The article in BusinessWeek about Pickens dumping his idea of his wind farm is an excellent example of why capitalism doesn’t work. Capitalism demands that projects make profits — nothing else really matters. It doesn’t matter if you are curing cancer, feeding the poor, or improving the sex life of the population. If it doesn’t make money in a relative short amount of time, forget about it. Visit any business school and they will explain — it all about making profits. Maybe that can be carved into America’s tombstone.
Pickens Pulls Up Stakes – BusinessWeek.
It’s been a tough year for T. Boone Pickens: The 81-year-old oilman-turned-alternative-energy evangelist wanted to build the world’s biggest wind farm, in Pampa, Tex., but this week announced he was abandoning that idea.
There is so much word that needs to be done in America. In fact, enough to employ every unemployed person many times. However, much of this work is not profitable. It is still extremely important, perhaps, even critical to the long term survival of the country and the earth. Yet, it won’t happen under America’s present system because it cannot be monetized — it is not profitable. Or, even if it MIGHT be profitable in the long term, it still won’t happen. It has to be profitable in the short term when investors can see the returns are assured.
Making profits, not just breaking even, is so important in America that, as a country, will literally let people DIE with no health care. Even with the ongoing health care debate, you will hear Republicans state that America cannot afford health care for everybody. They rarely say it but they are literally saying — LET THE UNINSURED DIE. It amazes me that money — yes, money — is more important to these greedy bastards than actual people. It is what makes it so laughable when Republicans talk about the rights of the unborn. Love the Fetus. Hate the Child.
Capitalism use to work better but that was before technology was able to destroy jobs like it is today. That was when more labor was needed in agriculture, food production, manufacturing, retail, and banking. It was before robots were deployed. It was before corporations could outsource work to cheap labor markets throughout the world. It an entirely new world and America is not listening and certainly not keeping up with the times.
Capitalism doesn’t work any more, but this is the horse that much of America continues to ride, including Congress and the President. Just today I hear politicians talk about how the stimulus bill will create jobs, blah, blah, blah. They are wrong, very wrong. Capitalism is destroying America, maintaining high unemployment, and causing lots of pain. It is going to get much worse.
America is doomed.
With all respect to the author of this blog, I live in Eastern Europe. Americans are have no idea what hardship is. Life is so easy in the USA. Even with the crisis. To even say there is a crisis is silly when people here lived under socialism that had 15 people living in 300 square feet apartment, and the only thing in the store was vinegar. 8 hours in line you had to wait for bread.
You tend to look at the example instead of the rule in your posts and build a generalization off of this. Come live in Eastern Europe for a few years and you will see what I mean. Please.
And do not talk about Sweden, Sweden and the Swiss got rich from WWII, while Europe burned in hell under national socialism and soviet socialism.
The Swedes sold the Nazis strategic metals so their country would not get destroyed. While Finland and Norway was destroyed and they were poor but got rich with Nokia and oil only recently.
No religious extremists examples you can point out in modern history can compare with the mass murder of Soviet Socialism or National Socialism (NAZIs). A societies based on humanistic ideals or the superman and freedom from capitalism.
Socialism and humanism is jumping out of the pot and into the fire.
I invite you to live in my part of the world for a few years. People here are rebuilding and would never go back. To them it is crazy to think so. I will meet you at the airport by the way and treat you with respect if you decide to move here.
I agree to an extent with both of you. I think that Montesque (sic, I can’t spell anything in French), one of the enlightenment philosophers, said “No more blood has ever been shed for a kingdom than that of Christ’s”. But he lived in the 18th century. That well may have been true since Europe had just finished suffering through the Inquisition. Long before the Pagans of Rome had butchered the Christians (but maybe not enough for some people). The reformation had already occurred and Protestans killed Catholics and vise vera. Followers of Mohamhed were busy had been busy lopping off heads since the 600 A.D. period. But with the dawn of Marxism and the resulting varient forms of Socialism, i.e. Russian, German, Italian, Cambodian, Viet Namese, Chinese, etc…, the world would experience killing and hate on a scale never before seen. The 20th century would be the century of death and oppression at the hands of Socialists. Somehow, it always starts out with good intentions and ends up with corpses. So many corpses that crematoriums must be built and mass graves dug. Not that Capitalism is much better. Under it you simply die of starvation or live in a tent, homeless and toothless because you didn’t go to Harvard and make millions of dollars. I don’t have the answer but I think htat I am closer to one than most. Self sufficiency is my goal and I’ve nearly achieved it. I take resposibility for my own food production and health. I work for myself, not for a corporation where I am always expendable. I don’t have much money, but I don’t need much. I realize that if you live in a large city this is more difficult. But more and more people are seeing the folly of depending on the government for anything. It is a terribly flawed, bankrupt, pathetic entity, incapable of even paying it’s bills. More city and suburban dwellers are putting in small gardens or container gardens. Many city dwellers and suburbanites are beekeepers (like at the white house – 2 hives in DC). More people are rejecting the drug tainted “cures” of the Western Allopathic medical paradigm. More people everyday get off of their waddling lardasses and move, i.e. put their Goo in motion. More people everyday stop drinking sugary death in a can, refined fruit juices and sodas. More people use the internet for a plethora of health information and daily they turn to alternative options to treat health problems, much cheaper I must admit, and much more effective than the poisons that the Allopaths peddle. More people daily pull minor maintenance on their own vehicles to save money, i.e. changing windshield wipers, checking tire pressure, changing oil, etc… More people daily experience the joy and freedom that comes with independance, rather than dependance, or even interdependance. Yes we need health care, but what is being offered is not health care reform, it is more money being thrown at disease management. Disease is expensive and usually painful to treat, prevention is painless and costs nearly nothing. I have plenty of ideas but too many to enumerate here.