Anything it takes to cause artificial conflict and crush the opposition to socialism I guess.

ah297900 wrote:

fortinbras wrote:

Anything it takes to cause artificial conflict and crush the opposition to socialism I guess.

I don't want to start another big political thread, but how exactly do you define "socialism"? It seems to be a word floating around that without one single agreed-upon definition.

When the government seizes upon and starts to run private companies.  My answer is going to start an argument too since its a bit simplistic and not 100% accurate.  Ah well, I'll watch this one play out while I'm masturbating to porn.

ah297900 wrote:

fortinbras wrote:

ah297900 wrote:

I don't want to start another big political thread, but how exactly do you define "socialism"? It seems to be a word floating around that without one single agreed-upon definition.

When the government seizes upon and starts to run private companies.  My answer is going to start an argument too since its a bit simplistic and not 100% accurate.  Ah well, I'll watch this one play out while I'm masturbating to porn.

Agreed. I think one of the reasons that people argue about socialism is that the word conjures visions of the second S in the USSR. If we can do this civilly (god knows I'm not going to change anybody's mind), I'd be interested to know why you think the AIG bailout is different than when banks have gone into receivership in the past, or what the difference is between socialized medicine and socialized firefighting.

Don't read that as me throwing down a challenge; I'm really just asking if you'd like to articulate what you see as different now, what's wrong with it, etc., just out of plain curiosity.

Yes the banks and AIG have received like-wise bailouts before.  And yes they were completely idiotic to grant, I honestly find the September/October bailout by far to be the biggest failure that the Bush administration had been responsible for.  The companies should have been left to fail to serve as a warning to future companies that the government will not step in and save them from their own stupidity.

Well the place to start is with me, I was dead wrong about the exposure to CDS's; however our illustrious government decided to rescue Friedman theory and GS posted a $1.3bn profit for the 1st qtr entirely at our expense.

I feel I must do something to make amends and have decided to force myself to drink cheap american lager for 30 days as penance.


(let me see how this worked:  1.  The banks cry "owwwie" and freeze credit.   2.  Credit markets freeze.  3. Bush&Congress step in and award them 750bn to soothe the owwie.  4.  Equities and fixed income go into a freefall.  5.  Additional funds are used to alleviate the bad bets the banks made on the insurance.  6.  the banks use tarp to purchase deeply discounted AAA bonds  7.  Bonds bounce.  8. Banks are happy.)