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[sluissa]

Also look to the Tennessee Valley Authority for how the US can do state owned industry and make it work. Not that they've had a perfect track record, but they certainly aren't a failure either. And that's despite the attempts to kill it off over the years.

Honestly, at this point the main argument against state owned industry should be that it puts too much power in the whims of politicians and allows people who intentionally want something to fail to be making decisions over that thing. Look at Amtrak... been trying to kill that for decades and while it's not dead yet, throughout most of the country they've successfully made it a worse option for customers than just about any other form public transport. (Excepting the northeast corridor, where it's still popular and still does good business.)

[Frumple]

'Course, that's at least as much an argument against capitalist practices as it is anything state owned. Too much power in the hands of whimsy, very much allows people who intentionally want something to fail to have decision making power over it. Owners doing batshit stuff or running a company into the ground for whatever reason (to sell it off, avoid taxation, because no one is able or willing to stop them, so on, so forth) is plenty common.

S'just for some reason we prefer unelected whoevers with little to no accountability to their customers to be allowed to do that in the name of self-serving profit rather than it be politicians or government bureaucrats in the name of... whatever.

[Iduno]

They want the US to leave them alone because the US kills their people and takes their wealth, which it then hordes and doesn't use to help them or even common Americans.

I know. Can you imagine what they do to people in other countries?

Like ski masks.

Ski masks are not made for robbing and killing people, they're made to keep your face warm. But people like wearing ski masks when they go robbing and killing people, so that's the image we have associated with them now.

They do work for keeping your face warm, but that's usually of secondary importance to whether or not you're currently killing someone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wzxg2Goz3I

[Magistrum]

What are communist ideals? What makes them uniquely communist?

The guiding principles for most, in my experience, is equality between people, the abolishment of private property, and the end of the injustices caused by the uneven distribution of the products of our labor.

It can vary and also get somewhat complicated, but the basic really is the famous utterance "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

It is not uniquely communist at all. It simply was among the first to actually propose a solution to the social problem, and is definitely the most popular ideology to that effect right now.

[bloop_bleep]

'Course, that's at least as much an argument against capitalist practices as it is anything state owned. Too much power in the hands of whimsy, very much allows people who intentionally want something to fail to have decision making power over it. Owners doing batshit stuff or running a company into the ground for whatever reason (to sell it off, avoid taxation, because no one is able or willing to stop them, so on, so forth) is plenty common.

S'just for some reason we prefer unelected whoevers with little to no accountability to their customers to be allowed to do that in the name of self-serving profit rather than it be politicians or government bureaucrats in the name of... whatever.

Owners and politicians in control are not equivalent in this respect. Owners depend on the well-being of their company for their livelihood, while politicians still have all their personal assets if they run the government’s company into the ground.

[EnigmaticHat]

Company owners /= the people running the company.  In US private companies the shareholders own the company and the CEO runs it.  Both have perverse incentives; CEOs can survive and even thrive in a failing company, while the shareholders generally drive the company to short term profit at expense of all else.

Government isn't the CEO in this metaphor, its the shareholders.  Nothing is stopping them from hiring a CEO and tying said CEO's pay to the company's success or failure.

Side note but this is why I really wish Obama's government had taken a 51% share out of the banks as a condition of the bailout.  Private investors want their bank back they can pay back the government's money.  Don't agree to the deal, well the government can take a 100% share when you go bankrupt.  Not that any of that would have been politically feasible at the time but you know, in more perfect world...

[MrRoboto75]

Side note but this is why I really wish Obama's government had taken a 51% share out of the banks as a condition of the bailout.  Private investors want their bank back they can pay back the government's money.  Don't agree to the deal, well the government can take a 100% share when you go bankrupt.  Not that any of that would have been politically feasible at the time but you know, in more perfect world...

Don't worry, we'll have another chance soon enough.

[EnigmaticHat]

Oh god are the banks failing again?

[smjjames]

Not that I know of, but with the repeal of some or all of the legislation made after the 2008 recession, the risk of it happening again is back.

[Doomblade187]

Not that I know of, but with the repeal of some or all of the legislation made after the 2008 recession, the risk of it happening again is back.

There is also fear about lax auto loan lending practices, again similar to the housing market bubble.

[JoshuaFH]

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[McTraveller]

I think there is a bit of a bogeyman associated with the "corps are only in it for the quarterly numbers!" argument... it's sensational, to be sure, when a company has its assets sold off for short-term gains by predatory investors.

But the bulk of shares are owned by pension funds, which are most definitely not in it for short-term returns; pensioners definitely want their investments to last!  This means that most CEOs really are focused on stability, not just short-term growth.  Especially for the larger, established companies.

(Well, I guess I should caveat the above by saying that it used to be that way - maybe things are changing, and the portion of investments that are done on short-term has grown relative to the long-term; I've not run the numbers or done research to check any data.)


EDIT: 

The massive industrial farms? Those are shrinking...

What? Where?  In the US, Small farms have fallen from 46% of production to less than 25% from 1992 to 2015.

[Dunamisdeos]

I think "Bad people gonna do Bad Things under any banner" was probably the most truthful thing spoken here this weekend.

[MrRoboto75]

Oh god are the banks failing again?

IBH I don't have hard evidence, but there are some signs to be worried about.  Student debt, for example, is in the trillions at this point.  The labor market really isn't built to help people pay that off in any reasonable way.  Wages have been fixed for decades now and in all honesty the words "entry level" only refer to the pay and not the qualifications asked for.  Also, student debt cannot be forgiven via bankruptcy unlike most other debt.

Student debt holders are also of age that its slowing down other major parts of the economy.  Since they are already in debt, they aren't taking more debt over homes or cars.  In general the younger generations are delaying life milestone of having a home, marrying, and having kids, not to mention retirement preparations.

Another worrying sign is in car loans.  We're hitting records in delinquency and lateness in repaying car loans.  There's also a big fad in subprime loans for autos, lending to people with little/no credit and just repo-ing and reselling the car if they don't pay.  Which is basically how we fucked ourselves with houses back in 2008, just this time on wheels.

Luckily, the repercussions will only trigger once a democrat comes into office, so we can blame them instead of who actually allowed the causes to happen.

[smjjames]

Not sure how it’d be lucky that the reprucussions will only trigger when a Democrat comes into office just so that we can blame the Democrat?

Anyways, there are definitely warning signs in various places and some economists have warned that we could be about due for a recession in 2020, give or take a year. But something is going to have to pop that bubble or provide the trigger point or catalyst, and nobody seems to know or agree on what that one thing might be.