Communism. Good or bad. What do you really know about Communism?

[diamelsx]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

^ Some good ideas, but for (8), I'd say, everyone gets the free health coverage. You can burn up a million bucks pretty fast if you have bad cancer these days, at least under the corrupted US system you can.

If the wealthy want to pay for additional experimental treatments, they can, but full pay, they cannot buy their own "special" insurance over and above what the masses get.

For (9), how are you going to set the cap? 10x the base pay of the normal worker?

I'd say some form of performance incentive should be allowed, but not if it is gotten through corporate raping. For example, for each job LOST through a merger or one sent over seas the CEO gets penalized heavily from his "bonus". Make that sort of crap not worthwhile for them to pull.

I say work at requirements should be eliminated because they only serve to disincentivize employers from paying workers or treating workers fairly. Look at America workers since welfare reform in 96 For an example.

[Nobody1]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

The EITC basically says "if you earn too little at your job, you'll have effectively a negative income tax rate-- that is, you file your taxes and the Government will send _you_ a check"

The EITC gets around some of the negatives of guaranteed basic income:
1) it gives people a bigger incentive to work, which is what we'd prefer
2) it doesn't piss off other folks so much.
3) it has had bipartisan support. Conservative economists like it ( Milton Friedman more or less came up with the idea). Republican and Democratic Presidents have liked it. Even Paul Ryan likes it . . .

The EITC "guarantees" an income -- for people who work and file a tax return. Its an incentive not to go on disability or to disappear from "the system". What I'd like to see is EITC payments set higher, so that the effective minimum wage was substantially higher-- without employers being more out of pocket.

The danger with any of these sorts of programs is that the bigger and more generous you make them, the more they distort behavior . . .

To put it in a more simple way.

In principle, this means that the state pays part of the wages and salaries of private companies. Workers are allowed, so to speak, to pay each other out of their own pocket, while private investors and shareholders can look forward to returns and dividends. Nice.

I can already understand why people like deepsepia are so committed to this chaotic mess. After all, they are capitalists, aren't they? What I do not understand, however, is that US workers and employees defend this kind of plain thimblerig in a way reminiscent of Stockholm syndrome.

There is a much better solution than this. Abolish exploitative capitalism and replace it by just socialism. Eat the rich.

[bowlinggreen]

Originally Posted by diamelsx

I say work at requirements should be eliminated because they only serve to disincentivize employers from paying workers or treating workers fairly. Look at America workers since welfare reform in 96 For an example.

"work at" requirements? Not sure what you are getting at, can you rephrase?

[diamelsx]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

"work at" requirements? Not sure what you are getting at, can you rephrase?

sorry about that. I'm at work requirements I don't know where the "at" came from

[bowlinggreen]

Originally Posted by diamelsx

sorry about that. I'm at work requirements I don't know where the "at" came from

Oh, like work requirements for getting welfare.

I'm not sure that makes much difference either way, even before then workers got paid crap and were treated like shit. I clearly remember this working a couple of crap jobs as a young man in the 80s.

The only way to get capitalists to pay more and treat people better is to create a genuine shortage of labor for them. This is how the Black Death kicked off the Renaissance way back when, it killed so many peasants that the surviving peasants were able to do much better for themselves, and that broke the cycle of Christian feudalism/enslavement that existed before.

There is so much surplus labor these days that capitalists are in hog heaven. Any longtime American citizen they think is getting too much of their profits, they just give him the boot and get an immigrant, legal or illegal, to step in for lower pay.

I suppose we could steal certain nasty vials from the Russian NBC armories, and give them to xyzde69, and bid him to drip droplets from them in water reservoirs across the globe. That would cut down the available labor pool in a hurry.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Nobody1

I can already understand why people like deepsepia are so committed to this chaotic mess. After all, they are capitalists, aren't they? What I do not understand, however, is that US workers and employees defend this kind of plain thimblerig in a way reminiscent of Stockholm syndrome.

There is a much better solution than this. Abolish exploitative capitalism and replace it by just socialism. Eat the rich.

No, I'm a social democrat. There are all sorts of market failures where I'm happy to see State intervention-- health insurance would be a prime example. That's a very large segment of the economy where I'd prefer to see the State rather than private insurers delivering coverage.

But by the same token, there are all sorts of State bureaucratic failures where a market is better.

So I'd like to get my health insurance from the government, but I don't want to go down to some Party labor exchange to see if I can "get on the list" for someone to come clean my gutters.

My "ism" is "pragmatism".

If State monopoly control of enterprises reliably "delivered the good" -- I'd be for it. But it doesn't. The freedom to set up a felafel stand with minimal hassles from the State, beyond reasonable public health requirements-- that's a lot of what makes life pleasant, and enables people to earn their living in their preferred way.

Very recently, a famous Los Angeles restaurant critic, Jonathan Gold died. He made his name visiting the myriad little mom and pop restaurants throughout Los Angeles, wonderful enterprises that belong to their proprietors, earn them a livelihood and make our life more interesting.

That doesn't happen when "Neighborhood Council #6" gets to decide who gets to open their dim sum restaurant, approve their loan, decide who they can employ, where they have to buy their produce etc.

[diamelsx]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

Oh, like work requirements for getting welfare.

I'm not sure that makes much difference either way, even before then workers got paid crap and were treated like shit. I clearly remember this working a couple of crap jobs as a young man in the 80s.

it makes a difference in a couple ways. one the more requirements you put on workers the less Leverage they have in negotiating compensation. Think about it they going to have to work in order to make ends meet, What does the employer have to do? Also the fact that they got to work to make ends meet relieves the employer from having to pay them anymore than it takes for them to make government assistance so yes it does make a difference. One more thing put it work requirements on employees does nothing for the excess labor pool.

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

The only way to get capitalists to pay more and treat people better is to create a genuine shortage of labor for them. This is how the Black Death kicked off the Renaissance way back when, it killed so many peasants that the surviving peasants were able to do much better for themselves, and that broke the cycle of Christian feudalism/enslavement that existed before.

There is so much surplus labor these days that capitalists are in hog heaven. Any longtime American citizen they think is getting too much of their profits, they just give him the boot and get an immigrant, legal or illegal, to step in for lower pay.

I suppose we could steal certain nasty vials from the Russian NBC armories, and give them to xyzde69, and bid him to drip droplets from them in water reservoirs across the globe. That would cut down the available labor pool in a hurry.

in essence I'm trying to shorten up the labor pool. Bye eliminating the work requirements in providing Sumner the bare necessities us it sort of creates a backstop for the workers and puts upward pressure on wages. if workers Necessities are not contingent on them working it makes the employers have to do more in order to secure and retain the workers.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by diamelsx

it makes a difference in a couple ways. one the more requirements you put on workers the less Leverage they have in negotiating compensation.

My two cents' -- its really striking that self-styled "conservatives" want to burden poor people with all these hoops and bureaucracy.

"Go to this office with this form and prove you tried to find a job, if you're not on line by 9:30 we'll strike your name from the rolls"

-- basically this is just the "I hate government bureaucracy" crowd siccing a shitstorm of government bureaucracy on people who don't have much. I often see folks downtown, with some slip of paper ordering them to this office or that . . .

Market oriented folks should have the courage of their convictions and like Milton Friedman wanted, just give poor people money and let them figure out what they want to do with it. Some of them will make poor choices, but making them jump through bureaucratic hoops is likely worse.

[Roubignol]

I must say that I don't play an easy game here.
I try to write all my own texts using as few as possible google translate.

I'm also a little bit lazy, because I don't often work my English grammar.
So writting and answering "economic" ideas are not really natural and "costs" me quite a lot of time.

To answer the questions of Estreeter:

Originally Posted by Estreeter

So which is it .....
Please answer this with a simple 1 or 2 from choices below

1. A world with no money
2. A world with more equal money distribution

Trust me, I'm not like your girlfriends. In the case of money I think I know what I want. I naively want a world as fair as possible!

If money would be only a fair tools for trading, I could be a money fan.
It's like cars, lawnmowers, etc... If there would be some collective cars, lawnmowers per district, fairly shared between people, I'd not blame "cars" and "lawnmowers". But greedy and imbeciles always want MORE, because they are unsatisfied people.

That's exactly the same with money.
There are people who want to make money... only in the way to make money.
They are mad and still uncontrolled by the States.
They are like criminals, but their murders and crimes are not as brutal as the ones of a murderer... they are more like cancers....

So maybe the best way to all have the same incomes and no exploitation of the man by the man, is a radical change.
NO MORE MONEY.

No more money = all the people get the same salary = 0.

Originally Posted by deepsepia

No, I'm a social democrat. There are all sorts of market failures where I'm happy to see State intervention-- health insurance would be a prime example. That's a very large segment of the economy where I'd prefer to see the State rather than private insurers delivering coverage.
[...]

Does it mean that you are unhappy about how became your country since Reagan ?

Do you agree that like in France with François Hollande and now even worse Emmanuel Macron, US "Democracts" like the Clintons have done nothing to restrict the mad wildness of the neoliberalism ?

As I already said on this topic, I was very very surprised to read that in the USA during 30 years since the 50's, revenues that were more than 200'000 $ per year were taxed from 80 to 91% depending the period.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

For (9), how are you going to set the cap? 10x the base pay of the normal worker?

10 times it's far too much.
I'd say same salary for CEO and a bonus of 0.5 max at the end of the year, if they managed their enterprises (and also a bonus for all the good workers).
CEO never clean the toilets, but if all the people cleaning the toilets go on strike, we would understand that we need them.

What people do not understand, it's that GREED was considered in the past by our ancients as... a CAPITAL SIN.

We have lost this notion and mainly because of Protestantism.