Politics What did Romney and the GOP do wrong?

Perhaps ace, the businessman could respond?

As a businessman, would you make decisions based on data or ideology?

Would you really continue with a business plan that did not produced the desired results and cost significantly more than projected?

 

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O.k. let's simplify and go step by step.

I will ask one simple question.

Can anyone here honestly look another person in the eye and argue that Americans are not greedy?

In the area of energy, for example, it is commonly reported US is 5% of the world's population but consumes about 25% of the world's energy. Another, Americans consume about 815 billion food calories per day, exceeding what is necessary by about 200 billion calories....I could go on and on! Please answer my question - I need to know if I am in a reasonable exchange or not.
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The categories of people you listed are greedy capitalist pigs.

You describe our current broken tax policy. It needs to be fixed, most agree it needs to be fixed the dispute is on how.
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given the trillions of dollars in business transactions....or let me ask you in your business dealings what portion is as you suggest? Why would your experience differ from most others, if it does?
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...because we want our parents and grandparents to what???

Social Security and Medicare can not be sustained as it is currently! Do the math.
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Free market capitalism is an economic model in practice in various forms on the globe with the common function of market participants being free to exchanges goods and services with each other or for a fee with an underlying profit motive. I don't understand the reference to Freudism in this context.
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I have made reference to some inherent conflicts in capitalism and ideology. I think it is necessary to attempt to strike a balance between the two, ideally ideology does not conflict with the business decision making process, but it often does. Indirectly answering your question (forces you to think about it) I would not fire a person the week before Christmas, even if the data says I should. I would fire them after the first of the new year - and I would still give them a bonus or a severance package if I could afford it. How would you handle it?

 

Please give an example of Free Market Capitalism from somewhere in the world. I am not convinced this exists.

 

That would probably depend on the reason for firing them. Why would you fire somebody and then give them a bonus and severance package? Or are you talking about laying someone off due to a business downturn? That, in my terminology, is not "firing" someone and there are different laws that come into play (at least, there are here).

 

Banks and phone companies are notorious for "taking advantage" of their customers - The main reason I will never work for establishments who operate deceptively . So what universe are you living in, Ace? Do you enjoy paying a service fee for a bank to use your deposits to make money for themselves? Do you enjoy getting a bill from a phone company with bogus charges they not only refuse to remove from your bill but continue to bill you for month after month - after you have informed them that you did not request the service item they are billing you for? Funny, I never took you for a sap.

I'm sorry but if a company cannot make a profit without fucking over their customers and clients they need to go out of business. It's customers like you, who regard these sort of tactics as some sort of norm, who make it difficult for the rest of us who want to be treated fairly.

So would you buy a new drill from this friend for $150 or would you buy the same drill from Walmart for S84.99? Sorry Ace, but I can see you going into your friend's hardware store for knowledgeable advice about the best drill to buy for your needs then making a beeline for Walmart. I get this from your statement below.

No brainer. Yes, it is. Even an agnostic like me knows about that Christian requirement.

The wealthy don't consume in proportion to their earnings. They have hoarding tendencies. Pure retail consumption by the wealthy is not a considerable revenue source. But then, this has been pointed out to you numerous times.

 

Ace, I saw your answer on my example of capital gains not being treated as income - but that was just an example. A better example might be dividends. I assume that you can set up a company, employ people and pay yourself a very low salary - but pay yourself mostly in dividends. That would make your tax rate lower than the tax rate paid by your employees. As an example.

On a separate subject, but one you raised concerning capitalism, I believe that poorly regulated capitalism brings about the poor service and over-priced offerings that you currently receive in some of the industries you list - especially financial services, telecommunications and - well - healthcare. What other explanation can there be for a country where your healthcare costs are so much higher than any other western country but with worse outcomes (bar some special cases, like cancer care)?

Lastly, your comment about small stores being able to compete with the mega-stores is nonsense. Yes, some niches are still possible - but that's about it, and only in areas where personal service or really top quality come into play. If Wal-Mart, for example, is buying up most of the output from a factory they a) get a better price (so you cannot compete there) and b) tie up that factory so you may not be able to get the product anyway. They also, as described above, get their "special versions" that confuse the unwitting consumer (i.e. you and me, often) into thinking they are getting the same thing. Last, they will undercut on everything until you are out of business - because it makes good business sense for them to do so.
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It doesn't. Poorly regulated capitalism does, though. It's a bubble.

 

Americans and the West overall are greedy. They've been driven like cattle (pigs, if you wish) into the consumer pen. Capitalist marketing strategy has been successfully managing this cattle drive for as long as I've been alive. Is that an excuse? No. It's simply a reason. Habits are forged easily but broken with much difficulty.

How about not having to worry about surviving in their old age? How about they've paid all their working lives for the minimal stipend they are now getting refunded to them?

It can if it's given the social and political priority it deserves.

Because conservatives don't get witticism, irony or sarcasm.

I assume you would only fire someone for just cause. Or are you talking about lay-offs and redundancy? In that case, my actions would be similar to yours. Unfortunately, in the US, the current trend of lay off behavior on the part of larger companies possesses none of this compassion.

 

You know, I sometimes wonder if a large part of the problem is that the dividend from World War II is running out for the USA, The "military complex" cannot keep consumption alive any more. Things need to change now. The USA has huge resources and is a huge market and it's important to all of us that this change is successful. Unfortunately, a large proportion of the US public don't see this and want to put up road-blocks. The future for the USA cannot lie in the past.

 

Or in the aspirations of their lowest common denominator.

 

I honestly have no idea what your point or question is here. In my opinion it's what we used to call FUBAR in the military.

I read your response to other posters on here as well as your responses to mine and I have come to the conclusion you're either just messing with peoples heads or are attempting to emulate a cartoon character of some type.

Either way I see no reason to take your posting seriously.

 

the military-surveillance state is the central conservative patronage network. the right tries to keep that entire, vast sector off the table when they start whinging about ways of redistributing wealth that benefit the poor or sick or elderly---those things are "unsustainable"---but an economy centered on building weapons systems that kill people in great number and with great dispatch, or which expands the prison system that houses the consequences of the barbarism of class warfare conservative style, or the massive, unaccountable surveillance state---no problemo.

 

o and ace, if by "man up" you mean take your inability to think beyond the micro-economics and goofy anecdotes as a point of departure for discussion....it ain't gonna happen.

i see no reason for the failed ideology of the right to be taken seriously.

i am, however, willing to debate questions using other approaches.

 

the military is a central feeder for the republican demographic--not the only one, but a very important one (that is largely un-noticed in the major press so far as i can tell). what's odd is that the same supply-side "thinking" has been applied in significant measure to this sector---giant dough for contractors on the one hand, depressed wages on the other (for example).... and shitty medical services for veterans (the expendible, i suppose). but this does not seem to impact on the relation between the aggregate of folk who pass through the military and the right, particularly not in neo-fascist dominated times of endless war against an Enemy which is everywhere and nowhere, etc. gets the memories of esprit de corps all juiced, that does. plus there's this whole "we are the real americans" thing that appears to lean on the fetishization of the military as "our heroes" etc., which reached a kind of noxious pinnacle with the 2001-2 super bowl (i remember because it was the first the patriots won).... but this is anecdotal...i'm kinda interested in whether there are sociological studies of the right that work this relationship. if i have some leisure, i will look around...

but of course "supply-side" hoodoo results in expansion of state activities (along with incoherent, badly managed attempts at privatization a la rumsfeld)---but it's directed toward conservative-friendly sectors. this is rationalized in conservativeland by yet another form of projection, one which plays to the petit-bourgeois class resentment so basic to conservative identity politics: that social programs designed to make people's lives suck less are a form of democratic party patronage. so the issue is continually diverted.

sooner or later, any coherent approach to altering the direction of the united states is going to have to take on the national-security state.

 

it is a good quote. it sums up ace's "ethics" for example.
but in reality, the right is about something more---and worse---than that. or has been. we'll see what, if anything, changes as the shake-out continues following the debacle that was the romney campaign.