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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 13, 2024 11:10:53 GMT -5
Thank you for supporting capitalism. It's rare here.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,852
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Post by Dub on Feb 13, 2024 11:17:42 GMT -5
Cancel Culture (millring's favorite term du jour) lives on both sides of the great divide. … the right still mostly lives in the left's world … John, I don’t understand this idea at all. For practical purposes, there is no “left” in this country at all. There is only right and far-right and the far-right insists on labeling the moderate right as left-wingers. They don’t do this out of ignorance, they fully grasp the political value of fear. Since this thread is about private equity, let me point out that if the left actually held sway, there would be no private equity at all. In a left-leaning society, a handful of capitalists couldn’t have trillions of dollars while sweeping homeless people off the streets. In a left-leaning society, you wouldn’t be forced to spend six months’ wages to buy into an employment possibility. In a left-leaning society, there would be no corporate spending on elections and corporations would definitely not be considered people. I don’t mean to be arguing in favor of collective ownership of the means of production here, and history tells us that both the left and right are capable of following the mad ravings of a deluded dictator. Still, I think it’s clear that the capitalist right has complete and utter control of economy and our society. I see no political movement aimed at turning that around.
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Post by Cornflake on Feb 13, 2024 12:48:55 GMT -5
I had to look this term up.
"Cancel culture is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a cultural phenomenon in which some who are deemed to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner are ostracized, boycotted, or shunned." (Wikipedia.)
I'm not hep to the lingo that young people use these days.
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Post by howard lee on Feb 13, 2024 13:05:50 GMT -5
Actors have Equity, too, but they are not quite running the country.
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 13, 2024 14:01:45 GMT -5
… the right still mostly lives in the left's world … John, I don’t understand this idea at all. For practical purposes, there is no “left” in this country at all. There is only right and far-right and the far-right insists on labeling the moderate right as left-wingers. They don’t do this out of ignorance, they fully grasp the political value of fear. Since this thread is about private equity, let me point out that if the left actually held sway, there would be no private equity at all. In a left-leaning society, a handful of capitalists couldn’t have trillions of dollars while sweeping homeless people off the streets. In a left-leaning society, you wouldn’t be forced to spend six months’ wages to buy into an employment possibility. In a left-leaning society, there would be no corporate spending on elections and corporations would definitely not be considered people. I don’t mean to be arguing in favor of collective ownership of the means of production here, and history tells us that both the left and right are capable of following the mad ravings of a deluded dictator. Still, I think it’s clear that the capitalist right has complete and utter control of economy and our society. I see no political movement aimed at turning that around. If that's how you see it, Dub, then you're not paying attention, IMHO. Then again, you always were a Communist so the Democrats look right to you.
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Post by james on Feb 13, 2024 14:09:14 GMT -5
The 'H' has rarely looked so out of place in 'IMHO' as when used in Bruce's, IMO bananas posts.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,852
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Post by Dub on Feb 13, 2024 14:56:35 GMT -5
If that's how you see it, Dub, then you're not paying attention, IMHO. Then again, you always were a Communist so the Democrats look right to you. Ha! Yes, you have a point there. Democrats need to look to their left to see me. No question. I do, however, still favor private ownership and profit as an incentive, ideas that don’t square with leftist philosophy. If I were king, you would have easy access to excellent medical care where you live and John wouldn’t have to make a large capital investment in order to work as a mail carrier. And therein lies an idea that keeps gnawing at me. What a lot of people seem to want is Plato’s philosopher king. An absolute monarch can implement by decree what his most loyal subjects hope will be done. There is no need to spend time arguing and persuading, just outline our desires and coronate someone with absolute power to carry them out. I think that accounts for at least some of Trump’s support. People are too busy with survival to study every political nuance in detail and have too many perceived grievances to tolerate the slow pace of democracy. I get that, I feel that way myself sometimes. I’m on Peter’s side when he talks about wanting Congress to do its job. A big reason they don’t is that big-money interests have insured that their biggest concerns are always fund-raising and public image, not the concerns of state or the well being of constituents. If the world’s richest person supports a Democrat, it isn’t because the rich guy is a leftist, it’s because he believes the Democrat will help him make more money or acquire more power. I think that you and I and John and Peter could go into a conference room (well catered of course) and come out with a set of social and political ideas we could all live with. We may not have any luck selling our ideas outside of that room, but I think we could do it. Plus, we’d get to know each other better.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 13, 2024 16:16:39 GMT -5
The trouble with most high-level-abstraction terms is that they do not point to single, uniform entities. Instead, they tend to aggregate several simpler ideas. As fond as many on the left are of pointing to "late-stage capitalism" as the single, unitary villain in their ideological dramas, it is probably more useful to unpick the set of economic/political practices and beliefs responsible for, say, the dominance of a small number of very large corporations in a given area of commerce--Amazon and Microsoft and Apple. Or the real costs of extractive activities and who has to pay them. Or the position of labor in a productive system. Or the disproportionate influence of a handful of very, very rich individuals (or corporate alliances) over an entire political system.
Historically, "captialism" is a means of marshalling and organizing the resources needed to start and maintain an enterprise--and every economic system needs some kind of capital-formation machinery. You need "capital" to open a coffee shop or start a shoe-repair business as well as to build a skyscraper. "Finance" is the set of operations needed to analyze and organize and direct resources. "Markets" are the literal or figurative spaces within which goods and services are exchanged. And so on. (Missing from this catalog are notions of labor, of value-added, of cost-benefit, of the commons, of property, of the relationship between self-interest and social good. These are also crucial politico-economic concerns.) What matters is how these ingredients are mixed and matched--or left out of consideration.
So the semantic devil is in details of ideas about how capital-formation and financial operations and markets are articulated, often with the backing of political authority. (Remember that joke about the Golden Rule--the ones with the gold make the rules.) For example, despite Bruce's insistence that people like me are Communists, I have no problem with private ownership of the means of production or the fact that somebody has to accumulate and direct the money needed to establish a business or the need for some kind of authority structure in a business. (Ideally, I'm a kind of syndicalist, but you don't build a really big, nationwide enterprise up from the shop floor. Unions and attentive shareholders provide the counterbalance to authoritarian, exploitative management systems.)
The problem is conflating a set of necessary economic devices and practices with social governance--of letting the interests of those who profit eclipse the interests of those with less power, less control of resources, less influence over decision-making.
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 13, 2024 17:32:41 GMT -5
Damn, guys if we hit them enough they'll decide to be capitalists.
The U.S.A constitution created a country wherein the government was limited so individuals were in power to make their own lives as their capabilities allowed. "The poor will always be among us" but there should be opportunities to improve your status if you work toward them. We should support that theory, Ann Randian as it may be. I know I hit bottom when my father died in 1971 but I was educated and took the opportunities that presented themselves and made a career out of taking jibs that weren't sexy and making them productive, was recognized for my value to the companies I worked for and was rewarded. That's the American dream and this is my 18th year of retirement wherein I'm getting the awards from doing what I needed to do and following the rules. All I want is for others to do the same. I'll vote for Trump is that's the option this year.
Keep thinking, leftist idiots and do what's right for you and those who depend on you.
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Post by John B on Feb 13, 2024 21:01:31 GMT -5
Damn, guys if we hit them enough they'll decide to be capitalists. The U.S.A constitution created a country wherein the government was limited so individuals were in power to make their own lives as their capabilities allowed. "The poor will always be among us" but there should be opportunities to improve your status if you work toward them. We should support that theory, Ann Randian as it may be. I know I hit bottom when my father died in 1971 but I was educated and took the opportunities that presented themselves and made a career out of taking jibs that weren't sexy and making them productive, was recognized for my value to the companies I worked for and was rewarded. That's the American dream and this is my 18th year of retirement wherein I'm getting the awards from doing what I needed to do and following the rules. All I want is for others to do the same. I'll vote for Trump is that's the option this year. Keep thinking, leftist idiots and do what's right for you and those who depend on you. Who are you calling idiots? In up to what has been a really respectful discussion, who are you calling idiots?
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 14, 2024 6:34:19 GMT -5
Damn, guys if we hit them enough they'll decide to be capitalists. The U.S.A constitution created a country wherein the government was limited so individuals were in power to make their own lives as their capabilities allowed. "The poor will always be among us" but there should be opportunities to improve your status if you work toward them. We should support that theory, Ann Randian as it may be. I know I hit bottom when my father died in 1971 but I was educated and took the opportunities that presented themselves and made a career out of taking jibs that weren't sexy and making them productive, was recognized for my value to the companies I worked for and was rewarded. That's the American dream and this is my 18th year of retirement wherein I'm getting the awards from doing what I needed to do and following the rules. All I want is for others to do the same. I'll vote for Trump is that's the option this year. Keep thinking, leftist idiots and do what's right for you and those who depend on you. Who are you calling idiots? In up to what has been a really respectful discussion, who are you calling idiots? People who vote for Democrats just because they were taught that Republicans are bad people.
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Post by Village Idiot on Feb 14, 2024 22:15:25 GMT -5
Guitar Center comes to mind. When one's job is to make profits by moving money around, no part of that necessarily involves manufacturing anything or providing any tangible service. [/quote] I very admittedly don't have a clue regarding anything about the subject of this thread. I'm not a big fan of Guitar Center, but how do they fit into this? I'm curious.
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Feb 15, 2024 0:38:25 GMT -5
Guitar Center comes to mind. When one's job is to make profits by moving money around, no part of that necessarily involves manufacturing anything or providing any tangible service. I very admittedly don't have a clue regarding anything about the subject of this thread. I'm not a big fan of Guitar Center, but how do they fit into this? I'm curious.[/quote] VI, I believe a private equity fund purchased guitar center some years ago, and and somehow saddled it with debt they could never pay off. This link describes some of the alleged excesses. www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN282057/Mike
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Post by Cornflake on Feb 15, 2024 8:27:45 GMT -5
This discussion has taken an odd turn. Capitalism isn't threatened. It has triumphed everywhere. The workers of the world have united and they've endorsed capitalism. Bolshevism is kaput. I thought the question posed by the initial post was whether private equity ought to be regulated. The argument for doing so seems pretty strong to me. PS: Six years ago I posted a link to this piece. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/is-capitalism-a-threat-to-democracy I just reread it. I think it's still a good summary of where we are, how we got here and why democracy faces a very serious threat.
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