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Are Obama's Policies Ushering in Era of Socialism? [EDIT]

1. They are doing a good job.

-If someone stays in business and turns a profit it's because consumers prefer to transact with them. They have an efficient business model that provides consumers with a product or service at a price they find reasonable. Not only that, but they contribute positively to the economy by providing jobs and facilitating capital creation. This helps raise the standard of living for everyone who is willing to work hard. If the business deviates from their model a more efficient business model will supplant it.

Competition leads to monopolization which leads to stagnation.
 
Competition leads to monopolization which leads to stagnation.

I've never used this icon before but I feel this post warrants it...

:shock:

Competition prevents monopolies from forming. The reason Coca-Cola doesn't have a monopoly on the soda market is because they have a bevy of competitors.

Competition encourages lower prices and increased efficiency. You've got it backwards, my friend.
 
Competition prevents monopolies from forming. The reason Coca-Cola doesn't have a monopoly on the soda market is because they have a bevy of competitors.

I said monopolization. There is a reason there are only a small handful of large soda companies, for example; the only way smaller businesses are able to compete is through the establishment of niche markets.

Competition encourages lower prices and increased efficiency.

Competition leads to capital accumulation, which tends towards (is that better wording for you?) monopolization and stagnation.

You've got it backwards, my friend.

What have I got backwards? I agree with your statement, by the way. Competition is mainly in developments in productivity/efficiency which leads to lower prices (which is the point of competition).
 
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I said monopolization.

I'm afraid I don't understand the distinction. Monopolization is the process of acquiring a monopoly. Competition inhibits the formation of monopolies or the process of monopolization.

No competition = monopoly. Competition = no monopoly.

There is a reason there are only a small handful of large soda companies

Yes, the reason being they have efficient business models and provide a product at a reasonable price to consumers. They create jobs, provide millions in tax revenue, and facilitate capital creation. Their existence is highly beneficial to our economy.

the only way smaller businesses are able to compete is through the establishment of niche markets.

Tough cookies. I can buy twelve ounces of delicious Coca-Cola for about $1.25 at just about any gas station, store, or restaurant in the country. Unless someone can do better than that I'm not inclined to purchase their product. I save money and time buying from Coca-Cola; this surplus of money and time increases productivity.

Moreover, many of these smaller business who find niche markets often turn into successful corporations after time, just so long as they maintain an efficient business model and provide a desirable service or product at a reasonable price.

However, attaining success is not supposed to be easy - especially the kind of success attained by Coca-Cola - hence the difficult nature of breaking into the soda market or any other market for that matter. If you want to become very wealthy then you better have a great idea and a strong work ethic.

Competition leads to capital accumulation

Is there any kind of business model - aside from crappy ones - that doesn't lead to capital accumulation?

which tends towards (is that better wording for you?) monopolization and stagnation.

I'm going to coin a new logical fallacy. Hopefully the DP will embrace it...

This is what I like to refer to as the "underpants gnomes fallacy".

Phase one: Competition leads to capital accumulation.

Phase two: ???

Phase three: Monopolization and stagnation.

If you are unfamiliar with the underpants gnomes then please click on the following link...

Gnomes | South Park | Comedy Central

What have I got backwards?

Your premise.
 
Tough cookies. I can buy twelve ounces of delicious Coca-Cola for about $1.25 at just about any gas station, store, or restaurant in the country. Unless someone can do better than that I'm not inclined to purchase their product. I save money and time buying from Coca-Cola; this surplus of money and time increases productivity.

I'm not arguing in support of small business, so yes, I realize that it is "tough cookies".

I'm going to coin a new logical fallacy. Hopefully the DP will embrace it...

This is what I like to refer to as the "underpants gnomes fallacy".

Phase one: Competition leads to capital accumulation.

Phase two: ???

Phase three: Monopolization and stagnation.

If you are unfamiliar with the underpants gnomes then please click on the following link...

Gnomes | South Park | Comedy Central

The tendency towards monopolization is the tendency for capital to accumulate in fewer and fewer hands. As you have agreed, competition leads to capital accumulation, and as you have also said, capital accumulation leads to increasing difficulty of competing with that company due to the fact of the "difficult nature of breaking into the market".

Your premise.

Which premise?
 
But the problem we have in this thread is that people are using "Socialism" without any real idea of what it means, or how a Socialist State looks.
Socialism? Is it that tough to define?

How the Socialist State looks after it's been run through their grinder for a mere 5 decades. They've had almost two decades to clean up the mess, but much of the former Iron Curtain is still in a state of squalor.

HPIM0339.jpg


Below: "Workers" trained in the ways of socialism. You can take the boy out of the socialist country, but for many it's difficult to take the socialist work ethic out of the boy.
Title of the photo: Models of the Obama Stimulus.
HPIM0724-1.jpg
 
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Actually those pictures look a whole lot better than alot of American cities.

Austria was listed as #3 on the Top 10 Happiest places on Earth.
 
Re: Is Obama steering us toward Socialism?

Yay more abstract political ideologies to deal with. What kind of "commi" are we talking about here? Which school of communism? Whose school of communism? Is it just communism modified, or Communism hammified?

Not very convincing.

For Arch Enemy:
OBAMA's COMMI MENTOR: Obama’s Communist Mentor
As for Obama's commi mentor, the guy named Frank in Obama's books had people asking...
Why does Obama not give Frank's last name?
Who is this man Frank? Is he a rock, is he a tree, or is he a double bogey?

He's a double bogey.
In his books, Obama admits attending "socialist conferences" and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a "hard-core academic Marxist," which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes.

However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his "poetry" and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just "Frank."

The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What's more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.

Is it possible that Obama did not know who Davis was when he wrote his book, Dreams From My Father, first published in 1995? That's not plausible since Obama refers to him as a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes and says he saw a book of his black poetry.

The communists knew who "Frank" was, and they know who Obama is. In fact, one academic who travels in communist circles understands the significance of the Davis-Obama relationship.

Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal Political Affairs, talked about it during a speech last March at the reception of the Communist Party USA archives at the Tamiment Library at New York University. The remarks are posted online under the headline, "Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party."

Political Affairs Magazine - Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party
Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party
By Gerald Horne
In any case, deploring these convictions in Hawaii was an African-American poet and journalist by the name of Frank Marshall Davis, who was certainly in the orbit of the CP – if not a member – and who was born in Kansas and spent a good deal of his adult life in Chicago, before decamping to Honolulu in 1948 at the suggestion of his good friend Paul Robeson. Eventually, he befriended another family – a Euro-American family – that had migrated to Honolulu from Kansas and a young woman from this family eventually had a child with a young student from Kenya East Africa who goes by the name of Barack Obama, who retracing the steps of Davis eventually decamped to Chicago. In his best selling memoir ‘Dreams of my Father’, the author speaks warmly of an older black poet, he identifies simply as "Frank" as being a decisive influence in helping him to find his present identity
 
Actually those pictures look a whole lot better than alot of American cities.

Austria was listed as #3 on the Top 10 Happiest places on Earth.

Austria was not behind the Iron Curtain...
 
Actually those pictures look a whole lot better than alot of American cities.

Austria was listed as #3 on the Top 10 Happiest places on Earth.
Those "American cities"? Run by which party for the long haul?

This isn't just one odd case where socialists have controlled the city and run it into the ground. This type of squalor is rampant. From Gdansk to Tirana, twenty years after the Iron Curtain fell, this is not the exception, it's the norm.

The real tragic part is the second photo. The infrastructure you can repair, but the fork jammed into the brains of the masses by the Commi's has, as Solzhenitsyn noted in his writings, destroyed the souls of the people. It's been accomplished on a massive scale. Destroyed the fabric of society. Turned masses into drunks, thieves or just lazy.
 
Austria was listed as #3 on the Top 10 Happiest places on Earth.
I like the Austrians aber, das glaub i nit.

Must have polled the Austrians after a good day on the mountain, and a couple liters of glühwein. :)
 
It's true though, there are American cities that look much worse than that. And I've certainly seen workers standing around like that in America as well. The socialist entitlement mentality is no less pervasive here than in Europe.
 
Could someone explain to me the Socialism of the fellas in the orange apparel?

I don't think I can make assumptions by them wearing orange apparel and standing around with one another....

actually I can,
They work, and they don't want to hit by cars.
 
Could someone explain to me the Socialism of the fellas in the orange apparel?

I don't think I can make assumptions by them wearing orange apparel and standing around with one another....

actually I can,
They work, and they don't want to hit by cars.
You have never worked with former Communists I see.
I have on several occasions over the past 12-years.
I've had significant contact with these people.

The workers you see in the photo above... they are going all out!

Here's a good example of the challenge there: A north EU country bought a business in a former Commi country and after a bit they did an extensive study of their purchase and the workers. They discovered, with a similar factory, same tooling etc., the former Commi's had a production rate 40% of their West EU company.

This excited management, thinking about the "improvement" that would come, and improved profitability.

LOL... three years later, they did not improve.

Those socialist trained workers are one stubborn lot.

At the latest project, we went through about 100 people over 18-months to get a dozen that were barely acceptable by Western standards. Of the dozen there was only one that would have been considered exceptional.
 
For Arch Enemy:
OBAMA's COMMI MENTOR: Obama’s Communist Mentor
As for Obama's commi mentor, the guy named Frank in Obama's books had people asking...
Why does Obama not give Frank's last name?
Who is this man Frank? Is he a rock, is he a tree, or is he a double bogey?

He's a double bogey.

The CPUSA isn't communist; they are a left wing of the democratic party. Moreover, it takes paying like a $20 fee and signing up online to become a "member"; I know an admitted capitalist that signed up just to see if he could and had no problems.

The CPUSA is a joke.

This isn't just one odd case where socialists have controlled the city and run it into the ground. This type of squalor is rampant. From Gdansk to Tirana, twenty years after the Iron Curtain fell, this is not the exception, it's the norm.

I love how one can say "look at how this country has done since the collapse of communism" and somehow not see that what they are actually saying is that the country was ruined because of the collapse.

The real tragic part is the second photo. The infrastructure you can repair, but the fork jammed into the brains of the masses by the Commi's has, as Solzhenitsyn noted in his writings, destroyed the souls of the people.

:lol: What a reference.

The workers you see in the photo above... they are going all out!

A picture of a bunch of guys standing around doesn't really say anything.
 
The CPUSA isn't communist; they are a left wing of the democratic party. Moreover, it takes paying like a $20 fee and signing up online to become a "member"; I know an admitted capitalist that signed up just to see if he could and had no problems.

The CPUSA is a joke.
Let's say it is a joke. The point is... Obama's mentor was an known Commi. And the bad joke is that his youthful indoctrination was refined each step of the way. He is the ultimate Saul Alinskyite. Even Alinsky's son praised Obama for his use of his father's guide for Commi's.

Son sees father's handiwork in convention
August 31, 2008
Son sees father's handiwork in convention - The Boston Globe

Barack Obama's training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness. It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well.

I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky


I love how one can say "look at how this country has done since the collapse of communism" and somehow not see that what they are actually saying is that the country was ruined because of the collapse.
LOL. These countries have made much progress but when the entirety of the Iron Curtain countries resembled a collective cess pool after the fall of communism... your reasoning reads as laughable.

Have you ever been to one of the countries in question?
Outside of the core of tourist areas?

A picture of a bunch of guys standing around doesn't really say anything.
No, but if you've had any contact with them over the long term, you'd realize these people are putting in their hard day's work... socialist style.

I've got so many stories... personal and from others about the Commi mentality... it is simply amazing stuff.
 
LOL. These countries have made much progress but when the entirety of the Iron Curtain countries resembled a collective cess pool after the fall of communism... your reasoning reads as laughable.

Emphasis mine. My point is validated. Thanks.
 
Emphasis mine. My point is validated. Thanks.

Pretty good try.
Few, certainly not the public, knew the desolate state Communism left behind.

Read the papers from Reagan's time and you hear a chorus of leftists in the press chanting their disdain for Reagan treating the Soviets as he did. Bush got even more brutal treatment, and his time to be proven right for what he was chastised will eventually emerge. The falling of the Soviet Empire (LOL) was abrupt. Iraq and Afghanistan are on their way. That the Germans are going there to pick over projects is an indication things have improved drastically.

As for the former captives of Communism, I know these people, and they rave about the improvements in their lives and look forward to the day their countries are repaired of the ills Communism wrought. What they did to the people and countries is savage.

Progress has come after they were freed of their Soviet shackles.
 
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We could amend the constitution to prohibit government spending to be above a certain percent of the GDP.

Maybe our founding fathers should have thought of that.
 
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