RGacky3
DP Veteran
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"For profit" universities generally give unaccredited degrees with zero value.
But as a student at the second largest university in the U.S. by size, I can tell you even public universities run very much like a for profit company, they seek to maximize endowments, maximize sports related revenues, maximize exposure, maximize reputation, etc etc. And while the school pays our president a fixed salary, the board of trustees gives him bonuses based on performance.
Yeah ... But they are still not for profit, and thus not 100% dependant on ever growing profits, of coarse you still want to maximise revenue within reason, but the difference is universities can internalize externalities and take into account social effects.
Thats not what I was saying at all. They lost a greater percentage of their wealth then the poor did. "From 2007 to 2008, the richest 1% of Americans lost 8.4% of their income, compared with a 2.6% drop in earnings for the average America. The very richest, the top .01% of Americans, saw their income drop even further, by 12.7%." The rich in the recession: The poor rich | The Economist
Oh ... Ok ... they lost a greater percentage of their own wealth, that doesn't suprise me at all, nor does it really change my point.
I don't know if you know any kind of basic math, but if my wealth falls 10%, and your wealth falls 5%, no matter what the actual amount of wealth either of us has, I got relatively more poor than you did. So If I had more money originally, then the wealth gap between us shrunk. If I had less money, it grew. The rich by definition have more money than the average American so therefore BY DEFINITION, income inequality shrank from 2007-2008.
2007-2008 ... Ok, but we'd have to include the post initial crisis years, also I personally don't buy the whole 1% thing, its more like .001%.
A. So first you make an argument to unpredictability; now you are making an argument to the future. If the externatilities were so ever growing, then the U.S. should've seen a second great depression, and capitalism would've collapsed. It didn't. But if you want to claim that somewhere in the future you are going to be proven right, then burden of proof is on you for this one.
I'm arguing that what stopped Capitalism from collapsing was ever growing state bailouts and saving.
B. I've stated at least three times, China has been statist for the better part of the last 100 years. But they were authoritative and not growing, actually... it was quite the contrary (Great Leap Forward ring a bell?), and now that they have opened their markets, and allowed capitialism to direct investment into their country, they are growing.
Sure, but you have too see the type of investing China is allowing, its not by any means "free" infact is extremely controlled by the state, so really its a huge influx of capital, but still mostly under the control of the state.
C. I'll respond to both in one swoop. Capitalism IS the foreign investment. They are not some how separate. It is capitalist countries that are doing the foreign investing, and capitalism embracing countries who are receiving the investment. Arguing that they are growing due to global investment is proving my point. The only way that investment stops, is if the leftist labor unions and naive student activist groups make a big enough fuss about it, or those countries suddenly shut themselves down to open markets. Capitalism itself won't end the investment in those countries, it will be something other than capitalism which does that.
Not necessarily ... there are many different types of investment, for example would you consider Chinese state companies buying up Canadian private oil companies "capitalism?" Also I am NOT against investment, I am saying you should recieve investment from a position of strength, investment in Sweden is gonna be done in a way where Sweden Benefits a lot more than investment, say in the Congo, where the local economy has very little bargaining power.
Now, Venezuela (I keep using them because they are pretty much South American socialism in a nutshell) on the other hand will fail when they run out of oil money. I'll show you why they are reliant on solely nonrenewable resources.
1. They have a piss poor manufacturing sector "Manufacturing contributed 15% of GDP in 2009. The manufacturing sector is experiencing severe difficulties, amidst lack of investment and accusations of mismanagement." Venezuelas Aluminum Industry Operates At 29 Of Capacity - Economia - El Universal "
"José Guerra, the director of the School of Economy, Central University of Venezuela (UCV), blamed overvaluation of the domestic currency, price control and violation of property rights for the poor performance." Venezuelas Aluminum And Steel Production Below 1997 Numbers - Economia - El Universal
2. Atrocious agricultural management "Since 2003, Chavez has been setting strict price controls on food, and these price controls have been causing shortages and hoarding.[32] In January 2008, Chavez ordered the military to seize 750 tons of food that sellers were illegally trying to smuggle across the border to sell for higher prices than what was legal in Venezuela.[33] In February 2009, Chavez ordered the military to temporarily seize control of all the rice processing plants in the country and force them to produce at full capacity, which he claimed they had been avoiding in response to the price caps.[34] In May 2010, Chavez ordered the military to seize 120 tons of food from Empresas Polar.[35] In March 2009, Chavez set minimum production quotas for 12 basic foods that were subject to price controls, including white rice, cooking oil, coffee, sugar, powdered milk, cheese, and tomato sauce. Business leaders and food producers claimed that the government was forcing them to produce this food at a loss.[36] Chávez has nationalized many large farms. Chávez said of the farmland, "The land is not private. It is the property of the state." Some of the farmland that had been productive while under private ownership is now idle under government ownership, and some of the farm equipment sits gathering dust. As a result, food production has fallen substantially. One farmer, referring to the government officials overseeing the land redistribution, stated, "These people know nothing about agriculture."[37] Chávez has seized many supermarkets from their owners. Under government ownership, the shelves in these supermarkets are often empty.[38] In 2010, after the government nationalized the port at Puerto Cabello, more than 120,000 tons of food sat rotting at the port.[39] In May 2010, after price controls caused shortages of beef, at least 40 butchers were arrested, and some of them were held at a military base and later strip searched by police.[40]"
Economic policy of the Hugo Chávez government - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3. Of course, the proof is in the pudding. Oil money. it is completely depend on oil.
'80 percent of the country’s total export revenue, contributes about half of the central government’s income, and is responsible for about one-third of the country’s gross domestic product"
Venezuela's Oil-Based Economy - Council on Foreign Relations
Therefore we CAN CONCLUDE that Hugo Chavez and the centralized government has no idea how to expand the economy, and is expanding due to publicly realized oil profits. Their economy may be "growing" in the sense that the total amount of money they get from oil goes up every year, so the total amount of money they can invest keeps going up. But considering those investments are not producing any sort of return, the actual GDP growth is strictly based off oil putting more money into their economy. So when that oil money runs out, they will pretty much be SOL, considering they are failing miserably to actually develop any sort of industry.
Now, if it were multinationals who were managing those investments, you can be damn sure that factories wouldn't be producing at 29% capacity, food wouldn't be rotting openly in ports, and supermarket shelves wouldn't be completely bare.
Venezuela is NOT south american socialism in a nutshell, the different leftists are doing much different things, you cannot compare Brazils model with equadors with venezuelas, just like people saying "the nordic model" is misleading since there isn't just one model.
1. Compare that to American manufacturing .... ALL manufacturing is having difficulties, even in China, due to the crisis and instability of the US market. However Chavez's government HAS inproved SIGNIFICANTLY non oil manufacturing.
So saying "oh they have problems" is easy, everyone has problems, but the fact is they are doing BETTER.
2. Its easy to point out isolated events and anti-Chavista's opinions, by 2008, self sufficiency was attained (for the first time) in corn, rice and pork, increasing production 132% for corn, 71-92% for corn, and 77% for pork since 1998 .... in 2010 there has been a 48% increase in lands under cultivation since 1998, and they are increasing production for other staples
Agriculture in Venezuela - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3. Again ... compare BEFORE Chaves to AFTER chavez and we see the difference.