And now that I have a few moments, let's talk about old Joe, the erstwhile plumber.
Yeah, apparently simply asking a question concerning a possible future decision that, given a little energon and a lot of luck, might put him in a much, much higher bracket than currently exists is too dastardly for you people to abide.
I don't know how I missed this, but here goes.
According to me, it is indeed evil. It also isn't how you strengthen an economy.
Ah yes, and capitalism is somehow not evil?
It's called the real world. It's not fair, and it tends to be cruel. But at least it gives you a shot, whereas the other sets the bar for everyone and takes from those who exceed that level and gives to those who don't. Maybe that's okay for underachievers such as yourself, but it's bullshit to me.
Before you start running around kissing the ass of capitalism and disregarding socialism altogether, let's look at what our current capitalistic system has brought us.
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So yes, a system that's currently founded on the worship of money and materialism and the acquisition and accumulation of wealth is the best damn system in the world. Keep telling yourself that. Socialism may not be perfect either but in some ways it could be better than what we have now.
"A large majority of the wealth and money in possession of only about 5% of the population." Big deal! When the vast majority of the remaining percentage still live better than a goodly portion of the rest of the globe, who gives a fuck? You operate under the assumption that all these damn dirty rich people got everything by hook or crook, or by inheriting it from someone who did. Sure, some of them did, but most didn't. And just because they got out and got after it to make that money doesn't mean some socialistic asshole government has the right to take it away from them to give to whoever else for whatever reason.
"Foreclosed homes and homeless middle class." Really? Have the homeless ranks swollen that much? Capitalism isn't at fault for that: government interference, however, to a large extent is....things like the Sarbanes/Oxley Act of 2002 (passed by a Republican Congress) that froze the credit industry due to immediate mark-to-market share devaluation, the Community Reinvestment Act (originating from the dark days of Carter) that opened credit to people who often couldn't afford to pay their bills (leading to "predatory" loans), and pressure from the Clinton administration (supported on local level by ACORN and its cat's paw Obama) to further expand loans to lower and moderate income borrowers being chiefly to blame.
"A shitty, crime ridden urban landscape with bad schools and no jobs." Crime is a problem that isn't solved by putting everyone on the same crappy level. And Guliani showed how to work that out. And schools? You're talking about the most socialist system in America, hush yo' mouf!
"Jobs being shipped to other countries, because they pay their employees in Mexico $1 an hour." Maybe if the tax code wasn't so byzantine and punitive, there'd be more reason to stay rather than move headquarters to more friendly business venues. As for those sacred cow jobs, interestingly enough, people seem to continue to find ways to be employed, as the percentage of unemployed nationwide isn't as bad as it has been in the past when such jobs were plentiful.
"High gas prices." Oh, you mean as opposed to what they pay in Canada and Europe, right? Get serious. Even at their worst, they couldn't compare. The speculators are abandoning the market now that people have voluntarily begun to conserve and sectors of the government are amenable to promoting new drilling and subsidizing alternative sources of energy.
"Banks collapsing as people can't pay their mortgages." See my reply to your second so-called point. BTW, how many banks have collapsed, exactly? And what would happen if they did? Oh, yeah, a better bank would buy their shit up and manage it better. God damn that capitalism!
"The stock market almost collapsing." It's happened before; it'll happen again. And it'll recover again. But putting in another New Deal won't solve it...like before, it'll retard any efforts to get back on track by taking away people's incentives to excel and take personal risks for possible great gains.
"A possible future recession (if we're not in one already)." Again, you're repeating yourself. Been there, done that, wash, rinse, repeat.
So the fact remains that the only things our government really does well is tax and blow shit up, in order of rigorousness.
Also, Socialism != Communism. Communism is a form of socialism, but they're not entirely the same thing. And the so called Communist states formed during the 20th century are not true Communist states either.
There really isn't much of a difference aside from one being totalitarian and the other retaining a pretense of personal liberty. But without economic freedom, the rest doesn't count for awful much. Everything boils down to the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rule. And then the slippery slope concept applies: the former establishes government as the arbiter of who is allowed to have what, and that's the first step to the latter.
