Now anyone on this board who reads my posts know I'm no capitalist sympathizer. I'd make my day if the lot of them were drowned in vats of boiling oil, but what in the blue hell is the alternative?
Again, anyone who's read my posts here know I have some ideas about that. Communism ain't one of them.
As I see it, capitalism and communism isn't all that different. With capitalism you just have a bunch of rich bastards making all the important economic decisions. With communism you have a bunch of bureaucratic asshats making all the important economic decisions.
They are different models. Of course Venture Capitalists are motivated by money, but the point is how and where they allocate their money. We've talked about this before. Use the Silicon Valley model, specifically Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, even Stanford University uses some of its endowment as an investment vehicle. Look at how many companies have been created in technology with VC money? Understand the business model before making a blanket statement.
Do you want a list of companies that were started with initial seed money, then operational funding. Most fail, but all you need is one Google, one Amazon, one Akamai, one Apple to make your year.
Charlie, WW and a host of other left wing morons seem to think that making a buck is an evil thing. No matter that without profit there would be no jobs.
One other thing to add to your post, there are several different motivations even within VC firms. Some are motivated by avarice and are like fucking barracudas, others are almost benevolent and seem to be driven more by helping certain types of companies to succeed. I have only been personally exposed to the former, but I have seen the good done by the latter.
favorite company Salesforce.com (symbol CRM) get the necessary initial and operational funding. You do know these companies really don't have a revenue stream when they are creating their initial product or service. Traditional sources of funding don't exist for these nascent type companies.
First you have the problem of the bureaucrat looking out for himself. Is oversight enough to keep them in check? I don't think so. The old adage is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Willy's version goes like this: the degree if corruption is equally proportional to the degree of power. If a single person has the power to allocate goods and services, then he will be corrupted by that power.
The 2nd problem, and the bigger problem in my view, is that the bureaucrat has no real way to accurately calculating demand. He can propose what's needed, but people are left living off rations. Things are produced that's not needed as well.
A friend of mine (full disclosure, he's a venture capitalist) went over the Russia after the Soviet Union collapse. He found a storage facility that stored guitars. Stacked floor to ceiling, unused and unwanted guitars. The Soviets had misallocated the demand of guitars so poorly, that all they could do was just store them, and leave them to rot. Meanwhile, they also had bread lines.
This is hardly an example of an economic model that works.
And this misallocation problem extends to capital markets as well. A glance at the US housing market will tell ya that.
Suppose instead of leaving these decisions in the hands of a few "wise men" who turn out to be not so wise, why not let everybody make these decisions? Suppose instead that everyone made a personal consumption budget, say over the next 3-6 months. Then those consumers would negotiate with producers to produce what they want, weighing that burden between how much leisure time people want.
In other words, make these decisions democratically. You'd eliminate the problems that occur with overproduction, and limit the problems that occur with underproduction.
Wouldn't this be a more workable model Charlie? And if not, what's wrong with it?
keeps the economy from failing into a deep abyss as a matter of course, although profit motive alone cannot prevent an economy from failing.
You can't name one economy that has been successful over any period of time unless private citizens are allowed to make profits. All you have to do is look at the history of China from 1949 forward for proof of that.
The only time that communism or any non profit system is advantageous is in the really poor countries with no natural resources or educated population.
to make the decisions that they make. I was talking to a Venture Capitalist pal and what motivated her decisions was profit. On the other hand some Cuban bureaucrats based their decisions on "an efficient allocation of available resources". The problem with this example is that the bureaucrat might allocate all of the resources to himself. With proper oversight the greed of a bureaucrat can be held in check. Nothing can be done to control how the VC obtains her profit. Think hedge fund.
...but gov't only has 3 trillion dollars in a given year. The assholes on Wall Street have 16 trillion in a given year. They have far more power, and they are far more corrupt. Start solving this problem where it's the worse first.
into play when you look at how the buck is earned. Hedge funds managers are on the same level as pimps. VC'S are loan sharks and an honest one will tell you so. How many jobs are created by Hedge funds? VC's do generate lots of jobs and there is nothing evil in that, but job creation is not what motivates a VC. My point is that the profit motive can take an economy down into a deep abyss.
They get capital from wherever they can get it. I was talking about motive though. VC's are loan sharks no better than the Payday loan peddlers. VC's operate on a different level though and long term they do some good for the economy but again that is not their motive.
Your opinion and knowledge of VC's is ignorant and that's being kind. I started working for a small 80 man firm many years ago. Our office was 2 converted houses next to each other. It was well managed but not going anywhere. We couldn't meet market demand because lack of capital. VC's took a look at us and turned us down. They expected 100% return on their money, but they did tell us what we had to do to change their mind. A few years later they came back and invested. Ten years later we were an international company with 800 employees. The VC made 150% on their money. Good deal, yea better than going out of business and that's what would have happened without VC. VC expect a huge return on capital invested. If 1 out of 10 investments meets expectations they make money. Three out of 10 break even and 6 out of 10 go bust.
Money is Power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The more money you send to Washington D.C. the more goverment coruption you create.
Right now the goverment is corupt to the core. Cut the money moving there and you will get a leaner, better goverment.
as long as there are true individuals that won't simply accept their 'lot in life", socialism/communism doesn't have a prayer, especially in a country like ours.
As much as the libs and Europe worshippers strive for "equality", there are just too many ambitious individuals that will never settle for "getting by". I am one of them. Communism will take over, over my dead body.
your model would work. But what would the motivation be? Calculating demand is a lot simpler than it once was. The reasons that economies get into trouble are simple. The main reason is that excess value is misallocated. Another reason is the disintegration of value from production. If profit can be obtained from a means other than production production is supplanted by that means thus capital is diverted from production. Profit is a strong motivator but it has no direction. Huge inefficiencies come into play when governments attempt to manage human motivation. communism is an attempt to reduce these inefficiencies. Its better to wait in a bread line than it is to starve.
it was only because the government first built the road, paved the road, put up no traffic regulation and indeed created on ramps that funneled banks onto the road, that it all happened.
Fanny and Freddie enabled the whole thing. Without FM/FM and other pushes from the government the otherwise rational and risk adverse banks would not have gone down that path.
Charlie, you and I certainly agree about religion and god (or the lack thereof), but we disagree about communism.
I am not a huge fan of un-checked capitalism. As we have all seen lately, the unfettered market does not always make the best decisions. This does not even begin to take into account the concept of the necessity for continuous growth of both production and profits. Hey folks, we live in a closed system (the Earth). Not everything and everyone can keep growing indefinitely. We have to find a stable point of equilibrium eventually. But that is a much larger issue.
On the other hand, communism is great ... IN THEORY. There's only one little problem with the concept - people. Human nature being what it is, there is no way you can base a large, complex society on the premise that everyone will be willing to work towards the good of the whole. That is not how people are wired. 90 percent of the population will do as little as possible for the maximum return. They couldn't really care less about anyone beyond themselves, their immediate family and some of their closest friends. And even that is a stretch for many.
At least Capitalism exploits our basic human selfishness in a much more efficient manner. Not great, but better than most alternatives.
There will never be a perfect system - either politically or economically - as long as people are people. We just have to keep trying to make the best of what we are.
there are tyrants under all economic systems. You must have been sleeping during history class. Take a good look at your life Mein. You have no free will or freedom of thought. You base your entire life on capitalist propaganda. You have deluded yourself into thinking that only capitalism is good. This is evident by the way you view your world. You have no idea of what communism is. It is better to stand in line for food than to starve.
I agree in principle except the 90% figure seems a bit low. 100% of people do as little as possible to get by but of that 15% profit hugely from doing slightly more. I think that people can be socialized to accept the closed system idea and live by it. Such a system wont work very well with a capitalist economy.
to personalize communism? It is a theory like ohms law is a theory. it is possible to apply communism to an economics problem and reach a solution based on the application of communist principles. Your post indicates to me that you are either unwilling or incapable of viewing communism as an economic theory. You endlessly spout capitalist propaganda in place of a reasonable comparison between the two economic systems.
That you are too biased to discuss the subject at hand. Your mind has been irrevocable corrupted by capitalist propaganda. You are incapable of free thought.
If it weren't for all of those bad habits that I picked up in the military I would accept my "Lot in life" But as it is the appetites must be satiated. My opinion is that no economic system can change that reality. i have met people in communist countries that were even by US standards, quite well off. I don't quit get the opposition to communism. There is always room for clever people to prosper under any economic system.
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