Your Questions About Naked Capitalism

Government Corruption? Naked Capitalism? This is RARE, isn’t it?

http://www.wlox.com/Global/story.asp?S=13281745

For those who despise capitalism, could you explain viable alternatives that can coexist with a free society?

If people are not allowed to voluntarily exchange goods and services, what replaces it? Do people just live outside naked foraging off nuts and berries, or is there something else? What else can provide the diversity of goods and services that we all presently rely on?
I understand food, shelter, and medical care are all very necessary. But who or what provides it if not some benevolent all-powerful force?

What’s important, how rich/poor you are relative to someone else, or relative to how rich/poor you used to be?

Leftists look at “sweatshops” in other countries and decry capitalism – but without capitalism those people would still be peasants living naked in the woods or in thatch roof houses living on yams and grubs. You gotta start somewhere and they have no skills – they’re slowly getting some. $120 sneakers versus $2/day is a stark comparison but it used to be $1/day and before that was subsistence farming equating to a dime a day.

Leftists compare the poor here with the wealthy here but most of the poor here are immigrants or 1st generation citizens – and are richer than they were in their home countries – - – ironically, where the economy is less free…. And economic mobility in absolute terms continues to increase here – Sawhill points out that you might not catch up to the couple that is now living the life you want to live, but your chances of getting to the point where you’re living that life within the next decade are improving dramatically.

http://www.nytimes.com/specials/downsize/21cox.html

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1988/05/art1full.pdf

http://www.frbsf.org/econrsrch/wklyltr/el97-07.html#winners

http://www.dallasfed.org/fed/annual/1999p/ar95.html

http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/25/pf/record_millionaires/index.htm?cnn=yes

http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/28/news/economy/millionaire_survey/index.htm?cnn=yes

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/28/news/economy/millionaires/?cnn=yes

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/bg1773.cfm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6214022/site/newsweek/

WHY a balance? Who determines this balance if not the consumers? And why – why does it matter?

The “gap” between the richest of us and the rest of us keeps growing, but if you draw a line in terms of income or wealth to define what is “affluent” or “comfortable” the proportion of this country that is above it keeps growing.

And if you draw a line to define what is “poor” the proportion of this country that is below it is also growing but not nearly as fast, and only because the rate at which people from OTHER countries where they HAVE more of a ‘balance’ through preventing anyone from getting rich is growing at a very rapid pace – i.e., we’re not making new people, we’re importing them.

So if you not only eat well but have the sofa, kitchen, wardrobe and vacations you always wanted, who cares if some rich guy in Greenwich has another mansion, a plane and three more yachts?
“…with globalization first world workers are poorer” sorry Paula the numbers just don’t say that – unless by “first world” you mean Europe, and again, that’s because of their socialist economic policies. The numbers are clear, that’s not the case here.
Stony your answer is to let them eat less, and stale, cake, but try to make them feel better by taking away more from everyone else.

That’s how it has ALWAYS worked out – the only way to achieve equality is to cut down the top, to take from the top, leaving a smaller pie for all of us.

As Churchill said the choice is unequally shared plenty or equally shared misery.
Besides Stony, who is advocating slavery? Where’d I do that? I’m saying quite the opposite – I’m advocating freedom – - – - for all of us.
Beardog how is giving people a job exploiting them????? Nobody’s forcing anyone to do anything – except in some parts of China but that’s the Chinese government, not private companies.
Um, oohbother, free trade has created more jobs than it has lost. Unemployment is 4.6%. Net, we’re creating jobs. And the ones lost are the lower-skill jobs while most of the ones created are the higher-skill jobs.