Cruise Ships and Canada

[Exvalley]

I listed several ways I was willing to work toward that goal without handing American jobs to foreign workers.

1. Global minimum wage

Never going to happen. And if it did happen jobs in the poorest countries would literally evaporate. And let's not even talk about the risk of rampant inflation.

2. Targeted financial assistance

Not nearly as efficient as empowering people to make their own determinations as to what is best for them financially.

3. Accepting more qualified immigrants

While I am for immigration, this runs counter to your "protect the jobs of people already here" argument.

I never said they had a closed market or that capitalism played no role in their economy. I said they were socialistic because they employ a mix of ideologies rather than relying on blind faith in capitalism alone.

Your contortionist semantic argument aside, all of those countries are capitalist countries - and their economies would not be nearly as robust without those strong capitalist underpinnings. Therefore, they are not at all persuasive in support of your suggestion that capitalism is not a viable system to lift people out of poverty. Just look at China. Look at when China really started lifting many of its citizens out of poverty. I will give you one hint as to what change they made: it wasn't doubling down on socialism. Put another way, no economic system has created more wealth and opportunity than capitalism has.

If you want to argue that a Nordic social safety net model is better at lifting people out of poverty, I am all ears. If you want to argue against crony capitalism, I am all ears. If you want to argue over proper taxation rates, I am all ears. But you simply cannot say that socialism creates as much wealth and opportunity as capitalism.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Never going to happen. And if it did happen jobs in the poorest countries would literally evaporate. And let's not even talk about the risk of rampant inflation.

Critics have leveraged the same attacks against state and national wage increases but despite these claims most of our job losses have come from increased productivity, mechanization, automation, and outsourcing. I can imagine jobs that manufacture most of the counterfeit trash on Wish and Aliexpress would start to wind down in response to a global minimum wage but is that really a bad thing?

While I am for immigration, this runs counter to your "protect the jobs of people already here" argument.

I said I would support accepting "qualified immigrants in a manner similar to the Canadian system" as it would likely be much cheaper and more productive than further militarizing our vast border areas. In many cases this involves the relatives of US citizens who are indeed already here.

Your contortionist semantic argument aside, all of those countries are capitalist countries - and their economies would not be nearly as robust without those strong capitalist underpinnings. Therefore, they are not at all persuasive in support of your suggestion that capitalism is not a viable system to lift people out of poverty.

So how do you explain Bangladesh then? They remain poor and polluted with limited upward mobility despite embracing capitalism. Why is the wealth genie not enough for them?

 

[Exvalley]

So how do you explain Bangladesh then? They remain poor and polluted with limited upward mobility despite embracing capitalism. Why is the wealth genie not enough for them?

I would explain Bangladesh by saying that poverty declined from 44.2 percent in 1991 to 13.8 percent in 2016 - which correlates with a rapid expansion and diversification of capitalism. Life expectancy, literacy rates and per capita food production have all increased. In 2018, Bangladesh met the eligibility criteria for graduation from the United Nation’s Least Developed Countries (LDC) list, and is on track to graduate in 2024. Bangladesh has one of the fastest rates of agriculture productivity growth in the world since 1995 (2.7 percent per year, second only to China). Bangladesh now has an average growth rate of 8% - well above the Asian average.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/11/bangladesh-gdp-economy-asia/
Much of this success story is directly attributable to one of the greatest capitalist institutions ever created - the Grameen Bank.

https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/mygsb/faculty/research/pubfiles/848/Grameen_Bank_v04.pdf
Are you seriously arguing that socialism creates more wealth and opportunity than capitalism?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Are you seriously arguing that socialism creates more wealth and opportunity than capitalism?

I'm arguing that capitalism does not distinguish between enriching and defrauding citizens. What goes up eventually comes down and when capitalism reaches a certain point in the post-expansion period it starts to run out of momentum and turn on itself. Put another way the speculative casino aspect overwhelms the functional economy. A practical method for addressing these issues is to abandon our infatuation with free market solutions and combine the the better aspects of multiple ideologies in order to successfully manage post-expansion economies. It is my belief that we will eventually realize that even supposedly infallible capitalism is fundamentally flawed when worshiped blindly.

 

[Exvalley]

What goes up eventually comes down and when capitalism reaches a certain point in the post-expansion period it starts to run out of momentum and turn on itself.

At this point I suspect you are just trolling. If you were correct, we would literally be back in caves trying to light a fire with flint. You have fallen for the zero-sum gain fallacy, which has been thoroughly debunked.

But enough of this. Back to cruise ship discussion... We should keep on point.

 

[hlcteacher]

as an annual cruiser (well, not in 2020, had to cancel 2) i have seen a change in the ethnicity of the persons who work the lower end jobs on cruise ships...but never ever would i think to NOT tip them well for the hard work they do to make me feel special, just as i tip restaurant workers (and those who deliver my groceries now) i know from experience how low paid they are; i look forward to cruising again, just as i look forward to taking the train again; the validity of why we needed the Pullman's Union is probably just as appropriate for cruise ship workers; i have spent much time speaking with persons who were Pullman members-back in the day, including family members and often remember their stories as i cruise and see how the workers are often treated by the "entitled" ones-just my two cents worth (i was planning to cruise to alaska last year, and then this year...now i am looking to next year, and buying masks to match both my train and cruise clothes...)