Capitalism, Part 2

Recently I watched this legendary movie entitled Wall Street. Story of a young stock broker who in the beginning of this film was struggling but got hooked up with the right connection and suddenly was rising high. It came at a cost however when he finds himself getting arrested for insider trading right after he pulled a fast one on his connection.

The message of this movie was regarding greed or at least the 1980s version of greedy excess. Charlie Sheen played Bud the young stock broker and Gordon was played by Michael Douglass who was Bud's connection into the higher echelons of the financial world. Bud had it all, but he decided to pull a fast one on Gordon when he found out what Gordon attempted to do!

A friend shared the film with me to show how it goes in corporate America. I really laughed when Bud was arrested in his office, the man who gave him the office went from "I knew you were something special" to "I always knew you were trouble". Turned his back on him just like that!

I don't necessarily look down on greed, but certainly we would look at a personally differently if they did whatever they could to get more. We could be talking about money and we could be talking about food. It could be anything that is very necessary.

My friend and I have talked about how today's titans take care of themselves and then forget about the people who toil under them. The titans may live in expensive pieces of real estate while the people under them may never get that luxury. Then the question comes up - How much is enough?

Everyone has an answer. We could talk about wealth and say you don't need two or more houses. We could also say you don't need all that money. The question is who are we to decide who has enough. The ones who are asking the questions about having enough wealth has very little themselves.

I could aspire to be a Mitt Romney although I have no idea if I'll ever get there. My aspirations isn't necessary regarding wealth, but certainly regarding attaining the middle-class lifestyle that I grew up in. To be comfortable enough to not be force to scrimp and save ever dime I earn. It seems easier said than done, I'm sure but it is what it is.

While it seems as if the past election was about the economy, the past election was about a rich man running for president. It wasn't Romney's time for that reason especially in an environment where we're asking the question about how much is enough. Obama had ads up about the rich paying their "fair share" of taxes and there are people out there who have buttons stating "tax the rich".

BTW, since I mentioned Wall Street there was a sequel release in 2010 called Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. An interesting update and certainly mentions today's young people's issues with regards to their debts. It could have been an update that addresses the real estate bubble but it doesn't appear to do that although it does touch upon some of the themes of the original.

It makes me wonder if there is a film today that could show the times we live in. One film comes to mind entitled The Company Men. People getting laid off so that the executives in the higher eschelons can think more about themselves than those under them. Surely there are other examples than that.

Still while I may continue to have faith in this system we call capitalism, sometimes we do have to take note of its various downsides.

Ward Room: The Party of Lincoln -- Again

In the wake of Mitt Romney's loss for the Presidency almost two weeks ago, we have heard or seen lots of analysis of why the Republican party didn't gain the White House. It involves the demographic changes this nation is seeing. In fact we can see evidence of this in the previous post as far as Illinois goes.

So here's the anaylsis (again) from Ed McClelland:

There’s an argument in the movie Lincoln about whether the Republican Party was intended to be a progressive or a conservative outfit. Francis Preston Blair, who boasts that he founded the party in his living room, insists that it’s conservative and anti-slavery, but shouldn’t be taken over by radical abolitionists. President Lincoln, who is trying to persuade Blair to support a constitutional amendment banning slavery, obviously wants it to be progressive.

For the first hundred years of the Republican Party’s existence, Lincoln’s vision was ascendant. Republicans were in the forefront of the great social issue of the 19th and 20th centuries: abolitionism, environmentalism, women’s suffrage, civil rights. The Democrats, a confederation of Southern whites and Northern Catholics, were the socially conservative party. William Jennings Bryan, who lost three presidential elections on the Democratic ticket, ended his career by defending creationism at the Scopes Monkey Trial. Even in the 1970s, most of the judges who signed on to Roe v. Wade were Republican appointees. And President Ford supported the Equal Rights Amendment.

By then, though, the Republican Party had begun to change, into a party of reaction, whose purpose was resisting the social movements of the 1960s: civil rights, feminism, pacifism, environmentalism. The Republicans basically switched bases with the Democrats, becoming the party of the South and Northern white ethnics -- a coalition assembled by Richard Nixon, whose “Southern Strategy” made the Republicans the dominant party of the 1970s and 1980s.

Mitt Romney’s defeat demonstrated that this iteration of the Republican Party has run its course. The changes that began in the 1960s have become ingrained in American life. Campaigning against them marks the Republicans as a party of memory, not a party of hope or progress. Even conservative commentator Wayne Allyn Root admitted, on the Fox News website, that the Republicans have lost the culture wars, and need to give up on a political solution to the abortion issue.

Seriously, the real answer is to run candidates who are fiscally conservative and principled, but socially moderate and modern. The GOP needs candidates that say “Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. I will uphold it, even though my personal views are pro-life. And I will ALWAYS support exceptions for rape, incest, and when a mother’s life is in danger. Period.” The issue is off the table -- forever. What's left? The economy and jobs -- winning issues for the GOP.

That explain why an image of the Lincoln movie poster is shown in this post. This analysis makes sense to me in fact.

I consider myself pro-life, but my position isn't exactly ban all abortions. Social issues don't matter to me at this point primarily because I have a different set of issues. Jobs being one of them. I may not be able to stake a solid claim on abortion primarily because I'm not going out of my way to have children and have never been in a situation where there had been an unwanted pregnancy. Though for abortion all I can say is that hey whether the child is unborn or not it's not THERE fault that they're in the situation their in. I try to remember that.

Another piece of analysis is that Republicans must find a way to attract people of other ethnicity into their party. It doesn't matter if they're Black, white, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Chinese or whatever. Also how do they attract more women to their party?

There is some soul searching to do there, where to start? Start with their history as the party of Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States?

Capitalism

Over four years ago I wrote a post about Karl Marx. That post proclaimed my faith in capitalism with the belief that the individual could succeed the best under such a system than Marx's capitalist system. It's still my belief although it's still easy to complain about the excesses and abuse that the practitioners of this system utilizes.

A friend of mine and myself talked about why some of the rich here in this nation owns and they complain about being forced to provide health care to their workers in their companies. That is often a complain about many who aren't in the higher echelons of our economic brackets. Do they need to own big houses or serveral houses or even several cars or even their net worth?

My only answer to that is to say that is not for us to decide. In my case, I can only dream of having those luxuries. That's not to say I would want to buy so much stuff because I have the money. Whether my earnings are middle-class or wealthy, my goal is only to live simply and that I could live without having a big house or anything else the wealthy could want.

As I've stated capitalism is hard and it's doubtful anyone can truly succeed under Marxism because it's hard for me to see how better off the individual will be. Under capitalism at least the individual can find their worth as a worker or entrepreneur. Besides capitalism is all about what you put into the system you can't get a lot if you have very little to offer.


While I may have great faith in the capitalist system, this is not to say that capitalism doesn't have its faults. We're seeing some of it's faults come out into the light. Even when times are good, surely we've seen some of it's faults during those times as well.

Still there is one question that must be answered. How does an individual make out under a socialist system? At this moment I'm having a hard time seeing that.

Silver!

I have an interest and have a lot to learn about buying silver. It's an easy investment to make, but it's something that one must do their homework on. Besides my concern when it comes to buying this precious metal is whether or not one finds themselves buying a fake from an unscrupulous seller.

Another concern I have is getting the best deal in purchasing silver. I don't make enough money as it is anyway and that means making my money count on such investments. Is it important to own silver and pay more than necessary to own such a precious metal.

In looking up any advice on this subject the main suggestion anyone has on buying this precious metal is to shop around for the best deals. As stated earlier do some homework! That's my current plan so far and just as everyone else hopefully I can find the best deals for me!

BTW, I got to get a handle on silver as a hedge against inflation. Besides the economy isn't doing so great right now and items do cost money. Still it's great to know that money is held up in something and the longer you hold that silver hopefully the more value it had when it's time to have to exchange it for cash money.