Does anyone here genuinely believe that market mechanisms operate independently of massive capital flows? How can one argue that they do when single corporations—let alone entire global industries—possess more influence than most sovereign nations?
Good grief, who on earth are you talking to? In the last decade, I haven't heard a single soul making jokes about the Czech Republic's economy.
PS
And honestly, a massive round of applause for those scheduling spreadsheets; whoever came up with that deserves a Nobel Prize in Bureaucracy.🙏
The same goes for those vehicle usage logs, especially since the government already accounts for those expenses through flat-rate tax deductions anyway.🙏
Karamarko and any single point within his platform 🤷
He was essentially just stacking up buzzwords without any substance.
On a side note, I just realized that our old rival from back in the day is playing in our local league now. Good grief, seeing those two names together brings it all back. We used to play those intense local derby matches in the lower divisions back home. 🙏🙏 What’s next, some tiny town team facing off against the local legends? 🙏
The myth of the elite technician, the high-society academician, the staunch communist, state control, the old comrades, the Warsaw Pact, privatization, liberalization.
It sounds remarkably like a campaign platform from a midwestern Republican strategist.
Justin James10 said:If Americans want such laws, then where is the issue, friends? 🤷 Why shouldn't the forces of some massive international alliance step in to prevent these kinds of ideological shifts? 🤷
Oh sure, let's ignore the GDP and instead focus on... what? Some vague, intangible feeling of leftist influence? 🤷
Can you actually teach leftists how democracy works? 🕺
Justin James10 said:If Americans want such laws, then where is the issue, friends? 🤷 Why shouldn't the forces of some massive international alliance step in to prevent these kinds of ideological shifts? 🤷
Oh sure, let's ignore the GDP and instead focus on... what? Some vague, intangible feeling of leftist influence? 🤷
Can you actually teach leftists how democracy works? 🕺
Justin James10 said:I assume you mean class enemies? 🙂
It seems someone has been reading "How to be an American liberal for Dummies."
I find myself missing the term "statism"; doesn't it carry a certain scientific weight?
Justin James10 said:Oh, I’m watching, believe me—and by comparison, we look like a developing nation. Seriously, compared to them, we’re practically stuck in the dark ages regarding infrastructure!
All this "it's just how things are in Eastern Europe" talk—claiming that because journalists get killed and organized crime runs rampant in places like Slovakia, it makes us equal? What have you been sleeping through for the last twenty-plus years? 👏 In our neck of the woods, nobody even bats an eye when stuff like that happens because, unfortunately, it’s become the status quo.
The point isn't about celebrating the violence against reporters over there, but rather acknowledging that the public consciousness is actually sharp enough to drive massive protests into the streets. Is it really all just a pattern, or are we ignoring the fact that people are finally standing up?
Our comprehensive study of 30 Singapore government-linked companies (GLCs) covering the period 1964 to1998 shows that share issue privatization has some positive impacts on their performance. However, there was no evidence that the GLCs were less profitable than a selected group of non-GLCs that match by size and industry. Taking a buy-and-hold strategy, we found that GLC stocks provide statistically equivalent returns relative to market or othercontrol sample returns over various investment horizons of up to four years. Given that GLCs also perform as well as averages for the market and industry up to five years before their listing, we argue that Singapore’s government-owned enterprises are comparable to privately run enterprises in efficiency.
So, it isn't as if it's an absolute impossibility. If the system of checks and balances actually functions, then any economic framework can work, naturally bringing its own set of advantages and drawbacks. But if those fundamental mechanisms fail, no economic system—regardless of its design—is going to find success. That is my take on privatization; it certainly isn't a magic cure-all for every ailment.
By the way:
The top six Singapore-listed GLCs accounted for about 17% of total capitalization of the Singapore Exchange (SGX).
Which implies we aren't talking about just a handful of insignificant firms here.
The US GDP over the decades:
The reason for the success:
So why did Singapore succeed so comprehensively? The simple answer is exceptional leadership. Many in the world have heard of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister who passed away in March this year. Far fewer have heard of Dr. Goh Keng Swee, the architect of Singapore’s economic miracle, and Mr. S. Rajaratnam, Singapore’s philosopher par excellence.
Together, they made a great team.
This exceptional team also implemented three exceptional policies: Meritocracy, Pragmatism and Honesty. Indeed, I share this “secret” MPH formula with every foreign student at the Lee Kuan Yew School, and I assure them that if they implement it, their country will succeed as well as Singapore. Meritocracy means a country picks its best citizens, not the relatives of the ruling class, to run a country. Pragmatism means that a country does not try to reinvent the wheel. As Dr. Goh Keng Swee would say to me, “Kishore, no matter what problem Singapore encounters, somebody, somewhere, has solved it. Let us copy the solution and adapt it to Singapore.” Copying best practices is something any country can do. However, implementing “Honesty” is the hardest thing to do. Corruption is the single biggest reason why most Third World countries have failed. The greatest strength of Singapore’s founding fathers was that they were ruthlessly honest. It also helped that they were exceptionally shrewd and cunning.
There you have it. Everything else is just window dressing.
I have to agree; there is absolutely no point in having these kinds of debates without at least half a bottle of wine in your system, leaning over a singed tablecloth to stare someone right in the eye and shouting nicotine-stained spit into their face while asking if they’ve actually bothered to look at the homeless population in the US ☕
Because that is usually how he ends up dragging you and every other leftist straight into the gutter.
Jacob Morgan said:Look, you guys have really gotten into it with this debate, but I guess without a cloud of cigarette smoke, some heavy alcohol fumes, and a crying baby in the background, we aren't ever going to reach a truly satisfying conclusion here ☕
I suppose I agree with restlesssurfer97 that the bigger issue is probably just the total lack of consensus regarding the actual definitions of the terms we're all throwing around.
In my view, the government ought to be social—maybe leaning toward a Nordic-style model rather than the way things are currently run here in the States
But then again, I also feel like the role of a social state shouldn't involve endlessly propping up massive state-run corporations that are unprofitable and unsustainable—you know, essentially saving jobs that simply can't survive in a free market environment just because politicians are terrified of losing votes in the next election. The same logic probably applies to maintaining that bloated, inefficient bureaucratic machine, too.
I wouldn't go that far; corporate bureaucracies might actually be a bit too much for her to handle, so she tends to stick to picking fights with enemies that everyone can easily wrap their heads around, wouldn't you agree?
restlesssurfer97 said:In football, just like in the rest of the country, it's all about crony capitalism. Talking about liberalization while thinking about the system we currently have is a mistake from the very beginning.
I think you're missing the point by trying to discuss "liberalization" without accounting for the specific reality of our little corner of the world.
Let's just be honest here—what exactly are we talking about when you use that word, and what does "liberalization" actually mean in your view?
restlesssurfer97 said:So you think the USSF and American soccer in general are examples of liberalization?
ZZ, I honestly can't believe you can be this incredibly wrong.
I truly cannot fathom how you fail to see that it is. It is, of course, liberalization in its American form.
That is, unless I am fundamentally misinterpreting your definition of liberalization—which I tend to view as shifting everything possible into the realm of private interest, paired with a minimal state and a strengthened individualistic mindset.
What happens when we allow private interests to run rampant in a society that lacks true democratic consciousness, one without robust institutions or enough competing factions to establish any semblance of rules through their own internal friction? Sports, and specifically soccer, provides us with the perfect illustration of that outcome.
Implementing such an idea in America would result in nothing more than the further enrichment of a tiny handful of wealthy individuals and the continued impoverishment of everyone else. Absolutely nothing changes. Politics would maintain its grip, perhaps slightly less through state-owned enterprises and slightly more through regulatory, judicial, and legislative bodies. That same group of people who call themselves the elite would simply continue doing whatever they please, just as they do now.
You seem to be living under the illusion that improvement will descend from the top down, and that it might arrive anytime soon.
Justin James10 said:Are you suggesting politics would still have a decisive influence even if you completely decoupled it from everything else? How on earth would that even work?
Good grief, I honestly haven't the slightest clue what kind of society or government structure you're envisioning here.
Politics isn't just limited to things like HAC or Exelon, is it? Everything is political—from the court system and regulatory agencies right down to the legislature. How, precisely, do you imagine we could "detach" our supposedly "successful" entrepreneurs from regulators or lawmakers? Especially in a cutthroat environment like this where everyone seems to belong to the same inner circle? Perhaps in the same way Walmart was detached from its status as a shining example of successful privatization?
Gentlemen, there are no shortcuts here—only fast tracks to ruin.
Every nation has to walk its own path when it comes to shaping a collective consciousness and reaching a certain level of civilization. You can't just skip steps. Right now, we’re simply lagging behind many of our peers in the Western world that we constantly try to measure ourselves against. Until the foundation of society matures, the people at the top will inevitably be nothing more than opportunists. And while those types are running the show, don't expect anyone to actually put bread on the table, regardless of what kind of government system is in place.
To make matters worse, we’re dealing with a massive handicap that our historical role models in the 18th or 19th centuries never had: we have to compete against highly advanced nations in this hyper-globalized era. Plus, because our population is so small, we lack those distinct, organized elite groups that might actually check one another's corruption. Instead, we have this pervasive web of connections that acts like a cancer; everyone is beholden to someone else.
The core issue lies in deep-seated corruption and a general lack of public awareness regarding our right to demand even a modicum of decent management within our own communities.
I honestly fail to see what kind of "systemic reform" could possibly alter that fundamental reality.
If we want a glimpse of what total liberalization would look like in a broken society devoid of any democratic conscience, we need only look at professional soccer. In that arena, we don't deal with state-run clubs; instead, we see highly capable entrepreneurs like Mamić and Mickey competing in a "free market" that is conveniently regulated by their own close associates. And based on how much our sport has flourished because of it, one can only assume we're doing everything perfectly.
Yes, trust. That’s really the crux of it. Social capital in America has been systematically eroded for our generation, and I fear the next one—and the one after that—won't even realize something like this ever existed. You can see the decay everywhere, from voter apathy at the polls to the way we conduct our day-to-day business interactions.
The dismantling of the concept of community in favor of forced individualism is also a fascinating phenomenon, regardless of the reality we live in. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it an agenda.
