importing "laborers" (slaves). Coerced labor is coerced labor, no matter where it's done.


Simplistic economic theory says that high demand which creates high profits will result in more producers entering the "free" market.

How much new oil refinery capacity has been created in the last 25 years?
How many new oil companies have gone inot business in the last 25 years?
To call the system "broken" is a gross understatement.

Capitalism and markets do work as motivational tools. They don't however work very well without regulation. Minimum wage currently pays less for a 50 hour wee then what will keep you out of poverty. We have an mostly market driven health care system, that is by far the most expensive and least efficient on the face of the planet. Before Social Security we had 66% of the elderly at or below the poverty level, now 10%. Capitalism and markets work great were they work but thy do not work in every instance. We need government regulation to keep those with more money/power from taking advantage of those with less.

as Socialism looks REALLY good on paper; not so much in practice? ;)

first guy who traded amber for fish. Sharing our largesse with the rest of the tribe is also who we are. There once was a balance between the two. We have to regain that to justify why humans should not become extinct.

Any system that relies on a certain percentage of people not receiving the resources to live is inherently wrong at the outset.

It becomes tyrannical just like any other system. A combination of socialism and capitalism is the best bet for the long term viability of a society.

It took Europe four revolutions to find that out. I hope we do too or it will be our downfall.

It needs to be revamped from top to bottom, starting with the electoral college.

the electoral college needs to go

I do not believe the means of production should be held by the government (i.e. Communism) which could inherently bring forth further corruption, but this system as it stand is not working. Let's look to the North and see how their people live. Let's also head over to Northern and Western Europe- Scandinavian countries in particular. Our country can't even take care of providing health care for a large portion of it's citizens when it's the richest in the world? So much is wasted and spent on the military industrial complex which benefits no one but large corporations and those who run them and endangers the rest of us.
1% of Americans control over half the wealth. Something IS wrong with that!!!!

The workers would vote to elect the board of directors and get dividends when the company does well. That way the workers would own the means of production (without an all-powerful central government controlling things), and wealth created by that company would be more evenly distributed. That would provide for a more just economy while retaining a competetive marketplace, and we wouldn't run the risk of ending up with a socialist dictatorship since the government won't own everything.

Anyway, that's my crackpot theory for a perfect economy. If I ever run for office and propose that I'm sure I'll be completely ignored or shot.

IMMEDIATELY. See: Thom Hartmann

www.thomhartmann.com/unequalprotection.shtml

When was the last time a "person" could be "property"? (Talk about karma!)

Prohibit any corporation from owning any other corporation. All ownership must be in the name of an individual. Only exception: a regulated investment fund which is separately and independently established.
Require some portion of the price paid for a share of stock (the Par Value?) is paid to the public company whenever that share is traded.
Require that corporations DIE - that they are dissolved (and their assets sold) less than 100 years after they are formed.

a kind of syndicalism for the 21st century. plus it completely defeats the capitalists "motivation" argument as its 10 times more motivational. everyone would work harder if they were getting a good share of the coin

I've never heard anyone else make that proposal and I wasn't sure if it fit under any defined category or system. I guess syndicalism is about as close as anything. It could be done by passing only a few laws and probably no major disruption of the economy. Still, the people who fund elections and everything else would never let it happen.

After all these years of loving that Monty Python and the Holy Grail scene I suddenly realize how close I am to that peasant. "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" :D

New points and plugs won't do it.

As systems increase their complexity errors begin to arise. From these errors a system of evolution can take hold. Once out of our hands and into a naturally selecting system it can take on properties that we would never have given it.

Thus we have before a system that cannot stop itself from heating the world up. Cannot stop itself from using increasingly unfair labor practices. Cannot stop itself from trying to addict the populace to products they do not need. Cannot stop itself from cutting corners on its products. Cannot stop itself from trying to pressure the government into compliance.

And the more we stand back and hope that it will stop itself the more we endanger ourselves. We the people are the only thing that can stop the system. We have become the cogs and wheels of the system. But it requires everyone realising what has happened and stopping the system despite their dependence on it. A very tall order indeed.

If YOUR death means 1% accrued to the profit margin... YOU'RE DEAD! BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Maybe there is a civilization cycle...sort of like the business cycle?

I so, we are at the wrong end of the curve, I fear.

There's nothing wrong with firms earning a normal profit through hard work, smart thinking, and sacrifice.

The love of money, though, is the root of all evil. Too many business people these days are in the business of making money, not providing a service or good to the nation. Its a tragic indifference that turns healthy enterprise into an Enron or a Worldcom or a Adelphia.

It's easy to overlook it when we live in a world ruled by mega-corporations that also infect our government.

But I believe in private property, and I believe in the right of individuals to start, own, and operate their own businesses.

What needs to happen is that the laws favoring big business need to be re-written.

is not 'delivering the goods'....

According to the US Census Bureau there are 6,368,960,759 people on the planet as of 5/18/04....

According to, http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Poverty.asp

'Half the world--nearly three billion people--live on less than two dollars a day'

Something is broken when half the people of the world are in extreme poverty....since capitalism is the only game in town, I assume it's capitalism....