Why Capitalism Is Bad for You, Part 1000000etc.etc.

Robert Reich, at TPM Cafe, explaining recent developments in our ongoing capitalist royal screw-up:

While Washington debates TARP II, the Federal Reserve Board continues to buy or guarantee or provide loans for a vast and growing pile of questionable financial and corporate assets, much of which are likely to be worth far less than the Fed has paid or guaranteed or accepted as collateral. We're talking big money here -- so far over $2.4 trillion. (The entire TARP -- parts I and II -- in combination with the proposed stimulus package come to just over $1.5 trillion.)

Taxpayers are on the hook for this Fed bailout money, too, of course. We have to pay the interest on the ever-growing debt used to make these payments or guarantees and loans.

The system fails everyone but the world's owners. When they profit, they keep the money. When they fail, we pay. Of course they are going to be irresponsible.

It is important to note, of course, that those who think of themselves as capitalists on a small scale — not the world's owners, the multinational corporations, but small business owners or the self-employed — are not capitialists in any important sense. They are getting screwed by the system as much as anyone.

It is time to toss capitalism into the dustbin of history. Alongside religion. And "reality" TV.

Why Capitalism Is So Bad Blah Blah Blah

Okay, if capitalism is so bad, can you name a better system?
Sure, capitalism has its problems, but what good has communism done for the world? Sure,it sounds great in theory,everybody is taken care of,and"from each according to his ability,to each according to his needs etc".
What a load of crap ! Now I'm no right winger of the Bush supporting kind, antichoice,homophobic, or a member of the religious right etc,and I loathe Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity,Ann Coulter,and all those blowhards. But let's face it;communism doesn't work. Why the heck do you still celebrate May Day?
Communism has proved the worst,most inefficient and unproductive economic system ever. It didn't make life better for people and create a worker's paradise with perfect equality and prosperity for all. The Soviet Union had the most inept,corrupt and incomptent government in history. And China was and is not much better.
Millions of innocent people were slaughtered under communism,
and these governments were brutally repressive totalitarian dictatorships. Castro is nothing but a brutal petty tyrant who has made life miserable for the Cuban people.
And I really get annoyed when left wing extremists talk about how capitalism causes racism etc. In the Soviet Union and China ethnic minorities have treated with the utmost brutality, and to talk about the existence of equality there is laughable.
Look at the brutal treatment of the Tibetans and the Uygur Turks in China. Or the rampant anti-xsemitism of the Soviet government.
Sure, America had slavery and the American Indians were treated horribly. But things were no better under communism.
At least the US government,for all its faults hasn't murdered millions of its own citizens in the 20th century, or caused famines which killed mass numbers of Anmericans.
Yes, George W Bush did a horrendous job as president, and has done incalculable harm to this country and the world. But were coommunist rulers such as Stalin and Mao any better?
The man is an absolute imbecile, and good riddance.
But the kind of left wing government people like you favor
would be no better,and probably much worse. I don't know if the Obama administration's policies will work, but we've got to give him a chance. At least he's no Stalin or Mao.

False DIchotomy

Why assume that the only alternative to capitalism is communism?

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