No one comes here to find capitalism, they come from capitalist countries (except those few fleeing Cuba and Venezuela).

The masses come fleeing danger, poverty, and oppression...from capitalist countries....often caused by capitalist drug cartels. Even those fleeing socialist countries aren't fleeing socialism, they're fleeing poverty caused largely by our sanctions and embargoes of their nations.

Venezuela is poor today largely because of sanctions/embargoes (not being allowed to sell their main resource and export, oil), poor planning (basing the entire economy on one resource, oil), and corruption.... in that order.

Atrocities?! We don't have time to list the atrocities caused by capitalism. They are greater in number and detriment.

Public schools, public police, roads, medicine, food subsidies, public housing, a state (not private) military, ecological regulations, etc. These are all socialist, and are the exact reasons these same people claim the immigrants are coming.

Once again Bob misuses the channels, this is absolutely not history, not educational, not a debunking, and no one was destroyed. Just more right wing nonsense *political propaganda that ignores the salient points to make baseless claims.

Injenueity?! They're coming for our unsophisticated young women?! Now I get why the right is terrified.

If it's the forces of capitalism that should run the market, then why encourage government interference? That's the opposite of free-market capitalism.

An independent study published in Nature Energy estimated that half of all US oil production would be unprofitable if not for government subsidies. By your reasoning, shouldn't those ventures be allowed to die a natural death? All Arnold is saying is we shouldn't be INCREASING the subsidies to a dirty industry that's killing people.

In other words, your response is a non sequitur. It literally does not follow.

Aside from all that. IT'S KILLING PEOPLE! Do you really care about profit margins and the forces of capitalism more than human lives? What are profits for if not to improve the lives of people? Money, and the economy have to serve a purpose or they're just numbers.

I think it should be paid for by co2 taxation. The cement makers free the co2, they should pay all costs to capture it again, not me. I'm not making profit from their co2 production, they are, so they should pay for the damages, that creates incentives for producers to not release it in the first place, government subsidies to recapture it without taxation on it's production do the opposite.

38 minutes of "brilliant analysis" later and wind power still requires subsidies and unbalances grids while nuclear power needs only more concentrated investment capital and long term government guarantees.

Building wind turbines is a good investment because they scale well and have political backing including subsidies. Nuclear power is a long term investment in a volatile sector.

Once the whole planet is run by banks and all continents are politically united, connected by a network of thick cables, wind and solar will have a chance to dominate. Right now you need backups for all those windless nights, safety valves for windy Sundays, and new transmission lines to be safe from crazy neighboring countries.

https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/keep-it-simple-and-take-credit/

"Implementing these kinds of policies are also no road to electoral success. Peoples’ lives are hard enough without tax credits and savings accounts and eligibility forms and government phone calls that determine whether one’s household income puts one in the bracket for this or that plan or benefit or subsidy and on and on. No voter is thanking anyone who puts them on this road, even if there’s a small pot of money at the end of it.

And forget the annoyance—the amount of immense mental energy and social capital required to keep track of, comprehend the eligibility requirements of, and then successfully apply for these benefits is a de facto regressive tax on people whose lives are too materially difficult to deal with arcane bureaucratic bullshit. That is, those people that need the help the most.

So what to do? No more savings accounts, no more cleverly hidden help that people won’t even notice, no more tax-preferenced, means-tested, government-monitored, website-reliant, bronze/gold/platinum-benefits-so-long-as-you-apply-during-open-enrollment. Just give people the stuff they need.

This shouldn’t even be a liberal-socialist divide, although it seems to have become one in recent years. When society decided citizens should be able to read, we didn’t provide tax credits for books, we created public libraries. When we decided peoples’ houses shouldn’t burn down, we didn’t provide savings accounts for private fire insurance, we hired firefighters and built fire stations. If the broad left takes power again, enough with too-clever-by-half social engineering. Help people and take credit."

As Lambert Strether of Corrente says: universal, concrete, material benefits.

Is anyone surprised that this guy has a large personal collection of slavery mementos?

He doesn't get that he's right...
.....church, one that doesn't get set on fire or shot up...white privilege.
Jobs where you get paid a decent wage for hard work....white privilege......
Police there to help you, not see you as the enemy...white privilege.


This was just another 20 minutes of a display of pure ignorance and racism....of course @bobknight33 thinks this is "truth" that disproves white privilege....but it's really a display of white ignorance and deep seated hatred.

That slave story was utter apologist bullshit. That did not happen, a slave throwing a fit doesn't get their way and aren't just allowed to keep their family, they get beaten to death. Just pure bullshit....like most of what he says.

Southern white farmers/ranchers are the biggest, most entitled welfare queens around, I speak from experience.

I'm a white man who lived in East Palo Alto for years, and I walked through it alone dozens of times after midnight. No one bothered me. I have seen black men accosted in white neighborhoods for being black repeatedly.

This was pure bigoted ignorance and lies, bob. Don't be proud of this idiot, be ashamed. It's not Christian to denounce and deride others who don't have the advantages you have, nor is it Christian to pretend you and your free ancestors with rights had it just as bad as slaves and blacks that couldn't even vote and weren't considered humans.

The only message of truth I see is the truth that many white southerners are insanely ignorant and completely devoid of empathy for others or rationality....but just try to take their farm subsidies for not growing corn and you'll hear about how they are the true downtrodden in society and the blacks are in control, all on welfare, and are the ones destroying the country.

If Hinkley Point C is any indication, you're not going to find someone to finance/build a nuclear power plant, not in a capitalist society.

It's a massive upfront investment that private entities are basically allergic to; it cannot be insured due to the massive damage caused if things go south on you, so you need the government to act as a backstop; the price you'd have to charge per MWh is humongous compared to solar/wind, so you need massive subsidies, and that's without the ridiculous amount of rent-seeking corporations insist on nowadays.

That, to me, sounds like private is out. Hinkley Point C is being built by EDF, aka the French state, and EDF is struggling not be dragged into the abys by Areva, after the EPR in Flamanville is nothing short of a financial disaster. And we're not even talking about the troubles they are in for having fudged the specifications on the pressure vessels of more than 20 French power plants. Cost-cutting measures, as always.

So, which capitalist state is going to pick up the tab? Any volunteers? Over here, we cannot even get bridges fixed before they collapse...

And to be honest, I'm not entirely sure I would want a profit-oriented enterprise or austerity-supporting government construct something like an NPP these days. Look at the construction sites at Flamanville and Olkiluoto, they are modern towers of Babylon, with subcontractors of subcontractors from 30 different countries working for povery wages. Anyone think either of these, should they ever be finished at all, will come even close to the safety standards layed out in their official plans?

"Even with an anti-renewable government".

That's not really true. At both a Federal level (since 2005 under the Liberals) and state level, the government has offered large rebates/subsidies/feed-in tariffs to the public to encourage the uptake of solar power.

I believe some of these benefits are available to private businesses as well.

That site is conservative run and compiled, and even so, just do the math, divide by population. Start with Alaska, firmly red.
But, much better, look at REAL numbers instead of that rabid Trump supporter's totally unverified numbers, these with the math already done for you at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state

California spends $8,967 per person while taxing $7690 (honestly worse than I thought),
New York spends $9,940 and taxes $10,279.27,

Alabama spends $11,743 taxes $4,330,
Alaska spends $14,375 taxes $6,697 (I think only DC is worse),
Arizona spends $10,157 taxes $5,318,
Arkansas spends $9,635 taxes $8,578
(and because you mentioned them, Texas which spends $8,865 and taxes $8,421.59, not so bad)

....and that's just comparing the A's to what you would expect to be the most social service friendly firmly democrat states. Clearly, looked at per capita (the only way it makes sense) red states take far more than they give on average, then complain that they're supporting the inner city with their farm taxes, it's just not correct.

EDIT: and as mentioned above, I also know Texas, and the country folk are just as big welfare queens as the city folk, they just convince themselves that a corn subsidy isn't welfare, putting some pet goats on the property so you don't pay taxes isn't welfare, getting free water for their crops paid for by the government isn't welfare....it's just bullshit. If you take what you don't need, or don't pay your fair share, you're a taker, and that describes a HUGE portion of the right....largely your country folks.

@worm
you do realize that you literally just made @Januari 's point...right?

and i get it...government spending BAD.
government can't do anything blah blah blah...gotcha.

but instead of using the VA as an example of government malfeasance and incompetence,why not use medicare/medicaid?

the VA is run by the DoD and considering that during rumsfelds tenure they lost over a trillion american dollars..POOF..where is that money? nope..can't find it.the pentagon is a mess.

medicare/medicaid is run by the dept of health,which runs on a 3% overhead,has the ability to negotiate with pharmacuticals,and is a system that is already in place AND we all already pay in to.

see,
i am not a fan of obamacare.
i think single payer is the way to go,and the only way to go.
people like to make the comparison of obamacare insurance with car insurance.
forgetting that driving is a privilege...
breathing is not.

so if we take the "profit motive" out of health care.then the majority of people NOT covered would not wait until something dire or life threatening was going down with them to head to the doctor.preventive care has been shown to reduce medical costs dramatically.
see:norway
see:denmark
see:france
see:britain

while i understand many liberals defense of obamacare,i see it only a half measure that can easily be remanded and/or gotten rid of all together.however unlikely that may be.the threat will be enough.

people forget that obamacare was basically written by the heritage foundation in 1992.a right wing think tank and not much was changed (though the pre-existing clause was a positive).

they forget that then Governor mitt romney implemented a similar health care system in massechusetts.which saw steady increases in premiums yearly.

and here is the thing that really eats at me.
it is mandatory.

so here is my prediction:
obamacare is not going anywhere.
while it may be used as apolitical football and health insurance companies will use (and already HAVE used) the threat of leaving due to little or no money (this is a lie) in order to force the government to raise their subsidies.

this is corporate welfare on a scale that over-shadows the bank bailouts of 2007.which at final tally was over 17 trillion.

so obamacare is going nowhere because it is the goose that lays the golden egg,and the gift that keeps on giving.

oh there will threats,and over-politicizing,and wringing of hands,and committee meetings.

but that will be just for show.
we put the fox in charge of the henhouse,and the fox is gonna make damn sure it is going nowhere.

Red states almost always vote against their own interests. They take more tax money than they give and rail against the programs that they themselves take the most advantage of. How they convince themselves that 'the other' is the welfare queen is beyond me.
What's crazy is, if Trump is to be believed (he's not) he's suggesting something like single payer, what else could 'everyone will be insured' mean? It can't possibly mean the subsidies and discounts go away, but the requirement for insurance remains, can it?
No sympathy for these people. They voted against having health care for the needy, then realized they ARE the needy. Karma's a bitch.

I've not seen any real proof that having a royal family living in the palace is a deal-breaker for tourists. And so I've also never seen any proof that they provide a net gain to the country because they get fecking millions in subsidies, security, and all the land and positions they own 'by divine right'.

They royalty are public servants - you would never catch me bowing to any of them, or treating them any differently than i would a stranger - respectfully, as equals.

As far as i'm concerned, they've got the luckiest life in the world by birthright, which goes completely against everything i believe in. So they better do a lot of charity work and never complain about it - which to be fair they have done, but only because they know they're on thin ice and will be summarily dethroned if they act up. Especially at a time like this.

Ohhhh, so you just reassert your point about Democrats never backing down, but Republicans do without any factual basis whatsoever! What a novel losing debate strategy!

Obamacare isn't perfect and needs to be fixed or replaced with something better. Not the Trumpian "something great" if it should be replaced, but something that is well thought out and addresses what Obamacare couldn't accomplish if the entire premise is systemically not going to work.

Did you see what I did there? I *gasp* recognize that sometimes things don't work! OMG! IT'S AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I also didn't say it's a "fucking disaster", because it isn't. If it were that, explain how the uninsured rate has dropped very significantly. It was never going to achieve 100% insurance rate. The only way that happens is with single payer.

Here's how stupid you are. You don't seem to understand that if Obamacare isn't the answer, you're just making single payer universal health care more likely to be enacted. The American people are not going to go back to being denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. They're just not gonna. Obamacare is the least left policy you could possibly enact that would help control costs and decrease the number of people who are uninsured.

You can scream to the top of your lungs, but Obamacare was enacted to remedy real problems. I'm even sympathetic to the argument that those were real problems, but Obamacare isn't the answer, but if you're going to make that argument, you have to propose something that has historical precedent and rationale to solve those problems. And you simply don't have one.

So again, keep struggling in the quicksand until it swallows you whole, and single payer is enacted.

Your evidence about health insurance premiums is anecdotal, and quite frankly, you don't seem to understand that your numbers and description of what happened to her is absolutely ridiculous. You don't get on medicaid because your insurance premiums go up under Obamacare. You qualify for Medicaid because of a lack of income.

Secondly, the claim is absolutely ridiculous that her premiums went up that much. For data we have available, *unsubsidized* premiums for the lowest cost silver plans for data we have in the Obamacare exchanges was $257 a month for a single person.

http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/analysis-of-2017-premium-changes-and-insurer-participation-in-the-affordable-care-acts-health-insurance-marke
tplaces/

If she qualifies for Medicaid, then surely she could go on a silver plan in the Obamacare exchanges and come out likely paying less. Oh, and, on top of that, she would EASILY qualify for federal subsidies if she qualified for medicaid.

Oh, and btw, without Obamacare, if health care companies decided to raise those premiums just to price gouge, what protection would she have? Not much. Obamacare insures that you can only take in so much that isn't spent on health care.

Your story is completely utterly full of crap on so many levels, it's clear you made it up.

I'm dismissing all your numbers are being unsubstantiated bullshit. Have premiums gone up? Sure have. Were they going up before Obamacare? Yep! There's a healthy debate about how much Obamacare is contributing to premium increases. Obamacare isn't perfect. I'm happy to discuss rationally what could be done to improve Obamacare, or another plausible alternative. But not with you, since you pull numbers out of your ass that easily are completely debunked.

BTW, FYI, Obamacare was not intended to lower premiums nor to completely eliminate the number of uninsured. It was to control costs in all forms and reduce the amount of uninsured, as well as reform the health care system to eliminate problems like being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, people having to declare bankruptcy due to medical bills, etc.

Some of its goals it succeeded in, and some not so much. That's a fair assessment at this point. Medical related bankruptcies have not declined. Being denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition has been eliminated. Premiums have gone up, but we simply don't have enough data to determine if they've slowed or accelerated since Obamacare was implemented. If you go by the immediate years after Obamacare was fully implemented, they slowed.

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/Adler_Exhibit1.png

More recently, they've accelerated. It's important to note that health care costs are not solely determined by premiums alone. It's interesting you cherry picked premiums only to prove costs haven't been controlled because premiums are your best case to make that point. Copays, coinsurance, deductibles, prescription drugs, all those play a role. IE, if the average American pays more in premiums but less everywhere else, it's possible the net average is lower for total costs paid for health care.

These are complex topics that have no room for bringing in rose colored ideologically tinted lenses to force the outcome to be "a fucking disaster", where you'll bring in anecdotal evidence, some of which is completely utterly made up.

Just how far are you willing to make stuff up? Hillary Clinton, according to you, has never in the last 40 years done anything substantially positive.

REALLY?! Look, I understand not necessarily wanting her to be President. OK, fine. But that claim is absolutely ridiculous. Over $2 billion has been raised by the Clinton Foundation, and over 90% of that has gone to charitable work according to independent studies. Before you go down the path of "paid access", blah blah blah, even if that were true, the reality is $1.8 billion went to charitable works around the world through the Clinton Foundation Hillary Clinton helped to create and run.

That's not substantial?!?!

Dude, just stop. The only people who believe that BS are people within your bubble. You're not convincing anyone else who didn't already think Hillary Clinton personally killed Vince Foster. You're just making people like me think you're a complete loon.

It turns out when congress members need to spend up to 50% each day ringing up rich individuals and corporations for donations to stay competitive in their elections - things like corporate subsidies and selectively lowering tax rates for those individuals tends to be where the money goes.

Lead paint is far down the list especially when most will not appreciate that it's silently harming their health. Besides, you can turn out the vote of so called 'single issue voters' by distracting them with social issues that have virtually no consequence on their lives (banning Sharia law, legislating gun carry laws, building ineffective border walls).

you have people living in artificial environments that use tons of power because they want to, because they like it, not because they REQUIRE it. native americans lived in southwest USA for a thousand years just fine without the need of AC or diverting rivers.

go read up on the absurd agricultural subsidies tied to the colorado river- that isnt a problem created because farmers need to produce food to feed the world, its a problem created because politicians want money making businesses to tax, and because people are willing to spend money to eat what they like instead of what there is, a lot of money is made.

same with trawling- nothing to do with feeding all those people, everything to do with money. trawling has been going on for over a hundred years, well before the world population was even a 3rd of what it is currently- fishermen trawl because they want to be efficient because that makes them more money, not because they are concerned about how they are going to feed undernourished people.

the problem isnt getting people to eat insects. the problem is getting the developed world to stop eating so much, especially so much meat. there is an obesity epidemic around the world, over 3000 tons of food are discarded every day, and you want to tell me the problem is not enough food?

and lets not be disingenuous about nuclear waste, nuclear technology was invented as a weapon, not an energy source. you're telling me that if tomorrow a terrible plague wiped out 90% of the earths population, that nuclear armed states would give up their nuclear weapons? bs.

the video is on point. the environmental crisis is caused by greed, not because there are too many people on the planet. and if you feel so strongly that there are too many people on the planet, I assume you are relieved when your family members die? Unless you are willing to volunteer yourself and your family to die for the greater good, overpopulation is a facile bogey man to mask what you really want to say- lets get rid of all those "other" people so *I* dont have to change my own lifestyle.