Donald Trump

That's not an evident proposition, it doesn't necessarily has to be worse in the future (also, I adressed the point about not letting it happen again).

With regard to Trump, he's apparently naming his VP this Friday. Fingers crossed for Michael Flynn or *gasp* Rand Paul.

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Xavderion wrote:

With regard to Trump, he's apparently naming his VP this Friday. Fingers crossed for Michael Flynn or *gasp* Rand Paul.

Na its Hitler's reanimated corpse

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NeroNoah wrote:

Capitalism is not perfect, but the best path is to patch the blind spots on it, in a case by case basis.

Capitalism is so far from perfect im surprised it's so prevalent. It incentivizes buying low and selling high, and capitalizing on trade secrets/ hidden financials (which is a breeding ground for corruption) / marketting/ trademarks/ and copyrights. All of which do not benefit society. Business for the sole sake of making money, at the expense of the customer and the employees.

In an ideal world, if information is useful, the incentives should be in place to distribute and use it as much as possible. NOT retarded. Business should strive towards efficiency and customer satisfaction for the benefit of society. Innovation should be rewarded and disseminated by the government as a public good.

Traditional communism doesnt work (as well as it could) because it doesnt place the incentives on hard work/ efficiency/ and innovation. And noone likes forced labor.

Corruption is another reason why both communism and capitalism both fall far short of their potential. The only solution i see to that is complete transparency so that the violations of the law can be spotted by regular citizens.

You can imagine the big picture of economics as resource allocation. A free market cannot be relied on to place attention and resources into fields vital for growth and sustainability. And here is where communism shines.

I think a hybrid of the 2 would be much better than either alone. Call me a socialist if you want, but it isnt a dirty word and it offers far more benefits to far more people.

Capitalism is like democracy, everyone hates the thing but the alternatives have imploded hilariously.

Also, there is no real alternative to capitalism and socialism, because by definition they classify all the existing systems (private vs. public ownership of capital). Socialism is always going to fall trap to the economic calculation problem (*whips himself for citing Austrians*), that's it, it's pretty much condemned to be dysfunctional or inefficient because it has a poor feedback with the population and the computational needs are not manageable (think like how everyone feels unsatisfied about the police; we allow a monopoly of coercion to the state because we know the alternative is worse, but that's an exception that confirms the rule and shows how crappy things can get).

We are kinda stuck with this and we have to make it work (aaaaaaaaaaaaand that's for economists, not really us, XD).

I will say Trump was right about something, Lying hypocritical medias. Fox, CNN, ABC, I'm watching them right now, they are purposely avoiding certain importants facts while reporting news. Just to make a "better story" that would sell more paper.

Right now in the US there is so much racial tension, riots, wounded people and even death.

Was reading news this morning, there's a black guy who crashed into the house of a cop trying to kill him because of what happened lately, and there is those 5 other cops who were shot by a crazy sniper.


All that mess, chaos created by medias, could have been avoided if they were honest.

Trump is right about the media, but that's him being a stopped clock. I mean, what kind of person trusted the media blindly anyway? Yellow journalism is as old as journalism.

Also, about the chaos created by the media...well, that's going way too far. Media just gives you what you will consume (currently, their role is more giving an opinion about reality rather than just inform, so that creates a niche for echo chambers, a la Salon or Breibart).

@SkyCore

I think you are making the error of selecting ends and assuming means. I don't know if it should be a primary or not, but I'm certainly not against a high average standard of living, in terms of both goods and education. However, you are assuming that sharing and government distribution are optimum (or even viable) methods to achieve that goal.

The way I see it is: all economic corruption is and has been either governmental corruption or criminal activity (by which I mean: the legitimized use of force or fraud on others, or the illegitimate use of the same). Yes, monopolies are bad, but they're bad precisely when they acquire sufficient municipal, state national and/or international political power to bend various levels of government towards their own interests - and of course a business involved in criminal activity is bad, regardless of scope.

What this means is: I deny that an out-of-control monopoly is laissez-faire capitalism, because the corrupting influence of the monopoly has destroyed laissez-faire's defining aspect - the separation of trade and state. From my perspective, saying capitalism doesn't work because of monopolistic corruption of government is like saying separation of church and state doesn't work because of religious corruption of government - at best such a claim is extremely cynical, and more usually it's asking to put out a fire with gasoline.

Free trade - truly free trade - is the way to go. If economic participants are not under the duress of the threat of force, then the better product is the one which wins. We do need strong governments, strong enough to go to war with a near-monopoly and win (decisively), but that doesn't mean the role of government should be as an economic actor. Instead, it should be in the business of being the only legitimate user of force upon its people, protecting them from the threat of force and fraud, and leaving the rest to capitalism.

The alternative is a government which is sold, piecemeal or wholely, to whomever has the opportunity to seize it. Not the rule of law, but the rule of lobbyists. When government is allowed to interfere with business, you can be certain business will return the favor.

The problem of government distribution can be studied systematically (see Healthcare economists). Also, it can be shown that you can achieve an optimum distribution of resources even with government distribution (Second Welfare Theorem, and more). There is not such a thing as an unique efficient distribution and not every efficient distribution is good.

Also, more problematic than monopolies are oligopolies because they are more frequent, and you don't necessarily need government to create them, they are fairly natural. Then there is market failures...and we could go on.

I say, if there is a need for government intervention, there should be a high standard for that. It's ripe for abuse, but if the XIX century has taught us something, it's that is better this way. No magical solutions.