Showing posts with label Capitalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capitalism. Show all posts

Friday, March 20, 2020

The Real Definition of Capitalism




QUESTION: You champion companies that then dominate the system which is the foundation of capitalism. Is this not against the people you seem to support?
HF
ANSWER: No business that is guaranteed by the government is capitalist. That is self-evident in education, insurance, and even medicine. Once the government gets involved to supposedly guarantee something, claiming they are doing so to help the people, corruption expands and the people will always pay more.
All new businesses begin as a monopoly. Someone first has to invent the idea. It is the competition that then takes place that is the core of capitalism — freedom. Once some industry turns to the government for some advantage, then competition is reduced and that ceases to be a capitalistic system. There are some things that need to be monopolized. Take utilities or trains. In both cases, you have to have a single network of delivery. If there were five utility companies all delivering electricity and they had to run their own network of lines, the street would be littered with cables and then what do you do with the poles? Who owns them? The same problem existed with railroads. If a company had to pay each individual railway for the use of their rails for say 10 miles, there becomes a point where the competition prevents economic expansion. This tends to apply only where there is a common delivery network that must be shared.
This is why socialism and communism fail. They try to create common networks that then curtail competition and prevent economic growth. Look at medicine. They compare the US to free medical care in Canada or the UK. But when people in Canada need serious treatment, they come to the USA. The best doctors leave for America because they can make a lot of money. In the UK, they are government employees. The only way to have medicare for all is to nationalize medicine and then the entire system becomes like the Veterans Administration. In the USA, the government is subsidizing the medical profession and politicians always demand nationalizing health insurance rather than looking at the system and the corruption within the system where hospitals overcharge for everything. That is again anti-capitalistic.
There are those who point to big corps and how they own government and then call that capitalism. Sorry, that is just corruption and it is to PREVENT competition to rig the game in their favor. That is ALWAYS the downside of any republic. Once you allow career politicians, they inevitably sell their power to the highest bidder. You will never have a government of “We the People” as long as you have a republic without term limits. I strongly suggest you review your definition of “capitalism” for nowhere in there is the justification for bribery. That defeats the entire system for it is no longer a free market.

Monday, March 16, 2020

Marx v Aristotle



QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, you said that Marx was influenced by Aristotle. I have never heard that before. Would you care to explain?
HF
ANSWER: Aristotle recognized that the economy evolves, and to some degree, this also takes place with the generational shift in thinking. Aristotle’s writings actually influenced Karl Marx, for he was complaining about the evolution of Athens’ economy. Aristotle saw that Athens was emerging as the Financial Capital of the World. Athens was experiencing a Market Economy and this altered what I call the Villa Economy.
Traders emerged in Athens and were offering farmers to produce more crops than they needed so they could export them to other regions. This altered society by transforming it into a Market Economy compared to the self-sufficient Villa Economy. Aristotle called these people those who made money from money. Aristotle also wrote:
The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.
    • Book I, 1096.a5
Marx was influenced by this observation which led to his eventual ideas of communism (Villa Economy) against capitalists (Market Economy). Marx was studying Aristotle’s works at the British Library in London.

Friday, September 27, 2019

Societies did well without income taxes until 1913.


 Playing with the Facts to Fool the Majority

QUESTION: What do you say about the difference between corporate socialism and democratic socialism. Thank you. Its all the buzz among those supporting Senator Elizabeth Warren.
LP
ANSWER: This is a very clever way of excusing the core issue. The Democrats preach raising taxes and then sell loopholes to the big corporations. The bankers donated to Hillary — not to Trump. This is a clever campaign assuming, as always, the people (the great unwashed) are just stupid.
The Democrats were against the flat tax because it would eliminate lobbying for tax loopholes. But more importantly, if we had TERM LIMITS and one-time-and-gone, that would eliminate lobbying for dangle money before politicians of BOTH parties for favored status.
Even a tax break to a corporation that they claim is evil will NEVER result in lowering the taxes for everyone else. It is great propaganda. We run trillion-dollar deficits. They could NEVER raise taxes enough to balance the budget. That would destroy all their jobs.
The people who believe this nonsense will NEVER listen to the truth because they are the very type of people who believe only what they want to believe. That is a sad statement of fact. Just look at the presidential elections and you will see only 3 presidents ever had between 60% and 63% of the popular vote. Obama won 51.1% of the popular vote compared to Romney’s 47.2%.
That is hardly a mandate. They know that 45% of the people will vote Democrat no matter what you say and 45% will vote Republican. At best, there is perhaps 10% of the people who are free thinkers and will actually listen and make a judgment. The rest do not count for they will never listen to reason on either side.
We can eliminate corruption with TERM LIMITS. A flat tax should be imposed for it is unjust and a denial of equal protection of the law to discriminate for any reason including wealth. Then, corporations should not be taxed and there should be no double taxation with dividends. The majority of corporations are owned by pensions of the people and whatever is made should simply devolve down to a flat income tax on the shareholders. Corporations provide the jobs that actually produce, while the government does not. I believe there should be no income tax. Societies did well without income taxes until 1913. Rome lasted 1,000 years without income taxes. The founding fathers knew that and prohibited direct taxation for it requires every individual to report to the government, which is wrong. Taxes should be returned to ONLY indirect. I think the founding fathers knew best.

Capitalism v Hybrid Capitalism

COMMENT: Every ISM has failed. Maybe we are seeing the twilight of Capitalism.
China is a hybrid. Maybe that is why it will be the next world power.
CM
REPLY: People confuse capitalism with corruption. Capitalism is your freedom to choose. Corruption is when republics are available for sale to the highest bidder.
Unfortunately, the founding fathers believed the propaganda of Cicero who painted Julius Caesar as a dictator when he was a populares. The people supported Caesar against the corrupt senate of Rome which sold itself to the highest bidder.
I believe the ONLY way to correct our political crisis is to impose TERM LIMITS in Congress — one term and you are out. Just look at the Democrats. All they are doing is trying to undermine Trump. This is what career politicians do. They are not fighting for the people. They are only trying to undermine the opposition for more power.
Congress spends 70% of its time selling favors and trying to raise money for the next election. Term limits will end that. It will end the lobbying motto: “Do as I ask and I will fund your next election.”
Our judicial system is collapsing entirely. Nobody can prevail against the bankers in New York City. The courts will bend the law and ignore the Supreme Court entirely to protect the bankers who are the leaders of corruption and the harbingers of our doom.
China is a hybrid. The positive side of China is that the unelected leadership need not promise stupid things to maintain power. They can focus on the long-term plan for China. We do not need to adopt that hybrid, but we can achieve what was originally intended with term limits. End the corruption and we will at least have a real, free climate of capitalism.

Sunday, February 24, 2019

Capitalism – Oligarchies – Socialism




COMMENT #1: Hey Marty, I’ve never written you in this vein, but (always extremely talented) rich guys saying “Let the chips fall, free market capitalism” are gonna get washed away by this wave and we both know it. When the mass of people don’t even own a vegetable plot despite working their rears off for the dream, you know socialism is here however bad (Marxist) it is. If “capitalism” can’t offer a life (a living wage and a damn plot to park your ass on, not mountains of debt and stress, unless you happen to be born with a certain set of Republican talents) then “capitalism” is out however great it really and truly is. I will never mention politics again but revert to philosophy which is where we really live, and the only thing I really know anyway.
RF
COMMENT#2: Are you blind, Mr. Armstrong?
Don’t you see, that wealth equality is going out of hands?
It cannot be, that a 8 people control (Oxfam 2017) as much wealth as 50% of earth’s population and it get’s more extreme each year. All life is one and it is a responsibility of the heart to share. Capitalism has failed as the majority is not benefitting anymore from it.
REPLY: You are confusing capitalism with oligarchies. Disposable income has been declining because of taxes. Under Marxism, we pay between 300 and 800 times more than previous historical periods of taxes. The Roman Empire had taxes that would rise from 1% to 7% — not 50%+. ALLRepublics collapse into oligarchies because once one person pretends to represent many, they will NEVER put the interests of the many before themself. The lack of term limits means these politicians need money to sustain their position and therein allows the oligarchy to grow with power and influence.
CAPITALISM is the freedom to decide your own fate — not that oligarchies get to own everything. Under a Greek Democracy, only the head of the household voted. They were the Congressman representing everyone in that house. Under SOCIALISM, income taxes were invented meaning every person had to account to the government for what they earned. Women, who didn’t previously vote, suddenly were entitled to vote because they were being held accountable for their individual earnings and government began passing laws to protect people which then dictated things such as abortion or whatever.
So do not confuse an oligarchy with capitalism. They’re on opposite sides of the table.
As for the disparity in wealth, I volunteered in Washington to convert Social Security to a wealth fund during the ’90s. The Democrats would not vote for it because they wanted to change the fund manager when they came into power. The wealth disparity is NOT created by income but by investment. The government regulations restrict investments for the private citizen. The reason there are hedge funds offshore is very simple. We are over-regulated, so a fund manager who complies with the SEC goes to jail with the CFTC. You cannot hire a fund manager to make the decisions for you, so you have to decide between all the various investments yourself. Hedge fund managers make all those decisions but they cannot raise money domestically.

Monday, May 14, 2018

How the Rich Get Richer!




COMMENT: You always support the rich and never see what they do to the rest of us.
LW
ANSWER: You simply believe the propaganda of governments. The rich get richer by INVESTING in assets. They list Bill Gates among the top in the world. Do you really think one gets rich by making more per hour than the next guy? Wealth is created through assets – not wages. The NUMBER ONEsuppressor of the people is all governments. I worked hard trying to get Social Security reformed and privatized when the Dow was 1,000 instead of 100% government bonds. I gave up. There are too many pension funds that are restricted to buying government bonds.
It is not the rich that prevent others from investing. It is always the government. If you really add up what you pay in property taxes each year and subtract that from the value of your home, you will quickly see that you probably lost money. When you sell the house, they do not count the taxes paid for decades as part of the cost.
Wealth is created by INVESTMENT – not buying bonds and certainly not by wages. Who prevents the average person from investing? It’s not Bill Gates.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

The political system is such that the “free market” means they can bribe people

Why Removing Trump Will Lead to Civil War




QUESTION: Marty; It seems that the left is winning in preventing Trump from really reforming anything and the Republicans themselves are divided over Obamacare. Do you see this change?
Thank you for what you do. It is striking how on point you have been.
LE
ANSWER: The Democrats led by Summer and Pelosi are fighting tooth & nail to save socialism. They always preach that they stand for the poor, but they take money from the rich. Hillary’s comment that you have to have a public and private agenda is no joke. This is standard operational procedure for ALL politicians in Washington. This was not just Hillary’s scheme – they all do this. The Democrats are tearing the country apart and in their quest to stop Trump at all costs. That cost will be the United States as we have known it. They are going way too far this time.
Obamacare has hopelessly screwed the country. It is the exploitation of the youth to fund health care costs for the older generations after the Clintons screwed them and made their student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy after getting a degree that is proving valueless. This is like in law. I ask you when was the last time you beat your wife. Now, you are on the defensive side to prove you did not beat your wife. You call your wife to the stand and she testifies you never beat her. I turn to the jury and say, she only said that because she feared you would beat her again. A false charge dominates everything and you spend all of your time trying to prove you never beat your wife. This is Obamacare.
The Republicans are hopelessly lost. They cannot fix the system. The only way to do this is to the scrap the entire mess. Anyone who could not obtain insurance should simply be put on Medicare. Nancy Pelosi is just a worthless politician hell bent of maintaining a corrupt system that is doomed. She said: “The Republican bill is one of the largest transfers of wealth from working families to the richest people in our country — Robin Hood in reverse.” 
This is the greatest transfer of wealth from the younger generation into the pockets of insurance companies who lobby and give her money. Insurance company PACs always donate directly to Pelosi. Here is a list of the Insurance companies donating to the Democrats to keep Obamacare rolling and Starr Insurance is at the top. There is no money going to the “rich”; it goes to insurance companies. My personal insurance doubled as did my deductible and then I have coverage for young children I do not have but it’s there by law and I have to pay for it. The joke has become that you can just walk into a bar and tell the girls to line up, no worries, you are covered for unlimited maternity leave and children and there is no marriage requirement or age limit. That may be the only way to your money’s worth out of Obamacare.
If I were Trump, I would mandate all insurance policies must be reinstated pre-Obamacare. I would NATIONALIZE health insurance and make them function the same as Utilities. Yes, it would be an anti-free market, but the political system is such that the “free market” means they can bribe people like Pelosi to keep the money rolling in. Impose term limits, and then this measure would not be needed. But I do not see how this can be accomplished without a revolution.
Insurance companies must be compelled to apply for any rate increase whatsoever. They should not be allowed to cancel your insurance either. That is like going to a casino to play poker and they remove all the aces from the deck to make sure you cannot have 4 aces.
I would also impose Tort reform and provide a specific table of what you get for what type of injury. In law, it is cheaper to kill someone than it is to injure someone because you will have to pay all sorts of legal fees and an award that can be greatly exaggerated. Kill someone in an accident and it’s a flat award far less than injury in most cases.
Point of No ReturnThen you have the Democrats and the left, allegedly funded now by Soros, deliberately creating civil unrest to keep the socialist system intact. However, we have crossed that point of no return. The silent majority who voted for Trump have been pushed as far as they can go. Remove Trump, and we will descend into civil war. There will be no other democratic process to save the future left for these people who see things always getting worse and a future that holds nothing but declining living standards.
We have crossed that point of no return and this is really a battle for the very freedom of civilization. The left is never satisfied with allowing people to make their own decisions. I have been in discussions and the undertone is always the same. They hate anyone who makes more than they do and they covet whatever anyone else has and feel wronged that they are being cheated out of the same thing, but never wish to work for the same goals. The bottom line has always been that whatever society earns, belongs to the state and the state decides how much they are allowed to keep.
So no, I am not optimistic about the future. This will be the next great confrontation with not much difference from the Communist Revolutions of 1917-1918. What the Democrats did with Obamacare will only lower the living standards and the will premiums escalate out of control, consuming a larger part of personal disposable income. That lowers the economic growth consuming money people would be spending on other things. This is the GREED of insurance companies who are perhaps far worse than the bankers ever were. They own the Democrats and the press pretends this is a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich when it is the exploitation of the youth and no money goes to the “rich”. It is going to the Insurance companies who have paid the Democrats to impose Obamacare on the nation.
While people like Whoopi Goldberg have now come out and denied that she said she would leave the country if Trump were elected, many people claimed they would leave but are still here. The Rev. Al Sharpton said: “If Donald Trump is the nominee … I’m also reserving my ticket to get out of here if he wins. Only because he’d probably have me deported anyhow.”
Because the Democrats under Obama have set in motion the greatest hunt for taxes in human history, it is becoming impossible to do business. We have three accounts at one bank. I walked in to open a fourth for the Florida operation. I was told since it was a Delaware corporation, I had to send myself a letter to Delaware, prove I received it, and then they would open the account. When I said I had three accounts with their bank, they responded: that does not matter. With every new account, we have to start from scratch. I walked out without opening the business account. If the Democrats force Trump out or tie the government in knots so nothing gets done, I may have no choice but to leave, just to do business. This is how insane everything has become. The same thing happened with our payroll company. I was told to set up another payroll account in Florida. They too had to proceed as if they did not know me when it was the same person I have spoken to for the last 5 years. The whole thing is just getting completely nuts – Papers Please!

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

How Socialism Destroyed the Family Structure



Socialism Marxism
Smith-Marx
The very core tenet of Marxism and its two versions called socialism and communism is to actually replace the family structure. In Russian communism, Stalin was paranoid about any possible resistance. Children were taught that the state was their parent instead of their biological parents, and if those creatures spoke anything against the state then the children should report them. Karl Marx’s view on religion also explains his view of family. “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
The lofty idea of socialism is appealing to many, but they never talk about what lies before the slogan and surface. The reason I say socialism is collapsing, not capitalism, is rather simple. We do not live under capitalism for that is what existed before socialism’s introduction with, actually, the Republican, Teddy Roosevelt. What enraged Marx so much was the British system of Long Lease keeping the property in the family for generations. This is why so many people fled to America after hearing that it was the American Dream to own your own home. Marx was against the ownership of property outright under communism, whereas under socialism you could own your own property but you were taxed and regulated at every step of the way.
Under Canon Law of the Catholic Church, there was a substantial difference compared to English Common Law, which was manipulated for the benefit of the king. The stark difference between the two strikes very deep into the heart of family structure. Once upon a time, a spouse could not be compelled to testify against their partner. Over the years, the government cannot stop pursuing its own self-interest so the “right” not to be compelled to testify against your spouse has been watered down to only a “privilege,” which then allows government to create exceptions.
It is Federal Rule of Evidence 501 that governs these “privileges” that are not rights and they apply ONLY in a criminal case. Therefore, Rule 501 on Privilege in General is limited to the English common law “as interpreted by United States courts in the light of reason and experience” and that covers “specific non-constitutional privileges which the federal courts must recognize (i.e. required reports, lawyer-client, psychotherapist-patient, husband-wife, communications to clergymen, political vote, trade secrets, secrets of state and other official information, and identity of informer).” Note that there is no “privilege” for children who can be imprisoned on contempt of court if they refuse to testify against a parent in any matter. Child abuse is a special exception where one spouse can be compelled to testify against the other.
In 1983, American Bar Association-Criminal Justice Section created a draft a model to argue for the establishment of a parent-child privilege statute in hopes of protecting the immediate family unit. This decision was based on the concern that prosecutors were forcing children to testify against their parents before grand juries and at trials. This is very fundamental that if your children can be compelled to testify against you, then this keeps a separation between members of a family. Can you imagine forcing a child to testify where their father hid his gold? There is still no child privilege in American law illustrating there is still no respect for the core family structure, which classifies the United States in the same class as a totalitarian state with some of the worse dictators in history. The American Bar Association failed to move Congress to protect the American family. The state must ALWAYS come before the family as in Stalin’s communist world.
Article 248 of the French Civil Code states boldly: “No one can be summoned as a witness if he is a blood relation, or a relative by marriage in direct line, or husband and wife of one of the parties, even although divorced.” (C. PR. civ. art. 248, § 336 (G. Koch trans. 1963)). The relations included under Article 248: father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, brothers, sisters, brothers- and sisters-in-law, and the husband or wife of the accused, even if divorced. The law of West Germany has a similar provision that prevents what the Germans call unbefugt, or unauthorized disclosure (See ZPO § 52(3) (H. Niebler trans. 1965)). Swedish law also embodies a parent-child privilege as well (SWED. CODE JUD. P. ch. 36, § 3 (A. Bruzelius & R. Ginsburg trans. 1967)). A divorced spouse has the privilege under American law, but only for the period of the marriage, not before or after. Now you might ask why this is important since it only involves criminals. Don’t forget, we all commit three felonies a day and hiding your money, not paying taxes, and lying to any government officer is all “criminal” so we need not be concerned only with drug dealers, rapists, and murderers. A 13 year-old was arrested for trying to buy lunch in school with a $2 bill that the school never saw and neither did the police. It was genuine. You can be arrested to buying something with a counterfeit bill you didn’t know was counterfeit.
The law of Continental Europe emerged from the Catholic Church and canon law. The English common law departed from the Catholic Church and became all about the king, not family or God. The prevailing legal view under the civil law countries of Western Europe has been that no person will ever be forced to testify on confidences between any member and another family member. This historical overview stems from Roman law that the family unit was sacred. The very idea has complete immunity from compelled testimony existed for approximately 3,500 years and in Roman times included all household members including slaves.
Throughout history, such testimonial family immunity, including parent-child, are conspicuously absent in totalitarian regimes. Nazi Germany had no such privileges. Anyone could be compelled to testify against another family member. The Soviet Union had no parent-child or family type privilege. The mark of a totalitarian regime has always been the absence of any family immunity from compelled testimony about each other. The State has ALWAYS come before individuals. No family relationships are deemed private and free from the state’s intense scrutiny — NONE! This is the road down that the NSA has travelled, and under the American law there is no such family immunity from compelled testimony.
Without adoption of even a family privilege, the United States possesses the same totalitarian power to tear down the privacy of the family and turn brother against brother, child against parent, or sister against sister.