One response to ““Monopoly Socialism Edition” sold out everywhere; here’s where good capitalists can still find it”

1. 

   Mr. Wizard

   September 4, 2019 at 8:38 pm

   The TRUTH is that Socialism SUCKS (leads to no creativity, no desire to work or get ahead and overall depressing waits in line for Vodka until it falls apart and everyone but perhaps the leaders of the socialistic or communist parties starve). The OTHER TRUTH is that Unchecked Capitalism with no regulation ALSO SUCKS (leads to “Robber Baron” style monopolies where 1% or less hold all the things of value and everyone else can go broke and starve). BOTH SUCK. The answer? HYBRID systems.

   Both the United States and Europe are hybrid systems. Europe leans slightly to the left and the US slightly to the right (relatively speaking) and neither system is “Socialism” or “Capitalism”. The problem is the two sides of partisanship would like you to believe that Europe is socialism and the US is Capitalism. Admittedly, lately with the US not doing a thing about unchecked mergers (see Disney and AT&T for examples lately) and anti-competitive behavior (see Apple and even Dolby for recent examples), it is inevitably leading to larger and larger class disparities where 1% hold most of the wealth. This is due to political removal of the checks and balances put in place after the last disaster of a CRASH in 1929. Monopolies were broken up. Regulations and even state parks were created. For a time, a lot more people prospered (it didn’t hurt that we were spared the local carnage of WWII for the most part and could sell all kinds of stuff to Europe to rebuild). But then came Reaganomics and the notion of the “trickle” (which really meant the top birds shat on everyone below them and it trickled down) followed by full normalized relations with China (Clinton but harking back to NIxon) leading to the great OUTSOURCING. Instead of “Fair Trade” (i.e. trading rates based on recognition of disparities in wealth) we got “Free Trade” (which meant the best thing in the world a large corporation could do was move all the labor to places like China to take advantage of near slave wages).

   It doesn’t take Albert Einstein to notice the middle class has been shrinking ever since while the rich (who make much of their money in investments of now said richer corporations making a killing off dirt cheap labor) get more and more of the pie and then buy and merge more companies to get even larger slices of pie. There is nothing COMPLICATED about what happened. The American people were given the middle finger and our “democracy” (really a Republic) was turned into the Corporate States of America where legal bribery (called “lobbying” to make it sound less like what it really is) buys ALL THE VOTES and YOU, the American Citizen get SCREWED from BOTH parties (which both parties deny) and there is literally a ZERO chance of getting a third party (which even if it did exist, would eventually become corrupt too as that what unchecked money and power tends to do to people as Plato warned us thousands of years ago in his great book, The Republic.

   Meanwhile, The European Union seems to have figured out what’s going wrong and has actually taken steps to try and protect consumers (it is the EU that told Dolby to abandon their licensing requirement that all Receiver makers be forced to not allow competing upmixing surround formats to work with Dolby “signals”. This is anti-competitive behavior on Dolby’s part. Instead of the best surround format wins (capitalism), they wanted to rig the game (Monopoly grab) by altering the rules in their favor so no one uses the competing formats, not by its merits, but by its larger standing (clout). Would the US have done a THING about that (trivial as it may seem to some)? NOT A CHANCE. The US doesn’t do a damn thing about anyone from Microsoft to Apple to AT&T or Disney. They just let them MERGE and MERGE and MERGE until they own damn near everything and everyone. So Britain wants to “Brexit” does it? Why? The propaganda machine scares them into thinking Syrians are coming to kill them all while the REAL reason is that corporations want to ditch EU regulations in Britain that have checks on them doing things like polluting rivers and poisoning food. OMG! Screw that! Every last penny counts when you’re stinking rich and have a wealth addiction. Frankly, I’m SHOCKED that the EU has been doing things for consumers. That goes contrary to everything Plato taught. They should be corrupted, but instead have been heading the other way. Corporations don’t like it! Screw corporations. And yet Germany is prospering just fine with its “supposed” “Socialist” economy (in reality it is no such thing, but in a nice balance between regulated Capitalism and making sure people have basic needs taken care of like health care. Germany has private doctors, but public insurance and doctors aren’t allowed to charge you ridiculous fees for not even fixing your health problem. It’s REGULATED. I don’t see doctors staving over there or begging on the streets either. The propaganda (LIES) made up by places like Fox News are ridiculous.

   But what happens when robotic and other forms of automation eventually is able to replace almost every manufacturing and service job there is in the next 50-75 years? Left unchecked, that means the top 1% that own the robots own and have everything. Everyone else will STARVE. The only solution is to make the robots own by the government and the profits regulated and redistributed to the citizens as a basic living wage. This has to be phased in as robots are phased in or it will get out of control fast. That also means trade restrictions (so companies don’t just move to another country where they can buy robots and screw everyone). Failure to do so will mean millions of people will starve to death and die. I’m sure some capitalists would be just fine with that, especially if it were from “certain groups” they didn’t like. They wouldn’t find it so great if it were them starving to death, however. People seem to have no empathy for others whatsoever anymore and the BS propaganda and lies sprayed on the news by people with money to lose doesn’t help a damn thing. You never go full socialism. A basic survival program under robotic automation is needed, but there would always be room for innovators and repair people and fine skilled labor to make MORE money along with military service and other areas (this is basically what Star Trek or The Orville portrays. You want more in life? Do something helpful for society. But the simple fact is that robots will mean Capitalism will start breaking down and if countries aren’t smart about it, they’ll all end up like Venezuela.

   Instead of fighting each other in government and politics, we should be working together to ensure this country (and the rest of the world for that matter) has a future. But the problem is that the ultra-rich want to stay ultra-rich and they will do everything in their power to make sure they stay that way, even if it means the rest of our lives suck. Imagine playing Monopoly where one player already owns all but one property on the board and has hotels everywhere. You wouldn’t stand a chance. And that is EXACTLY what is happening with large corporations slowly merging and taking over EVERYTHING. The game is rigged from the start and kids today won’t have the same opportunities their grandparents had to get anywhere at all. But it’s easier to say people are LAZY on the news and put the blame on someone other than the ultra-rich rigging the game in government with endless money to bribe, advertise and push their BS on the public (thank you corrupt Supreme Court of America for making sure our Republic becomes a Banana Republic with that ruling).

   People should be MAD AS HELL about what’s happening, but those with money know that as long as they keep the two parties fighting each other in the USA, the REAL people making life hell will slip by largely unnoticed, at least until they die and face their maker (BURN IN HELL KOCH BROTHERS and WALTONS where you belong for paying a pittance and rigging the game so everyone is kept under the thumb of the rich that don’t work for a living at all, but sit of their fat butts collecting millions at low tax rates for capital gains).

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