If You Hate Poverty, You Should Love Capitalism

[s_bushido]

Can someone clarify whether the model for capitalism also includes:

- being able to buy politicians and laws within a democracy
- no taxes being paid by the largest market players
- employees getting paid less for their work while profit margins and the stock market soars
- letting olipolies drive up the costs of education and healthcare and other necessities
- manipulating the market through massive fake advertisement campaigns
- unions being banned

Sounds to me like you just hate FREEDOM.

[Powerogue]

Related: https://www.newsweek.com/dennis-prag...o-host-1479883

I almost thought he had a point until " I don't expect 16-year-olds, unless they grew up in a religious Jewish or Christian home—she was a secular Jew [to be worth listening to]"

Not only making an exception for other equally likely to be stupid teenagers, but also weirdly people like me who grew up religious and left.

Back to the point of my previous post though, but what was the point made in the video? I can only garner so much from thread context clues, and I won't listen to chronic liars like Prager.

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People drinking themselves to demise are sick, and they do indeed deserve to be treated with empathy. They don't stop being humans just because of bad decisions/conditions. In your society, they'd still drink themselves to death and not get any access to treatments as they do in our Welfare system. If you want a burning example on how things can spiral, check the US Opioid crisis.

Reading through your posts you've made a pretty darn convincing case for Sweden, so as a sheltered american who hasn't known much else, where would we start in working towards incorporating such a system?

We have immense populations of drug users crowding private prisons due to a drug war that the drugs have unequivocally won year after year, inflated health care prices, and a system of loopholes where the rich can often just straight up not pay any taxes at all. That much I know, and that much definitely contrasts with what you've described.

[Endus]

Reading through your posts you've made a pretty darn convincing case for Sweden, so as a sheltered american who hasn't known much else, where would we start in working towards incorporating such a system?

We have immense populations of drug users crowding private prisons due to a drug war that the drugs have unequivocally won year after year, inflated health care prices, and a system of loopholes where the rich can often just straight up not pay any taxes at all. That much I know, and that much definitely contrasts with what you've described.

Given that the items you listed are considered virtues by a large chunk of the population, you need to change that popular perception first. They need to realize that each of those is a description of colossal failure, not success. You'd think that would be easy, but well, here we are.

[Powerogue]

Given that the items you listed are considered virtues by a large chunk of the population, you need to change that popular perception first. They need to realize that each of those is a description of colossal failure, not success. You'd think that would be easy, but well, here we are.

The few times I remember bringing stuff like this up it was laughed off as being "unrealistic" despite, clearly, it functioning exactly as intended in other, smaller countries.

[Endus]

The few times I remember bringing stuff like this up it was laughed off as being "unrealistic" despite, clearly, it functioning exactly as intended in other, smaller countries.

Always happens with universal health care, in particular.

"We can't afford it! It costs way too much!"
"Then why can every other developed country, and many developing countries, afford it?"
"They pay crap and the coverage is crap!"
"They pay less than we do in public funds, without anywhere close to the private insurance spending, and their quality of care is comparable if not better by basically any reputable assessment."
"We just can't afford it! We need to keep making tanks the Army doesn't need so we can put them in a field to rust!"

And it's right about there you'll realize they're never going to listen and you're wasting your time.

[Vash The Stampede]

Always happens with universal health care, in particular.

"We can't afford it! It costs way too much!"
"Then why can every other developed country, and many developing countries, afford it?"
"They pay crap and the coverage is crap!"
"They pay less than we do in public funds, without anywhere close to the private insurance spending, and their quality of care is comparable if not better by basically any reputable assessment."
"We just can't afford it! We need to keep making tanks the Army doesn't need so we can put them in a field to rust!"

And it's right about there you'll realize they're never going to listen and you're wasting your time.

Don't forget the arguement that, "America is paying for the development of these drugs and these other countries are benefiting from us overpaying." It's all mental conditioning either way, to make sure when it comes time to vote that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are not only the worst choice but not even a choice.

[Shadowferal]

Firestone tires built Liberia's economy. Now, painful layoffs are sowing fear for the future

The end came with a letter, but Moses Tokpah couldn’t read it. Twenty-two years of fumes at the rubber factory had damaged his vision, he said, so a friend delivered the news: Firestone was laying him off.

“I just lost everything,” he said, tears welling. As the price of rubber slips on the global market, Firestone — a company founded in Ohio with nine decades in this West African country — is shedding large swaths of its staff to cope with what it calls “continued and unsustainable losses.”

Employees say they’re working longer hours without overtime pay, and the union accuses Firestone of looking for reasons to fire veteran staffers on top of the scheduled dismissals.

In some cases, security guards have evicted families from company housing and moved their belongings into the street, workers and their neighbors told The Washington Post. Several are now homeless. Firestone Liberia General Manager Don Darden confirmed the evictions in an interview and said employees who lose their jobs have 14 days to vacate company housing.

Companies are required to follow local labor laws, but enforcement can be spotty, and standards vary widely. More than half of the Liberia staffers are working longer than eight hours per day, the Firestone Agricultural Workers Union of Liberia estimates. They make an average of $5.72 per day — or 72 cents an hour.

“Because of their financial might, Firestone feels it can twist justice around,” said Rodennick Bongorlee, FAWUL’s spokesman, “and we have nowhere to go.”

“From the look of things, Fire*stone is pulling away,” said Elijah Dickson, a 51-year-old manager who oversees grass cutters.

Dickson, who earns $6.45 per day, said workers are picking up the slack after the layoffs, logging 10- to 11-hour shifts in the hot fields.

“There’s more work, but no one speaks up,” he said. “Everyone’s afraid of losing their jobs.”

Severance pay hasn’t eased the path forward for some workers caught in the layoffs.

Tokpah, who lost his job at the rubber factory on July 15, said Firestone sent him a month of wages for each of his 22 years of service, which worked out to about $3,000.

The money sounded like a lot, but Tokpah had relied on company housing for shelter, company schools for his teenage daughters and company doctors for his failing health.

“I paid the doctor, I paid for school fees and I put in these floors,” he said, sitting on a mattress on the ground.

His eyesight was cloudy. His back hurt. Four months later, his wallet was empty.

-------------------------

Capitalism at its finest.

[freezion]

Always happens with universal health care, in particular.

"We can't afford it! It costs way too much!"
"Then why can every other developed country, and many developing countries, afford it?"
"They pay crap and the coverage is crap!"
"They pay less than we do in public funds, without anywhere close to the private insurance spending, and their quality of care is comparable if not better by basically any reputable assessment."
"We just can't afford it! We need to keep making tanks the Army doesn't need so we can put them in a field to rust!"

And it's right about there you'll realize they're never going to listen and you're wasting your time.

considering that the US got the highest per capita spending on health care, you'd think that they could afford a decent universal health care system.

I find it amusing at times that there's people by principle over there, that would rather die from terminal cancer (because they cant afford treatment), than receive free universal health care.