Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[BasilValentine]

EPA secretary Scott Pruitt's 15th ethics investigation should be starting any time now. A whistle blower has stated that Pruitt's office routinely falsified government records to scrub out meetings with energy company lobbyists and child molesting Roman Catholic cardinals, among others.

[Florestan]

Well it certainly was not stated nor implied.

It was fully implied in my question. You just missed it. Sometimes being too rational is a handicap for understanding.

[zamyrabyrd]

And Putin is well aware of this. This pending meeting will be a worse disaster than was the North Korean meeting.

Prophet of Gloom and Doom

[zamyrabyrd]

Of course we should but capitalism has made that a virtual impossibility.

So what do you suggest? Theocracy? Monarchy?  Outright Socialism? Communism?

I am glad the Founders of the US were devoted to the protection of the individual in his work, property, religious beliefs and self-protection. YAY 4th of July!!!

[eljr]

So what do you suggest? Theocracy? Monarchy?  Outright Socialism? Communism?

I am glad the Founders of the US were devoted to the protection of the individual in his work, property, religious beliefs and self-protection. YAY 4th of July!!!

capitalism is fine as long as it is bridled with a strong central government that is socially responsible. 

Certainly their are many economic models that provide health growth and social responsibility. China seems to have best system today. A socialist market economy.

[eljr]

It was fully implied in my question. You just missed it. Sometimes being too rational is a handicap for understanding.

Could be.

Could also be that sometimes folks expect others to read their minds!

[eljr]

Prophet of Gloom and Doom

I have found in scores of years on this planet that the glass is best viewed half empty.

[amw]

Not according to the World Health Organization, which lists Chile, Costa Rica and the USA just ahead of Cuba.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#List_by_the_World_Health_Organization_(2015)

I was going off 2018 life expectancy numbers which do have Cuba slightly ahead of the US, but yeah. It's definitely close.

Decide for yourselves about Cuba:
https://medium.com/@cubanocuba/the-cuban-medical-system-both-myth-and-reality-6aa3aa1a9ebf

Whilst making this decision, be aware that the author is an American, who has lived in Cuba for only a few years, and whose explicit goals stated on her website are to promote the growth of private industry and international tourism in Cuba. One may therefore ponder the variety of reasons why her blog posts might not reflect the views of lifelong Cuban citizens (according to polls, three-quarters of whom are very positive about their country's healthcare system).

[amw]

Certainly their are many economic models that provide health growth and social responsibility. China seems to have best system today. A socialist market economy.

The PRC certainly has market elements (some people in this thread do not like the term "market socialism"), and Maoists would therefore contest the idea that it is socialist at all. I think the bigger issue is that the liberalisation of its markets will in the long term spell doom for the PRC, not only due to unfettered resource extraction—especially from the Third World—and consumption, but through rising inequality and the creation of a massive class of unregistered workers. I personally hope that some minor catastrophe such as a recession will prompt some reflection and self discipline (*cough*) and perhaps a change of direction, but the PRC's bureaucracy may be too deeply entrenched at this point, I'm not sure.

It's hard to argue with the evidence from both the PRC and the USSR that socialism is very effective at bringing people out of extreme poverty & creating an industrial base very rapidly and efficiently. It took the US from about 1825 to about 1941 to traverse the changes the Soviet Union underwent between 1917 and 1941, or the PRC between 1945 and 1974, and the US only accomplished that through undertaking the largest-scale conquest of land and resources and genocide of indigenous peoples in history, as well as using slave labour.

I don't think socialism and large-scale resource theft are the only options for improvement of people's lives necessarily, but they are the two that have been tried so far.

[BasilValentine]

It's hard to argue with the evidence from both the PRC and the USSR that socialism is very effective at bringing people out of extreme poverty & creating an industrial base very rapidly and efficiently. It took the US from about 1825 to about 1941 to traverse the changes the Soviet Union underwent between 1917 and 1941, or the PRC between 1945 and 1974, and the US only accomplished that through undertaking the largest-scale conquest of land and resources and genocide of indigenous peoples in history, as well as using slave labour.

Blazing a trail takes a lot longer than following it once it's completed, especially when all of the requisite technology and industrial processes have been invented for you by greedy capitalist dogs before you begin. 

[Florestan]

It took the US from about 1825 to about 1941 to traverse the changes the Soviet Union underwent between 1917 and 1941, or the PRC between 1945 and 1974, and the US only accomplished that through undertaking the largest-scale conquest of land and resources and genocide of indigenous peoples in history, as well as using slave labour.

As opposed to the USSR and China, where industrial growth had got nothing, but absolutely nothing, to do with appropriating and exhausting land and resources, forcibly moving entire populations, extensive use of forced labour and huge violations of human rights.

Blazing a trail takes a lot longer than following it once it's completed, especially when all of the requisite technology and industrial processes have been invented for you by greedy capitalist dogs before you begin. 

And when, as at least in the case of the USSR, the greedy capitalist dogs and the merciless bankers are only too willing to lend you money and know-how.

[BasilValentine]

As opposed to the USSR and China, where industrial growth had got nothing, but absolutely nothing, to do with appropriating and exhausting land and resources, forcibly moving entire populations, extensive use of forced labour and huge violations of human rights.

Alas, the early stages of industrialization in the U.S. were predicated on moving entire populations from Africa to North America, extensive use of forced labor, and huge violations of human rights officially sanctioned until quite recently.

[Florestan]

Alas, the early stages of industrialization in the U.S. were predicated on moving entire populations from Africa to North America, extensive use of forced labor, and huge violations of human rights officially sanctioned until quite recently.

True, but amw presented the matter as if the USA alone did it, not the USSR and China as well.

[zamyrabyrd]

Alas, the early stages of industrialization in the U.S. were predicated on moving entire populations from Africa to North America, extensive use of forced labor, and huge violations of human rights officially sanctioned until quite recently.

Industrialization has a habit of using machines rather than labor intensive man hours. In the early years of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, mechanization of cloth making was fiercely resisted. Therefore in the developing manufacturing Northern States of the Union, unpaid labor was simply not needed. In fact, the invention of the cotton gin in 1794, which revolutionized extracting seeds from cotton further reduced the need for slaves.

Mechanical threshers put more people out of business. Labor saving inventions and devices had more to do with social change and human progress. I also might add that these affected women's liberation more than anything else.

[eljr]

Mechanical threshers put more people out of business. Labor saving inventions and devices had more to do with social change and human progress. I also might add that these affected women's liberation more than anything else.

The lessened need for labor led to the flood of women into the workplace?

[Mahlerian]

The lessened need for labor led to the flood of women into the workplace?

I think she means that the lessened need for household labor meant that mothers could both work and take on the duties of a housewife/raise a child.

[BasilValentine]

Industrialization has a habit of using machines rather than labor intensive man hours. In the early years of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, mechanization of cloth making was fiercely resisted. Therefore in the developing manufacturing Northern States of the Union, unpaid labor was simply not needed. In fact, the invention of the cotton gin in 1794, which revolutionized extracting seeds from cotton further reduced the need for slaves.

Mechanical threshers put more people out of business. Labor saving inventions and devices had more to do with social change and human progress. I also might add that these affected women's liberation more than anything else.

Without slaves picking cotton the industry doesn't happen.

[zamyrabyrd]

Without slaves picking cotton the industry doesn't happen.

You can include almost anything you put in your mouth like oranges for juice, avocados for salads, grapes for wine, etc.
The conditions for agricultural workers are almost as bad.

[amw]

As opposed to the USSR and China, where industrial growth had got nothing, but absolutely nothing, to do with appropriating and exhausting land and resources, forcibly moving entire populations, extensive use of forced labour and huge violations of human rights.

I'll grant you the resource extraction, but a few hundred thousand prisoners in labour camps were not exactly the Soviet Union's engine of growth & the relocation of populations had nothing to do with economics. (Stalin was essentially attempting to erase ethnic & national divisions by encouraging migration from the imperial core to the more distant republics. Didn't work out very well, as one can see in hindsight.) I don't think the PRC even had any kind of forced labour or migration; most of its problems were due to natural disasters (especially the 1959-61 famine) which Mao's government was unable to handle effectively.

The USA is certainly alone in the massive scale of its use of slavery & genocide to accomplish economic growth compared to other countries. I guess the Spanish & British Empires and colonial era Belgium are also on par though, and Nazi Germany would come close if it had lasted longer.

[Florestan]

I'll grant you the resource extraction, but a few hundred thousand prisoners in labour camps were not exactly the Soviet Union's engine of growth & the relocation of populations had nothing to do with economics. (Stalin was essentially attempting to erase ethnic & national divisions by encouraging migration from the imperial core to the more distant republics. Didn't work out very well, as one can see in hindsight.) I don't think the PRC even had any kind of forced labour or migration; most of its problems were due to natural disasters (especially the 1959-61 famine) which Mao's government was unable to handle effectively.

The USA is certainly alone in the massive scale of its use of slavery & genocide to accomplish economic growth compared to other countries. I guess the Spanish & British Empires and colonial era Belgium are also on par though, and Nazi Germany would come close if it had lasted longer.

That's it, enough is enough. Now you're really on my ignore list. For good.