For Californicators

...meanwhile Carly Fiorina's infection was taken care of because, as a member of the gentry, she has full medical coverage

--rather than being like so many working class individuals who have to take pot luck on these sorts of things.

Socialism gets it 90% right. They live by nine out of ten of the ten commandments. Unfortunately they toss out "Thou shalt not covet" and as a result they live their lives constantly pissed off.

You realize that capitalism is all about coveting... right? It's just that socialism fully expects the government to help them stick their hands into the populace's pockets... whereas in theory capitalists offer to exchange goods or services for the populace's pocket change, but of course in reality every capitalist country to date has plenty of taxes, price supports, tariffs, and other forms of government-sanctioned pocket-picking as well. ...and very few capitalists would prefer it to not be that way! (I.e., how many farmers support giving up their price supports? How many seniors will give up their medicare? ...etc...)

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A capitalist does not run around and say "its not fair" when they don't have something. They( theoretically) figure out how to go and work for it and honestly purchase it. I don't view that as coveting.

In an idealized version of capitalism, sure.

Hmm... well, OK, fair enough: I don't really think the word implies how you'd like to obtain the object you're "wishing, longing, or craving for," but I'll buy that popular interpretation of "coveting" is "I'd like the item in question to be *handed to me*..."

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Capitalists (theoritcally) decide they want something and go work and then purchase it. They don't stand on a street corner and shout how unfair it is that they do not have something.

Desiring-->Working--->buying is not coveting.

Desiring--> Screaming "Not Fair"---> Demand other persons things is coveting.

I was going with this definition: "Wish, long, or crave for (something, especially the property of another person)."

Even if I work very hard to obtain the affections of my neighbor's wife, I think it still violates the "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" commandment... :-)

Is she a babe ?:-) ...Jim Thompson

Joel Koltner wrote:

...especially if you subscribe to the Bill Gates model where business isn't a NASCAR race where *everyone* can take home some money, but is like a demolition derby where there can be only one winner.

Let me stop you right there. You aren't showing a firm grasp on the concept.

Socialism: The gov't owns the means of production

--and If that gov't is a true democracy, everyone shares equally.

Capitalism: (Rich) individuals own the means of production

--and, under the USA's system, they buy laws that favor them.

Marxism: The workers own the means of production. In Northern Europe--though those countries are called Socialist-- the workers choose 50% of the board of directors of the companies for which they work.

I've often wondered how Cuba's Marxist gov't would have worked if it hadn't been for the pettiness of the USA's embargo.

What title has Jim worked so hard for ??

MW:

Definition of COVET

transitive verb 1: to wish for earnestly 2: to desire (what belongs to another) inordinately or culpably intransitive verb : to feel inordinate desire for what belongs to another

Definition 2 is what is normally meant by the word "covet" in this context. To unduly want material possessions falls under the "greed" banner, IMO.

You really are a clueless jerk. Life's pie isn't fixed.

Troll.

Thanks, Rich

Have you considered that maybe she paid her bill?

Cheers! Rich

No, you idiot! That's the socialist philosophy. Capitalists _pay_ their bills, rather than having the Gubmint rob their neighbors.

Thanks, Rich

Droughts and USA embargos - the scourge of Communism. Damn, why do droughts always occur just when a country is having a budding experience in communism and it screws it all up. I mean for like 30 years Zimbabwe had lucky weather then the Commies take over and BAM- a once in a ten thousand year drought hits.

I have taught my kids that socialists/communists believe that if you grow a carrot , it sucks one into the ground somewhere else in the world, thereby depriving someone else of a carrot.

=A0 =A0 ...Jim Thompson

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Already voted for Boxer. Brown too. Carly is such a pig, out sourcing jobs and then buying yachts and jets. I do appreciate the combined $200 million Carly and Meg put in the CA economy. Hey, it's hard to source TV and radio buys.

I would have reassigned the general to a position where he isn't responsible for procurement. If someone is paying the bills, you treat them like they wanted to be treated. Hey, money is fungible. If the USAF doesn't want it, the Marines will take it. Further, Boxer was the one that discovered the $600 hammers. Her team showed up at Travis AFB and found all sorts of dubious charges. She isn't some GOP suck up that just doles out the money just because it is for defense. Clearly a woman not to be messed with, and anyone stupid enough to mess with Boxer deserves what they get or more precisely don't get.

Actually, that isn't socialism as it is now practised. The UK Labour Party did "nationalise the commanding heights of the economy" when they were elected in 1945, but that didn't work out too well. The subsequent reaction - to privatise everything, including natural monopolies like the railway system, the phone system and the national grid - hasn't worked out too well either.

Modern socialists want enough control of the menas of production - by taxation and regulation - to ensure that the free market works, and invest taxpayers money in services - like universal health care, universal education and comprehensive communictaion and transport networks - which the free market doesn't handle well.

It's a vision of human society where we all cooperate to do as well as we can, but one that recognises that free markets are - mostly - the best way of optimising that collaboration

That's not universal. In Germany every company has two boards of directors, one of which supervises the the day to day operation of the company, where all the - executive - directors are share-holder appointed, while the second "supervisory" board monitors long-term company strategy and it's the supervisory board that has 50% worker appointed non-executive directors.

German companies do well. It's not clear whether the two-board system contributes to this. German executive directors are much more often trained as engineers than executive directors in English-speaking countries, where lawyers and accountants are over-represented, and it is claimed that engineers are less likely to be seduced by the attractions of short term profits at the cost of long-term business development.

Not too well. Competition between the providers of goods and services does seem to be a useful way encouraging efficiency and innovation. It is less useful with natural monopolies - like transport and communications systems - where there's a permanent conflict between providing service to everybody (no matter how remote) and making the service as cheap and efficient as possible.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen