this is why capitalism sucks...

[TalenaGor]

I work in human resources...

Know what I'm doing today? I'm generating reports for the state for the wages of two executive officers who were just laid off due to our recent acquisition by a private equity firm...

For the purposes of unemployment.....

And as I'm digging into their wages for the last 18 months, I see mr. President Executive and his $1000000 pay out that he received when the company was sold..... And thinking back over last several years and all of the bad decisions he made, all of the cronyism the bullying.... The failed initiatives that cost the company millions...... It almost looks as if he wanted the company to fail so he could get a million-dollar payout.....

And now this guy is filing unemployment..... For real.... Just got a million freaking dollars..... And wants unemployment....

Now let's move on to Misses CFO executive...... Who is challenging whether or not her wages should be reported to the state so that she can get unemployment...... Turns out for 18 months we were not reporting them..... Coincidentally she's the person who made the decision that officers are exempt from unemployment..... Except now that she is facing the consequences of her own decisions she's essentially making us reverse her own decision..... So that she can get unemployment..... And oh yes she also got a very large payout.....

There is just something wrong with our system..... That people can fail so hard.... And yet they get huge amounts of money.....

[Loki Liesmith]

1. What does that have to do with capitalism?

Neither of these people are capitalists in the strictest sense of the word. They are officers in a corporation. Capitalism can exist without corporations and corporations can exist under most forms of socialism.

[rgbecker]

4. I think the issue is that Capitalism tends to distribute resources

in ways that don't make the most sense. The decisions are made by a few members of society (the Capitalists ie: those with the capital) rather than by the people as a community. The Capitalists buy the souls of their armies of executives and the whole system is built on money rather than other values such as love, charity, fair play, sharing etc. This method of economic distribution then just pays into the hands of the devil, encouraging everyone to figure out ways to cheat the system and just look out for themselves monetarily.

[Blue_true]

7. I am not questioning your held values. You have thought about them, I am some

random guy you ran across on the Internet. But, in every case where socialism has been practiced, an elite and very small circle of people made decisions, there was no community involvement. And in those cases, when the state dissolved, the elites took all the assets, that is why so many Russian billionaires sprung out of thin air after the Soviet Union dissolved, they stole the people's wealth that they and a few elites controlled.

[rgbecker]

9. Well, to suggest Socialism as you think was operational in the Soviet Union

is the only alternative to Capitalism is a little constrictive for me. A working democracy would need be a foundation for any egalitarian economic system that I would promote. If the only reason to support Capitalism is a lack of imagination of what could be then so be it for you. But try to imagine the resources of a nation put to use by people choosing a path via the ballot box rather than via the dollar. In the case of the dollar, we get a country run by the rich. In the case of the ballot box, properly regulated, we might get a more balanced, and equal distribution of the nation's resources. Now in America, it is almost a religion that only the rich and well endowed, intelligent and educated, hardworking and lucky should get what they want.....the rest get simply the crumbs which they might find beneath the table.

[Blue_true]

11. In no situation has socialism worked. Capitalism has mostly worked, but with flaws.

A socialist absolutely can't get past that with any rational argument. Socialism as a theory sounds wonderful, but in practice greed by those at the top of the socialist hiearchy has always taken over. There is already a system that does what you claim you want, it is called Social Democracy. Do not confuse Social Democracy with socialism or Democratic Socialism, Social Democracy is a robust social system built atop capitalism, the other two advocate the state control by a small group of elites that has failed over and over.

In America, the thing that came closest to what you seem to describe was Occupy, which ultimately largely failed due to a reliance of broad based agreement in situations where no one were designated leaders.

[TalenaGor]

5. fair enough....what is it that I am hating about this?

Human greed perhaps... The gall of the 1%...

[Blue_true]

8. They are going into unemployment the way they led,

as clueless jerks who thought only about themselves.

[SharonAnn]

12. And they're going into it with a $1,000,000 payout in their pocket

[Mosby]

14. you cant collect unemployment if you have earnings

I imagine most states are similar to the one I live in. When you file your claim, you have to state if you earned any income, and if you did, that amount is subtracted from your unemployment payment.

[TalenaGor]

16. not sure about most States but in Washington

Severance and bonus and things like that are not considered earned wages for unemployment purposes.....it's not wages in exchange for hours worked in a sense I guess....

I'm just going to laugh my ass off when they have to submit 3 job searches every week LOL

[Kurt V.]

2. K&R

[Karadeniz]

3. Weak system.

[Blue_true]

6. I agree with you, that is screwed up. nt

[GulfCoast66]

10. I would say American Capitalism.

Because Canadian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, New Zealand and many other types of capitalism work pretty well. Not perfect, mind you. But what is perfect.

[uponit7771]

13. That's not capitalism, that's just plain stupidity and greed

[Celerity]

15. It is the American corrupt crony version of capitalism, versus a highly regulated, but still robust

democratic capitalism that is needed

Think of the Nordic models, who actually have higher median (the average, per capita GDP is such a scam measure, for so many reasons) wages than the US, much more upward social mobility (the US is amongst the worst major nations for moving up to the top quarter from the bottom quarter, along with the UK) and far less corruption and wastage of capital (both private and state) than we do here. Regulatory capture also utterly runs riot here.