Great Businessman My Ass.

[Minimalist]

but both they and the mom and pop shops are capitalists.

It's a question of degree and what they try to do with their power.

[purplepurpose]

In small EU country i'm from people just move to a better country if they don't like their own. Things like involvement in politics is non existent here. Seeing the passion about politics in US is really alien to me.

[Minimalist]

'Murricans lack the language skills to do that.

[Brian37]

but both they and the mom and pop shops are capitalists.

It's a question of degree and what they try to do with their power.

Agreed. And if you want to say that big money has become too abusive in current history, I would agree. But I am not willing to throw away the concept of open markets. China's communist party is a kleptocracy. North Korea is a kleptocracy. Cuba is a kleptocracy and so is Russia. They simply control the market more strictly and reward party loyalists.

What created the middle class in America after WW2 were regulating financial markets, investing in social stability. Unfortunately some confuse Cuba's and China's growing capitalism as being pro pluralism, and they are not. They are still oppressive authoritarian states.

[Minimalist]

But I am not willing to throw away the concept of open markets.

Open markets is about as viable a concept as Adam and Fucking Eve.  It's a fairy tale.  What these business criminal assholes do is try to manipulate markets for their benefit and all that money allows them to buy the political power to do it.  The mom and pop grocery store does not have that power.  In fact, they get fucked over by middlemen and bankers at every turn.


Had to add this in:  From 2003.  Things have gotten so much worse, George.

[Brian37]

But I am not willing to throw away the concept of open markets.

Open markets is about as viable a concept as Adam and Fucking Eve.  It's a fairy tale.  What these business criminal assholes do is try to manipulate markets for their benefit and all that money allows them to buy the political power to do it.  The mom and pop grocery store does not have that power.  In fact, they get fucked over by middlemen and bankers at every turn.

Minn, nobody is or should be looking for a utopia, certainly not me.

I agree that big money has globally become abusive. But I still fail to see how you get around the fact, that big money, or small money, the world still runs on a global market. So the issue for me is how you prevent abuse of power by use of money. 

Workers in Russia and China are getting screwed along with American workers. But I stop at implying the end of all private business ownership. China and Russia, are more closed markets. 

The problem in the west is that our billionaires look at their control and masturbate over profits. The problem in the west isn't that private business exists, it is that we have far too much of a mindset of corporatism lack of oversight.


Humans have always bartered, I don't see that as changing. The best we can do is put regulations on that bartering so that one class doesn't dictate to everyone else. There are 62 uber billionaires, both friend and foe alike, that have the combined wealth of 3 billion people. But in stating that is the real problem, I don't see how you get 7 billion humans to collectively rid the world of private ownership of anything.

[Minimalist]

So the issue for me is how you prevent abuse of power by use of money.

By regulating the fuck out of it.  By preventing anti-competitive mergers.  By dragging one or two of these scumbag bankers out on the national mall, standing them against the base of the Washington Monument and shooting them.

Never forget the wise words of Bertolt Brecht.

[Cecelia]

Trump has several failed businesses. Let's be honest. If he started out with... a modest $100,000 instead of millions his father gave him (and helped bail him out) Trump would probably be... a semi-comfortable con man using men with Pakistani Accents to steal money from the elderly.

That's all he really is. A con-artist. It's a skill he's particularly good at. And it got him elected President by a group of gullible malcontents who want to erode all progress made over the last 100 years.