Socialist = Bad. Why?

[His Divine Shadow]

Socialism is the idea that rich peoples places in society is 6 feet under. A pretty nifty ideology.

[Kane Starkiller]

Actually people are motivated to do anything to generate wealth. Destroying companies as means of generating wealth is just as acceptable as building it.

That is true if the company is a state owned company, a large publicly traded company run by managers or a state owned company sold under price to a corrupt businessman.
For medium and small companies that are still owned by relatively few individuals destroying companies is not an option. It's your company and your money. This is why a very corrupt owner of small or medium company will still do better for the company and its workers than slightly corrupt manager of a public or state owned company.

[Purple]

Actually people are motivated to do anything to generate wealth. Destroying companies as means of generating wealth is just as acceptable as building it.

That is true if the company is a state owned company, a large publicly traded company run by managers or a state owned company sold under price to a corrupt businessman.
For medium and small companies that are still owned by relatively few individuals destroying companies is not an option. It's your company and your money. This is why a very corrupt owner of small or medium company will still do better for the company and its workers than slightly corrupt manager of a public or state owned company.

That is only true for as long as there is more profit to be had from continuing to run it than from destroying it. From the perspective of an employee there is very little difference between loosing ones job because of mismanaged and loosing ones job because the boss decided he'd rather sell off the machines, fire the workers and start renting the place out for more money than he is earning now.*

* Do not take example literally.

[Guardsman Bass]

Socialism, to me, is just collective ownership. You can have State Socialism in which the state has ownership and/or power in most or all businesses, Market Socialism when the state does not exercise ownership but firms beyond single proprietorships are organized in the form of cooperatives, and so forth.

The ideology is based on the idea that politicians backed by civil servants are more competent at making macro and micro economic decisions than CEOs, executives and small business owners.

A market system's main value is in identifying new opportunities to be taken and culling failures/subjecting participants to market discipline - particularly culling failures. But if the task to be done is fairly straightforward with little change and moderately non-corrupt oversight, then it can be done by a state company as well as a private one usually. Water utilities usually run quite well as either state bureaucracies or regulated monopolies, electric monopolies are usually operated quite well in rich countries, and so forth.

[Havok]

Because Southern Californians are the fucking scum of the Earth.

Care to explain yourself?

The title says Socalist, although you'll probably find more socialists in SoCal then most places in the US

HAHA! Oops. My bad.

Although I don't need a thread to know that SoCalists are the scum of the earth.

And fixed, although it was probably my best typo ever.

[Borgholio]

Not ALL of us. There are some of us who know how to drive and don't have any plastic in our bodies.

[Havok]

Socialism is the idea that rich peoples places in society is 6 feet under. A pretty nifty ideology.

Until you are.

[Havok]

So what I'm gathering is that socialism,(and SoCalism ) in the eyes of the common American, is the thought that 'You are where you are, you have what you have and that's it. Never going to change.' Even if they don't actually understand the concept. They relate it immediately back to Soviet bread lines, the sameness of communism and the propaganda of the 60's, 70's and 80's. It is the loss of individualism and seems as much an ingrained idea in our collective psyche as Mom, baseball and apple pie.

In essence, it is the opposite of 'The American Dream'.

[Frank the Tank]

Socialism is the idea that rich peoples places in society is 6 feet under. A pretty nifty ideology.

I wonder if you're recognizing the irony that, by just about any measure, the owner of this site is considered, at worst, upper middle class, and he is quite possibly "rich" himself. I don't know enough about his investments and net worth, but generally speaking, nuclear engineers do very well financially.

[His Divine Shadow]

You're trying too hard.

[Havok]

I don't think Mike is a nuclear engineer. The rest of your point kinda stands. I'm pretty sure the 'rich' people he is referring to though are the 1-10%ers that hold most of the country's wealth. Not the guy with a really well paying job that worked for it. He's talking about people who make money by having money.

[His Divine Shadow]

It might even be I just made a bitter joke about the pond scum that rules our society.

[PKRudeBoy]

I don't think Mike is a nuclear engineer. The rest of your point kinda stands. I'm pretty sure the 'rich' people he is referring to though are the 1-10%ers that hold most of the country's wealth. Not the guy with a really well paying job that worked for it. He's talking about people who make money by having money.

Personally, I think it's not even the top 1% who are a problem. The average 1 percenter is generally a highly skilled professional at the top of their field(doctor, lawyer, engineer, accountant), someone relatively high up the corporate totem pole but not at the top, or, probably the most common, small business owners. It's the top .1% and up that are the real issue, as that's where you get the unassailable bastions of inherited wealth and the ability to influence state and national level politics on a whim.

[Havok]

I don't think Mike is a nuclear engineer. The rest of your point kinda stands. I'm pretty sure the 'rich' people he is referring to though are the 1-10%ers that hold most of the country's wealth. Not the guy with a really well paying job that worked for it. He's talking about people who make money by having money.

Personally, I think it's not even the top 1% who are a problem. The average 1 percenter is generally a highly skilled professional at the top of their field(doctor, lawyer, engineer, accountant), someone relatively high up the corporate totem pole but not at the top, or, probably the most common, small business owners. It's the top .1% and up that are the real issue, as that's where you get the unassailable bastions of inherited wealth and the ability to influence state and national level politics on a whim.

I'm pretty sure the average 1% is not a skilled professional.

[K. A. Pital]

For medium and small companies that are still owned by relatively few individuals destroying companies is not an option. It's your company and your money.

And? If there's more money to be gained by stopping operations, liquidating or the like, business will do that. And he will be absolutely right, as his personal wealth is what matters the most. And no, I would not be still running a company when I can sap booze on the Cayman islands and life a carefree rentier life after liquidating it, unless I attach some special value to it. Some people do. Others do not.

[Kane Starkiller]

And? If there's more money to be gained by stopping operations, liquidating or the like, business will do that. And he will be absolutely right, as his personal wealth is what matters the most. And no, I would not be still running a company when I can sap booze on the Cayman islands and life a carefree rentier life after liquidating it, unless I attach some special value to it. Some people do. Others do not.

How will there be more money to gain by liquidating the company? It either makes money or it doesn't. If it makes money there is no reason to stop operations or liquidate it, only to sell it if a good offer comes by.
Unlike with public companies where managers will take bribes and hire overpriced contractors that do shoddy work an owner of a private company has no such incentive.

[K. A. Pital]

How will there be more money to gain by liquidating the company?

Because if you liquidate assets at once, you get, surprisingly, money. There may be different reasons to do so: becoming a rentier, giving your heirs a cash inheritance instead of a company that they are not willing to run, or simply wanting to buy something expensive (some houses are worth the entire asset pool of certain companies). You can either sell the stuff yourself and get good deals in the process or you can run the company into the ground and get money. And no, it is very easy to do this. Even better yet, if you see the market is becoming tough, and your company already generated enough before, it makes a lot of sense to convert the funds to cash, fire the employees and then start another business or become a rentier if you get tired.

You seem to be operating under the idea that businessmen are some crazy business-drones, like androids, who can do only one thing and are totally oblivious to other types of investments, and they do not know how to convert assets to cash and then back to a different form of assets elsewhere if needed.

That is absolutely untrue.

[Kane Starkiller]

You said destroy the company. Selling the company outright and selling the companies assets piecemeal but in a way that still nets you more money than you could reasonably get within several years is not destroying the company in a way "destroy" is usually understood in the context.

[Guardsman Bass]

I don't think Mike is a nuclear engineer. The rest of your point kinda stands. I'm pretty sure the 'rich' people he is referring to though are the 1-10%ers that hold most of the country's wealth. Not the guy with a really well paying job that worked for it. He's talking about people who make money by having money.

Personally, I think it's not even the top 1% who are a problem. The average 1 percenter is generally a highly skilled professional at the top of their field(doctor, lawyer, engineer, accountant), someone relatively high up the corporate totem pole but not at the top, or, probably the most common, small business owners. It's the top .1% and up that are the real issue, as that's where you get the unassailable bastions of inherited wealth and the ability to influence state and national level politics on a whim.

I'm pretty sure the average 1% is not a skilled professional.

Agreed. To be in the Top 1% of income-earners in America, you need to be earning $389,000/year. That's well above what engineers make, unless you work at Google or a handful of big companies. It's well above what most attorneys make, too - you're basically looking at a mixture of business owners, top-level staff at medium and big companies, some highly successful attorneys, and doctors.

[Purple]

You said destroy the company. Selling the company outright and selling the companies assets piecemeal but in a way that still nets you more money than you could reasonably get within several years is not destroying the company in a way "destroy" is usually understood in the context.

That is because your context is wrong. I mentioned this already. A socialist works from the perspective of the worker, not the employer. And from the perspective of the worker the only thing that he sees is his job going away. How and why that happened is completely irrelevant.

[Kane Starkiller]

That is because your context is wrong. I mentioned this already. A socialist works from the perspective of the worker, not the employer. And from the perspective of the worker the only thing that he sees is his job going away. How and why that happened is completely irrelevant.

No it isn't. A public company that is ruined through corruption of its managers damages the overall economy. Selling the company that someone else deems valuable doesn't mean the employees will loose their jobs. Liquidating the company because its profit is very small and the owner calculated that he will actually earn more money by renting the space (presumably to a more successful company) also doesn't damage the economy. Therefore the employees who lost their jobs will find another job easier. Unless, of course, the employees of a public company keep their jobs in a ruined company because the politicians need their votes. That can keep going for a while until the whole thing collapses. As we've seen time and time again.

[Purple]

No it isn't. A public company that is ruined through corruption of its managers damages the overall economy. Selling the company that someone else deems valuable doesn't mean the employees will loose their jobs. Liquidating the company because its profit is very small and the owner calculated that he will actually earn more money by renting the space (presumably to a more successful company) also doesn't damage the economy. Therefore the employees who lost their jobs will find another job easier. Unless, of course, the employees of a public company keep their jobs in a ruined company because the politicians need their votes. That can keep going for a while until the whole thing collapses. As we've seen time and time again.

And that's where you start sounding like a silly idealist. Your assumptions only hold true under ideal market conditions where there are many more jobs than people waiting for them, relearning a lifetime of skills is as easy as snapping ones fingers and clicking ones heels and people can just find another skilled job easily and without having to uproot their entire life and move thousands of kilometers to another state or country. In the real world jobs are scarce, people are plentiful and there are plenty of trades where if you lose your job you might as well go jump of a bridge.

[Kane Starkiller]

And that's where you start sounding like a silly idealist. Your assumptions only hold true under ideal market conditions where there are many more jobs than people waiting for them, relearning a lifetime of skills is as easy as snapping ones fingers and clicking ones heels and people can just find another skilled job easily and without having to uproot their entire life and move thousands of kilometers to another state or country. In the real world jobs are scarce, people are plentiful and there are plenty of trades where if you lose your job you might as well go jump of a bridge.

How am I sounding like an idealist when saying that it's easier to find a job in a condition where companies are sold for a profit or liquidated because they aren't earning a profit than in a situation where companies are ruined by corruption and bribes of its managers? What does scarcity of jobs have to do with anything?

[Purple]

How am I sounding like an idealist when saying that it's easier to find a job in a condition where companies are sold for a profit or liquidated because they aren't earning a profit than in a situation where companies are ruined by corruption and bribes of its managers? What does scarcity of jobs have to do with anything?

Because a company that's liquidated removes jobs from the market. End of story. And there is absolutely no guarantee that those jobs will be replaced by new ones. Where as a company that's running at a loss, failing and basically struggling on life support is still providing jobs regardless. From the perspective of a worker the only thing that matters is that the wages keep coming. What happens beyond that in the corporate structure is irrelevant.

[PKRudeBoy]

I'm pretty sure the average 1% is not a skilled professional.

Agreed. To be in the Top 1% of income-earners in America, you need to be earning $389,000/year. That's well above what engineers make, unless you work at Google or a handful of big companies. It's well above what most attorneys make, too - you're basically looking at a mixture of business owners, top-level staff at medium and big companies, some highly successful attorneys, and doctors.

I said professionals at the top of their field, not professionals in general. The parentheses were examples of fields where someone at the top could be making that much, not suggesting the average wage is there. However, there is a significant crossover between the top professionals and small business owner, considering that top earning lawyers, doctors, etc. tend to be partners at a firm. Oh, or in finance, can't believe I left them out.