Socialism Sucks

[Admiral Ackbar]

So with the green new deal has exactly 0 support in the Senate. But that doesn’t mean socialism will creep up on us anyway. Socialism is something that is very rarely voted in it’s like a cancer because it’s DK from the inside. Another reason socialism sucks

[Admiral Ackbar]

More from the Socialist Country of Venezuela!

As we all know Socialism Sucks.. but is also like living in the Middle Ages!


https://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-ret...143506671.html

Details below:

Caracas (AFP) - Walking for hours, making oil lamps, bearing water. For Venezuelans today, suffering under a new nationwide blackout that has lasted days, it's like being thrown back to life centuries ago.
El Avila, a mountain that towers over Caracas, has become a place where families gather with buckets and jugs to fill up with water, wash dishes and scrub clothes. The taps in their homes are dry from lack of electricity to the city's water pumps.
"We're forced to get water from sources that obviously aren't completely hygienic. But it's enough for washing or doing the dishes," said one resident, Manuel Almeida.
Because of the long lines of people, the activity can take hours of waiting.
Elsewhere, locals make use of cracked water pipes. But they still need to boil the water, or otherwise purify it.
"We're going to bed without washing ourselves," said one man, Pedro Jose, a 30-year-old living in a poorer neighborhood in the west of the capital.
Some shops seeing an opportunity have hiked the prices of bottles of water and bags of ice to between $3 and $5 -- a fortune in a country where the monthly minimum salary is the equivalent of $5.50.
Better-off Venezuelans, those with access to US dollars, have rushed to fill hotels that have giant generators and working restaurants.
For others, preserving fresh food is a challenge. Finding it is even more difficult. The blackout has forced most shops to close.
"We share food" among family members and friends, explained Coral Munoz, 61, who counts herself lucky to have dollars.
"You have to keep a level head to put up with all this, and try to have people around because being alone make it even harder."
- Scouring trash -
For Kelvin Donaire, who lives in the poor Petare district, survival is complicated.
He walks for more than an hour to the bakery where he works in the upmarket Los Palos Grandes area. "At least I'm able to take a loaf back home," Donaire said.
Many inhabitants have taken to salting meat to preserve it without working refrigerators.
Others, more desperate, scour trash cans for food scraps. They are hurt most by having to live in a country where basic food and medicine has become scarce and out of reach because of rocketing hyperinflation.
The latest blackout this week also knocked out communications.
According to NetBlocks, an organization monitoring telecoms networks, 85 percent of Venezuela has lost connection.
- 'People need to eat' -
In stores, cash registers no longer work and electronic payment terminals are blanked out. That's serious in Venezuela, where even bread is bought by card because of lack of cash.
Some clients, trusted ones, are able to leave written IOUs.
"People need to eat. We let them take food and they will pay us when bank transfers come back," explained shop owner Carlos Folache.
Underneath an office block of Digitel, one of the main cellphone companies, dozens of people stand around trying to get a signal.
"I'm trying to get connected to get news... on this chaotic episode we're going through," said one man, Douglas Perez.
With Caracas's subway shut down, getting around the city is a trail, with choices between walking for kilometers (miles), lining up in the outsized hope of getting on one of the rare and badly overcrowded and dilapidated buses or managing to get fuel for a vehicle.
Pedro Jose said bus tickets have nearly doubled in price. "A ticket used to cost 100 bolivares (three US cents) and now it's 1,500 (45 cents)," he raged.
As night casts Caracas into darkness, families light their homes as best they can.
"We make lamps that burn gasoline, or oil, or kerosene -- any type of fuel," explained Lizbeth Morin, 30.
"We've returned to the Middle Ages

[Admiral Ackbar]

Even Socialist Student think Socialism Sucks!

[stjames1_53]

Even Socialist Student think Socialism Sucks!

yeah............socialism is great until they have to pay for it................... Then. it's not as fair as they think. Many of our socialist in here think they are entitled to MY money, while they believe they don't have to cough theirs up.

[Admiral Ackbar]

John Stossel knows one thing....and that is Socialism Sucks!

Central planning always fails.

John Stossel|Mar. 27, 2019 12:15 am
Venezuela is a disaster.
Yet 20 years ago, it was the wealthiest country in Latin America. It still has the world's biggest oil reserves. It should be a happy and prosperous nation.
But then Venezuela went socialist. Democratic socialist to be exact. They voted for it. Hugo Chavez promised the poor "social and economic reforms." The majority of voters believed him.
So did many American leftists.
Model Naomi Campbell traveled to Venezuela to give Chavez a hug. She called him "a rebel angel."
Michael Moore said that Chavez used oil money to "eliminate 75 percent of extreme poverty."
But now that the socialists created much more extreme poverty, I would think that progressives would realize that democratic socialism is not the route to paradise.
But no, nothing convinces a dedicated socialist—or much of the media.
A popular Vox video titled "The collapse of Venezuela, explained" never once mentions socialism. Instead, it says Venezuela collapsed because "oil prices plummeted in 2014 and Maduro failed to adjust."
"Blaming socialism for Venezuela's riches to rags story is grossly misleading," said Al Jazeera anchor Ryan Kohls.
Venezuela didn't collapse because of socialism, added comedian John Oliver. "It's a story about epic mismanagement."
But mismanagement is what happens under socialist governments. It always happens.
That's because no group of central planners is wise enough to manage an entire economy. Even if they have good intentions, socialists eventually run out of other people's money.
In Venezuela, the solution was to print more money. That caused massive inflation.
When businesses raised prices to try to keep up with inflation, Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro called that "profiteering" and punished many by confiscating their businesses.
The socialists claimed they would run those businesses better than greedy capitalists could because they weren't obsessed with profits. Without the "excess" profits, prices would be lower and more money would go to the poor.
But pursuit of profit is what makes an economy work! I'd think the collapse of nations such as Venezuela, China, Russia, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Cuba would have taught the socialists that. But no.
In America, progressives claim that socialism is succeeding in much of Europe. John Oliver claims, "There are plenty of socialist countries that look nothing like Venezuela."
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders agrees, saying: "When I talk about democratic socialism, I am not looking at Venezuela. I'm not looking at Cuba. I'm looking at countries like Denmark, like Sweden."
But those countries are not socialist!
Yes, they have big welfare programs, but their economies are more capitalist than America's.
They set no national minimum wage. They impose fewer regulations on businesses. Their leaders even go out of their way to point out that they are not socialist. Denmark's prime minister went on TV to respond Sanders' comments by saying: "Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy."
Not only are Scandinavian countries not socialist, lately they've reduced government control of their economies. Denmark privatized the national phone system and the railroads—and sold the Copenhagen airport to a private company.
Swedish economic historian Johan Norberg points out: "We did have a period in the 1970s and 1980s when we had something that resembled socialism, big government that taxed and spent heavily. (But) that's the period in Swedish history when our economy was going south."
So Sweden reduced government's role, too. They privatized businesses and even instituted school choice.
The progressives are just wrong. Scandinavian countries that they call "socialist successes" are not socialist, and they're moving toward more capitalism. It's astounding that the progressives keep winning votes peddling economic nonsense.
At least Venezuelans who escaped their country's socialism understand now that socialism creates poverty.
I asked Stossel TV's Gloria Alvarez to go to Florida to interview recent Venezuelan immigrants about socialism. Most gave answers like "I wouldn't recommend it to anyone" and "It's never gonna work!"
It never will. Never.
As libertarian economist Ludwig von Mises wrote: "The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement... They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office, every man but one a subordinate clerk."
Until progressives learn that, tragedies like Venezuela will happen again and again

http://reason.com/archives/2019/03/2...-fantasy/print

[Admiral Ackbar]

We all know Socialism Sucks.. but man it is good at the killing part!

https://www.wnd.com/2012/08/socialisms-death-count/

Europe, especially in Germany, hoisting a swastika-emblazoned Nazi flag is a crime. For decades after World War II, people have hunted down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers, who were responsible for the deaths of more than 20 million people.
Here’s my question: Why are the horrors of Nazism so well-known and widely condemned but not those of socialism and communism? What goes untaught – and possibly is covered up – is that socialist and communist ideas have produced the greatest evil in mankind’s history. You say, “Williams, what in the world are you talking about? Socialists, communists and their fellow travelers, such as the Wall Street occupiers supported by our president, care about the little guy in his struggle for a fair shake! They’re trying to promote social justice.” Let’s look at some of the history of socialism and communism.



What’s not appreciated is that Nazism is a form of socialism. In fact, the term Nazi stands for the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The unspeakable acts of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis pale in comparison with the horrors committed by the communists in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People’s Republic of China. Between 1917 and 1987, Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and their successors murdered and were otherwise responsible for the deaths of 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, China’s communists, led by Mao Zedong and his successors, murdered and were otherwise responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese. The most authoritative tally of history’s most murderous regimes is documented on University of Hawaii professor Rudolph J. Rummel’s website and in his book “Death by Government.”
How much hunting down and punishment have there been for these communist murderers? To the contrary, it’s acceptable both in Europe and in the U.S. to hoist and march under the former USSR’s red flag emblazoned with a hammer and sickle. Mao Zedong has been long admired by academics and leftists across our country, as they often marched around singing the praises of Mao and waving his little red book, “Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung.” President Barack Obama’s communications director, Anita Dunn, in her June 2009 commencement address to St. Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral, said Mao was one of her heroes.
Whether it’s the academic community, the media elite, stalwarts of the Democratic Party or organizations such as the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, Green for All, the Sierra Club and the Children’s Defense Fund, there is a great tolerance for the ideas of socialism – a system that has caused more deaths and human misery than all other systems combined.

Today’s leftists, socialists and progressives would bristle at the suggestion that their agenda differs little from those of Nazi, Soviet and Maoist mass murderers. One does not have to be in favor of death camps or wars of conquest to be a tyrant. The only requirement is that one has to believe in the primacy of the State over individual rights.
The unspeakable horrors of Nazism didn’t happen overnight. They were simply the end result of a long evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the quest for “social justice.” It was decent but misguided earlier generations of Germans – who would have cringed at the thought of genocide – who created the Trojan horse for Hitler’s ascendancy. Today’s Americans are similarly accepting the massive consolidation of power in Washington in the name of social justice.
If you don’t believe it, just ask yourself: Which way are we headed tiny steps at a time – toward greater liberty or toward more government control over our lives?
Perhaps we think that we are better human beings than the German people who created the conditions that brought Hitler to power. I say, don’t count on it.

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Read more at https://www.wnd.com/2012/08/socialis...Jbup7yxCjJh.99

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[Admiral Ackbar]

Socialism does not only suck. It does not work! We hear about the Scandinavian Socialist model

It doesn't work their either! Also Bernie Sanders suck as well

Bernie Sanders has single-handedly brought the term “democratic socialism” into the contemporary American political lexicon and shaken millions of Millennials out of their apathy towards politics. Even if he does not win the Democratic nomination, his impact on American politics will be evident for years to come.Sanders has convinced a great number of people that things have been going very badly for the great majority of people in the United States, for a very long time. His solution? America must embrace “democratic socialism,” a socioeconomic system that seemingly works very well in the Scandinavian countries, like Sweden, which are, by some measures, better off than the United States.
Democratic socialism purports to combine majority rule with state control of the means of production. However, the Scandinavian countries are not good examples of democratic socialism in action because they aren’t socialist.
Social Democracy Is Not Democratic Socialism

In the Scandinavian countries, like all other developed nations, the means of production are primarily owned by private individuals, not the community or the government, and resources are allocated to their respective uses by the market, not government or community planning.
While it is true that the Scandinavian countries provide things like a generous social safety net and universal health care, an extensive welfare state is not the same thing as socialism. What Sanders and his supporters confuse as socialism is actually social democracy, a system in which the government aims to promote the public welfare through heavy taxation and spending, within the framework of a capitalist economy. This is what the Scandinavians practice.
In response to Americans frequently referring to his country as socialist, the prime minister of Denmark recently remarked in a lecture at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government,

I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.

The Embrace of Global Trade and Individual Choice

The Scandinavians embrace a brand of free-market capitalism that exists in conjunction with a large welfare state, known as the “Nordic Model,” which includes many policies that democratic socialists would likely abhor.
For example, democratic socialists are generally opponents of global capitalism and free trade, but the Scandinavian countries have fully embraced these things. The Economist magazine describes the Scandinavian countries as “stout free-traders who resist the temptation to intervene even to protect iconic companies.” Perhaps this is why Denmark, Norway, and Sweden rank among the most globalized countries in the entire world. These countries all also rank in the top 10 easiest countries to do business in.
How do supporters of Bernie Sanders feel about the minimum wage? You will find no such government-imposed floors on labor in Sweden, Norway, or Denmark. Instead, minimum wages are decided by collective-bargaining agreements between unions and employers; they typically vary on an occupational or industrial basis. Union-imposed wages lock out the least skilled and do their own damage to an economy, but such a decentralized system is still arguably a much better way of doing things than having the central government set a one-size-fits-all wage policy that covers every occupation nationwide.

It is clear that the Scandinavian countries are not in fact archetypes of successful democratic socialism.

In a move that would be considered radically pro-capitalist by young Americans who #FeelTheBern, Sweden adopted a universal school choice system in the 1990s that is nearly identical to the system proposed by libertarian economist Milton Friedman his 1955 essay, “The Role of Government in Education.”
In practice, the Swedish system involves local governments allowing families to use public funds, in the form of vouchers, to finance their child’s education at a private school, including schools run by the dreaded for-profit corporation.
Far from being a failure, as the socialists thought it would be, Sweden's reforms were a considerable success. According to a study published by the Institute for the Study of Labor, the expansion of private schooling and competition brought about by the Swedish free-market educational reforms “improved average educational performance both at the end of compulsory school and in the long run in terms of high school grades, university attendance, and years of schooling.”
Overall, it is clear that the Scandinavian countries are not in fact archetypes of successful democratic socialism. Sanders has convinced a great deal of people that socialism is something it is not, and he has used the Scandinavian countries to prove its efficacy while ignoring the many ways they deviate, sometimes dramatically, from what Sanders himself advocates.

https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-of...ian-socialism/

[Admiral Ackbar]

Even Bernie Sanders thinks Socialism Sucks!

https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/...eal-hypocrisy/

Bernie Sanders released his 2014 tax return this weekend, revealing that he and his wife took $60,208 in deductions from their taxable income. These deductions are all perfectly legal and permitted under the U.S. tax code, but they present a morally inconvenient, if delicious, irony: The Democratic socialist from Vermont, a man who rages against high earners paying a lower effective tax rate than blue-collar workers, saved himself thousands using many of the tricks that would be banned under his own tax plan.



With all of his itemized deductions, Sanders’s taxable income was significantly lower than it would have been if he had taken the standard deduction. The deductions left Sanders and his wife paying $27,653 in federal income taxes in 2014, on a joint income of $205,271 — an effective federal tax rate of 13.5 percent. If that seems low to you, your instincts are right: According to the Tax Foundation, the average federal income-tax rate for a couple making $200,000 to $500,000 in 2014 was 15.2 percent. The “millionaires and billionaires” that Sanders is so fond of berating payed, on average, just more than twice as much of their income (27.4 percent) in federal taxes as he did.
On the campaign trail, Sanders’s taxation philosophy is simple: If you can pay more, you should; deductions are not a justifiable reason for a wealthy person to pay a lower effective rate than someone who earns less. His web site declares, “We need a progressive tax system in this country which is based on ability to pay. It is not acceptable that corporate CEOs in this country often enjoy an effective tax rate which is lower than their secretaries.”





With such rhetoric, you might think that Sanders would be reluctant to take every deduction he possibly could. Yet he and his wife took these deductions:

• $22,946 on home-mortgage interest
• $14,843 on real-estate taxes
• $9,666 on state and local income taxes
• $8,000 in gifts to charity
• $350 in gifts to charity other than by cash or check
• $4,473 in unreimbursed job expenses, which according to tax law can include fees such as union dues and travel

Keep in mind, Bernie Sanders doesn’t really like people itemizing their deductions to keep their taxes low. Under his tax plan, people making more than $250,000 per year — a bit more than he makes as a senator, but less than the $400,000 he would make as president — would see the value of their deductions limited to 28 cents on every dollar of taxes they paid. (The Sanders family, which falls in the 28 percent tax bracket, would just avoid being affected by the change.)
#share#The Sanders’s single largest deduction was for the interest payments on their home mortgages. The senator isn’t such a fan of that deduction. In a 1997 book and again in his 2015 autobiography, he called for raising nearly $35 billion in new taxes by capping it at the first $300,000 in home-mortgage debt. In a speech on the floor of the House in 1997, he portrayed the deduction as a welfare payment to billionaires: “[Republicans] don’t talk about a housing policy through the home-interest mortgage deduction, which allows billionaires to get checks from the government when they deduct the mortgage from their mansions.”

The paragon of liberal purity is not as pure as he’d like the world to believe.

Today, Sanders and his wife own two homes. They own a four-bedroom, 2.5-bath home in Chittenden County, Vermont, purchased in 2009 for $405,000. And they own a one-bedroom town house on Capitol Hill, purchased in 2007 for $488,999. They have two mortgages on the latter property totaling $464,550. We don’t know precisely how much debt remains on those mortgages, but there’s a good chance it’s significantly higher than $300,000.




Sanders may have once thought the deduction was an unjust giveaway to the rich, but he appears to have no problem taking advantage of it himself.



The Tax Policy Center found that biggest beneficiaries of the mortgage-interest deduction are people such as Sanders — wealthy by most standards, but not super-rich, living in areas with high real-estate costs. (Places with high real-estate costs often have high property or real-estate taxes, another big federal deduction. Some argue that allowing Americans to deduct their property taxes rewards localities that have high property-tax rates and punishes those that have low ones.)
#related#The home-mortgage deduction has a smaller impact on the tax returns of the “millionaires and billionaires” that Sanders so loathes. In the TPC study, a person making $1 million per year saw his average federal tax rate reduced by only one-tenth of one percent because of the deduction, while someone making between a $500,000 and $1 million per year saw a tax rate reduction of six-tenths of one percent. The biggest winners were those making $100,000 to $200,000 per year and those making between $200,000 and $500,000 per year: Both groups saw their tax rates reduced by 1.2 percent because of the deduction.



What Sanders did, using every option and advantage available under a Byzantine tax code to minimize his tax payment, is a normal practice for many Americans. But it’s also exactly what the targets of his anger do. You can argue about whether or not that’s greed, but it’s impossible to argue that it isn’t hypocrisy. The paragon of liberal purity is not as pure as he’d like the world to believe.



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— Jim Geraghty is the senior political correspondent for National Review