In 08 they should have let the banks fail. People claim it would devastate the economy. Bs. A rich person would have picked up the scraps for cheap and kept things going. They didn’t need our tax money and no punishment.
Oil subsidies are why we have cheap gas. I’m fine getting rid to them. Just realize your gas will cost more.
I never got the “economy would of been devastated if the banks weren’t bailed out” argument made during the recession. The economy was in shambles anyway!
It’s a tough one. Assuming nobody stepped in. Yes there would be devastation but somebody would pick up the assets in a fire sale. So no, there would have been some pain but the system would have been better long term.
We can’t avoid all pain, otherwise we end up with companies who take stupid risk since they never fail.
Let them fail and someone else will grow. Otherwise we don’t have a healthy capitalism.
The government could have bought out the failed banks and nationalized them.
Nobody ever argued that the banks would of been devastated
They argued that the banks would have been devastated
the banks should have been seized and the owners should have lost it all and the government should have ran them for 5 years to stabilize the economy before selling them back off with conditions on their new owners and stronger regulations in general
They wouldn’t have had to run them. They could sell them off with restrictions. Otherwise I agree.
The regulations after 2008 are still a joke. They’re garbage. We need real regulations and consequences.
I dont care when a crime is paid millions. If they create job growth, profits, better wages, etc then they should he rewarded. They should make millions then BK the company.
Isn’t the banks failing how the Great Depression became significantly worse?
Many things caused that but it was the money run. Money is protected for most people now.
Now days with megacorps, someone would have bought them. The executives and board members were never punished and made millions. That’s the shit that has to stop and I’m a capitalist.
We need companies to fail when they fuck up
The executives and board members were never punished and made millions.
This is capitalism working exactly as intended. These aren’t bugs, they are features.
Because there was no FDIC.
An FDIC bailout would have been cheaper than TARP given the amount of money in most people’s bank accounts.
For people with individual accounts worth over a quarter million? Tough titties. If you have so much cash it isn’t worth your time to use multiple accounts in case of FDIC bailouts, you clearly don’t need it.
Farm subsidies are a tricky one though.
Without them you end up importing all your food from Cheapistan. But then Cheapistan has a famine (or gets invaded), and then you have a problem. You can’t just start up food production that quickly to avoid all your people starving.
The problem starts with the belief in simplifications that in no way reflect reality. “True capitalism” doesn’t exist, can never exist, and is as undesirable as the plague. The connection with “free markets” is a feat of propaganda. This idea that socialism has no “free markets” is proof of the propaganda’s success. Economies depend on markets. The capitalist idea of organisation is an anathema to free markets. While socialism is the closest one can get to a functioning “free market” system.
Getting back to farming subsidies, and subsidies in general. The issue is the distortions introduced through lobbyists and corporate machinations. The provision of subsidies is not governed by the question “what is best for the population?” Rather, it is about staying in power, serving clients, not people.
Banks, yeah I agree with that. Oil is more complicated. When oil prices go up, the price of everything goes up, sometimes dramatically.
I’m not saying oil subsidies are a good thing, just that a lot more care needs to be taken with eliminating them.
Which is why oil should be nationalized. Same with the banks. If the people have to share in the cost of failure they should get the profit for successes.
I understand that nationalizing oil companies in the US is not going to be a palatable solution for a lot of people. I’m not entirely sure it’s the right solution, but I know for sure it’s not a politically feasible one.
We’ve had decades upon decades of subsidizing the rich. It’s always easy for the government to figure out how to do that, so we know they know how to give subsidies. Why don’t we try subsidizing the people who need the subsidies for their basic needs? In the context of fuel, it would be relatively simple to create a federal tax credit for fuel usage (which would arguably include a version for electric vehicles and their charging).
I don’t really see your point. Oil companies jack the price of oil up anyway, regardless of subsidies. The subsidies seem to only allow oil companies to expand their enterprises on US citizens’ tax dollars (apologies if your in a different country, just change “US” to wherever you live). We’re literally funding the expansion of industries that are actively killing our planet.
From another perspective, the only reason everything rises in cost when oil prices raise is due to oil dependance. It would be a momentary hardship, but oil prices rising would be a strong incentive for individuals and businesses to become oil-independant, which would mean using greener means of transportation, lowered plastic use, etc. It’s actually long-term the best thing we could be doing right now.
The issue is that the working class people who are already living paycheque to paycheque don’t wanna hear about austerity. It’s hard to give a fuck about the next generation when you can’t even afford the next month.
We need solutions that also improve the monetary stability of working class people, or else they will never be popular in election campaigns. These things are doable, but not through the current political dynamic in North America, and places in Europe like the UK.
When companies maximize profits they call it smart and good business. When employees try to increase their wages they call it greedy and bad business.
I wouldn’t even call unions socialist, I think they’re more like a capitalist tool for workers, so those that are already rich get to benefit from capitalism and socialism while workers benefit from neither.
I wonder if calling unions socialist is a deliberate union busting tactic since socialism is a dirty word in the US.
It really isn’t socialism. It’s just a way to regulate capitalism by the workers.
I fully support the right for workers to unionize but I don’t ever see joining a union myself. It doesn’t make sense for what I do.
Right now it’s too easy for unions to get screwed by the companies. We need quicker enforcement of the laws we have in place. Often it takes years by then the union is busted or diminished.
We need enforcement in days. Not months or years.
Socialism for me rugged individualist capitalism for thee!
Image Transcription:
X/Twitter post by user Justin Kanew @Kanew reading:
'They didn’t call the trillion-dollar Wall St. bailouts “socialism”
They don’t call nearly $1 Trillion in oil & gas subsidies “socialism”
They don’t call the billions in farmer bailouts “socialism”
But health care, wages, food for poor people? “SOCIALISM.”’
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
I’ve been with conservatives all my life it’s easy to understand their faulty logic, their logic is: poor people are poor because they are lazy so they don’t deserve help. Part of the money = intelligence / success stupid mentality
