quite good read

Hi guys,

I want to recommend one documentary film which I recent watched, "Zeitgeist : Addendum"
It will explain to the very root of the problem we have now with monetary based economy.
The film also proposed an alternative to the capitalism, a resource-based economy.
Watch it yourself, here is the link to the movie website:
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
yes, you can watch it online FREE, just click the the picture and it will redirect you to Google video. It's kind of weird in the beginning of the film but bear with it, I guarantee you that you can learn a lot from this film, and it will give a blast to your mind.

This post has been edited by JowY: Jul 19 2010, 09:36 PM

Well, communism as opposed to capitalism is actually the most "just" system in theory...however, with the existence of private property, this is not feasible as men are an innately competitive species.
In fact, we were once communist in the stone age:
http://througheyesfromafar.blogspot.com/20...-karl-marx.html

The best govt-eco system, in my opinion, would be socialism whereby:
- Government provides basic needs - free healthcare, free housing for people who cannot afford it, and free or heavily subsidized education up to secondary school or if possible basic degree level.
- After that, the quality of life is all up to capitalism

Yeah, that could work out. I think the government is already providing such services, no? Just that they aren't very effective.

Free healthcare and free education? I don't think so. Oh, and forgot to mention pensions (for all citizens) as well.

Education is nearly free already.... you dont even need to pay a cent to go to school except for those school fees that is not charged by the government..

For healthcare... there are already much subsidy .. Just you need to Q for a loooong time..

If free healthcare for everyone... where our government gonna take money from? they already siphon Billions of ringgit out of the country =D

From the crazy amounts of toll fees that we have to pay per day and government tax on everything?

If our country have nearly 0 corruption and no racial politics ... i doubt that we will lose to singapore

CAPITALISM

doesnt matter economy/social/life/etc problem

if you cant make money solving that problem, then no need to solve.

That is the biggest problem here.

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Added on August 31, 2010, 12:30 pmIn any case, we aren't a true capitalist country because there are social services provided by the government unlike in the US where you have to pay/have health insurance or get no treatment.

However, we aren't socialist either on that side (not even considering the existence of a large private sector in the economy in this), because in socialism, every single citizen should receive equal help from the government, regardless of race/religion/sexual orientations/ etc. etc.

But, yes, I believe health service should be free. However, other changes would have to be implemented too - like good public transport (to the point where you don't really need a private vehicle), a less corrupt government (this would involve wiping out the roots of the BN in the government) for starters

Toll fees will be not be an issue anymore, and also parking and duit kopi for polis.

And to be fair, the income taxes we have are not high compared to more socialist type nations (EU nations, Australia), but then again public services are not as good partially due to that.

This post has been edited by The Envoy: Aug 31 2010, 12:30 PM

its not that simple anymore, with capitalism in place even before our birth there is already so many economy created to service the capitalism.

for eg: technology, healthcare, construction, etc etc.. just about everything, if true intention is to solve the problem and give liberation and freedom to the people, there is no more target of "high income country/ wawasan 2020" because the 'real economy' already able to sustain people living without need to setting further goal and crap. its just an excuse to make more money http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1544833

Any system i believe is akin to a weapon. It can be good or bad depending on whose hands it lies upon.

Capitalism as you've said, can be a good thing. But also it promotes greed and selfishness.

I suppose it ultimately relies on moderation, too much of any good thing makes it bad anyway.
Flaws are imminent, capitalism is just amongst the many systems that are not necessay to be followed right to the letter.

capitalism in the past and present and destroyed economics time after time, when the chicago school boys went into south america with their ideology of free market and capitalism, they skyrocketed the inflation in several countries there and destroyed their domestic industries because the free market preached by capitalism encourages countries to open their trade borders by eliminating tariffs and destroying any slightest hint of protectionism in these countries against international trading. What happened when the government in these countries listen to the chicago school boys was import goods start flooding the country destroying the abilities of domestic manufacturing industries to compete with the established industries that came from america and british.

At this point you should be able to get a hint how capitalism goes out the seek and destroy regulations be it international trading barriers or making governments privatizing government services. In America, the world in iraq has almost totally be outsourced to defence contractors from everything such as hostage integoration to the supply of shower / drinking water for the US infantry on the ground

another ill effect of the regulationism preached by capitalism was at its peak when the Global Financial crisis happened. Investment banks all over the world by trading heavily in derivatives made up of CDO (collatarized debt obligations) that in simple terms are ranked mortgage back debt derivatives, selling them to unsuspecting investors using money taken from the superannuation funds and the like. And while they are doing it, the investment banks would hedged against the risks of default themselves thus shielding them from the onslaught of the GFC. All of this was allowed to happen due to the wave after wave of support for deregulations in the financial market which thank goodness has been partially reversed by a recent bill from obama admistration to tighten up these regulations again.

Capitalism is a lot more than rich people being rich and unfair to poor people being poor and unwilling to work for it or whatever. It is scary and scarier than a horror movie if you start reading into it. However there are environments where even with the absence of regulations seem to work very well is the internatioinal foreign exchange forward wholesale market and works on the theory of interest rate parity etc The market works without a regulatory bodies and prices are actually being freely determined by market forces. However, outside of that, de regulation has caused massive problems all over the world and that would only be challenged by 1% of the population (or much less) who have managed to benefitted from the demises of so many third world economies in history and present

Economic capitalism, governmental socialism. Enforced corporate responsibility. To get rich is glorious, but there has to be a corresponding tax rate. 95% America's wealth is owned by 1% of their population, that is just too extreme and isn't working well for those at the bottom of the pyramid. Despite that, majority of Americans (the Republicans) still believe in tax cuts for the wealthy, because they too want to be rich one day and don't want to pay higher taxes. I believe in a strong government that would profit more by taxing the rich rather than getting bribed to avoid taxing them.

Of course, this wouldn't work in the real world. If you raise taxes the companies will simply go to another place that doesn't. It's pretty much demonstrated in football player transfers. Earning 100,000 a week seems obscene, but the players are getting taxed up to 50% in the UK. That is why transfer dealings to the UK in recent years have been muted, many of the big names went to Spain to enjoy the mere 22-30% tax.

If there was a ruling for the players that 20% of their weekly pay (of those earning over xxx amount) must go to a local charity/cause/project that they choose I'd think the whole of UK would be all for it. Unfortunately, desire is part of human nature. Fancy cars, flashy clothes, fast women, palatial homes, being waited on hand and foot... some things just appeal to the basic greed in all of us.

Because they manufacture demand. We need to deemphasize a lot of the 'needs' into unnecessary ' wants'. Of course this won't happen since why would they ever want to reduce demand of their own products.

im not sure if you know what is economy hitmen or not : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37Dvt2EqXF4

what do you think about it?

cute link

I do know what is and about economic hitmen , here's a better link showing the confession of the maker of the vid you posted himself when he was working as one. It's like a movie , you'd love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8

What I think about it is that it is an extremely real and scary. And that you can see the actual things starting to happen now with things like

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Iraq...ion-Target.html

and within that include shell/petronas/halliburton etc . basically, if there was a winner to the war in iraq, it is definitely not the al qaeda being able to drag on the war for so long, it's not the american or coalition troops and fought on the ground but the capitalist machine that drove the war in the first place

I haven't been reading on my interest in these world economics lately so apologize that I couldn't provide deeper insight or opinion but might try to pick it up again once I graduate (funny thing is I don't even study economics etc )

This post has been edited by daccorn: Sep 4 2010, 10:48 PM

Capitalism sounds like a good deal once explained to everyone what it actually means and stand for. Capitalism itself alone is good, but not when you have a capitalist behind it puppeting it.

When the word capitalism appears, there are 2 classes in the society then. The bourgeois ( Rulling or Social class ) and the Proletariat ( Working or Lower class ) people. When one rules , many others follow.

True that the more you work, the more luxurious your reward will be, but oftenly why capitalism failed was because of this same concept. People whom are at the top seats tend to manipulate people below them into producing a greater output in product with a false motivation. In the world of communist, they call this "Labor exploitation". Labor exploitation was the main reason why the Proletariat risen up against the ruling class in Russia last time, and Karl Marx with his marxism ideology advocated Equality than what was at that time, Capitalism. Capitalism is only good if those who are seated at the top rewards its worker accordingly and does not practice exploitation ( examples would be those child labor ran factories in India and Pakistan ) .

Capitalism in the modern day is a good concept to stimulate the economy growth, specially when people are willing to work harder to achieve a goal they have set for themself and when talents are more willing to look for jobs so that they can earn the rewards offered. If we look around us now, everywhere is capitalism. Even at home, when a child is doing well at school and helps out at home, that child is often rewarded in one form or another. Maybe that child will get the item that he or she desired, or that child will receive more love and priority from the parents.

We were all born in the world of capitalism and were nurtured with its way since birth. There is no way we can accept equality among people , maybe in sense of racial status yes, but not in terms of wealth. We are all materialistic people even if we dont want to admit it, and in the end of the day, we are all just a slave to the capitalistic system.

south america? south america didnt practice a pure capitalist system untill the late 80's or early 90's before that they were for import subsitution (damn i forgot) this same policy was enacted in phillipines and indonesia during a certain time span. then again this depends on which country, mexico if i remembered right was for import subsitution

teh GFC? the GFC was a function of a few things, first. 80's wall st actually while true the deregulation caused milken and reneiri to start the bond mania. this was stopped by the SEC however the tech bubble came in and screw things up, greenspan not knowing what to do did the sane thing. reduce rates as inflation was low and investor confidance was high, if u read greenspans work he mentioned this is hte "new economy" and didnt know what to do about it. heck even warren buffett didnt know what to do about it

but is it really that bad? no, the wall street system went up and down for a number of reasons and will go so. if u look at the history of wall st from 08 till the rail and stuff this is very evident. its the system, the second supposed system is something similar to the EU but thats another story all together. however its also funny, each wall st economic crisis the people that delt the worse are those that mismanaged, solomon brothers, lehmen brothers, enron, world.com etc etc. folks who didnt manage their funds well (sub prime) got the full kick.

but again is it that evil? before capitalism we had a mercantalist system which created the wars in the 18th century and why the europeans, middle easterns and japanese went all out to conquer and plunder. that was a waaay worse system, the british india company while huge and nice didnt really run under a capitalist system but the former, in which pillaging was the order of the day.

but as far as the economic hitman goes, its true however only the naive sing that its an american project and its pure capitalist. the chinese, indian governments are doing similar things to other countries now, inculding malaysia. if one thinks foreign relations are all nice and cute puppies with morals and rights think again. the economic hitman while sad to read happens from russia (communist), china (semi-communist) to america (capitalist) and india (capitalist). malaysia is also part of the fury

what did capitalism allow, it allowed people like mittal to gain significant gain in british economy, made li-ka-shing possible and did rather create a system where classes merge easier and class barriers are broken(the middle income group didnt really exist pre capitalism)

im not saying its all good tho, capitalism has its flaws, the market system tends to nominate whats good and whats not. thats why certain people in teh world are poor, not that they choose to be but its due to the market. if you are unlucky to be born in a country wher agriculture is the only means then you are f***ed. likewise in the job market, if you specialise in aerospace enginneeering and stay in malaysia its hard to get a job.

no more companies...only gov makes the deal in the market...no kronism..

if not, we still living in jungle...just like narnia