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Post by Undecided on Jun 30, 2011 0:03:18 GMT -5
Quite frankly, yes, I do think that a company has a moral obligation AND a financial obligation to keep its jobs on US shores. Why? To my knowledge, Goldman Sachs does not currently owe the U.S. government any money. I find this argument implausible. Goldman Sachs is one of the largest banking and financial services firms in existence. It provides its services to a variety of institutions worldwide. I seriously doubt that such a small change in the U.S. GDP will affect the firm's ability to attract clients or turn a profit. It's true that people with greater income consume more. But the money that Goldman Sachs saves by paying less for wages can then be used to invest in other businesses. In any case, I don't see why Singaporean businesses deserve the consumer spending any less than American ones do.
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Post by Undecided on Jun 29, 2011 23:17:17 GMT -5
Fred, you know what would be nice? You posting the technical definitions for both ideologies as well as backing up said definitions with a reputable source (university websites are always a plus for this sort of thing). Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica disagree on the definition of socialism, and I disagree with both of their definitions. The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (a libertarian encyclopedia) and several socialist web sites disagree with both on the definition of capitalism. I don't think that there are any "technical" or unbiased definitions for these words written down anywhere. Given this, I have come to believe that, just like "American" and "democracy", "capitalism" and "socialism" are loaded and subjective words: they are better understood by analyzing how people use them than by searching for their true meaning.
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Post by Undecided on Jun 29, 2011 22:41:48 GMT -5
I think it's more to do with the fact that they're firing so many workers. They shouldn't be screwing over their current employees just to save a few bucks. Layoffs are plainly a harrowing ordeal, but Goldman Sachs didn't invent them. It's a property of our economy that companies can terminate employment for business reasons, no matter how loyal, hardworking, competent, or productive the employees are. I can't bring myself to expect anything from a company besides attempting to maximize profits, so I'm not really perturbed or surprised when they do exactly that, even when it's heartless, unethical, disloyal, or cruel.
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Post by Undecided on Jun 29, 2011 19:38:28 GMT -5
Do the people in Singapore who will fill these positions "deserve" the jobs any less than people who will lose their jobs here? Of course not. Everyone deserves a job. The problem is, the company was bailed out with money from American taxpayers. Now they're basically saying "Thanks for all the cash, but fuck you all, it's cheaper overseas". So you're saying that Goldman Sachs is morally obligated to keep jobs in the United States because the United States government loaned money to the company to keep it afloat? Is it realistic to expect that of a corporation?
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Post by Undecided on Jun 29, 2011 18:54:00 GMT -5
Do the people in Singapore who will fill these positions "deserve" the jobs any less than people who will lose their jobs here?
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Post by Undecided on Jun 26, 2011 5:35:53 GMT -5
Either socialists want to make capitalism more efficient or they want to destroy capitalism. Either they're anti-capitalist or pro-capitalist. Which are they? (At least some) Social Democrats want to regulate, limit and/or influence the market in some areas where it is (acc. to their opinion) needed, and leave it otherwise. Can you stuff this in one of the boxes 'pro-capitalist' or 'anti-capitalist'? If you hit it with a hammer, yes. Is it helping understanding and discussion to do so, or does it represent their stance faithfully? No. In other words, hell of a false dichotomy. The objection I would raise is that neither the Social Democrats nor any other center-left movement seek a transfer of ownership of the means of production to the public (except, I presume, in certain rare cases). Instead, they seek to limit what can be done with the means of production that currently exist, regardless of who owns them. The actions are plainly consistent with capitalism.
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Post by Undecided on Jun 26, 2011 5:17:15 GMT -5
Either socialists want to make capitalism more efficient or they want to destroy capitalism. Either they're anti-capitalist or pro-capitalist. Which are they? False dichotomy on aisle 5, next to the ltfreds! What's the third option? You know, Hitler asked people to provide evidence for their claims too. ltfred sees social democrats and revisionist democratic socialists as liberals and not socialists because they have abandoned the idea that public ownership of the means of production is necessary to achieve economic equality. This, I think, is a fair argument, although I disagree with the idea that ownership of the means of production essentializes socialism as a philosophy. I think he is incorrect to assert that there was no pro-capitalist/ anti-capitalist schism in radical political philosophy.
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Post by Undecided on Jun 23, 2011 3:07:20 GMT -5
That may have been how they started, but they're certainly different ideologies now. In order to say this, you need to show a more important communist/socialist theorist than Marx who has said this. Since Marx didn't think this (and Marx invented the communist ideology). What do you think of democratic socialism and social democracy?
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Post by Undecided on Jun 23, 2011 2:05:28 GMT -5
Being terrible at communication does not to me suggest mental illness. The quote you give can be translated from WHARRGARBL to English without much difficulty: The organization of this rant is extremely poor and the content is unfocused and paranoid, but the main points are still fairly easily inferred, given a bit of time. I wouldn't consider mental illness unless large swaths of the post were thoroughly incomprehensible for some idiosyncratic reason (e.g., word salad). Also, I love Bill.
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Post by Undecided on Jun 23, 2011 0:02:35 GMT -5
Just because executives have refused to follow the law does not mean that it is not the law. That is obviously the bottom line. Somehow, I expected better of the current administration than this.
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Post by Undecided on Jun 21, 2011 21:40:09 GMT -5
Prior to the 20th century, nearly all unauthorized executive military action was to fend off pirates, protect commercial interests on foreign coasts, and protect the Mexican border from bandits. When the President took military action against another nation, it was always with the consent of Congress. The largest expansion of executive war powers without prior Congressional authorization took place during and just before World War II. President Roosevelt created several emergency agencies answerable only to him and without the approval of Congress, but Congress nevertheless funded them. He issued an executive order to forcibly relocate Japanese Americans from the West Coast, but Congress backed the order with an Act just afterwards. His office seized factories from striking workers, but Congress justified this post facto with the War Labor Disputes Act. Also via executive order, he gave his agencies the power to enforce labor and ration regulations with economic sanctions unauthorized by Congress, but the Supreme Court considered it justifiable in a case which challenged this power. After the War, all of these changes were rolled back due to political pressure. However, they set the precedent for future executive action without Congressional approval. The Cold War pressured the United States to maintain a global presence. In the 1950s and 1960s, Presidents engaged military conflicts in Korea, Central America, the Middle East and Indochina. The increasing unpopularity of these actions precipitated the approval of the War Powers Act, whose constitutionality has been a point of contention between the Executive and Congress in nearly every armed conflict since. The Supreme Court and lower courts have remained deliberately silent as to the apparent constitutional question. The Supreme Court has summarily ignored the issue each time it has been brought to its attention; lower courts have deemed it a political question, something they are not willing to answer. The 107th Congress gave War Powers Act authorization for U.S. presence in both Afghanistan and Iraq. President Bush solicited and signed both, but his administration, like all those before it, maintained that the approval of Congress was not needed for it to take military action.
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Post by Undecided on Jun 16, 2011 1:29:29 GMT -5
I don't think it's very fruitful to attempt to compare Australia and the United States with regards to adherence to civil libertarian principles. Looking at each country's record on freedom of speech and secularism, capital punishment, treatment of indigenous and minority populations, privacy, economic policy, etc., I'd speculate that in some cases the United States is the more liberal country and in others Australia is; it seems too subjective to say which is more liberal as a whole.
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Post by Undecided on Jun 11, 2011 15:41:07 GMT -5
Goldfish fish Ichthyophobia phobia Nyctophobia Monsters under the bed
Newt Gingrich to Betelgeuse.
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Post by Undecided on May 27, 2011 20:59:03 GMT -5
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Post by Undecided on May 27, 2011 20:44:42 GMT -5
Because man didn't evolve from monkeys you close-eared buffoon. Sure we did. Paraphyly *hisses*
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