Pain at the pump

@boonon said
Gas was $1 higher under Biden. Did you complain then?

I don't remember that. What is your source of info?

@AverageJoe1 said
You again tell us what is intended by 'the liar' when the liar lies. What a laugh. You are saying too that a lie (what lie is that, trump prob tells the heathens many) is NOT meant to deceive Iran???
You are at the negotiating table? What did Trump say an hour ago? Was it a lie? Will it win the war for us? A bad lie or a good lie? Does it make a scintilla of di ...[text shortened]... s. More fun to watch him. Lord I'm glad Sunhouse has not weighed in. That would be over overloaded.

You know better. You wrote a lot to deceive yourself. Did it work?

@Metal-Brain said
Your savage remark is all I had to read. You are a sick person. A racist.
Crawl back into your hole.

People who live savagely are savages. Look it up. Slaughter 45,000 neighbors you will qualify yourself.
Why mention race? I didn't. Got me mixed up with suean
You may have meant to mention culture. Now I do write about that a lot.

@AverageJoe1 said
I'm back....Napoleon was not a 'Big Guy'. Get with it Sonhouse. He kicked ass, took over.
OMG, what have I done. Now Marauder will tell us to read up on Napoleon.

.....while I try to do my own teaching!!! ( sorry to sound condescending....)

Cough cough, Duke of Wellington.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke said
Cough cough, Duke of Wellington.

I just saw a street interviewr asked a girl which of USA and Iran is more caring for their citizens, she said iran.
This is one of your people, man.

@AverageJoe1 said
I just saw a street interviewr asked a girl which of USA and Iran is more caring for their citizens, she said iran.
This is one of your people, man.

Who would have thought, Iran has universal healthcare.

@AverageJoe1 said
I just saw a street interviewr asked a girl which of USA and Iran is more caring for their citizens, she said iran.
This is one of your people, man.

My people? You mean vegetarians?

I bet I could find a random interview with 'one of your people' who thinks the Earth is flat and made out of cheese. - Do they therefore represent your own views on the matter?

Have a think on it...

@kmax87 said
Who would have thought, Iran has universal healthcare.

So? Who cares?

@AverageJoe1 said
So? Who cares?

Iranians?

@kmax87 said
Iranians?

Irish care about the Irish.
🤔🤔🤔

@AverageJoe1 said
It tells me how you think. But not an answer.
Your argument assumes that all private property came purely from conquest and exploitation, but that is only “the start” of human history. People naturally developed systems of ownership because when individuals can keep the fruits of their labor, they have incentive to improve land, build businesses, invent tools, and creat ...[text shortened]... e infecting the brains of our friends on the forum.

Come on back. I prose much clearer in the AM.

None of this is true. There's always an "incentive" to profit from the labor of others but that's what the institution of "private property" does; it's not meant to have "individuals keep the fruits of their labor - it's meant to make it mandatory that a relative few profit from others labor. "Secure property rights" just means the State will use force to maintain the privileges of a few against the just claims of the many.

Even Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, knew your second paragraph was BS:

" In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.” (Smith 1776, Book 1, Chapter 8 “Of the Wages of Labour“ )

Capitalism as practiced in the 18th and 19th Century certainly did not yield any substantial benefit to the average workers; cities such as London were cesspools pf poverty, filth and disease (and that was notwithstanding the economic benefits that flowed to the British because of their empire, maintained by repression on a grand scale). It was only the progressive reforms that protected workers like unemployment insurance, minimum wages, old age pensions, workplace health regulations, etc. etc. that " produced the highest living standards, longest life expectancy" reforms that limited, not strongly protected, private property.

@AverageJoe1 said
People who live savagely are savages. Look it up. Slaughter 45,000 neighbors you will qualify yourself.
Why mention race? I didn't. Got me mixed up with suean
You may have meant to mention culture. Now I do write about that a lot.

Then the USA and Israel are savages. It is no one way street.

@no1marauder said
None of this is true. There's always an "incentive" to profit from the labor of others but that's what the institution of "private property" does; it's not meant to have "individuals keep the fruits of their labor - it's meant to make it mandatory that a relative few profit from others labor. "Secure property rights" just means the State will use force to maintain ...[text shortened]... standards, longest life expectancy" reforms that limited, not strongly protected, private property.

Your post is an expanse, difficult to tackle. You casually ,and correctly, cite brutal factory conditions. Compared to what? you just throw that out there. Industrialization did not create misery, it inherited a poor world and improved life.
And A Smith supported capitalism more than socialism. He was a private property guy, competition , it was in his Wealth of Nations. The progressive reforms which you cite (which 'raised living standards'😉 depended on wealth created by capitalist economies. You can't redistribute prosperity that was never created in the first place!! Whew.
Min wages, workplace regs, pensions, etc , and social safety nets,.came about because of creation of productive capacity, and tax revenues.
And you must admit that every successful modern nation, contrary to your thinking, is successful because they use some version of markets, private property, investment, and profit incentives. Even the Scandinavian countries' socialists are all for it.
Your writings are of course marxist or at minimum, socialist, but you dance around, you have no meat.You attempt to discuss Smith without acknowledging
that he defended private property, etc. Voluntary exchange. He believed that markets create wealth, Econ 101. Hard to follow your tainted reasoning, just comment without merit. Just consider how you come across....Natural Law?? NLAw is never mentioned in the published articles of the day. Give me a break, look at globe, pull up a photo, count the countries, count the people, and you
waste type when you ramble about Nirvana.

I am off to church. I have a more specific response later to your first para

@Metal-Brain said
Then the USA and Israel are savages. It is no one way street.

MB has spoken. Solid stuff, give him the stage.

@AverageJoe1 said
Your post is an expanse, difficult to tackle. You casually ,and correctly, cite brutal factory conditions. Compared to what? you just throw that out there. Industrialization did not create misery, it inherited a poor world and improved life.
And A Smith supported capitalism more than socialism. He was a private property guy, competition , it was in his Wealth of Nati ...[text shortened]... ble about Nirvana.

I am off to church. I have a more specific response later to your first para

The wealth created in capitalist countries was created by labor. Until progressive reforms were implemented, little of it went to its creators.

This is history, not opinion. It has been the main goal of right wingers ever since to return to a system where the wealthy hold all the cards - they have tried to abolish or at least severely limit all the progressive programs mentioned and many more. To some extent they have succeeded, US workers now receive their lowest share of GDP since 1947. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-workers-just-took-home-214018586.html

Smith may have been a defender of capitalism, but he knew your claims of equal voluntary exchange between workers and capitalists was BS.