Reply to: Death of Capitalism?

[expat]

I think you'll find I'm right - in the same way Jeremy Clarkson was right...

Clarkson was right? When? Damn, I missed that!

[ratewhore]

And you are being rude, whereas I am just being critical.

I think you'll find I'm right - in the same way Jeremy Clarkson was right...

[expat]

Unhelpful to what? It is an opinion, to which I'm entitled. Now stick that up your hoop you self-important farkwit...

Absolutely.

But it is rubbish because it is not only false but baseless and I suspect thoughtless; and it is unhelpful because it does not illuminate the situation or describe it with any degree of accuraccy or insight.

And you are being rude, whereas I am just being critical.

[ratewhore]

Oh, that is frankly unhelpful rubbish.

Unhelpful to what? It is an opinion, to which I'm entitled. Now stick that up your hoop you self-important farkwit...

[PM-Junkie]

And the Soviet Union was.......

....a totalitarian regime which practiced elements of communism.

[DimPrawn]

Oh dear - showing your ignorance again. That is totalitarianism, not communism.

Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a concept used to describe political systems whereby a state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private life. Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of an official all-embracing ideology and propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that controls the state, personality cults, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics. The term has been applied to many states, including: the Soviet Union,...


And the Soviet Union was.......

[PM-Junkie]

More and more centralised government control.
Terror laws, loss of freedoms, increase in state powers over the ordinary citizen.
Massive increase in public sector workers (ie. people working for the state).
State buying up banks.
Surveillance society
Government databases, DNA databases, ID Cards




All smacks of Communism to me.

Oh dear - showing your ignorance again. That is totalitarianism, not communism.

[DimPrawn]

But where is this communism of which you speak?

More and more centralised government control.
Terror laws, loss of freedoms, increase in state powers over the ordinary citizen.
Massive increase in public sector workers (ie. people working for the state).
State buying up banks.
Surveillance society
Government databases, DNA databases, ID Cards




All smacks of Communism to me.

[Cyberman]

We are watching the death of a socialist party that have failed capitalism and the UK. Capitalism is fine and banks needed some form of regulation, but GB failed in order to create his credit boom. He kept house-prices out of his inflation index and we are reaping the 'rewards' of failed interest rate policy.

Capitalism will survive, but if you strangle companies by over-taxation in order to grow the state by massive proportions, you eventually get the results that we see today.

[expat]

We used to live in a capitalist democracy. The last twelve years has turned it into an almost communist state...

Oh, that is frankly unhelpful rubbish.

You do not like much of what this government does (neither do I as it happens). You are possibly troubled by things like apparently retrospective legislation and spread of surveillance.

But where is this communism of which you speak? These things that I presume you dislike are being done in other western democracies too. That doesn't make them right, but it does mean that they are not blatant communism washing over us under the heel of the NL boot .....

[ratewhore]

We used to live in a capitalist democracy. The last twelve years has turned it into an almost communist state...

[expat]

Perhaps politicians and corporations are fighting for survival; maybe it isn’t the ‘Death of Capitalism’ we’re witnessing, but the failure of the corporate, conglomerate model of capitalism.
<snip interesting points>
Perhaps the future’s bright for family businesses, free agents and small cooperatives of professionals who think long-term, set aside reserves and don't just milk the business dry in the good times.

Indeed, large-scale corporate capitalism is a relatively recent and local idea. As is the idea that everybody should have an employment.

[expat]

I agree, also think that politicians and people in power seem to be able to have no problem using loopholes (tax/expenses, etc) but they are quite happy to close down our little loop holes

I don't really want them.

My complaint about IR35 is not that I want to pay dividends; it is that it is a bad kludge with some bad aspects, of 2 kinds:
1. political, by which I mean aspects that are legitimate for government to bring about, but that I don't like, e.g. no allowance for training.
2. logical, where it is frankly unfair. The risk of paying tax twice over a tax-year boundary is one, and the fact that the point of the whole thing is to force some taxpayers' income into the NIC tax (as a tax, not as an insurance scheme), but not others, is another.

[Mich the Tester]

I agree, also think that politicians and people in power seem to be able to have no problem using loopholes (tax/expenses, etc) but they are quite happy to close down our little loop holes

Perhaps politicians and corporations are fighting for survival; maybe it isn’t the ‘Death of Capitalism’ we’re witnessing, but the failure of the corporate, conglomerate model of capitalism. While corporations will be necessary for producing stuff which requires huge capital investment, like cars, aeroplanes and railways, you have to wonder whether huge corporations of 100s of thousands of people ever really can be managed effectively, and whether responsible long term management can be achieved in an environment where shareholders demand short term profits, even at the expense of a business putting money aside for long term investment. The banking collapse seems to me to be a symptom and not a cause of corporate failure; mismanagement is not restricted to banks; look for example at car manufacturers who carried on producing gas guzzlers for short term profit when all the indicators said the future was for smaller more efficient cars, didn’t set aside any reserves for anti-cyclical investment and all the while paid multi gazillion dollar salaries to executives. Perhaps the future’s bright for family businesses, free agents and small cooperatives of professionals who think long-term, set aside reserves and don't just milk the business dry in the good times.

[NetwkSupport]

That is how I see it too. I am not trying to be a business, but I am trying not to be an employee either: I'm a skilled worker working on my own account.

True, some of the people I work for will see me as just an employee; that's their concern. The government may proclaim that too: that's at best because they are blinkered socialists who think that the world divides strictly int emploers and employees; at worst it's because they have made a pig's ear of the tax system and don't want me taking advantage of that.

I agree, also think that politicians and people in power seem to be able to have no problem using loopholes (tax/expenses, etc) but they are quite happy to close down our little loop holes