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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (265182)	12/19/2005 5:46:15 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1577883

I would rather say that capitalism enables excess. Capitalism gives people what they want to a great degree. People decide for themselves what they want instead of having some central plan or political process decide, and some people will want what you would consider to be excess. On the contrary, capitalism encourages excess. Whether its commercials or tv programming or film, we are encouraged to buy more. Fashions in everything change periodically.........that's to encourage more buying. It becomes a way of life........and when certain people have too much of everything, they begin to consume more and more. It takes two to tango..........capitalism is not solely the problem but rather capitalism takes advantage of certain human characteristics that could be described as human weaknesses or frailties. Certainly if you take away their freedom to make decisions about what they should do with their own wealth, or if you take away their wealth, you will see less excess, but I don't think that would be a good trade. I am not suggesting to take away people's freedom to choose but I think there needs to be a realignment of people's priorities that usually has to come from the top down. We have national debt that's growing by leaps and bounds in part because none of our leaders are willing to tell us that American consumption is out of balance with reality. And if we don't deal with it soon, there will be a day of reckoning. ted

To: TimF who wrote (265182)	12/19/2005 6:50:59 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577883

re: People decide for themselves what they want instead of having some central plan or political process decide... People do decide for themselves... but there is always government interference and incentives. Everywhere; there are NO libertarian governments. <Ever wonder why?>. Each government will and does give incentives and disincentives to various products or product classes. It may not fit with your ideology, but it's real world reality. The real world argument is what we as a country should promote things that benefit the people or things that benefit the corporations. Take your side... but if you keep arguing for non-intervention, you are just wasting every ones time on a Utopian fantasy.