I feel like we agree on the principle ideas but are arguing over semantics.
I don't identify myself entirely with one single political idea. I'm a realist, I never ascribe to one ideal. Because in practice we always exhibit some extreme that calls for a counter balance. When i support socialism i don't mean the same socialism you might be thinking of. I don't agree with a permanent welfare state. When you think of Socialism you think of Capitalism vs Communism. I think of Anarchy vs Fascism. Socialism is a centrist idea. It's the counter balance to either extremes. Anarchy allows anyone to obtain control and Fascism means whoever is in power consumes more power. Both are bad for the people. Socialism means giving the power to the people.
America is one of the more Anarchistic Capitalist nation in the world. Having this
laissez-faire economic attitude is exactly what allowed for the Federal reserve to exist in the first place. And now we have an evil dictator who gets to print monopoly money at an exponential rate. If the government were on top of things they wouldn't have allowed this criminal behaviour to take place. It hasn't always been this way. The founding fathers made the direction the country should follow very clear. The spoke against this type of shit. They cared about being sustainable. Anyone who studied history and looked at prosperity of countries that folowing a gold or silver standard vs a FIAT system, it's pretty clear which way works and which way is doomed. Boom and bust is not favorable to steady growth. It's good to see that we're on the same page on this one.
Ideally, we would have a small government that spends as little as possible that lets the free market decide who survies, your money is tied to gold and or silver and when a business fails you let it fail as opposed to bailing them out. We have the opposite of this. This creates many problems. Not only do we have a brutal business cycle to contend with we're essentially creating one huge bubble. We're litterally buying everything with credit. Eventually you go bankrupt and lose everything. We're reaching the end of this bubble. The American government has no money. Even though they collect taxes, social programs are crashing to the ground. They actually borrowed from social security. America couldn't get anymore loans from other nations so they borrow from the Federal Reserve. We're so fucked that pretty soon interest due on nation debt will exceed any possible surplus. This is happening with many countries too.
Aside from the whole imminent collapse of this economy, even during the boom people on fixed incomes get a bit fucked. This system favors people who spend money faster. People on fixed incomes that are maybe trying to save get taxed without knowing it. If money was backed by gold the working class would be much more prosperous as they should be. This is why the middle class is shrinking. It wasn't too long ago that one income was enough for a family now families with two incomes can struggle. For this reason during these times I do support higher taxes for the rich and giving money back to the poor. However, in a system that works this would not be neccessary.
<message edited by Agent Ghost on Jan 26, 2009 17:33>