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Capitalism

Our Panel of Experts Discusses Capitalism

Submitted by Roanman on Tue, 09/20/2011 - 07:16

 

Doing well is the result of doing good. That's what capitalism is all about.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.  Milton Friedman

 

It has been true in Western societies and it seems to be true elsewhere that you do not find democratic systems apart from capitalism, or apart from a market economy, if you prefer that term.  Peter L. Berger

 

Capitalism knows only one color: that color is green; all else is necessarily subservient to it, hence, race, gender and ethnicity cannot be considered within it.  Thomas Sowell

 

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.  Bertrand Russell

 

Capitalism has socialized production. It has brought thousands of people together in the factory and involved them in new social relationships.  C. L. R. James

 

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.  John Maynard Keynes

 

Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.  Al Capone

 

Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.  Fidel Castro

 

For capitalism, war and peace are business and nothing but business.  Karl Liebknecht

 

I am going to fight capitalism even if it kills me. It is wrong that people like you should be comfortable and well fed while all around you people are starving.  Sylvia Pankhurst

 

If allowed to run free of the social system, capitalism will attempt to corrupt and undermine democracy, which is after all not a natural state.  John Ralston Saul

 

Fascism is capitalism plus murder.  Upton Sinclair

 

Fascism is capitalism in decay.  Vladimir Lenin

 

If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.  Vladimir Lenin

 

In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.  Fran Lebowitz

 

The kind of capitalism I hate most is crony capitalism, the friends who decide. These are things which should be killed in Russia.  Anatoly Chubais

 

The cure for capitalism's failing would require that a government would have to rise above the interests of one class alone.  Robert Heilbroner

 

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.  Winston Churchill

 

The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.   Milton Friedman

 

There is a serious tendency toward capitalism among the well-to-do peasants.   Mao Tse-Tung

 

This American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you will, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it.   Al Capone

 

The ideology of capitalism makes us all into connoisseurs of liberty - of the indefinite expansion of possibility.   Susan Sontag

 

I believe totally in a Capitalist System, I only wish that someone would try it.  Frank Lloyd Wright

 

Under capitalism each individual engages in economic planning.   George Reisman

 

Under capitalism, man exploits man.  Under communism, just the opposite is true.   John Kenneth Galbraith or Polish Proverb ... take your pick

 

Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.  Orson Scott Card

 

The market is not an invention of capitalism.  It has existed for centuries.  It is an invention of civilization.   Mikhail Gorbachev

 

You can talk about capitalism and communism and all that sort of thing, but the important thing is the struggle everybody is engaged in to get better living conditions, and they are not interested too much in government.   Bernard Baruch

 

To quote Ayn Rand over and over and ....

Submitted by Roanman on Sun, 05/01/2011 - 13:51

 

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
 
The Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals … that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government … that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection against the government.
 
The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights.
 
Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: "Account Overdrawn."
 
The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.
 
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
 
Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel.
 
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion -- when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing -- when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors -- when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you -- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice -- you may know that your society is doomed.
 
Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.
 
Government control of the economy, no matter in whose behalf, has been the source of all the evils in our industrial society -– and the solution is laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., the abolition of any and all forms of intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State.
 
The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow.
 
 

I love Capitalism

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 03/26/2011 - 06:57

 

Because Capitalism provides you with the opportunity to go out there and buy the crap you want.

For example ... from CNN Money

 

Sales of luxury doomsday bunkers up 1,000%

 

 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A devastating earthquake strikes Japan. A massive tsunami kills thousands. Fears of a nuclear meltdown run rampant. Bloodshed and violence escalate in Libya.

And U.S. companies selling doomsday bunkers are seeing sales skyrocket anywhere from 20% to 1,000%.

Northwest Shelter Systems, which offers shelters ranging in price from $200,000 to $20 million, has seen sales surge 70% since the uprisings in the Middle East, with the Japanese earthquake only spurring further interest. In hard numbers, that's 12 shelters already booked when the company normally sells four shelters per year.

"Sales have gone through the roof, to the point where we are having trouble keeping up," said Northwest Shelter Systems owner Kevin Thompson.

UndergroundBombShelter.com, which sells portable shelters, bomb shelters and underground bunkers, has seen inquiries soar 400% since the Japanese earthquake. So far sales of its $9,500 nuclear biological chemical shelter tents are at an all-time high -- with four sold in California last week, compared to about one a month normally.

Hardened Structures said inquiries have shot up about 20% since the earthquake -- particularly for its apocalyptic 2012 shelters, radiation-protection tents, and nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) air filters.

 

Whether you need it or not.

As opposed to the crap some government guy thinks you ought to have.

 

GM sells just 281 Chevy Volts in February, Nissan only moves 67 Leafs

 

 

Peruse Chevrolet's February sales release, and you'll notice one number that's blatantly missing: how many Chevy Volts were sold. The number – a very modest 281 – is available in the company's detailed data (PDF), but it apparently isn't something that GM wants to highlight. Keeping the number quiet is understandable, since it's lower than the 321 that Chevy sold in January.

Nissan doesn't have anything to brag about here, either (and it avoided any mention of the Leaf sales in its press release). Why? Well, back in January, the company sold 87 Leafs. In February? Just 67.  Where does that leave us?

Well, here's the big scorecard for all U.S. sales of these vehicles thus far:

Volt: 928

Leaf: 173

As always, click the photos for each piece in it's entirety.

 

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