"Presidant Obama, are you listening?!?!?!" Rick Santelli Also, FINALLY a College Professor WITH common sense! Love it!
You are basically correct. However, it was worse than you describe. The few "party uppers" had a materially better lifestyle than the masses, but they lived in far more fear than the average Joe. These party uppers were routinely imprisoned and killed and they lived in fear of this all of their lives. That sort of discounts the material wealth for me. The "party middles" are the <i>Nomenklatura</i> and they lived like kings - although still in deep fear of prison and death resulting from a fall out with someone more important in the party. But to put their material lifestyle into perspective....this <i>Nomenklatura</i> lived a lifestyle roughly comparable (reed: slightly below) the average American blue collar worker in the 1970's. And that represented material wealth well above the average Soviet citizen's. The military industrial complex represented over 30% of GDP. However, does it really matter if the government confiscates wealth in favour of a "Green" complex rather than a military one? Wealth destruction is wealth destruction no matter what the specific boondogle that destroys wealth is.
Great point Angrycat. People see this failed experiment that was the USSR yet they still believe socialism can work. There will always be someone out there who thinks the way they do it will be different and successful, but the fact is it just doesn't work.
Yes. Bailouts..bailouts...capitalism started using weapons that had been condemned...by capitalists! Btw..socialism is not about giving equal credits.
Letâs pretend to have a conversation here. Iâll start it and you can finish it. Me: Gee this is rediculous. The government is taking half my money to give it to all those lazy people. You: Thatâs too bad. What do you do for a living? Me: Well, I rob banks. You: â¦â¦â¦â¦
Letâs pretend to have a conversation here. Iâll start it and you can finish it. Me: Gee this is ridiculous. The government is taking half my money to give it to all those lazy people. You: Thatâs too bad. What do you do for a living? Me: Well, I rob banks. You: Can you teach me? Me:
ROTFLMAO *** Hopefully the situation won't get out of hand and will eventually self-correct (think of it as a pendulum swinging back-and-forth ... A Picuure is worth a thounsand words
Dude- you should totally move to Somalia. There's no Socialism, no pesky government intervention. They let free markets decide. I think you'd fit in well there. Good luck- thnxbai
Me: Start by shipping thousands of jobs overseas. Then ship thousands of immigrants here "to do jobs Americans won't do." Then sell some health insurance and jack up the premium 15% every year. Then sell a bunch of other products that are crap so people have to keep buying more every time it breaks and you make more money. Then offer people a credit card. When they pay on time for 3 years straight, triple the interest rate to 24% for no reason and refuse to lower it back. Lastly privatize all of the profits and keep it for yourself. If that fails, get a bailout and pass the losses onto everybody you stole from in the first place and convince them that if you don't get a bailout, the whole system will collapse. Casually forget to mention that yourâre actually the only one who benefits from the current system not collapsing anyways.