I was speaking of seigniorage,
I have never meant anything else.
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Victims of Communism
- Thread starter Nicholas
- Start date
I have never meant anything else.
You complain about "bankers".
They're more useful than jurists.
The key word in what I wrote above was "if," but in fact, they didn't conquer Vietnam, which has remained independent to this day.
I will repeat, it's not just about you or me. All I'm saying is grew up with the same red-baiting propaganda. I know the arguments, and I know the tactics. Of course, they've been updated and refined a bit since the 1950s, but then again, communism also changed since the Stalin era, yet some people don't seem willing to acknowledge that.
The thing is, your continued refrain about "socialism's failures" IS Red Scare propaganda. Most people, even anti-communists, openly acknowledge and admit that the Soviet Union did modernize and progress far beyond what they saw under the previous regime. Only the most rabid anti-communists would deny it and proclaim it to be a "failure."
Along the same lines, there are a number of those who would point to the West's "prosperity and liberty" and question the ways and means by which they achieved all this prosperity and why they only support liberty for a few. For example, I posted a graphic upthread which accuses capitalism of 20 million dead per year. That's a pretty damning charge, but where is the defense?
I think my argument was been, as it always has been, that socialism in the USSR improved the overall situation in that country and elevated from a backwards agrarian state into an industrialized superpower which was also the first country to launch a human being into space. If you want to call that a "failure," then what would you have me say? They won World War 2 as well, saving the world from aggressive fascist militarists.
I don't ignore the oppression or what happened under that regime, although I have seen articles and books which might suggest that early Western perceptions and propagandists might have exaggerated things to make the Soviets look far worse than what they actually were. That doesn't make them good, and I never said it did. But at the very least, perhaps we can be honest about this and only deal in known fact, not exaggerations put forth by the Hearst newspapers.
Also, I've never really argued that the Soviet system was "better." If the only argument addressed life in these United States as "better" than life in the Soviet Union, then I wouldn't even make any attempt to argue against it. Of course we're wealthier, more modern, more industrialized, with a higher standard of living, etc. So, at least in that sense, we have been far more prosperous than they were. We have had a longer global reach, a more powerful alliance and an advantaged geopolitical position which we established in cooperation with our Western European allies, whose economies were built upon colonialism and imperialism. In terms of going out and grabbing as much of the world's wealth as they could, we Westerners got an centuries-long head start on the Russians, so of course, we would be in the better position.
We have had a better empire than they were. That's really all it is. Do you really seriously believe the difference is the result of an abstract ideological system?
It never had anything to do with the West being nice or benevolent. If we're better just because we're better (just like the Romans or the Mongols were "better" than the people they conquered), then okay. We're "better" than they were. America is a strong and powerful country, and there were a multitude of historical factors which led us to that fortunate position in the world. However, a key factor in our decline and possibly losing that fortunate position has been a certain ideological inflexibility which has existed in the political culture since the Reagan era.
Okay.
There you go again.
No point in reading the rest of your post.
Prolly just more of your Stalinist propaganda.
(So I did adopt your modus operandi after all.)
Well, it is. So there.
Not quite.
Jurists sent them to jail, in Iceland.
Iceland: Icelandic Bankers Jailed for Fraud
(July 30, 2014) In a decision issued by the Reykjavik district court on December 12, 2013, two bank directors were among the parties imprisoned for fraud in connection with the banking crisis of 2008. (Dómur: Héraðsdóms Reykjavíkur 12. desember 2013 í máli nr. S-127/2012 [Judgment: Reykjavík...
www.loc.gov
But bankers make finance & business far far easier.
Jurists are dangerous.
Guilty until they can prove innocence....
A man convicted of child sex abuse served 5 years in prison. It cost him $600,000 to prove his innocence.
Brian Buckle served five years in prison for child sex abuse based on flawed DNA tests. He spent $600,000 to prove his innocence, the BBC reported.
I was not speaking of credit activity.
I was speaking of seigniorage.
It's a taboo for you? You never mention this word. You always speak of something else...of credit activity which is how people's savings are used to make people invest.
Whenever I speak of seigniorage, don't switch the topic to credit activities, please.
Seigniorage is the reason why Communism was created in the first place.
You rail against bankers.
I defend their being useful.
As for seigniorage, your complaint should be about governments that engage in it.
Blaming banks for it is like blaming the knife for people being stabbed.
For your edification...
Seigniorage - Wikipedia
I am a Christian, first of all.
And I do admit Communism makes victims and has made victims.
But the rich oppressors make many more victims.
For it is written in James 5
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you.
Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.
Your gold and silver are corroded.
Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire.
You have hoarded wealth in the last days.
Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you.
The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.
You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.
You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
I'd rather be oppressed by wealthy capitalists
than your authoritarian communists & socialists.
Little Dragon
Well-Known Member
Which is exactly what I do. I have never had a bank account. If on the very rare occasions a payment absolutely must go through the banking system, I ask a friend to process the transaction via their account, and I refund them in cash. I have never bought anything on credit, although I was raised to never buy things on credit anyway. Always buy out right, in cash preferably. Then you won't be paying any interest.
Little Dragon
Well-Known Member
What difference does it really make?
My life oppressed here under USA's capitalism
is superior to what it would be under socialist
governments, eg, Cuba, N Korea.
Note that the biggest famine in history (The
Great Chinese Famine) was exacerbated by
Mao's socialist policies.
Little Dragon
Well-Known Member
I've been to Cuba, it's not that bad. In fact it's really nice, and cheap. Locals are friendly and not emaciated communist zombies. People will always think the grass is greener on the other side. They're a poor country, a little island. They've all the reasons to have a low standard of living, yet, they have a better rate of adult literacy than the US among other things. The US meanwhile has all the money, while millions live in squalor, on the bread line, or incarcerated.
And by the way, the Socialist State in Europe awards the small entrepreneurship and massacres the billionaires.
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Little Dragon
Well-Known Member
Yes well a murderous tyrant will be a murderous tyrant. His intent was deliberate. To kill. I don't blame socialism for the actions of socialist killers. Nor capitalism for the actions of leaders of capitalist nations.
If life is so great there, I wonder why....
- People risk their lives to escape by tiny boats in a big ocean.
- Putin is finding many ready to kill Ukrainians for meager pay.
I already have enuf
No need to move to Cuba.