Originally Posted By mawnck Now here's an interesting viewpoint! <a href="http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=316591&t=01007422989251003253" target="_blank">http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/Vie...51003253</a> >>I will now express a very simple heretical view, so please have your stale eggs and rotten tomatoes ready. ***It does not matter what kind of economic system you have.*** The dividing line is not between socialism and capitalism. It is between intelligent governments and stupid governments.<< >>Pol Pot has botched socialism horribly, but Sweden has been much more successful. The Soviet Union falls somewhere in the middle. Whenever the ruling elite was smart, they always found a way to regulate the economy without too much waste. But capitalism is just as easy to mishandle if you are corrupt or don't know what you are doing. In fact, things that we take for granted in America are really in exception. The typical capitalist country will not have roads, electricity, fridges, computers, or running water. Who ever said that they don't have private property in the Central African Republic? They do. But having private property is not going to be of any help if you don't have financial capital or people who can put that capital to good use instead of stealing it and depositing it in Switzerland. The reason most capitalist countries are desperately poor is that they never managed to grow a ruling elite that wouldn't steal.<< M@tL. <a href="http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=316591&t=01007422989251003253" target="_blank">http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/Vie...51003253</a>
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones Sweden isn't socialist. They just have high taxes. Most of the firms that operate there are privately owned and as far as I know there is no central authority that sets prices.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones They aren't even 100% socialist. It's a sliding scale between capitalism and socialism. American has a lot of socialist aspects to it. Agriculture for example.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo SJ - Sweden is socialist, a large amount of their expenditure is on socialist programmes. In fact in the UK, who are somewhat socialist, we always send delegates to Sweden to see how they do it.
Originally Posted By Mr X At some point, we need to get over the stupid socialist = bad and capitalist = good crap. The simple fact is most countries that function well these days have a mix of systems, AMERICA INCLUDED. And it's sad to say, but true enough that America has also adopted some bad ideologies, which would definitely include fascism if one were to be honest about such things.
Originally Posted By Mr X And before anyone bothers to get huffy about it, the fascist side would include warrentless wiretaps, torture programs, and I could come up with about a million more examples if need be...
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Facism at it's roots is about a nation feeling they are better than others and their citizens are superior to others. Sadly, I think a lot of mainstream American citizens fits into this on many occassions. And Socialism and Capitalism can and do co-exist. Almost without exception. But if I had to back one, I do not think it would be the free market. All it serves is itself.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<Facism at it's roots is about a nation feeling they are better than others and their citizens are superior to others. Sadly, I think a lot of mainstream American citizens fits into this on many occassions.>> I just happened to look at this site last night: <a href="http://www.kkk.com/" target="_blank">http://www.kkk.com/</a>
Originally Posted By fkurucz ^^What blows me away is that these guys really believe that Jesus was blond with blue eyes.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo I know, it i really sad. But it is not just the KKK that believe this either. If they knew that he likely looked middle eastern, it would rock their world.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder This is the image I remember most growing up: <a href="http://www.photoethnography.com/blog/images/jesus.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.photoethnography.co...esus.jpg</a>
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Yep, looks pretty European huh? No surprise since it was passed on during the middle ages and renaissance the idea of a white jesus (did you know more christians were killed by other christians because they thought the non white christians of Turkey and the Ottoman empire were Moors?).
Originally Posted By Mr X <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sawsmXlp_R8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...smXlp_R8</a>
