mikehudack: rafer: heyitsnoah: What American socialism really looks like … The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan I have no idea how solid these stats are, but just assuming this is true, I still think it completely misses the point.  Two things that bother me with this line of thinking: Socialism’s definition is ambiguous at best.  Whether or not people want to label some of our current economic policies socialist is besides the point.  The problem is setting precedents.  If you believe that the government having control over the means to production for certain industries (in this case an industry historically controlled by the private sector), you’re going to be pissed  about setting a precedent in this direction.  You’re also not likely to care that the percentage of coroporate assets held by the government is currently .21%.  Who cares.  It used to be less, and now it is more.  We also have no assurances that the government wont decide that it needs to save other ailing industries.  Should we be worried if the governemnt decides that certain media assets would be better controlled under their ownership?  The percentage of government owned assets will hardly budge if the New York Times is “saved”. How much did the US government pay in order to own the $82.3 billion in assets stated above?  Is there an expected return on investement?  As equivalents to LP’s in the government takeover fund, are we entitled to certain performance data?  Roughly half of us will be unable to fire our fund manager.

mikehudack:

rafer:

heyitsnoah:

What American socialism really looks like …

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

I have no idea how solid these stats are, but just assuming this is true, I still think it completely misses the point.  Two things that bother me with this line of thinking:

  1. Socialism’s definition is ambiguous at best.  Whether or not people want to label some of our current economic policies socialist is besides the point.  The problem is setting precedents.  If you believe that the government having control over the means to production for certain industries (in this case an industry historically controlled by the private sector), you’re going to be pissed  about setting a precedent in this direction.  You’re also not likely to care that the percentage of coroporate assets held by the government is currently .21%.  Who cares.  It used to be less, and now it is more.  We also have no assurances that the government wont decide that it needs to save other ailing industries.  Should we be worried if the governemnt decides that certain media assets would be better controlled under their ownership?  The percentage of government owned assets will hardly budge if the New York Times is “saved”.
  2. How much did the US government pay in order to own the $82.3 billion in assets stated above?  Is there an expected return on investement?  As equivalents to LP’s in the government takeover fund, are we entitled to certain performance data?  Roughly half of us will be unable to fire our fund manager.