Was SS implemented only due to a failure of capitalism?

Quote from larrymoencurly : Belief in the gold standard was the real reason for the Great Depression.

You're free to believe whatever you want but that doesn't mean you have given me or anyone else a reason to accept what you say.

Quote from 124nic8 : Just cause SS was implemented in the USSR prior to the GD does not mean that SS was not implemented here due to a failure of capitalism.

so SS was implemented in the USSR due to a failure of? Communism?

We still had/have a primarily capitalist system when SS was created. Banks, even the central kind, are a bastion of capitalism. Capitalism does not mean no government involvement in the economy; just a lower degree.[/QUOTE]

Quote : Definition of CAPITALISM : an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

per Webster it sounds like private corporations call all the shots.

http://economics.about.com/od/how...talism.htm

Quote : Does Pure Capitalism Exist in the United States? While those categories, though oversimplified, have elements of truth to them, they are far less relevant today. If the pure capitalism described by Marx ever existed, it has long since disappeared, as governments in the United States and many other countries have intervened in their economies to limit concentrations of power and address many of the social problems associated with unchecked private commercial interests. As a result, the American economy is perhaps better described as a "mixed" economy, with government playing an important role along with private enterprise.

so we are a mixed Economy. Because we are definitively not pure capitalism.

But let's keep in mind that I cited an economic crash in 1907, when the U.S. had very little government involvement. Then the government thought the private sector had to much control and adopted something from German/British economics and created the Fed. Then the market collapsed twenty some years later and the fed royally screwed up and basically created a GD vs. a depression. So as already stated.. did the change from capitalist to a more mixed economy.. create the GD? Could you imagine what our economy would look like today if housing interest rates (and other forms of borrowing) were locked at say 6.5% for the past 4 years? We'd probably be in another GD.

Quote from DJPlayer : so SS was implemented in the USSR due to a failure of? Communism?

No, Communism was created due to a failure of the Tzarist economy: [answers.com]

Quote : The economy of the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century was a complicated hybrid of traditional peasant agriculture and modern industry. The empire's rapidly growing population (126 million in 1897, nearly 170 million by 1914) was overwhelmingly rural. Only about 15 percent of the population lived in towns, and fewer than 10 percent worked in industry. Agriculture, the largest sector of the economy, provided the livelihood for 80 percent of the population and was dominated by peasants, whose traditional household economies were extremely inefficient compared to agriculture in Western Europe or the United States. But small islands of modern industrial capitalism, brought into being by state policy, coexisted with the primitive rural economy.

SS is fully consistent with Union of Soviet Socialist Republic philosophy.

Quote : per Webster it sounds like private corporations call all the shots. http://economics.about.com/od/how...talism.htm

You missed the key word "mainly."

Quote : so we are a mixed Economy. Because we are definitively not pure capitalism.

No one said we were/are.

Quote : But let's keep in mind that I cited an economic crash in 1907, when the U.S. had very little government involvement. Then the government thought the private sector had to much control and adopted something from German/British economics and created the Fed. Then the market collapsed twenty some years later and the fed royally screwed up and basically created a GD vs. a depression. So as already stated.. did the change from capitalist to a more mixed economy.. create the GD? Could you imagine what our economy would look like today if housing interest rates (and other forms of borrowing) were locked at say 6.5% for the past 4 years? We'd probably be in another GD.

We were still mainly a capitalist economy esp before SS and Medicare.

I 'm not comfortable with depending on unaccountable wealthy individuals for the health of our economy. That's basically why the mega-banks had to be bailed out.

Quote from larrymoencurly : Belief in the gold standard was the real reason for the Great Depression.

Quote from darkfrog : You're free to believe whatever you want but that doesn't mean you have given me or anyone else a reason to accept what you say.

Thank you for granting me that freedom, which I did not enjoy previously.

You may want to check books like Why the Great Depression Happened and A Monetary History of the United States. Basically the US left the gold standard to finance the military effort for WWI but expected to restore the standard after the war, including at the same currency:gold valuations. The leadership of our financial system, both in the private sector and in government, thought this was the obviously the right policy, plus it made it cheaper to pay international balances. So the Fed kept the money supply tight and therefore interest rates high, and the economy eventually stifled.

Quote from 124nic8 : No, Communism was created due to a failure of the Tzarist economy: [answers.com]

?? I didn't say anything about why Communism was created. When communism came to the USSR so did SS. So now we have: a failing Tzarist economy brought communism, and with Communism came SS. Thus.. again.. Because of Communism the USSR has SS. Um.. thanks for proving my point?

Quote : SS is fully consistent with Union of Soviet Socialist Republic philosophy.

um.. right.. Communism caused SS. I've said this like 5 times now.

Quote : You missed the key word "mainly."

yet we have definitions of economic strategies called pure capitalist. Pure Capitalism is when private companies have pure control. If Pure Capitalism means 100% how can Capitalism mean 51%?

Quote : We were still mainly a capitalist economy esp before SS and Medicare.

mainly.. so now we have different degrees of capitalism? My referenced quote stated pretty clearly that we are a mixed economy..

I 'm not comfortable with depending on unaccountable wealthy individuals for the health of our economy. That's basically why the mega-banks had to be bailed out.

oh and you forget to answer my question which I've stated twice now.. in 1907 private industry regulated virtually everything. Then they visited Europe and borrowed some economic practices which brought the Fed. When the stock market collapsed the fed made money hard to come by and kept interest rates very high. Thus making the situation FAR FAR worse.. comparable to keeping our current interest rates at 6-7% for the past 4 years. Plus locking down money. If the Fed would've done the same thing in today as they did in 1929 we'd probably be in another GD. So is the push towards a more government controlled economy the cause of the GD???

Quote from 124nic8 : Because it occured in a predominently capitalist system.

So what. There are other variables involved that were hardly capitalistic and free market.

Quote : Capitalism can never fail cause a "pure" capitalist system never exists.

You got it. Certain aspects of capitalism can fail in relation to certain economic aspects, but to say capitalism as a whole failed because the US had a mixed economy is nothing but "an unsupported inflammatory belief"

Quote : The problem with this line of thinking is that the "other variables" were introduced to mitigate the failures of capitalism.

You can't possibly say this with a straight face.

Quote : That's the problem with ideologues, there is never an ideal, so everything is blamed on the non-ideal parts instead of the ideology they prefer, even if it's 90% pure. They always blame the 10%.

Give me a farking break. Have you introduced anything to support your outlandish claims? All you've done is continually tossed around that SS was introduced due solely to a failure of capitalism and that the GD was caused by that failure in capitalism. Then when you are countered you hand wave an ignore the evidence against your BS. You can't even say that capitalism was 90% of the economy during the 20s.

I'm open to counter evidence, you, however, appear not to be; the ideologue is you.

Quote from DJPlayer : mainly.. so now we have different degrees of capitalism?

Of course, how else could he continue his schtick that it was a failure of capitalism in the 20s.

you are blaming a program that was practically self-funding, until one day some politicians decided to use it beyond its intention..

SS was just like a gov't runned savings account for its citizens, that number had no relevency except for its holder.

Today that number is your PIN, and you are tracked, monitored and recorded based on that number, and the gov't only knows you by that # ( like cattle ).. just without the Nazi tattooing it on you.

SS was implement with good intentions, but like anything in America good intentions tend to go bad sooner or later.
America was the first nation to practice capitalism and all the evils that came with it, China is a good example of not learning from America capitalism

Does it still hold the record in guiness as the longest runnin ponze scheme?

I'm not sure why we are arguing about the cause of the GD. Has it not been sufficiently proven that SS was not implemented as a result of the GD but for a variety of other reasons?

Saying it was because their retirement savings got destroyed is like saying of the GD:
"Most people had a hard time paying sky-high phone bills and electricity rates. They couldn't even afford to run their refrigerators, washing machines, and driers! Only the wealthiest individuals could run their air conditioners. Also, no one could access the internet during the Great Depression."

Quote from Xygonn : I'm not sure why we are arguing about the cause of the GD. Has it not been sufficiently proven that SS was not implemented as a result of the GD but for a variety of other reasons?

Nic is the arguing.. so it doesn't matter if anything has been proven or not.. facts are irrelevant.

Anybody who thinks pure capitalism is infallible is a moron.

Quote from DJPlayer : ?? I didn't say anything about why Communism was created. When communism came to the USSR so did SS. So now we have: a failing Tzarist economy brought communism, and with Communism came SS. Thus.. again.. Because of Communism the USSR has SS. Um.. thanks for proving my point? um.. right.. Communism caused SS. I've said this like 5 times now.

And Communism was created due to failures of the previous economic system as identified by Marx.

Quote : yet we have definitions of economic strategies called pure capitalist. Pure Capitalism is when private companies have pure control. If Pure Capitalism means 100% how can Capitalism mean 51%?

I never said anything about "pure capitalism." "Pure" anything is a myth; it doesn't exist and is therefore irrelevant.

Quote : mainly.. so now we have different degrees of capitalism? My referenced quote stated pretty clearly that we are a mixed economy..

Of course, so why keep talking about something which doesn't exist?

Capitalism is characterized by the most capitalistic economies in the world, not some non-existant ideal.

Quote : oh and you forget to answer my question which I've stated twice now.. in 1907 private industry regulated virtually everything. Then they visited Europe and borrowed some economic practices which brought the Fed. When the stock market collapsed the fed made money hard to come by and kept interest rates very high. Thus making the situation FAR FAR worse.. comparable to keeping our current interest rates at 6-7% for the past 4 years. Plus locking down money. If the Fed would've done the same thing in today as they did in 1929 we'd probably be in another GD. So is the push towards a more government controlled economy the cause of the GD???

Just cause you think the Fed means capitalism does not exist does not make it true.

The Fed was established to mitigate the failures of capitalism.

Quote from Xygonn : I'm not sure why we are arguing about the cause of the GD. Has it not been sufficiently proven that SS was not implemented as a result of the GD but for a variety of other reasons?

No, it hasn't. If you google it, there are thousands of hits saying exactly what I said: it was.

Quote : Saying it was because their retirement savings got destroyed is like saying of the GD: "Most people had a hard time paying sky-high phone bills and electricity rates. They couldn't even afford to run their refrigerators, washing machines, and driers! Only the wealthiest individuals could run their air conditioners. Also, no one could access the internet during the Great Depression."

You must be joking.....

Quote from paperboy05 : So what. There are other variables involved that were hardly capitalistic and free market.

Doesn't make the US economy not a realistic example of capitalism.

Quote : You got it. Certain aspects of capitalism can fail in relation to certain economic aspects, but to say capitalism as a whole failed because the US had a mixed economy is nothing but "an unsupported inflammatory belief"

Seems you're the only one who thinks it's "inflamatory."

I've supported the contention with rational arguments.

Quote : You can't possibly say this with a straight face.

You can't possibly believe this is a meaningful rebuttal showing that I'm wrong.

Quote : Give me a farking break. Have you introduced anything to support your outlandish claims?

Yes, I have.

[/QUOTE]
All you've done is continually tossed around that SS was introduced due solely to a failure of capitalism and that the GD was caused by that failure in capitalism. [/QUOTE]

I didn't write "solely, I wrote "... a failure of capitalism...." Is it your weak argument which compels you to misrepresent me?

Quote : Then when you are countered you hand wave an ignore the evidence against your BS.

I haven't ignored anything here.

Quote : You can't even say that capitalism was 90% of the economy during the 20s.

And I didn't. My example was exagerated to make a point about ideologues.

Quote : I'm open to counter evidence, you, however, appear not to be; the ideologue is you.

No you're not. You blame the non-capitalistic facets of the economy without evidence, even though the US economy was the bastion of capitalism in the world in the 1920's.

Quote : Of course, how else could he continue his schtick that it was a failure of capitalism in the 20s.

Easily. The US was one of, if not the most capitalistic economies in the world in the '20s.