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On March 31 2014 03:54 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 03:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:27 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 02:55 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 02:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 02:25 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 02:07 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 30 2014 19:32 Acertos wrote:On March 30 2014 14:56 Introvert wrote:
[quote]
Your analogy is hilariously wrong. Do you know anything about Conservatives that you didn't get from Jon Stewart?
The actual conservative view is that A) SOMEONE had to prepare the plates, they didn't just appear. B) that the number of plates is not static (ask igne, Capitalism is based on the idea of long term growth). Those two things are so fundamental they destroy your analogy entirely.
The liberal idea is the one that involves rationing and "please would you be so kind as to justify your existence." That's not a conservative idea. At least not a Christian-conservative one.
And yes, I think having a good society is much more achievable than having a large, active government that DOESN'T stomp on your rights. History shows this. Society gets more free, governments still do what they have always done: try and accumulate power. So to have a good society minarchism should be established? So that the laws of the market can rule supreme? Liberals have always tried to put together two concepts : individual liberties and the well being of society. The answer was either utilitarism with a great amount of sacrifices or contractualism (with a powerful state). But neo liberals and capitalists (it s exactly the same, capitalists just found with neo liberalism more arguments for their stupid cause) don t care about the well being of society and wants society to be ruled by the market s law and not by individual liberties like they are trying to say. Society isn t more free with market s law at its head because the market s law makes it so that only short term profit matters. The only difference here is that the rules of the oligarchy hayek wanted aren t written on paper while the ones of dictatures are : job insecurity, inexistent social ladder, passive control of the expectations and desires... Yes some people are more free, free to treat like shit their employees, to use earth resources, to establish a society with consumerism at its core only to make profit. History shows that since the 70s, economies have.never been that unstable and inequalities in developed countries are rising. Capitalism isn t based on long term growth but capital accumulation (the easiest way to accumulate is to make huge short term profit) and free trade. A conservative view is a view that advocates stagnation and doesn t want political or social changes. Now i don t understand how the free market way or capitalist (which is preserved and advocated by conservatives) can create a better society when its goal is to make profit. Actually that should be the job of the government, to better the life of all of its citizens (and being ultra rich doesn t make you necessarily happy). At the end of the day, it comes down to what s a good society, and if people want a moral one. If that s the case, people should understand free market isn t the way to go. If neo liberals just wanted to accumulate capital they'd be pushing to make the US economy more like Europe's conservative version. As for profit being a driving force, don't forget that society shapes markets and that very few people and organizations only care about profits. Which is more important, serving society or making profits? I'd say in the short run serving society and in the long run they're pretty equal. It's hard to serve society well if you run out of money. Just because you run out of profits doesn't mean you've run out of money. Profits are just meant for expansion and mitigation of ups and downs in the market. Outside those reasons profits aren't necessary to keep an organization running (that's pretty obvious seeing volunteers, non-profits, etc.) and to serve society - only necessary if you need to beat competition which wouldn't happen if everyone was working together to better society. So I'd say in the long run profits are unimportant compared to providing a service or doing actual work and progress. For an organization, yeah, you need profits to stay afloat. It holds true for non-profits as well. If they don't turn a profit (many do, many don't) they'll need to rely on outside funding to fill the gap. If that outside funding is inconsistent and expenses are consistent, they'll likely want to set up an endowment in order to keep funding stable. The gap in what? Your budget. There's no gaps in a budget unless you mean there's missing data, which is just a data management problem.
"Gap in budget" meaning budget shortfall, meaning not enough money to pay the bills, etc.
Maybe help? http://www.ehow.com/info_8555944_budget-gap-definition-nonprofits.html
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In any case, I lost myself, even if with free market the emphasis is on making more profit, it doesn't mean that more profit is being made. Look at all these crisis and recessions resulting from deregulation, it profited no one except for some speculators, in EU companies don't even want to invest anymore. So imo free market tends to advantage a few already rich individuals and allows insane shit to be done with stock markets which lead to huge economical problems.Another problem is that the people advocating free market are most of the time, aware of its flaws for society, and are just egoistically using these flaws.
I will repeat my first point, free market isn't the way to have a better society be it morally or economically.
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On March 31 2014 03:57 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 03:54 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:27 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 02:55 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 02:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 02:25 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 02:07 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 30 2014 19:32 Acertos wrote:
[quote]
So to have a good society minarchism should be established? So that the laws of the market can rule supreme?
Liberals have always tried to put together two concepts : individual liberties and the well being of society. The answer was either utilitarism with a great amount of sacrifices or contractualism (with a powerful state).
But neo liberals and capitalists (it s exactly the same, capitalists just found with neo liberalism more arguments for their stupid cause) don t care about the well being of society and wants society to be ruled by the market s law and not by individual liberties like they are trying to say. Society isn t more free with market s law at its head because the market s law makes it so that only short term profit matters.
The only difference here is that the rules of the oligarchy hayek wanted aren t written on paper while the ones of dictatures are : job insecurity, inexistent social ladder, passive control of the expectations and desires... Yes some people are more free, free to treat like shit their employees, to use earth resources, to establish a society with consumerism at its core only to make profit.
History shows that since the 70s, economies have.never been that unstable and inequalities in developed countries are rising. Capitalism isn t based on long term growth but capital accumulation (the easiest way to accumulate is to make huge short term profit) and free trade. A conservative view is a view that advocates stagnation and doesn t want political or social changes.
Now i don t understand how the free market way or capitalist (which is preserved and advocated by conservatives) can create a better society when its goal is to make profit. Actually that should be the job of the government, to better the life of all of its citizens (and being ultra rich doesn t make you necessarily happy). At the end of the day, it comes down to what s a good society, and if people want a moral one. If that s the case, people should understand free market isn t the way to go. If neo liberals just wanted to accumulate capital they'd be pushing to make the US economy more like Europe's conservative version. As for profit being a driving force, don't forget that society shapes markets and that very few people and organizations only care about profits. Which is more important, serving society or making profits? I'd say in the short run serving society and in the long run they're pretty equal. It's hard to serve society well if you run out of money. Just because you run out of profits doesn't mean you've run out of money. Profits are just meant for expansion and mitigation of ups and downs in the market. Outside those reasons profits aren't necessary to keep an organization running (that's pretty obvious seeing volunteers, non-profits, etc.) and to serve society - only necessary if you need to beat competition which wouldn't happen if everyone was working together to better society. So I'd say in the long run profits are unimportant compared to providing a service or doing actual work and progress. For an organization, yeah, you need profits to stay afloat. It holds true for non-profits as well. If they don't turn a profit (many do, many don't) they'll need to rely on outside funding to fill the gap. If that outside funding is inconsistent and expenses are consistent, they'll likely want to set up an endowment in order to keep funding stable. The gap in what? Your budget. There's no gaps in a budget unless you mean there's missing data, which is just a data management problem. "Gap in budget" meaning budget shortfall, meaning not enough money to pay the bills, etc. Maybe help? http://www.ehow.com/info_8555944_budget-gap-definition-nonprofits.html
Are you talking about net loss? That's when you're spending more than you're taking in. Profits are by definition never filling in the gap because they're beyond revenue/expense (unless used for the reasons I mentioned).
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On March 31 2014 04:04 Acertos wrote:
In any case, I lost myself, even if with free market the emphasis is on making more profit, it doesn't mean that more profit is being made. Look at all these crisis and recessions resulting from deregulation, it profited no one except for some speculators, in EU companies don't even want to invest anymore. So imo free market tends to advantage a few already rich individuals and allows insane shit to be done with stock markets which lead to huge economical problems.Another problem is that the people advocating free market are most of the time, aware of its flaws for society, and are just egoistically using these flaws.
I will repeat my first point, free market isn't the way to have a better society be it morally or economically.
Well one main problem with Capitalism and it's theories is that it is based off a false premise. That people always act in their "rational self interest". When any sensible person will tell you that they obviously don't.
“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” -Alan Greenspan
You know who wasn't shocked? The people who were saying over and over that deregulation was not a good idea.
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On March 31 2014 04:17 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 03:57 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:54 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:27 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 02:55 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 02:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 02:25 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 02:07 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
If neo liberals just wanted to accumulate capital they'd be pushing to make the US economy more like Europe's conservative version.
As for profit being a driving force, don't forget that society shapes markets and that very few people and organizations only care about profits. Which is more important, serving society or making profits? I'd say in the short run serving society and in the long run they're pretty equal. It's hard to serve society well if you run out of money. Just because you run out of profits doesn't mean you've run out of money. Profits are just meant for expansion and mitigation of ups and downs in the market. Outside those reasons profits aren't necessary to keep an organization running (that's pretty obvious seeing volunteers, non-profits, etc.) and to serve society - only necessary if you need to beat competition which wouldn't happen if everyone was working together to better society. So I'd say in the long run profits are unimportant compared to providing a service or doing actual work and progress. For an organization, yeah, you need profits to stay afloat. It holds true for non-profits as well. If they don't turn a profit (many do, many don't) they'll need to rely on outside funding to fill the gap. If that outside funding is inconsistent and expenses are consistent, they'll likely want to set up an endowment in order to keep funding stable. The gap in what? Your budget. There's no gaps in a budget unless you mean there's missing data, which is just a data management problem. "Gap in budget" meaning budget shortfall, meaning not enough money to pay the bills, etc. Maybe help? http://www.ehow.com/info_8555944_budget-gap-definition-nonprofits.html Are you talking about net loss? That's when you're spending more than you're taking in. Profits are by definition never filling in the gap because they're beyond revenue/expense (unless used for the reasons I mentioned).
First off, profits are the residual (unless you make your charitable work the residual) - you're not going to bullseye zero net income each year. Secondly, profit isn't an exact representation of more money coming in than out.
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On March 31 2014 04:21 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 04:04 Acertos wrote:
In any case, I lost myself, even if with free market the emphasis is on making more profit, it doesn't mean that more profit is being made. Look at all these crisis and recessions resulting from deregulation, it profited no one except for some speculators, in EU companies don't even want to invest anymore. So imo free market tends to advantage a few already rich individuals and allows insane shit to be done with stock markets which lead to huge economical problems.Another problem is that the people advocating free market are most of the time, aware of its flaws for society, and are just egoistically using these flaws.
I will repeat my first point, free market isn't the way to have a better society be it morally or economically. Well one main problem with Capitalism and it's theories is that it is based off a false premise. That people always act in their "rational self interest". When any sensible person will tell you that they obviously don't. “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” -Alan Greenspan You know who wasn't shocked? The people who were saying over and over that deregulation was not a good idea.
They should also be shocked that their regulations failed so spectacularly.
Edit: zero risk weighting on Greek debt. ffs...
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On March 30 2014 18:55 GreenHorizons wrote:You missed the analogy entirely but it could of been more clear I just jotted down a short version without the explanation but I doubt you're sincerely interested in understanding it anyway based off of your response. Show nested quote +The liberal idea is the one that involves rationing and "please would you be so kind as to justify your existence." That's not a conservative idea. At least not a Christian-conservative one. I can't make heads or tails of that. Show nested quote +And yes, I think having a good society is much more achievable than having a large, active government that DOESN'T stomp on your rights. History shows this. Society gets more free, governments still do what they have always done: try and accumulate power. You realize the government is + Show Spoiler +? It's not as if some mystical government hand comes in and does it. It's people making choices and taking actions that result in whatever the government does. People talk about government like it's automated robots that steal land, crush corporations, kill babies, etc... like there aren't humans making decisions up and down the chain to legislate or not, enforce or not, support or not etc... Government isn't the problem people are the problem. Blaming a "Government" boogie man for oppressing people or "stomping on rights" is like blaming guns for killing people, or the internet for making people dumb. How about people start taking some personal responsibility for government instead of blaming the tool? You know what they say... "A poor craftsman always blames his tools"
I didn't miss the point. You were either attacking conservatives as heartless, merit driven machines or you were simply misrepresenting their view on things.
I should have clarified what I meant by the "justify your existence" comment. In the 20th century many liberals were of this idea, from academics to G.B. Shaw. Also one of the mods in here was talking about rationing medicine and having the NICE decide who should get what. I've never heard a conservative say that everyone should have to prove themselves to anyone else.
Government is people, but with far more power. I do separate it from a society in general. This is another one of the mistakes liberals make- they try and intertwine the two, but it seems clear to me that they are not the same.
Of course you can blame the people for voting for this government- but that doesn't excuse the power hungry, either.
So to have a good society minarchism should be established? So that the laws of the market can rule supreme?
Liberals have always tried to put together two concepts : individual liberties and the well being of society. The answer was either utilitarism with a great amount of sacrifices or contractualism (with a powerful state).
And they have always failed. The reason is that to accomplish both goals, government must grow, and when it does it stomps all over people. It's idealism to think otherwise.
I'm of the opinion that government will always grow, but it's madness to embrace it.
A conservative view is a view that advocates stagnation and doesn t want political or social changes.
That's false, but ok. You can ask any of the conservatives in the thread, so I don't know where you got that. unless we are using a more classical definition of the word..
Actually that should be the job of the government, to better the life of all of its citizens (and being ultra rich doesn t make you necessarily happy).
That should NOT be it's job, because it will fail. When the result of their social experiments and massive intervention come to bear they are shown to be failures. We see this on a small scale now- places like Detroit.
Liberals want you to justify your existence? I don't see that at all. Your american liberal typically believes in equal rights for all and even by your stereotypes you should believe liberals in fact don't want people to justify their existence because they want welfare/healthcare for everyone. The conservative on the other hand wants to take all those safety nets away, and force you to constantly be working and proving that you should still be alive and that you deserve whatever you get in life. Again, these are the typical stereotypes from a right-wing POV. The laissez-faire approach entails more of the need to justify oneself in every way, the welfare-liberal one assumes everyone has a right to their basic life standard.
I was talking more about the academics. The general public also wants to get rid of the debt but can't name a single government program they would like to cut.
The conservative view is not to let people die in the streets, I already explained this. You free people and A) make it easier for them to help themselves and B) easier for others to help them (by letting them keep more of what's theirs). It's not noble or virtuous to bankrupt a system "for the poor" and make everyone poor.
The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6577
There. sheesh.
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On March 31 2014 03:39 Acertos wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 02:07 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 30 2014 19:32 Acertos wrote:On March 30 2014 14:56 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2014 14:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 30 2014 13:56 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2014 13:50 Sub40APM wrote:On March 30 2014 12:04 Nyxisto wrote:On March 30 2014 11:54 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2014 11:34 Nyxisto wrote:
so you can scam people all week long and political redistribution is unnecessary because the nice republicans spend some money on their Sunday church trip? This is probably the most anecdotal argument I have ever heard. It's like saying that we don't need to pay waiters/waitresses anymore because your uncle gives a lot of tips. It's more accurate than what you "feel" they think, so I think his evidence counts. The point was that the idiotic video is nowhere close to how Christian conservatives view Jesus. On a personal level, they are extremely generous to those in need, but oppose government intervention that can promote laziness. When you look at those cities run on the left's social gospel, it shows just how ineffective it is. ? Or are you suggesting we just abolish government altogether and hope that the rich just become very generous? I believe thats roughly what Introvert would want based on his general philosophy. Then the people who deserve success will achieve it through the hard work and the people who dont deserve will be punished by being poor. And the government will brutalize the illegal immigrants and fight terrorism and whatever else its allowed to do under his reading of the constitution -- which is not a lot I gather. Although I guess he would be okay with individual states doing various different policies in a free market of ideas and the best state would win by having more people move to it or something like that. I've already said that government is a necessary evil. Otherwise I would have the government back off. Some people will be poor, some not. That will always be true. And the more you allow a good and moral society to keep of their own money, the more they will give, as a general rule. I simply do not believe the instruments of government can succeed, even if it became oppressive and took liberties from people, which it would have to do. I would not sacrifice what we DO have (our rights and choices) for the unattainable. Oh well having a "good and moral" Society is soooo much more realistic than a decent government. I thought liberals were supposed to be the head in the clouds types... The Government is a reflection of society a few obstinate clueless assholes make the decisions for everybody. Then leave us with an illusion of choice. If we had a decent and moral society a decent democratic system would follow. As it is the country is full of not decent and moral people. I like to use this analogy to describe essentially the two main sides of political thought. You have 2 campfires in separate places. Around each fire is 10 people. In a smaller ring around the fire are 9 plates of food. Group 1: The people closest to a plate each grab one, leaving one person left out. After some discussion the group comes to the conclusion that with 10 people and 9 plates they should take a little off of each plate and make one more worth of food with each of their contributions. Group 2: The smartest one of the group noticed that there were less plates than people so he rapidly found the biggest person and fastest person and convinced them that in order to keep things civil they should gather all the plates. Once all the plates were gathered the smartest one informed the group if they wanted to earn their food like he had they would need to perform certain tasks. Either you would perform them or you would starve but if you starved it was obviously your fault. Of course he would keep 7 plates for himself (because he works so much harder and has earned it) with his 2 cohorts sharing a plate and the rest of the group sharing one plate. Essentially Conservatives tend to emulate Group 2 more and liberals Group 1. You can see how a government just gets in the way of group 2. I mean a government is going to say, but people are starving while you throw away more than they get?!? To which the smart one must explain to the simpletons that the 6 plates he's throwing away don't take away from the 1 plate the other 7 share. Their are fair criticisms of both groups but the idea that the second would call themselves Christians is laughable. I could see an argument that the latter is better in the long run but it certainly isn't Christian. Your analogy is hilariously wrong. Do you know anything about Conservatives that you didn't get from Jon Stewart? The actual conservative view is that A) SOMEONE had to prepare the plates, they didn't just appear. B) that the number of plates is not static (ask igne, Capitalism is based on the idea of long term growth). Those two things are so fundamental they destroy your analogy entirely. The liberal idea is the one that involves rationing and "please would you be so kind as to justify your existence." That's not a conservative idea. At least not a Christian-conservative one. And yes, I think having a good society is much more achievable than having a large, active government that DOESN'T stomp on your rights. History shows this. Society gets more free, governments still do what they have always done: try and accumulate power. So to have a good society minarchism should be established? So that the laws of the market can rule supreme? Liberals have always tried to put together two concepts : individual liberties and the well being of society. The answer was either utilitarism with a great amount of sacrifices or contractualism (with a powerful state). But neo liberals and capitalists (it s exactly the same, capitalists just found with neo liberalism more arguments for their stupid cause) don t care about the well being of society and wants society to be ruled by the market s law and not by individual liberties like they are trying to say. Society isn t more free with market s law at its head because the market s law makes it so that only short term profit matters. The only difference here is that the rules of the oligarchy hayek wanted aren t written on paper while the ones of dictatures are : job insecurity, inexistent social ladder, passive control of the expectations and desires... Yes some people are more free, free to treat like shit their employees, to use earth resources, to establish a society with consumerism at its core only to make profit. History shows that since the 70s, economies have.never been that unstable and inequalities in developed countries are rising. Capitalism isn t based on long term growth but capital accumulation (the easiest way to accumulate is to make huge short term profit) and free trade. A conservative view is a view that advocates stagnation and doesn t want political or social changes. Now i don t understand how the free market way or capitalist (which is preserved and advocated by conservatives) can create a better society when its goal is to make profit. Actually that should be the job of the government, to better the life of all of its citizens (and being ultra rich doesn t make you necessarily happy). At the end of the day, it comes down to what s a good society, and if people want a moral one. If that s the case, people should understand free market isn t the way to go. If neo liberals just wanted to accumulate capital they'd be pushing to make the US economy more like Europe's conservative version. As for profit being a driving force, don't forget that society shapes markets and that very few people and organizations only care about profits. Well capitalists want to accumulate, I shouldn't have said that capitalists and neo liberals are the same but the things they advocate lead to a model ruled by profit and wanting to make more profit which lead to the possibility for individuals to accumulate. Capitalism is about being totally able as an individual to accumulate and having the opportunities to do that and neo liberalism allows that. In the majority of European countries, taxes for the rich are higher so ofc US capitalists and neo liberals don't want that (the hypocrisy shows itself there, they aren't only caring about free market).
According to WhiteDog's graphs there's more accumulation in Europe than the US.
Part of having a free (ish) market is that competition limits profit margins and promotes growth. Yes it allows for accumulations, but accumulation isn't a given - it's hard to do.
Now neo liberals want the market to rule itself and companies to be able to do what they want. Companies have always sought profit and because they are nowadays controlled by shareholders (who are volatile), they want it more and don't rly think about long term anymore, an example of that is how the gaming sector works. You'll have to explain the gaming sector comment.
One of the most favored sectors right now is the biotech sector which has zero interest in short term profits. The rise of private companies, private equity and some hedge funds has also emphasized long vs short term.
What else could organizations want? If they want to survive they have to seek profit and invest, be it in R&D or with financial activities (not only fusion/acquisition). Organizations can want whatever people want. As they get big the profit generally shifts to profits more, as points of agreement become fewer and fewer.
They also have to maintain their image, and it's most of the time taken for some kind of morality when it's not. Look at how the subcontractor of every global firms treat their employees, at the beginning of the millenium, nike and others had to make their subcontractor stop using children because people had started to yell at them for it.
Every company tries to make more profit, and only a few care about other problems (environmental or ethical) when they aren't obligated to (by countries or because their image might get worse). I don't think that's fair. Ethical concerns are often really hard to deal with. Child labor is reprehensible to people in rich world countries, but local customs may not consider it taboo. Also, you're generally dealing with different companies in different countries so your ability to demand and enforce labor practices is limited.
Lastly I agree with you, profit is a driving force because it will be reinvested (well it's not the case in EU right now), but because capitalism and neo liberalism are ruling the world, the individuals behind the companies are able to get incredibly rich. And their salaries are almost never reinvested in a productive way, meaning it's often invested in financial stuff while basic employees and workers could buy more basic products and increase the demand (hence make the economy work alot more).
Somewhat agree. There's limits to how much you can extrapolate from a temporary deficit in demand though.
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That just shows your bias. The poll compared religious to non-religious. Pretty sure Danglars stated that conservatives volunteer more than liberals, not that religious donate more money than secularists. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Will you at least admit you were wrong? That's really all I want out of you. Just admit you were wrong when you said Danglars provided evidence. That's all!
"Sheesh! I gotta provide evidence when I say something? What's the world coming to!?"
On March 31 2014 04:35 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 04:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 31 2014 04:04 Acertos wrote:
In any case, I lost myself, even if with free market the emphasis is on making more profit, it doesn't mean that more profit is being made. Look at all these crisis and recessions resulting from deregulation, it profited no one except for some speculators, in EU companies don't even want to invest anymore. So imo free market tends to advantage a few already rich individuals and allows insane shit to be done with stock markets which lead to huge economical problems.Another problem is that the people advocating free market are most of the time, aware of its flaws for society, and are just egoistically using these flaws.
I will repeat my first point, free market isn't the way to have a better society be it morally or economically. Well one main problem with Capitalism and it's theories is that it is based off a false premise. That people always act in their "rational self interest". When any sensible person will tell you that they obviously don't. “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” -Alan Greenspan You know who wasn't shocked? The people who were saying over and over that deregulation was not a good idea. They should also be shocked that their regulations failed so spectacularly. Edit: zero risk weighting on Greek debt. ffs...
I think we can both agree that it's not a question of more deregulation vs more regulation, but what particular kinds of regulations.
On March 31 2014 04:33 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 04:17 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:57 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:54 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:27 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 02:55 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 02:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 02:25 Roe wrote:
[quote]
Which is more important, serving society or making profits? I'd say in the short run serving society and in the long run they're pretty equal. It's hard to serve society well if you run out of money. Just because you run out of profits doesn't mean you've run out of money. Profits are just meant for expansion and mitigation of ups and downs in the market. Outside those reasons profits aren't necessary to keep an organization running (that's pretty obvious seeing volunteers, non-profits, etc.) and to serve society - only necessary if you need to beat competition which wouldn't happen if everyone was working together to better society. So I'd say in the long run profits are unimportant compared to providing a service or doing actual work and progress. For an organization, yeah, you need profits to stay afloat. It holds true for non-profits as well. If they don't turn a profit (many do, many don't) they'll need to rely on outside funding to fill the gap. If that outside funding is inconsistent and expenses are consistent, they'll likely want to set up an endowment in order to keep funding stable. The gap in what? Your budget. There's no gaps in a budget unless you mean there's missing data, which is just a data management problem. "Gap in budget" meaning budget shortfall, meaning not enough money to pay the bills, etc. Maybe help? http://www.ehow.com/info_8555944_budget-gap-definition-nonprofits.html Are you talking about net loss? That's when you're spending more than you're taking in. Profits are by definition never filling in the gap because they're beyond revenue/expense (unless used for the reasons I mentioned). First off, profits are the residual (unless you make your charitable work the residual) - you're not going to bullseye zero net income each year. Secondly, profit isn't an exact representation of more money coming in than out.
Would seem to make it a bad candidate for your argument then wouldn't it?
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On March 31 2014 05:07 Roe wrote:
That just shows your bias. The poll compared religious to non-religious. Pretty sure Danglars stated that conservatives volunteer more than liberals, not that religious donate more money than secularists. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Will you at least admit you were wrong? That's really all I want out of you. Just admit you were wrong when you said Danglars provided evidence. That's all!
"Sheesh! I gotta provide evidence when I say something? What's the world coming to!?"
If you read it, you would see that the religious also volunteer more. It was in the quote!
It was DEB, and he said:
Must be why they volunteer more and give more money to charity than liberals. They want to torment the poor so they'll stop being poor. This tormenting being giving them food and clothing and doing things like gathering the food and clothing of course. I've seen those food and clothing drives my parents' church runs (this church's community is dominated by old Republicans and their old wives), the torture there would make Heydrich sick. I've also seen other religious charities for religious denominations dominated by conservatives paying people's bills and stuff like that because they do things like that, the agony of those being 'helped' was unspeakable.
In there he clearly was linking it to the religious, especially considering the post he was responding to. This is a valid assumption since the religious (excluding Jews) lean right.
"That just shows your bias." lol.
I'm not sure what you want me to admit. He provided anecdotal evidence, which I said was better evidence than the complete conjecture of Nyxisto. I never said he provided statistics.
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On March 31 2014 04:55 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2014 18:55 GreenHorizons wrote:You missed the analogy entirely but it could of been more clear I just jotted down a short version without the explanation but I doubt you're sincerely interested in understanding it anyway based off of your response. The liberal idea is the one that involves rationing and "please would you be so kind as to justify your existence." That's not a conservative idea. At least not a Christian-conservative one. I can't make heads or tails of that. And yes, I think having a good society is much more achievable than having a large, active government that DOESN'T stomp on your rights. History shows this. Society gets more free, governments still do what they have always done: try and accumulate power. You realize the government is + Show Spoiler +? It's not as if some mystical government hand comes in and does it. It's people making choices and taking actions that result in whatever the government does. People talk about government like it's automated robots that steal land, crush corporations, kill babies, etc... like there aren't humans making decisions up and down the chain to legislate or not, enforce or not, support or not etc... Government isn't the problem people are the problem. Blaming a "Government" boogie man for oppressing people or "stomping on rights" is like blaming guns for killing people, or the internet for making people dumb. How about people start taking some personal responsibility for government instead of blaming the tool? You know what they say... "A poor craftsman always blames his tools" I didn't miss the point. You were either attacking conservatives as heartless, merit driven machines or you were simply misrepresenting their view on things. I should have clarified what I meant by the "justify your existence" comment. In the 20th century many liberals were of this idea, from academics to G.B. Shaw. Also one of the mods in here was talking about rationing medicine and having the NICE decide who should get what. I've never heard a conservative say that everyone should have to prove themselves to anyone else. Government is people, but with far more power. I do separate it from a society in general. This is another one of the mistakes liberals make- they try and intertwine the two, but it seems clear to me that they are not the same. Of course you can blame the people for voting for this government- but that doesn't excuse the power hungry, either. Show nested quote +So to have a good society minarchism should be established? So that the laws of the market can rule supreme?
Liberals have always tried to put together two concepts : individual liberties and the well being of society. The answer was either utilitarism with a great amount of sacrifices or contractualism (with a powerful state). And they have always failed. The reason is that to accomplish both goals, government must grow, and when it does it stomps all over people. It's idealism to think otherwise. I'm of the opinion that government will always grow, but it's madness to embrace it. Show nested quote +A conservative view is a view that advocates stagnation and doesn t want political or social changes. That's false, but ok. You can ask any of the conservatives in the thread, so I don't know where you got that. unless we are using a more classical definition of the word.. Show nested quote +Actually that should be the job of the government, to better the life of all of its citizens (and being ultra rich doesn t make you necessarily happy). That should NOT be it's job, because it will fail. When the result of their social experiments and massive intervention come to bear they are shown to be failures. We see this on a small scale now- places like Detroit. Show nested quote +Liberals want you to justify your existence? I don't see that at all. Your american liberal typically believes in equal rights for all and even by your stereotypes you should believe liberals in fact don't want people to justify their existence because they want welfare/healthcare for everyone. The conservative on the other hand wants to take all those safety nets away, and force you to constantly be working and proving that you should still be alive and that you deserve whatever you get in life. Again, these are the typical stereotypes from a right-wing POV. The laissez-faire approach entails more of the need to justify oneself in every way, the welfare-liberal one assumes everyone has a right to their basic life standard. I was talking more about the academics. The general public also wants to get rid of the debt but can't name a single government program they would like to cut. The conservative view is not to let people die in the streets, I already explained this. You free people and A) make it easier for them to help themselves and B) easier for others to help them (by letting them keep more of what's theirs). It's not noble or virtuous to bankrupt a system "for the poor" and make everyone poor. Show nested quote +The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions. http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6577There. sheesh.
You did clearly miss the point. It refers to earth being the food so no one 'made it' and so on. I can't say I'm surprised.
And on regulation, really Johnny? lol...
The same people kept winning the arguments about risk assessment despite the fact that they couldn't have been more wrong.
Ignorant people bet the economy on the idea that people "act in their rational self-interest" and it turned out they didn't and almost blew the bottom out of the economy.
So people who said the financial industry could regulate itself were just flat wrong. As the same type of people are wrong about the oil industry and several others. People need to stop perpetuating the 'rational self-interest' LIE. People from the bottom to the top make dumb decisions that will not be in their rational self interest everyday. You have to have laws restricting, preventing, and punishing/rehabbing people when they do.
Conservatives like Greenspan and his ilk fought tooth and nail against these ideas that proved to be fact. Why do people continue to push ideas that even Greenspan said were wrong and were proven so by the ensuing events...?
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DEB in the first sentence said conservatives volunteer (and donate) more than liberals. Cons and religious are not the same group of people.
Anecdotes aren't evidence. I just want some decency for once, that someone on the internet will admit they were wrong. I just want you to admit that there wasn't evidence in his post...I mean it's really simple. I'm actually intrigued as to how long you're willing to drag this out and how far you'll go to avoid saying you were wrong. You even, in a way, admitted you were wrong (implicitly) by having to drag out some study you found.
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On March 31 2014 05:33 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 04:55 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2014 18:55 GreenHorizons wrote:You missed the analogy entirely but it could of been more clear I just jotted down a short version without the explanation but I doubt you're sincerely interested in understanding it anyway based off of your response. The liberal idea is the one that involves rationing and "please would you be so kind as to justify your existence." That's not a conservative idea. At least not a Christian-conservative one. I can't make heads or tails of that. And yes, I think having a good society is much more achievable than having a large, active government that DOESN'T stomp on your rights. History shows this. Society gets more free, governments still do what they have always done: try and accumulate power. You realize the government is + Show Spoiler +? It's not as if some mystical government hand comes in and does it. It's people making choices and taking actions that result in whatever the government does. People talk about government like it's automated robots that steal land, crush corporations, kill babies, etc... like there aren't humans making decisions up and down the chain to legislate or not, enforce or not, support or not etc... Government isn't the problem people are the problem. Blaming a "Government" boogie man for oppressing people or "stomping on rights" is like blaming guns for killing people, or the internet for making people dumb. How about people start taking some personal responsibility for government instead of blaming the tool? You know what they say... "A poor craftsman always blames his tools" I didn't miss the point. You were either attacking conservatives as heartless, merit driven machines or you were simply misrepresenting their view on things. I should have clarified what I meant by the "justify your existence" comment. In the 20th century many liberals were of this idea, from academics to G.B. Shaw. Also one of the mods in here was talking about rationing medicine and having the NICE decide who should get what. I've never heard a conservative say that everyone should have to prove themselves to anyone else. Government is people, but with far more power. I do separate it from a society in general. This is another one of the mistakes liberals make- they try and intertwine the two, but it seems clear to me that they are not the same. Of course you can blame the people for voting for this government- but that doesn't excuse the power hungry, either. So to have a good society minarchism should be established? So that the laws of the market can rule supreme?
Liberals have always tried to put together two concepts : individual liberties and the well being of society. The answer was either utilitarism with a great amount of sacrifices or contractualism (with a powerful state). And they have always failed. The reason is that to accomplish both goals, government must grow, and when it does it stomps all over people. It's idealism to think otherwise. I'm of the opinion that government will always grow, but it's madness to embrace it. A conservative view is a view that advocates stagnation and doesn t want political or social changes. That's false, but ok. You can ask any of the conservatives in the thread, so I don't know where you got that. unless we are using a more classical definition of the word.. Actually that should be the job of the government, to better the life of all of its citizens (and being ultra rich doesn t make you necessarily happy). That should NOT be it's job, because it will fail. When the result of their social experiments and massive intervention come to bear they are shown to be failures. We see this on a small scale now- places like Detroit. Liberals want you to justify your existence? I don't see that at all. Your american liberal typically believes in equal rights for all and even by your stereotypes you should believe liberals in fact don't want people to justify their existence because they want welfare/healthcare for everyone. The conservative on the other hand wants to take all those safety nets away, and force you to constantly be working and proving that you should still be alive and that you deserve whatever you get in life. Again, these are the typical stereotypes from a right-wing POV. The laissez-faire approach entails more of the need to justify oneself in every way, the welfare-liberal one assumes everyone has a right to their basic life standard. I was talking more about the academics. The general public also wants to get rid of the debt but can't name a single government program they would like to cut. The conservative view is not to let people die in the streets, I already explained this. You free people and A) make it easier for them to help themselves and B) easier for others to help them (by letting them keep more of what's theirs). It's not noble or virtuous to bankrupt a system "for the poor" and make everyone poor. The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions. http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6577There. sheesh. You did clearly miss the point. It refers to earth being the food so no one 'made it' and so on. I can't say I'm surprised. And on regulation, really Johnny? lol...
That post pre-edit didn't have a single reference to "the earth." You said "I like to use this analogy to describe essentially the two main sides of political thought."
So you did NOT reference the earth. Nor did you imply that the earth "set the table," if you will.
DEB in the first sentence said conservatives volunteer (and donate) more than liberals. Cons and religious are not the same group of people.
Anecdotes aren't evidence. I just want some decency for once, that someone on the internet will admit they were wrong. I just want you to admit that there wasn't evidence in his post...I mean it's really simple. I'm actually intrigued as to how long you're willing to drag this out and how far you'll go to avoid saying you were wrong. You even, in a way, admitted you were wrong (implicitly) by having to drag out some study you found.
Anecdotes are evidence, just weaker evidence- you should know this. I for one can say that his anecdote is strikingly similar to what is true in my own city. So what DEB said was "better" than the complete(ly wrong) guess of Nyxisto, who provided no evidence, may I add.
Not every truth is expressible as a data point.
I agree that the groups are not the exact same, but they overlap heavily. I thought this was well known. In fact, it's a common attack line! And give the context of the post DEB was responding to, it seem rather obvious what he was saying, but I won't try to speak for him. I can only give my interpretation, which is based on the context of the conversation.
You are free to nitpick for the sake of argument and ignore what he was actually trying to say, but that's the dishonest part.
Edit: Nyxisto didn't provide any evidence either, but you didn't get annoyed at him, did you?
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On March 31 2014 05:07 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 04:35 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 04:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 31 2014 04:04 Acertos wrote:
In any case, I lost myself, even if with free market the emphasis is on making more profit, it doesn't mean that more profit is being made. Look at all these crisis and recessions resulting from deregulation, it profited no one except for some speculators, in EU companies don't even want to invest anymore. So imo free market tends to advantage a few already rich individuals and allows insane shit to be done with stock markets which lead to huge economical problems.Another problem is that the people advocating free market are most of the time, aware of its flaws for society, and are just egoistically using these flaws.
I will repeat my first point, free market isn't the way to have a better society be it morally or economically. Well one main problem with Capitalism and it's theories is that it is based off a false premise. That people always act in their "rational self interest". When any sensible person will tell you that they obviously don't. “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” -Alan Greenspan You know who wasn't shocked? The people who were saying over and over that deregulation was not a good idea. They should also be shocked that their regulations failed so spectacularly. Edit: zero risk weighting on Greek debt. ffs... I think we can both agree that it's not a question of more deregulation vs more regulation, but what particular kinds of regulations.
Sure. Deregulation arguments are at their best when they're for removing anti-competitive regulations and at their worst when they're for removing a useful protection.
Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 04:33 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 04:17 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:57 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:54 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:27 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 02:55 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 02:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
I'd say in the short run serving society and in the long run they're pretty equal. It's hard to serve society well if you run out of money. Just because you run out of profits doesn't mean you've run out of money. Profits are just meant for expansion and mitigation of ups and downs in the market. Outside those reasons profits aren't necessary to keep an organization running (that's pretty obvious seeing volunteers, non-profits, etc.) and to serve society - only necessary if you need to beat competition which wouldn't happen if everyone was working together to better society. So I'd say in the long run profits are unimportant compared to providing a service or doing actual work and progress. For an organization, yeah, you need profits to stay afloat. It holds true for non-profits as well. If they don't turn a profit (many do, many don't) they'll need to rely on outside funding to fill the gap. If that outside funding is inconsistent and expenses are consistent, they'll likely want to set up an endowment in order to keep funding stable. The gap in what? Your budget. There's no gaps in a budget unless you mean there's missing data, which is just a data management problem. "Gap in budget" meaning budget shortfall, meaning not enough money to pay the bills, etc. Maybe help? http://www.ehow.com/info_8555944_budget-gap-definition-nonprofits.html Are you talking about net loss? That's when you're spending more than you're taking in. Profits are by definition never filling in the gap because they're beyond revenue/expense (unless used for the reasons I mentioned). First off, profits are the residual (unless you make your charitable work the residual) - you're not going to bullseye zero net income each year. Secondly, profit isn't an exact representation of more money coming in than out. Would seem to make it a bad candidate for your argument then wouldn't it?
I don't think so. My argument was about profit, not cash flow. Though maybe it depends on what definition of profit we're using 
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On March 31 2014 05:48 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 05:33 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 31 2014 04:55 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2014 18:55 GreenHorizons wrote:You missed the analogy entirely but it could of been more clear I just jotted down a short version without the explanation but I doubt you're sincerely interested in understanding it anyway based off of your response. The liberal idea is the one that involves rationing and "please would you be so kind as to justify your existence." That's not a conservative idea. At least not a Christian-conservative one. I can't make heads or tails of that. And yes, I think having a good society is much more achievable than having a large, active government that DOESN'T stomp on your rights. History shows this. Society gets more free, governments still do what they have always done: try and accumulate power. You realize the government is + Show Spoiler +? It's not as if some mystical government hand comes in and does it. It's people making choices and taking actions that result in whatever the government does. People talk about government like it's automated robots that steal land, crush corporations, kill babies, etc... like there aren't humans making decisions up and down the chain to legislate or not, enforce or not, support or not etc... Government isn't the problem people are the problem. Blaming a "Government" boogie man for oppressing people or "stomping on rights" is like blaming guns for killing people, or the internet for making people dumb. How about people start taking some personal responsibility for government instead of blaming the tool? You know what they say... "A poor craftsman always blames his tools" I didn't miss the point. You were either attacking conservatives as heartless, merit driven machines or you were simply misrepresenting their view on things. I should have clarified what I meant by the "justify your existence" comment. In the 20th century many liberals were of this idea, from academics to G.B. Shaw. Also one of the mods in here was talking about rationing medicine and having the NICE decide who should get what. I've never heard a conservative say that everyone should have to prove themselves to anyone else. Government is people, but with far more power. I do separate it from a society in general. This is another one of the mistakes liberals make- they try and intertwine the two, but it seems clear to me that they are not the same. Of course you can blame the people for voting for this government- but that doesn't excuse the power hungry, either. So to have a good society minarchism should be established? So that the laws of the market can rule supreme?
Liberals have always tried to put together two concepts : individual liberties and the well being of society. The answer was either utilitarism with a great amount of sacrifices or contractualism (with a powerful state). And they have always failed. The reason is that to accomplish both goals, government must grow, and when it does it stomps all over people. It's idealism to think otherwise. I'm of the opinion that government will always grow, but it's madness to embrace it. A conservative view is a view that advocates stagnation and doesn t want political or social changes. That's false, but ok. You can ask any of the conservatives in the thread, so I don't know where you got that. unless we are using a more classical definition of the word.. Actually that should be the job of the government, to better the life of all of its citizens (and being ultra rich doesn t make you necessarily happy). That should NOT be it's job, because it will fail. When the result of their social experiments and massive intervention come to bear they are shown to be failures. We see this on a small scale now- places like Detroit. Liberals want you to justify your existence? I don't see that at all. Your american liberal typically believes in equal rights for all and even by your stereotypes you should believe liberals in fact don't want people to justify their existence because they want welfare/healthcare for everyone. The conservative on the other hand wants to take all those safety nets away, and force you to constantly be working and proving that you should still be alive and that you deserve whatever you get in life. Again, these are the typical stereotypes from a right-wing POV. The laissez-faire approach entails more of the need to justify oneself in every way, the welfare-liberal one assumes everyone has a right to their basic life standard. I was talking more about the academics. The general public also wants to get rid of the debt but can't name a single government program they would like to cut. The conservative view is not to let people die in the streets, I already explained this. You free people and A) make it easier for them to help themselves and B) easier for others to help them (by letting them keep more of what's theirs). It's not noble or virtuous to bankrupt a system "for the poor" and make everyone poor. The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions. http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6577There. sheesh. You did clearly miss the point. It refers to earth being the food so no one 'made it' and so on. I can't say I'm surprised. And on regulation, really Johnny? lol... That post pre-edit didn't have a single reference to "the earth." You said "I like to use this analogy to describe essentially the two main sides of political thought." So you did NOT reference the earth. Nor did you imply that the earth "set the table," if you will. Show nested quote +DEB in the first sentence said conservatives volunteer (and donate) more than liberals. Cons and religious are not the same group of people.
Anecdotes aren't evidence. I just want some decency for once, that someone on the internet will admit they were wrong. I just want you to admit that there wasn't evidence in his post...I mean it's really simple. I'm actually intrigued as to how long you're willing to drag this out and how far you'll go to avoid saying you were wrong. You even, in a way, admitted you were wrong (implicitly) by having to drag out some study you found. Anecdotes are evidence, just weaker evidence- you should know this. I for one can say that his anecdote is strikingly similar to what is true in my own city. So what DEB said was "better" than the complete(ly wrong) guess of Nyxisto. Not every truth is expressible as a data point. I agree that the groups are not the exact same, but they overlap heavily. I thought this was well known. And give the context of the post DEB was responding to, it seem rather obvious what he was saying, but I won't try to speak for him. I can only give my interpretation, which is based on the context of the conversation. You are free to nitpick for the sake of argument and ignore what he was actually trying to say, but that's the dishonest part.
Kettle meet pot... I said it was shortened and could of been more clear. when I share the analogy with less conservative people they immediately see the plates as earth it's usually the more conservative people that take your interpretation.
But now that you know, does that change your understanding of the analogy?
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On March 31 2014 05:52 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 05:07 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 04:35 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 04:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 31 2014 04:04 Acertos wrote:
In any case, I lost myself, even if with free market the emphasis is on making more profit, it doesn't mean that more profit is being made. Look at all these crisis and recessions resulting from deregulation, it profited no one except for some speculators, in EU companies don't even want to invest anymore. So imo free market tends to advantage a few already rich individuals and allows insane shit to be done with stock markets which lead to huge economical problems.Another problem is that the people advocating free market are most of the time, aware of its flaws for society, and are just egoistically using these flaws.
I will repeat my first point, free market isn't the way to have a better society be it morally or economically. Well one main problem with Capitalism and it's theories is that it is based off a false premise. That people always act in their "rational self interest". When any sensible person will tell you that they obviously don't. “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” -Alan Greenspan You know who wasn't shocked? The people who were saying over and over that deregulation was not a good idea. They should also be shocked that their regulations failed so spectacularly. Edit: zero risk weighting on Greek debt. ffs... I think we can both agree that it's not a question of more deregulation vs more regulation, but what particular kinds of regulations. Sure. Deregulation arguments are at their best when they're for removing anti-competitive regulations and at their worst when they're for removing a useful protection. Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 04:33 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 04:17 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:57 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:54 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:27 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 02:55 Roe wrote:
[quote]
Just because you run out of profits doesn't mean you've run out of money. Profits are just meant for expansion and mitigation of ups and downs in the market. Outside those reasons profits aren't necessary to keep an organization running (that's pretty obvious seeing volunteers, non-profits, etc.) and to serve society - only necessary if you need to beat competition which wouldn't happen if everyone was working together to better society. So I'd say in the long run profits are unimportant compared to providing a service or doing actual work and progress. For an organization, yeah, you need profits to stay afloat. It holds true for non-profits as well. If they don't turn a profit (many do, many don't) they'll need to rely on outside funding to fill the gap. If that outside funding is inconsistent and expenses are consistent, they'll likely want to set up an endowment in order to keep funding stable. The gap in what? Your budget. There's no gaps in a budget unless you mean there's missing data, which is just a data management problem. "Gap in budget" meaning budget shortfall, meaning not enough money to pay the bills, etc. Maybe help? http://www.ehow.com/info_8555944_budget-gap-definition-nonprofits.html Are you talking about net loss? That's when you're spending more than you're taking in. Profits are by definition never filling in the gap because they're beyond revenue/expense (unless used for the reasons I mentioned). First off, profits are the residual (unless you make your charitable work the residual) - you're not going to bullseye zero net income each year. Secondly, profit isn't an exact representation of more money coming in than out. Would seem to make it a bad candidate for your argument then wouldn't it? I don't think so. My argument was about profit, not cash flow. Though maybe it depends on what definition of profit we're using
Where was that argument from conservatives when those protections were being destroyed. Or where are they when they are being advocated for?
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On March 31 2014 05:48 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 05:33 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 31 2014 04:55 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2014 18:55 GreenHorizons wrote:You missed the analogy entirely but it could of been more clear I just jotted down a short version without the explanation but I doubt you're sincerely interested in understanding it anyway based off of your response. The liberal idea is the one that involves rationing and "please would you be so kind as to justify your existence." That's not a conservative idea. At least not a Christian-conservative one. I can't make heads or tails of that. And yes, I think having a good society is much more achievable than having a large, active government that DOESN'T stomp on your rights. History shows this. Society gets more free, governments still do what they have always done: try and accumulate power. You realize the government is + Show Spoiler +? It's not as if some mystical government hand comes in and does it. It's people making choices and taking actions that result in whatever the government does. People talk about government like it's automated robots that steal land, crush corporations, kill babies, etc... like there aren't humans making decisions up and down the chain to legislate or not, enforce or not, support or not etc... Government isn't the problem people are the problem. Blaming a "Government" boogie man for oppressing people or "stomping on rights" is like blaming guns for killing people, or the internet for making people dumb. How about people start taking some personal responsibility for government instead of blaming the tool? You know what they say... "A poor craftsman always blames his tools" I didn't miss the point. You were either attacking conservatives as heartless, merit driven machines or you were simply misrepresenting their view on things. I should have clarified what I meant by the "justify your existence" comment. In the 20th century many liberals were of this idea, from academics to G.B. Shaw. Also one of the mods in here was talking about rationing medicine and having the NICE decide who should get what. I've never heard a conservative say that everyone should have to prove themselves to anyone else. Government is people, but with far more power. I do separate it from a society in general. This is another one of the mistakes liberals make- they try and intertwine the two, but it seems clear to me that they are not the same. Of course you can blame the people for voting for this government- but that doesn't excuse the power hungry, either. So to have a good society minarchism should be established? So that the laws of the market can rule supreme?
Liberals have always tried to put together two concepts : individual liberties and the well being of society. The answer was either utilitarism with a great amount of sacrifices or contractualism (with a powerful state). And they have always failed. The reason is that to accomplish both goals, government must grow, and when it does it stomps all over people. It's idealism to think otherwise. I'm of the opinion that government will always grow, but it's madness to embrace it. A conservative view is a view that advocates stagnation and doesn t want political or social changes. That's false, but ok. You can ask any of the conservatives in the thread, so I don't know where you got that. unless we are using a more classical definition of the word.. Actually that should be the job of the government, to better the life of all of its citizens (and being ultra rich doesn t make you necessarily happy). That should NOT be it's job, because it will fail. When the result of their social experiments and massive intervention come to bear they are shown to be failures. We see this on a small scale now- places like Detroit. Liberals want you to justify your existence? I don't see that at all. Your american liberal typically believes in equal rights for all and even by your stereotypes you should believe liberals in fact don't want people to justify their existence because they want welfare/healthcare for everyone. The conservative on the other hand wants to take all those safety nets away, and force you to constantly be working and proving that you should still be alive and that you deserve whatever you get in life. Again, these are the typical stereotypes from a right-wing POV. The laissez-faire approach entails more of the need to justify oneself in every way, the welfare-liberal one assumes everyone has a right to their basic life standard. I was talking more about the academics. The general public also wants to get rid of the debt but can't name a single government program they would like to cut. The conservative view is not to let people die in the streets, I already explained this. You free people and A) make it easier for them to help themselves and B) easier for others to help them (by letting them keep more of what's theirs). It's not noble or virtuous to bankrupt a system "for the poor" and make everyone poor. The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions. http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6577There. sheesh. You did clearly miss the point. It refers to earth being the food so no one 'made it' and so on. I can't say I'm surprised. And on regulation, really Johnny? lol... That post pre-edit didn't have a single reference to "the earth." You said "I like to use this analogy to describe essentially the two main sides of political thought." So you did NOT reference the earth. Nor did you imply that the earth "set the table," if you will. Show nested quote +DEB in the first sentence said conservatives volunteer (and donate) more than liberals. Cons and religious are not the same group of people.
Anecdotes aren't evidence. I just want some decency for once, that someone on the internet will admit they were wrong. I just want you to admit that there wasn't evidence in his post...I mean it's really simple. I'm actually intrigued as to how long you're willing to drag this out and how far you'll go to avoid saying you were wrong. You even, in a way, admitted you were wrong (implicitly) by having to drag out some study you found. Anecdotes are evidence, just weaker evidence- you should know this. I for one can say that his anecdote is strikingly similar to what is true in my own city. So what DEB said was "better" than the complete(ly wrong) guess of Nyxisto, who provided no evidence, may I add. Not every truth is expressible as a data point. I agree that the groups are not the exact same, but they overlap heavily. I thought this was well known. And give the context of the post DEB was responding to, it seem rather obvious what he was saying, but I won't try to speak for him. I can only give my interpretation, which is based on the context of the conversation. You are free to nitpick for the sake of argument and ignore what he was actually trying to say, but that's the dishonest part. Edit: Nyxisto didn't provide any evidence either, but you didn't get annoyed at him, did you?
Why should I think anecdotes are evidence? Go to school, write a research paper using anecdotes. You'll get laughed at, and for good reason. Your personal stories are not objective, they are not evidence, but subjective experiences. I get it, your experience is true for you, and you find a similarity within your own bubble. That's great kid, but if you want to talk about evidence you need to at least cite something (hopefully scientific).
Also, why would I ignore the blatant flaw in his post (no evidence) and simply accept what he's 'trying to say'? There's only dishonesty in that. I mostly care about you admitting you were wrong and seeing how far you'll twist your standards of evidence to avoid being embarrassed.
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On March 31 2014 05:06 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 03:39 Acertos wrote:On March 31 2014 02:07 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 30 2014 19:32 Acertos wrote:On March 30 2014 14:56 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2014 14:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 30 2014 13:56 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2014 13:50 Sub40APM wrote:On March 30 2014 12:04 Nyxisto wrote:On March 30 2014 11:54 Introvert wrote:
[quote]
It's more accurate than what you "feel" they think, so I think his evidence counts.
The point was that the idiotic video is nowhere close to how Christian conservatives view Jesus. On a personal level, they are extremely generous to those in need, but oppose government intervention that can promote laziness. When you look at those cities run on the left's social gospel, it shows just how ineffective it is.
? Or are you suggesting we just abolish government altogether and hope that the rich just become very generous? I believe thats roughly what Introvert would want based on his general philosophy. Then the people who deserve success will achieve it through the hard work and the people who dont deserve will be punished by being poor. And the government will brutalize the illegal immigrants and fight terrorism and whatever else its allowed to do under his reading of the constitution -- which is not a lot I gather. Although I guess he would be okay with individual states doing various different policies in a free market of ideas and the best state would win by having more people move to it or something like that. I've already said that government is a necessary evil. Otherwise I would have the government back off. Some people will be poor, some not. That will always be true. And the more you allow a good and moral society to keep of their own money, the more they will give, as a general rule. I simply do not believe the instruments of government can succeed, even if it became oppressive and took liberties from people, which it would have to do. I would not sacrifice what we DO have (our rights and choices) for the unattainable. Oh well having a "good and moral" Society is soooo much more realistic than a decent government. I thought liberals were supposed to be the head in the clouds types... The Government is a reflection of society a few obstinate clueless assholes make the decisions for everybody. Then leave us with an illusion of choice. If we had a decent and moral society a decent democratic system would follow. As it is the country is full of not decent and moral people. I like to use this analogy to describe essentially the two main sides of political thought. You have 2 campfires in separate places. Around each fire is 10 people. In a smaller ring around the fire are 9 plates of food. Group 1: The people closest to a plate each grab one, leaving one person left out. After some discussion the group comes to the conclusion that with 10 people and 9 plates they should take a little off of each plate and make one more worth of food with each of their contributions. Group 2: The smartest one of the group noticed that there were less plates than people so he rapidly found the biggest person and fastest person and convinced them that in order to keep things civil they should gather all the plates. Once all the plates were gathered the smartest one informed the group if they wanted to earn their food like he had they would need to perform certain tasks. Either you would perform them or you would starve but if you starved it was obviously your fault. Of course he would keep 7 plates for himself (because he works so much harder and has earned it) with his 2 cohorts sharing a plate and the rest of the group sharing one plate. Essentially Conservatives tend to emulate Group 2 more and liberals Group 1. You can see how a government just gets in the way of group 2. I mean a government is going to say, but people are starving while you throw away more than they get?!? To which the smart one must explain to the simpletons that the 6 plates he's throwing away don't take away from the 1 plate the other 7 share. Their are fair criticisms of both groups but the idea that the second would call themselves Christians is laughable. I could see an argument that the latter is better in the long run but it certainly isn't Christian. Your analogy is hilariously wrong. Do you know anything about Conservatives that you didn't get from Jon Stewart? The actual conservative view is that A) SOMEONE had to prepare the plates, they didn't just appear. B) that the number of plates is not static (ask igne, Capitalism is based on the idea of long term growth). Those two things are so fundamental they destroy your analogy entirely. The liberal idea is the one that involves rationing and "please would you be so kind as to justify your existence." That's not a conservative idea. At least not a Christian-conservative one. And yes, I think having a good society is much more achievable than having a large, active government that DOESN'T stomp on your rights. History shows this. Society gets more free, governments still do what they have always done: try and accumulate power. So to have a good society minarchism should be established? So that the laws of the market can rule supreme? Liberals have always tried to put together two concepts : individual liberties and the well being of society. The answer was either utilitarism with a great amount of sacrifices or contractualism (with a powerful state). But neo liberals and capitalists (it s exactly the same, capitalists just found with neo liberalism more arguments for their stupid cause) don t care about the well being of society and wants society to be ruled by the market s law and not by individual liberties like they are trying to say. Society isn t more free with market s law at its head because the market s law makes it so that only short term profit matters. The only difference here is that the rules of the oligarchy hayek wanted aren t written on paper while the ones of dictatures are : job insecurity, inexistent social ladder, passive control of the expectations and desires... Yes some people are more free, free to treat like shit their employees, to use earth resources, to establish a society with consumerism at its core only to make profit. History shows that since the 70s, economies have.never been that unstable and inequalities in developed countries are rising. Capitalism isn t based on long term growth but capital accumulation (the easiest way to accumulate is to make huge short term profit) and free trade. A conservative view is a view that advocates stagnation and doesn t want political or social changes. Now i don t understand how the free market way or capitalist (which is preserved and advocated by conservatives) can create a better society when its goal is to make profit. Actually that should be the job of the government, to better the life of all of its citizens (and being ultra rich doesn t make you necessarily happy). At the end of the day, it comes down to what s a good society, and if people want a moral one. If that s the case, people should understand free market isn t the way to go. If neo liberals just wanted to accumulate capital they'd be pushing to make the US economy more like Europe's conservative version. As for profit being a driving force, don't forget that society shapes markets and that very few people and organizations only care about profits. Well capitalists want to accumulate, I shouldn't have said that capitalists and neo liberals are the same but the things they advocate lead to a model ruled by profit and wanting to make more profit which lead to the possibility for individuals to accumulate. Capitalism is about being totally able as an individual to accumulate and having the opportunities to do that and neo liberalism allows that. In the majority of European countries, taxes for the rich are higher so ofc US capitalists and neo liberals don't want that (the hypocrisy shows itself there, they aren't only caring about free market). According to WhiteDog's graphs there's more accumulation in Europe than the US. Part of having a free (ish) market is that competition limits profit margins and promotes growth. Yes it allows for accumulations, but accumulation isn't a given - it's hard to do. Show nested quote +Now neo liberals want the market to rule itself and companies to be able to do what they want. Companies have always sought profit and because they are nowadays controlled by shareholders (who are volatile), they want it more and don't rly think about long term anymore, an example of that is how the gaming sector works. You'll have to explain the gaming sector comment. One of the most favored sectors right now is the biotech sector which has zero interest in short term profits. The rise of private companies, private equity and some hedge funds has also emphasized long vs short term. Show nested quote +What else could organizations want? If they want to survive they have to seek profit and invest, be it in R&D or with financial activities (not only fusion/acquisition). Organizations can want whatever people want. As they get big the profit generally shifts to profits more, as points of agreement become fewer and fewer. Show nested quote +They also have to maintain their image, and it's most of the time taken for some kind of morality when it's not. Look at how the subcontractor of every global firms treat their employees, at the beginning of the millenium, nike and others had to make their subcontractor stop using children because people had started to yell at them for it.
Every company tries to make more profit, and only a few care about other problems (environmental or ethical) when they aren't obligated to (by countries or because their image might get worse). I don't think that's fair. Ethical concerns are often really hard to deal with. Child labor is reprehensible to people in rich world countries, but local customs may not consider it taboo. Also, you're generally dealing with different companies in different countries so your ability to demand and enforce labor practices is limited. Show nested quote +Lastly I agree with you, profit is a driving force because it will be reinvested (well it's not the case in EU right now), but because capitalism and neo liberalism are ruling the world, the individuals behind the companies are able to get incredibly rich. And their salaries are almost never reinvested in a productive way, meaning it's often invested in financial stuff while basic employees and workers could buy more basic products and increase the demand (hence make the economy work alot more). Somewhat agree. There's limits to how much you can extrapolate from a temporary deficit in demand though.
The smaller accumulation of capital in the US has NOTHING to do with the "supposed" free market in the US. Actually, it should be the opposite if you only look at the markets structures, as the US has more oligopolistic situation than Europe.
Capital in the US is lower because of two things (mainly) : you have more land and a bigger natural growth.
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On March 31 2014 05:56 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 05:52 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 05:07 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 04:35 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 04:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 31 2014 04:04 Acertos wrote:
In any case, I lost myself, even if with free market the emphasis is on making more profit, it doesn't mean that more profit is being made. Look at all these crisis and recessions resulting from deregulation, it profited no one except for some speculators, in EU companies don't even want to invest anymore. So imo free market tends to advantage a few already rich individuals and allows insane shit to be done with stock markets which lead to huge economical problems.Another problem is that the people advocating free market are most of the time, aware of its flaws for society, and are just egoistically using these flaws.
I will repeat my first point, free market isn't the way to have a better society be it morally or economically. Well one main problem with Capitalism and it's theories is that it is based off a false premise. That people always act in their "rational self interest". When any sensible person will tell you that they obviously don't. “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” -Alan Greenspan You know who wasn't shocked? The people who were saying over and over that deregulation was not a good idea. They should also be shocked that their regulations failed so spectacularly. Edit: zero risk weighting on Greek debt. ffs... I think we can both agree that it's not a question of more deregulation vs more regulation, but what particular kinds of regulations. Sure. Deregulation arguments are at their best when they're for removing anti-competitive regulations and at their worst when they're for removing a useful protection. On March 31 2014 04:33 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 04:17 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:57 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:54 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:27 Roe wrote:On March 31 2014 03:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
For an organization, yeah, you need profits to stay afloat. It holds true for non-profits as well. If they don't turn a profit (many do, many don't) they'll need to rely on outside funding to fill the gap. If that outside funding is inconsistent and expenses are consistent, they'll likely want to set up an endowment in order to keep funding stable. The gap in what? Your budget. There's no gaps in a budget unless you mean there's missing data, which is just a data management problem. "Gap in budget" meaning budget shortfall, meaning not enough money to pay the bills, etc. Maybe help? http://www.ehow.com/info_8555944_budget-gap-definition-nonprofits.html Are you talking about net loss? That's when you're spending more than you're taking in. Profits are by definition never filling in the gap because they're beyond revenue/expense (unless used for the reasons I mentioned). First off, profits are the residual (unless you make your charitable work the residual) - you're not going to bullseye zero net income each year. Secondly, profit isn't an exact representation of more money coming in than out. Would seem to make it a bad candidate for your argument then wouldn't it? I don't think so. My argument was about profit, not cash flow. Though maybe it depends on what definition of profit we're using Where was that argument from conservatives when those protections were being destroyed. Or where are they when they are being advocated for?
What regulations are we talking about?
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On March 31 2014 06:00 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2014 05:06 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 31 2014 03:39 Acertos wrote:On March 31 2014 02:07 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On March 30 2014 19:32 Acertos wrote:On March 30 2014 14:56 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2014 14:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 30 2014 13:56 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2014 13:50 Sub40APM wrote:On March 30 2014 12:04 Nyxisto wrote:
[quote]
? Or are you suggesting we just abolish government altogether and hope that the rich just become very generous? I believe thats roughly what Introvert would want based on his general philosophy. Then the people who deserve success will achieve it through the hard work and the people who dont deserve will be punished by being poor. And the government will brutalize the illegal immigrants and fight terrorism and whatever else its allowed to do under his reading of the constitution -- which is not a lot I gather. Although I guess he would be okay with individual states doing various different policies in a free market of ideas and the best state would win by having more people move to it or something like that. I've already said that government is a necessary evil. Otherwise I would have the government back off. Some people will be poor, some not. That will always be true. And the more you allow a good and moral society to keep of their own money, the more they will give, as a general rule. I simply do not believe the instruments of government can succeed, even if it became oppressive and took liberties from people, which it would have to do. I would not sacrifice what we DO have (our rights and choices) for the unattainable. Oh well having a "good and moral" Society is soooo much more realistic than a decent government. I thought liberals were supposed to be the head in the clouds types... The Government is a reflection of society a few obstinate clueless assholes make the decisions for everybody. Then leave us with an illusion of choice. If we had a decent and moral society a decent democratic system would follow. As it is the country is full of not decent and moral people. I like to use this analogy to describe essentially the two main sides of political thought. You have 2 campfires in separate places. Around each fire is 10 people. In a smaller ring around the fire are 9 plates of food. Group 1: The people closest to a plate each grab one, leaving one person left out. After some discussion the group comes to the conclusion that with 10 people and 9 plates they should take a little off of each plate and make one more worth of food with each of their contributions. Group 2: The smartest one of the group noticed that there were less plates than people so he rapidly found the biggest person and fastest person and convinced them that in order to keep things civil they should gather all the plates. Once all the plates were gathered the smartest one informed the group if they wanted to earn their food like he had they would need to perform certain tasks. Either you would perform them or you would starve but if you starved it was obviously your fault. Of course he would keep 7 plates for himself (because he works so much harder and has earned it) with his 2 cohorts sharing a plate and the rest of the group sharing one plate. Essentially Conservatives tend to emulate Group 2 more and liberals Group 1. You can see how a government just gets in the way of group 2. I mean a government is going to say, but people are starving while you throw away more than they get?!? To which the smart one must explain to the simpletons that the 6 plates he's throwing away don't take away from the 1 plate the other 7 share. Their are fair criticisms of both groups but the idea that the second would call themselves Christians is laughable. I could see an argument that the latter is better in the long run but it certainly isn't Christian. Your analogy is hilariously wrong. Do you know anything about Conservatives that you didn't get from Jon Stewart? The actual conservative view is that A) SOMEONE had to prepare the plates, they didn't just appear. B) that the number of plates is not static (ask igne, Capitalism is based on the idea of long term growth). Those two things are so fundamental they destroy your analogy entirely. The liberal idea is the one that involves rationing and "please would you be so kind as to justify your existence." That's not a conservative idea. At least not a Christian-conservative one. And yes, I think having a good society is much more achievable than having a large, active government that DOESN'T stomp on your rights. History shows this. Society gets more free, governments still do what they have always done: try and accumulate power. So to have a good society minarchism should be established? So that the laws of the market can rule supreme? Liberals have always tried to put together two concepts : individual liberties and the well being of society. The answer was either utilitarism with a great amount of sacrifices or contractualism (with a powerful state). But neo liberals and capitalists (it s exactly the same, capitalists just found with neo liberalism more arguments for their stupid cause) don t care about the well being of society and wants society to be ruled by the market s law and not by individual liberties like they are trying to say. Society isn t more free with market s law at its head because the market s law makes it so that only short term profit matters. The only difference here is that the rules of the oligarchy hayek wanted aren t written on paper while the ones of dictatures are : job insecurity, inexistent social ladder, passive control of the expectations and desires... Yes some people are more free, free to treat like shit their employees, to use earth resources, to establish a society with consumerism at its core only to make profit. History shows that since the 70s, economies have.never been that unstable and inequalities in developed countries are rising. Capitalism isn t based on long term growth but capital accumulation (the easiest way to accumulate is to make huge short term profit) and free trade. A conservative view is a view that advocates stagnation and doesn t want political or social changes. Now i don t understand how the free market way or capitalist (which is preserved and advocated by conservatives) can create a better society when its goal is to make profit. Actually that should be the job of the government, to better the life of all of its citizens (and being ultra rich doesn t make you necessarily happy). At the end of the day, it comes down to what s a good society, and if people want a moral one. If that s the case, people should understand free market isn t the way to go. If neo liberals just wanted to accumulate capital they'd be pushing to make the US economy more like Europe's conservative version. As for profit being a driving force, don't forget that society shapes markets and that very few people and organizations only care about profits. Well capitalists want to accumulate, I shouldn't have said that capitalists and neo liberals are the same but the things they advocate lead to a model ruled by profit and wanting to make more profit which lead to the possibility for individuals to accumulate. Capitalism is about being totally able as an individual to accumulate and having the opportunities to do that and neo liberalism allows that. In the majority of European countries, taxes for the rich are higher so ofc US capitalists and neo liberals don't want that (the hypocrisy shows itself there, they aren't only caring about free market). According to WhiteDog's graphs there's more accumulation in Europe than the US. Part of having a free (ish) market is that competition limits profit margins and promotes growth. Yes it allows for accumulations, but accumulation isn't a given - it's hard to do. Now neo liberals want the market to rule itself and companies to be able to do what they want. Companies have always sought profit and because they are nowadays controlled by shareholders (who are volatile), they want it more and don't rly think about long term anymore, an example of that is how the gaming sector works. You'll have to explain the gaming sector comment. One of the most favored sectors right now is the biotech sector which has zero interest in short term profits. The rise of private companies, private equity and some hedge funds has also emphasized long vs short term. What else could organizations want? If they want to survive they have to seek profit and invest, be it in R&D or with financial activities (not only fusion/acquisition). Organizations can want whatever people want. As they get big the profit generally shifts to profits more, as points of agreement become fewer and fewer. They also have to maintain their image, and it's most of the time taken for some kind of morality when it's not. Look at how the subcontractor of every global firms treat their employees, at the beginning of the millenium, nike and others had to make their subcontractor stop using children because people had started to yell at them for it.
Every company tries to make more profit, and only a few care about other problems (environmental or ethical) when they aren't obligated to (by countries or because their image might get worse). I don't think that's fair. Ethical concerns are often really hard to deal with. Child labor is reprehensible to people in rich world countries, but local customs may not consider it taboo. Also, you're generally dealing with different companies in different countries so your ability to demand and enforce labor practices is limited. Lastly I agree with you, profit is a driving force because it will be reinvested (well it's not the case in EU right now), but because capitalism and neo liberalism are ruling the world, the individuals behind the companies are able to get incredibly rich. And their salaries are almost never reinvested in a productive way, meaning it's often invested in financial stuff while basic employees and workers could buy more basic products and increase the demand (hence make the economy work alot more). Somewhat agree. There's limits to how much you can extrapolate from a temporary deficit in demand though. The smaller accumulation of capital in the US has NOTHING to do with the "supposed" free market in the US. Actually, it should be the opposite if you only look at the markets structures, as the US has more oligopolistic situation than Europe. Capital in the US is lower because of two things (mainly) : you have more land and a bigger natural growth.
What do you mean by "only look at the markets structures"? Firm concentration? A lot of European countries do really well promoting small firms (Greece does well on that measure) but it's a pretty insignificant thing to measure by itself.
Europe doesn't do well creating new big firms. Small firms stay small, they don't unseat the incumbents. In the US small firms can grow into big ones, which is hugely important for job growth and productivity improvement.
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