Socialism does work

[Karl]

I didn't mind the 70's it was the 80's I didn't like.

 

Is this a 'thatcher' thing ?

 

The socialists golden age of economic collapse ruined by Thatcherism which managed to extricate Britain from financial ruin and get that evil capitalism going again.

 

No doubt we are going to get the Gordon Gecko quotes and all the rest about greed.

 

 

[Apech]

Is this a 'thatcher' thing ? The socialists golden age of economic collapse ruined by Thatcherism which managed to extricate Britain from financial ruin and get that evil capitalism going again. No doubt we are going to get the Gordon Gecko quotes and all the rest about greed.

 

 

Not a big fan of Thatcher to be honest but also I don't make simplistic analyses of complex situations.  I prefer a style of politics which sees as it's aim the benefit of the population and not the select few.  Sometimes that's left and sometimes right I suppose.

[Karl]

Not a big fan of Thatcher to be honest but also I don't make simplistic analyses of complex situations.  I prefer a style of politics which sees as it's aim the benefit of the population and not the select few.  Sometimes that's left and sometimes right I suppose.

 

Do you think individuals within a group, trading peacefully and wholly voluntarily with each other, producing things for each other in such a way as to try and outdo each other's service, to reach ever higher states of satisfaction, by honest industrious effort. Would that be a better politic ?

 

I wasn't a fan of thatcher either, but I'm not a fan of any political organisation forcing its will on those beneath them.

[Apech]

Do you think individuals within a group, trading peacefully and wholly voluntarily with each other, producing things for each other in such a way as to try and outdo each other's service, to reach ever higher states of satisfaction, by honest industrious effort. Would that be a better politic ? I wasn't a fan of thatcher either, but I'm not a fan of any political organisation forcing its will on those beneath them.

 

 

You sound like Prince Albert

[Marblehead]

You sound like Prince Albert

Are you referring to the pipe tobacco?

[Brian]

In a can? Better let him out!

 

[Apech]

Are you referring to the pipe tobacco?

 

 

No I'm referring to the husband of Queen Victoria, who believed philosophically in world peace through trade - in fact he promoted the Great Exhibition of 1851 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Exhibition) for this very reason.  He was quite an enlightened thinker and German to boot.  After he died things went downhill and the vision was replaced by the usual Imperial power, racial superiority crap that we all remember.  But before that the bulk of the British Empire was just a trading company.

[Karl]

No I'm referring to the husband of Queen Victoria, who believed philosophically in world peace through trade - in fact he promoted the Great Exhibition of 1851 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Exhibition) for this very reason.  He was quite an enlightened thinker and German to boot.  After he died things went downhill and the vision was replaced by the usual Imperial power, racial superiority crap that we all remember.  But before that the bulk of the British Empire was just a trading company.

 

German really was the hot bed of enlightenment. I was told recently (not verified it so it might not be true) that all degrees were issued from German universities and every subsequent university was run by someone who had obtained their degree at a German university. That might only be US I didn't bother to fact check it, but interesting if true.

[Apech]

[Apech]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2015/aug/12/paul-mason-capitalism-failing-time-to-panic-video

Edited August 12, 2015 by Apech

[thelerner]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2015/aug/12/paul-mason-capitalism-failing-time-to-panic-video

Not very persuasive.  Ironically made to sell a book, through fear.

Makes the first video seem logical.  They call Marx a great prophetic figure?   I kinda wish the people talking here could live under a Marxist government of there choice.  Even if we needed a time machine, send'em to there Utopia, be it USSR, North Korea, Czechoslovakia; any Communist country of they want, anywhere in time.   The only caveat being they'd have to stay there for there entire lives.  We'll see how well their free thinking radicalism works out there. 

 

Both video's feel like they're from an impractical, theoretical fringe and imo aren't very persuasive. 

[Apech]

Not very persuasive.  Ironically made to sell a book, through fear.

Makes the first video seem logical.  They call Marx a great prophetic figure?   I kinda wish the people talking here could live under a Marxist government of there choice.  Even if we needed a time machine, send'em to there Utopia, be it USSR, North Korea, Czechoslovakia; any Communist country of they want, anywhere in time.   The only caveat being they'd have to stay there for there entire lives.  We'll see how well their free thinking radicalism works out there. 

 

Both video's feel like they're from an impractical, theoretical fringe and imo aren't very persuasive. 

 

 

I'll send the truck to take you to the Gulag in the morning.

[thelerner]

I'll send the truck to take you to the Gulag in the morning.

I'm hoping they'll show mercy when I explain I've been defending Northern European style socialism.  

damn that's alot of I's in one sentence.  Also alot isn't a word.  crap now I'm correcting the corrections.   repetitive and not Capitalized. 

 

 

Hopefully they'll show mercy when I explain I've been defending Northern European style socialism.

 

 

Hopefully they'll show mercy when told I've been defending Northern European style socialism.

 

screw the

[Karl]

Well we have a marvellous socialised health care system which caused suffering and misery in one hospital in Staffordshire. The estimates of deaths caused by neglect and abuse is quoted as being as high as 1500 patients in that one hospital and the commission discovered it was far from being the only one. The socialist health minister at the time-Andy Burnham tried to influence the timing of the report for political reasons. Socialism at its best. Corrupt, murderous and ineffective. Selected commentary below thanks to the Guardian Newspaper:

 

Let’s remember how, as Health Secretary, Burnham and his deputy allegedly told the Care Quality Commission to “tone down” a report into hospital deaths because it would be too “political” before an election. This is from the Guardian’s write up at the time:

 

“Burnham, then health secretary, had questioned why he had heard “graphic details” about Basildon hospital’s treatment of patients on Sky News before he had been briefed about it in December 2009. The agreed protocol was that his department was told in advance of such reports and CQC officials were told he was “furious” about the breach.

 

Two months later with an election looming, Burnham’s deputy Mike O’Brien also cautioned the regulator that “anything you do is going to be political whether you intend it to be or not. And of course once we reach March (2010), purdah, whenever that starts, you can’t publish anything”.

 

Perhaps most damaging is the CQC’s own interpretation of ministerial wishes. Following the meeting with O’Brien a former non-executive director Martin Marshall at the CQC discusses the publication of the 2010 State of Care report, which summarised of the regulator’s findings in health and social care during the year.

 

In an email to former chief executive Cynthia Bower and her deputy Jill Finney a few months before the 2010 general election, he warns about “the politics”. “It is really important that we get this report absolutely right before sending anything to the department … The DH will go through this with a toothcomb and it is naive to think that they will really only do a factual check”.

 

Marshall said there was a need to be “careful about language” and suggests “being hard-hitting without presenting critical data will … be more politically acceptable than criticising with evidence”.”

Edited August 13, 2015 by Karl

[Apech]

The problem with the NHS is not that it is socialist but that they have introduced private sector funding and practices for many years now and screwed it up.  Burnham is a Blairite New labour clone and not a socialist.

[Karl]

The problem with the NHS is not that it is socialist but that they have introduced private sector funding and practices for many years now and screwed it up. Burnham is a Blairite New labour clone and not a socialist.

That wasn't anything to do with private sector funding.

 

The trouble with the NHS is its impossibility. Just like all socialist ideals predicated on force, they crumble and collapse.

 

Private sector involvement is very low. A handful of percent. The crimes-and they were crimes against humanity-were committed by hospital staff, the state regulators and those we supposedly trust to keep us safe. Much of that money goes to voluntary and third sector groups.

 

Now we are going to get crony corporatism eventually, that is the natural progression for such systems. We will pay out taxes, a crony corporate will deliver the service and the state will wash its hands of any responsibility. It's had to go that way because no one will consider the alternative. They prefer crony corporations, taxation and state regulation to the free market.

 

Blair simply got with the programme that previous, more socialist governments, had not wanted to accept. That eventually the NHS would have to be tackled because the ramifications are that eventually 100% of GDP would have to be spent on its up keep. The seed of its destruction was sowed at its inception-nothing is free and everything has a price. The answer for the state is of course to hand it to their pet cronies in return for trinkets and power. The voters will just accept this as the necessary condition to keep a 'free at the point of use' health industry functioning.

Edited August 13, 2015 by Karl

[wilfred]

[Karl]

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There is such a lot of rubbish talked on that program, but it's mixed in with some sense.

 

The fundamentals are that it will be privatised, but it will continue to be tax payer funded.

 

The U.S. System is awful and is now worse following the introduction of the over priced Nazi Bama Care.

 

Bleeding heart liberals are intent on stopping it being privatised, but have no solutions to the problem of funding. Neither unions or doctors clubs are prepared to cut pay and legalities created by Labour, mean that the cost of damages is escalating year on year and to try and prevent that, a high cost army of bureaucrats has been introduced into the system.

 

The answer is to tell the health care crony corporates to go sling their hooks and go for a full free market system and they can compete if they can, otherwise find some other blood to suck. We allow insurance companies to compete for the level of care just like we do for our cars and homes (although this state controlled monetary monopoly is making it almost impossible for insurance companies to survive as investment opportunities are practically zero- neither does VAT help ). The government should not be involved in any shape or form as this was exactly what has made the U.S. System so expensive-the government has virtually created a monopoly for the health industry which offers unnecessary treatment because the state tells the insurers they must cover everything from a split end to a flaky toe nail.

 

Of course this isn't going to happen. Instead people will hold hands in the street, foist placards, create petitions and all the rest, but the inevitable will happen and we will be stuck with a version of the hated US system by default, essentially because of socialism.

 

There is a reason that no universities teach Austrian economics and the only libertarian candidate was in a majority of one-and I suspect that was simply controlled opposition. Corporates don't like libertarians or Austrian economics because it kills the opportunity to prey on the feckless.

Edited August 13, 2015 by Karl

[Apech]

There is such a lot of rubbish talked on that program, but it's mixed in with some sense.

 

The fundamentals are that it will be privatised, but it will continue to be tax payer funded.

 

The U.S. System is awful and is now worse following the introduction of the over priced Nazi Bama Care.

 

...

 

So Obama Care is Nazi?  You are comparing a scheme to provide health protection for the needy in the richest country in the world to the Nazis?  So in what way is it like the Holocaust, or the invasion of most of Western Europe, Russia, the persecution of minorities and so on?

 

And if you think that of Obama Care which by the standards of Europe is a very mild policy then what do you think of the NHS - introduced I may add by a landslide Labour Government elected by the British people who had spent the previous six years in deadly combat with those same Nazis.  Perhaps you should think more of those who struggled, risked their lives, lost loved ones or were injured during that struggle than make cheap jibes which insult their memory.

[Karl]

So Obama Care is Nazi?  You are comparing a scheme to provide health protection for the needy in the richest country in the world to the Nazis?  So in what way is it like the Holocaust, or the invasion of most of Western Europe, Russia, the persecution of minorities and so on?

 

And if you think that of Obama Care which by the standards of Europe is a very mild policy then what do you think of the NHS - introduced I may add by a landslide Labour Government elected by the British people who had spent the previous six years in deadly combat with those same Nazis.  Perhaps you should think more of those who struggled, risked their lives, lost loved ones or were injured during that struggle than make cheap jibes which insult their memory.

 

Classic straw man :-) at one time I wouldn't have caught that. It isn't helping anyone, it's made medical care even more expensive and less reliable. It hasn't done what it promised. I shall leave you to go research it. Even those that supported it have grave worries now. It has though been an absolute boon to the big pharma and medical industry that designed it.

 

Your second paragraph deserves no reply, so it won't get one. :-)

 

Your

[Brian]

<snip>

...a scheme to provide health protection for the needy in the richest country in the world...

<snip>

As an FYI, according to the government's own numbers (as of May of 2015), a net of less than 1.3% of the US population actually gained insurance coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act and we still have roughly 41.5 million uninsured versus the 47 million pre-ACA. In fact, more insured people were forced onto the Obamacare exchanges than the number of the newly enrolled "previously uninsured" and more people were forced onto the rolls of Medicaid and Medicare than were newly enrolled into the exchanges of their own volition.

 

Judging the tree by its fruit, it would appear that the root objective was to increase the size of the welfare state and to strengthen the government's position in private healthcare rather than to provide health protection for the needy, which could have been done much more cheaply without high-jacking the entire system.

 

Of course, by Obama's own statement, this was viewed from the beginning as a necessary step in the process of converting the country to a "single-payer" (read "government") model. Obama is a student of Saul Alinsky, remember, and a darling of Frances Fox Piven (of Cloward-Piven fame, the strategy for intentionally crashing the system under its own weight and replacing it with a purely government-run model).

[Karl]

As an FYI, according to the government's own numbers (as of May of 2015), a net of less than 1.3% of the US population actually gained insurance coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act and we still have roughly 41.5 million uninsured versus the 47 million pre-ACA. In fact, more insured people were forced onto the Obamacare exchanges than the number of the newly enrolled "previously uninsured" and more people were forced onto the rolls of Medicaid and Medicare than were newly enrolled into the exchanges of their own volition.Judging the tree by its fruit, it would appear that the root objective was to increase the size of the welfare state and to strengthen the government's position in private healthcare rather than to provide health protection for the needy, which could have been done much more cheaply without high-jacking the entire system.Of course, by Obama's own statement, this was viewed from the beginning as a necessary step in the process of converting the country to a "single-payer" (read "government") model. Obama is a student of Saul Alinsky, remember, and a darling of Frances Fox Piven (of Cloward-Piven fame, the strategy for intentionally crashing the system under its own weight and replacing it with a purely government-run model).

 

That's an excellent summation. So this is totalitarian collectivism in approach ? In which case my colourful description of Nazi isn't far off the mark.

[Brian]

I think the colorful description was unfortunate but it is hard to label as conspiracy theory that which is openly discussed by the planners, wouldn't you say? Especially when the results match those plans hand-in-glove despite stated objectives to the contrary.

 

The stated objectives were noble but players on both sides of the political spectrum are reading from the same script and those few who cry "foul!" are shouted down as loonies from the fringe.

[Karl]

I think the colorful description was unfortunate but it is hard to label as conspiracy theory that which is openly discussed by the planners, wouldn't you say? Especially when the results match those plans hand-in-glove despite stated objectives to the contrary.The stated objectives were noble but players on both sides of the political spectrum are reading from the same script and those few who cry "foul!" are shouted down as loonies from the fringe.

 

Some of this we don't get over here so I hadn't realised it had been stated openly.

[Brian]

Stated openly and then completely swept under the rug.