Capitalist, what is the point of greed?

[Lardlad95]

Look around you capitalist, do you see a mix of people? Do you see homeless people? Do you see pregnant teens? Do you see babies born into crackhouses, houses not of there choosing? Or do you see kids riding around on bikes, fresh cut lawns and two story houses?

What is the point of letting people have so much more and some so much less? When you die will that money make you live again? Will that expensive house be there to raise you from the dead? We are all brothers, but you do not care for you brother. You opress him, you shame him, you toss crumbs to him as if he were a dog. Your brothers huddle near a garbage can, but you have a heater. THey beg with shame in their eyes, not even able to have a job to lead out even the smallest life.

You stand idley and let you brother get shot in the slums and his mind rot away in sub-standard schools. Your children play on nice feilds, there schools are productive and they play soccer on the grass. But the children of your brother play in the streets, on broken glass an blood, in the houses of your laborers.

There is no way ot for them, your brother looks to you, but you spit at him...you leave him to crawl.

Your money has made a nice little life for you....but life is fleeting. We all will die....yet you seeek to gain much power with you when you go....but that power does not follow.

Love your brother, he is like you, but he strives to be you...but you hold him back.

[poncho]

SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY DR. FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA, AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT. MONTERREY, MARCH 21, 2002

Excellencies:

Not everyone here will share my thoughts. Still, I will respectfully say what I think.

The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plundering and exploitation like no other in history. Thus, the peoples believe less and less in statements and promises.

The prestige of the international financial institutions rates less than zero.

The world economy is today a huge casino. Recent analyses indicate that for every dollar that goes into trade, over one hundred end up in speculative operations completely disconnected from the real economy.

As a result of this economic order, over 75 percent of the world population lives in underdevelopment, and extreme poverty has already reached 1.2 billion people in the Third World. So, far from narrowing the gap is widening.

The revenue of the richest nations that in 1960 was 37 times larger than that of the poorest is now 74 times larger. The situation has reached such extremes that the assets of the three wealthiest persons in the world amount to the GDP of the 48 poorest countries combined.

The number of people actually starving was 826 million in the year 2001. There are at the moment 854 million illiterate adults while 325 million children do not attend school. There are 2 billion people who have no access to low cost medications and 2.4 billion lack the basic sanitation conditions. No less than 11 million children under the age of 5 perish every year from preventable causes while half a million go blind for lack of vitamin A.

The life span of the population in the developed world is 30 years higher than that of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa. A true genocide!

The poor countries should not be blamed for this tragedy. They neither conquered nor plundered entire continents for centuries; they did not establish colonialism, or re-established slavery; and, modern imperialism is not of their making. Actually, they have been its victims. Therefore, the main responsibility for financing their development lies with those states that, for obvious historical reasons, enjoy today the benefits of those atrocities.

The rich world should condone their foreign debt and grant them fresh soft credits to finance their development. The traditional offers of assistance, always scant and often ridiculous, are either inadequate or unfulfilled.

For a true and sustainable economic and social development to take place much more is required than is usually admitted. Measures as those suggested by the late James Tobin to curtail the irrepressible flow of currency speculation --albeit it was not his idea to foster development-- would perhaps be the only ones capable of generating enough funds, which in the hands of the UN agencies and not of awful institutions like the IMF, could supply direct development assistance with a democratic participation of all countries and without the need to sacrifice the independence and sovereignty of the peoples.

The Consensus draft, which the masters of the world are imposing on this conference, intends that we accept humiliating, conditioned and interfering alms.

Everything created since Bretton Woods until today should be reconsidered. A farsighted vision was then missing, thus, the privileges and interests of the most powerful prevailed. In the face of the deep present crisis, a still worse future is offered where the economic, social and ecologic tragedy of an increasingly ungovernable world would never be resolved and where the number of the poor and the starving would grow higher, as if a large part of humanity were doomed.

It is high time for statesmen and politicians to calmly reflect on this. The belief that a social and economic order that has proven to be unsustainable can be forcibly imposed is really senseless.

As I have said before, the ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry but they cannot kill ignorance, illnesses, poverty or hunger.

It should definitely be said: “Farewell to arms.”

Something must be done to save Humanity!

A better world is possible!

Thank you.

[Solzhenitsyn]

Thus Lardlad35 spake:

Look around you capitalist, do you see a mix of people? Do you see homeless people? Do you see pregnant teens? Do you see babies born into crackhouses, houses not of there choosing? Or do you see kids riding around on bikes, fresh cut lawns and two story houses?

I've said it once and I'll say it again: Capitalism is the only system which rewards virtue and punishes vice. Homeless people should get a job or if they're psychotic get on meds then get a job. Teens should not be getting pregnant unless they are married. If babies are born into crackhouses it can only be because their parents let them. Why don't you reprimand the parents of the child? Yes, that's what I see and life is sweeeet.

What is the point of letting people have so much more and some so much less? When you die will that money make you live again? Will that expensive house be there to raise you from the dead? We are all brothers, but you do not care for you brother. You opress him, you shame him, you toss crumbs to him as if he were a dog. Your brothers huddle near a garbage can, but you have a heater. THey beg with shame in their eyes, not even able to have a job to lead out even the smallest life.

Because people who are more productive get a larger slice of the pie. People who are not productive at all get nothing. That way the unproductive are motivated to be more productive. Part of the benefits of capitalism is that the productive insure their decendents' well-being through inheritance law.

THEY SHOULD GO OUT AND GET A JOB!!!!! Why do my 'brothers' feel entitled to the fruits of my labor without any contribution?

You stand idley and let you brother get shot in the slums and his mind rot away in sub-standard schools. Your children play on nice feilds, there schools are productive and they play soccer on the grass. But the children of your brother play in the streets, on broken glass an blood, in the houses of your laborers.

Again, the parents of these children should GO OUT AND GET A JOB OR GET OFF DRUGS AND THEN GET A JOB! See the next one for what I do to help other people.

There is no way ot for them, your brother looks to you, but you spit at him...you leave him to crawl.

I give hundreds of my income to religious charities helping people that suffer in the wreckage of the Marxist hellholes that were Russia and Romania. I risk my good fortune by purchasing stocks and bonds that help raise money to open new businesses and thus provide more jobs for the poor.

Your money has made a nice little life for you....but life is fleeting. We all will die....yet you seeek to gain much power with you when you go....but that power does not follow.

Wrong, my own productivity has made a nice life for me. Correct. Correct. Wrong, I've sought dominion over no one, unlike Castro, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, Mao, Mengitsu and every Marxist who has ever lived. I don't know, but you can ask some of them if you find the phone number to Hell.

Love your brother, he is like you, but he strives to be you...but you hold him back.

I do love my brothers in humanity. But, they have no one to blame except themselves.


(Edited by Solzhenitsyn at 12:07 am on April 16, 2002)

[Anarcho]

I agree with some of what our favorite dissident writer has said... I also agree with some of what Mr. Castro says.

It's a hard call to draw the line... where does one become an oppresor, and one become the oppressed?

I stated on here shortly after I joined my belief that it is the responsibility of the individual to raise themselves up, that anyone can get out of the crackhouse, get themselves a decent level of income...

I was berated for being a selfish, self-centered person.

[Moskitto]

Homeless people should get a job or if they're psychotic get on meds then get a job.

To quote a homeless person.

"To get a job you need a home, to get a home you need a job"

You can't get a job if you have to fill in on your application form with address "Cardboard box under the bypass." And you don't like social security so you can't house them so their address is "3 homeless people lane" so they can get a job. Basically you're a hypocrit because you want people to get jobs but won't give them the means if you can't.

[PunkRawker677]

<<Because people who are more productive get a larger slice of the pie. People who are not productive at all get nothing. That way the unproductive are motivated to be more productive. Part of the benefits of capitalism is that the productive insure their decendents' well-being through inheritance law. >>

and what about the children born of wealthy parents and children born of non-wealthy parents? the rich kid goes to the best school, the poor kid goes to whatever school he can afford or get into it.. the first kid gets a 1st grade education all throughout life, the poor kid gets a 3rd rate education almost all his life..

its like race.. the poor kid is at the start line and the rich kid is a couple paces away from the finish line..

[STALINSOLDIERS]

your so right moskitto man.....there no job with out an address there no house with out a job.....so how can a person get work maybe if you get contruction but how if there to weak with out food.....and for larlad i totally agree with you to......dam capitalist they all make me sick

[PaulDavidHewson]

well, ignorant beings.

Here in Holland everyone has a right to have a roof over their heads.
If you don't have a house, you get a house appointed to you where you can eat, live and sleep. (those houses are always in excellent condition and provided with all basic comforts needed)

[Lardlad95]

Not all of us live in Holland Paul, in America its survival of the most manipulative and connected.


To Solzhenitsyn, First of all get my name right its Lardlad95

Second Teens get pregnant because they have no one who loves them so the reach out to sexual partners for love that they don't recieve at home.

You truly are a capitalist. Do you think Bill Gates is productive? He couldn't produce a damn thing, he's scrawny as hell. My 3 year old cousin could beat his ass. He got rich from manipulating people. From running others out of buisness.

Do you honestly think some homeless man is going to walk into a store and ask for a job? Would you give it to him? Didn't think so

And by the way if you grow up around crack your going to get hooked on crack, then you have a child he grows up around crack and the cycle repeats its self. Grow up in a ghetto and we'll see if your opinion is the same

[PaulDavidHewson]

"Second Teens get pregnant because they have no one who loves them so the reach out to sexual partners for love that they don't recieve at home. "

You make it sound that this is always the reason.
Sometimes it does happend because the child is infatuated with a childhood love, or sometimes it is an accident. Most people I know who got preganant at young age came from very good homes and have a good live.

"You truly are a capitalist. Do you think Bill Gates is productive? He couldn't produce a damn thing, he's scrawny as hell. My 3 year old cousin could beat his ass. He got rich from manipulating people. From running others out of buisness. "

Why would you need brawns? Do you really need weapons and violence to solve your problems or achieve things?

"Do you honestly think some homeless man is going to walk into a store and ask for a job? Would you give it to him? Didn't think so "

Those people refuse to get help, there are free institutes were those people are helped.
Again I say, here in Holland a doctor hands out methadon on small basis to aid drugs addict cope with their heroine addiction.

"And by the way if you grow up around crack your going to get hooked on crack, then you have a child he grows up around crack and the cycle repeats its self. Grow up in a ghetto and we'll see if your opinion is the same "

This happens on most nations on earth, America, China, Russia, etc. and is not something to be linked to capitalist nations.


This thread was against greed and capitalists right?
some communists seem to assume that every capitalist country has a goverment and policy similar to America?
I really advise to you to broaden your knowledge and read up about goverments in European countries.
(Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, UK etc)

[Solzhenitsyn]

Thus LardLad95 spake:


Second Teens get pregnant because they have no one who loves them so the reach out to sexual partners for love that they don't recieve at home.

Your theory is needlessly complex. Teens get pregnant because they have sex. It's their choice. I don't particularly care what conditions led to her decision, unless it was rape or seduction (sex under the fraudulent promise of eventual marriage). Then, I say sieze his entire fortune to compensate for his crime and continue to garnisee his wages until the child's well being is secure.
There are many private charities willing to help women who have made mistakes. Hell, I've even heard of women auctioning off their unborn babies like cattle (which is disgusting and but legal) to couples who can't procreate.

You truly are a capitalist. Do you think Bill Gates is productive? He couldn't produce a damn thing, he's scrawny as hell. My 3 year old cousin could beat his ass. He got rich from manipulating people. From running others out of buisness.

You socialists and even some capitalists have a grave misconception about how the market works. Manual labor and productivity aren't synonomous. Manual labor is a subset of productive behavior to be sure , but there are more ways to be productive. In general, you can contribute ideas, products, services or labor to the market. Gates got rich because he contributed ideas and products worth billions to the market. He used his srewd business sense to get his ideas and products before the widest audience possible. The people he drove out of business weren't exactly paupers living on a wing and a prayer. Nearly everyone can perform manual labor and that's why manual laborers don't get paid much.

Do you honestly think some homeless man is going to walk into a store and ask for a job? Would you give it to him? Didn't think so

If he demonstrated himself to be an asset to my hypothetical business, I'd hire him in a heartbeat. I'd be stupid otherwise.

And by the way if you grow up around crack your going to get hooked on crack, then you have a child he grows up around crack and the cycle repeats its self. Grow up in a ghetto and we'll see if your opinion is the same

No, you are going to get hooked on crack only if you start taking crack in the first place. Being exposed to crack use for a long period of time may contribute to your decision to start a crack habit, but ultimately it's your decision and your responsibility. Many people who were raised in a crack infested environment manage to stay off the stuff. Many people also successfully kick the habit after they start and become productive members of society. Why should I expect different from everbody else? I think you socialists grossly underestimate the resiliance of the human spirit.

(Edited by Solzhenitsyn at 6:21 pm on April 16, 2002)


(Edited by Solzhenitsyn at 6:22 pm on April 16, 2002)

[PaulDavidHewson]

well said..

[Lardlad95]

the human spirit? Bullshit. Were you grow up strongly affects who you are. Take this into consideration peer pressure, no adult supervision, lonliness, depression. Getting high seems like abetter alternative to severe depression.

People can't choose where they grow up. If you grow up in the ghetto no one gives a fuck about your education.

You don't seem to realize that alot of people are pressured into these things, 14 year old girls think that their 17 year old boyfriends love them but all the boyfriends want is sex and at the first sign of pregnancy the guys are gone. Those girls are impressionable they think that those guys love them, but they don't.

PEople have it hard, it isn't easy to get out of those situations. Life isn't all sugar and spice, look at reality.

[PaulDavidHewson]

Ok, but just realise that this problem is worldwide and NOT confined to USA alone. The same thing happens in Hong-Kong, South Africa, China, etc.

[poncho]

Basic capitalist approach;take them out of the ghetto and place them into a nice clean jail cell, besides they are all criminals.

[sabre]

okay heres an experiment.

sell everything you own and donate the money to charity, go livei na cardboard box in an alley, pretend you are insane and try to buy medicine. you dont even have health care now man how the hell will oyu be able to afford a 300$ a week bottle of pills just to keep you ALIVE

[PunkRawker677]

<<Those people refuse to get help, there are free institutes were those people are helped.
Again I say, here in Holland a doctor hands out methadon on small basis to aid drugs addict cope with their heroine addiction. >>

In the U.S. there is limited amount for the homeless, and as Moskitto said - without a home you cannot get a job, without a job you cannot get a home.. holland sounds wonderful - in the u.s. they DONT give u a place to live, no matter what. in the u.s. they dont give you free medicine, even if your dieing..
i refrain from saying "capitalists" because not all capitalist countries have similar problems..

[PaulDavidHewson]

exactly,

But I notcei alot here that it's the socialists v.s. America and not socialist v.s. capitalist

[Lardlad95]

BEcause the US is the largest Capitalist country and people are les liberal or open to ideas here.

Sure I hate capitalism world wide but I have to act in my home...just read my sig.