Whats wrong with Socialism?

Socialism is generally seen as bad because it is against the American spirit. We rise or fall based on our determination. Like it or not...free market capitalism has done a lot to improve the world as a whole.

Health care - Socialized medicine has a lot of weaknesses and I don't think it will work for the United States. I believe Sweden is already panicking because their system is unable to handle a rising obesity rate. Just think about what they'd run into here. Two generations of smokers with bad eating habits.

Wall Street - Rip offs are significantly less common than the media would have you think. Bad brokerages don't tend to survive very long. They can also get into big trouble for tricking people into buying junk bonds. Either way, they make their money off the commission, so most firms won't care.

Bailout - Well...that is socialism. That's why we begrudgingly did it. Not sure about your point. We should have put in a little more oversight, but a lot of things were written into contracts and stuff. It will take a bit to cut out the fat.

True unbridled Capitalism does led to Trusts and deceit. That's why we have a government to ensure that competition is allowed and that consumer health isn't endangered.

The big problems off that I thought of were what I mentioned about Sweden. Most of the countries with socialized healthcare have a light load on their system. If an unhealthy population breaks the system, then something is wrong.

The lines are also a real problem and I don't get how you can dismiss them offhand. There are long lines as it is here. We need more doctors and there isn't a good way to make more without offering a lot of money for the 8 years of their life they'll spend becoming a doctor. A socialized system doesn't usually do that.

Those are the ones off the top of my tired mind. Might have more later.

Not sure of your point. Madoff was a pretty big screw up, but it looks like there were people who tried to warn the SEC, and they didn't listen. What would make a government system immune to this though? How would it be any better or provide them with the growth necessary to overcome inflation. Social Security was supposed to do that, and it only took us a little bit to screw it up.

I just don't see how socialism (the ideas you are describing at least, we are already doing some socialism) necessarily does anything better than the free market could do. Markets are efficient. They work. Why throw that out to pray that we can float socialist ideas?

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Edit to address to Jlk - No...stocks can not be bought for a truly overvalued amount. That's just...impossible. They were bought at market value or bought as preferred stock. The market sets the price, not anything else. I'm not even sure how that would work or how it would be them lying to the government. Financial information is public record. At worst, then they bought them for more to pump more capital in? I think you are talking about their assets, which they didn't buy, because they were afraid of paying more than they were worth. That's why they went the TARP route.

I always love a pretty strawman.

I actually based my anecdote off of a conversation I had with a cute Canadian girl in a taxi ride a month or so ago. So yeah...still a big problem. If I remember correctly, the designer of Canada's plan came forward and said that they had to institute more privatization if they wanted it to survive.

I wouldn't necessarily be against some type of low cost medicare like program that offered basic care. That would actually provide more of an incentive for low cost health insurance plans and allow for the solution to come about without much change.

I also don't really get the last strawman you made. How does your plan magically train more doctors. We are offering them small fortunes and we still have a shortage now. How is socializing the program going to magically make more people doctors?

Jlk311 said:

Why do Americans hate Socialism?

To me it would seem that unbridled Capitalism equals unbridled greed if not kept in check.

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Well, the problem with socialism is that we live in a society with finite resources. If we lived in a world with infinite reousrces, then sure socialism would be great. But as it stands, it just doesn't work.

To me it would seem that unbridled Capitalism equals unbridled greed if not kept in check.

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Well, yeah that is essentially what it is. But greed is what causes your business to fail in the free market (well, thats what used to happen before all of these bailouts).

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