-WiscoDave
Monday, June 19, 2023
What Happened to Capitalism?
What has happened to capitalism in America? Businesses still pursue profit, yes, but not in ways that advance the public interest. Over the past 50 years, corporate profits rose by 185%. Wages rose by 1%. American industry lost its technological edge, from semiconductors to commercial aerospace to robotics. Investment stalled, so much so that the entire corporate sector became a net lender, handing money back to financial markets faster than it tapped those markets for capital to invest. As American Affairs editor Julius Krein has observed, if $1 trillion in annual stock buybacks are to be taken at face value and “there are in fact no better investments to be made, … it calls into question the viability of the free market capitalist system itself.”
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Easily explained:
ReplyDelete“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
― Frédéric Bastiat
Holds true for both private and public sector ambitions.
Greed, pure and simple is what has happened to America and American capitalism.
ReplyDeleteWe've been in the covert cultural transition from Capitalism to Socialism for several decades. It's recently came out of the closet during the Obongo presidency. Trump was beginning to expose and turn it around. That's why they stole the 2020 election and will never allow him to get elected in 2024. Then they’ll skip through the Socialism steps and head right into Communism.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the BS being blamed on capitalism is definitely the result of socialism. And the miseducated lap it up.
DeleteCapitalism is fine. Don't like it, change your buying habits.
ReplyDeleteIt is simply a reflection of the populace.
The current state of capitalism has publicly traded companies taking their expenses from their income statements and putting them in their balance sheets as assets. Look at their valuation of intangible assets. Total bs.
DeleteLink?
DeleteThe Creature of Jekyll Island.
ReplyDeleteStefan v.
The Colorado Education Association (teachers union) has voted to cease teaching anything about Capitalism isn't they claim that it is "racist" and exploits people of color.
ReplyDeleteIt was an experiment that has run it's course. The inevitability of success is greed and avarice.
ReplyDeleteIs it capitalism, or the rights that corporations have managed to get while acting like sociopaths without accountability?
ReplyDeleteYou say "corporations", but since none of them are run by AI, what you really mean is "people". People acting like sociopaths without consequences.
DeleteI've never heard of a poor man having employees....somebody's gotta be the employer and someone that needs money needs to be the employee
ReplyDeleteGovt. regulatory interference might have something to do with it. So much for the "free" part of capitalism.
ReplyDelete"Whereas 40 weeks of the typical male worker’s income in 1985 could provide the middle-class essentials for a family of four, by 2022 he needed 62 weeks of income"
DeleteHis father also paid less in taxes, probably didn't buy a $4 coffee every morning, didn't have a computer or a phone that he upgraded every year or so....Didn't have a car that was too expensive due to mandated "safety" mechanisms (airbags, ABS, etc), didn't eat out more than once a week, didn't have internet and cable tv....on and on and on.
Biggest things are taxes and .Gov regulations that make living cost more.
B has hit it on the head. There are so many "necessities" that didn't exist 50 years ago that are vampires on our pay checks.
DeleteSimplify your life and increase your net worth.
Living within your means is always prudent advice. But that isn't worth a tinker's damn relative to the excessive fiscal burden wrought of govt regulation, et al.
DeleteIOW, forfeit the electronic devices, do your own vehicle maintenance, et. But that is pennies compared to the mass of dollars you spend in the form govt overburden.
There's nothing wrong with capitalism in its purest form.
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong is the profits used by corporations to influence politicians to pass laws allowing production to be offshored and businesses, like energy production, to be shut down, aiding the demise of the middle class that was raised up by capitalism.
Learn to code is not a solution to miners, oil field roughnecks, auto assembly workers and microchip foundry workers among others, losing their jobs due to laws passed by CONgress under the influence of Corporate campaign donations from U.S based companies and foreign companies doing business in the USA.
Here's an example. Most all of the offshore wind farms being constructed along the East Coast are being managed by European companies who are buying the wind towers from China. Same with most all of the onshore wind farms that have been or are being constructed. Ditto solar farms. All solar panels being purchased for installation here are manufactured in China, who filled the void of U.S. manufacturers killed by U.S. law and regulation.
Nemo