Capitalism -- greed costing the rich even more.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

Report on MSNBC - shoplifting is higher, due to recession, worldwide. Costs passed on to consumers (of course the corporations are always bitching about how much employees cost, so what do we know?).
Biggest source of theft: Employees.

The rich make it worse by screwing the poor and middle class, cutting wages, raising prices, and then they wonder why some people steal and why some people go postal.

If there is a stable middle class and the working class makes a living wage, then the society is much more stable. But the rich don't care. They just want to make more money and hide in their fortresses.


:wtf:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33952722#33952722

[unpossibles]

1. I've been yelled at for suggesting that its not purely altruistic for us to have a safety net

it's common sense. Or should be.

History has shown us what happens when a large enough portion of a population feels desperate enough and with few or no visible options.... It's short-sighted and foolish to think otherwise, but then again our modern version of capitalism takes full advantage of being short-sighted. It's encouraged to make money this quarter and to show profit, even if those things are done by eliminating jobs - which of course results in more people who cannot afford to buy your product. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then again, it can be short-sighted because I'm not sure most CEOs plan on sticking around long enough to find out how their plan went.

I shudder to think what would have happened to our country had the Republicans actually been successful in dismantling SS or Medicare. Jimminy, we'd be in the tank by now.

[whoneedstickets]

2. Liberalism saves Capitalism from its own excesses...

Yeah, I've actually made this argument before, being a moderately pro-market person, when trying to make a case for the safety net to a rabid libertarian. I suppose the issue is 'why save capitalism at all'?

[unpossibles]

3. I don't have a problem with many aspects of capitalism

in that I think if someone does have a good idea or product or service or smile and they can get paid for that, then that doesn't bother me one whit.

When it does bother me is when it's seen as some panacea for everything (the invisible hand is stroking the free market as we speak...) and when people take advantage of it, but then that's really the downfall of EVERY philosophy and system, is it not? That some selfish prick will try to take advantage of it, which is why we need regulation, a safety net, AND an informed and active populace of citizens who recognize that instead of fearing the government as they've been told to by said people taking advantage of them, recognize that they ARE the government.



EDIT: also I wish we'd learn to value some of the more abstract things in life instead of just money and power, and that hard work does not automatically equal financial success and in fact probably doesn't more than it does. I'd like to see a happy balance between striving to better oneself and being happy with life, as well as between recognizing personal responsibility and that some things are out of our control.

[tblue37]

4. Remember when in _Superman III_ the billionaire bad guy, played by

Robert Vaughan, said, "It's not enough that I win. Everyone else must lose!"

That is the attiutde of a lot of the rich. They can't enjoy their wealth unless they see everyone else scrambling for pennies, like the aristocrats in pre-revolutionary France who would toss a few meager coins out the window of their coaches as they drove through the streets of Paris, just to watch the starving peasants scramble and fight for them.

[Ozymanithrax]

5. I know a few rich people, and none of them are like this.

I guess I know only the good ones.