“Toto, I Don’t Think We’re in Kansas Anymore”

https://internationalman.com/articles/toto-i-don%E2%80%99t-think-were-in-kansas-anymore/

Capitalism explained in 2015: “You have two cows…”

http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/capitalism-explained-in-2015-you-have-two-cows-18034

Justice, capitalism and progress: Paul Tudor Jones II at TED2015

http://blog.ted.com/justice-capitalism-and-progress-paul-tudor-jones-ii-at-ted2015/

“This gap between the 1 percent and the rest of America, and between the US and the rest of the world, cannot and will not persist,” says the investor. “Historically, these kinds of gaps get closed in one of three ways: by revolution, higher taxes or wars. None are on my bucket list.”

“It isn’t capitalism that has caused the crisis!”

http://goldswitzerland.com/it-isnt-capitalism-that-has-caused-the-crisis/

Americans Aged 18-29 Have A More Favorable Response To Socialism Than To Capitalism

I guess the lessons of Stalin, Lenin, and Mao were lost when our educational system taught world history.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-01/americans-aged-18-29-have-more-favorable-response-socialism-capitalism

Capitalism vs. corporatism

A decent society is grounded on four moral absolutes; do not kill; do not steal; do not lie and do not exploit. Obviously, corporatism and decency are mutually exclusive. For what is fouling democracy’s waters in the twenty-first century is not capitalism but corporatism. Capitalism was a product of owners who exploited their workers. Capitalism has morphed into a corporatism in which employees who think they are owners exploit the workers. Capitalist owners walked the factory floor; corporatist employees are sequestered in glass towers which makes it easier for them to ramp up their exploitation of their workers.

Our wars are corporate wars, waged to expand markets and secure natural resources. Corporatism’s attempt to equate itself with freedom is bogus. It offers freedom only to those at the apex of the pyramid, a freedom that is bought at the expense of the pyramid’s base. This is the peg upon which Progressives could hang liberty’s lantern. We must be willing to demonize corporatism , especially the finance corporatism that has raped pension funds, turned people out of their homes and shipped jobs overseas.

- Case Wagenvoord

Bill Gross compares deficit spending to flushing money down the toilet

http://sfgate.bloomberg.com/SFChronicle/Story?docId=1376-L69P2S6NKMZJ01-1M2S7D340JHALJ6F809MPJREDH

Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross said deficit spending by governments that seek to maintain artificial levels of consumption “can be compared to flushing money down an economic toilet.”

Without acceleration in population growth, developed countries finance more consumption to maintain economic growth, the world’s biggest bond-fund manager wrote in his August commentary today on Newport Beach, California-based Pimco’s website. Leveraged spending, he said, is not a substitute for demand created by people.

“I will go so far as to say that not only growth but capitalism itself may be in part dependent on a growing population,” Gross wrote. “Production depends upon people, not only in the actual process, but because of the final demand that justifies its existence.”

Deficit spending will be unsuccessful in what Pimco calls the “new normal” because deleveraging, re-regulation and de- globalization produces structural headwinds that lead to slower growth and lower-than-average investment returns, Gross said.

Pimco, a unit of Munich-based insurer Allianz SE, managed $1.07 trillion of assets as of March 31.

Economics and health care

Thanks to Dick for finding this analysis on economics, capitalism, socialism, and health care.

http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/analysis.html

Servicing debt payments

According to Darryl Robert Schoon:

In the early stages of capitalist systems, interest and principal can be serviced out of the debtor’s cash flow. In the final stage of “mature capitalist systems”, they cannot.

Capitalism’s final stage is what Minsky calls “ponzi-financing”, when debt payments can only be made by additional borrowing. This is what the US, the UK and Japan are doing today, having to borrow against tomorrow in order to pay yesterday’s bills.

Economic models explained by...cows

I stole this from another blogger from my alumni site, Paula Lorenz (who knows where she read it):

The 2008 update

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then
throws the milk away...

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island
Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States ,leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy....

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

And the bonus, recently added:

A VEGETARIAN CORPORATION
Your cows are really soy plants.
You claim the milk they produce tastes just as good but uses less energy to produce, and no one buys it. (No animals were harmed in writing this comment)