Bernie Asked About Failures of Socialism in Venezuela and Refuses to Comment

In WWII, and for several decades after, We were Americans first and partisans a very distant second.

The only thing that's changed is that small businesses are so over-regulated and over-taxed by government that they are unable to expand and, create more jobs and hire more people. But despite Obama's terrible economy, great jobs are still available for those who prepare for them and seek them out. The American free enterprise, system has produced more prosperity for more people than any other system in history -- and it has produced the largest middle class the world has ever known. Even the poor in America are rich by the standards of most countries in the world.

Entry level jobs here, like flipping burgers, are not jobs that most consider a career, instead they are commonly a stepping stone to better things.
We live in a country where square mile after square mile -- in every city is filled with single family homes owned by middle class Americans who work hard, save their money and send their kids to college. No other nation in the world offers the opportunity for advancement from one class to another that is commonplace here. Lower class to middle class, lower middle class to upper middle class and so on.

Those greedy fat cats you seem to hate so much (many of whom are friends and donors of Hillary Clinton) have produced everything that is great about America including all of the creature comforts you take for granted that make your life vastly easier than it otherwise would be. Planes, cars, TVs, computers electric appliances, medical miracles and every good thing about your life. Without those "greedy, rich fat cats," your life would be miserable and your opportunities non-existent -- just like Venezuela today or the old Soviet Union. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "our system is terrible until you compare it with any other." Then and only then can you see that it is the best system in the history of the world. Where else can a poor kid, willing to study and work hard, wind up as the CEO of a tech company in Silicon Valley -- or a doctor or a judge.
I'm not rich and I never will be, but in my life I've been a laborer, a soldier, a truck driver, a coal miner, a power plant worker, a highly skilled exploration driller, a lawyer and a judge. What other country could afford such opportunity?

How can you dislike a system like that? I realize that your heroes, Hillary and Obama, have never actually had a real job. Maybe you haven't either. If so I feel very sorry for you.

 

socialism can do the same thing, but for bad management.

why does the right insist the poor must "suffer" if they want public assistance when the wealthiest can even keep their multimillion dollar bonuses while on means tested, corporate welfare.
that doesn't happen with regular welfare for the truly poor.

 

The trouble is that "bad management follows socialism like flies follow rotten meat. There is nothing to correct it as there is in free enterprise.

I am totally opposed to corporate welfare, and I'm for only short term welfare to the poor tied to job training and work. I do not want to pay for any corporate welfare and only limited welfare to the poor, but I am for a safety net for the Truly and I emphasize "truly" needy. I don't know anyone who wants the poor to "suffer."
You unfortunately lump anyone and everyone who dares to disagree with you into the "right" whatever that is.

 

Can you give me some specific examples of this "corporate welfare" on the federal level?

 

Sure, how about subsidies to the alternate energy business, wind, solar, electric cars. corn and soybeans etc. Also subsidies to ethanol and all farm products as well as oil and big pharma.

http://usuncut.com/class-war/10-corporate-welfare-programs-that-will-make-your-blood-boil/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-...-for-the-rich-and-corporations_b_4589188.html

You, uuuh, didn't know about these, right? It amounts to only a tiny fraction of welfare to the "poor" but it's still real and very costly to the taxpayers.

 

It is why I am advocating for solving simple poverty and the capital effect of Capitalism's, natural rate of unemployment.

 

Yes a regulated banking and capitalism created history's largest middle class which allowed a wide swath to prosper by their work. But that system was dismantled and a neoliberal system, that created the gilded age, the crash and the great depression, was put back to replace regulated capitalism. And we see where it has led. A disparity in income even greater than the gilded age, thanks to the newest scheme, open borders free trade globalization.

Sanders identifies with the mixed economies of some of those Nordic nations. A mixture of capitalism and a larger Commons, financed by capitalism in the interest of the people and the common good. But Sanders is nothing more than an FDR, Truman, Ike, LBJ Progressive. Which regulates banking to be safe and sound, and serves the economy, not just bankers and MNCs. And regulated capitalism to help insure what capitalism creates, profits, is spread out so the people actually doing the work benefit from it. For instance, under the old model any increase in worker productivity was shared with the workers. This create income creep, which put people in higher tax brackets. We do not have this anymore, but quite the opposite.

What is nice is that we have the results of two models to look at, and decide which model allowed for americans to prosper, that saw the rise of the American dream, and that gave security to more of our people. Clearly, the regulated banking and regulated capitalism which created the largest middle class in history is the winner here, over the neoliberalism model that was brought back from the gilded age by the GOP, and which Clinton joined in on in the 90s.

Being really old, and having lived under both models, there is no valid argument that what we have now is good for anyone but the elites at the top. It has taken away security and prosperity from the working American and hollowed out our middle. It has created disparity in income not seen since the last time neoliberalism ruled, the decade leading up to the crash of 29 and the great depression. It isn't coincidental that once neoliberalism returned, that we had another crash, which we are still suffering from, with an additional factor which will keep America from rebounding. Open borders free trade globalization has created an America that will remain as it is today, but will worsen, if you are an average American. For we have given away what allowed American to win ww2, and what gave her people the prosperity we enjoyed.

All Sanders wants is to return to the sanity of a regulated capitalism, which works for America, her people, and not just the elites at the top. And to expand the Commons, to include single payer healthcare, and public education through college. When a high school education becomes what a college education is today, it is time to make tuition to public colleges tuition free, as we used to have several that were free. This isn't socialism, its just a redistribution of income for the common good of the people in a nation. It's the Commons.

I am so grateful that I was educated in the 50s and early 60s when schools still taught the difference between socialism and what the Nordic nations use, as well as what the US started using with FDR. Clearly people on the right never got a proper education. I guess they got their half miseducation from FOX? And from people who do not mind playing fast and loose with facts, for ideological reasons. Frankly I am always shocked when people do not know what real deal socialism is. But I have discovered if you tell them the truth of what it is, it makes no difference. Ignorance must really be blissful? Our education really sucks today. It yields village idiots with great regularity.

I do not argue with right wingers, for they really do not place importance upon objective facts. I may as well teach a pig to sing, which is a waste of time, and it annoys the pig. I state facts, and it just goes over their heads. When facts do not agree with a personal belief, and are rejected, what is the use? This is a mental problem, and I am not a doctor. So, one states the facts of reality, for it must be done. Otherwise there are nothing but half miseducated biased ideological driven opinions presented. Both the modern liberal and the modern neoliberal conservative are plagued with a disconnect from reality, created by ideological beliefs. And, once ingrained in these people, they are slaves to it. Impervious to fact, and reality. People like me seem to be rare today. I think it is because I was educated when education was education. When facts were important, when being connected to reality was of great value. That sure went down the (*)(*)(*)(*)ter over the last 50 years.

 

thank you for your pity i need it, but so do many more.

capitalism has left many people behind with automation and outsourcing of cheap labor.

i am like trump because he will bring high paying jobs back to american with tariffs.

 

liberal minority. I don't think you have any clue WHAT you are or who you support. At least I know that I support neither Hillary nor Trump -- and that we have the worst choice of any election in our country's history.

 

I believe socialism should be used for Goodness and not Badness, and be held to the same Standard as any Religion.

What objection could there be to a command economy, command economizing its way to prosperity by putting the right people in the right place at the right time; like Good socialists should.

A hypothetical, Corp of (Agricultural) Engineers could simply create best farming practices on a large scale; with the largest farming equipment oil money can buy, lease, or put up as collateral until next Tuesday.

That would put people to work; hopefully ensuring full employment of resources in those sectors.

Scale economy is what Government and the socialism of State Capitalism is good for.

I believe it promotes the general welfare better than merely resorting to the coercive use of force of the State.

 

Danny,
They did all that in the Soviet Union. It didn't work. People were still standing in line to buy sour milk and stale bread -- when it was available. The only thing they had plenty of was vodka.

 

No, they didn't. They indulged our Arms Race instead of an industrial automation race.

 

It was not "our arms race" it was their arms race. They made the choice to participate in that rather than provide adecentl quality of life for their hapless citizens. We could do both because of our vastly superior free enterprise system. now you are defendeing the Soviet Union? WTF??

 

Just to get bread people had to wait in the lines like that.

The death of Communism/Socialism in Russia.

 

Seriously -- do you think that automation only exists with capitalism? Ever hear of China? where BTW, the average worker makes less than $5,000 per year. http://qz.com/170363/the-average-ch...arns-about-the-same-as-a-cleaner-in-thailand/
I guess you know that Trump manufactures his suits and ties overseas.

 

socialist democracy is where the people vote to make the capitalists pay them living wages and keep them employed through government force.

though i agree it is not working in europe they have high unemployment, it could work in america since it is very rich but the people seem to be confused since the media is not honest which is run by capitalists.

state run media is not honest either, so for it to work the people have to be free thinkers not just educated, because europeans are educated and still fail at their countries.

this requires freedom for the oppressed before freedom for the rich, because the rich are complacent with freedom the poor will know how to use it to better everyone.

 

I thought we believe in and have Faith in Capitalism?

Our propaganda and rhetoric should have been, we love Capitalism so we can supply socialists who have lousy management. We love to help you keep your shelves full.

 

Capitalism could have a good deal, with easy credit.

[video=youtube;JZWDgEEKA4M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZWDgEEKA4M[/video]

All they need is a Corp of (Agricultural) Engineers to make it happen, nationally, and in the most social and market friendly of manners and fashions in modern times.

 

No, it couldn't work in America. We already have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. The top 25% of American earners already pay about 90% of all income taxes and the bottom 47% pay virtually nothing. http://www.ntu.org/foundation/page/who-pays-income-taxes
so exactly where is the money to run your pie in the sky utopian state going to come from? We are rapidly approaching the point now where the entrepreneurs, the job creators, refuse to expand and hire because of socialistic bureaucratic interference. Socialism does not work it is a failed system. Free enterprise does work and has created more prosperity for more people and the largest middle class in the world -- or in history. As Margaret thatcher said: "The trouble with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people's money."

 

That "world's largest combine" is purely the result of free market capitalism!

 

Cut the military in half and tell every other country to defend itself. We will have a surplus

 

You paid no attention to what I said and just made something up out of whole cloth.
That would not even begin to carry the freight for the socialist nirvana you think is coming. And if we destroyed our military who would keep Putin, North Korea, Iran and ISIS (among others) in check?? Answer: No one!

 

for now. they could be building their own. the point is, there was no need for a Cold War.