Why I am a Democrat

Post Reply New Topic

Both the Republicans and Democrats play footsie with the corporate and banking interests.

ruveyn

If you take away the government, we are just ruled by corporate and banking interests directly. For example, if the only way you could finance your education were to take out enough loans to keep you in debt your whole life, if we took away all government subsidies for education, you would be a debt serf. It wouldn't be any different from having to pay taxes. If you are looking for a free lunch, you are not going to get it.

However, the corporate/banking interests are not inherently evil. For example, Google's government relations guy and chairman, Eric Schmidt, is also the chairman of the New America Foundation. The New America Foundation has done a lot of really good things. The thing is, we ought to find out which of the corporate interests out there really have the best interests of the country at large in mind, which I think is more of them than most people think. They do have their selfish interests to think about also, but that only goes but so far. There are really a lot of good people out there in corporate America, and I think it's important to recognize them.

A truly selfish person would earn about a half-billion dollars and retire in complete comfort. There are people like that out there, and screw them. I don't give a crap about people who are really just out for themselves. Most billionaires who still work a regular job have some kind of vision or other. It's not always a good vision, but even the Koch family funds a lot of cancer research. I don't always agree with the Koches, but I know that there is more to the story than just these bad guys who want to dump toxic waste everywhere and do injury to people. I'm against the Koches because they are wrong, not because I think they are bad guys.

Then again, some of those corporate interests really are harmful, and they don't mean to be anything BUT harmful and self-serving. Well, to really keep these guys from ruling the roost, we have to hedge our bets with those who do at least some good and have some sort of a vision. You can't keep the bad guys out of power without doing something to empower the good guys. You can't keep bad politicians out of either party by just saying, "they're all bad, I'm against the whole party." That leaves you ineffectual. The thing is, you can't fight the good fight all on your own, there is no such thing as a lone hero, and that is just reality. To get anything positive done, you have to work through other people, and that means working through social organizations like a political party or a corporation or a church.

Last edited by WilliamWDelaney on 11 Jan 2012, 7:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sometimes something worthwhile isn't some money making scheme to make someone rich. Think of what public works had achieved during FDR's presidency, which had built dams and roads, etc., putting much needed money in the pockets of workers and circulating through the economy, while providing invaluable services to the nation with the things they had constructed.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

All examples of human labor. It was the people doing the work that created the result. All wealth is the product of labor performed on material. Or labor producing a service. Bits of paper pieces of metal are only symbols. The reality is the labor and the material.

ruveyn

Yes, I agree. But I hadn't known that that was your point.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Now you do. Governments do not produce wealth and they never have. At most, governments can organize force and coercion on the population of subjects --- even democracies do this. Majority Rule is legalized Mob Rule.

Do you know what democracy is like? It is like two wolves and a lamb sitting at the dinner table and voting on what to have for the next meal.

ruveyn

I know I don't have to tell you the other half of that quote...

But would you seriously prefer to live under some other system of government?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Mm, labor on its own really doesn't accomplish much. The fact of the matter is that money has social, not concrete, value. Its worth is based on the trust that lenders have in the American government to reimburse them to their satisfaction. Your reputation as a borrower dictates not only how much you can borrow but the interest that you would pay on a loan. The level of confidence your employer has in you to do a good job and to stay around for a while dictates your salary and what positions you are likely to be promoted to. Labor means literally nothing as far as your level of wealth. Hell, I know for a fact that you can screw and blackmail your way all the way to the top if you just know a few closet-queers in high places.

Anyone who thinks that putting enough labor and industry into a job will, unto itself, result in wealth is deluded. Promotions always go to the guy who manages to look like he's important. Or maybe that guy just happens to be in the same fraternity as your boss. If that doesn't sound fair, the only real injustice came from whatever jerk ever told you it worked any differently.

The Celts and other Germanic peoples always held the belief that the king ought to lead the charge into battle. In fact, this carried over into the British military. Their officers fought alongside other soldiers, and even their kings spent part of their youth bearing arms. Presently, their descendants rule most of three continents, if you include the USA, and two of the world's largest islands. What makes a country great is a leader who sees it as a privilege to get his hands dirty. The simple working man doesn't need to be driven with a whip or enticed with money if he is taught to love work for the brute animal pleasure of physical or mental exertion. The regular serviceman doesn't need much more encouragement if he sees that his captain is the first to jump at a chance for heroism and glory. You can teach any brute animal to love work or combat only second to sexual gratification. It's leadership and other social virtues that have actual value, and that doesn't change over time.

So why are we drowning in debt so great that even our great grandchildren will be stuck with the current bill? The government you love so much has sold the public out to the bankers and the financial types. The democrats have sold out workers with their hare brained schemes of providing unsound mortgages to workers on the premise that rising prices would paper over the inability to repay the loans. That is what the Democrats have done to workers. The Republicans have screwed us all by putting the national treasury in the hands of the Federal Reserve Bank (a -private- bank, by the way) and made it possible for the financial types to create bogus bonds through tranches. So much for the government you love. It is an abomination!

ruveyn

If I may say so for a minute, if this argument were scored for the value of entertainment then WilliamWDelaney is leagues ahead of everyone.

Because our culture has decided that it prefers paying interest over paying taxes. You will be ruled by the government, or you will be ruled by the banks and corporate interests. Pick one.

Nonsense. The government followed your advice, which was to strip down our regulatory system. It was done in the name of "efficiency." It's fine to do it that way. However, with the resulting oligopoly, it is absolutely necessary to do everything possible to guarantee that nothing can happen to bring down the whole house of cards. It's either that or go back to the regulations, which I know you are against.

All we have done, though, is change from one set of rulers to another. Rather than being ruled by our democratically elected government, we are ruled by the banks. They are sort of an aristocracy. The banks dictate your level of social worth through your credit score, and your credit score controls your ability to make even the simplest transactions. Also, it's getting harder and harder to get anything done without paying off the credit industry at one turn in the road or the other. You are going to have one set of bosses or another, and that's just how it is.

Of course, you could just do it my way and start lending money rather than borrowing it. I'm serious, too. You can lend the government money by buying government bonds, and you can make considerable money in the long-run on the interest. I think that's the smart thing to do because I think it is really stupid to keep giving the government more money than it is giving you if you can help it. Of course, that would make you one of those in power, wouldn't it?

Do you know how the government pays off its loans on those rare occasions when it pays off its loans?

It either steals it from tax payers or borrows some more money to pay what it owes and the interest charges proceed to infinity in the limit.

I would not give nor lend the government one penny more than the law requires. They will get nothing from me but what they can extract by threat of force.

Government such as we have it, is an abomination.

ruveyn

"Rare"? Nonsense! If I hold a municipal bond, which is a lot more secure than one involving the federal government really, the money will BE THERE at the maturity date. In fact, I wouldn't lend to the federal government anyway as long as the GOP held the House of Representatives. Leave it to them to screw everything up, and I'll be damn if they're going to embezzle my money. Municipal bonds, though, can actually be extremely secure.

So you will go on paying significantly more to the government than it is paying you. Fine. The thing is, your taxpayer dollars are going to line MY pockets. On the other hand, you could just choose a government that takes your taxpayer money and spends it on funding the social security system and other essential services, but you'll have to take a tax-hike. As long as the government has to borrow money rather than taking it through taxation, they have to use bonds to pay for things. People like me BUY those bonds and MAKE MONEY ON THEM.

If you wanted to, you could make the same claim about the corporation that owns KFC, but I'm making a killing on the dividends and happen to like them. The key is, I think that Yum gives the consumer a really excellent product and experience at a fair price. Now, if I were to dine out at a Pizza Hut or KFC or Taco Bell and observed a drop in their quality or otherwise got a sense that the company had started going to Hell in a handcart, I would pull that money as quick as I could dial my stock-broker. As it is, it is my opinion that they are a good company. They are good to their employees, and they are good to the consumer. The way I see it, they have staying power.

"democracy" is such a disappointment.

I predict that he will come back and say that all of the money you're making off of bonds is bad because of FORCE.