Thom Hartmann just said: "Capitalism has reached the cancer stage."

[marmar]

Great metaphor. Brilliant in its simplicity.

:thumbsup:

[goddess40]

1. so painfully true! nt

[Mr_shredder]

2. No Doubt

Out of control greed and little if any regulation is a recipe for disaster.

[Cleita]

7. You are so right.

Welcome to DU Mr_Shredder.

:toast:

[Bob Dobbs]

3. Terminal cancer.

Unsustainable, especially with no regulation.

[DailyGrind51]

4. As a former cancer patient, I can see the similarities!

Capitalism, like cancer, needs continued growth to thrive, and while, it does so, it destroys healthy tissue until "the patient" dies.

[bobbolink]

26. Very good imagery!

I hope you are doing well now... take good care of yourself!

:hi:

[DailyGrind51]

27. Thank you! I also see my chemotherapy as analogous to government regulation

keeping my cancer in check until my body's immune system becomes strong enough, like labor unions, to "stand up" to cancer, like unions do to management, and keep it from coming back to kill me.

[bobbolink]

29. WOW! I hope you'll write or call that in to Thom Hartmann--great analogy!

I'm sure he gets lots of hate mail for phrases like that, so he would probably enjoy hearing this from you.

:thumbsup:

:yourock:

[Greyhound]

5. "Capitalism" as it is understood/practiced is based entirely on lies and fantasy.

Explain it to any 4 year old and they'll tell you. They generally don't have the years of practice at self delusion required to see the "truthiness" of it.

[The2ndWheel]

6. Global corporations cannot be regulated without global government

Government works because it is a monopoly. The world is not governed by a monopoly. There is a Swedish government, a Canadian government, a US government, a Chinese government, a French government, etc, etc, etc. That is why corporations have so much power.

[Cleita]

8. They could be regulated within the nation as they were before with

anti-trust laws. We need to bring those back.

[The2ndWheel]

12. We need to bring what back, nations?

There is still such a thing?

In a globalized world, I don't know how much doing anything within a nation is going to accomplish for too long a period of time.

[Cleita]

13. Anti-trust laws like the Sherman Act, which we once had.

Read about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law

[The2ndWheel]

18. I know that's what you meant, but how can you do that when

the world is made up of individual governments competing against each other? The only way you can prohibit, ban, or supervise anything is to prohibit, ban, and supervise any competition toward you. We have governments around the world acting in their own interests. In that way, they're privatized institutions, sort of like corporations. There is no common there. There is no public in a world of multi governments. The land we call China is only for China. The land we call America is only for America. Corporations exist in that borderless, standardized world. Everywhere is the same to corporations. Government does not exist in that world yet. Government not only competes with corporations for power, governments compete against governments for power. The government cannot do the job it's there to apparently do if it is not a total monopoly. That's why there aren't two governments that run the US. If there were, then we'd have two independent countries. America(or whatever country) can't exist, China(or whatever country) can't exist. It has to be Earth. Or Chimerica. Or Amerina. Or Fraindizil. Or Venetainada. Or Amerifrabrachibiastan. Something that brings all nations under one authority.

[Cleita]

19. You have to control what's in your backyard. There

isn't much you can do about your neighbor's except offer advice. Now what you are suggesting is a global homeowners association. Since those only work as well as the people controlling them, I don't think it's such a good idea. We can control who we do bring into our back yard, however, with laws that protect our American interests, laws we used to have and that the neo-cons have gutted with the result of our economy spiraling downward, increased unemployment, and loss of our working middle class with the increasing of poverty as well.

[The2ndWheel]

22. Well, that's going against thousands of years of history and momentum

"a global homeowners association"

That's funny, I like that. And personally, I don't disagree with anything you've said.

But the world is consolidating and centralizing. Everything is mass produced. Your backyard might be yours, but it's now the same backyard that everyone else has. It's not an easy problem to deal with. We like instant global communication, but don't like outsourcing. We want everyone to be able to live better than kings and queens ever could dream of, yet we want a better sense of community. We want the best of everything, without paying the price for it. I don't know if you can play a global game at a regional level. Something has to give, and whichever action we take, there will be a consequence for it.

[defendandprotect]

23. It worked before - we need to highly regulate capitalism/corporations ---

and reverse the trade agreements --

There are "shadow governments" ---

[Greyhound]

21. Certainly they can, each is incorporated in one of these nations and does business in other nations

because those nations allow it.

We are still an essential market, barely, and therefore can still dictate terms. Give this madness another decade and we will have Gattica or Rollerball (Jewison version), but dominated by the Chinese government, probably something to be avoided at all costs if you think individual liberty is a good thing.

[Cleita]

9. One of the big lies we were taught in school was that capitalism

and democracy were married to each other. The fact is that capitalism does quite well in totalitarian dictatorships like China. Controlling unrestrained capitalism doesn't undermine democracy but the corporatists would like you to believe that, that any regulation at all is socialism and *gasp* communism.

[defendandprotect]

24. Capitalism was a successor to feudalism; invented by the Catholic Church to . . .

run its Papal States ---

[robcon]

10. A big lie. Capitalism is thriving.

n/t

[Cleita]

11. Sure it is for 1% of the worlds uber riche.

They get the gold mine. The rest of us get the shaft. I really hate economic Stockholm's Syndrome sufferers who feel that the rich deserve all of the worlds assets, which they appropriate for themselves through questionable though often legal maneuvers. Hey you deserve a part of the economic pie you worked to make.

[robcon]

31. It's the ONLY system that creates a middle class.

And the middle class is the engine of change in the world.

Capitalism is thriving in the world because the success it brings to the average person.

[Naturyl]

33. Actually it's the ONLY system that *prevents* a middle class.

In its end stages, the ultimate result of capitalism is a fully stratified two-class society of haves and have-nots, with an unbridgeable gap between them. We are headed toward that now.

Contrary to your claim, it is only *socialist* policies and movements which produce a middle class. The middle class in this country was created by *labor unions* which are inherently socialistic in origin and nature.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but at some point, you drank the economic Kool-aid.

[romulusnr]

16. so does untreated cancer [nt]

[bdamomma]

14. very true and sad

[romulusnr]

15. he's wrong

capitalism pretty much IS a cancer

at least the way we let it run amok in the US

(some countries do it better, by treating capitalism as merely one piece of a broader economic toolkit)

[Cleita]

17. That's the way it once was in this country after the depression, but it seems that

is no longer true and we have gone back to the days of the robber barons but much worse.

[marmar]

20. Actually, I think that's what Thom meant.....Capitalism has metasticized in the country, and world..

.... the way untreated cancer does in a body.

[defendandprotect]

25. Let me just point out here that we should all recognize how far we are from

having MSM discuss an issue like this ---

thanks, Thom!

Capitalism and democracy are NOT synonymous --

Capitalism is a ridiculous King-of-the-Hill system intended to move assets and

wealth from the many to the few --- !!



And we need to make these conversations more frequent/popular in society ---

including the nationalization of our natural resources --- oil industry ---

and Electric Cars--!!!

[Odin2005]

28. It's been cancerous ever since the rise of the M-I Complex.

The cancer metastasized when Monetarist and Globalist economists became dogma during the Reagan Era.

The only thing that can reign in multi-national corporations is a global EU-type structure

[bobbolink]

30. I will agree with you, except that it goes much further back than King Ronnie.

Have you ever seen the video The Plot To Overthrow FDR?

It's worth the 43 minute viewing!

The names escape me right now, but there were other presidents who warned of this L-O-N-G ago. If I'm not mistaken, Teddy Roosevelt was one of them.... Republican tho he was.

The lesson is, we have erred by letting soooo much slide by.... We need to be much more vigilant of our nation!

[Naturyl]

32. Yes. And how is cancer treated? Aggressively.

Time to take the gloves off. Top tax brackets need to go WAY up, single-payer health care needs to be passed, and social programs across the board need to be strengthened and expanded.

Let's reverse the losses we suffered under Clinton's welfare DEform and Reagan-Bush supply-side voodoo. If a cure is out of the question, we need to get this cancer into remission fast.