When Capitalism comes to America

[Caribbean Hen]

Ok

Speaking of hypocrisy - look at you stealing my schtick after accusing me of "intellectual theft"

Well you’re always using my material

You’re like the Vanilla ICE of this place

[UNI88]

Speaking of hypocrisy - look at you stealing my schtick after accusing me of "intellectual theft"

Well you’re always using my material

You’re like the Vanilla ICE of this place

if you think I'm using your "material" because it's good. I use it to mock your blatant hypocrisy.

[Caribbean Hen]

Well you’re always using my material

You’re like the Vanilla ICE of this place

if you think I'm using your "material" because it's good. I use it to mock your blatant hypocrisy.

That doesn’t rhyme

try to do better

Are you wasting time

Or being a go getter

ICE is NICE baby

[kalm]

Effective tax rates including state taxes and Norways VAT tax are similar. Brave yourselves for a long, itemized, massaged numbers reply from BDK.

[kalm]

Ben lays down some tough love.

[Caribbean Hen]

Effective tax rates including state taxes and Norways VAT tax are similar. Brave yourselves for a long, itemized, massaged numbers reply from BDK.

What has Norway produced that made the world better?

Nothing

Why?

[kalm]

Effective tax rates including state taxes and Norways VAT tax are similar. Brave yourselves for a long, itemized, massaged numbers reply from BDK.

What has Norway produced that made the world better?

Nothing

Why?

For starters they have an education system that prevents stupid questions like this.

Otherwise, they’re Europe's largest energy supplier and the world's second-largest seafood exporter. They discovered North America hundreds of years before Columbus. They conquered the British isles and influenced culture well into Eastern Europe including the Russian empire.

[Caribbean Hen]

What has Norway produced that made the world better?

Nothing

Why?

For starters they have an education system that prevents stupid questions like this.

Otherwise, they’re Europe's largest energy supplier and the world's second-largest seafood exporter. They discovered North America hundreds of years before Columbus. They conquered the British isles and influenced culture well into Eastern Europe including the Russian empire.

Oh, OK. I thought you were just trashing the Scandinavian countries because of the Viking culture.

[kalm]

For starters they have an education system that prevents stupid questions like this.

Otherwise, they’re Europe's largest energy supplier and the world's second-largest seafood exporter. They discovered North America hundreds of years before Columbus. They conquered the British isles and influenced culture well into Eastern Europe including the Russian empire.

Oh, OK. I thought you were just trashing the Scandinavian countries because of the Viking culture.

Sure. It had nothing to with your fear of social democracy and people like Mamdani, Bernie, and AOC.

[kalm]

Whole bunch of truth in this.

According to Braudel, ordinary commerce is competitive and transparent, while capitalism is anti-competitive and deliberately opaque, making it a zone of privilege held by a small elite who bend the rules in their favour.

Braudel further argues that commerce, or the market, is horizontal, transparent, and competitive and as old as civilization itself. It involves individuals or small groups trading goods, where barriers to entry are low, no single player dominates, and profit is a reward for fulfilling a specific need.

Capitalism, meanwhile, is a specific institutional arrangement that emerged relatively recently in human history, around the 16th to 17th centuries. It is NOT just people “trading stuff”. It is instead the legal and financial system where the means of production are privately owned, and the primary objective is the continuous, infinite accumulation of capital.

Because of this accumulation-obssessed nature of capitalism, when it scales up, it seeks to eliminate the free play of commerce to protect its investments. True market competition is risky for massive capital as it drives prices down and threatens profit margins.

Braudel contended that capitalism only begins where commerce ends. It is the zone of high finance and state collusion. Because it operates across vast distances such as the 17th-century spice trade, information takes months to travel, which creates a deliberate lack of transparency.

Braudel noted that the great capitalists of the early modern era in Madeira and Venice or the Dutch East India Company, never wanted to compete in a fair, transparent market because competition slices profit margins to the bone. Instead, they secured royal charters, exclusive trading rights, and naval protection. At the same time, the state granted them legal monopolies, effectively outlawing competition.

Therefore, capitalism naturally trends toward creating monopolies and securing state interventions like bailouts, subsidies, and regulatory capture to shield itself from the very market forces it claims to champion. In fact, the most important takeaway from Braudel’s analysis is that capitalism is NOT the natural evolution or the highest form of the free market, it is its dark shadow.

If ordinary people could comprehend these distinctions, many self-described “capitalists” would realise they are just pro-commerce, and actually anti-capitalist, because it would be clear that defending “capitalism” means defending the right of a small parasite class to bypass the market entirely.

[UNI88]

Whole bunch of truth in this.

According to Braudel, ordinary commerce is competitive and transparent, while capitalism is anti-competitive and deliberately opaque, making it a zone of privilege held by a small elite who bend the rules in their favour.

Braudel further argues that commerce, or the market, is horizontal, transparent, and competitive and as old as civilization itself. It involves individuals or small groups trading goods, where barriers to entry are low, no single player dominates, and profit is a reward for fulfilling a specific need.

Capitalism, meanwhile, is a specific institutional arrangement that emerged relatively recently in human history, around the 16th to 17th centuries. It is NOT just people “trading stuff”. It is instead the legal and financial system where the means of production are privately owned, and the primary objective is the continuous, infinite accumulation of capital.

Because of this accumulation-obssessed nature of capitalism, when it scales up, it seeks to eliminate the free play of commerce to protect its investments. True market competition is risky for massive capital as it drives prices down and threatens profit margins.

Braudel contended that capitalism only begins where commerce ends. It is the zone of high finance and state collusion. Because it operates across vast distances such as the 17th-century spice trade, information takes months to travel, which creates a deliberate lack of transparency.

Braudel noted that the great capitalists of the early modern era in Madeira and Venice or the Dutch East India Company, never wanted to compete in a fair, transparent market because competition slices profit margins to the bone. Instead, they secured royal charters, exclusive trading rights, and naval protection. At the same time, the state granted them legal monopolies, effectively outlawing competition.

Therefore, capitalism naturally trends toward creating monopolies and securing state interventions like bailouts, subsidies, and regulatory capture to shield itself from the very market forces it claims to champion. In fact, the most important takeaway from Braudel’s analysis is that capitalism is NOT the natural evolution or the highest form of the free market, it is its dark shadow.

If ordinary people could comprehend these distinctions, many self-described “capitalists” would realise they are just pro-commerce, and actually anti-capitalist, because it would be clear that defending “capitalism” means defending the right of a small parasite class to bypass the market entirely.

I disagree. I think they're bastardizing Braudel's writings and they're attempting to lump all types of capitalism under what could be described as crony capitalism. Capitalism is broaded than that and what they're describing is a bastardized version of capitalism.

[Baldy]

Whole bunch of truth in this.

According to Braudel, ordinary commerce is competitive and transparent, while capitalism is anti-competitive and deliberately opaque, making it a zone of privilege held by a small elite who bend the rules in their favour.

Braudel further argues that commerce, or the market, is horizontal, transparent, and competitive and as old as civilization itself. It involves individuals or small groups trading goods, where barriers to entry are low, no single player dominates, and profit is a reward for fulfilling a specific need.

Capitalism, meanwhile, is a specific institutional arrangement that emerged relatively recently in human history, around the 16th to 17th centuries. It is NOT just people “trading stuff”. It is instead the legal and financial system where the means of production are privately owned, and the primary objective is the continuous, infinite accumulation of capital.

Because of this accumulation-obssessed nature of capitalism, when it scales up, it seeks to eliminate the free play of commerce to protect its investments. True market competition is risky for massive capital as it drives prices down and threatens profit margins.

Braudel contended that capitalism only begins where commerce ends. It is the zone of high finance and state collusion. Because it operates across vast distances such as the 17th-century spice trade, information takes months to travel, which creates a deliberate lack of transparency.

Braudel noted that the great capitalists of the early modern era in Madeira and Venice or the Dutch East India Company, never wanted to compete in a fair, transparent market because competition slices profit margins to the bone. Instead, they secured royal charters, exclusive trading rights, and naval protection. At the same time, the state granted them legal monopolies, effectively outlawing competition.

Therefore, capitalism naturally trends toward creating monopolies and securing state interventions like bailouts, subsidies, and regulatory capture to shield itself from the very market forces it claims to champion. In fact, the most important takeaway from Braudel’s analysis is that capitalism is NOT the natural evolution or the highest form of the free market, it is its dark shadow.

If ordinary people could comprehend these distinctions, many self-described “capitalists” would realise they are just pro-commerce, and actually anti-capitalist, because it would be clear that defending “capitalism” means defending the right of a small parasite class to bypass the market entirely.

This kinda reminds me how klam confuses Democratic socialism with social democracy.

[kalm]

Whole bunch of truth in this.

I disagree. I think they're bastardizing Braudel's writings and they're attempting to lump all types of capitalism under what could be described as crony capitalism. Capitalism is broaded than that and what they're describing is a bastardized version of capitalism.

I don’t disagree with this and the same thought crossed my mind. But it also speaks to misunderstandings of what capitalism is within an under-regulated system that benefits the wealthy and allows for monopolization of industries. “Free market” capitalism that benefits all of society is a myth.

[kalm]

Whole bunch of truth in this.

This kinda reminds me how klam confuses Democratic socialism with social democracy.

Please explain the exact differences between the two in using your own words.

[Caribbean Hen]

This kinda reminds me how klam confuses Democratic socialism with social democracy.

Please explain the exact differences between the two in using your own words.

Why do you care about the exact definition? It’s pointless

What is important is stop walking around thinking the system is rigged…. With the right mindset and mentality and drive to succeed anyone can make something of themselves in our “rigged system”

[Baldy]

This kinda reminds me how klam confuses Democratic socialism with social democracy.

Please explain the exact differences between the two in using your own words.

The goal of democrat socialists is to eliminate capitalism while social democracies are only able to function and exist because of capitalism. The two are oil and water and do not mix.