Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1121172And then the commissar aproached me with a smile on his face. He wiped the tears out of my eyes and said:
"You have nothing to fear. We will shoot you last"

I know many small buisness owners that had to shutter down or sell because of constant beurocracy or minimum wage laws. And people like you don't give a shit.

Im sorry but with that kind of logic there is a strong reason why people fear commies and socialists. Commies motivated by indignation, anger, bitterness, hatred and envy. Very few are motivated by any genuine empathy.
Very few commies put any intelectual legwork in, and generally refuse to start with themselves. The rest of the world must bend and they don't ever have to do it. Like how bernie sanders blamed "Millionaires and Billionaires" until he became a millionaire and then suddenly it was only exclusively billionaires after that point.

If a company closes down because it can't afford to pay people properly then it had no business being in business. Likewise bureaucracy, meeting employee health and safety standards, paying maternity leave and so forth aren't bad things.

Quote from: David Johansen;1121183I think the flaw in our so called capitalism that we defend so ardently is corporate welfare and government sponsored monopolies.  Proper captialism lets the big guys die out instead of bailing them out every time they stumble.  What we call capitalism in these parts is often down right anti competitive and broken.

There's the elephant in this particular room. For all the chest-thumping about muh capitalism among its ideologues, there is a conspicuous silence about how "free competition" has become rigged by oligopolists and bought regulators, or how the resulting system chokes small enterprise while delivering gross untaxed profits to those who can operate out of tax havens, and bend laws to their will. Jeff Bezos, the Google creeps, all the rest of the techie Peeping Toms and their ilk are not honest businessmen - they are oligarchs who own major media outlets, and a large swathe of the political class. They are the people Adam Smith was talking about when he mentioned the inevitable conspiracy of potters and tailors wherever they were allowed to self-regulate, ending up dividing the market, killing off competition, and defrauding the customer. Their immense weight allows them to buy off state agents, and bully smaller competitors. As the case of Gab proves, they can just conspire to drive them out of business, and get away with it.

Coincidentally, US voters (and not a few European ones) are wising up to this game, and they are reacting to it. This is why Trump, a de facto third party candidate with a populist agenda, beat the Republican Party first, and the Democrats second. It is also why the Democrats are imploding right now along globalist/populist lines. The jig is up. Of course, the future US will remain a successful capitalist state according to its tested traditions. It will just return to the legacy of the two Roosevelts; Trust-busting Teddy for the Republicans, and FDR for the Democrats. In some respects, it will be closer to the idea of free competition once the tech monopolies, Amazon, and the like are broken up and replaced by a healthier ecosystem of smaller, competing companies. The customer and employee will win, and the rich will continue to be rich. Just not Jeff Bezos rich or John D. Rockefeller rich.

Quote from: Melan;1121193There's the elephant in this particular room. For all the chest-thumping about muh capitalism among its ideologues, there is a conspicuous silence about how "free competition" has become rigged by oligopolists and bought regulators, or how the resulting system chokes small enterprise while delivering gross untaxed profits to those who can operate out of tax havens, and bend laws to their will. Jeff Bezos, the Google creeps, all the rest of the techie Peeping Toms and their ilk are not honest businessmen - they are oligarchs who own major media outlets, and a large swathe of the political class. They are the people Adam Smith was talking about when he mentioned the inevitable conspiracy of potters and tailors wherever they were allowed to self-regulate, ending up dividing the market, killing off competition, and defrauding the customer. Their immense weight allows them to buy off state agents, and bully smaller competitors. As the case of Gab proves, they can just conspire to drive them out of business, and get away with it.

Coincidentally, US voters (and not a few European ones) are wising up to this game, and they are reacting to it. This is why Trump, a de facto third party candidate with a populist agenda, beat the Republican Party first, and the Democrats second. It is also why the Democrats are imploding right now along globalist/populist lines. The jig is up. Of course, the future US will remain a successful capitalist state according to its tested traditions. It will just return to the legacy of the two Roosevelts; Trust-busting Teddy for the Republicans, and FDR for the Democrats. In some respects, it will be closer to the idea of free competition once the tech monopolies, Amazon, and the like are broken up and replaced by a healthier ecosystem of smaller, competing companies. The customer and employee will win, and the rich will continue to be rich. Just not Jeff Bezos rich or John D. Rockefeller rich.

Agreed. It's not just corrupt, shitty government that allows "bad capitalism" to fester, it's the people who spend. It's us. I roll my eyes whenever, for example, people bitch about Amazon but watch Jack Ryan and then order stuff through Prime.

Yep - it's a fact that unrestricted capitalism is bad (robber barons, et Al), but badly-regulated capitalism is just as bad. As Melan pointed out, when the corporate bigwigs can bribe the politicians into tax-breaks or monopolies to line their own pockets at the expense not only of the consumers, but also of their competitors (and it's always the smaller ones who fall first), the system ends up failing those at the bottom. There are  no decent jobs and it's very hard to get the capital to fund your own company, whilst those at the very top just get richer and richer.

No one "deserves" a living wage, they must earn it in the market. However, if the market seems broken (whether by communism or plutocracy) people who can see that there are others earning far more than them for (apparently) no good reason are going to become discontent and point out that something is wrong. Trump is one of the results of this discontent, but I don't see him doing anything to help the situation. I fear he'll just make it worse.  
 
Of course, most people are far better off today than (say) the 1930s, but that's almost 100 years ago. People's expectations (in the 1950's - 1990s) were that tomorrow will be better than yesterday. Since then, in the developed world a least,  things have slowly seemed to get worse. Yes, you can have your shiny new iPhone or smart TV or Nikes, but you can't afford a house, or health insurance or a decent job that won't get outsourced in the next 10 years.

Globalism started off with good intentions (in general trade wars and tariffs help very few people and tend to shrink economies), but uncontrolled free trade means that richer countries will haemorrhage jobs to poorer countries. Good for the poorer countries GDP, not so good for the people who lost their job. Arbitrage works in many ways, not just on the stock market.

How to fix it? No idea. And I fear that no politician does either. Every time you try to put rules on capitalism you end up with disaster (communism), an unsustainable tax burden/expectation of services (European socialism) or corporate kleptocracy (the US in ~10-15 years). Even Japan is being rocked by corporate scandals these days. I'm not as hopeful as Melan that America will sort itself out. There are other countries out there who might become big enough to affect the US economy in bad ways. China already owns most of America's debt. If it saw an opportunity to help itself whilst harming the US, it might just take it.

Quote from: Shasarak;1121174So if Capitalism is so bad for Innovation then what is your solution?  Get the Government to produce the one official RPG that everyone must play with adventures produced by governmental drones paid by the stolen billionaire wealth?  Finally we will get the living RPG wage we have always dreamed of.

I'm against worshipping Capitalism. I still see capitalistic economy with a strong government being the more ideal option.

When people think single payer healthcare and raising the minimum wage is "Communist", all I see is Rich person media outlets doing their job well.

Once again though, complete tangent, as RPGs are just too small to be effected by any government thing I might want (except maybe UBI, but that's just a good way to get the economy moving fast).

Yeah, they raised the minimum wage here in Alberta a bunch.  Talk to all the people who's hours have been cut to the bone, all the kids who can't get a job out of high school, all the small businesses that it pushed over the edge, all the people who saw their food costs double.  Raising the minimum wage isn't the answer.  We've also got government health care here.  It's great, but it's inefficient and the workers in the various public service unions keep demanding raises while everyone else here is a couple hundred bucks away from insolvency.  (I sure hope that statistic I heard the other day is wrong.  Man 50% is a big number)  Our teachers and health unions are about as entitled and corrupt as you can get.

Quote from: David Johansen;1121201Yeah, they raised the minimum wage here in Alberta a bunch.  Talk to all the people who's hours have been cut to the bone, all the kids who can't get a job out of high school, all the small businesses that it pushed over the edge, all the people who saw their food costs double.  Raising the minimum wage isn't the answer.  We've also got government health care here.  It's great, but it's inefficient and the workers in the various public service unions keep demanding raises while everyone else here is a couple hundred bucks away from insolvency.  (I sure hope that statistic I heard the other day is wrong.  Man 50% is a big number)  Our teachers and health unions are about as entitled and corrupt as you can get.

Turns out raising minimum wage isn't as effective at getting rich people money than taxes.

Quote from: Melan;1121193For all the chest-thumping about "muh capitalism" among its ideologues, there is a conspicuous silence about how "free competition" has become rigged by oligopolists and bought regulators, or how the resulting system chokes small enterprise while delivering gross untaxed profits to those who can operate out of tax havens, and bend laws to their will.

So the problem isn't with the game, it's with the rules-lawyers who've most successfully exploited the loopholes.

More seriously, the basic problem is that no system is immune to the human tendency to game it for self-benefit, or to the tendency of those who prosper best under a system to use that prosperity to influence that system's rules for the sake of protecting their status once achieved. There are systems which incentivize productive cooperation better than others, however, and capitalism is by far the best of them.

What capitalism can't do -- because no system in the world can do this -- is guarantee a match between opportunity, demand, interest and ability. Or put simply, the problem isn't that I demand a living wage; it's when I demand a living wage at my choice of activity, rather than the activities someone's willing to pay me to do.

Quote from: Altheus;1121192If a company closes down because it can't afford to pay people properly then it had no business being in business. Likewise bureaucracy, meeting employee health and safety standards, paying maternity leave and so forth aren't bad things.

Again this is why I fear commies. Such compassion.
"I would rather everybody starve equally then somebody be paid more".

Quote from: Brad;1120949If you actually try to understand what they're saying, it boils down to the notion that they should be able to pursue whatever career they wish, but still gain the same financial standing as people who choose more lucrative careers. For instance, if I decide to be an artist and make sculptures, I should be paid the same amount as a doctor or engineer because we shouldn't have to give up our dreams for money. It's the most asinine thing I've ever heard in my life, and an outgrowth of morons who don't understand the real implications of socialism. Using their logic, there is zero point to do anything other than sit in a basement and play videogames all day because if it's whatever you want to do, you should be paid to do it. Like why am I even bothering busting my ass to get more education and spend countless hours in class, at work, taking care of my kids, etc., when I should just be goofing off and getting paid the same as a neurosurgeon? The end result, of course, is that there will no longer be neurosurgeons, and everyone will just be jacked into the matrix engaging in hedonistic fantasies, which I assume is the goal...easier to control people that way.

It is truly odd that people who think they are left-wing feel this way. Back when I thought I was left-wing and was making a living playing poker (private games, no casino poker in Ohio) and backgammon, my leftist friends all told me that under socialism, I would have to do something "socially useful."

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1121209Again this is why I fear commies. Such compassion.
"I would rather everybody starve equally then somebody be paid more".

Healthy working conditions and minimum compensation requirements is not communism. It's not pure capitalism either, but I see few people advocating for megacorp dystopia or more sweat shops with suicide nets in their country.

If you can't afford to pay people, then you don't deserve employees and need to just run your business yourself. Much like how these twitter hacks don't deserve money when no-one wants to buy their RPG stuff. A social safety net allows for riskier behaviors without one failed venture causing someone to starve to death.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1121216A social safety net allows for riskier behaviors without one failed venture causing someone to starve to death.

Explain Andrew Carnegie.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1121216Healthy working conditions and minimum compensation requirements is not communism. It's not pure capitalism either, but I see few people advocating for megacorp dystopia or more sweat shops with suicide nets in their country.

No. But I do seem to see a lot of people advocating for a Government controlled dystopia where the State makes demands that are unsustainable for non-mega corps to provide what is being demanded. Market forces largely decide the value of a product. Not because someone "feels" they're owed by fiat.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1121216If you can't afford to pay people, then you don't deserve employees and need to just run your business yourself. Much like how these twitter hacks don't deserve money when no-one wants to buy their RPG stuff. A social safety net allows for riskier behaviors without one failed venture causing someone to starve to death.

If you can't afford to pay people *what* precisely? What they demand? Or what you can afford? Who is making the only decision here? No one is forced to do anything they don't choose to do. This is precisely why you don't need minimum-wage laws. Businesses that may otherwise have a market - however small the margin - might not be able to get off the ground and build that momentum in the first place, because an individual may need help, that they can't afford at $15/hr but might at $10/hr.

Or whatever both parties find acceptable. But hey - some Big Corp can buy that cottage industry idea and market the fuck out of it and pay crap money for the a sub-standard version of your product.

Yeah that's not how it's supposed to be.

Quote from: tenbones;1121220No. But I do seem to see a lot of people advocating for a Government controlled dystopia where the State makes demands that are unsustainable for non-mega corps to provide what is being demanded. Market forces largely decide the value of a product. Not because someone "feels" they're owed by fiat.

Oh yeah, like how companies really shouldn't have to provide health insurance because that kind of product is better with more people in the same risk pool. So forcing companies to do it is both fiscally irresponsible and gives everyone a worse product..

Quote from: tenbones;1121220If you can't afford to pay people *what* precisely? What they demand? Or what you can afford? Who is making the only decision here? No one is forced to do anything they don't choose to do. This is precisely why you don't need minimum-wage laws. Businesses that may otherwise have a market - however small the margin - might not be able to get off the ground and build that momentum in the first place, because an individual may need help, that they can't afford at $15/hr but might at $10/hr.

Or whatever both parties find acceptable. But hey - some Big Corp can buy that cottage industry idea and market the fuck out of it and pay crap money for the a sub-standard version of your product.

Yeah that's not how it's supposed to be.

Hey maybe these RPG twitter people only need people to buy their first few books before they can start making things people want and get some momentum going? Tough shit though. Minimum wage laws are a bad compromise but I doubt people are actually ready to severely tax wealth and redistribute it as Universal Basic Income. Can't take money from Rich people and large corps because they need that money to lobby congress and stifle competing innovation. It's not like UBI and universal healthcare wouldn't make starting a small business infinity easier at the cost of some rich people losing vast amounts of money and only having more than they could ever spend in ten lifetimes.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1121216Healthy working conditions and minimum compensation requirements is not communism.

True, I do tend to throw it around as a derogative. I should stop doing so in order to stop muddying the water.
However, I do find your attitude repugnant. You are saying that options that don't meet your arbitrary standards should not even exist. That you would rather have unemployed people then people paid less.

With that kind of utterly warped and sick perspective, I don't have much to add.