REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

nobody starves due to laziness

POSTED BY: 1KIKI
UPDATED: Sunday, July 17, 2016 18:02
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Thursday, June 23, 2016 8:29 PM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by THGRRI:

Sorry, I'll try harder lol. Bernie Sanders said during his campaign when asked why he did not do better. " Because 80% of poor people who can vote don't." So in a way their predicament is there own fault. That last part was me.

I googled What is voter participation in the USA and Denmark? The answer I got was Denmark 85.9% (love the precision) and USA 66.5%, while Australia is 94.5% and Mali was 21.3%. If anybody wants to prove me right (why should you?) please graph voting % versus starving %. I suspect there is a strong relationship between voting and eating.
www.idea.int/publications/vt/upload/Voter%20turnout.pdf



In civilized countries anyway SECOND.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 8:36 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by THGRRI:

In civilized countries anyway SECOND.

People who don't vote, or are too far out in the boondocks to vote, will not get fed.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 8:52 PM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by THGRRI:

In civilized countries anyway SECOND.

People who don't vote, or are too far out in the boondocks to vote, will not get fed.



How can you get your pudding if you don't eat your meat?

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 10:41 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"But shifting all blame for national failures to “Capitalism” and away from Presidents and PMs is just the wrong path."

Well, I wasn't talking about all the blame for generic national failures - I was talking about the economic suffering (and of course physical suffering and preventable death) of vast, vast numbers of people on the planet.

But if you find the same suffering over and over in different countries with unregulated capitalism with a wide wealth gap - whether or not the countries have presidents, premiers, or dictators - and find that countries that LACK toxic capitalism have greatly reduced suffering in their populations - despite having vastly different forms of government - the logical answer is to pin the problem on capitalism. Not the individual leaders or the form of government.

Don't you agree?




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 11:13 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Here ya go KRAPPOSTOOGE:

Mass starvation of millions NOT under communism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines#cite_note-86

1810, 1811, 1846, and 1849 Four famines in China China 45 million.[63]

1850–1873 As a result of imperialism, the Opium Wars and the Taiping Rebellion, drought, and famine, the population of China dropped by more than 60 million[69] China 60 million

1876–1879 Famine in northern China killed 13 million people

1907, 1911 Famines in east-central China China 25 million








Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 11:47 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"In democracies the top 1% could not stop the bottom 99% from taking all the wealth."

Ritual human sacrifice promoted and sustained the evolution of stratified societies
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v532/n7598/full/nature17159.html




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 11:55 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:

Mass starvation of millions NOT under communism

Dearest kiki. I never said communism was the only cause of mass starvation. But it IS one of them.

And if we're talking about mass hunger today, suggesting communism or something resembling it as a solution is pretty laughable.

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Friday, June 24, 2016 12:38 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"I never said communism was the only cause of mass starvation. But it IS one of them"

You haven't shown that.

If starvation happens frequently WITHOUT Communism - and I only posted about half the starvation episodes in China before Communism (check out the link) - then there are obviously very robust and repeated causes of starvation, including overall insufficient food production, drought, and insufficient distribution.

What you showed was that Communist China failed to STOP the starvation that occurred up to that point.

But my link shows that Communist China did not allow it to repeat after that (generally through better distribution and production). FURTHERMORE: "to understand the role of capitalism in improving life FOR THE MASSES you'll note here that the greatest gains in life expectancy in China - for women from 45 to 63, and for men from 44 to 64 - came between the years 1950 and 1972" which was during the Cultural Revolution.

That means that despite the starvation that occurred an overwhelming majority of people had their food and health improved enough that their lives were extended by more than two decades, enough to raise the average by two decades even calculating in the premature starvation deaths. Compared to the 'gains' China supposedly experienced during state-controlled capitalism, the people experienced the greatest and most rapid improvement in their lives, as measured by lifespan, during the Cultural Revolution.


Communism in China improved the lives of the people by an unimaginable degree.




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Friday, June 24, 2016 6:06 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:


Ach. Third-world infrastructure- SIGNYM

Nope.
The Soviet famine of 1932–33:
"The famine was the result of the actions of the Soviet state in the implementation of forced collectivization, in economic planning, and political repression in the countryside." .... blah blah blah ... Your complete denial of past communist disasters explains your enduring devotion to the ideology. And vice versa.- KRAPO



No, you fool I was commenting on my double post. I hit the "save response" button, but nothing happened, as is rather frequent in our poorly-served, saturated service area. I'd completely lost connection to the internet (again), and so like an idiot I hit the "Save response" button again, creating a double post. However, I'm reasonably certain that you'd like to spend four or five posts trying to convince me that I meant something else.

--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Friday, June 24, 2016 6:10 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

lol unbelievable. If you took the wealth of the top 100 people in the world and distribute it to the poorest 50%, it would double their incomes. Lol from 2 dollars a day to 4 dollars a day. That asshole is not a fix it's stupid.
Tell that to the people who are trying to live on $2 a day. It could make the difference between starving or living. That sure sounds like a fix to me.

--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Friday, June 24, 2016 6:26 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


THUGRSTOOGE: Still so wrong on so many levels.

Quote:

Sorry Second but you are talking about income distribution. I am talking about the best System to generate income. -THIRDSTOOGE

So wrong on so many levels. First of all, people don't survive on "income", they survive on "resources" ... at its most basic: food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, safety. - SIGNY

This is the stupidest post I have ever read. Income = resources - THIRGSTOOGE



The stupidest post I've ever read. Even in your intellectually-starved upbringing, have you never read of stories or seen TV shows where a millionaire died of thirst in a desert? In order for "income" to generate access to "resources" (1) the resources have to be there in the first place and (2) you must be connected to a larger economy where resources are exchanged, and (3) people have to accept your "money" in return for giving you those resources. If none of those hold true, you may as well burn your money (assuming it's paper money) for warmth.

Quote:

It's possible to generate vast amounts of "income" without increasing resources whatsoever- real estate owners, stock owners, fine art collectors, hedge fund managers who are playing with fictitious money - i.e. money created out of thin air by banks (including the Fed) via severely undercapitalized loans. Speculation (which is what this is) is a way of increasing "income" using ALREADY MADE objects without increasing the production of resources at all.- SIGNY

Lol, You get these resources depending on income. What did you use to obtain your resources? Is this what you tell your hired help? Income allows you the choice. Insufficient income = insufficient resources = no choice.- THIRDSTOOGE

Yes, we currently "get" (obtain) these resources depending on income, but we don't necessarily INCREASE them. All you've told me is that "income" distribution determines the resource distribution, not its production.

Quote:

Secondly, who cares how much income OR resources are generated if they don't make it to the people who will use it? Having a vast surplus concentrated with a small group of people ... it begs the question, WHAT are these resources, or this income, being generated for? What is the purpose? If it's generated for some sort of abstract point about generating "more" without linking that "more" to consumption, then who cares, really about this vast but unobtainable treasure trove? It doesn't do anybody any good, except maybe the 0.0000001% who control it. -SIGNY

You start this post by quoting something I said to SECOND about determining the best system for generating resources

No, you said it was the best system for generating INCOME. All I did was show that income generation and resource generation are disconnected, and you haven't shown otherwise.

Quote:

and the worst. Responding to Second I explained she was speaking to problems with distribution. A different subject. In this last bit posted by you, you in a subjective rant confirm what I said to SECOND. You are talking about a distribution problem and that is different from a resources generating system.
If you agree to stop conflating income generation and resource generation, then we can talk about which system is best for resource generation. And THEN, if you like, we can talk about distribution.


--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Friday, June 24, 2016 8:22 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

I was talking about the economic suffering (and of course physical suffering and preventable death) of vast, vast numbers of people on the planet.

But if you find the same suffering over and over in different countries with unregulated capitalism with a wide wealth gap - whether or not the countries have presidents, premiers, or dictators - and find that countries that LACK toxic capitalism have greatly reduced suffering in their populations - despite having vastly different forms of government - the logical answer is to pin the problem on capitalism. Not the individual leaders or the form of government.

Don't you agree?

Once in awhile you ask a good question. Yes, I agree. Which countries lack this "toxic" capitalism and have greatly reduced suffering in their population? (I assume "toxic" is your key word around which your answer would revolve, if you chose to answer.) But that might be too easy a test for a country to pass because even the USA and GB have reduced suffering compared to about any time period in the past and those two are as "toxic" as it gets.

Personally I think the "toxic" part is people don't care about others. The "toxic" is not part of capitalism at all. The "toxic" is just something people can do with capitalism when they feel like they want to hurt somebody.

You might say that capitalism harms blacks in the USA. I say they are harmed, but it isn't capitalism that is the cause. Capitalism is the weapon. From W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction In America:
Quote:

It would be only fair to the reader to say frankly in advance that the attitude of any person toward this story will be distinctly influenced by his theories of the Negro race. If he believes that the Negro in America and in general is an average and ordinary human being, who under given environment develops like other human beings, then he will read this story and judge it by the facts adduced. If, however, he regards the Negro as a distinctly inferior creation, who can never successfully take part in modern civilization and whose emancipation and enfranchisement were gestures against nature, then he will need something more than the sort of facts that I have set down.

But this latter person, I am not trying to convince. I am simply pointing out these two points of view, so obvious to Americans, and then without further ado, I am assuming the truth of the first. In fine, I am going to tell this story as though Negroes were ordinary human beings, realizing that this attitude will from the first seriously curtail my audience.

www.theatlantic.com/notes/all/2016/06/what-ta-nehisi-is-reading-right-
now/488423
/
Not a word about Capitalism in this quote. It is all about people. The Invisible Hand did the harm to blacks, not rich white people, some would say. Thus rises the myth of capitalism being "toxic".

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Friday, June 24, 2016 8:32 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Personally I think the "toxic" part is people don't care about others. The "toxic" is not part of capitalism at all. The "toxic" is just something people can do with capitalism when they feel like they want to hurt somebody.
If by "capitalism" you mean

The ownership of the means of production by a limited number of people, and

The constant concentration of money from general circulation in the form of "profit", and

The use of that concentrated capital to consolidate one's business into a monopoly, and

The use of concentrated capital to shape self-favorable laws and mores
...

THAT capitalism? Then capitalism, by its very nature, is toxic. The first two points are sufficient to cause extreme wealth inequalities and therefore repeated economic collapses, and the second two are sufficient to ensure that the system isn't either economically or politically (respectively) self-correcting.

--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Friday, June 24, 2016 9:09 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

If by "capitalism" you mean

The use of that concentrated capital to consolidate one's business into a monopoly, and

The use of concentrated capital to shape self-favorable laws and mores
...

THAT capitalism? Then capitalism, by its very nature, is toxic.
. . . and the second two are sufficient to ensure that the system isn't either economically or politically (respectively) self-correcting.

Some monopolies are illegal in capitalism. But laws don't enforce themselves. Some bribes are illegal in capitalism. But politicians don't ever admit to taking bribes. We could design a system (call it Firefly) that is in no way capitalism, but it could still be overrun with monopolies and bribery, if those in charge choose to run it that way. The people living under the Firefly system would suffer, as people suffer under a Capitalist System. There is no technology just yet to build a self-driving economic system, like a Google driver-less car. If people crash their economic system because of their inattention or drunkenness, then it will crash. If they steer to the wrong destination, they will arrive at the wrong place. If they want to run over people with the economy or just not let them hitch a ride with the economy, that will happen. Replacing capitalism with another system, Firefly for example, won't fix the problem with people and their muddled thinking and churning just below the surface hostilities.

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Friday, June 24, 2016 9:20 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

If by "capitalism" you mean

The use of that concentrated capital to consolidate one's business into a monopoly, and

The use of concentrated capital to shape self-favorable laws and mores
...

THAT capitalism? Then capitalism, by its very nature, is toxic.
. . . and the second two are sufficient to ensure that the system isn't either economically or politically (respectively) self-correcting.

Some monopolies are illegal in capitalism. But laws don't enforce themselves. Some bribes are illegal in capitalism. But politicians don't ever admit to taking bribes. We could design a system (call it Firefly) that is in no way capitalism, but it could still be overrun with monopolies and bribery, if those in charge choose to run it that way. The people living under the Firefly system would suffer, as people suffer under a Capitalist System. There is no technology just yet to build a self-driving economic system, like a Google driver-less car. If people crash their economic system because of their inattention or drunkenness, then it will crash. If they steer to the wrong destination, they will arrive at the wrong place. If they want to run over people with the economy or just not let them hitch a ride with the economy, that will happen. Replacing capitalism with another system, Firefly for example, won't fix the problem with people and their muddled thinking and churning just below the surface hostilities.



The role of corruption is widely recognized as having the same negative effects as capitalism. Both are parasitic on the system in which they reside- i.e. the system of human production. The difference between corruption and capitalism is that one is legal and has an ideology - a backstory- attached to it which makes acceptance easier. But I've thought for many years that capitalism was just legalized corruption.

So one way to start straightening our muddled thinking is to make unethical things illegal. At least then our morals won't be equivocal.

--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Friday, June 24, 2016 10:11 AM

THGRRI


Sorry you have to follow the link to see the graph. Make sure to carefully read the last sentence SIG, 1kiki.

Soviet Food Shortages

The 1980s posed many challenges for the everyday lives of the average citizens of East Europe countries, including daily difficulties created from shortages. Buying such necessities as food, clothing, and hygiene products was recurring obstacle to the average consumer. Food shortages were the result of declining agricultural production, which particularly plagued the Soviet Union. This chart reflects the widespread underproduction throughout the Soviet Republics. Only Ukraine, Belorussia, and Kazakhstan produced a surplus. The most populous republic, Russia, was dependent on imports of all food categories in order to reach subsistence level. While these statistics are from 1991, the CIA estimated that production was only a small percentage (5.4%) below its average throughout the 1980s. In other words, the Soviet Union never produced sufficient food to feed itself.

https://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/182

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Friday, June 24, 2016 10:43 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


second

"But that might be too easy a test for a country to pass because even the USA and GB have reduced suffering compared to about any time period in the past and those two are as "toxic" as it gets."

Wow. Where to start. First of all, advances in TECHNOLOGY have reduced suffering - the advent of penicillin for example. PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE - like sewage systems and clean potable water systems have reduced human suffering. The steam engine reduced work (not entirely sure it reduced suffering.) GOVERNMENT SERVICES like food inspection and food support have reduced suffering.

But did CAPITALISM reduce suffering?

Did 'capitalism' reduced its own negative effects during Britain's industrial revolution and the days of starving Fagans (to help you place that historically)? Or did capitalism reduced its own negative effects during the US industrial revolution and the time when children worked in coal mines? Or during the Great Depression?

Do the lives of people in the US and UK improve as the Gini index goes up?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Gini_since_WWII.sv
g


Really?

Is that what you're saying?






Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Friday, June 24, 2016 10:49 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by THGRRI:
Sorry you have to follow the link to see the graph. Make sure to carefully read the last sentence SIG, 1kiki.

Soviet Food Shortages

The 1980s posed many challenges for the everyday lives of the average citizens of East Europe countries, including daily difficulties created from shortages. Buying such necessities as food, clothing, and hygiene products was recurring obstacle to the average consumer. Food shortages were the result of declining agricultural production, which particularly plagued the Soviet Union. This chart reflects the widespread underproduction throughout the Soviet Republics. Only Ukraine, Belorussia, and Kazakhstan produced a surplus. The most populous republic, Russia, was dependent on imports of all food categories in order to reach subsistence level. While these statistics are from 1991, the CIA estimated that production was only a small percentage (5.4%) below its average throughout the 1980s. In other words, the Soviet Union never produced sufficient food to feed itself.

https://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/182



So, do we chalk this up to "communism" (which has never existed) or "socialism" (which as far as I can tell hasn't ever existed either) or mismanagement?

The reality is that economies are all managed. There is no "capitalism" of independent robustly-competing small and medium-sized producers, just as there is no "socialism" where the means of production are owned by the workers (that would be a 100% cooperative economy), and "communism" has yet to even be described. In the real world, economies are managed by banks and large businesses and by the government, in varying proportions. Where the USA economy flops, we can lay that (for the most part) at the feet of financialists and international corporations. When it flies, they get the credit. In the Soviet Union, we could lay both the successes - winning WWII, rapid industrialization and improvement in living standards compare to Tsarist Russia - and the failures - stagnant economy- at the feet of the government. The crash of the Russian economy, lifespan, and standard of living in the 1990s can definitely be laid at the feet of international capital.

The question is how to make sure an economy is managed best. And to do that, we have to decide what our goals are. That gets to the point of (among other things) production, distribution, robustness, efficiency (robustness and efficiency seem to be always be at odds with each other) and sustainability. Can we call a temporary halt to mudslinging at various "isms" which- as far as I can tell- don't exist as people imagine them? Focusing on process might be more fruitful.

--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Friday, June 24, 2016 11:31 AM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Originally posted by THGRRI:
Sorry you have to follow the link to see the graph. Make sure to carefully read the last sentence SIG, 1kiki.

Soviet Food Shortages

The 1980s posed many challenges for the everyday lives of the average citizens of East Europe countries, including daily difficulties created from shortages. Buying such necessities as food, clothing, and hygiene products was recurring obstacle to the average consumer. Food shortages were the result of declining agricultural production, which particularly plagued the Soviet Union. This chart reflects the widespread underproduction throughout the Soviet Republics. Only Ukraine, Belorussia, and Kazakhstan produced a surplus. The most populous republic, Russia, was dependent on imports of all food categories in order to reach subsistence level. While these statistics are from 1991, the CIA estimated that production was only a small percentage (5.4%) below its average throughout the 1980s. In other words, the Soviet Union never produced sufficient food to feed itself.

https://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/182



So, do we chalk this up to "communism" (which has never existed) or "socialism" (which as far as I can tell hasn't ever existed either) or mismanagement?

The reality is that economies are all managed. There is no "capitalism" of independent robustly-competing small and medium-sized producers, just as there is no "socialism" where the means of production are owned by the workers (that would be a 100% cooperative economy), and "communism" has yet to even be described. In the real world, economies are managed by banks and large businesses and by the government, in varying proportions. Where the USA economy flops, we can lay that (for the most part) at the feet of financialists and international corporations. When it flies, they get the credit. In the Soviet Union, we could lay both the successes - winning WWII, rapid industrialization and improvement in living standards compare to Tsarist Russia - and the failures - stagnant economy- at the feet of the government. The crash of the Russian economy, lifespan, and standard of living in the 1990s can definitely be laid at the feet of international capital.

The question is how to make sure an economy is managed best. And to do that, we have to decide what our goals are. That gets to the point of (among other things) production, distribution, robustness, efficiency (robustness and efficiency seem to be always be at odds with each other) and sustainability. Can we call a temporary halt to mudslinging at various "isms" which- as far as I can tell- don't exist as people imagine them? Focusing on process might be more fruitful.




You just love to post all kinds of subjective bullshit to confuse don't you. Lets keep it simple shall we:

The government of the Soviet Union administered the country's economy and society during the period of its existence 1917-1991. It implemented decisions made by the only political institution allowed in the country, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. And then it collapsed.

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Friday, June 24, 2016 11:39 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:


"I never said communism was the only cause of mass starvation. But it IS one of them"

You haven't shown that.


Yes I have. Copying and pasting from my earlier post:

Quote:

The Soviet famine of 1932–33:

"The famine was the result of the actions of the Soviet state in the implementation of forced collectivization, in economic planning, and political repression in the countryside."

The Great Chinese Famine

"Until the early 1980s, the Chinese government's stance, reflected by the name "Three Years of Natural Disasters", was that the famine was largely a result of a series of natural disasters compounded by several planning errors. Researchers outside China argued that massive institutional and policy changes that accompanied the Great Leap Forward were the key factors in the famine, or at least worsened nature-induced disasters."



So there you have it, communism directly causing massive famine. (And we haven't even touched on North Korea yet).

Please no more "But, but..." arguments saying that famines have occurred in human history 'outside of communism' - you will only show yourself to be a deluded old Marxist who doesn't understand logic.

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 2:50 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


From YOUR source:
Quote:

Historian Mark B. Tauger of West Virginia University suggests that the famine was caused by a combination of factors, specifically low harvest due to natural disasters
Were natural disasters resulting in low harvest caused by communism? And for what it's worth, this claim and the next one after it by Stephen Wheatcroft go completely unexplained in the Wiki article. So, natural disasters? There's no further mention of them in the Wiki article.
Quote:


combined with increased demand for food caused by the collectivization, industrialization and urbanization

No explanation is given that might link these claims to starvation, but by themselves industrialization and urbanization were demographic trends not under anyone's control. And while on the one hand Tauger and Wheatcroft claim urbanization was responsible, on the other hand the Wiki portion of the article article goes to great lengths to explain how only a very small number of people managed to get off the farm and into the city. So, which is it? Was urbanization a key driver of increased demand as the experts claim? Or was it a vanishingly small factor as the Wiki article claims?
Quote:

and grain exports by the Soviet Union at the same time.
Amd once again a claim is made that is entirely unsupported. Even worse, it's not even mentioned again.

Tsk tsk tsk. Wiki, you blew it. You posted conclusions drawn by two experts, then created an article that either completely failed to discuss those conclusions - or worse, actively contradicted them. All without providing evidence for either the expert conclusions OR the Wiki article that followed.



As for the starvation in China ...

"In July 1959, the Yellow River flooded in East China. According to the Disaster Center, it directly killed, either through starvation from crop failure or drowning, an estimated 2 million people, while other areas were affected in other ways as well.

In 1960, at least some degree of drought and other bad weather affected 55 percent of cultivated land, while an estimated 60% of agricultural land received no rain at all. The Encyclopedia Britannica yearbooks from 1958 to 1962 also reported abnormal weather, followed by droughts and floods. This included 30 inches of rain in Hong Kong across five days in June 1959, part of a pattern that hit all of Southern China."

I suppose Communism was to blame?

So, you haven't shown that 1) it resulted directly from policy or 2) that it wasn't swamped by the vast improvements to the overwhelming majority of people that were so profound the average lifespan went up over 20 years, directly as a result of food production and redistribution policies.




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 5:17 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

You just love to post all kinds of subjective bullshit to confuse don't you. Lets keep it simple shall we:

The government of the Soviet Union administered the country's economy and society during the period of its existence 1917-1991. It implemented decisions made by the only political institution allowed in the country, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. And then it collapsed.- THUGR

Yeah, like I said: it was mismanaged from the 60's onwards. The Soviet Union also had stunning successes - they won WWII in the European theater, took a backward peasant nation under a monarchy and industrialized it to modernity, and raised the standard of living of over a hundred million people, from (literally) starving ignorant peasant living in a hovel to an educated population which didn't want for necessities (even if luxuries were hard to come by). And if you want to blame the economic stagnation of the Soviet Union on "communism", you must then also blame the catastrophic drop in living standards in the 1990s on the introduction of "capitalism".

Quote:

So there you have it, communism directly causing massive famine.-KRAPO


Are you kvetching because I don't lay the collapse of the Soviet Union, or starvation in China, on "communism"? Hey, I'm just using the standard definition of the word, and by that definition "communism" has NEVER existed. Just because various parties call themselves "communist" doesn't make it so. By way of example, just because I can call myself a Jehovah's Witness, does it mean Jehovah exists? People can call themselves anything. Wiccans or what-have-you. But that doesn't mean real witchcraft exists.

If you stop using the word "communism" as some sort of catch-phrase, maybe you can figure out what REALLY happened.


--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 10:19 AM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

You just love to post all kinds of subjective bullshit to confuse don't you. Lets keep it simple shall we:

The government of the Soviet Union administered the country's economy and society during the period of its existence 1917-1991. It implemented decisions made by the only political institution allowed in the country, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. And then it collapsed.- THUGR

Yeah, like I said: it was mismanaged from the 60's onwards. The Soviet Union also had stunning successes - they won WWII in the European theater, took a backward peasant nation under a monarchy and industrialized it to modernity, and raised the standard of living of over a hundred million people, from (literally) starving ignorant peasant living in a hovel to an educated population which didn't want for necessities (even if luxuries were hard to come by). And if you want to blame the economic stagnation of the Soviet Union on "communism", you must then also blame the catastrophic drop in living standards in the 1990s on the introduction of "capitalism".

Quote:

So there you have it, communism directly causing massive famine.-KRAPO


Are you kvetching because I don't lay the collapse of the Soviet Union, or starvation in China, on "communism"? Hey, I'm just using the standard definition of the word, and by that definition "communism" has NEVER existed. Just because various parties call themselves "communist" doesn't make it so. By way of example, just because I can call myself a Jehovah's Witness, does it mean Jehovah exists? People can call themselves anything. Wiccans or what-have-you. But that doesn't mean real witchcraft exists.

If you stop using the word "communism" as some sort of catch-phrase, maybe you can figure out what REALLY happened.





"During the postwar reconstruction period, Stalin tightened domestic controls, justifying the repression by playing up the threat of war with the West. Many repatriated Soviet citizens who had lived abroad during the war, whether as prisoners of war, forced laborers, or defectors, were executed or sent to prison camps. The limited freedoms granted in wartime to the church and to collective farmers were revoked. The party tightened its admission standards and purged many who had become party members during the war.

In 1946 Andrei Zhdanov, a close associate of Stalin, helped launch an ideological campaign designed to demonstrate the superiority of socialism over capitalism in all fields. This campaign, colloquially known as the Zhdanovshchina ("era of Zhdanov"), attacked writers, composers, economists, historians, and scientists whose work allegedly manifested Western influence. Although Zhdanov died in 1948, the cultural purge continued for several years afterward, stifling Soviet intellectual development. Another campaign, related to the Zhdanovshchina, lauded the real or purported achievements of past and present Russian inventors and scientists. In this intellectual climate, the genetic theories of biologist Trofim D. Lysenko, which were supposedly derived from Marxist principles but lacked scientific bases, were imposed upon Soviet science to the detriment of research and agricultural development. The anticosmopolitan trends of these years adversely affected Jewish cultural and scientific figures in particular. In general, a pronounced sense of Russian nationalism, as opposed to socialist consciousness, pervaded Soviet society"

Throughout his years of leadership, Khrushchev attempted to carry out reform in a range of fields. The problems of Soviet agriculture, a major concern of Khrushchev's, had earlier attracted the attention of the collective leadership, which introduced important innovations in this area of the Soviet economy. The state encouraged peasants to grow more on their private plots, increased payments for crops grown on the collective farms, and invested more heavily in agriculture. In his dramatic virgin land campaign in the mid-1950s, Khrushchev opened to farming vast tracts of land in the northern part of the Kazakh Republic and neighboring areas of the Russian Republic. These new farmlands turned out to be susceptible to droughts, but in some years they produced excellent harvests. Later innovations by Khrushchev, however, proved counterproductive. His plans for growing maize and increasing meat and dairy production failed miserably, and his reorganization of collective farms into larger units produced confusion in the countryside."


http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Soviet2.html

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 11:18 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


So, in your vast study of Russian economic policy history, what were the particularly fateful decisions of the Soviet government, and what other decisions do you think would have avoided the problems?



--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 3:57 PM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, in your vast study of Russian economic policy history, what were the particularly fateful decisions of the Soviet government, and what other decisions do you think would have avoided the problems?




Not electing Putin and sticking with democracy. Purging themselves of corruption like the Ukraine would like to do. So far it is a tough haul for them and Russia is not helping.

I don't understand why Russia thinks that joining with the United States, becoming a democracy and adapting to a universal rule of law is surrendering. It is not. Or just don't threaten it's neighbors who would rather do business with the West than them. If they would do that then I am sure their neighbors would do business with both.

I am courous, what do you think they should do?

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 7:02 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


It looks like we're in agreement - nobody starves due to laziness.

I think the next step will be to find out where people are malnourished or starving, and what are the reasons.

http://www.bread.org/where-does-hunger-exist

Where does hunger exist?

795 million people experience hunger every day. Hunger exists in the U.S. just as it does overseas.

In developing countries, hunger is related to poverty and to under-developed agriculture. Where there is bad health, weather changes, and natural disasters, hunger can also be found. Hunger results from war and displacement, unstable or unavailable markets, and from waste.

In the U.S., where there is poverty, hunger is often there also. Hidden hunger is a term used to describe what happens when vitamins and minerals are not part of the diet.

U.S. and developed countries

For developed countries, hunger doesn’t come from not having enough food available. There is enough food for everyone. The overwhelming cause of hunger in these countries is poverty.

Nearly 15 percent of U.S. households — approximately 49 million Americans, including 15.9 million children — struggle to put food on the table. Here the measure of hunger is “food insecurity” — an ongoing uncertainty of where the next meal will come from.

Asia

Asia is the most populous region in the world. In recent decades, as its economies have grown quickly, poverty has declined and food production has increased. The number of hungry people in Asia has also declined substantially, by 217 million between 1990-92 and 2012-14, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

In South Asia, there has been very slow progress against hunger. The population affected by hunger fell from 24 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2012-14. More than 40 percent of children in India are stunted (being too short for their age group) due to malnutrition, according to the Population Reference Bureau. The global food price and economic crises of 2007-2008 caused a spike in hunger in the region.

sub-Saharan Africa

Just over a quarter of the world’s undernourished people live in the countries south of the Sahara Desert in Africa. Progress against hunger has been slow in this region. In 1990, one in three people in the region were undernourished. Today, one in four suffer from hunger, according to the Population Reference Bureau.

Latin America and the Caribbean

A devastating earthquake in 2010 affected one-third of Haiti’s entire population and required large amounts of food aid and other assistance. Haiti’s economy and its ability to produce food has not fully recovered. This is one example of extreme hunger due to disasters, which the region is prone to.

At the other end of the spectrum from Haiti’s acute hunger that occurred as a result of a specific event is the type of hunger seen in Central America, specifically in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Hunger in these countries has been building steadily over the past several years and is coupled with extreme poverty and violence. These problems reached a climax in the summer of 2014 when they forced tens of thousands of children to flee their countries and enter illegally into the U.S.

Another group experiencing high levels of hunger in this region is an estimated 50 million people who live across Mexico and Central America. They experience hunger up to eight times higher than the general population in the countries where they live. Stunting (when children do not grow properly) rates in these indigenous communities are among the highest in the world. This is the result of malnutrition at a very young age. Children who are stunted are less likely to do well in school. They earn less and are more likely have poor health as adults.

North Africa and the MIddle East

This region generally does not experience hunger on a large scale. However, the 2007-2008 food price crisis, political instability, and years of war have led to an increase in hunger in the region. Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq are called fragile states because long-term war and conflict have devastated systems and communities. There are millions who are experiencing hunger.

In Syria alone, civil war has destroyed nearly every farm. This has led to a total dependency on international food aid.







Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 7:04 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


http://www.crs.org/get-involved/learn/hunger?gclid=CNmXz7CkxM0CFZSGfgo
d-FIFjg


Facts About Hunger

Nearly 842 million people are suffering from hunger.
98 percent of people suffering from hunger live in developing countries.
Hunger kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
Hunger causes the deaths of about 5 million children each year.
About 17 million children are born underweight annually, the result of inadequate nutrition before and during pregnancy.





Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 7:11 PM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
In 2014 10.9% of the global population (or about 750 million) suffered from malnutrition. http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-sta
tistics
/ About 7.7 million die every year from hunger. http://www.poverty.com/

And while the tendency is to write those deaths off as being due to laziness, ignorance, promiscuity, or backwardness - in fact, adults capable of work, with access to resources needed for survival, and access to modern contraception, aren't going to voluntarily sit around and voluntarily let themselves and their children starve ... just because.

The hundreds of millions of hungry people are hungry because their access to the resources they need to live is being blocked by other people.

So my next question is: what are the SPECIFIC mechanisms used to deprive people of resources?



communism, socialism and greed.

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 8:34 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


http://ghi.ifpri.org/

2015

The US, Canada, Australia and western and northern Europe hunger indexes aren't calculated. Russia and China, as well as Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil and many other central and south American countries are ranked 'low'. India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and most of sub-Saharan Africa are ranked 'serious'.

2014

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Hunger_Index

Countries with extremely alarming (GHI = 50), or alarming (GHI between 35.0 and 49.9) hunger situation Global Hunger Index
http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/countries
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_c
apita


Rank Country 2014
1 Central African Republic 46.9
In March 2013, the coalition government dissolved, rebels seized the capital, and President BOZIZE fled the country.
no GINI listing
185 rank Central African Republic $630 per capita income

2 Chad 46.4
subsistence/ private capitalist export
DEBY in 2011 was reelected to his fourth term in an election that international observers described as proceeding without incident. Power remains in the hands of an ethnic minority.
At least 80% of Chad's population relies for its livelihood on subsistence farming and livestock raising and oil provides the bulk of export revenues.
GINI in 2011 41.1
155 rank Chad $2,634 per capita income

3 Zambia 41.1
private capitalist export
MWANAWASA was reelected in 2006 in an election that was deemed free and fair. Upon his abrupt death in August 2008, he was succeeded by his vice president, Rupiah BANDA, who subsequently won a special presidential by-election in October 2008. Michael SATA was elected president in September 2011.
Privatization of government-owned copper mines in the 1990s ... Despite a strong economy, poverty remains a significant problem.
no GINI listing
rank 138 Zambia $3,868 per capita income

4 Timor-Leste 40.7
no Omundi listing
no GINI listing
rank 126 Timor-Leste $5,628 per capita income
(It's interesting that Timor-Leste has such a high per capita income and such a serious starvation problem - it's probably due to seriously skewed distribution.)

5 Sierra Leone 38.9
war torn/ establishing
2007 and 2012 national elections
GINI in 2011 34.0
172 rank Sierra Leone $1,577 per capita income

6 Haiti 37.3
dependent/ capitalist
After an armed rebellion led to the forced resignation and exile of President Jean-Bertrand ARISTIDE in February 2004 (US Sponsored Coup d’Etat: The Destabilization of Haiti http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-sponsored-coup-detat-the-destabilizati
on-of-haiti/5323726
thanks! Hillary!) ... democratically elected president and parliament in May of 2006.
GINI in 2012 60.8
169 rank $Haiti 1,750 per capita income

7 Madagascar 36.3
"After discarding socialist economic policies in the mid-1990s, Madagascar followed a World Bank- and IMF-led policy of privatization and liberalization."
no GINI listing
176 rank Madagascar $1,462 per capita income

8 Afghanistan 35.4
democracy/ illegal drug production economy
GINI 29.0 in 2012
165 rank Afghanistan $1,947 per capita income



Countries with serious (GHI between 34.9 and 20) hunger situation Rank Country 2014
9 Niger 34.5
10 Yemen 34.2
11 Pakistan 33.9
12 Ethiopia 33.9
13 Djibouti 33.2
14 Nigeria 32.8
15 Angola 32.6
16 Mozambique 32.5
17 Namibia 31.8
18 Burkina Faso 31.8
19 Zimbabwe 30.8
20 Liberia 30.8
21 Tajikistan 30.3
22 Rwanda 30.3
23 Guinea-Bissau 30.3
24 Mali 29.6
25 India 29
26 North Korea 28.8
27 Guinea 28.8
28 Tanzania 28.7
29 Laos 28.5
30 Uganda 27.6
31 Malawi 27.3
32 Bangladesh 27.3
33 Congo 26.6
34 Côte d'Ivoire 26.3
35 Swaziland 26
36 Sri Lanka 25.5
37 Cameroon 24.2
38 Kenya 24
39 Myanmar 23.5
40 Lesotho 23.5
41 Senegal 23.2
42 Botswana 23.1
43 Togo 23
44 Mauritania 22.6
45 Cambodia 22.6
46 Nepal 22.2
47 Iraq 22.2
48 Indonesia 22.1
49 Benin 21.8
50 Gambia 21.5
51 Guatemala 21.1
52 Philippines 20.1




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 8:42 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


THUGGERSTOOGE

You mean all those SOCIALIST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES like Denmark, Switzerland and France ARE STARVING????!!!

You just outdid yourself in stupidity and sheer dishonesty.

Quote:

Originally posted by THGRRI:
Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
So my next question is: what are the SPECIFIC mechanisms used to deprive people of resources?


communism, socialism and greed.






Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 8:55 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


So, the worst countries in the world when it comes to starvation are

Central African Republic - in the middle of a civil war

Chad - a democracy with a subsistence economy and privatized capitalist export

Zambia - a democracy that had privatized its copper mines in the 1990 - yet "Despite a strong economy, poverty remains a significant problem."

Timor-Leste - no listings

Sierra Leone - war torn/ establishing

Haiti - a hostage capitalist economy with a 2004 US-backed coup to remove Aristide, a democratically elected reformist president thanks! Hillary!

Madagascar - "After discarding socialist economic policies in the mid-1990s, Madagascar followed a World Bank- and IMF-led policy of privatization and liberalization." And 20 years later people are still starving. I'd call that a success!! /snark

Afghanistan - democracy/ illegal drug production economy



The thumb-prints - or should I say boot-prints - of US/ World Bank/ IMF meddling are on four of the eight world's economies most affected by starvation. None of them are communist, or socialist, or even 'communist' or 'socialist'.




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 10:05 PM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
THUGGERSTOOGE

You mean all those SOCIALIST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES like Denmark, Switzerland and France ARE STARVING????!!!

You just outdid yourself in stupidity and sheer dishonesty.




Wow, I thought they had socialist programs like we do here. I didn't think there were socialist countries. I think I'll check that out and see just who is the stupid one.



What type of government is Denmark? Nope not socialist

Constitutional monarchy

The Kingdom of Denmark is a constitutional monarchy, in which the Monarch, currently Queen Margrethe II, is head of state. Executive power is exercised by the Cabinet government (regeringen), presided over by the Prime Minister (statsminister) who is first among equals. Legislative power is vested in both the executive and the national parliament (Folketinget).



What type of government does Switzerland have? Nope not socialist

Direct democracy

Switzerland is the closest state in the world to a direct democracy. For any change in the constitution, a referendum is mandatory (mandatory referendum); for any change in a law, a referendum can be requested (optional referendum).



What type of government does France have? Nope not socialist

The government of France is a Semi-Presidential Republic – it has both a President and a Prime Minister. The nation declares itself to be an "indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic ".

What do ya think 1kiki

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 10:13 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


You just can't but be really stupid, hunh? 'Socialist' refers to economy, not government.




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 10:14 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.



So, the worst countries in the world when it comes to starvation are

Central African Republic - in the middle of a civil war

Chad - a democracy with a subsistence economy and privatized capitalist export

Zambia - a democracy that had privatized its copper mines in the 1990 - yet "Despite a strong economy, poverty remains a significant problem."

Timor-Leste - no listings

Sierra Leone - war torn/ establishing

Haiti - a hostage capitalist economy with a 2004 US-backed coup to remove Aristide, a democratically elected reformist president thanks! Hillary!

Madagascar - "After discarding socialist economic policies in the mid-1990s, Madagascar followed a World Bank- and IMF-led policy of privatization and liberalization." And 20 years later people are still starving. I'd call that a success!! /snark

Afghanistan - democracy/ illegal drug production economy



The thumb-prints - or should I say boot-prints - of US/ World Bank/ IMF meddling are on four of the eight world's economies most affected by starvation. None of them are listed as communist, or socialist, or even 'communist', or 'socialist'.




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Saturday, June 25, 2016 11:01 PM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
You just can't but be really stupid, hunh? 'Socialist' refers to economy, not government.




Socialism is commonly regarded as an economic system that seeks to achieve equality among members of society. Socialists assert that wealthy people who own the means of production are able to exploit workers in order to make more money and become even richer, thereby increasing their power over the workers. By eliminating private ownership of factories and companies, socialists believe, the workers can be paid more. One of the ideas of socialism is that everyone within the society will benefit from capitalism as much as possible as long as the capitalism is controlled somehow by a centralized planning system i.e. government. And that's were it falls short.

Union, workers right to organize is the best hope to combat greed. Governments role should be to protect that idea.

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 1:09 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Looking specifically at Haiti

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Haiti

"Since the demise of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, international economists[which?] have urged Haiti to reform and modernize its economy. Under President René Préval (President from 1996 to 2001 and from 2006 until 14 May 2011), the country's economic agenda included trade and tariff liberalization, measures to control government expenditure and increase tax revenues, civil-service downsizing, financial-sector reform, and the modernization of state-owned enterprises through their sale to private investors, the provision of private sector management contracts, or joint public-private investment."

Gross domestic product (GDP); Haiti; 1970-2014 year bln. US dollars per capita
constant 1970 dollars
1970 0.44
1971 0.47
1972 0.47
1973 0.49
1974 0.52
1975 0.53
1976 0.57
1977 0.58
1978 0.60
1979 0.65
1980 0.70
1981 0.68 54.6% live on less than $1.25 a day
1982 0.65
1983 0.66
1984 0.66
1985 0.67
1986 0.66 Duvalier dictatorship ends
1987 0.66
1988 0.68
1989 0.66
1990 0.67 56.8% live on less than $1.25 a day
1991 0.68
1992 0.64
1993 0.61
1994 0.53
1995 0.59
1996 0.61 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized
1997 0.63 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized
1998 0.64 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized
1999 0.66 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized
2000 0.67 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized
2001 0.66 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized
2002 0.66
2003 0.66
2004 0.64 US coup removed Duvalier, democratically elected populist president
2005 0.65 58.0% live on less than $1.25 a day
2006 0.66 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized; new elections held
2007 0.68 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized
2008 0.69 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized, great recession befits
2009 0.71 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized; IMF and World Bank Approve US$1.2 Billion Debt Relief for Haiti
2010 0.67 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized; major earthquake
2011 0.71 government spending cut, trade liberalized, industries privatized
2012 0.73
2013 0.76
2014 0.78


http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2010/chapter2.pdf

Proportion of the population living on less than $1.25 a day
Haiti
1981/ 54.6
1990/ 56.8
2005/ 58.0

Here the World Bank Group argues that Haiti is insufficiently socialist:
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB
/2015/06/15/090224b082f3469e/1_0/Rendered/PDF/Haiti000Toward0c0country0diagnostic.pdf


A social contract is missing between the State and its citizens. While overall income growth is a necessary condition for increasing shared prosperity, it is not sufficient. Growth that is inclusive of the poor requires additional mechanisms such as a pro-poor fiscal regime, as well as targeted social programs and expenditures, not only to redistribute resources towards the poor ...




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 2:06 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:

So, in your vast study of Russian economic policy history, what were the particularly fateful decisions of the Soviet government, and what other decisions do you think would have avoided the problems?- SIGNY

Not electing Putin and sticking with democracy. Purging themselves of corruption like the Ukraine would like to do. So far it is a tough haul for them and Russia is not helping.- THUGR

Hunh???

You were talking about SOVIET economic stagnation. All of the sudden, you fast-forward to Putin? Are you saying that Putin caused the economic malaise of 1980?

Dood, I'm beginning to see why you were a failure in school. Your thinking is hopelessly disorganized, and I don't think you can help it. I'm sorry I've called you "stupid" so many times, I won't do it again, I promise. Really, sincere apologies.


--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 3:33 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


If you look st the timeline for Haiti, you'll see that governments come, and go, and business-friendly policies get instituted - but poverty remains. ALSO, despite the fact that the per capita gdp has gone up, the percentage of people in poverty has gone up as well. How can it be? It has to do with distribution. More money is being made than ever before, leading to that increased per capita gdp figure, but even less is trickling down to the people leading to increased poverty.




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 8:28 AM

THGRRI


Current Socialist Countries

People's Republic of China 1 October 1949 66 years, 268 days Communist Party of China Xi Jinping
(since 2012) Li Keqiang
(since 2012)
Republic of Cuba 1 July 1966 49 years, 360 days Communist Party of Cuba Raúl Castro
(since 2006)
Lao People's Democratic Republic 2 December 1975 40 years, 206 days Lao People's Revolutionary Party Bounnhang Vorachith
(since 2016) Thongloun Sisoulith
(since 2016)
Socialist Republic of Vietnam


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Sunday, June 26, 2016 10:05 AM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

So, in your vast study of Russian economic policy history, what were the particularly fateful decisions of the Soviet government, and what other decisions do you think would have avoided the problems?- SIGNY

Not electing Putin and sticking with democracy. Purging themselves of corruption like the Ukraine would like to do. So far it is a tough haul for them and Russia is not helping.- THUGR

Hunh???

You were talking about SOVIET economic stagnation. All of the sudden, you fast-forward to Putin? Are you saying that Putin caused the economic malaise of 1980?

Dood, I'm beginning to see why you were a failure in school. Your thinking is hopelessly disorganized, and I don't think you can help it. I'm sorry I've called you "stupid" so many times, I won't do it again, I promise. Really, sincere apologies.



No that's not to point. The point is I answered your question about Russia and then asked you to answer it as well. In typical SIG fashion you refuse to say anything about Russia; comrade. Why, will you lose your job as a Russian troll?

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 11:40 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

The point is I answered your question about Russia


Um.

No. you. didn't.

YOU were posting about Soviet history, and making a point about the economic stagnation which took over the Soviet Union in the 1980s (or so) and my question was what decision (AT THAT TIME) you thought was particularly unwise which led to the economic malaise (THAT YOU WERE DISCUSSING) and what you thought the Soviet leadership should have decided (AT THAT TIME) to avoid the problems (WHICH YOU WERE DISCUSSING).

Yanno, I was asking you about YOUR POST.

So, I'm not going to re-ask the question. Either your can't follow your own train of thought or you're deliberately avoiding answering it. Either way, asking the question again usually doesn't do anything except point out to other people that you didn't answer the question, and I feel like I've done that already.

Quote:

In typical SIG fashion you refuse to say anything about Russia


Looking at Russia from a RUSSIAN POV - which is a little difficult for me, seeing as I'm not Russian, I'm American - as far as what RECENT bad decisions were made by Putin, or by Russia: At this point, I can only think of two:

Relying or Turkey's Erdogan to keep his end of any bargain. Erdogan is a notorious double-dealer, and ANYONE who counts on him to keep his word (including Merkel) is making a huge mistake.

Relying on other nations to realistically assess their own interests. I think that the insanity displayed by neocons is a huge surprise to Putin. That, and the willingness of foreign leaders to roll over their own nations' self-interest for some individual perks. The corruption of western leaders is a surprise to him, I think. But, what do I know?

Russia is under concerted economic, financial, informational, and military pressure from "the west". I think the western powers thought they would repeat the success of the 90s- put Russian under financial pressure by dropping the price of oil, making a play against the ruble, forcing increased military spending by engaging in proxy wars in Syria and creating forward positions on the Russian border, and cranking up the information war. So far, Russia has withstood western attempts at creating a "color revolution" in Russia, although the mechanisms haven't been pretty.

Quote:

comrade... will you lose your job as a Russian troll?
Why are you calling me comrade? Are you a comrade?

You have this fixation, it's amazing. Wrong, but amazing.


--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 12:25 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


So, I think the next order of business is to go through the remaining list of countries suffering from hunger and starvation and see which ones are capitalist. Though I can point out right now that communist-ideology Russia, China (world's most populous nation), Cuba, Vietnam and Venezuela are all absent from the list; while capitalist-ideology India (world's second most populous nation) is on it.




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 5:57 PM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
So, I think the next order of business is to go through the remaining list of countries suffering from hunger and starvation and see which ones are capitalist. Though I can point out right now that communist-ideology Russia, China (world's most populous nation), Cuba, Vietnam and Venezuela are all absent from the list; while capitalist-ideology India (world's second most populous nation) is on it.



Most economist will express that out of all the economic systems there are capitalism produces the best results. That fact that you cannot separate what happens within a society from the economic system it uses as being the problem, like poor administrative policies or unfair distribution( there's that word again), does not surprise me. Oh look, we are back to my original point despite you trying through all that subjective posting to confuse.

The fact that Russia and China have moved further into the free market and private ownership proves the point don't you think? Lol, sure you don't. This really is simple stuff 1kiki, SIG. When you try to bring this discussion to a level you are not capable of understanding yourselves you confuse the issue.

For instance 1kiki. If there are many more capitalist societies than communist or socialist, then through sheer numbers we would see more poor results in those societies. I'm sorry, is that to much for you to understand?

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 6:01 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


So, I think the next order of business is to go through the remaining list of countries suffering from hunger and starvation and see which ones are capitalist. Though I can point out right now that communist-ideology Russia, China (world's most populous nation), Cuba, Vietnam and Venezuela are all absent from the list; while capitalist-ideology India (world's second most populous nation) is on it ie, the citizens of India are suffering from 'serious' hunger and starvation.





Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 6:07 PM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
So, I think the next order of business is to go through the remaining list of countries suffering from hunger and starvation and see which ones are capitalist. Though I can point out right now that communist-ideology Russia, China (world's most populous nation), Cuba, Vietnam and Venezuela are all absent from the list; while capitalist-ideology India (world's second most populous nation) is on it ie, the citizens of India are suffering from 'serious' hunger and starvation.



So 1kiki, my response to this same post above so terrified you all you could do is repost the same thing as though I did not address this. How funny is that?

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 6:37 PM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The point is I answered your question about Russia



Quote:

SIG

Um. No. you. didn’t.
YOU were posting about Soviet history, and making a point about the economic stagnation which took over the Soviet Union in the 1980s (or so) and my question was what decision (AT THAT TIME) you thought was particularly unwise which led to the economic malaise (THAT YOU WERE DISCUSSING) and what you thought the Soviet leadership should have decided (AT THAT TIME) to avoid the problems (WHICH YOU WERE DISCUSSING).


Yep, I did SIG. In the many posts I and others posted in this thread. You just choose to post as though we haven’t posted many different reasons as to what went wrong with the Soviet Union. Don’t worry, we all know what you are doing.

Quote:

Me

In typical SIG fashion you refuse to say anything about Russia



Yep, wanted to revisit the point that you would not criticize Putin about anything. And you didn’t disappoint. Below all you do is point out how others have wronged him. Your bias for Russia is once again posted here for all to see.

Quote:

SIG

Looking at Russia from a RUSSIAN POV - which is a little difficult for me, seeing as I'm not Russian, I'm American - as far as what RECENT bad decisions were made by Putin, or by Russia: At this point, I can only think of two:



Before we get to you blaming everyone else for Russia’s problems, I must point out the way you suggest it’s hard for you to understand Russia’s point of view is way too funny. Not being from any of the other countries you criticize has never been a problem for you. As a matter of fact, you and 1kiki promote yourselves as all-knowing and all seeing on global affairs. You’re such an ass.

Quote:

SIG

Relying or Turkey's Erdogan to keep his end of any bargain. Erdogan is a notorious double-dealer, and ANYONE who counts on him to keep his word (including Merkel) is making a huge mistake.

Relying on other nations to realistically assess their own interests. I think that the insanity displayed by neocons is a huge surprise to Putin. That, and the willingness of foreign leaders to roll over their own nations' self-interest for some individual perks. The corruption of western leaders is a surprise to him, I think. But, what do I know?

Russia is under concerted economic, financial, informational, and military pressure from "the west". I think the western powers thought they would repeat the success of the 90s- put Russian under financial pressure by dropping the price of oil, making a play against the ruble, forcing increased military spending by engaging in proxy wars in Syria and creating forward positions on the Russian border, and cranking up the information war. So far, Russia has withstood western attempts at creating a "color revolution" in Russia, although the mechanisms haven't been pretty.



It's way too easy to see right through you two. You really need to up your game or give up your comrade troll merit badges.

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 6:58 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


No, your nonsense just made me want to continue INTELLIGENT discussion --- without you.

"Most economist" (Please note the poor - ie foreign - English of someone who really doesn't care about the US.) Most? Who? Links? OF COURSE YOU PROVIDE NONE OF THESE.

"capitalism produces the best results" I'd THINK that the 'best' results are ones where the fewest people are hungry OR STARVE TO DEATH. Wouldn't you? Of course not. YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE. Remember? You said so yourself. You're quite clear about that. As far as YOU'RE concerned, the 'best' result is one that furthers your ideology. People be damned. Because YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE.

MY METRIC IS PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HUNGER AND DYING OF STARVATION. Over a tenth of all people on the planet suffer malnutrition. And 7.7 MILLION die of starvation every year.

THIS is what death from starvation looks like:

Do you need those figures again? 7.7 MILLION people STARVE TO DEATH EVERY YEAR. Oh that's right, it doesn't matter to you how few or many because YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE.


And to point out how stupid you seem to think we are, of course your claim shares your usual problem with all the rest of your idiotic posts: Figures? Definitions? Links? OF COURSE YOU PROVIDE NONE OF THESE.

"The fact that Russia and China have moved further into the free market and private ownership proves the point don't you think?"
By YOUR OWN SOURCE Russian life took a dump with capitalism. Remember? ""Since the collapse of the Soviet Union" ... life for most Russians has not improved." And it's only since Putin and the reintroduction of economic controls that the standard of living - AND LIFESPAN- - have increased.
The shock of transition to capitalism in Russia caused the average lifespan for males to drop from 75 to below 40 years old. 40 YEARS OLD! Just like in feudal times, except of course we HAVE enough food to feed everyone, we HAVE modern distribution systems to move food where it's needed, we HAVE modern medicine and technology that extend lifespan. Medieval lifespan in a modern capitalist technology. Your standards for the benefits of capitalism are insane. YOU are insane. Babbling the insane creed of your insane masters.
But then - YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE. And you think no one else does, either.

Meanwhile, in 20 years Communist China raised the average lifespan 20 years. By simple arithmetic - though I suspect it's far beyond you - for every year people lived in the Cultural Revolution, they gained all an extra year of precious life. Grandparents. Babies. But the average life span of the Chinese has only gone up 6 years since 1990 and market reforms. That's a gain of only 6 years in 25, if you're counting. Or three months gain for every year lived, compared with the Cultural Revolution of 1 year gained for each year lived, extended over 20 years. Oh, that's right - YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE.


http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=58208&p=5
kiki - And meanwhile, to understand the role of capitalism in improving life FOR THE MASSES you'll note here that the greatest gains in life expectancy in China - for women from 45 to 63, and for men from 44 to 64 - came between the years 1950 and 1972.
THUGGR - Your (sic) a fucking moron: who gives a shit?


Because YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE.





Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 7:16 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.



So, I think the next order of business is to go through the remaining list of countries suffering from hunger and starvation and see which ones are capitalist. Though I can point out right now that communist-ideology Russia, China (world's most populous nation), Cuba, Vietnam and Venezuela are all absent from the list; while capitalist-ideology India (world's second most populous nation) is on it ie, the citizens of India are suffering from 'serious' hunger and starvation.







Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 9:52 PM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
No, your nonsense just made me want to continue INTELLIGENT discussion --- without you.

"Most economist" (Please note the poor - ie foreign - English of someone who really doesn't care about the US.) Most? Who? Links? OF COURSE YOU PROVIDE NONE OF THESE.

"capitalism produces the best results" I'd THINK that the 'best' results are ones where the fewest people are hungry OR STARVE TO DEATH. Wouldn't you? Of course not. YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE. Remember? You said so yourself. You're quite clear about that. As far as YOU'RE concerned, the 'best' result is one that furthers your ideology. People be damned. Because YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE.

MY METRIC IS PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HUNGER AND DYING OF STARVATION. Over a tenth of all people on the planet suffer malnutrition. And 7.7 MILLION die of starvation every year.

THIS is what death from starvation looks like:

Do you need those figures again? 7.7 MILLION people STARVE TO DEATH EVERY YEAR. Oh that's right, it doesn't matter to you how few or many because YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE.


And to point out how stupid you seem to think we are, of course your claim shares your usual problem with all the rest of your idiotic posts: Figures? Definitions? Links? OF COURSE YOU PROVIDE NONE OF THESE.

"The fact that Russia and China have moved further into the free market and private ownership proves the point don't you think?"
By YOUR OWN SOURCE Russian life took a dump with capitalism. Remember? ""Since the collapse of the Soviet Union" ... life for most Russians has not improved." And it's only since Putin and the reintroduction of economic controls that the standard of living - AND LIFESPAN- - have increased.
The shock of transition to capitalism in Russia caused the average lifespan for males to drop from 75 to below 40 years old. 40 YEARS OLD! Just like in feudal times, except of course we HAVE enough food to feed everyone, we HAVE modern distribution systems to move food where it's needed, we HAVE modern medicine and technology that extend lifespan. Medieval lifespan in a modern capitalist technology. Your standards for the benefits of capitalism are insane. YOU are insane. Babbling the insane creed of your insane masters.
But then - YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE. And you think no one else does, either.

Meanwhile, in 20 years Communist China raised the average lifespan 20 years. By simple arithmetic - though I suspect it's far beyond you - for every year people lived in the Cultural Revolution, they gained all an extra year of precious life. Grandparents. Babies. But the average life span of the Chinese has only gone up 6 years since 1990 and market reforms. That's a gain of only 6 years in 25, if you're counting. Or three months gain for every year lived, compared with the Cultural Revolution of 1 year gained for each year lived, extended over 20 years. Oh, that's right - YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE.


http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=58208&p=5
kiki - And meanwhile, to understand the role of capitalism in improving life FOR THE MASSES you'll note here that the greatest gains in life expectancy in China - for women from 45 to 63, and for men from 44 to 64 - came between the years 1950 and 1972.
THUGGR - Your (sic) a fucking moron: who gives a shit?


Because YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PEOPLE.





Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!


And here we go folks. This is when 1kiki intentionally uses a heart wrenching photograph to manipulate emotions because she can’t make an argument out of reason. I would refer you to the this is love thread that just passed by that was created by SIG. She was feeling challenged as being insensitive so hence the thread. With SIG and 1kiki it’s through visual manipulation in its starkest form that they try and over power another’s point of reason. To be sure the photos they post are as I said, heart wrenching, but the purpose for which SIG and 1kiki use these photos is reprehensible.

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Sunday, June 26, 2016 10:14 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


So, I think the next order of business is to go through the remaining list of countries suffering from hunger and starvation and see which ones are capitalist. Though I can point out right now that communist-ideology Russia, China (world's most populous nation), Cuba, Vietnam and Venezuela are all absent from the list; while capitalist-ideology India (world's second most populous nation) is on it ie, the citizens of India are suffering from 'serious' hunger and starvation.




Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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