Government or Corporations?

I used to work for a furniture company.. they sold already made furniture, bulk shit they bought overseas. Sometimes I think it is mind boggling as to how it could be cheaper to make something overseas and then have it shipped here.. but then I remember how I used to see children's footprints on the boxes of furniture. Pretty much all the footprints were of bare feet too, so I can see how it is cheaper in labor.. but you'd think the other costs would add up to being similar if they just made it in the US. Then again, we have regulations here that would probably force them to put money into actual equipment. I dunno, but I feel as if the government were abolished and corporations could run free, we'd start to see a lot more things like that here. Sure, one could say that the American people would take a stand against it.. but who are we kidding.

 

What do you think about cutting the cap for social security tax, means testing, and maybe pushing back the starting age a couple of years. If we really want to cut bloat then we need to tackle the big three entitlement programs in some way, but it's not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.

Add what the FBI, DOD, NSA, and CIA spend every year to stop terrorist attack, that probably would or wouldn't happen regardless of their existence, and
you have a shitton of cash. If we diverted even half of the money we spend on intelligence agencies and defense to other programs then we could afford to send every kid to college and cover most people's health insurance. Unfortunately defense agencies are immune to reasonable cuts and audits in any form. You can't have an organization run effectively when it's hidden in the shadows because waste will go even more unchecked than programs out in the open.

Just the other day I read an article about how the pentagon doesn't know what it spent like 5 trillion dollars on if I'm remembering correctly in the last ten years which is a fucking outrage. Does anyone really think we're that much safer of because of what our military does? This bullshit about troops protecting our freedom is stupid as shit and I can't wait till the general public rejects these moronic arguments. Until America is able to look through the bullshit veil of patriotism we will never be able to reign in our ludicrous military spending, but that will probably never happen. If you say something true like the troops aren't protecting my freedoms then you are seen by many as being anti American. It's the same way Jewish people will call anyone anti semetic who believes that Israel is oppressing Palestinians. It's a really effective form of political censorship and it allows warmongerers like the neocrat and neocons to keep us in a constant state of warfare that they claim is to promote peace.

Does anyone really think the U.S. Is going to get majorly attacked by ISIS or Iran? This notion that our military is promoting peace is just factually inaccurate if you look at the history of the ME for the last 30 years and how our policies have shaped so much instability in the region. If we send troops to fight Isis then we will lose thousands of troops, which is an inevitability that neocons must talk about more openly if they are going to push this rhetoric of we must do anything necessary to defeat ISIS, in order to stop potential threats to American lives. Ironically, any plan they have will most definitely lead to hundreds if not thousands more American deaths than if the U.S. had not gotten involved in the first place. On top of that defeating ISIS will inevitably lead to massive civilian casualties and another major power vacuum which will probably just lead to another future ISIS like group where American politicians will have the same stupid debate about military intervention.

 

This is actually why some manufacturers are moving back to the U.S. It's becoming cheaper in some cases now with like cars to build in America since the shipping costs are so expensive for bulk items. Keep In mind I think it's only something like 15-20 percent on average is spent on labor by big businesses. I think gas prices are similar in percent if I'm remembering correctly. So it's not too surprising that if an item takes a lot of oil to ship it might be more efficient to hire expensive labor in America than ship the item. That being said it seems most simple lightweight items like clothing are much more efficient to ship from a sweatshop in Bangladesh to here than hire American workers. I don't think America would be an anarchic wasteland without regulation, but I think a lot of sketchy business practices would increase dramatically.

 

Yeah.. I don't think we'd become a wasteland without a government.. but agree that we would see an increase in bad business. My main issue of the idea of government vs corporations is that there would be no more public land. It would all end up being privately owned and corporations would be the ones to scoop up most of it. Next thing we know, half the national parks will cost $20 just to get in and $5 for bottled water.

 

not sure what i would do about SS.. it's a huge mess, and has pretty much been robbed of funds already.


I'd at least allow folks to opt out and invest their earnings however they see fit. Personally i think i can do a better job with my money than the gov't could.
I'd at least like to try lol..

 

http://www.vox.com/2015/8/24/9195129/h-r-block
This is what happens when you let corporations influence politicians. H&R block is lobbying for a position to make the tax code for EITC more complicated hurting poor individuals but solidifying their own bottom line. If you allow corporations to dictate legislation they will always ensure their own bottom line even if it means fucking over millions of people to solve a non existent problem. Basically H&R block wants to change the forms from one page to five pages to fill out claiming it will cut down on faulty payments. This may seem like not a big deal but adds up to millions more that was supposed to go to people in poverty but is instead going to H&R block. So essentially H&R block is stealing government money from people who receive the EITC for doing the same job. This is why we need to change our lobbying/campaign finance laws to try and curb some of the blatant corporate influence in politics. H&R block shouldnt have any fucking say in our political process or be allowed to communicate with politicians. This belief that corporations is people is probably the most ridiculous interpretation of the constitution. Corporate personhood is bullshit and contradicts the whole point of a corporation. A corporation is set up to ensure that one individual can't be blamed if something goes wrong and the risk is spread out to many different people. So essentially a corporation doesn't receive any of the downsides of being a person like legal liability for crimes/poor judgement, yet they receive all the benefits like unlimited free speech. If you can't see the hypocrisy or problems with our current campaign finance/lobbying laws then you've been living under a fucking rock and shouldn't be allowed to vote in any elections. I wish people would start nailing and boycotting the corporation who do this fucked up shit but that would require people to actually be informed about things going on outside of their own little bubble.

 

nativetongues 2016!

 

Fuck no, I would be a terrible politician. Way too blunt and self critical to ever sell myself to the voting public. I just want people to start to care about issue and find out shit for themselves. Americans, including myself, are too quick to talk about/vote on issues they know very little about. We all want to be right, so much that we will find evidence that conforms to our bias instead of looking at a bulk of credible evidence to make a conclusion. This causes cyclical debates where neither side can admit the flaws/strengths in their argument to try and work toward a a better solution. This leads to situation where no one provides constructive criticism because sponsors of the bills don't want to bring up potential pitfalls so they go unnoticed till the bill is passed.

If we want to try and change politics then we need to change how we talk about politics and interact on a personal level to a more critical discussion instead of one sided circle jerks or two people talking past each other. I don't know if it's feasible, but it's what we need if we are serious about changing the political system. On top of this we all want to simplify issues and break them down, but we often oversimplify and paint cartoonish pictures of reality in political debates. The simple fact is we live in an age of very complex systems/interaction which require complex solutions. This means that as tempting as it is to break down an issue in super simple terms (like many media outlets/blades/myself do) it can often lead to issue falling through the cracks and people misrepresenting an issue to push their own political agenda. For the love of god people if you're going to read Vox, Salon, Slate, Breitbart, Dredge, Red State, Think Progress, Fox News, MSNBC, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Politico, Washington Post, or any other media outlet read very critically even if the story confirms your own beliefs. Even at the more respected media outlets there will always be writers who are biased and we must recognize this as conscientious readers if we want to be informed. I've been reading a lot of Christian Science monitor, bbc, and reuters lately because they seem to better than most at just trying to present the facts even though they definitely post biased articles as well. At the end of the day I believe people need to treat politics in a more scientific manner where policy is based more on statistics and analysis instead of personal beliefs/ideology.

 

Shhhhhh, we can't tell the truth about government! No, they are a benevolent and altruistic organization who gain nothing from being in the ruling class. They only exist to help the people and guard is from the evil 1%.

 

Lack of monopoly.

 

^^ this.

 

Check out other nations around you. There are other government models than the American one.


Here, the government is the people, and we use the government to empower ourselves (free universities, free healthcare, good infrastructure, civic benefits etc)


Just as an observation - the whole We, the people<span class="redactor-invisible-space"> thing still exists other places. Not all governments are bought!</span>

 

Just, as a note to everyone, when I read your anti-government stuff like it's textbook theory covering all governments; it's fucking not. It's not.


Your government is doing a poor job, but examine the reasons closer and you'll find that Citizens United and similar corrupting influences is what's fucking you over. Usually, lobbyism is a great destroyer.



You have a corrupt<span class="redactor-invisible-space"> government, which is why it does poorly. You<span class="redactor-invisible-space"> also have the power to change that. </span></span>

 

Governments enforce anti-monopoly laws on the free market as it is, right?


Make big banks break up into smaller pieces so they can't control finances too much, breaks up dominant car manufacturers so they don't destroy all competitors and then reduce quality and up prices, etc.


An examination of what Iceland did during the US-led banking crisis in 2008/9 (edit: which itself was a result of 'too much freedom', no government intervention and the banks fucking raped a bunch of US citizens) would be enlightening as to how governments deal with corporations when the people's interests are at heart

 

Contradiction, goverments are a monopoly. A monopoly on the use of violence to achieve their goals. Any goverment interference in the "free" market males or no longer free. That is the definition of free market. No government at all for any reason, free.
You can not have government and freedom at the same time. They are opposites.

 

(edit: which itself was a result of 'too much freedom', no government
intervention and the banks fucking raped a bunch of US citizens)


Is this really how you recall the banking crash of 2008? It resulted from a lack of government intervention?


... How exactly were the banks bailed out? Which institution propped up the banks after their malicious practices failed them? The government and the banks are completely intertwined by the nature of currency is issued. The government made sure that the banks would be able to survive after they drove the economy to its knees. Government is the only entity that can compel, by force, people to make economic decisions that are not their own and companies/corporations to receive special market advantages/disadvantages that would otherwise not apply.


https://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly

 

Combination of reckless business practices, reckless government lending practices, hands off regulation, reckless consumers and overcomplexity in the market. On top of this lenders made horrible assumptions like the housing market would never crash and based decisions on that retarded notion. Frontline does an awesome four hour documentary series that really highlights how the private companies, government bodies, and consumers failed us and lead us into this mess. There's definitely blame in all sectors, but I would say corporations play a bigger hand in setting up the instability in the marketplace with inventions like credit default swaps among other mind blowingly near sighted policies that relied on fault assumptions.