Bitcoin Forum

USA .. Socialism for the rich ... Capitalism for the poor

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/four-horsemen-documentary/

watch FULL video at the bottom ... even better just let the audio play in the background.

Speaking as someone most of you people consider a socialist, please allow me to disagree.  Modern capitalism requires banks and banks require state guarantees.  What you call "socialism for the rich" is just the way things are meant to work in a capitalist system. 

Do you really believe that or is it what you have been told??

You require(need) food/water to survive ... this is not the case for the banks and government. FIAT requires the scenario you just stated to survive! (my opinion)

You and I need food and water.  Banks need state guarantees to survive because the compete against banks that reduces the price of their working capital.  The video is about the fiat bailout of the banks which is calls "socialism for the rich." I disagree - that is not how socialism is meant to work.

How is promoting non-competition by bailing out the failures not socialism?

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy.[1] "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these.[2] There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them.[3] They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets or planning, how management is to be organised within productive institutions, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

No particular brand of socialism says "Grind extra taxes out of the poor to bail out bankers."  No brand of capitalism advocates that banks exist with state guarantees.  So, bank bailouts are a feature of modern capitalism. 

That's the joke, my friend. It was Slavoj Žižek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek) who coined that phrase.

And I fell for it.   :'(

I think this is what you're looking for:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

Providing banks with state guarantees reduces the cost of working capital.  That in theory makes the cost of capital for buinesses that borrow from banks lower.  Banks without state guarantees can't compete as they would have to pay a higher price for their working capital than banks that do get state guarantees.  So, the bank bailouts are inevitable - its how capitalism works.

Crony capitalism is a whole other problem.  The big "no bid" contracts you see in the public sector and the big "privatisations" of monopoly goods like water and electricity are fine examples of crony capitalism.  Bank bailouts are just part of plain old capitalism - no cronies needed and certainly not a "socialist" thing.