Oh ok, I have to meet this magic better job fairy that supply-siders and defenders of Wal Mart think exists.

Well, I have a much better job now than I did when I was a high school kid working a low wage menial job at Costco (which apparently pays fantastic wages and is much better than evil Mr. Burns-like Walmart). And even if I had stayed at Costco or worked at Walmart there are supervisor and manager positions you can move into which pay decently. So yeah, dry land is not a myth.

"most of the items and conveniences we're all using are provided by for-profit companies who paid scientists to indulge their curiousity and invested in miniaturization. There's nothing wrong with that. Unless you think there is, in which case go ahead and eschew all of it."

it's also only one half of the story. Particularly for the medium we're using, much of the technology and infrastructure was invented, maintained, and spread by the government, further innovated by government subsidies to tech university research where IT industry people got their education, and was later adapted by the private industry to sell to us. Capitalism is very good at making certain people rich off the work of others.

Billions of people toil in poverty because they're not as virtuous as Yaleunc.

@Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang

I'm fine with "half of the story." University research and government investment, and for-profit companies, all contributed.

"Capitalism is very good at making certain people rich off the work of others."

Well, non-capitalist systems have their top-dogs as well, often fewer in number, and greater in power, than the capitalist top-dogs.

"Well, non-capitalist systems have their top-dogs as well, often fewer in number, and greater in power, than the capitalist top-dogs."

False.

True. Stalin decided whether you lived or died with a few marks from his pen.

False. Stalin's power was restricted by the Political Bureau to an extent much greater than any American President. The USSR's executive was executive by committee, no decision could be made without approval by the Political Bureau.

This is why serious conversations cannot be had with you, for all your purported interest in serious conversation you derail threads by shouting Stalin like Obiwan Obiwan.

I too love being under the rule of a wide range of unaccountable top dogs

Factory managers in the Soviet Union did not have hiring and firing authority, so you're completely wrong by making these comparisons.

ehhhh lets not reduce things Putin, even the poltiburo had its hands tied most of the time once Stalin's personality cult got into full swing. Mass purges weren't exactly based on decision by committee.

That said I think it's pretty weak to respond to capitalist criticism with immediate swipes at Stalin

Remind me again who is using straw men Putin. We are talking about America in the 80s and suddenly you are throwing around billions of people and some crap about how virtuous they are. And you are delusional if you think there aren't top dogs in non-capitalist countries. Go to China sometime and look at the mostly empty luxury buildings built by people who couldn't dam of living there. Or look at how Kim Jong-Il and his handful of minions live compared to the rest of North Korea. Capitalism is so awful that even most of the poor in America have cable tv and cell phones.

So let's put this one back on the rails.

Were other generational transitions as abrupt as the 1960's to 1980's transitions? It seems like an instant, over just the first half of Reagan's term, that the "present" at that time went from being a continuation of things that started in the 1960's, to an *eradication* of anything that smacked of the 1960's. Music, hairstyles, clothes, and politics changed overnight. Am I wrong?

It's Obama, and not Stalin, that has actual written assassination lists. His targets are baseball cards, and with the use of drones, he can kill anybody anywhere in the world without any due process whatsoever.

Dream not dam

@Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang

"That said I think it's pretty weak to respond to capitalist criticism with immediate swipes at Stalin"

Yeah, but Putin33 responded to my fairly benign assertion that every system has it's one difficult-to-account-for top dogs with an unequivocal "false". That's a bit stark and I think it earned a "swipe"

*one -> own

"Go to China sometime and look at the mostly empty luxury buildings"

I've been to China. Lived there for half a year. Use another canard.

"Capitalism is so awful that even most of the poor in America have cable tv and cell phones."

And yet people in North Korea have better access to healthcare than we do. Cuba is able to evacuate their island during natural disasters while rich America lets its cities get destroyed. Astounding for all the riches and resources we have, our human development indicators are so low.

"We are talking about America in the 80s and suddenly you are throwing around billions of people and some crap about how virtuous they are."

Because you behave as if it's just so easy to lift oneself out of poverty.

"That's a bit stark and I think it earned a "swipe""

As someone said elsewhere, statements without evidence can be rejected without evidence.

I love how you make unequivocal statements and then blast people for being too certain, Tendmote.

@Putin33 Really you doubt the common-sense assertion that there are top-dogs in any economic or political system? I didn't realize I needed to offer proof of that.

But that's not what you said, you said the top-dogs in other systems were fewer in number and more powerful. That is false and it's not a common sense assertion.

Largely the 1960s to the 1980s was the time of American abundance after the war and its given much more due than its worth thanks in large part to the baby boomers who grew up in it and now dictate what's important and what's not. "For perspective" this was the time when America was committing some of its worst atrocities overseas and in South America, while also seeing the rise of a large leftist peace movement that it ultimately quashed through arms, COINTELPRO, and indirect cultural shifts to the right. This eventually culminated in the election of the one of the most vapid presidents and corruption administrations the US has ever seen, and whose only remarkable achievement was letting the opposing ideology spend themselves into oblivion. At home this was the time when the largest corporations today were seizing upon their monopolies, gobbling up competition, and entrenching their lobbying positions in Washington, leading to the corruption of private-public partnerships we see today.

Even the pop culture of the time, while setting many trends, isn't really worth praising above all else. I mean, John Lennon was a terrible father and general human being and he gets praise for very cushion-pillowly feel good rhetoric which was ultimately empty and meaningless.

"Capitalism is so awful that even most of the poor in America have cable tv and cell phones."

While being unable to feed themselves and their families or to find a home. There are more empty homes in America than there are homeless people. What you're describing isn't a sign of extravagance or quality of life, but of piss-poor distribution of resources

Putin, I could just write false like you, but here is an actual refutation of your bs about North Korea.
http://theweek.com/article/index/205123/north-koreas-horrifying-health-care-system

An excerpt -
Here's a tip for the handful of tourists who visit North Korea each year: Don't get sick. A report from Amnesty International says health-care standards in the communist country are appallingly low, with hospitals that barely function, operations performed without anesthetic, and rampant disease made worse by malnutrition.

for a counter-point look at this topic, consider watching the excellent 1982 documentary The Killing of America

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH-knbqmXn0

Soviet defense spending remained constant in the 1980s. It was radical capitalist "reforms", not spending, that caused the system to unravel, and that was the point anyway.

http://articles.latimes.com/1986-03-31/news/mn-2055_1_annual-growth-rate

" In contrast to the 1% annual growth rate of Soviet defense procurement, U.S. military procurement has risen by 13% a year from 1981 to 1985, according to a staff member of the subcommittee on security economics, which Proxmire chairs."

The US spent themselves into oblivion, the Soviets did not.

@Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang

I will watch "The Killing of America" when I get a chance, that looks interesting. I lived in Detroit from the early-1970's to the early-1980's, and although I wasn't yet in middle school when we moved, I vaguely remember it getting more and more violent and paranoid toward the end. I wonder what it looks like to watch a contemporary film on the topic, nowadays.

ofc that us spending was under a stable system. The Soviets were trying to maintain their spending while going through some pretty big shifts. My point was simply that the US outlasted the Soviets and not that there was any win or lose.