What are the best examples of “privatized gains and socialized losses”?
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE) companies) are examples of organizations that provided enormous profits to investors, but since their failure have received gargantuan infusions (hundreds of billions) of tax dollars to stay solvent. The investors realized the upside without suffering the downside.I'm not an economist. So I would also use phrases like "other people's money", and "heads I win, tails you lose". I think the term "Moral Hazard" is relevant and searching for articles on that subject will help out the reader of these answers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mor...
Do conservatives hate companies like WinCo who pay their employees more than other companies and are employee-owned?
They are practically a socialist-run company. They only have a CEO and board of directors still for organizational purposes since you can't get by without those in a capitalist society. However, if every company modeled after WinCo, they all could transition to having just a workers' council and not a board of directors, and perhaps a president of the company who is elected by the workers.
Among large US Newspapers, which are considered conservative and which are considered liberal?
I would really like to object (in a friendly way) to this question as I feel it is based entirely on a false premise.The American media is owned by 5…or 6 (I forget, sorry) giant corporations—-for-profit corporations (keep that in mind).These corporations divide up the American public like a pie. Each corporation decides to give a portion of the public what they want. They split themselves up into a kind of “pretend” liberal, conservative, centrist, fair and balanced posture—it really doesn’t matter what they call themselves—they are just making sure they don’t step too hard on each other’s toes and compete directly for the same eyeballs.Once they’ve attracted those eyeballs by calling themselves “liberal” or “conservative”, they SELL those eyeballs to other corporations. That’s how they make all their money.So, the idea that the top executives in these giant corporations actually embody or practice “liberal” or “libertarian” or “conservative” ideals is pretty much nonsense.The big wigs at MSNBC do not, in fact, intend to sell their chalets in Aspen and start People’s Collective Farms or Communes across America, or are they going to pour their money into ghettos to revitalize them.The big wigs at Fox are not going to “conserve” much of anything as conservatives. Basically they will play golf with the big wigs at MSNBCAll media is, in truth, pretty much the same entity with the same values. The hosts and journalists on these shows don’t necessarily believe what they are telling you—what they are telling you is what you tuned in to hear, or see.So “liberal” or “conservative’ is not a coherent or consistent belief system—it is essentially a PRODUCT, that is packaged, hot and juicy, just for you, and is meant to re-inforce your core beliefs as they stood before you tuned in.American media didn’t used to be like this, back when there were so many independent entities—-but now, that’s how it works.There is no actual “liberal” newspapers, or cable news channels, nor “conservative” ones. There are left and right pitchmen, con men and carnival barkers.
Why do conservatives claim the rich "earned and deserve" their wealth?
The biggest problem with capitalism is that it all started out by making a few people rich by convincing the working class that the value of their labor was inherently "worthless". The vast majority of people have to accept whatever their wealthy masters told them was "for the good of the business" regardless of the clear evidence that perpetual exploitation tends to create a slow-boiling mass of anger and resentment if they're constantly abused and fair compensation is denied to members of the working class. Obviously slaves were essentially prisoners of their "owners" conditioned to obey whatever command their masters intended for their human livestock to perform. If you were paid a wage, obviously the "business owners" preferred that you perform specific labor intensive tasks for as little currency compensation as possible. The nature of capitalism has always been designed to be business-centric and inherently deceptive/cruel towards employees. Employers demand, (in general) that workers be denied as many potential worker rights as possible. In addition to cutting corners on worker safety and employment hours, employers have forced government into minimum wage attrition by deliberately underpaying their non-managerial workers for the "privilege" of being kept on the company ledger as a cog in the wheel of concentrated non-profit sharing of corporate profits. The main axiom of conservatism stipulates that rich people deserve to be "lazy", not because they will ever admit that the rich are the truest example of societal leeches, but because wealthy elitists condition society to accept selective societal facts as set in stone using a constant projection of their own lazy behavior by framing the hard working poor and middle class as lazy by proxy of being rationed a pittance of wealth from the wealth exploitation dichotomy perpetuated by the status quo wealth rationing racket. The first dogma of conservatism holds an absolute axiom that poor people/middle class "deserve" to be poor or marginally middle class because they deliberately deny themselves the conservative "lifestyle" choice to become obsessed with a lifelong obsession with avarice and greed.
How did the "Robber barons" help America if capitalism always works better?
http://mises.org/daily/2317 Market entrepreneurship is a hallmark of genuine capitalism, whereas political entrepreneurship is not. Liberals, as usual, are unable to see the vast differences. They erroneously lump the 2 together. In some cases, of course, the entrepreneurs commonly labeled "robber barons" did indeed profit by exploiting American customers, but these were not market entrepreneurs. For example, Leland Stanford, a former governor and US senator from California, used his political connections to have the state pass laws prohibiting competition for his Central Pacific railroad. Rockefeller for instance devised means of eliminating much of the incredible waste that had plagued the oil industry. His chemists figured out how to produce such oil byproducts as lubricating oil, gasoline, paraffin wax, Vaseline, paint, varnish, and about three hundred other substances. In each instance he profited by eliminating waste. One of Rockefeller's harshest critics was journalist Ida Tarbell, whose brother was the treasurer of the Pure Oil Company, which could not compete with Standard Oil's low prices. She published a series of hypercritical articles in McClure's magazine in 1902 and 1903, which were turned into a book entitled The History of the Standard Oil Company, a classic of anti-business propaganda. The fact Standard oil was so efficient allowed them to have lower prices. The lower prices forced it's competitors to retaliate the only way they could: Government anti-trust legislation. They assumed Standard oil and companies like it, were able to reduce prices due to a war chest of profits. However, this wasn't true at all. Common sense tells us with lower prices, they couldn't possibly have enough of a war chest to force competition out of business. In the 1930's the American Petroleum Institute (an industry trade association) lobbied for various regulatory schemes to restrict competition and prop up prices; it did not even pretend to be in favor of capitalism or free enterprise. The institute even endorsed the use of National Guard troops to enforce state government production quotas in Texas and Oklahoma in the early l930s. To economists, "predatory pricing" is theoretical nonsense and has no empirical validity. SO ... This begs the question; who were the real robber barons? Government or capitalists?
Can capitalism fix itself, can government fix it, or can it not be fixed at all?
Most of the debates I see here on Y/A are based on the opposition of two positions: laissez faire economics (espoused by the right) and liberal reformism (espoused by liberals). The right says that the actions of the liberals are making matters much, much worse. The liberals say that only by state intervention can the problem be fixed and that laissez faire caused the problem in the first place. (Incidentally, the right incorrectly ascribes Obama's policies to socialism, which provides cover for Obama as he hands trillions to private banks and brokers. He's not a socialist by any means, although he is conducting a major program of state-interventionist and propped-up capitalism. He's overseen the largest transfer of public funds into private hands than any president in US history... I'm not saying that's good--indeed--but it's not socialism. It's an attempt at liberal reformist interventionism.) Can either laissez faire or reformism adequately address the enormity of our contemporary financial crisis? Is it true that reformism is doing more damage than good? Can reformism possibly do what it did in the past, under FDR for example, or is the system simply too compromised and unable to afford such programs? If neither laissez faire or reformism is capable of ending the crisis, then what is? Is capitalism going to self-heal, or will it require reformism, or are neither possible at this point? I have my own idea, of course, but I want to hear what others say.