Quite... what Bugsy has suggested would result in a few months of people splashing the cash around like there's no tomorrow, then hyperinflation as the business owners attempt not to fold, then everyone being out of a job because the "bosses" won't be able to raise their prices enough to stay in business.

Even the Soviet union failed to change human nature, and they had 75 years of trying.

Tamper with the market and you get what just happened (this is really the combination of banks in the 1990s being told that they were racist and discriminatory if they didn't lend sub-prime. this then helped push the housing bubble , and so on, and the rest is history. Thanks, community organisers and race industry.)

How many times does the Socialist experiment have to fail before people realise its just a shit idea?

Financial stability in the banking sector and a free market economy are not the same thing.
There are many restrictions on trade, some natural, some imposed. Nobody makes 100 items knowing they can only sell 50 - natural regulation by consumer demand. Marlboro sells x million cigarettes, but given freedom to advertise and promote its product could sell x +1 million.

Banking is slightly different, demand for lending was met without sensible safeguards or relationships to real value.
Banks got burnt fingers - deservedly so. Problem is the product (eg lending) is needed for other things and we cannot let them fold up naturally without even bigger impacts.
Regulation could have prevented this, minimum deposits, job loss insurance, portfolio reconciliation etc etc would have minimised the impact.

The problem is not capitalism per se, its a sector specific issue.

No. Its a very good idea, but human nature prevents it from working in practice.

Is that why the wealthy, with their boats, oversized houses, many cars etc. always seem so content? Au contraire - they are some of the miserable people in the world. The reason being that those who lust for material things are never satisfied, no matter what they get.

I doubt they would be any happier giving most of their earnings away in tax knowing that some social underclasses can get their goods and services for free without having to lift a finger

Absolutely - the free market capitalists should refuse all help and aid - as it goes against their philosophy of 'sink or swim'!

The playing field they bleat on about has never been level - only way it will be is tight and rigourous regulation.

Aah, this envious fashionable nonsense again!

See again you are wrong. Money doesn't bring happiness but its a lot better than being poor. I have all of the above and I'm very happy thanks. I don't lust after anything, I can just go and buy it I bring value to my company and they pay me accordingly, I enjoy the benefits of that. Are you suggesting I should give it to wasters like you who can't be arrsed to work for it themselves?

Any way if you are happy with your lot why are you on here whinging you want more you hypocritical loser.

Never said poverty was preferable - but moderation is.

Hmmm, the topic was 'The problems facing modern Socialists' - and a very integral part of that problem that has to be looked at is that the uncontrolled greed of some causes massive suffering for others.

Try non existant regulation with the Companies being allowed to report on the fitness of the inspecters who allegedly crawled all over them......

ahhh, you mean jealousy

You mean like the UK used to have with nationalized industries and TU wnakers holding the country to ransom for the Soviets. A black hole for my money!

Which could be construed as a 'conflict of interest'...

This condescending response is designed to do nothing more than proclaim that I know much less than you about the subjects mentioned than you. Oops! You seem to have slipped up there, mucker. If you really were as well-informed about “human nature” as you like to make out, you'd have found a far more subtle method to demonstrate to all that you're innately superior.

You also posted this as a reply to Drain_sniffer:
Your preoccupation with human nature is perhaps accidental, because you heard it somewhere, but nonetheless it is indeed a very important factor in everything we do and should be accorded its rightful place in the discussion.

Just so that I can be sure that we’re talking about the same aspect. When you talk about “human nature”, do you mean the basic animal instincts which we share with all living beings? Or do you mean the behavioural modifications engendered by socio-political, economic or religious influences exerted on groups of human beings?

To make myself clearer, let me give you a simple example of the latter: even now to be homosexual in many parts of the world is a death sentence. Even in so-called “enlightened” societies (e.g. our own), it’s only been comparatively recently that homosexuality has been declared non-criminal (although, strangely, lesbianism was at no stage ever the subject of any legislation anywhere). On the other hand, Japan was never subjected to the influences experienced by the Western world and thus there was never any law in Japan prohibiting homosexuality. Is that what you mean by "human nature"?

MsG

Oh do pull your head out of your arrse bugsy - you know what he meant but to acknowledge it means losing your argument.

We'll not get rid of caplitalism for millenia yet. We may well have a paradigm shift in our economic model and spending patterns (now that monetarism and Keynsianism appear to have failed), but socialism is usch a fuindamentally flawed concept that it can never work.

Agreed...to a point. I would suggest that being rich either from an early age or born into money (a completely different outlook on wealth though from that sector) may be more likely to produce the described miserable attitude, but I (just pushing 40 now) have started to earn quite a large sum of money from my company. I don't splurge, don't want a boat, but the knowledge that I (as long as I managed my business effectively) will never have to worry about bills, repairs, holidays and all the other things I used to is a massively happy experience. I would suggest that those who have never had to work for years on low wages, or in moral sapping jobs, worrying about where the next big expenditure is going to jump into your life and you knowing you can't afford to repair the house\car etc are unhappy because they've never had to know how happy being financially secure make you.
I hope that made sense. Now if only I could convince the wife that a Porche IS a necessity!

Well put speedy, my thoughts precisely. I'm pretty much in a similar position to you, except I've had the Porsche and they're sh1t.

Wow! You really show a lot of trust in your fellow wo/man with that! So are we to understand that you’re the only one who knows how to budget, save and generally manage money? But, again, you’re simply arguing within the existing system. You know, your attitude reminds me a little of that mad cow Thatcher, when she asked (about striking workers): “Why do they want more money? They’ll only spend it”.

I’d also be very interested to know how you come to the conclusion that the Ivans failed to change “human nature”. Can you provide any links to serious studies on the subject so that I can read up on it? I put it to you that the Ivans did change "human nature". And not only the Ivans but the gobment of the former GDR too. I say this with conviction, because (in the former GDR) I watched it change back!

MsG