On May 10, 2:28 am, "parrthe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <parrthe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> They assailed the number of different fountain
> pen brands and called it capitalist waste. Under
> socialism, there would be only one brand of fountain
> pen.
/Non sequitur/. Under either system, there can be
any number of different pen factories. This is the
sort of muddled "thinking" which is the hallmark of
the Evans ratpack; indeed, their minds loudly creak
as they /attempt/ to think.
> And so, the Soviets had fountain pens and only
> adopted ball-points in the final years of their imperium.
It looks as though Mr. Parr has confounded
communism with socialism. If he wants a handy
example of socialism, he need look no further than
Canada.
I think what Mr. Parr has missed is the simple
concept of /duplication of effort/. In any business,
needless duplications which can be eliminated
lead to more profits for the wealthy shareholders.
This is why, for instance, many companies buy
other companies out-- to streamline operations
or to increase the volume of production, thereby
gaining in something called "efficiency".
Now, the idea of /competition/ sounds good.
But look at the real-life results: neither of the two
kitty-corner drugstores goes out of business;
neither of the corner gas stations goes under.
Even when, say, a company comes along that
can mop up the floor with its competition, folks
at Ford, General Motors and Chrysler keep
right on truckin'! They don't care who makes
the best cars-- "we", Americans that is, will buy
junk, so long at somebody gets to wave a red,
white and blue flag.
Funny thing is, that "American" car you just
bought may well have been made in Mexico...
or Canada-- a socialist state. And that other
car-- the one you didn't buy because it had a
foreign name? Possibly made in your home
state... assembled by capitalists who eat too
much and don't exercise enough. (The last
breakdown I saw published listed the name
Toyota more than any other, under which cars
were made here in the USA. Weird, huh?)
Ah, but back to the mindless dregs, whose
agenda is Commie-ba****ng; sometimes they
have trouble keeping everything straight and
they get confused, la****ng out at socialists
or what have you. As luck would have it, even
though the Cold War ended, these dregs can
take comfort in the fact that Mr. Putin has
been causing trouble lately. Russia -- a term
which now means something very different
from what it used to -- has oil and NG, and
you know what that means. That's right: the
dregs can still find suitable employment.
I take a bit of a different approach to such
things, not bothering about the politically-
correct rhetoric, the Commie-ba****ng hype.
To me, waste is simply waste. Paying folks
at fast-food restaurants minimum wage to
stand and talk just wastes everyone's time.
It makes no difference whatever if this
happens in a socialist, a communist or a
capitalist state. Those low-paid, jabbering
slackers need to get with the program, and
their employers need to smarten up. (Hey,
we're gonna pay you exactly the same as
we're paying you now, but instead of just
talking to each other, you have to work a
little; then you can make full time wages
working part time hours, and we will not
have idle bodies cluttering up the place. If
we wanted folks who just stand around, we
could go to Antarctica and hire some very
smartly-dressed penguins for half what we
pay you idiots.)
I imagine that competition can be a good
thing... when it works the way it's supposed
to. But big government so often interferes,
that I can't think of a good example of that
right now. Banks? They are supposed to
be failing right now; but instead, Uncle Sam
stepped in, saving Bear Stearns. See what
I mean? Instead of hard times weeding out
the weak, things are working out differently;
that's capitalism?!! The taxpayers will pay
for it all, sooner or later.
Another common problem with the Commie-
bashers (there sure are a lot of 'em) is
wanting to have everything both ways. Yup,
I keep reading about how awful communism
is, but then they try to account for what's
happening in China, economically, they have
to flippity-flop and claim that they are not
Commies at all, when we don't want 'em to
be. But when it comes to human rights
they're Commies all the way! More of the
tell-tale muddled "thinking"... the self-
contradictions and transparent, huge bias.
Anyway, Libertarians like LP can snicker at
the fact that their man "won" a Fox News poll,
which was supposed to determine which
Republican candidate was the "true
conservative", based on Fox's own definition
of the term. More tell-tale signs of "issues"
with thinking skills... .
-- help bot
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