Is this experience called capitalism finally over?

Last time a major world power tried captialism, it failed in the most epic fashion in existance.
Humans are corrupt too, and captialism is fresh food for corruption. Im surprised Russia even lasted as long as it had.

 

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capitialism

is still fundamenally better than communism

 

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No this is an exciting time because we are going to see free markets as we have never before seen them operate. The "free market" or capitalism that we have known has really been a form of socialism for the elites only where the elites get the fruits and everyone else gets the bills.

Now we are going to see the corruption that ground the nation and the economy to a grinding hault be torn assunder. It is time to rejoyce.

 

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I say we pick out a couple states and try out each ideology in its purest form for a couple of years and see how it goes. Then we could end this debate once and for all.

 

There is something wrong with a system that requires people to continually make and buy things things, whether they need them or not, in order to keep going.

 

In a capitalist system, no one forces anyone to buy anything. Which is, of course, one of the beauties of the capitalist system.

Baron Max

 

It is interesting, we are now seeing capital flow away from those businesses that rely on government to give them control of their markets (pharma, healthcare, etc) to those that have been and continue to be non dependent on government favors (retail, minerals, etc).

 

"March 4 (Bloomberg) -- Stocks rose around the world, oil and metal prices rallied and Treasuries fell on speculation China will broaden efforts to boost growth and U.S. lawmakers will reach agreement on a plan to stem mortgage defaults. ..."
Full article at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ay.20GWOeTLQ&refer=home

Yes China has problems, but also the money to solve them and the command economy system* to see that it is done. Now China is the only significant hope for the world economy. One can argue about what the GDP growth will be in 2009 (between 4 and 8% seems to be the seriously supported POVs) but the US is in a deepening recession and now many are saying or fearing, what I said a couple of years ago - Namely that depression in US & EU is unavoidable.

US & EU certainly enjoyed many greater personnel liberties that the Chinese masses, but many In US & EU will value those liberties less than a job which puts food on the table soon. US is avoiding immediate collapse into deep depression ONLY by the self-interest of the Chinese lending funds to the US.

This self-interest is rapidly decreasing now as China's production is increasing sold to Chinese - In 2008 the domestic market bought 22% more than in 2007, which bought 18.8% more than in 2006. Also, China's is locking up supplies of energy, food stock, and raw material all over the less developed world in long term contracts (30 years often), which must be paid for. Not in dollars, but in real items, like steel rails and railroad cars, port cranes, excavation equipment for new mines that will ship ores to China in new boats China is building, (Most of the big ocean freight ships are already being built in China), computers, medical equipment, etc. Sales to the US and EU are in decline but increasing to Brazil and other less developed markets than the US and EU.

When this "self interest," now causing loans to US Treasury, becomes negative China will cut the US Treasury off, not even roll their 2 trillion dollars in bonds as they mature. That is when China's domestic market plus all the many foreign obligations it is now signing deals require full employment in the factories WITHOUT any sales to US or EU, China's self interest is then to kill the US and EU economies that would be bidding for oil etc. I.e. send them into deep depression (if not alread in one) by ceasing to finance them.

SUMMARY: I think you have it backwards as to who "had a good run but will go back down."

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*Only for the major sectors. Most of the GDP is selected by Adam Smith's "invisible hand" operating in the "free market."
For example, China built the world's largest airport (1 kilometer long) for the Olympic crowd in less time that the environmental hearings took to just make a new terminal at Heathrow, on land already available. There is quite a large economic cost to the liberities the US and EU enjoy - probably unaffordable now - I.e. "nationalization" of the basics like China has may be essentail. (Auto and financial industries first.)

Building that airport was simple. People whose homes and farms were on the site were told to move. They of course complained, argued for greater compensation payments, (same as in US when the "emanate domain" laws are applied**) but 99.9999% of the Chinese population supported the construction and was proud (if they even knew about it) of the new airport and how quickly it was made.

**GWB misused the emanate domain laws to force the owners of the stadium site of the Texas Rangers to sell. They are supposed to be very limited in use to only items essential to the public welfare, like right away for a sewer line when there is hold-out owner, etc. (GWB was part owner of the Texas Rangers.)

 

Yes ironically China is a bright ray of hope for capitalism. I had been planning on a China based rally in metals. Their commitment to stimulus is far better and more substancial that what the US has offered.

 

China's rise has been also artifical in a way that it was based on the US's huge orders and technology's moving in. What can kill the Chinese economy and rise is peak oil. If oilprices go again above $100 that will put a stop to the industrial process.

Not to mention the huge enviromental catastrophe what is happening there now. Imagine 100 million MORE Chinese driving.

I could be wrong, but I don't think the Chinese will be the winners of the worldwide economic downturn..

The Chinese stockmarket index went from 6000 to 1728 in last November, since then it has been rebounding because there wasn't much more room to go down....

Analysis of China's future:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=8174

 

C'mon! Nevada can have capitalism, California can have environmentalism.. and Florida can have socialism - let the battle begin!!

How else are we gonna know for sure? :shrug:

 

Is this experience called capitalism finally over?

No, Russia and China are moving to capitalism.

 

Holy moley joe, that's some amazing Orwellian doublespeak you've got going there. If government had decided to become less involved in economic affairs and stopped propping up banks and car companies and housing prices, and stopped diverting private resources away towards politically favored industries, I could understand your kind of talk. But as it's doing all of the above, your statement is jaw dropping to read.

 

Most know the sad total, but here is split:

"U.S. private sector firms cut 697,000 jobs in February, according to the ADP employment index, which is based on millions of company payroll records. The ADP index showed the goods-producing sector shed 338,000 jobs, the 26th consecutive decline. The services sector lost 359,000 jobs."

As I recall, the Jan09 number was exactly 100,000 less and often rounded up to 600,000 lost in Jan09, up slightly from Dec08, which was up from Nov08, but even that was more than 500,000. This trend is not only headed in the wrong direction, but accelerating.
---------------
Here is the latest on:
"General Motors (GM $2) announced in a regulatory filing that its auditors warned that the company may not survive as a going concern, confirming its warning last week of the possible auditors opinion. The automaker said the warning was triggered by its enormous cash burn rate. GM said if it fails to execute its viability plan, it could potentially be forced to seek relief through bankruptcy."

PS to Ashura
Not much of Orwell in post 28. - More like Sergent Friday ("Just the facts mam.") if you are old enough to remember that early TV show.

 

Good idea!

 

"... In 2008's fourth quarter, gross domestic product fell by about 6% in the U.S., 6% in the euro zone, 8% in Germany, 12% in Japan, 16% in Singapore and 20% in South Korea. So things are even more awful in Europe and Asia than in the U.S. There is, in fact, a rising risk of a global L-shaped depression that would be even worse than the current, painful U-shaped global recession. Here's why: ..."

Have a stiff drink, and continue reading at:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/04/gl...roubini-economy.html?partner=daily_newsletter which ends with: " ...given the macro outlook--that means expected credit losses for U.S. financial firms will peak at $3.6 trillion. So, in simple words, the U.S. financial system is effectively insolvent. " ("insolvent" that's fancy speak for "bankrupt.")

but no suprizes if you have been reading and believing my predictions for the last few years. (I am not trying to say "I told you so." only to help you understand that the depression in US and EU was made by GWB and Obama probably can not block its arrival. As old civil rights fighter, I do not want to see the first black POTUS stuck with the blame that belongs to an ignorant red neck, who put his financial friends and self before country.)

 

Your idea of free market capitalism must be vastly different from mine if you see 28 as facts. From my POV, socialism for the elites is still going on hard and strong.

 

You mean another labrats???

 

Perhaps there is a misunderstanding. I was not asserting in first footnote of post 28 that China has a free market, not in post text that US does. I do not know if I would go as far as to call the US under GWB, "socialism for the rich" either, but it was close. GWB ruled more of an oligarchy of and for the well connected at the expense of the masses (who are just now starting to pay the bill).

The footnote of 28 only noted that the CCP, unlike the stupid USSR, does not try to centrally manage the details. Most of Chinese commerce is free market managed and the Chinese are very industrious, good entrepreneurs, quickly succeeding in business in most countries of the world they have settled in.

I learned on a train ride in Hungary (from pretty Russian economics student) details central planning stupidity exposed in her three summer jobs in a factory but only tell one as have posted details of all three before. In one of three stupid summers “working” in her tomatoes canning factory, she just sat at her work station reading books in English as the central planners had forgotten to order the can producing factory to also make can lids for her factory. The manager of which, bribed the drivers of the trucks that came daily from the state farms to deliver the tomatoes directly to the town dump.

Also, I do not understand your post: Facts are facts or not, independent of your POV about “free market capitalism.” My “PS” to you was only to note that the facts of post 28 were not “Orwellian double speak” facts. If something in post 28 is not factual, please point it out.

 

Ah, sorry Billy T; mistake was all mine. Since my post was a direct response to joe's (23), I thought you were referring to that in your response to me. I should've gone back and checked to see what 28 was.