lol the protesters are ignorant to economics? I am an activist myself and I protest the bailouts right alongside the Occupiers. I happen to understand the detriment of Cronyism in a Capitalist society. You cannot have cronyism and free markets in the same system, the two are mutually exclusive. I hate when pundits try to define all activists as being socialists; we are Libertarians also!
@anonwoohoo There's a problem with libertarians on OWS... they're not the majority, and if something is gonna get done, it will be the socialists who will choose what will it be. I understand the idea of being against the bailouts, but the reasons why a libertarian and a socialist would be against the same thing are totally opposed, so as the solutions would be. If I were you... I wouldn't side with them, if you value your ideas as a libertarian.
The Banksters are destroying this country. They CONTROL our LEGISLATORS, have destroyed the free market, and created a CORPORATOCRACY of multinational corporations manipulating and controlling the MASSES.
We MUST bring back liberty, freedom, states rights, the CONSTITUTION, sound money, and smaller government!!
Dont want to pay taxes? then dont use anything government funded. You cannot get something for nothing. Sure it sounds great and we all would.. but its not right to want so much from the government yet not expect to pay taxes because its "stealing" I understand taxes but extremely high taxes i do not.
Wages in the US have been exploding for decades. Economists don't measure the gains from product improvement. This video shows a simple equation that will win the debate for Stossel. Just ask 2 simple questions. What is quality? What is convenience? One equation can explain it all. youtube.com/watch?v=2c4mvGekYZY
How much money will be paid to keep Buddy Roemer off the ballot? I hope he runs as an Independent, wins the Presidential Election by the people for the people. He will REFORM GOVERNMENT. NO PAC MONEY! THE problem is WASHINGTON!
What are the Democrats and the Republicans gonna do then? They will start dropping out of Congress like flies if they can't collect their fringe benefits. $
Economics is like psychology. It seems like economics, like psychology, tries to qualify itself as a real science. Meaning Economist try to treat markets and economics as a hard science, like biology and chemistry. Not the case. Much like it is not the case for psychology.
@americans4integrity Much of economics is a hard science. Soft science means A+B sometimes produces C, sometimes D. Hard science means A+B=C. Broken window fallacy, inflation, and many more are true in absolutes.
Besides, being a soft science doesn't make it any less science than a hard science. Spitting on people will make them angry. But because it's not always true, it's a soft science. But that doesn't mean it's irrelevant.
I make nearly twice the median household salary and pay oodles of taxes. I pay far more than millionaires like Mitt Romney with their 15% capital gains bullshit. The economist in this clip is smart, the host is an idiot. The reason everyone is mad is because hard, honest work is taxed at twice the rate of sitting on your ass and investing. The last 2 recessions were investment bubbles -- we don't need to encourage reckless investment and penalize hard work!
@miketwo345 And John Stossel is an idiot because he wants to get rid of the income tax and all the regulations which stay in the way of small business? Because he wants to deregulate the economy, so the big corporations won't have unfair advantage over small companies? Is he an idiot because he wants to stop bailing the bankrupts out? I don't think so, I just think you had too little of the John up until now. Research more brother.
@zbyszanna There's nothing wrong with wanting less taxes, less regulations and no bailouts. In fact I'd argue that OWS shares the last part of those goals.
John's an idiot because he throws up a video of craziest crazy he can find, pretending that this strawman is decent representation of the movement. He then argues against this idiot's rant, because birds of a feather flock together. It's like arguing against the Tea Party by leading with this video: /watch?v=bgec9WX21ik
@miketwo345 Stossel uses examples we have all seen. The 'crazy's' you refer to are ones we've all seen. He didn't make them up--he's illustrating his point with one of your guys. And its a good point.
Thanks for your comment. It is indeed very important to understand that govt protect private properties and help the wealth to be created by maintaining a situation of law and order.
If it wasn't for John Rockefeller personally financing competitor banks without interest during the great depression, the entire banking system would have collapsed in America. Government failed, but JR and a hand full of other bank owners saved the nation.
Fair would be a flat tax on total wealth (or at least monopolized land), not on total income. The government's role as a protector or private property disproportionally benefits those who have the most property to protect.
1. There is zero justification for taxing owned wealth.
2. The government does not protect my property, it recognizes my individual rights to not be molested BY the government. Look at the bill of rights again. It recognizes the rights of the individual to not be molested by the government.
1. There is at least as much justification for taxing wealth as taxing income. it is an arbitrary choice between the two either way, with one choice favoring old wealth and the other favoring a stronger work ethic.
2. The government certainly protects private property. Without the government, theft would not be a crime and you would have to hire your own security guards to protect your things.
This was a seriously manipulative video. It cherry picks clips of only the least well-spoken members of the opposing viewpoint, and displays a chart that shows income growth for the lowest fifth without mentioning the vastly greater income growth for the highest fifth. Steve Jobs deserves it because he's a great job creator? Why not ask the Chinese people who work 16 hour shifts on grueling iPhone assembly lines for almost no pay if they think Steve deserves extra money for creating those jobs.
@grapefruitgrove said [[Why not ask the Chinese people who work 16 hour shifts on grueling iPhone assembly lines for almost no pay if they think Steve deserves extra money for creating those jobs.]]
A. What does "deserve" have to do with "earned" and "created"?
B. We can presume that these Chinese want that job as opposed to some other job or no job. Anyone in China is free to refuse a job, but they would be free to be in a worse position as a consequence of that rejection.
@LucisFerre1 Hi Lucis! In response to A, "earned" is a synonym for "deserved", and I'm not sure how you mean "created", but creating something does not imply compensation. I'm an artist, I know! Economic systems like ours in America are based on the concept of desert (as in "deserve"). The only way we justify having more wealth than others is "deserving" or "earning" it. Without this concept, murdering someone to take their money would be an acceptable part of a free market.
@grapefruitgrove said [[Hi Lucis! In response to A, "earned" is a synonym for "deserved", and I'm not sure how you mean "created", but creating something does not imply compensation]]
Steve Jobs created wealth & work that otherwise would not exist. Saying that he doesn't deserve the income that he earned because of the monetary amount is not a sound argument. Job's pursuit of market share helps our standard of living, and the standard of living overseas also where they produce the products.
@LucisFerre1 And in response to B, obviously those Chinese laborers are free to refuse a job, but they would be, as you said, in a similar or worse position because of that action. The people that actually construct our iPhones are part of a class that, if extant in America, would be called a slave class. That sort of thing has been abolished here because it is a horrible thing to do human beings, so Apple decided to lessen the cost of an iPhone by a few bucks by going where that
@grapefruitgrove said [[because it is a horrible thing to do human beings, so Apple decided to lessen the cost of an iPhone by a few bucks by going where that]]
Contrary to popular belief, free trade (international trade) aids both parties, it's a win-win. If you REALLY want to help poor Chinese families financially as well as work standards, then encourage more outsourcing of production labor for American products. If you want the Chinese to go hungry, then protest them having outsourced jobs.
@LucisFerre1 sort of thing is still acceptable for manufacturing. Personally, I don't feel behavior like that should "earn" somebody billions of dollars. There was a point in history where the inventor of a product and the actual builder of the product were both paid fair, living wages, and neither lived miserable lives. How could Steve Jobs feel comfortable in his wealth knowing of the misery of countless hundreds of thousands that is simultaneously taking place because of it?
@grapefruitgrove, people in third world nations would prefer to build iPod products than the alternative. How do I know this? Because they're doing it. We had our industrial age and it led to greater things, like a higher standard of living for everyone and more service related jobs. If these people in these third world nations DESIRE the production jobs, then why would you prefer to put them out of work and for them to suffer in a relative sense?
@halloranedward And it seems that the same bums that want their school debts wiped off the slates are complaining about the bailouts of bank debts. These hypocrites should call themselves the 99 weekers instead of the 99%ers because 99 weeks is the limit for unemployment benefits, the limit of time a hippy can spend in a dirty tent and receive other people's money instead of working for a living.
There is a deficit of economic education in the United States. We have free public education for twelve years and in that time, it is highly unlikely students are required to take economics for credit to graduate or even as an elective. If instead of home economics or a personal finance course a real principles of economics course was offered, maybe movements like OWS would have no basis for existence.
@BogartWestern, said [[There is a deficit of economic education in the United States.]]
What's interesting is that Thomas Sowell was a Marxist in his early years and even when he had Milton Friedman as his economics professor. It wasn't until he worked in government that he saw the light, and the utter foolishness of Marxism.
John Stossel is such a clown, here this guy is trying to make a pretty cogent argument and credit OWS on what little merit it deserves and Stossel gleefully pisses on him. The way he belittles the protesters is hardly any different than the way he demeans his audience by being willfully and woefully ignorant, not asking the pertinent questions but only furthering his circumscribed narrative. It smacks of arrogant journalistic pandering. Put bluntly: he sucks.
@Shaymeonyoo The we are the 53% is probably the biggest farce of all. Here's someone like Mitt Romney who'se effective tax rate is actually below 15%, and who's defense is he pays only as much as is required by the letter of the law. Okay, fair enough, but the same can and should be said of the 47%--taking the myriad deductions and credits into account, they pay no income tax. GE and Romney do just the same. So how much should we ask someone earning under 33k/year to contribute?
@xxcrysad3000xx As long as programs like Social Security and Medicare are around, we should expect all of the beneficiaries of those programs to pay 100% into what they will take out.
That isn't the case, which is why Medicare and ostensibly Social Security are on the fast track to becoming bankrupt.
Democrats tell you the so-called rich can make up the difference, which is a cop-out.
The federal governments financial liabilities are around 3 trillion dollars per year.
@xxcrysad3000xx Wake the fuck up, "rich" people aren't going to pay for 600 billion Medicare, 600 billion Military, 300 billion Medicaid costs.....
Its easy, like the OWS movement did, to blame the "rich" for everything, without having to deal with the actual numbers involved in the discussion.
Cutting "payroll taxes" (another name for Social Security/Medicare revenue) without cutting the spending in those programs is what is putting us on the fast track toward bankruptcy.fool
@xxcrysad3000xx My point being that the din you hear from the left on capital gains and carried interest tax rates is the same song the right sings about 47% not paying any individual income taxes. It isn't like something underhanded is going on here, they don't pay because they don't qualify under federal statute. Had their income been higher they would be under obligation to pay; the travesty here is that 47% of Americans earn so little they legally cannot contribute.
@xxcrysad3000xx said [[It isn't like something underhanded is going on here, they don't pay because they don't qualify under federal statute.]]
And yet when the rich take THEIR allocated deductions and exemptions, they're accused of theft and treason for "loopholes", when it's the IRS that tells them what exemptions and deductions they're due. When you take your personal exemption and standard deduction and maybe take a "green" tax credit, are you committing treason?
@LucisFerre1 And even with these supposed "loopholes", the top 1% of income earners are STILL paying nearly 40% of all federal income taxes per annum.
@xxcrysad3000xx according to Obama and the Democrats, the 47% who don't pay income tax should pay "their fair share".
look, we are discussing revenue problems, when it ultimately comes down to Federal expenditure.....
politicians are always looking for new ways to FUND the programs they promise to people, without ever cutting the spending in those programs they promise.
@Shaymeonyoo keep promising shit to people (Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society, Medicare/Medicaid) without figuring how to pay for these BEHEMOTHS of Federal programs.
The majority of the populace who benefits from said programs will vote for the party that promises not to cut benefits, the cycle continues until we are all run into the dirt like Greece.
@Shaymeonyoo the social programs are just a front, what they really want is price control. The majority of the fed/state bureaucracy has nothing to do with welfare, commerce, labor, economic development, energy, epa, etc. If we don't wake up soon it will be to late.
@Shaymeonyoo said [[look, we are discussing revenue problems, when it ultimately comes down to Federal expenditure.....]]
Exactly. Our nation's revenue to GDP ratio is not far from average. Yet we're about 15 trillion in debt. Obviously the problem is a tremendous amount of deficit spending.
If you were to do some actual looking, you'd find that there are smart people in this movement who know what the real problems are, who caused them, and have propose actual solutions to fix them. The problem is that they're a minority in a majority of people who are immensely ignorant, selfish, lack any universal goals, no fixes and seem to think they're targeting the right people when they aren't.
For this reason, this protest was doomed to fail because the foolish outnumber the intellectuals.
Some robber barons are deserving of that title. Others...
Rockefeller's company drove down oil prices, slowly and consistently, for decades. Largely thanks to him, kerosene became a household item. Ordinary people could suddenly have light in the evening and at night, which meant they could read books in the evening, or work an extra hour or two and live better or save for the future. Regular people could get educated, and could educate their children. -
- And when he came under flak for doing it so well that no one else could compete with him, he kept right on doing it. All the way up until his company was cannibalized to make way for less efficient competitors.
Anyone who values productivity or education on any kind of abstract, moral or aesthetic level should recognize the contribution and martyrdom of Rockefeller.
@pulsatingremedy I got a good laugh out of that one too. You really wouldn't say Rockefeller was swaying with the breeze of pure and unadulterated capitalism, he and his enterprise was heavily vested in and owed a great deal to Uncle Sam and his discerning stewardship.
Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line, catapulting industry into a realm it'd never been in before by making the automobile, the AUTOMOBILE....a complex machine which has hundreds of thousands of parts, systems and complex mechanics, affordable. That means you and I can go to the store and buy them, and not be out on the street afterwards.
Point taken. The automobile is a pretty clear example. I just prefer subtle and rebellious figures, in general.
What's even more cool than accidentally improving the standard of living of millions of people? Doing so in spite of persecution and threats of overwhelming force from the state, in ways which people don't even realize until they've had it pointed out to them. : D
I love how that second ugly piece of shit actually said it's american to have to work three jobs and john shithill kind of giggles to him self....reminds me of when that lady told g dubya she worked three jobs and he smiled and said it was "uniquely americans" make no mistake folks, the right wing want to rework the meaning of the word "freedom" as working 15 hours for $2 an hour I'd like to see the talking head do a day of manual labor maybe use his mustache as a push -broom
Stossel and these guys are 80% right. The 20% they are wrong on is the fact that we don't live in capitalism. We live in government controlled corporatism. In a captialistic society, the people at the top would be there for a REASON. Now, it seems like most of the rich people are there because the government is bailing them out and preventing them from failing where the free market would let them fall on their face.
Capitalism means a society ruled by capitalists. In corporatism, society is ruled by capitalists. Please explain to me how 'corporatism =capitalism' is untrue.
My wife has Fibromayiga. She want to school 4 years and I worked. Now, my fibromaygia wife works at chase and she wents to work. And I went to work. All those 99% lazy people just went free.
1. The use of the unemployment statistic is really misleading. Try comparing unemployment between those just out of college and those who are older and even try comparing by field. (EG: psych field is very high unemployment)
2. Income statistic: adjusted for inflation or not?
3. Top 1% create wealth? Not all of them. You don't see an "Occupy Silicon Valley" but you see an "Occupy Wall street" because of derivatives trading that produces no net wealth and crashes the system.
@aldreato Of course the income statistic is adjucted for inflation, it would be meaningless otherwise. One thing that is not talked about, however, is the increase in benefits and improved working conditions people have seen. When you consider total compensation, including more pleasant and flexible working conditions, things aren't all that bad. (One way to measure the value of better working conditions is how much it costs a company to provide them.)
The %99 are wrong but for the right reasons. They do not know how economics works and taxing the rich will not help and socialism is the problem. But what the 50% does not realize is the young feel that they have no future because they are being berried with more regulation and debt that helps a select few. boomer and X do not take into account that it is not the same. The government has more of a hold than it did a year ago. X had the teck boom their is little chance this will happen again.
Do the current measures help the US capitalist class? If yes, then you Americans have a weird kind of socialism, one that benefits capitalists and crushes workers.
@pulsatingremedy socialism for the rich, capitalism for everyone else......it's called facisim. How about plutocracy....how bout cleptocracy. steel from the poor and give to the rich.
It's regulations that certain major corporations lobby for... In order to hold back competitors, -rather- than innovating, that bothers a lot of people. Corporatism is not Capitalism. They just don't understand the distinction.
Capitalism means a society ruled by the capitalists. Corporatism is a philosphy that sees society as a body, with the ruling class as a head, and the working classes as hands and feet. The body should not oppose itself in any way, so class warfare by the working class is illegalized.
Corporatism IS capitalist, as the rule of capital exists inside of contemporary corporatism.
Corporatism = Socialistic government taken over by the most powerful companies &/or families..and this is only natural
Which is why government needs to minimize it's power as much as possible so there won't be any possible handouts companies/families/general populace can lobby for
Now I finally know who the 99% are...the economic "illiterati". It's no wonder we have these get Marxist politicians and socialist policies! Every kid should be required to master econ 101.
Of course not every person understands how the economy works, that is natural.
"Every kid should be required to master econ 101."
This will never be a law. It would require the working class to spend time outside of their jobs, leaving less profit to the ruling class. Seeing as how you suggested that, I don't think you know how our economy works either.
I also loved it when stossel made the comment about shitty entry level craigs list jobs that probably pay seven bucks an hour and saying 'some people don't want to work'....i don't exactly consider what he does "work"
There is nothing inherently evil about capitalists. It is the roll of the capitalist in our society which creates moral outrage. That is why I believe that reforming capitalism to make the people in it nicer, is useless.
Do you agree with me that there have been wars for profit?
@pulsatingremedy Wars aren't waged by private companies, they're waged by government, even if private interests are the ones lobbying for them. Even so-called private armies like Blackwater are employed by government, not by the market. Why would you trust the same government doing all of this to reform anything?
"even if private interests are the ones lobbying for them"
So you agree with me that there have been wars for profit, good.
"Why would you trust the same government doing all of this to reform anything"
I don't. I see the end of government, either by destruction or by withering away, as desirable. The government is a tool that one class uses to oppress another. To end class-dictatorship, the end of the government/state is necessary.
I'm shamed sometimes. Shamed when it turns out I have something to learn about the economy, and shamed when people assume the economy is so complicated that they can't understand the things staring them in the face day by day. At the same time, I think the protestors should be divided between Wall Street and Washington. Both are culpable for the collectivist insanity that is today's political spectrum. The protestors should also protest themselves for continued support of DC and Wall Street.
In Norway too 1% of the top controls over 30% of all the capital in the country. Its perfectly normal, and we are socialist-capitalist country. And we have over 20% effective unemployment. Stop whining you silly americans.
Um What? National Socialism = fascism. There are only three types of people in the world:
People who believe in absolute freedom and property rights (i.e. anarchists)
People who believe in absolute government and no property rights (i.e. communists)
And everyone in the middle (i.e. National Socialism).
All National Socialism (aka democratic socialism) means is a mixed economy. Socialism = government If you believe in any National government you are a Nazi
Anarchism and socialism are antithetical concepts Anarchy is the belief that association should be voluntary. Communism and socialism are the opposite; namely that people are slaves to be pushed around at the whim of the state.
Anarcho-communism is an oxymoron, much like the government mind control agent Chomsky's "Libertarian socialism." Their existence is one of the many symptoms of mass-schizophrenia of the human race
Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels Let me guess: You are one of those psychotic and mass-murdering communist apologists and are now seriously going to sit there and claim that communism is not based on a totalitarian central state and that the USSR, the EU,China and Cambodia were not /are not communist and you would like to try your stupid fucking idea again despite getting everything you wanted the first time and seeing that it cost hundreds of millions of lives
@pulsatingremedy Er, then read it again, fluffy. The rest are websites, thus the com, displaying and dismantling the laughable yet hideous cognitive dissonance that is the left. That's where you come in...
@killerbee2k That's sad to hear, pretty sure our wealth differentiation is larger that 1%/30%.
20% unemployed and you do nothing about it? Guess you can't, understandable.
Oh yea, is Norway 14 trillion in debt? Is the entire economy in Norway on reliant on the fuel of their enemies land? Idk much about Norway but comparing it to the U.S. in such a simplistic way is so silly. The influence of the U.S. on the globe, economically, and militarily, is a bit more then that of Norway.
@fuckifacation123 Norway have huge surplus of capital in our State-Pension-Fund but we still have over 20% real unemployment which is built into our wellfare system and is expanding every year.
And comparing two countries, doesnt matter which one is not silly or simplistic, its called "comparative politics". Even though are two hugely different countries, its still intellectually stimulating to study the differences and similarities.
Despite knowing basic tenets of the Austrian point of view, I find it absolutely disgraceful that those guys even dare call themselves economists. The Occupy Wall Street movement was as superficial in terms of ideology as this video. It's a shame so many brilliant political scholars come from the United States, yet those who possess real leverage are politically illiterate, like the 99%, the 53% as well as those guys.
@RunLiberty I disagree, everyone has to take basic economics in high school, I took it and that's why I think the way I do. but some people don't understand and it doesn't stick, but government is still totally failing schools lol
i agree with most of this clip except there are no jobs, the guy in the beginining is wrong. Also the "i failed at bus. 3 times" guy was picked up on the R.Limbo show b/c of his website. Rush hooked him up with Fox and they had him on Hannity show -- they gave him some free stuff, money and offered help from their studio to help set up his web business. Stossel should be ashamed for having this shill on
@val5214 Yea, I agree. Not a classic stossel video. I wish it didn't make libertarians sound so status quo an neoconish. I think we need to focus on the fact that these protesters should be in Washington not Wall Street. I do believe, as did Friedman, that a failure of government may need an act of government as a transitional phase instead of just literally not doing anything. The only thing I wish they could do is help people pay off their house, or we're going to have a bigger crisis.
@USTreasuryBond No, house prices should adjust to their true market worth. Not be artificially inflated by the government. That's what really caused the crisis.
Don't give me that shit that they help us. They do more taking then giving. Steve Jobs made great products but he raped the Chinese people for cheap labour and raped the American people by selling a cheap product for three time as much as he put into it. Literate That!!!!!
The only reason he would ever be able to get away with such expensive products, is because the state is giving monolopy powers in the form of patents to him. With out such special rights, and the police powers to back it up, competitors could just make cheaper products that could do the same. "Market Failures" are almost always caused by States
@Illyrien Do you think the government can run on air? Do you think we live in a free world? We need money for everything. Thats why you work. You work for money. Do give me that we dont need taxes, Our money supports it. As long as we need money we are not free.
These guys dont know economics. Companies make billions sometime trillions and you tell me you cant pay at least $14 dollars an hour. Banking and any kind of loans should not be above 5%. Everybody has to bank. Thats millions of people at 5%. Thats alot of money. Steve Job gave chiana jobs at slavery prices and had Americans buy them for 3 times more then he put in. Thats rape to both Chiana and America. Steave Jobs raped us so that takes away from a great products.
Interest rates in a free market would be determined by supply of and demand for lendable funds. If nobody wants to lend, then the interest rate will be very high, which is quite fine. Its artificial interest rates, and those endless amount of laws, just like the 5% law you are proposing, which are causing problems
Without Free enterprise, technology wouldn't have progressed to the point in which now exists, in fact far from it.
People develop new technologies under the assumption that their inventions will make them rich.
Case in point, look back on the Soviet Union, the Soviet regime prevented personal wealth, so R&D ground on first gear while it skyrocketed in the west. The best and brightest of the USSR defected to the west, and without free enterprise, the people remained destitute.
under gaddafi healthcare was free,education was free,married couples recieved a grant just after they we're married and land was given for free as well.guess there was no happy ending there...
The income chart in this video is misleading at best, in it's portrayal of devaluated currency growth. But this is an economy question on behaviors that we value and devalue...Should we tax the things we like or dislike?
free enterprise goal is to eliminate all jobs. =) Then what will have. Socialism =) for all our inventions will do for us. Then i guess we can go fishing more. =)
lol the protesters are ignorant to economics? I am an activist myself and I protest the bailouts right alongside the Occupiers. I happen to understand the detriment of Cronyism in a Capitalist society. You cannot have cronyism and free markets in the same system, the two are mutually exclusive. I hate when pundits try to define all activists as being socialists; we are Libertarians also!
anonwoohoo 8 hours ago
@anonwoohoo There's a problem with libertarians on OWS... they're not the majority, and if something is gonna get done, it will be the socialists who will choose what will it be. I understand the idea of being against the bailouts, but the reasons why a libertarian and a socialist would be against the same thing are totally opposed, so as the solutions would be. If I were you... I wouldn't side with them, if you value your ideas as a libertarian.
AkaiTsukiShimitsu 3 hours ago
The Banksters are destroying this country. They CONTROL our LEGISLATORS, have destroyed the free market, and created a CORPORATOCRACY of multinational corporations manipulating and controlling the MASSES.
We MUST bring back liberty, freedom, states rights, the CONSTITUTION, sound money, and smaller government!!
Ron Paul 2012 !!!
RON PAUL or NOBODY !!!!!!
getbo 14 hours ago
A generation of spoiled degenerates. What do you expect after 70 years of historically peerless fat times.
Skandalos 18 hours ago
Progressives are the most selfish people imaginable yet try to portray themselves as they exact opposite.
fishblades 2 days ago
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The first guy disagrees substantially with both the occupy people AND STOSSEL. And he's right to take that middle - sane - position.
bahramf 3 days ago
This guy disagrees substantially with both the occupy people AND STOSSEL. And he's right to take that middle - sane - position.
bahramf 3 days ago
Dont want to pay taxes? then dont use anything government funded. You cannot get something for nothing. Sure it sounds great and we all would.. but its not right to want so much from the government yet not expect to pay taxes because its "stealing" I understand taxes but extremely high taxes i do not.
psycho2793 5 days ago
Was Stossel one of the canceled shows because if not i can bet you he will be soon. Got rid of Judge why not Stossel.
DrunkenGodMode 1 week ago
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Wages in the US have been exploding for decades. Economists don't measure the gains from product improvement. This video shows a simple equation that will win the debate for Stossel. Just ask 2 simple questions. What is quality? What is convenience? One equation can explain it all. youtube.com/watch?v=2c4mvGekYZY
IlirMr 1 week ago
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How much money will be paid to keep Buddy Roemer off the ballot? I hope he runs as an Independent, wins the Presidential Election by the people for the people. He will REFORM GOVERNMENT. NO PAC MONEY! THE problem is WASHINGTON!
What are the Democrats and the Republicans gonna do then? They will start dropping out of Congress like flies if they can't collect their fringe benefits. $
"FREE TO LEAD" BUDDY ROEMER.COM
LET'S GET THE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS!
mariahawk5 1 week ago
Why are liberals so ardent about pushing their fisting fetish? In every rally they have about 50% of the signs have an image of a fist on them...
jakeyw11 2 weeks ago
Economics is like psychology. It seems like economics, like psychology, tries to qualify itself as a real science. Meaning Economist try to treat markets and economics as a hard science, like biology and chemistry. Not the case. Much like it is not the case for psychology.
americans4integrity 3 weeks ago
@americans4integrity Much of economics is a hard science. Soft science means A+B sometimes produces C, sometimes D. Hard science means A+B=C. Broken window fallacy, inflation, and many more are true in absolutes.
Besides, being a soft science doesn't make it any less science than a hard science. Spitting on people will make them angry. But because it's not always true, it's a soft science. But that doesn't mean it's irrelevant.
DeathOfAMudkip 3 weeks ago
I make nearly twice the median household salary and pay oodles of taxes. I pay far more than millionaires like Mitt Romney with their 15% capital gains bullshit. The economist in this clip is smart, the host is an idiot. The reason everyone is mad is because hard, honest work is taxed at twice the rate of sitting on your ass and investing. The last 2 recessions were investment bubbles -- we don't need to encourage reckless investment and penalize hard work!
I am the 53% AND the 99%.
miketwo345 3 weeks ago
@miketwo345 And John Stossel is an idiot because he wants to get rid of the income tax and all the regulations which stay in the way of small business? Because he wants to deregulate the economy, so the big corporations won't have unfair advantage over small companies? Is he an idiot because he wants to stop bailing the bankrupts out? I don't think so, I just think you had too little of the John up until now. Research more brother.
zbyszanna 3 weeks ago
@zbyszanna There's nothing wrong with wanting less taxes, less regulations and no bailouts. In fact I'd argue that OWS shares the last part of those goals.
John's an idiot because he throws up a video of craziest crazy he can find, pretending that this strawman is decent representation of the movement. He then argues against this idiot's rant, because birds of a feather flock together. It's like arguing against the Tea Party by leading with this video: /watch?v=bgec9WX21ik
miketwo345 3 weeks ago
@miketwo345 Stossel uses examples we have all seen. The 'crazy's' you refer to are ones we've all seen. He didn't make them up--he's illustrating his point with one of your guys. And its a good point.
jmshaw357 2 weeks ago
@zbyszanna The easiest way to demonstrate stupidity is to misrepresent your opponents' views. John does this in spades.
miketwo345 3 weeks ago
@miketwo345 You sound like a guy whose ox was gored. Liberals wil always hate John Stossel.
jmshaw357 2 weeks ago
@magister443
Thanks for your comment. It is indeed very important to understand that govt protect private properties and help the wealth to be created by maintaining a situation of law and order.
pallab1234 3 weeks ago
Go Stossel!
tsaotsaotherebel 4 weeks ago
If it wasn't for John Rockefeller personally financing competitor banks without interest during the great depression, the entire banking system would have collapsed in America. Government failed, but JR and a hand full of other bank owners saved the nation.
LucisFerre1 4 weeks ago
53% <3
MoSxyxnr24 4 weeks ago
Fair would be a flat tax on total wealth (or at least monopolized land), not on total income. The government's role as a protector or private property disproportionally benefits those who have the most property to protect.
magister343 4 weeks ago
@magister343
1. There is zero justification for taxing owned wealth.
2. The government does not protect my property, it recognizes my individual rights to not be molested BY the government. Look at the bill of rights again. It recognizes the rights of the individual to not be molested by the government.
LucisFerre1 4 weeks ago
@LucisFerre1
1. There is at least as much justification for taxing wealth as taxing income. it is an arbitrary choice between the two either way, with one choice favoring old wealth and the other favoring a stronger work ethic.
2. The government certainly protects private property. Without the government, theft would not be a crime and you would have to hire your own security guards to protect your things.
magister343 3 weeks ago
@magister343 The thing is - taxing is stealing no matter what. So, you really can't justify it there.
leeknivek 1 week ago
This was a seriously manipulative video. It cherry picks clips of only the least well-spoken members of the opposing viewpoint, and displays a chart that shows income growth for the lowest fifth without mentioning the vastly greater income growth for the highest fifth. Steve Jobs deserves it because he's a great job creator? Why not ask the Chinese people who work 16 hour shifts on grueling iPhone assembly lines for almost no pay if they think Steve deserves extra money for creating those jobs.
grapefruitgrove 4 weeks ago
@grapefruitgrove said [[Why not ask the Chinese people who work 16 hour shifts on grueling iPhone assembly lines for almost no pay if they think Steve deserves extra money for creating those jobs.]]
A. What does "deserve" have to do with "earned" and "created"?
B. We can presume that these Chinese want that job as opposed to some other job or no job. Anyone in China is free to refuse a job, but they would be free to be in a worse position as a consequence of that rejection.
LucisFerre1 4 weeks ago
@LucisFerre1 Hi Lucis! In response to A, "earned" is a synonym for "deserved", and I'm not sure how you mean "created", but creating something does not imply compensation. I'm an artist, I know! Economic systems like ours in America are based on the concept of desert (as in "deserve"). The only way we justify having more wealth than others is "deserving" or "earning" it. Without this concept, murdering someone to take their money would be an acceptable part of a free market.
grapefruitgrove 4 weeks ago
@grapefruitgrove said [[Hi Lucis! In response to A, "earned" is a synonym for "deserved", and I'm not sure how you mean "created", but creating something does not imply compensation]]
Steve Jobs created wealth & work that otherwise would not exist. Saying that he doesn't deserve the income that he earned because of the monetary amount is not a sound argument. Job's pursuit of market share helps our standard of living, and the standard of living overseas also where they produce the products.
LucisFerre1 3 weeks ago
@LucisFerre1 And in response to B, obviously those Chinese laborers are free to refuse a job, but they would be, as you said, in a similar or worse position because of that action. The people that actually construct our iPhones are part of a class that, if extant in America, would be called a slave class. That sort of thing has been abolished here because it is a horrible thing to do human beings, so Apple decided to lessen the cost of an iPhone by a few bucks by going where that
grapefruitgrove 4 weeks ago
@grapefruitgrove, there is no "slave class". Workers in China can certainly leave one job (or be fired) and go (or be forced to go) to another job.
LucisFerre1 3 weeks ago
@grapefruitgrove said [[because it is a horrible thing to do human beings, so Apple decided to lessen the cost of an iPhone by a few bucks by going where that]]
Contrary to popular belief, free trade (international trade) aids both parties, it's a win-win. If you REALLY want to help poor Chinese families financially as well as work standards, then encourage more outsourcing of production labor for American products. If you want the Chinese to go hungry, then protest them having outsourced jobs.
LucisFerre1 3 weeks ago
@LucisFerre1 sort of thing is still acceptable for manufacturing. Personally, I don't feel behavior like that should "earn" somebody billions of dollars. There was a point in history where the inventor of a product and the actual builder of the product were both paid fair, living wages, and neither lived miserable lives. How could Steve Jobs feel comfortable in his wealth knowing of the misery of countless hundreds of thousands that is simultaneously taking place because of it?
grapefruitgrove 4 weeks ago
@grapefruitgrove, people in third world nations would prefer to build iPod products than the alternative. How do I know this? Because they're doing it. We had our industrial age and it led to greater things, like a higher standard of living for everyone and more service related jobs. If these people in these third world nations DESIRE the production jobs, then why would you prefer to put them out of work and for them to suffer in a relative sense?
LucisFerre1 3 weeks ago
GO JOHN !! YOU ARE DOING FANTASTIC JOB !!!
legendarnyziomal 1 month ago
Almost none of these people can tell you the definition of the word, "fascism" .Free education, you get what you pay for.
halloranedward 1 month ago
@halloranedward And it seems that the same bums that want their school debts wiped off the slates are complaining about the bailouts of bank debts. These hypocrites should call themselves the 99 weekers instead of the 99%ers because 99 weeks is the limit for unemployment benefits, the limit of time a hippy can spend in a dirty tent and receive other people's money instead of working for a living.
LucisFerre1 4 weeks ago
There is a deficit of economic education in the United States. We have free public education for twelve years and in that time, it is highly unlikely students are required to take economics for credit to graduate or even as an elective. If instead of home economics or a personal finance course a real principles of economics course was offered, maybe movements like OWS would have no basis for existence.
BogartWestern 1 month ago
@BogartWestern, said [[There is a deficit of economic education in the United States.]]
What's interesting is that Thomas Sowell was a Marxist in his early years and even when he had Milton Friedman as his economics professor. It wasn't until he worked in government that he saw the light, and the utter foolishness of Marxism.
LucisFerre1 3 weeks ago
Superb video!!
jedmarum 1 month ago
lol I'm right at the 53%. I'm not jealous of people who do better. I could do better, but I know how to live below my means and enjoy my free time.
eurohim 1 month ago
John Stossel is such a clown, here this guy is trying to make a pretty cogent argument and credit OWS on what little merit it deserves and Stossel gleefully pisses on him. The way he belittles the protesters is hardly any different than the way he demeans his audience by being willfully and woefully ignorant, not asking the pertinent questions but only furthering his circumscribed narrative. It smacks of arrogant journalistic pandering. Put bluntly: he sucks.
xxcrysad3000xx 1 month ago
@xxcrysad3000xx Ya? so explain the alternative to this economic argument.
according to you, how should things operate, hmm?
Shaymeonyoo 1 month ago
@Shaymeonyoo The we are the 53% is probably the biggest farce of all. Here's someone like Mitt Romney who'se effective tax rate is actually below 15%, and who's defense is he pays only as much as is required by the letter of the law. Okay, fair enough, but the same can and should be said of the 47%--taking the myriad deductions and credits into account, they pay no income tax. GE and Romney do just the same. So how much should we ask someone earning under 33k/year to contribute?
xxcrysad3000xx 1 month ago
@xxcrysad3000xx 15% of Mitt Romney's money is more than 70% of your money, most likely, so what's your point?
TheManiacalSatanist6 1 month ago
@xxcrysad3000xx As long as programs like Social Security and Medicare are around, we should expect all of the beneficiaries of those programs to pay 100% into what they will take out.
That isn't the case, which is why Medicare and ostensibly Social Security are on the fast track to becoming bankrupt.
Democrats tell you the so-called rich can make up the difference, which is a cop-out.
The federal governments financial liabilities are around 3 trillion dollars per year.
Shaymeonyoo 1 month ago
@xxcrysad3000xx Wake the fuck up, "rich" people aren't going to pay for 600 billion Medicare, 600 billion Military, 300 billion Medicaid costs.....
Its easy, like the OWS movement did, to blame the "rich" for everything, without having to deal with the actual numbers involved in the discussion.
Cutting "payroll taxes" (another name for Social Security/Medicare revenue) without cutting the spending in those programs is what is putting us on the fast track toward bankruptcy.fool
Shaymeonyoo 1 month ago
@xxcrysad3000xx THE MAJORITY OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS REVENUE COMES FROM THE INCOME TAX PAID BY THE 53% DOUCHEBAG,
DON'T BE AN IDIOT.....
Shaymeonyoo 1 month ago
@xxcrysad3000xx My point being that the din you hear from the left on capital gains and carried interest tax rates is the same song the right sings about 47% not paying any individual income taxes. It isn't like something underhanded is going on here, they don't pay because they don't qualify under federal statute. Had their income been higher they would be under obligation to pay; the travesty here is that 47% of Americans earn so little they legally cannot contribute.
xxcrysad3000xx 1 month ago
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@xxcrysad3000xx said [[It isn't like something underhanded is going on here, they don't pay because they don't qualify under federal statute.]]
And yet when the rich take THEIR allocated deductions and exemptions, they're accused of theft and treason for "loopholes", when it's the IRS that tells them what exemptions and deductions they're due. When you take your personal exemption and standard deduction and maybe take a "green" tax credit, are you committing treason?
LucisFerre1 4 weeks ago
@LucisFerre1 And even with these supposed "loopholes", the top 1% of income earners are STILL paying nearly 40% of all federal income taxes per annum.
LucisFerre1 4 weeks ago
@xxcrysad3000xx according to Obama and the Democrats, the 47% who don't pay income tax should pay "their fair share".
look, we are discussing revenue problems, when it ultimately comes down to Federal expenditure.....
politicians are always looking for new ways to FUND the programs they promise to people, without ever cutting the spending in those programs they promise.
Its pretty clear cut and simple.
Shaymeonyoo 1 month ago
@Shaymeonyoo keep promising shit to people (Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society, Medicare/Medicaid) without figuring how to pay for these BEHEMOTHS of Federal programs.
The majority of the populace who benefits from said programs will vote for the party that promises not to cut benefits, the cycle continues until we are all run into the dirt like Greece.
When the fuck are we going to wake up?
Shaymeonyoo 1 month ago 8
@Shaymeonyoo the social programs are just a front, what they really want is price control. The majority of the fed/state bureaucracy has nothing to do with welfare, commerce, labor, economic development, energy, epa, etc. If we don't wake up soon it will be to late.
halloranedward 1 month ago
@Shaymeonyoo Your point is a good one but you harm yourself by going vulgar. Just state your case without going into the gutter.
jmshaw357 2 weeks ago
@Shaymeonyoo said [[according to Obama and the Democrats, the 47% who don't pay income tax should pay "their fair share".]]
Interestingly enough, when Obama and company let the Bush Tax Cuts expire, those that now have 0% tax burden will then have a 10% tax burden. LOL
LucisFerre1 4 weeks ago
@Shaymeonyoo said [[look, we are discussing revenue problems, when it ultimately comes down to Federal expenditure.....]]
Exactly. Our nation's revenue to GDP ratio is not far from average. Yet we're about 15 trillion in debt. Obviously the problem is a tremendous amount of deficit spending.
LucisFerre1 4 weeks ago
20% in 40 years? I bet that the inflation rate is higher than 50% over those 40 years.
madara1221 1 month ago
If you were to do some actual looking, you'd find that there are smart people in this movement who know what the real problems are, who caused them, and have propose actual solutions to fix them. The problem is that they're a minority in a majority of people who are immensely ignorant, selfish, lack any universal goals, no fixes and seem to think they're targeting the right people when they aren't.
For this reason, this protest was doomed to fail because the foolish outnumber the intellectuals.
MrEniena 1 month ago
Protestors are the stupidest motherfuckers on the planet.
THESE are the people who give America the WORST image of all.
Spoiled college kids who have too much time on their hands and nothing better to do.
They wanna feel involved in something, so they go out and protest shit they have no idea about. They protest corporations and money.
Then of course they go to starbucks and guzzle down some coffee, and don't reallize they're some of the biggest hypocrites on earth.
It's repulsive, it really is.
Spjungen 1 month ago
Some robber barons are deserving of that title. Others...
Rockefeller's company drove down oil prices, slowly and consistently, for decades. Largely thanks to him, kerosene became a household item. Ordinary people could suddenly have light in the evening and at night, which meant they could read books in the evening, or work an extra hour or two and live better or save for the future. Regular people could get educated, and could educate their children. -
-
PanzerDivisionBOM 1 month ago
-
- And when he came under flak for doing it so well that no one else could compete with him, he kept right on doing it. All the way up until his company was cannibalized to make way for less efficient competitors.
Anyone who values productivity or education on any kind of abstract, moral or aesthetic level should recognize the contribution and martyrdom of Rockefeller.
PanzerDivisionBOM 1 month ago
@PanzerDivisionBOM
"martyrdom of Rockefeller"
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
@pulsatingremedy I got a good laugh out of that one too. You really wouldn't say Rockefeller was swaying with the breeze of pure and unadulterated capitalism, he and his enterprise was heavily vested in and owed a great deal to Uncle Sam and his discerning stewardship.
xxcrysad3000xx 1 month ago
@PanzerDivisionBOM He's not even the best example.
Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line, catapulting industry into a realm it'd never been in before by making the automobile, the AUTOMOBILE....a complex machine which has hundreds of thousands of parts, systems and complex mechanics, affordable. That means you and I can go to the store and buy them, and not be out on the street afterwards.
How did he do it?
Profit-seeking. It's as simple as that.
I rest my fucking case.
Spjungen 1 month ago
@Spjungen
Point taken. The automobile is a pretty clear example. I just prefer subtle and rebellious figures, in general.
What's even more cool than accidentally improving the standard of living of millions of people? Doing so in spite of persecution and threats of overwhelming force from the state, in ways which people don't even realize until they've had it pointed out to them. : D
PanzerDivisionBOM 1 month ago
I wanna get me a Stossel stache.
AndrewAllenBrown 1 month ago
I love how that second ugly piece of shit actually said it's american to have to work three jobs and john shithill kind of giggles to him self....reminds me of when that lady told g dubya she worked three jobs and he smiled and said it was "uniquely americans" make no mistake folks, the right wing want to rework the meaning of the word "freedom" as working 15 hours for $2 an hour I'd like to see the talking head do a day of manual labor maybe use his mustache as a push -broom
MMZen 1 month ago
@MMZen
Their whole career is based on spewing out anti-worker venom.
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
Stossel and these guys are 80% right. The 20% they are wrong on is the fact that we don't live in capitalism. We live in government controlled corporatism. In a captialistic society, the people at the top would be there for a REASON. Now, it seems like most of the rich people are there because the government is bailing them out and preventing them from failing where the free market would let them fall on their face.
JackMcBama 1 month ago
@JackMcBama
Capitalism means a society ruled by capitalists. In corporatism, society is ruled by capitalists. Please explain to me how 'corporatism =capitalism' is untrue.
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
My wife has Fibromayiga. She want to school 4 years and I worked. Now, my fibromaygia wife works at chase and she wents to work. And I went to work. All those 99% lazy people just went free.
belmont4511 1 month ago
@belmont4511
That's a fallacy.
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
1. The use of the unemployment statistic is really misleading. Try comparing unemployment between those just out of college and those who are older and even try comparing by field. (EG: psych field is very high unemployment)
2. Income statistic: adjusted for inflation or not?
3. Top 1% create wealth? Not all of them. You don't see an "Occupy Silicon Valley" but you see an "Occupy Wall street" because of derivatives trading that produces no net wealth and crashes the system.
aldreato 1 month ago
@aldreato Of course the income statistic is adjucted for inflation, it would be meaningless otherwise. One thing that is not talked about, however, is the increase in benefits and improved working conditions people have seen. When you consider total compensation, including more pleasant and flexible working conditions, things aren't all that bad. (One way to measure the value of better working conditions is how much it costs a company to provide them.)
studentofsmith 1 month ago
That tie irritates me.
MrTheSteeze 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
wweek.com/portland/article-17350-9_things_the_rich_dont_want_you_to_know_about_taxes.html
MMZen 1 month ago
Thank god for stossel. How has the controlled media not fired this guy yet??
TheeJimboski 1 month ago 3
@TheeJimboski They did fire him at ABC--he was out of a job and Fox offered him a job. His career is doing better than ever now.
jmshaw357 2 weeks ago
99%? More like 0.0001%. They just get the 90% of the media's attention.
carlo5678 1 month ago
The %99 are wrong but for the right reasons. They do not know how economics works and taxing the rich will not help and socialism is the problem. But what the 50% does not realize is the young feel that they have no future because they are being berried with more regulation and debt that helps a select few. boomer and X do not take into account that it is not the same. The government has more of a hold than it did a year ago. X had the teck boom their is little chance this will happen again.
WEH1123 1 month ago
@WEH1123
Do the current measures help the US capitalist class? If yes, then you Americans have a weird kind of socialism, one that benefits capitalists and crushes workers.
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
@pulsatingremedy socialism for the rich, capitalism for everyone else......it's called facisim. How about plutocracy....how bout cleptocracy. steel from the poor and give to the rich.
MMZen 1 month ago
MOOOOO I want a unicorn and if you don't give it to me I will kill you
sanitydotorg 1 month ago
Stossel is the BOSSel!
999qoou 1 month ago
stossel stash for 2012
nathansensation5 2 months ago
11:05 Wasn't Rockefeller behind the creation of a lot of the horrible federal programs and agencies we have today?
dubified89 2 months ago
It's regulations that certain major corporations lobby for... In order to hold back competitors, -rather- than innovating, that bothers a lot of people. Corporatism is not Capitalism. They just don't understand the distinction.
ragnoranch 2 months ago
@ragnoranch
Capitalism means a society ruled by the capitalists. Corporatism is a philosphy that sees society as a body, with the ruling class as a head, and the working classes as hands and feet. The body should not oppose itself in any way, so class warfare by the working class is illegalized.
Corporatism IS capitalist, as the rule of capital exists inside of contemporary corporatism.
pulsatingremedy 2 months ago
@pulsatingremedy Your remedy is pulsating! Thanks for setting me straight.
ragnoranch 2 months ago
@ragnoranch
It's also rhythmical.
pulsatingremedy 2 months ago
@pulsatingremedy
dead wrong.
Capitalism = free market
Corporatism = Socialistic government taken over by the most powerful companies &/or families..and this is only natural
Which is why government needs to minimize it's power as much as possible so there won't be any possible handouts companies/families/general populace can lobby for
EriPages 2 months ago
@EriPages
So according to you, concentrations of capital do not exist inside of capitalism and the biggest force for socialism is the US government?
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
@pulsatingremedy Excellent Marxist Critical Theory logicall fallacy. You have been indoctrinated well, comrade. thepeoplescube com, zombietime com, lookingattheleft com, ringospictures com, steynonline com, iowahawk typepad com.
gmakepiece 1 month ago
@gmakepiece
What are you rambling about?
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
Now I finally know who the 99% are...the economic "illiterati". It's no wonder we have these get Marxist politicians and socialist policies! Every kid should be required to master econ 101.
hockeypuck999 2 months ago
@hockeypuck999
Of course not every person understands how the economy works, that is natural.
"Every kid should be required to master econ 101."
This will never be a law. It would require the working class to spend time outside of their jobs, leaving less profit to the ruling class. Seeing as how you suggested that, I don't think you know how our economy works either.
pulsatingremedy 2 months ago
Stossel is kinda lay it on thick
UpalKashey 2 months ago
I also loved it when stossel made the comment about shitty entry level craigs list jobs that probably pay seven bucks an hour and saying 'some people don't want to work'....i don't exactly consider what he does "work"
MMZen 2 months ago
@MMZen - You have to start somewhere, like everyone else.
StateExempt 2 months ago
you'll never see stossel bringing up the atrocities of the corporate world, like the Bopal incident.
MMZen 2 months ago
@MMZen - You will never see liberals putting corporate abuse in the context of government abuse as well, like the holocaust.
StateExempt 2 months ago
@MMZen I guess that proves that all corporations and business owners are evil, right?
hockeypuck999 2 months ago
@hockeypuck999
There is nothing inherently evil about capitalists. It is the roll of the capitalist in our society which creates moral outrage. That is why I believe that reforming capitalism to make the people in it nicer, is useless.
Do you agree with me that there have been wars for profit?
pulsatingremedy 2 months ago
@pulsatingremedy Wars aren't waged by private companies, they're waged by government, even if private interests are the ones lobbying for them. Even so-called private armies like Blackwater are employed by government, not by the market. Why would you trust the same government doing all of this to reform anything?
dubified89 2 months ago
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@dubified89
"even if private interests are the ones lobbying for them"
So you agree with me that there have been wars for profit, good.
"Why would you trust the same government doing all of this to reform anything"
I don't. I see the end of government, either by destruction or by withering away, as desirable. The government is a tool that one class uses to oppress another. To end class-dictatorship, the end of the government/state is necessary.
pulsatingremedy 2 months ago
I'm shamed sometimes. Shamed when it turns out I have something to learn about the economy, and shamed when people assume the economy is so complicated that they can't understand the things staring them in the face day by day. At the same time, I think the protestors should be divided between Wall Street and Washington. Both are culpable for the collectivist insanity that is today's political spectrum. The protestors should also protest themselves for continued support of DC and Wall Street.
intricatic 2 months ago
In Norway too 1% of the top controls over 30% of all the capital in the country. Its perfectly normal, and we are socialist-capitalist country. And we have over 20% effective unemployment. Stop whining you silly americans.
killerbee2k 2 months ago 5
@killerbee2k - Well said!
People in the US need added perspective that comments like yours provide.
StateExempt 2 months ago
@killerbee2k
Please don't call social-democratic countries socialist.
pulsatingremedy 2 months ago
@pulsatingremedy
"social-democratic" is just a euphemism for national socialism
sanitydotorg 1 month ago
@sanitydotorg
Do you really believe that the recent governments of the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden killed Jews, or do you believe in social-fascism?
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
@pulsatingremedy
Um What? National Socialism = fascism. There are only three types of people in the world:
People who believe in absolute freedom and property rights (i.e. anarchists)
People who believe in absolute government and no property rights (i.e. communists)
And everyone in the middle (i.e. National Socialism).
All National Socialism (aka democratic socialism) means is a mixed economy. Socialism = government If you believe in any National government you are a Nazi
sanitydotorg 1 month ago
@sanitydotorg
You are obviously trolling me, but what would you answer if someone asked you how you deal with the existence of anarcho-communism?
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
@pulsatingremedy
Anarchism and socialism are antithetical concepts Anarchy is the belief that association should be voluntary. Communism and socialism are the opposite; namely that people are slaves to be pushed around at the whim of the state.
Anarcho-communism is an oxymoron, much like the government mind control agent Chomsky's "Libertarian socialism." Their existence is one of the many symptoms of mass-schizophrenia of the human race
P.S. Govern-ment is mental illness
sanitydotorg 1 month ago
@sanitydotorg
Where did you get your information on communism?
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
@pulsatingremedy
Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels Let me guess: You are one of those psychotic and mass-murdering communist apologists and are now seriously going to sit there and claim that communism is not based on a totalitarian central state and that the USSR, the EU,China and Cambodia were not /are not communist and you would like to try your stupid fucking idea again despite getting everything you wanted the first time and seeing that it cost hundreds of millions of lives
sanitydotorg 1 month ago
@sanitydotorg
Who removed the Khmer Rouge from power?
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
@pulsatingremedy
I'm sorry, but I don't understand. Did you have a point? Because I don't see how that is in anyway related to any of the previous conversation.
sanitydotorg 1 month ago
@sanitydotorg
I'm just asking because you mentioned Cambodia.
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
@pulsatingremedy Er, then read it again, fluffy. The rest are websites, thus the com, displaying and dismantling the laughable yet hideous cognitive dissonance that is the left. That's where you come in...
gmakepiece 1 month ago
@gmakepiece
What?
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
@pulsatingremedy please dont call my country social-democratic
killerbee2k 1 month ago
@killerbee2k
Where do you live?
pulsatingremedy 1 month ago
@killerbee2k That's sad to hear, pretty sure our wealth differentiation is larger that 1%/30%.
20% unemployed and you do nothing about it? Guess you can't, understandable.
Oh yea, is Norway 14 trillion in debt? Is the entire economy in Norway on reliant on the fuel of their enemies land? Idk much about Norway but comparing it to the U.S. in such a simplistic way is so silly. The influence of the U.S. on the globe, economically, and militarily, is a bit more then that of Norway.
fuckifacation123 1 month ago
@fuckifacation123 Norway have huge surplus of capital in our State-Pension-Fund but we still have over 20% real unemployment which is built into our wellfare system and is expanding every year.
And comparing two countries, doesnt matter which one is not silly or simplistic, its called "comparative politics". Even though are two hugely different countries, its still intellectually stimulating to study the differences and similarities.
killerbee2k 1 month ago
Despite knowing basic tenets of the Austrian point of view, I find it absolutely disgraceful that those guys even dare call themselves economists. The Occupy Wall Street movement was as superficial in terms of ideology as this video. It's a shame so many brilliant political scholars come from the United States, yet those who possess real leverage are politically illiterate, like the 99%, the 53% as well as those guys.
TarteAuxPorn 3 months ago
Symptom of failing government schools
Ron Paul 2012
RunLiberty 3 months ago 11
@RunLiberty I disagree, everyone has to take basic economics in high school, I took it and that's why I think the way I do. but some people don't understand and it doesn't stick, but government is still totally failing schools lol
benxr2006 1 month ago
i agree with most of this clip except there are no jobs, the guy in the beginining is wrong. Also the "i failed at bus. 3 times" guy was picked up on the R.Limbo show b/c of his website. Rush hooked him up with Fox and they had him on Hannity show -- they gave him some free stuff, money and offered help from their studio to help set up his web business. Stossel should be ashamed for having this shill on
val5214 3 months ago
@val5214 Yea, I agree. Not a classic stossel video. I wish it didn't make libertarians sound so status quo an neoconish. I think we need to focus on the fact that these protesters should be in Washington not Wall Street. I do believe, as did Friedman, that a failure of government may need an act of government as a transitional phase instead of just literally not doing anything. The only thing I wish they could do is help people pay off their house, or we're going to have a bigger crisis.
USTreasuryBond 2 months ago
@USTreasuryBond No, house prices should adjust to their true market worth. Not be artificially inflated by the government. That's what really caused the crisis.
dubified89 2 months ago 2
these protestors arent prostesting against that they are protesting about government fucking up everything,lieing and cheating
xoxnatalia12 3 months ago
I agree we should all pay an equal share, equal like 0%
666Qtip666 3 months ago 38
@666Qtip666. Well, that sounds reasonable...
133839297 2 months ago
What the HELL is Justin Bieber doing there at 0:02?
SovereignStatesman 3 months ago
Comment removed
trapedd 3 months ago
Don't give me that shit that they help us. They do more taking then giving. Steve Jobs made great products but he raped the Chinese people for cheap labour and raped the American people by selling a cheap product for three time as much as he put into it. Literate That!!!!!
MrJaeden07 3 months ago
@MrJaeden07
yeye the chinese people would have been so much better of without a job, starving on the street... makes sense
unfad1ng 3 months ago
@MrJaeden07
The only reason he would ever be able to get away with such expensive products, is because the state is giving monolopy powers in the form of patents to him. With out such special rights, and the police powers to back it up, competitors could just make cheaper products that could do the same. "Market Failures" are almost always caused by States
Illyrien 3 months ago in playlist Misc Political
@Illyrien Do you think the government can run on air? Do you think we live in a free world? We need money for everything. Thats why you work. You work for money. Do give me that we dont need taxes, Our money supports it. As long as we need money we are not free.
MrJaeden07 3 months ago
These guys dont know economics. Companies make billions sometime trillions and you tell me you cant pay at least $14 dollars an hour. Banking and any kind of loans should not be above 5%. Everybody has to bank. Thats millions of people at 5%. Thats alot of money. Steve Job gave chiana jobs at slavery prices and had Americans buy them for 3 times more then he put in. Thats rape to both Chiana and America. Steave Jobs raped us so that takes away from a great products.
MrJaeden07 3 months ago
@MrJaeden07 Yeah. You really know economics. Why don't we impose a $1,000,000/hour minimum wage so that everyone in this world will be rich?
juicyappleish 3 months ago
@MrJaeden07
Interest rates in a free market would be determined by supply of and demand for lendable funds. If nobody wants to lend, then the interest rate will be very high, which is quite fine. Its artificial interest rates, and those endless amount of laws, just like the 5% law you are proposing, which are causing problems
Illyrien 3 months ago in playlist Misc Political
So the 99% are economic illiterates?
NO they just don't subscribe to your school of economics.
Stossel is one sick bastard.
MsZeitgeist85 3 months ago
What is crazy about having bases on the moon?
jkh933 3 months ago
@jkh933 Because we still have bridges collapsing on Earth.
TheTapeandscissors 3 months ago
free enterprise gives people the power to prosper? I thought it was technology that made our lives better.
I agree with the first guest mostly but then "thanks to Rockefeller"? I don't think so.
mazk1985 3 months ago
@mazk1985
Without Free enterprise, technology wouldn't have progressed to the point in which now exists, in fact far from it.
People develop new technologies under the assumption that their inventions will make them rich.
Case in point, look back on the Soviet Union, the Soviet regime prevented personal wealth, so R&D ground on first gear while it skyrocketed in the west. The best and brightest of the USSR defected to the west, and without free enterprise, the people remained destitute.
fyrewolffe 3 months ago
@fyrewolffe No. People invent things and invest millions in R&D not for money. They do it for love of other people. haha kidding.
juicyappleish 3 months ago
I agree, we shouldn't have money
jkh933 3 months ago
there aren't enough like buttons for me to press for this video
freelancergin 3 months ago 11
under gaddafi healthcare was free,education was free,married couples recieved a grant just after they we're married and land was given for free as well.guess there was no happy ending there...
nphanlon1973 3 months ago
You could set your thermostat by that first girl's IQ.
EGarrett01 3 months ago
@EGarrett01 Yeah, in celsius!
TigerbythetailFilms 3 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
The income chart in this video is misleading at best, in it's portrayal of devaluated currency growth. But this is an economy question on behaviors that we value and devalue...Should we tax the things we like or dislike?
BrianDaleBarnett 3 months ago
Comment removed
BrianDaleBarnett 3 months ago
RON PAUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
pureaggression 3 months ago
LOLzzz @ the stupid girl in the beginning
stebecool 3 months ago
Only a Moral people will get a great society, has nothing to do with what group you in. =)
Budvb 3 months ago
free enterprise goal is to eliminate all jobs. =) Then what will have. Socialism =) for all our inventions will do for us. Then i guess we can go fishing more. =)
Budvb 3 months ago